Improving Housing Services for Canterbury City Council
In Canterbury City Council's housing stock 99.6% of urgent repairs are made on time and waiting time for non-urgent repairs is half the national average. Citizens are receiving a better service, yet the volume and cost of repairs has reduced.
When Canterbury City Council awarded Serco a partnership contract for repair and maintenance of its housing stock, its plight was one that will be familiar to many local authorities. A backlog of repairs was denting both its budget and its reputation among thousands of tenants. The secret to improving the quality of a public service while driving down costs is simple for Serco: run it like a business.
Our approach to a problem is to find innovative ways to work smarter. That's what we did at Canterbury. Instead of the traditional contract where reactive repairs are carried out and invoiced to the council on a job-by-job basis, we effectively took responsibility for managing the authority's housing maintenance spend on their behalf. This is fixed based on historical costs and split into 12 equal amounts, billed monthly. Our imaginative solution means that the council not only has the reassurance of a predictable, fixed monthly cost for maintenance of its 5,500 homes but, with only 12 invoices to process (instead of 25,000), it also saves tens of thousands of pounds in administration costs. What's more, tenants benefit from a vastly improved service.
The introduction of a 24-hour, seven day a week helpdesk has resulted in repairs being fixed more quickly and customer satisfaction levels have rocketed to over 99%. (This achievement was recognised with an award from the Chartered Institute of Housing & Inside Housing for 'Good Practice in Housing Management' in 2002).
Another innovation is the introduction of a mobile repairs centre, which visits estates with high maintenance demands to carry out preventative repairs by appointment. Productive work time has increased, access to property improved and the number of call outs fell by 13% within the first six months of operation - a simple, smart solution for all concerned.
Tenant, council and Serco representatives meet regularly to review performance and plan future service enhancements. This is partnership working in every sense, made possible by the high degree of trust between Serco and the council that has been built over the course of a successful ten-year working relationship. In fact, Serco's relationship with Canterbury City Council has been cited by the Audit Commission as an example of best practice in public private partnership.
Serco's imaginative approach has undoubtedly made a big contribution to the council's overall 2 star best value rating for its housing service. Chris Seemann, Contract Manager for Canterbury, says, "The strengths of this contract are that from the beginning Serco has combined innovation with excellent workmanship. Their people work to the ethos of right first time, every time." The introduction of a 24-hour, seven day a week helpdesk has resulted in repairs being fixed more quickly and customer satisfaction levels have rocketed to over 99%.
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