Agenda item

To receive a report from officers Simon Holmes, Head of Engineering, Paul Gathercole, Gas and Water Contracts Manager on Rouel Road estate - Heating & Hot Water Outages; supported by Dave Hodgson Director of Asset Management and Desmond Vincent Asst. Director Major Works

To also hear from Adrian Jepps contracts manager for OCO service provider.

The commission first heard from Dave Hodgson on the following points

·  Resident feedback on reports, 1 to 1 technical consultations on issues and review on the estate in terms of outage complaints, resident frustration with the call centre, 6 complaints outstanding on the estate

·  Limitation of resources within housing, spread across repairs, building safety, fire safety etc., current officer structure (new team) have designed and delivered two new schemes in-house

·  Impact of current schemes to residents and communication with residents (web-links in report), intrusive analysis of heat networks when compared to individual heating

·  Over-riding success stories of heat networks globally, 70% heat networks in Russia, burning waste through SEL-CHIP network in Lewisham; £15m funding for heat pumps and successful examples in borough

The commission then asked questions on the following themes

·  Quality of service, residents feeling ignored, Call Centre issues, Data monitoring in previous report misleading (6 February 2024) data shown over the course of whole estate not block wise data, granular data needed and communication with residents

·  Use of data points from calls made by residents on individual properties; confirmation with residents whether issues has been fixed; Compensation for private renters through heat meters monitoring, currently payments going to leaseholders and landlords

The commission heard from Tom Vosper, Strategic Project Manager that the previous report only reported on block outages and not individual properties indicating the outages for the entire block. Furthermore, these issues are reported as resolved when the plant rooms and boiler rooms are fixed and individual properties on the first floor can have airlocks, which would take longer for their heating to be restored. The council have installed heat meters at 1000 individual properties out of 17,000 properties in an effort to monitor temperatures and look at ways to provide compensation to individual properties which is currently only done on a block wise basis for 24 hours outages. Outages are also used to monitor contractors with target of having 99% availability across the borough. Improvements have been made over the last few years in heating availability, however the data being recorded has its limitations.

Tom explained to the commission that when individual properties are reported, the call centre would then contact other neighbouring residents to assess whether it’s a block outage before sending in the engineers and raising job requests. Outages are reported on the communal outage website and text messages are sent to residents to inform them to allow up to 2 hours for heating to be restored after the outage has been fixed. 

The commission also noted that the current data of outages block wise does hide the underlying issues with individual properties, using customer calling data to include individual properties in the reporting would be a more efficient way of reporting outages

The commission heard from Adrian that there is constant communication with the call centre every 4-5 hours on status of outages, efforts are also made to fix issues with air-locks in and around individual properties.

Dave explained to the commission that there a lot of human steps in the process of reporting and monitoring outages at the moment. It is important to note that heat meters require phone lines from BT and IT infrastructure dependent on other organisations. It would take the council 4-5 years if heat meter installations are to be carried out across the entire borough. The council is doing wider engagement with residents through Estate Action Days (repairs) and the Resident Improvement Boards.

The commission understood from Tom that it is unclear whether the council could make arrangements with private tenants for compensation from a legal standpoint as private tenants have their arrangement with their landlord and the council might not able to intervene legally. However, the government has appointment the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) as the regulatory authority for heat networks in 2024 with regulations (in effect 2025) providing statutory compensations and protection all users of the heat network.

The commission then asked further questions around the following themes

·  Timeframe for improvement in better data collection of heating and hot water outages in individual properties; Call centre data to show customer initial contact, case studies of estates

·  No reflection on changes in service within the report, success stories are resolution on repairs issues faced by residents; top 5 actions to resolve issues on Rouel road; answer to resident questions; 5 year plan for resolving issues

·  Report of hot water up to 90 C in some properties, being too high according an independent engineer, leading to request for mixer taps; thermostats for individual properties

David explained to the commission that we are encouraging residents to use the hotline to report issues. Collating individual data and triangulation would show impact on individual resident experiences. Furthermore, that the director of asset management will be meeting with residents to discuss actions, resolve issues and answering questions at Rouel road. It is also important to note success stories in the report is a result of the in-house schemes delivered by the team and also that Rouel road estate heating network was setup much earlier.

