Agenda item

8.1  David Lewis (Head of Maintenance and Compliance) introduced the item to the sub-committee and reported that Southwark Building Services (SBS) performance and service was moving in the right direction however, the service still has a long way to go before it is truly delivering the service residents deserve.

8.2  Members were informed that there would always be a need for sub-contractors, to deal with non-specialist work beyond repairs such as scaffolding, joinery or window replacement. Both SBS and Mears have been set targets to limit the use of non-specialist sub-contracted work to 10% by volume. The target in the new long-term contract is for this to be achieved by the end of the first anniversary of the new contract i.e. October 2014.

8.3  The officer reported that since June 2012 complaints and member enquires have been kept open until the repairs have been resolved. This has significantly reduced the number of complaints escalating to stage 2.

8.4  The number of repair complaints received has fallen by 42% (April to August 2012 compared to April to August 2013) so open complaints have fallen slightly faster.

8.5  The sub-committee were informed that the Contact Centre had been taken in-house since the 1^st June 2013. New IT systems were in place and 40 apprentices had been recruited and extensively trained.

8.6  The emphasis is dealing with all issues right first time avoiding the need to repeat or chase up calls. This emphasis on improving the quality of the service delivered is undoubtedly the correct approach, this does however, need to be balanced with services that are easy to access.

8.7  The officer reported that performance was assessed by the following five measure which were, overall satisfaction with repairs, repairs completed right first time, appointment kept, all repairs completed on time and emergencies completed on time. The performance indicators showed an year on year improvement.

8.8  The chair asked why £4.7m was annually paid to contractors? The officer reported that this payment was a lump sum to cover overheads such as salaries, fleet, depot costs etc and was fixed and not influenced by productivity. The contract lump sum was a feature of the repairs procurement awarded in June 2009 to Morrison and replicated to Southwark Building Services when they won the contract. Anything left over from the lump sum was recycled back into the Housing Revenue Account.

8.9  A member of the sub-committee stated that there was a problem with boilers that were constantly requiring adjustment because they were not providing hot water, the plumber would top up the boiler every 6 weeks or so, the reason for this fault was due to a leak in the heating system, and the problem would keep re-occurring until the leak was repaired.

8.10  The officer reported that OCO and Brown were responsible for plumbing work and a repeated problem should have been flagged up and reported for attention. The officer assured members that the contractors performance has improved significantly over the last 18 months. The officer undertook to take the details of this problem from the councillor and investigate.

8.11  A member stated that SBS failure to keep appointments for repair jobs affected people’s working lives and asked how long will it take to close the gap and get better attendance and results for tenants? The officer reported that gap was closing, but were about 12 months behind Mears and stressed to the sub-committee that there was a clear commitment to deliver a service that tenants deserved.

8.12  A member stated repairs and missed appointments must have a solution where simple repairs could be dealt with locally by a handy person and could be delivered at cost? The officer agreed that in some cases smaller is better and there are some TMO’s like Leathermarket who are delivering a very good service to tenants. He further reported that SBS were bridging the gap and should reach their target in the next 12 months.

8.13  A member stated that the quality of work that residents were receiving was not good enough and why were 2 people being sent on a job for one person? The officer stated that it was worth looking at table two which showed that satisfaction was improving and had been for the last two years.

8.14  The officer reported there were still complaints but officer were working to reduce the number.

8.15  The chair stated that a new fresh scrutiny might be needed to look at how the system can be improved. 

  RESOLVED: (1) That the Chair and Vice-Chair listen to 50 calls from tenants   requesting repairs.

  (2) That officers collect more statistical information on repairs and provide them to the sub-committee.

  (3) That contractors Mears and Southwark Building Services be invited to the next meeting of the sub-committee on 25.11.2013.

  (4) That the Chair and the Vice-Chair meet with David Lewis to look at the areas where things are not working well.

  The meeting finished at 21.30 p.m.