New Rules of Repairs and Maintenance

• Working Together Project - scope and objectives

• Getting it right: the positive trends

• Critical Findings: what the sector has struggled with

• The New Rules of Repairs and Maintenance – reinventing the way we deliver value to homes

• Horizon Scanning

Key Challenges

1. Fairness in Service Provision

2. Responsive repairs not adding value

3. IT is fragmented and not delivering solutions

4. Silo working within organisations

5. Changing customer base

Key Challenges

6. Data rich but information poor

7. Mixed impact of Lean Systems on repairs

8. Procurement minefields

9. Partnering difficulties

10. Performance: measuring what is

important

1. Fairness in Service Provision

• A minority of users are responsible for most responsive repairs and for high cost voids

• Estimated 75% of resources go into supporting high impact or benefit dependent tenants

• Many others look after their home entirely themselves

• Unfair distribution of landlord resources to heavy users of the repairs service

• Often the same households that absorb other landlord services so needs a coordinated response

• Needs to be recognised and challenged in the organisation’s culture

Choices and Responsibilities

• Expectation that all tenants will look after their home

• Rule breakers are seen not to prosper

• Rewards for doing the right thing and celebration of outstanding contribution

• Principles apply to residents and staff

• Property induction and support mechanisms for new households

2. Responsive repairs not adding value • Responsive repairs still seen as a service not as a

major investment • Repairs are driven by service user demand not by

property needs – can waste resources • Many responsive repairs are a product of

behaviour that conflicts with the tenancy agreement and could be avoidable if it were enforced

• Not providing value for money compared to planned works

• Only planned and cyclical maintenance systematically address the needs of the physical asset

Redirecting Resources: focus on the asset…

• Drive down reactive repairs demand

• Mature discussion with residents about the balance between reactive repairs and genuine investment

• Sustaining tenancies to reduce voids numbers and costs

• Identify and work on eliminating avoidable repairs

• Explicit increase in expectations about tenant responsibility repairs

• Address the cost per property variation of 40% between social landlords

3. Repairs IT is fragmented and not delivering solutions

• Many landlords have over 30 separate systems operating

• Systems do not interact to share data and provide a rounded view of issues

• Jobbing repairs systems not integrated with asset management systems

• Many clients struggling with interfaces that do not operate in real time e.g. only limited visibility of the repair order on the system

• Order tracking and delivery information not widely available for tenants

• CRM has just added another layer

Defining and Refining Data Needs…

• Start by defining your business process and business objectives

• Then match the IT system to this

• Fix your current IT infrastructure

• Understand and map where your data sits

• Fix the data connectors that need to work together

• Find the holes and make a plan to fill them

4. Silo working within organisations

• Housing sector has diminished the career appeal of the profession through ever narrower specialisation

• Team boundaries and departmental chauvinism inhibit focus on value and quality

• Failure to commit to joined up working costs time and resources

• Poor integration of repairs and maintenance with wider asset and housing management

• Short term advantage is preferred to the long view and lifecycle planning

Organisational Culture and Leadership…

• Values and purpose need to be advocated consistently across the organisation

• Internal Collaboration between teams valued • Some good examples of using, e.g. the access

provided at gas safety checks • Significant efficiency gains are available from

internal collaboration e.g. on voids management; call handling; estate inspections

• Integrated approach to asset management and estate sustainability

• Move to a more generic concept of the housing manager role with a richer mix of skills and experience

5. Changing customer base and perceptions • Digital natives (grew up with mobile communication) and digital converts (have adapted to new technology) now outnumber traditionalists (still writing letters)

• Customer feedback for R+M is indifferent – reporting works pretty well but anything out of the ordinary proves too difficult

• Communication issues especially when right first time is missed

• Invisibility of repairs progress to customer and staff • Lack of ownership around complaints • Huge amount of staff effort servicing transactions

which customers are not noticing

Future customer service… • Potential for different service offerings according to

behaviour

• Primary channel will be the web with an online personal touch – can log in and is personalised to them; similar to internet banking

• Telephone – there for the foreseeable future; contact centre – should also handle outbound traffic

• Email and text – don’t want two way conversations through this – difficult to administer

• Digital and social media – difficult to predict what that will be – fast changing; questionable what the true advantages are

• Post – will die out and face to face remain on a needs basis

• Interactions: simple, seamless and a rich customer experience; self serve enabled and paperless