Paul explained to the commission that thermostats are not applicable to all properties as it’s a control valve and depends on the design of the property. As properties are improved thermostats can be fitted, design permitting, this would also mean temperature setting on individual radiators. With regards to hot water, based on design and needs of the estate, temperatures can be set between 70C - 120C from the boiler rooms, however residents need to inform the council if the water is too hot as adjustments can be made. Boiler rooms and plant rooms in estates being worked on are being fitted with modern controls, however a massive amount of investment is needed and this is a long term process.

Dave informed the commission that 85% of Southwark residents are living in tower blocks and buildings with many of them run my management organisations, and with regards to getting access to properties through court orders takes 8-10 weeks. There is added complexity and big scale of housing within Southwark and we still haven’t managed to get back to pre-pandemic levels. Officers often have to make difficult decisions on which homes and estates would benefit from investment based on resident engagement and feedback.

The commission then asked further questions on the following topics

·  Sustainability and existing issues with district heating networks and connection of new homes to the same network; age of piping issues in some estates

·  OCO contract renewal; point 17 of report indicates delay in rolling out the heat strategy, pressures on the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) causing further delays to heating system, pressure on resources within the team

·  Strategic investment in homes and estates and HRA; urgency in resolving Rouel road estate issues; Call Centre process, issues raised by TRA chair or Ward councillor directly results in jobs being raised via a different number; Individual outages being treated as communal outages and vice-versa

Tom explained to the commission that central and local governments are committed to low carbon emissions target by 2030, and it’s easier to address green energy concerns with a central boiler supplying 200 homes rather than individual properties. There have been successful projects at Consort, Newham and Windham estates, funded from Mayor’s energy efficiency funds to install green energy heat pumps sitting alongside existing gas boilers. On age of pipes the primary SEL-CHIP is connected to a lot of the new estates and pipework is new and has no outages reported; its complex if there are outages with branching pipework from the primary pipework to different estates, however there are temporary boilers that can be installed to ensure there is heating in the system.

Paul explained to the commission that OCO contract is up for renewal in March 2024, two year extension decision to go to Cabinet. There were some issues with performance within the OCO contract and after discussions with operational and senior managers an improvement plan has been put in place since January 2023.

The commission learnt from Dave that previous contracts had fewer controls mechanisms and unsuitable to carry out the work efficiently, the newer proposed contracts have been divided into district heat network and individual heating giving council more options in terms of suppliers and contractors, issues with performance can be moved to other contractors giving flexibility. The industry in general is facing challenges in terms of apprenticeship funding, delay in heating strategy roll out is due to consideration of low carbon solutions. It is important to note that stepping back and investing in projects similar to SEL-CHIP will reduce planned maintenance works and reduce pressure on the HRA.

David explained to the commission that the HRA has shrunk due to high costs and rent caps, which has reduced by £40m as a result of the cost of living crisis and there was no central government funding to maintain the HRA. In addition enhanced safety regulations has diverted the focus, Budget Recovery Board (BRB) has been formed to recover budget deficits.

Paul explained to the commission that there was a request through repairs call group for TRA Chairs and Ward councillors to be given a separate number due to issues in contacting the call centre. If residents call in with individual outages and it turns out to be a communal outage, the response time could be doubled due to different engineer skillsets required.

 The commission then asked further questions on the following topics

·  Call centre waiting time of 45 times; pt. 11 of report indicates it’s the responsibility to confirm with resident before closing the case.

The commission heard from Ade Aderemi, Contact Centre Manager who also distributed handouts (attached to minutes Appendix 1.) with some data visualisations; a new repair waiting time is 3 minutes down from 30 minutes since April 2023, challenges are an average of 26,000 calls, with more calls during the winter. Initial calls made for repairs are assessed with diagnostic tools and with probing question; and appointments are made immediately, however fulfilment of those jobs lies with contractors. The reasons for long waiting on repeat callers are; job unattended by contractor, follow up job not done, tenant not updated about job etc., thus affecting waiting time in the customer journey. Residents are often persistent to receive updates on the call building up a queue behind them, while a real time update is sought from contractors. A pilot project for outbound calls to residents with existing repairs is working successfully, however there is an overwhelming number of calls. Day time calling in the contact centre has been extended from 8am to 8pm. Resource limitations make it incredibly challenging and also due to customer management system not being linked with contractor systems.

Paul informed the commission that issues and responsibility around confirming with residents on closing jobs will be discussed with contractors.