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By Daniel Miller, Head of Repairs and Maintenance, Eastlight Community Homes
“We temporarily moved staff who usually work elsewhere within Eastlight to focus on delivering the repairs recovery plan. The observations they made during those months led to service improvements”
How knowledge and accountability meant we were able to tackle our Covid repairs backlog
The Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 had a huge impact on housing repairs services up and down the country.
By December 2021, our 12,500-home organisation had 3,000 jobs outstanding – significantly more than the 2,200 we’d usually expect in the run up to Christmas.
We hadn’t been able to deliver the services our customers expected of us due to the pandemic, so we implemented a repairs recovery plan, which ran between November 2021 and January 2022.
We were able to reduce the backlog by more than 1,000 jobs, despite the spread of the Omicron variant and the Christmas period having the potential to slow progress down.
We were not only able to reduce the number of repairs waiting to be completed: we also upheld an excellent service, maintaining 4.7 out of 5 customer satisfaction levels throughout the repairs recovery plan.
On 31 January we closed our repairs recovery plan at 1,958 repairs, which exceeded our target of 2,200.
We temporarily moved staff who usually work elsewhere within Eastlight to focus on delivering the repairs recovery plan. The observations they made during those months led to service improvements. As a result, we’ve seen uplift in the proportion of “Right First Time” repairs, which increased from 75% to 86% between January and March.
Eastlight’s teams are all accountable to residents; however, in repairs, we’re very aware our work shapes residents’ opinions of the organisation. Being directly answerable to our residents drove the success of our repairs recovery plan.
Eastlight’s Home MOT is where members of the repairs team visit a resident’s home and systematically tick off items on our online MOT worksheets.
The team complete small jobs there and then, but if they need to return to fix a problem, they set a date and time with the customer before they leave.
This more proactive approach to repairs and maintenance has dramatically reduced maintenance callouts, with numbers falling by 50% in some areas, pre-Covid.
It has improved relationships with customers and led to us holding more information about our homes, which enable us to tackle the Covidcaused repairs backlog more efficiently.
Not one of us could have prepared for a global pandemic, but at Eastlight we’ve been able to see how dealing with problems before they become emergencies and being driven by doing the right thing by our residents, has meant we’ve been able to get back on track quickly.
Providing a strong foundation for life
We build, manage and look after homes for people across the North.
And then we go further, we give them the strong foundations they need to crack on with life.
www.karbonhomes.co.uk
An HQN Accreditation mark is a visible sign that your organisation not only meets or exceeds good practice standards but is also proud to offer a best-in-class service to its tenants and residents.
HQN Accredit covers the following areas: • Repairs and
Maintenance • DLO/ Contractor • MIST – Maximising
Income; Sustaining
Tenancies • Leasehold Management • Estate Management • Lettings • Gas
To find out more... Email: anna.pattison@hqnetwork.co.uk Visit: hqnetwork.co.uk/accreditation
Providing you with the tools to succeed
HQN’s committed to raising standards in the sector – let HQN training help upskill your repairs staff.
HQN has an outstanding track record of helping organisations achieve real and lasting performance improvements.
Repairs in the social housing sector keep hitting the media. We know how important this service is and how difficult it can be to get it right. Staff play a vital role in this. That’s why we have a range of training covering all aspects of repairs – for the repairs specialists as well as non-technical staff.
“Nancy was really amazing. Very lively and knowledgeable session. A lot of information to consider and apply to work. Thank you!”
(Repairs training)
For more information or to get an in-house quote, please contact training@hqnetwork.co.uk, call 01904 557150 or visit hqnetwork.co.uk/training
Upcoming repairs and maintenance training
Project management bootcamp – how to deliver a successful project 10 May 2022
Repairs diagnostic questioning – a masterclass for non-technical housing officers 17 May 2022
Condensation, damp and mould – causes, cures and the courts 24 May 2022
Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 and housing disrepair 26 May 2022
Health and safety - the five fundamentals 26 May 2022
Property and site inspection for non-technical staff 31 May 2022
Unlocking construction – basic techniques for nontechnical staff 1 June 2022
The basics of plumbing, waste and drainage for non-technical staff 8 June 2022
An introduction to HHSRS and housing standards 17 June 2022
Common building defects and failures for technical and non-technical staff 23 June 2022
How to develop from manager to leader 30 June 2022
