Minutes:
“Can the council confirm the numbers of households that are waiting for repairs to completed and the average wait as part of the backlog from contract changes?”
Answer:
The Leader asked Councillor F. Thomson (Executive Member, Housing), to answer:
“When Morgan Sindall took over the new contract on the 1st of October, there were 1,121 repairs at as the starting position to carry out, and the average time taken to complete the job was 35.5 days. I’d just like to explain why this would be longer than usual. These were jobs that the previous contractor could not complete by the contract end date, and the focus at the time was to ensure that all the mobilisation tasks were prioritised. Whilst these jobs were raised on the system, Morgan Sindall could not work on them until the contract start date. We had communicated to tenants at the time that during the contract changeover it may take longer to complete repairs. It should be noted that there are just three jobs outstanding from this amount and they are all booked in. I would also like to highlight that excluding the backlog, the average time to complete a repair job is approximately seven days and Morgan Sindall’s performance, as you will be aware, is discussed as part of the monthly Cross Party Housing Maintenance Contract Board.”
In a supplementary question, Councillor Musk asked:
“Since joining this council in 2018 I have collected there were 16 questions from Labour and Lib Dem groups and two motions from Labour and Lib Dem groups surrounding housing repairs and compliance. I'm thankful that the compliance issue has now been fixed and we can go back to our residents. However, residents are still complaining of wait times of over 7 days, and I would say that there is a failure somewhere if it's taking this amount of questions and motions from opposition groups to be raised at full public meetings, for people to see a difference in the services that are being provided.”
Answer:
Councillor F. Thomson (Executive Member, Housing), answered:
“What I would say is that Morgan Sindall, obviously have taken over the new contract in October. I think those of us who sit on the Cross-Party Housing Mobilisation Board, and don't forget we meet once a month, and we are presented with updates on performance and waiting times. I would expect a new contractor to take time to bed in their service, and I think that's absolutely what we are seeing. Having said that, Morgan Sindall are currently processing about two and a half thousand repairs a month and customer satisfaction is consistently above 85%, and they've introduced this new rant and rave service, which many will be familiar with, and are gathering data and feedback in terms of customer satisfaction. So, I think, having you know, come on board just in October I think we need to give them a little bit longer to bed the service in, but so far, the response that is coming back from tenants is actually very pleasing. There will always be some outstanding cases, long-standing cases which need additional work, but I am confident that we are moving in the right direction with repairs.”