Agenda item

a)    Tom Irvine, Deputy Managing Director, Partners for Improvement in Islington

b)    Evidence on online housing services

a)    Tom Irvine, Deputy Managing Director of Partners for Improvement in Islington, presented to the Committee on how Partners communicates with its residents.

The following main points were noted in the discussion:

·         All new Partners tenants were provided with a ‘new tenant handbook’ of key information and received a home visit within four weeks of their moving date.

·         Partners circulated a newsletter to residents five times a year, as well as additional direct mailings on topical issues such as fire safety.

·         The majority of residents contacted Partners by telephone; the organisation received around 7,000 calls a month. Partners’ call handling system was simplified in 2016 to provide callers with three options; gas and heating, repairs, or anything else. This helped residents to get to the right person quicker.

·         All front line staff received the council’s Make Every Contact Count training, which trained staff to identify problems and refer residents to early help and support services.

·         Partners worked with residents to improve their communications, and had recently consulted with leaseholders to improve their leaseholder FAQs.

·         Whilst response time targets for complaints and members’ enquiries were met, Partners had recently introduced new processes to ensure greater quality control over responses to members’ enquiries.

·         Partners’ heads of service met monthly to discuss complaints and review complaint responses. The number of complaints received had fallen in recent years.

·         Ensuring good communication was one of Partners’ priorities for 2017/18.

·         The Committee queried Partners’ internal performance statistics which suggested the quality of responses to correspondence had improved to a score of 97/100 in July 2017. It was explained that Partners assessed their responses against 10 criteria which included accuracy, tone, and joined-up working. The Committee suggested that the assessment criteria was not sufficiently robust, as member casework regularly highlighted instances of poor service from Partners. The Committee considered that the performance information provided was not credible, and suggested that Partners’ quality assessment criteria should be more challenging. 

·         A member of the Committee suggested that Partners’ processes were not easy to navigate, and this could be distressing for vulnerable people. It was emphasised that Partners was passionate about providing a good service to residents, and trained staff in recognising the needs of vulnerable residents.

·         Partners reported a range of key performance indicators to Islington Council on a regular basis and these were evaluated for accuracy. Partners was seeking to engage with councillors in regards to why their perceptions of Partners’ service varied considerably from the organisation’s performance indicators.

·         It was suggested that Partners should consult with residents on its quality assessment criteria to better align its performance reporting to the needs of residents.

·         The Committee requested that an additional meeting be arranged to consider Partners performance in greater detail.

·         A member of the public reported dissatisfaction with Partners and commented that work was needed to build trust between Partners and residents.

·         Dr Brian Potter, Chair of the Islington Leaseholders Association, queried the methodology of Partners satisfaction surveys, and suggested that Islington Leaseholders Association could assist with reviewing the satisfaction surveys sent to Partners leaseholders. It was also suggested that Partners would benefit from a more robust leaseholder forum.

·         A member of the public suggested that members of the Housing Scrutiny Committee could attend and contribute to the Partners resident scrutiny forums.

The Committee thanked Tom Irvine for his contribution.

b)    Matt West, Head of Repairs and Maintenance, provided evidence to the Committee on the online repairs reporting system.

The following main points were noted in the discussion:

·         The online repairs reporting system was not intended to replace traditional routes of reporting repairs, but was intended to supplement the existing service, provide choice to residents, modernise the service and generate savings.

·         The repairs service previously had an online form for reporting repairs, but this was not integrated with the repairs management system. The form would generate an email which an officer would then need to manually input into the system, often following up with a telephone call to the resident to clarify the details. As a result the system did not save time or resources.

·         The new online repairs reporting system was integrated with the repairs management system, so repairs logged online generated cost savings by not requiring officer time to input the information.

·         The online repairs reporting system was designed to be user friendly and operated on a pictogram basis, which was intended to overcome language barriers and knowledge gaps.

·         Officers recognised the limits of the system. The system was only able to handle repair requests from directly managed tenants, did not cover communal repairs, and the system was not appropriate for reporting emergency repairs. If a repair appeared to be an emergency (for example, tenants were in danger or the security of the property was compromised) then the system suggested that the resident call Housing Direct to ensure the issue was dealt with quickly.

·         The system was being developed further to enable residents to book their gas service online.

·         Uptake of the online repairs reporting system had been low, although feedback received had been generally positive. The council needed to encourage residents to make use of the system to realise the cost savings the system offered.

·         The Committee suggested that reporting communal repairs online would be a helpful development.

·         The Committee thought it would be helpful if the system could generate a repair request for Partners or TMOs. Officers agreed, however explained that this would require significant development work and the service would rather focus on establishing the system for directly managed tenants first. Tom Irvine, Deputy Managing Director of Partners for Improvement in Islington, commented that Partners had an online repairs reporting system, however was interested in the council’s system and would be keen to learn from the council’s experiences.

The Committee thanked Matt West for his contribution.