Agenda item

John Everett, Group Leader for Customer Relations, made a presentation to the Committee, copy interleaved, during which the following main points were made –

·         The performance of the in-house repairs service was measured in terms of outcomes for residents.

·         The service had commissioned KWEST to undertake independent evaluation of customer satisfaction. This evaluated a statistically significant number of repairs each month.

·         It was reported that customer satisfaction was the service’s most important measure. From November 2014 to May 2015 customer satisfaction ranged from 65% to 79%. The lowest satisfaction rating was received in February 2015; this was following difficulties with a roofing contractor which the Council no longer used.

·         Since insourcing the service staff had received training to instil a focus on customer satisfaction.

·         It was explained that the service had three categories of repairs; emergency, in which operatives attended within 2 hours and resolved the issue within 24 hours; urgent, in which operatives attended and resolved the issue within 24 hours; and routine, in which operatives resolved the issue within 20 days. It was noted that 35% of repairs were listed as either emergency or urgent and the service was looking to reduce this number by implementing another category of repair with a completion period of five days.

·         For the 2014/15 financial year, repairs completed within the stated timescales were 79.68% for emergency repairs, 80.42% for urgent repairs and 86.24% for routine repairs. In April 2015 these figures had increased in 85%, 85% and 90% respectively. It was hoped that this was indicative of an improvement in performance for 2015/16.

·         Action was being taken to improve performance. Stock levels in vehicles and stores were being reviewed to ensure that operatives had access to the right equipment, scheduling systems were being improved, and service failures were being investigated on a monthly basis.

·         The service sought to achieve a ‘first time fix’, which was defined as completing a repair on the day of the first visit by the original operative. The latest overall ‘first time fix’ performance figure was given as 85%. Officers were seeking to improve performance by developing the skills of operatives in multiple trades. The service was also working to improve the data collected when repairs are first reported to ensure that operatives arrive at each job knowing what to expect, with the correct parts and skills to complete the repair.

·         The Committee was concerned that only around 87% of appointments for routine repairs were kept. The importance of resident faith and trust in the service was emphasised. Improvements were to be made by further training operatives on use of their PDA and improving understanding of how long each repair would take.

·         It was noted that the performance of the service was monitored through the Repairs Integration Board which was comprised of senior offers and considered service delivery, work structures, and internal processes. It was considered that there were good communication channels within the service which enabled operative feedback to be reported to the Board.

·         In response to a query, it was advised that some level of qualitative analysis was undertaken by KWEST to identify trends and the reasons why residents may not be satisfied. Leaseholders were included in this monitoring, however it was noted that the Council only had limited responsibility for repairs to leaseholder properties. It was suggested that the service could evaluate councillor casework to obtain an insight into more serious complaints and service failures.

·         It was advised that the service did benchmark performance against other local authorities, however as data was not collected in a uniform way, a direct comparison could not always be made. Although it was useful to compare performance against other authorities, it was noted that Islington’s performance targets were set locally.

·         A member of the public queried if regular stock surveys were carried out to minimise the number of repairs needed. It was advised that the Council did have a cyclical improvement programme but did not routinely survey the condition of homes.

The Chair thanked John Everett for his attendance.