Review of methodologies for apartment management company perfomance evaluation: problems and shortcomings

Abstract

Importance: ensuring a high level of comfort of urban environment in the large urban agglomerations of the Russian Federation depends on the organization of housing and public utilities management at the local (municipal) level. Apartment building management companies performance evaluation through the feedback system is considered to be the result of the activities. It allows to determine a degree of consumer confidence to receiving housing and public utilities services, loyalty and support of the government based on the apartment building management companies efficiency criteria. Purpose: the research of practical application of methods and approaches to apartment building management companies performance evaluation, defining the apartment building management companies rating and the effectiveness of the municipal management. Research design: to reveal the existing problems and gaps federal legislative documents, aimed at improving the level of comfort of urban environment, raising the quality of housing and public utilities services, as well as the regulatory legal acts of the specific constituent entities of the Russian Federation, defining approaches, indicators and criteria of apartment building management companies performance evaluation, have been studied in the paper. The role of the apartment building management companies performance evaluation in the implementation of the strategic plans by the public authorities and the solving the current problems by different supervisory bodies, management companies, housing and utilities services consumers and apartment building management companies while creating consumer rankings of apartment building management companies is also defined. However, the apartment building management companies performance evaluation and forming the rankings lack the holistic approach. Results: the study revealed that, the apartment building management companies performance evaluation lack the holistic approach. Formation of apartment building management companies rankings does not reflect the reality of the industry and takes the indicators of the apartment building technical condition only in a fragmentary manner, while these rankings are not universal and are geared towards serving the major housing and utilities services stakeholders’ interest. The paper proposes the need to review and to universalize the criteria-based approaches to performance evaluation of apartment building management companies as well as to enshrine them in legislation, to process the data using the digital twin technology, to integrate the evaluation results into smart cities development programmes and to publish this information on the official portals of housing and public utilities services, executive authorities, apartment building management companies.