Birmingham Voids Maintenance

Contract: Birmingham City Council
Service: Relet Repairs (Voids Maintenance)
Total Contract Value: £50M per annum
Service Stream Value: £11M per annum
Commencement Date: 2001
Contract Term: 7 years

Description

In April 2001, BCC, the largest local authority in England, outsourced its housing repair, maintenance and improvement services. The contract covers the service provision to the north, east and central areas of the city and included the TUPE transfer of over 1200 employees. Within the partnership, we are responsible for delivering a number of services including relet repairs.

Morrison undertakes a very large voids maintenance programme in Birmingham delivering close to 5,000 relet repairs per annum.

The repairs and maintenance service is provided by four District based teams. Each area team has its own voids team which is made up of an average number of 37 multi-skilled operatives.

The voids teams are split into smaller units with 2-3 voids maintenance operatives working together on each property. These voids maintenance units comprise all the skills required to undertake most activities associated with a voids maintenance project. This has enabled reduction in voids turnaround times because less co-ordination of specialist trades are required. Each District voids team is managed by one voids manager who is supported by two voids controllers.

The Morrison Voids team work in a close relationship with the client team. The client’s Housing Service is managed through Local Services Offices which dedicates service teams to each Housing District. This arrangement has brought many benefits. Local neighbourhood issues are well understood and the client side and Morrison team are aligned in structure, working in partnership at the level of the neighbourhood. This has helped reduce void turnaround times, reduced vacancy rates which in turn contributes to the objectives of neighbourhood renewal.

Differing turnaround times have been agreed for differing property types and Morrison’s performance is measured against a suit of KPI’s. KPI performance is reported against service level agreements with financial incentives attached. In the Hodge Hill Consitutuency 15 day turnarounds are eing achieved in 10 days.

Morrison has now started providing additional services including energy management services, included within this aspect of service is meter reading, which enables all utilities billing to be transferred to the new resident in advance of occupation. This offers a more convenient housing service all round, to the benefit of resident satisfaction.