Dacorum Borough Council
Services
Repairs and maintenance; Empty Homes
What was our client looking for?
In 2008 MITIE was selected by Dacorum Borough Council to take over delivery of their social housing works. The contract, valued in excess of £5mper annum runs for 6 years and covers 10,000 social housing properties. Customer priorities include reducing inefficiencies, improving customer satisfaction and transparency in costs.
How did we help?
The success of the contract lies in the reduction in inefficiencies and increase in customer satisfaction MITIE has achieved by adopting our TotalCare approach to service delivery. Part of this approach involves implementing lean processes which removes inefficient practices that cost our client’s time and money. It also means that the entire service is designed around the needs of the end user – in this case the resident, ensuring customer satisfaction and service excellence. In practice, when a tenant calls to report a fault they are given an appointment for a day and time convenient to them. The operative who attends then diagnoses the fault and the time needed to fix it when they arrive. Any additional materials or labour support they require are sent immediately to the property ensuring they can remain on site and begin the repair without having to reschedule. Why is this important? Because tenants want their repair fixed first time, at a time that is convenient to them, and this approach to service delivery gives us the best opportunity to meet this expectation.
The results
We are repairing 99.3% of faults first time, and interim results have seen customer satisfaction levels consistently over 97%. The works are carried out at a day and time convenient to the tenant, and repair completion times are lower than government and local guidelines. We are also bringing in excess of 120 empty homes per annum up to specification. On average properties are turned around in 10 days, well under our 15 day target.