Council housing tenants in Thanet are set to see a new way of working, whenever repairs are needed on their homes.
Mears have been selected for the new repairs contract, which begins on Thursday 1 April. It comes after a thorough selection process, with tenants involved in assessing the submissions from companies and interviewing selected contractors. Although Mears previously held the contract for repairs, the new contract does not cover kitchens, bathrooms or gas servicing.
Tenants will see a difference to the service they receive, with two hour appointment times given when work needs to be carried out. The aim will be to carry out the repair on the first visit. There will also be a Tenant Liaison Officer working for Mears, who will visit estates and hold mobile surgeries with tenants.
All tenants will also receive a repairs handbook by 1 June 2010 to help identify the repair correctly and support the “first time fix” approach.
Tenants have an opportunity to monitor and improve the new repair service in a variety of ways and can get involved by contacting the Tenant Participation Officer.
Cllr. Zita Wiltshire, Cabinet Member for Community Services, said: “We’re committed to improving the service our tenants receive and we believe this new contract will help to achieve that. The aim is all about resolving the problem as quickly as possible and ideally on the first visit, as we know there’s nothing more frustrating than having people come back again and again to fix something. We want to see continuous improvement from the repairs contract and we will be regularly checking performance to ensure this is happening.”
Monday 22 March 2010
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Readers might like to consider how a 'selection process' meets with TDC's Contract Procedure Rules and why this announcement is so late, when Mears announced the news in Dec 2009:
ReplyDeleteCanterbury City Council
A five year partnership to provide responsive repairs and voids services to Canterbury City Council. The contract includes external decoration programmes and disabled aids and adaptation improvements. The contract is valued at £28 million for the initial five year period with a performance option to extend to 15 years increasing the value to in excess of £82 million . We are the sole provider appointed to provide services to the Council's 5,298 homes.
Thanet District Council
A five year partnership to provide responsive repairs and voids services to Thanet District Council, which was jointly procured with Canterbury City Council. The contract includes external decoration programmes and disabled aids and adaptation improvements. The contract is valued at £13 million for the initial five year period and also includes a performance option to extend to 15 years giving a value of in excess of £40 million. We are the sole provider appointed to provide services to the Councils 3,116 homes. Thanet District Council has been a client of Mears since 2004.