Resident Questions for Housing Area Panel

Reference Number: C3.5

Department

Housing 

Date question raised

24.10.2022

Week of Area Panel

12.12.2022

Area in city

Central

Star rating applied by residents

3

Deadline for officer response

16th November 2022

Name of officer responding

Grant Richie

Officer job title

Head of Repairs and Maintenance

Resident Question

Title of Question

Rationalising the repair system

Issue:

Repairs could be carried out in a more cost-effective and rational way if there was more of an overview. For example, if one household has three different plumbing issues, these should be dealt with in one visit rather than on three separate occasions.

Background:

Central residents’ experience of the current situation is that multiple visits are made even when the repairs can all be done by the same person – eg several different plumbing problems. This is frustrating and involves delays in a situation where residents are already having to wait a long time for repairs.

Action requested by residents:

Residents asked for a report on

a) why this situation occurs and

b) what can be taken to make the system more cost-effective and rational.

Officer Response

Officer contact details:

Grant.Ritchie@brighton-hove.gov.uk

 

Officer Response:

The Repairs service is organised to complete repairs with a minimum number of visits. However there are occasions when more than one visit is required. This may be because the scale of the repair was not evident when first reported or once the repair was started the amount of work is greater than estimated. There are also some tasks such as lifting a bath or working off a ladder that will always be a two-person task for Health & Safety reasons.

Whilst we like to try and send the same person to complete a task this is not always possible. Our staff time is planned days in advance. If a job runs over from the previous day an operative who is free or has space in their diary will be sent, this may not be the same operative who started the task.

 

When a job is raised against an address any other job in the same trade on that address should also be sent to the operative. This should stop multiple staff being sent to do similar tasks. However, I do accept that there are sometimes mistakes and other repairs are missed so additional visits are made. I also recognise that the task may be wrongly reported sometimes and therefore the operative attending may not be suitably equipped for the repair or have enough time to complete the works.

 

One of the main problems the teams are facing now is the quantity of repairs that they have to attend to. As we have previously reported we currently have a backlog of works. To reduce this backlog, we are using the available staff to clear as many tasks in a day as possible. However, this means that they do not have spare time, so if they do identify additional works when completing a task they will often not have adequate time to complete them.

 

As the backlog reduces, we plan to undertake more comprehensive repairs on the first visit which will provide a more efficient service and greater customer satisfaction.

Action:

 

No Further Action

 

 

Start date:

N/A

 

 

End date:

N/A