Delivering Effective Repairs And Maintenance: Finalist

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1 Delivering Effective Repairs And Maintenance: Finalist Shepherds Bush Housing Group: Residents Take The Reins To An Innovative Repairs Service Summary Shepherds Bush Housing Group (SBHG) collaborated with its residents to shape the future of its repairs and maintenance service. It created a brand new organisation which will deliver the new repairs and maintenance service. At the start of the project SBHG and its residents wanted to: review existing repairs and maintenance service; improve on existing services; involve residents in change; and value for money (VFM) in the contract. To achieve this SBHG worked with residents in different ways to review the existing contracts and determine the priorities of residents. The repairs service is a result of their hard work, commitment and desire to get it right. They had control and influence throughout the process of developing the repairs and maintenance service.

2 The project has taken three years and culminated in SBHG s exemplar limited liability partnership which has created a joint venture company JVC (where two or more organisations decide to pool resources and expertise). This means the repairs and maintenance service has been brought in-house. This has led to increased resident satisfaction with the repairs service in its recent STATUS survey, improved services, more options for residents and cost savings for the group. What did you set out to achieve? SBHG carries out regular internal surveys such as its Big Conversation (where all employees visit residents in their homes to find out about services). The results show that repairs and maintenance is the most important service SBHG provides to residents. SBHG needed to review all divisions of its segmented repairs and maintenance service. It worked with several contractors and there was no consistency in the service residents received. Employees and residents wanted to road test the contractors to ensure when developing the new service they were working with the right ground-breaking organisation, who could share SBHG s vision for the new repairs and maintenance service. Following this review, SBHG knew that it wanted to create and deliver an innovative new service for residents. SBHG aims to become recognised as the best housing association in London. To achieve this SBHG needed to improve its resident satisfaction by driving up standards and providing the best possible repairs and maintenance service. SBHG set five targets that would culminate in the best resident repairs and maintenance service. To achieve this SBHG would need to: review and develop existing contracts; create a new approach to delivery; involve residents in shaping the service; develop new service standards; and improve resident satisfaction. How were these aims and objectives met? Review and develop existing contracts SBHG worked with four maintenance providers, the service was inconsistent. SBHG changed this and created two contracts; one for gas and one for general repairs. In 2007 this was reduced to a single provider called Collective Maintenance Solutions (CMS). This contractor was appointed as resident satisfaction steadily increased. Throughout this process employees and residents

3 reviewed surveys and feedback ensuring they were working with the best provider. Create a new approach The next natural development was to bring CMS into the group. SBHG created a unique Limited Liability Partnership with CMS to create Domus Maintenance Services LLP (Domus). This was exciting for both employees and residents. SBHG had four options for the new repairs and maintenance service: A Direct Labour Organisation; Re-tender the service; Buying in a contractor; or Setting up a JVC. SBHG s created a Limited Liability Partnership. This gives SBHG the best of both worlds. It has full control of the company with 51% of the shares, three of the five board members, and the chair is an SBHG nominee. However the organisation is still managed and run by CMS employees with their expertise. It was the most prudent decision for SBHG: There were less set up costs; a continuation of the service by CMS; and had the potential to deliver service improvements. Involve residents and create service standards SBHG has resident board members who shape the direction of the organisation and were directly involved in setting up the JVC. Residents are also involved in running the day to day repairs service. SBHG has a Responsive Maintenance Partnering Panel, Maintenance Forum and Repairs Focus Group. All of these are made up of residents and attended by employees to collect the feedback. What challenges did the project face, and what lessons were learned? Challenge Set up of the JVC Setting up Domus as part of a limited liability partnership to create a JVC proved a challenge as very few organisations had done it before. Lesson learned - SBHG had little go on when setting this up but had looked at the few other organisations that had done it. It took time to create the contracts and set up the company. As the set up is uncommon within housing associations SBHG had to carry out a lot of research with solicitors and accountants and follow their advice. Challenge Changing from a contractor to a JVC

4 SBHG had to integrate the contractor into the group dynamic. Lesson learned SBHG appreciated that it could not treat Domus the same as the rest of the employees. Therefore the group had to make adjustments and align, rather than change Domus policies and procedures and terms and conditions. SBHG supported the merger of Domus into the group by holding regular partner meetings where representatives from all organisations could openly ask questions and explore benefits and drawbacks. Challenge Resident expectations Resident expectations were growing faster than the contractor s ability to provide the services. Lessons learned - SBHG gives residents the opportunity to make compliments and complaints and every month these are reviewed and actioned. As a result it was clear the old services fell short, people couldn t for example choose a time or date themselves for an appointment. Domus has delivered these expectations and exceeded them; therefore residents feel SBHG is an excellent service provider of its repairs service. How was the success of the project measured? SBHG measures the success of its service in two ways: service provision and service satisfaction. Domus must perform to key performance targets set by the housing regulators. They include among other others: the number of calls answered on time; number of repairs carried out on time; and number of repairs carried out first time. Domus is also monitored through service standards and satisfaction surveys. These were created directly by residents and are monitored by residents. The new service standards have been recently changed and made higher to reflect the new improved service. These targets are higher than the national standards set by regulators. Residents monitor: satisfaction levels; repairs that are carried out on time 95% of the time; carry out a minimum of 10% postal repair checks and 10% telephone checks; and offer a range appointments. SBHG regularly monitors satisfaction. This is done in different levels of depth.

