National Housing Maintenance Forum

3a NHMF award feature

Notting Hill HT shortlisted for Best Client award

Our project is based on the concept that our residents trust us to provide them with the service that best reflects their needs in the maintenance of their homes.

We identified poor communication as the root cause for our services not delivering the standards we expected. So we set out to introduce seamless communication between our tenants, the Housing System at NHHT and that of our contractors’ so that the operatives could be deployed more efficiently. We now have a joint approach to delivery of services with client and contractor teams working together from the same offices to provide a winning repairs service.

We made a significant reduction in paper from the new electronic systems which allow for direct invoicing, reducing 30,000 invoices into weekly batches for the client to approve in one process.

• We wanted our residents to be able to have an appointment confirmed at first call and have faith that the tradesperson would be there on the agreed date and time.
• We wanted a solution that was based on the reduction of paper and that allowed our resources to be better utilised.
• We wanted to have the best IT solution that allowed a seamless approach. We have all taken immense pride in what has been achieved and at times like all projects there has been high pressurised times specifically around delivery, but most of all we have had great fun which is not always evident in many projects. The project scale/scope was high risk but we were determined to make it work and we did.
• We created in many aspects a new repairs service within a short time frame, a new mobile solution, integrated working and in many aspects a full solution. Our staffs, colleagues are more content within their working environment and we have a forward thinking partnership with our primary contractor Connaught. We have plans to continue new initiatives within the same project approach.

Housing Solutions Group shortlisted for Best Client award

Housing Solutions offer affordable homes to rent, shared ownership schemes, homes for older people and specialist accommodation for people who need support and care to live within the community.

The new Repairs Service was put together in partnership with residents, and is designed to specifically meet their needs and aspirations. The changes have meant that Housing Solutions has broken away from the housing industry norm for responsive repairs in order to deliver a customer-led service. It is delivering higher levels of customer satisfaction, with more repairs completed on the first visit. It has already been described as ‘an innovative responsive repairs service’ by the Audit Commission.

To deliver the improved service whilst maintaining value for money, Housing Solutions introduced a new pay structure where salary moved from being 100% based on productivity to a salary based on performance. A ‘Home MOT’ was introduced to try to reduce the number of calls from the minority of customers who were making very heavy use of our repairs service. Early indications are that the group will achieve a 45 per cent reduction in individual visits this year.

3b NHMF award feature

Chaired by: Des Kelly (National Housing Federation)

The Wrekin HT shortlisted for Best Contractor award

The Wrekin Housing Trust developed a mobile system called Hand-e-Work specifically tailored to meet the needs of housing repairs and remove the paperwork and the blockages it was creating. Housing benchmarks were indicating that Wrekin needed to reduce its expenditure on responsive repairs. The solution was to introduce an automated work scheduling system into the repairs process, that also enabled an appointment to be made at the first point of contact with the person reporting a repair. The Trust also entered into a supply chain partnership with a national builders merchant (Travis Perkins) with the aim of significantly reducing the cost of materials. This partnership includes integration with the mobile working system and single order and invoice arrangements through electronic data interchange (EDI).

The introduction of mobile working, and in particular scheduling, has enabled the collection of accurate and timely data about jobs. Fewer mistakes are made and as jobs are scheduled more efficiently a reduction in operatives needed on repairs. That has allowed staff to move over to planned work resulting in a reduction in vehicle and fuel usage and less reliance on subcontractors producing a VAT saving to the organisation globally.

Bournville Village Trust shortlisted for Best Resident Involvement award

BVT encourages residents to share in decisions affecting their communities. Empowering communities to be directly involved in the decision making process, has been shown to encourage feelings of inclusion, ownership and respect within the community context.

Three years ago the maintenance department decided that there would be significant benefit in appointing a panel of resident volunteers, to meet regularly with key officers of the maintenance team in a consultative forum. The brief was very clear - that this project would not just pay “lip service” to resident involvement, but over time a flourishing, experienced panel would evolve, setting its own agenda and having significant input into all major decisions affecting the delivery of the maintenance service. To achieve this level of resident involvement and sustain it over the long term was going to take a truly innovative approach, employing a range of techniques.

Such is the level of respect commanded by the Maintenance Resident Panel after three years of input and influence, that their opinion is sought at executive level on a regular basis. The project is successful because those involved recognise that there are many important qualitative benefits that go beyond simple cashable benefits.

3c Practical options for maintenance with leaseholders

This session will look at:

• The leasehold or shared owner customer.
• Using the lease to maintain the property and enforce action.
• Effective methods of dealing with s20 consultation – especially when leaseholders are opposed to works.
• Handling leasehold valuation tribunal applications
• The real costs of leasehold management and how to recover them.

This will be an interactive session with questions and discussion from the floor welcomed.

3d Asbestos: keeping up to date with best practice

The subject of asbestos has been debated many times. Improving asbestos awareness has recently been a major concern of the HSE, but in enlightening contractors it is also improving the knowledge, and potentially increasing the fear amongst the general public.

This workshop will examine the latest developments in asbestos management. The session will review the impact of asbestos upon RSLs and the cost associated with failure. Alongside this we will examine some of the requirements that apply to RSLs and contractors and consider if these are being followed.

Finally we will look at the issue of low-level asbestos exposure and how the issues being raised in schools could also be applied some system built dwellings.

3e Checkmate – trends and findings from Round 9

Current subscribers and non-subscribers to Checkmate will both find this session of interest.

The new online Checkmate service was launched in 2006 and has been continually reviewed and improved to become the market leader in the field of benchmarking for property maintenance and asset management. It provides subscribers with the opportunity to access and compare their performance across a wide range of performance criteria.

In this session Tim will review the trends that have emerged over recent years and outline the headline performance data from the current round in advance of the annual report due to be published for members in February.

3f Client & contractor joint employment initiatives - taking partnering to the next level

Harvest Housing Group and Cruden Property Services have established joint employment within a reactive repairs and maintenance contract covering 10,000 properties across the North West. They will share their experience as part of this interesting session by examining the why, the what and the how of developing joint employment arrangements within partnering contracts.

Delegates will learn of the potential benefits of joint employment to customers, service quality and the bottom line. They will get a practical, experience based view of how to make this innovative practice work.