To receive the Annual Report of the Heart of Wales Property Services Limited Joint Venture between Keir and Powys County Council 2017-18.
Minutes:
Documents:
· Annual Report Heart of Wales Property Services Limited Joint Venture 2017-18 (Year 1)
· Appendix 1 Key Performance Indicators Year 1
· Appendix 2 Year 1 Business Plan
Documents:
· Annual Report Heart of Wales Property Services Limited Joint Venture 2017-18 (Year 1)
· Appendix 1 Key Performance Indicators Year 1
· Appendix 2 Year 1 Business Plan
Introduction
The HoWPS Chair gave the following overview.
The HoWPS was set up on 3rd July 2017. It is a 50:50 joint venture between Kier and Powys County Council. The Board consists of 8 Directors, 4 from each organisation. The aim was to create a long term sustainable partnership to deliver services in the area of housing, corporate and consultancy by developing a trusted brand. Also to keep the Powys pound local, to grow the business to support local employment and to return a dividend to Powys. The new Joint Venture had a difficult start but 109 staff were transferred. A new IT system had to be introduced and there have been a number of changes at Board and senior staff level. There were also problems with paying suppliers.
The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) show an improving picture with customer satisfaction at 92% on housing service work and 96% on corporate reactive work. There have been no accidents during the 18,000 hours of work. One of the biggest challenges is the time taken to return voids for occupancy. The consultancy service are working well with 5 new primary schools recently completed.
The company have been engaging well with local suppliers with 44% of sub-contractor spend within Powys and an additional 36% in Wales. 73% of supplies are purchased within Powys and an additional 10% in Wales. The aim is to increase the percentage of spend within Powys.
The culture of partnership working is improving but communication with groups including schools and farm tenants needs to improve. Both Kier and Powys County Council will need to work together to grow the business.
The Year 2 Business Plan has been signed off. The company will be taking on 7 new apprentices and working with Syrian refugees and aims to support the Powys Vision 2025.
Discussion
The call answering and call abandoned KPIs seems to be getting worse. How are customers meant to interact with HoWPS?
It is recognised and accepted the speed of calls answered and numbers of abandoned calls is not where HoWPS would like to be and is below the industry norm. It has been a challenge running one contact centre with three hubs.
Since the HoWPS Head of Service took up his role in May 2018 he had spent time understanding the issue. Greater prominence was given to the call centre which had been enlarged and was again fully staffed (after secondments which hadn’t been backfilled). There are now 7 staff in post and a Customer Services and Quality Officer has been recruited locally and a Performance Analyst has been appointed for real time analysis of performance which had previously been monitored monthly or at most weekly. Monthly meetings with Housing, Corporate and Consultancy colleagues have been introduced. The HoWPS Head of Service has attended a meeting of the Housing Repairs Forum and undertake ride outs to view progress on Voids. Each month a sample of 8-12 jobs are undertaken with calls to tenants to seek their views on their experience of HoWPS. Talking to customers is important and an invitation to meet Head teachers has been requested. Tenant representatives have been invited to visit the call centre.
The call statistics have improved since September 2018 and are moving from red towards amber. Improvements need to be sustainable in the long term.
What is the complaints process?
An acknowledgement will be received within 24 hours. The complaint is sent to the relevant department who have 20 working days to respond. The company have received complements on their complaints resolution from housing colleagues.
A copy of the complaints process will be provided.
Why do voids take so long to bring back into occupation, the longer a property is unavailable for rent the less rental income is available to the housing department and the longer tenants are waiting for suitable housing?
At present HoWPS are only responsible for that part of the process where houses are mended. The full process includes from quitting, through mending to letting and HoWPS are working closely with housing colleagues to rectify this. A new structure has been introduced specifically dedicated to voids, HoWPS and housing are sharing data on voids and a cleansing exercise has taken place to ensure that voids already returned to housing are no longer showing on the system. The KPI on voids is now showing an improving picture and has a high profile on the HoWPS Board. The importance of improving this indicator is understood in relation to the need for properties to be promptly let.
What priority is given for improvement works when outgoing tenants refuse this work as they do not want the disruption?
Ongoing improvements are undertaken separately from the teams working on voids. Priority is set on instruction from Powys and this is factored into work planning arrangements.
The new IT and communication arrangements are welcomed. Schools need a system where jobs logged can be easily tracked. At present schools are finding it difficult to follow-up jobs requested and do not understand the priority given regarding reporting problems such as health and safety issues, issues regarding environmental legislation or safeguarding matters.
