Adrian's blog

How's your house?
03/09/2012

How's your house?

Do you get annoyed by that show 'How clean is my house?' on the telly? Snooping about and testing how clean it is behind someone's loo. I can't say I make it part of my regular viewing! I do quite enjoy that DIY SOS programme - they really do make a difference to people's homes, helping families who, for whatever reason, need big improvements to their home. Our TV channels are full of programmes about having better houses.

It's funny isn't it - some of us are worrying about whether we have a spotlessly clean house or the latest décor whilst others are simply looking for a home to live in or one that is appropriate for their needs.

You may have seen Claudia Wood's comment piece on our guest blog, 'Poor housing undermines care reforms', which was also published on the Guardian's social care network. It makes the point really clearly that as well as reforming the care system in the UK, for which there seems to be plenty of support but little money, we need to improve our housing too. The Government seems to believe that this can be done with some private money, some council house sales and an easing of the planning system. My fear is that this recipe will produce more houses for people to keep clean and decorate, but not the kind of homes that people need to live in, that meet their needs and ultimately reduce their needs from the care system. As ever, we need joined up, long-term Government decisions and the danger is that we might get quite the opposite.

We're doing our bit to try and influence the debate - we're doing a housing survey to find out how people's homes affect their everyday lives. Maybe if we can turn what we know from conversations with our customers into some well founded and published research, we can do our bit towards helping the Government to make good, long-lasting and economically sensible decisions.

If you would like to help us to get it right, please sacrifice 15 minutes of Aggie's cleaning or Nick Knowles' witty banter and get your opinions to us. Please answer our survey at www.surveymonkey.com/s/aboutyourhome. It might just make a big difference - I am committed to making sure that it does.

by Adrian Bagg


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