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The following is issued on behalf of the Housing Authority:
The Housing Department's latest annual survey on public housing shows that public rental housing (PRH) households are more satisfied with estate management services than in previous years.
Findings of the Public Housing Recurrent Survey (PHRS) 2006 revealed that in general customer satisfaction on various estate management services was at an all time high, with some 71.6% of PRH tenants very satisfied/satisfied with quality of security services; 62.4% with service quality of estate management officers; 68.6% with cleanliness and hygienic conditions of common areas; and 51.7% with maintenance related services (see Table 1).
"It is encouraging to see that our efforts over the years are paying off as the Housing Department has devoted substantial resources to improving estate maintenance and promoting tenants' participation in estate management," the Deputy Director of Housing (Estate Management), Mr Lau Kai-hung said today (August 11).
PRH tenants can express their views and needs on maintenance works, various aspects of estate management, and the performance of service contractors through their Estate Management Advisory Committees (EMAC).
Through the regular meetings of EMACs and close communication with EMAC members, the Housing Department understands tenants' concerns and views on estate management matters.
"With this understanding, the Housing Department was able to improve its implementation of management policies and handle tenants' demands in a more efficient and flexible approach, hence bringing improvement to its local estate management," said Mr Lau.
"Over the years, our tenants have contributed invaluable opinions and worked with us hand in hand to improve estate management services. Their level of satisfaction towards the service also sees a record high this year," he added.
"Tenants' participation is vital to gauge the performance standards and determine contract renewal or future tendering opportunities of the service contractors or management agents," Mr Lau said.
Views were also sought on specific aspects of the maintenance works conducted inside the premises within the previous 12 months from the date of the survey. About 64% to 72% of the tenants in PRH who had maintenance jobs carried out in their flats were satisfied or very satisfied with the handling of maintenance requests, expediency of completing maintenance works, and working attitude of maintenance workers (see Table 2 ).
A total of 97% of the PRH households were aware of the Marking Scheme for Tenancy Enforcement and 83% thought that the scheme could help improve the cleanliness and hygienic conditions of their rental estates.
About 68% of households that knew about the scheme considered the current points system and its penalties reasonable. Another 18% considered them lenient; and 11% stringent (see Table 3).
Some 79% of PRH households perceived that the Housing Authority supported environmental protection. The corresponding figures in 2004 and 2005 were about 60% and 73% (see Table 4).
Conducted annually since 1992, the objective of the PHRS is to collect salient socio-economic data from public housing households and to tap their views on housing-related issues.
The sample size of the survey this year for PRH tenants was about 3,000. The response rate was about 90%.
Ends/Friday, August 11, 2006
Issued at HKT 18:05
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