When a job is received in HoWPS it is logged and a reference is generated. Schools can call in with this reference to check progress. It was not known if the HoWPS IT system had the potential for complainants to track progress independently. This would be explored in conjunction with colleagues from the schools service. At the Head teachers meeting HoWPS will be asking what are the hot topics across this sector. A sample of schools will be visited to gain an understanding of the issues they are facing.
The role of HoWPS in allowing schools to remain compliant is understood. The issue of complaints appearing to be lost has been picked up and it is intended to improve efficiency in the contact centre so that outbound calls can be made to complainants advising them of the current situation.
With regard to the KPI on the speed of complaints resolution it is not clear how confident Members can be in this indicator when it appears from schools that when jobs are requested from HoWPS they do not receive a job number. Without a job number it is not possible to know how the complaint is ranked nor to track it. Whilst the meeting has heard that HoWPS identifies different client groups as housing, corporate and consultancy it is not clear where schools fit into this.
When schools report a job they should be given a job number. Having heard today this is not always happening this will be investigated. There are two ways to contact HoWPS which are:
this information should have been disseminated to everyone under the Powys umbrella. Complaints come through this system and are tracked by the Head of Customer Services.
What constitutes an emergency?
The definition of emergency is contained within the contract but it is accepted that this does require clarification and may be different for primary, secondary or special schools.
The definition of an emergency will be clarified with schools.
The use of local contractors is welcomed but 44% does not seem particularly high. It is known that contractors from South Wales and Staffordshire are being used. What plans are there to improve the amount of local contractors used?
One of the objectives in the Business Plan is to increase the use of local contractors and it time HoWPS would be looking at using 80% of local contractors. It is aimed to reach this position by decreasing the number of contractors on the list but spending more with these contractors as they grow their businesses. This is an appropriate commercial approach. Experience elsewhere has shown that small companies are able to expand to support Joint Ventures similar to HoWPS. Non Powys contractors have had to be used where local skill sets are lacking but the common perception that when Keir arrive they will bring their supply chain is incorrect. The intention is to use the local supply chain but it is necessary that the rates and quality of local supplies is right.
The Annual Report notes that one local contractor is not in sync with the response time of HoWPS. Why is this the case and what is being done to address this?
This was discovered in July when detailed work was being undertaken. The HoWPS contract specifies a response time of 2 hours. One of the sub-contractors response time is 3 hours. This was a contractor who previously had a contract with Powys County Council which was novated to HoWPS with the original timescale still in force. The current contract was extended in June 2018 for one year and HoWPS will now be reporting missed times separately for HoWPS and the contractor. The next opportunity to look at response times in the sub-contractors contract will be June 2019. It is hoped that over the year the in-house team will be strengthened.
It is understood that there have been instances with sub-contractors sub-contracting their work. With each company taking a cut how is this cost efficient?
This is known as sub subbing in the industry. HoWPS appoint compliant sub-contractors (to ensure these businesses have insurance and are health and safety compliant). Sub subbing should not happen without signoff by a HoWPS Director. It is the intention to grow the direct delivery to make best use of resources but sub-contracting will always be necessary in respect of specialisms, spikes and adverse weather.
What arrangements has HoWPS got in relation to resilience?
HoWPS has a Severe Weather Plan and also checks with their suppliers what their Winter Plans are. It is intended to work closely with Powys to explore the opportunity for using strategic buildings across the county for welfare purposes during extreme weather. All engineers have skillsets and vehicles and an out of hours scheme is in operation with engineers on standby. The escalation process goes right up to the Chief Executive if required.
Now that the call centre staff are up to strength has there been an increase in front line staff to deal with the volume of work required?
Front line staff are increasing but there is also a need to use staff more efficiently.
What has been heard has been greatly encouraging but this has also including an acknowledgement that there had to be an increase in call centre staff, that a meeting with Head teachers is needed, that both a Customer Services Manager and Voids Manager has had to be appointed. Did HoWPS underestimate the size of the task in Powys?
When HoWPS was set up staff were transferred directly. If anything was underestimated it was the skillset of the transferring staff and there were gaps in the front line managers and health and safety. In addition there were unexpected IT issues. The first year has had its challenges and it was suggested that the company should be judged on its second year results.
Outcomes:
· That the complaints procedure be provided
· That in future reports additional information is provided regarding what has changed since the previous report and what actions need to be taken
· That it is made clear that the service to schools is provided as part of the corporate service or that the schools are defined separately in the same way housing is defined separately
· That schools are advised of the definition of emergency
· That the performance information contained within the Annual report is supplied on a monthly basis
· Financial information is not included in the Annual Report and it will be suggested to Joint Chairs that this be considered by the Audit Committee
Supporting documents: