ESTATE SERVICES So, what are ‘Estate Services’? Well it’s simple really. Estate Services is the collective term for the services tasked with the maintenance of our estates with particular focus on the cleanliness and appearance of communal parts. As you can imagine this is important to our staff and our residents, so we want to make sure we maximising the work done to ensure our estates are the best they can possibly be inside and out.
Pilot figures
40
Inspections carried out between June & September 2019
The review found the standard of City estates to be good in general, with areas mostly clean and tidy, with little anti-social behaviour. However, current practices were found to be dated and inconsistent. Estates were not inspected as thoroughly and often as anticipated. Therefore, standards were not being recorded and evidenced. Resources were not always being used effectively. Inspections were carried out using paper, an inefficient method for record keeping in the digital age. The conclusion was that something needed to be done to resolve these issues and improve the standards
Background
In 2018, the City of London Housing Division commissioned HouseMark to carry out a review of its housing Estate Services. HouseMark is one of the UK housing sector’s largest membership organisations, providing solutions and opportunities to drive performance improvements. The review focused on cleaning and grounds maintenance carried out on estates and identified current standards. These were then benchmarked against those of other social housing providers. The review also looked at practices used to help maintain high standards. By looking closely at these comparisons, we hoped to highlight any areas in need of improvement.
81% Pilot figures
10
Average Estate inspection score
Pilot figures
52 mins
What we’ve done
Average inspection time
First, we needed to establish an appropriate set of standards for our estates to work towards. The standards needed to clear, easy to use and provide greater consistency across all areas. With the help of HouseMark and with information gathered from other social housing providers, we produced a new set of standards, specifically designed for our estates. The standards use clear visual aids and descriptions, accompanied by a grading system. These assist estate staff to understand the expectation for each area and provides the inspector with the tools to carry out a fair assessment. A new digital auditing system was introduced making it easier to fulfil the
