Agenda item

Matt West, Head of Repairs and Maintenance, and Paul Lightfoot, Group Leader – Direct Works, made a presentation to the Committee, copy interleaved, on the performance of the responsive repairs service and planned service improvements.

A discussion was had during which the following main points were made:

·         The service employed 105 trade staff and carried out approximately 55,000 repairs each year. Repairs were grouped into one of three categories, two hour emergency repair work, 24 hour urgent work, and 20 calendar day non-urgent work. Approximately one third of repairs were classified as urgent.

·         The service was in the process of making improvements and welcomed the scrutiny review and feedback from residents. The service sought feedback at tenant and resident meetings, from councillor casework, and had also established repairs reference groups.

·         Satisfaction with the service was independently evaluated by Kwest. Kwest surveyed 300 residents each month and indicated a satisfaction rating of approximately 73%. Feedback from the surveys was communicated to staff and was used to identify service improvements.

·         The service was aware of complaints arising frequently in councillor casework. It was explained that the service was seeking to make improvements following a period of the new in-house service ‘bedding in’. As the service had operated for a full year officers considered that they had identified the main strengths and weaknesses of the service. 

·         The key areas for improvement included notifying residents of when their repair would take place and completing repairs on the first visit. This was known as a ‘first time fix’. Increasing the number of repairs completed on the first visit was considered essential to improving resident satisfaction.

·         Officers commented on the challenges faced when bringing the service in-house. Staff had been required to adapt to new ways of working and a re-organisation was expected to be completed in February 2016. There had also been a need to change the previous client/contractor working culture to a more team-focused atmosphere.

·         The service had inherited a number of specialist trade staff through TUPE arrangements, however was seeking to train staff in multiple trades in order to increase the number of repairs able to be completed on the first visit.

·         The service used specialist contractors to support the in-house team during peak periods. For reasons of efficiency, the contractors used to repair lifts were procured through the same contract which serviced the council’s public buildings.

·         Management regularly communicated with trade staff through ‘toolbox talks’ which focused on performance and health and safety matters.

·         The service had positive working relationships with the capital works team, the gas team, and the estate maintenance team.

·         The service monitored performance on a daily basis and displayed performance in a prominent location in the office accessible to all staff.

·         Work was underway to increase the diversity of the service, in particular the number of women employed as tradespeople. Workshop sessions had been arranged for female residents and pupils at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson girls’ school. The service intended to recruit ten apprentices in 2016 and it was hoped that such initiatives would attract female applicants.

·         One area for improvement was the service’s IT system. A new system had been procured and was intended to be implemented in autumn 2016. It was commented that an extended lead-in period was required for extensive testing, which would ease implementation.

·         The new IT system would feature an improved diagnostic system and would automatically allocate jobs to tradespeople, a process which was previously carried out manually.

·         The service had recently implemented an online repair reporting system. 50 repairs had been reported online in the previous week and work was underway to promote this method of reporting. 

·         The service intended to review its vehicle usage in order to be more efficient. It was also intended to review the operation of the out-of-hours service.

·         The Committee provided examples of casework relating to repairs. One example was given of a repair which had taken six visits to complete. It was commented that multiple visits could be particularly problematic for tenants on low incomes who would have to take time off work. Officers advised that they were aware of such issues and work was underway to make improvements; the intention was to complete a repair on the second visit if it was not possible to be completed on the first occasion. It was explained that such issues usually arose on particularly complex repairs which required several specialist tradespeople. It was thought that improved diagnostic processes to be introduced as part of the new IT system would better identify the skills and equipment required for each repair.

·         The service had no specific compensation policy in addition to the council’s general policy.

·         Officers commented that it would be easier to extract detailed performance data from the new IT system.

·         It was explained that trade staff could have six or seven jobs on their PDA at any one time. In future staff would have one job which would need to be completed before staff moved on to their next job. At present, staff would occasionally leave a repair incomplete to attend an emergency or to collect parts.

·         The service was exploring the delivery of parts to ensure that tradespeople did not need to leave repairs incomplete. It was commented that the service was aware of other organisations that had implemented such initiates to varying degrees of success.

·         Following a query, it was advised that some specialist works had to be carried out by contractors; however the service had reduced the number of works contracted out over the last year.

·         The Committee queried if the service could seek to generate income by carrying out repairs to schools, colleges and other properties. It was confirmed that this was an aspiration of the service, however improvements would need to be made before the service began to trade commercially on any significant scale. It was commented that such commercial activity could be expanded into neighbouring boroughs.

·         The service provided a handyperson service in partnership with adult social services.

·         The service’s stores were maintained by an external contractor. It was explained that the contractor provided a bespoke service and was familiar with the service’s ways of working.

·         Following feedback from residents and councillors the service was considering re-naming the Customer Excellence team.

·         The Committee queried how service satisfaction compared to other public and private repairs providers. In response, it was advised that Kwest provided a benchmarking service for local authority repair services and satisfaction with Islington’s service was around average.

·         It was suggested that staff needed a greater awareness of property-specific issues. Officers noted that some staff were familiar with certain properties, however agreed that there was scope for a greater level of shared learning between staff.

·         It was queried if estate-based stores could be used so staff did not have to travel to collect parts. Although the service had not explored this option, it was commented that this approach would present risks in terms of security and maintaining stock levels.

·         The Committee queried if the service could track the progress of trade staff. In response, it was advised that operatives were manually assigned multiple jobs each day so it could be difficult to track locations and real-time progress; however in future staff would only be assigned one job at a time through their PDA.

·         It was confirmed that the new IT system would be able to identify if residents had any particular needs or disabilities which could affect the work of trade staff.

The Committee thanked officers for their attendance.