5 Residents can simply fill out the survey; employees now have real time telephone surveys once the repairs service has been completed. Residents can meet employees at quarterly focus groups if they ve had a repair carried out; here they discuss the service they ve received. What were the key positive outcomes? Satisfaction SBHG s STATUS survey shows that SBHG is bucking the trend in London as satisfaction with its repair service has increased, by 10%. SBHG had its Short Notice Inspection carried out shortly after Domus was set up in The feedback and comments on SBHG s repairs service was extremely positive with strengths out weighing weaknesses. It s very rare for housing associations in London to achieve this result. SBHG is one of only three hosing associations in the country to receive strengths out weigh weaknesses in the following services: Access and Customer Care, Diversity and Responsive Repairs. Value For Money SBHG makes cost savings of more than 250,000 in VAT from labour costs per year since the JVC. The money is put back into SBHG to spend on cyclical repairs or bathroom and kitchen replacement programmes. Therefore as an organisation we can reduce expenditure and drive up satisfaction by improving our services for residents. SBHG has not increased it budget for repairs and maintenance since the JVC which has meant direct saving for residents. Domus has a vested interest in achieving VFM because in the JVC the budgets are transparent for SBHG. How did the project demonstrate positive practice in equality and diversity? Service delivery SBHG was commended by the Audit Commission for the diversity information it uses to shape the repairs service. Domus employees use the SBHG resident equality and diversity databases to shape the service they provide. For example if a resident is partially sighted the repair desk team will always phone rather than write to them. Suppliers and contractors SBHG is an award winning member of the London Equal Opportunities Forum (LEOF). By being a member of LEOF SBHG makes a commitment to use suppliers and contractors form BME and SME backgrounds. Workforce SBHG s maintenance service is provided by a diverse workforce, 50% of surveyors are female which is unusual as it is a very male led profession. Also

6 75 % of the property management department are form BME backgrounds. Employment and training SBHG is community based housing association based in west London. Domus has a commitment to employ local people. SBHG s maintenance service has helped to build the skills and experience of local people in the community by providing apprenticeships to young adults both as maintenance operatives and also as administrators. What elements of the project could be replicated by others? This type of arrangement is ideally suited to small to medium sized housing associations with long term relationships with their responsive maintenance contractors. It is a logical step to take for those organisations, who already have established partnering arrangements in place. The two organisations must have an open and honest working relationship with each other for this arrangement to work. It is unlikely to work for large organisations, either housing association or contractor. The project needs a dynamic and committed team leader to make it work. The technical knowledge can be obtained externally, but the driving force needs to come from inside the housing association. Managers and operational employees need to be committed to and understand the principles of partnering to make this collaboration work. The contractor needs to embrace it as well for it to succeed. SBHG s director of property management attends conferences and events, an exemplar organisation, to tell other housing association professionals about the benefits of setting up a JVC. How does your project/ initiative support current government priorities in this area? SBHG is no longer working with contractors but as a JVC. The benefit of this is that Domus thinks about SBHG s residents as our residents. One of the strongest reasons SBHG chose to work with CMS was that they genuinely cared about residents. It was a local firm and believed that what they did made a difference to the lives of residents. SBHG s approach to its repairs and maintenance service has led to high levels of resident satisfaction because it was led by residents. From the start of the project residents knew what they wanted and SBHG helped to facilitate this in a cost effective way. Because SBHG has control of the service they strive to improve it the same as it does with the association. It looks at innovative services and new ideas and implements them to ensure that the service continues to exceed resident

7 expectations. How has this project widened choice and options for previously excluded people? SBHG s repairs and maintenance service consistently receives high satisfaction levels. For the period January to March 2010 resident satisfaction with the repair service was 96% and resident satisfaction with the repairs desk was 97.5%. Better VFM means SBHG can re-invest in planned maintenance services. There is a consistently high standard of work by all operatives as they are all directly employed by Domus. Most importantly, residents take pride in Domus because it is SBHG s repairs and maintenance service, therefore their repair operatives.