Agenda item

HOUSING REPAIRS TOPIC GROUP - UPDATE

Officer briefing attached

Minutes:

The Sub-Committee received a briefing on the current status of Housing Repairs as part of the ongoing scrutiny review from the previous year.

 

It was reported that the service maintained over 10,000 properties across the borough by using a term contractor with Breyer and several small local contractors on an ad hoc basis.

 

It was sttaed that there were issues with Contractor performance around completed jobs within agreed timescales.

 

The report informed that in November 2018 the number of overdue jobs rose to 756. It had an impact on the main KPI, jobs completed within time, which dipped to 84% against a target of 95%.  Tis had a direct effect on the number of complaints received.

 

The Sub-Committee noted the following improvements that had been made and other ongoing plans to provide residents a quality repairs service:

 

(i)         The service was focused on reducing the number of overdue jobs.

 

It was being achieved by:

 

  • A skill gap analysis which identified areas where Breyer were short on labour.
  • Using an issues log, poor practice was identified within the contact center where orders were being raised with incorrect trade codes and priorities.
  • Breyer changed a supervisor who was able to work with the team in a more effective manner which assisted in increasing productivity.
  • Breyer worked with the contact center to increase the percentage of routine orders being issued, this was still a slight issue as it currently sat at 44% against a target of 70%.
  • Breyer employed 5 temporary staff members to assist in the reduction of the back log.
  • The introduction of a daily monitoring sheet which tracked all key data to act as an early warning indicator
  • Reduction of “Fixed Appointments” allowing the OneServe scheduling system to operate more effectively.
  • All of the above increased productivity to produce an out turn of 3.5 jobs per day per operative.

 

The service was also focused on continued improvement by the following:

 

·         A new Repairs Manager was appointed and had immediately set about improving the client, contractor relationship, productivity and the service as a whole delivered to residents.

·         Weekly meetings were being held around robust contract management.

·         Breyer to reinstate a handyman service.

·         Breyer to launch Property MOT service targeting vulnerable residents.

·         A more focused approach was being adopted by Havering surveyors.

·         Officers and contractors were being held accountable for their actions, or lack of.

·         A monthly reconciliation meeting would be held to establish a truer “jobs completed in target” figure.

·         From 1st July Breyer would take back agreed out of scope works.

·         From 1st July Breyer would start to take more voids.

·         A tender exercise would be conducted to ensure VFM and due diligence for contractors picking up out of scope works and voids.

·         The improvement action plan would continue and be updated to reflect the new ways of working.

·         The call centre would be issuing agreed out of scope works directly to “back up” contractors instead of raising pre inspections to surveyors.

·         Surveyors would be doing more back end monitoring of the contract i.e. cost scrutiny and quality assurance through a program of post inspections.

·         Surveyors duty day was to be reinstated.

 

The Sub-Committee agreed that the Topic Group work should continue. Members requested that case study of jobs raised and how it was implemented be presented at the next meeting.

 

The Sub-Committee noted the update report.

 

Supporting documents: