Gerry Brownlee says the home repair programme has been beneficial for homeowners.

Gerry Brownlee has been left "annoyed" after the Earthquake Commission (EQC) failed to pick up 2200 extra requests to re-repair damaged Christchurch properties.

The Opposition has labelled the mistake a "failure of leadership".

EQC shared service general manager Gillian Dudgeon admitted the bungle on Friday afternoon, revealing EQC has 2200 more requests to fix repairs than previously thought.

EMMA ALLEN/FAIRFAX NZ EQC chief executive Ian Simpson announced a proposed restructure in Christchurch in August.

An internal review found EQC's system had not "correctly interpreted some of the data" held across EQC and Fletcher EQR.

"This has meant that our reporting had not fully captured the work needed to resolve remedial requests.

READ MORE:

* EQC announces major downsizing

* EQC has about 5500 shoddily repaired homes to fix

* EQC to re-repair home following apology

* No minimum qualification required for EQC assessors

* Christchurch home on fourth round of earthquake repairs

"No customer remedial requests were misplaced from the information systems. There has also been no slow down in the rate at which we are resolving remedial requests because of the reporting issue," Dudgeon said.

Brownlee, the Minister Responsible for EQC, said he was contacted by EQC chief executive Ian Simpson about a week ago to discuss the problem.

"While I'm annoyed, my simple request of EQC and Fletchers has been 'let's get it right'. The first concern I had was have there been people missed and that's clearly not the case, so it is largely administrative."

Brownlee maintained the home repair programme had been beneficial for homeowners.

Labour Canterbury spokeswoman Megan Woods said the mistake represented "yet more mess and delay by EQC".

"It defies belief that there are thousands more potential fix up jobs than EQC told us. This kind of mess really unsettles people and makes it hard for them to have confidence," Woods said.

"On Sunday we're going to be reflecting on the last six years since the quakes, and it's sad that six years on we are still seeing this kind of mess," Woods said.

But Brownlee said in the context of 170,000 repairs, 2200 was not a large number.

"But it does concern me," he said.

Any defective repairs discovered would be re-done.

"That's certainly my understanding, it's what I would want to have happen. Remember that another part of the reason why we had this programme was to ensure that there could be some surety for future generations who buy those properties," Brownlee said.

Critics would "kick and stomp and say it's all bad", but the reality was "no one's running away, no one's hiding the problem, we just want to get on with making it right".

EQC recently announced a major downsize of Christchurch staff, including cutting 242 jobs, despite having thousands of remedial repairs on its books.

By June, EQC had 5720 remedial requests to resolve, in addition to 238 first-time repairs it was yet to complete.

Dudgeon said EQC had always known it could not resolve all remedial requests this year. It launched a "streamlined approach" last month.

"Part of this process is to ask customers their preference for being cash settled this year or waiting until 2017 for a managed repair," Dudgeon said.

In the next six to eight weeks, EQC would contact 3200 customers whose remedial requests would not be done before December 2016.

The internal review was launched after it became clear there was more remedial work under way than EQC had accounted for in its reporting systems.

"We are having our figures independently verified by our auditors, Deloitte, as part of the annual audit process," Dudgeon said.

EQC would review what resources it had for remedial repairs over the rest of 2016 and 2017.

The reporting issues were not expected to increase the cost of the remedial repairs.