Mr. Michael McCarthy:

The short answer is "No". Off the top of my head and I could be wrong, very few local authorities in the UK now handle their own stock. I think they are all delegated to approved housing bodies, AHBs. The short answer is that we have not compared our jurisdiction with others but we can do. There would be a multitude of reasons as well or at least other reasons to consider. In some local authorities there might be a headline figure of X number of weeks but then the house might be in such a state of disrepair that it is beyond the expertise or the skill set of the local authority to bring it into a reasonable standard to be re-let compared with how quickly a private contractor would do it, for example, given the level of works involved. There could be a lack of resources. Some of the local authorities in and around the urbanised areas are under pressure with staff retention and hiring staff to fill positions and that also would have an impact in fulfilling the mandate around that.