Agenda item

This report includes the Gas and Health and Safety Update.

The Committee welcomed Matthew Bishop and John D’Souza representing MITIE Property Services Ltd., which had been awarded a 10 year repairs and maintenance contract with effect from 1 November 2013. This had consolidated eight previous contracts into a single borough wide contract and was projected to save the Council approximately £2 million per year when compared to the previous arrangements on a like for like basis. As is common practise with the transition and mobilisation of a major contract a period of approximately six months is allowed from the inception of the contract before ‘hard’ penalties are applied in respect of missed KPIs during the settling in period. The progress report which had been planned for after the initial six month period, but had been brought forward at the Committee’s request.

Mr Kirrage highlighted progress in respect of Health & Safety matters including:

·         the complete managed asbestos register covering Council stock;

·         the ongoing lift modernisation and upgrade programme comprising £25 million of capital investment over five years, which included an innovative lift monitoring, reporting and messaging system. This approach had received recognition from the London Fire Brigade, which had granted a six month amnesty to the Council such that attendance to lift entrapment would not be charged; and

·         the completion of Fire Risk Assessments (FRA) on all Council properties. The Council was working with the Fire Brigade to monitor and all areas of work identified as part of the FRA process planned into the on-going capital works programme.  .

Mr Kirrage confirmed that the new contract included planned preventative maintenance and specifically gutter clearing. Overtime It was proposed to achieve 60% reactive work and 40% planned.

Mr Kirrage highlighted the additional repairs brought about by the recent rain storms and high winds. In February there had been 675 roofing jobs awaiting completion. There were 100 new capital projects as a consequence of continuous repairs, rather than capital investment.

Call volumes had increased threefold (some 1600 calls on day one compared with 500 normally); and in the first four months of the contract, 45,000 calls resulting in 32,000 orders against an historic requirement of 50,000 orders per annum. Of  these 47% had been classified as emergency or urgent.

MITIE had received approximately 1500 jobs which had been held back from the former incumbent contractors as they would not have been completed by the end of the contract. In addition, there had been a high level of communal lighting repairs, as part of the legacy of uncompleted works from the previous repairs contractor.

Telephone answering performance had been severely hampered by the significantly increased volume of calls and difficulties encountered installing MITIE’s Wider Access Network (WAM) Line. The effect of this was that when telephone call handling capacity was reached calls ‘dropped out’, giving callers the impression that the Call Centre had hung up. This had been reflected in the KPIs.

As part of the new contract, a total of 170 staff had been transferred under TUPE regulations from the Council and four other employers. MITIE had been obliged to engage agency staff to make up the shortage of gas engineers who had elected not to transfer from the previous service provider.

Matthew Bishop and John D’Souza  presented background information in respect of MITIE and the outline scope of the partnership contract and their approach to meeting the challenges of the new contract and improved repairs performance. Mr D’Souza advised that, based on some of the work practices and absence of skills in some of the workforce inherited under TUPE arrangements, MITIE has brought forward restructuring and organisational change activity, Mr Bishop advised that notwithstanding that call and order volumes had proved to be much greater than anticipated, having regards to historic trends, MITIE had introduced the necessary additional resources to meet this demand, as they were keen that this important contract was a success.

Mr Barrett stated that MITIE had funded the backlog repairs to reduce to a steady state over time, with the expectation of recovering this early investment over the duration of the contract, as properties in good repair would be more cost effective to maintain in the long run..

The Committee considered the KPIs to the end of March 2014, which had been tabled as an update to previously circulated data and noted the month on month improvement in all KPIs. It was also noted that:

KPI 1: Those properties without a valid Landlord’s Safety Certificate had refused access and the matter was being pursued via the legal department.

KP1 2: The tenants not satisfied with the repairs service, included those who were dissatisfied because they wanted a service which was not available.

KP1 4: MITIE was investing and looking at innovative ways of working to achieve, what it considered to be a stringent target of ten calendar days.

In response to a query, Mr Kirrage outlined some of the new items which had been included as capital expenditure: damage from severe weather storms, roof repairs/guttering, structural issues and renewal of all boilers within a ten year lifetime.

There was a three year planned maintenance programme and, before moving on from an estate, MITIE  would ensure that all jobs had been completed.

Mr D’Souza outlined other planned work in respect of: estate lighting being replaced with LED lights; door access control systems; an asset management survey; and geographical mapping of roof and drainage problems in order to identify hotspots. 

Members commented on improvements in their wards. 

In accordance with paragraph 27 of the Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rules, the Committee extended the meeting by 15 minutes.

Mr D’Souza responded to comments in respect of the Call Centre problems not being anticipated that there had been variance analysis for a three year period and the worst case scenario plus 20% had been taken. The increase of 300% in Call Centre volumes in the early stages of the new contract was outside any reasonable expectation. 

Mr D’Souza responded to queries in respect of communication with residents in regarding work which was not being undertaken, such as garden fences and in respect of complaints regarding roof leaks. A letter had been sent to all residents with leaking roofs explaining the need to erect scaffolding. The work would be undertaken by a dedicated roofing team which would also respond to emergencies.

Mr D’Souza stated that MITIE had met with Tenants & Residents Associations and that they were starting to effectively deliver and to get across this message. Mr D’Souza assured the Committee of MITIE’s commitment. 

Mr Kirrage stated that fencing repairs were the responsibility of residents, but in certain circumstances such as older or vulnerable people or financial hardship, it might be possible for the Council to make concessions. Members acknowledged and welcomed this flexibility.

RESOLVED THAT:

1.    The report be noted.

2.    The Committee commended MITIE on a very promising start and the management team.