• Business that uses customer insight to drive decisions

6. Data rich but information poor

• Landlords generate a huge amount of data on repairs and maintenance of the stock but struggle to turn this into usable information

• Housing compares poorly with other industries in terms of utilising informative business and trend analysis

• Little development of predictive modelling for properties or building components

• Active asset management requires real time and accurate data to identify under performing assets

It’s only data unless you use it…

• Housing systems and CRM, asset management and delivery systems will be properly connected and will interact

• Joined up, wider integration across all modules

• Simpler end to end processes

• Improved data quality

• Application of customer intelligence

• Mobility – for customer channels and our staff; need a sustainable solution for the whole business

7. Lean systems thinking

• Huge impact on streamlining end to end business processes

• Works best from a customer perspective and when it fully engages front line staff

• Premised on undifferentiated customer demand

• Needs of the asset can be eclipsed

• Juggernaut that carries all before it: Year Zero

• Black or white judgements can leave no place for local culture and needs

Internal partnering and collaboration… • Summit approach to generate internal focus

applying overarching business values e.g.

Protect our current income

Reduce our costs and drive efficiency

Focus our resources and service

Generate new income

• Formation of Project groups with members of each team engaged

• New clear structure for communication

• New clear processes with staff taking ownership

• New clear roles and responsibilities of individuals

8. Procurement and Commissioning • Balance of risk in Procurement seen as lying with the

client

• Huge cost to the sector of meeting procurement requirements; no successful movement to standardise requirements and operate on a collective basis in repairs

• No transparent information available about past performance – clients now ask bidders to organise references

• Commercial imperatives mean bidding is area of greatest innovation and investment by contractors

• Housing procurement lets the contractor choose the materials to use but they have no interest in lifecycle

New consensus…

• Many clients now questioning whether the market works

• Procurement collaboration not working for responsive repairs judging by the increase in home grown solutions

• Competitive process tests contractor capability to present their brand

• Markets require reliable information on performance and delivery in order to function effectively and in the interest of the client and consumer

• Repairs rating system for the sector

• Lifecycle considerations

• Landlords – long lifecycle, reduced maintenance, lower carbon and improved NPV

• Residents – safety, great performance, good looks and reduced call outs

• Contractors – easy to fit, reliable and offer savings and predictability when taking on long term liabilities

9. Partnering Difficulties • Flawed incentive of repeat business compromised by EU

procurement

• No evidence of sustained focus on cost reduction through partnering but profits have risen

• Partnering has in many cases led to higher rather than lower costs

• Main Contractors continue to bully the supply chain

• Partnering contractors still pursuing maximum returns to the detriment of long term relationships

• Clients award contracts on the basis of service levels which they cannot afford and against budgets which are already under pressure

• Partnering now more popular with contractors than with clients

Reinventing Partnering…

For repairs and maintenance the challenge is to demonstrate:

• Real value added to the asset

• Improved communication and responsiveness to perceived problems

• Greater inter-organisational and inter-personal trust

• Awareness of opportunities to develop mutual advantage

• Promotion of a culture to support innovation and learning

• Establishment of an inclusive forum that objectively measures and assesses accountability for meeting objectives

• Sharing of good practice across the sector

10. Managing Performance

• We measure performance so we can improve: processes that work; low overheads; good value for money and a service that tenants want; looks after and adds value to the asset

• What are we trying to find out: are tenants satisfied; does the service meets promised standards; is the service getting better?; how well we are investing in the asset and its components; whether we can afford to deliver the service

• Tenant feedback: collect this regularly at the point of service delivery and use and apply it to demonstrate users are having an impact on service delivery

• Qualitative measurement: precision, consistency and some form of comparison or benchmarking. Circulated to service users and analysed to understand failure demand and customer requirements

Performance Challenges

• Too many PIs giving us too much and often conflicting information

• Questionable integrity of some data

• Performance measures should test value in terms of the service user and the building asset

• Establish three high level performance measures for repairs and maintenance:

1 for Economy (Cost)

1 for Efficiency (Performance)

1 for Effectiveness (Quality)

Performance Challenge: The Difficult Questions

• Whether demand for responsive repairs can be reduced and whether needs can be met in some other way

• Increasing the role and impact of cyclical and planned maintenance

• Why do properties become void and can this be prevented

• Looking after your home: changing tenant expectations and behaviour