New Zealand’s Earthquake Commission (EQC) has made significant progress in managing the Canterbury home repair program, Auditor-General Lyn Provost says.

Ms Provost published a report in October 2013 recommending five actions for the Government-owned insurer, which is responsible for repairs below $NZ100,000 ($91,213).

She called on it to improve auditing of repairs; improve communication with homeowners; refine key performance indicators; configure repair and project management services; and identify and record lessons learned.

In a follow-up report published last week, Ms Provost notes advances in all areas.

“Improvements include introducing an initiative to give customers more certainty about when their homes would be repaired, rationalising repair hubs to support more consistent repair processes and practices, and introducing more consistent and complete performance indicators.”

However, action is still required on timeliness, with the program taking longer than expected; the way complaints are managed; and the “mixed performance” experienced by some customers, including some vulnerable people.

At June 30 there were 1018 primary substantive repairs in progress, and 1767 yet to begin. More than 66,250 jobs had been completed, but 2923 of these may require additional work.

The EQC originally aimed for completion at the end of this year, before bringing this forward to a “stretch target” of December last year. It currently has no publicly announced end date.

CEO Ian Simpson says work is under way to address outstanding issues.

“In the aftermath of the Canterbury earthquakes the EQC prioritised emergency repairs and repairing homes, and as a result our customer communication and community engagement could have been better,” he said.

“The EQC has already publicly acknowledged these shortcomings and following the 2013 report… introduced a customer certainty program to let customers with building claims know where they stood.”

Mr Simpson accepts some customers have waited too long.

“The complexity of the work in Canterbury has meant we have not met all our targets,” he said. “The EQC’s completion rates are, nevertheless, ahead of other aspects of the Canterbury rebuild.”