About us
The Corporation's purpose
The Corporation is responsible for giving effect to the Crown's social objectives by providing housing and housing-related services in a businesslike manner to those most in need. The Corporation has a clear mandate to address the challenges posed by its operating environment over the next three to five years.
The core functions of the Corporation are tenancy allocation, tenancy management and asset management to provide an appropriate and affordable house to those in the greatest housing need.
The Corporation buys, builds, leases, maintains and upgrades state houses. Affordability is delivered through an income-related rent, well below the market rent for most tenants.
The core tenancy role accounts for almost all of the Corporation's operating appropriations, income and expenses. Most of the Corporation's staff are involved in the core tenancy role.
The Corporation also has responsibility for delivery of the Government's housing initiatives and contributes to the Government's wider social objectives, including:
- providing housing for community-based organisations, offering housing and support services, and working with community social housing providers, Māori housing providers and iwi to address local housing problems
- assisting people who are buying their first homes by developing and providing home ownership products and services
- advising the Minister of Housing on housing policy and housing-related services, and conducting research and monitoring trends in housing
- managing property on behalf of the Crown that has been transferred to direct Crown control within the Housing Agency Account.
The wider housing sector functions and advisory roles, while important, account for relatively little of the Corporation's total operating expenses and capital expenditure. For example, the operating appropriations for Housing Support Services such as Healthy Housing, Weathertight Loans, Housing Innovation Fund, Mortgage Insurance Scheme (Welcome Home Loans) and KiwiSaver Deposit Programme come to just over $12 million of the more than $600 million of operating appropriations for 2009/10.
The Corporation's formal mandate
The Corporation is a Crown entity. The Housing Corporation Act 1974 sets out the Corporation's objectives and functions as follows8:
- to give effect to the Crown's social objectives by providing housing, and services related to housing, in a businesslike manner, and to that end to be an organisation that:
- exhibits a sense of social responsibility by having regard to the interests of the community in which it operates; and
- exhibits a sense of environmental responsibility by having regard to the environmental implications of its operations; and
- operates with good financial oversight and stewardship, and efficiently and effectively manages its assets and liabilities and the Crown's investment; and
- to ensure that the Minister of Housing receives appropriate policy advice, other advice, and information, on housing and services related to housing.
The Corporation's subsidiaries
The Corporation has subsidiaries to the Housing New Zealand Corporation parent company, including:
Housing New Zealand Limited
A wholly-owned subsidiary of the Corporation that owns the state housing portfolio (excluding Community Group Housing, which is held by the parent company) and provides rental housing.
Housing New Zealand Corporation Property Development Limited
A wholly-owned subsidiary of the Corporation that holds land intended for development or on-sale by the Corporation.
Hobsonville Land Company Limited
A wholly-owned subsidiary of the Corporation. It is managing the project planning for the development of the former airbase site at Hobsonville, Auckland. Development activity in Hobsonville is funded through the Crown's Housing Agency Account.
Outputs lead to outcomes 9
The Corporation delivers outputs that contribute to outcomes. This Statement of Intent describes both the measures and standards required to meet the Corporation's outcomes, and an outcomes framework that outlines how the Corporation will measure the changes in outcomes for its tenants and communities.
The Corporation is undertaking a comprehensive review of its outputs (the Output Class review). All activities undertaken by the Corporation that are final goods and services are grouped into Output Classes of similar activities. These new Output Classes are the basis for revised performance measures in this Statement of Intent.
The Output Class review captures activity undertaken by the Corporation, including property management and development services undertaken on behalf of the Crown (for example, the Hobsonville development).
The Output Class review is the first step of a two-step process to align the Corporation's Output Class structure and appropriations, to deliver a more transparent presentation of what the Corporation will achieve and how internal and appropriated funds are spent.
The first stage, completed in 2009/10, maps the Corporation's outputs and provides the basis of the 2009/10 Output Agreement with the Minister.
The second stage will be to align the new Output Classes with appropriations in Vote Housing. This will be done in the 2009/10 financial year for the 2010/11 Statement of Intent and Estimates of Appropriations.
8 Housing Corporation Act 1974 as amended by the Housing Corporation Amendment Act 2001, section 3B(a) and (b).
9 An outcome is the change in the economy or society directly or indirectly attributable to the Corporation's outputs. An output is a final good or service produced or provided by the Corporation.
