Social housing tenants have seen waiting times for repairs cut by 75 per cent thanks to a brand new way of working introduced by MITIE for social housing provider Sovereign Kingfisher. 

In October 2010, Sovereign Kingfisher and the FTSE 250 strategic outsourcer redesigned the repairs work flow and developed a bespoke appointment system and approach to repairs that addresses the needs of tenants. 

The new appointment system, developed for Sovereign Kingfisher’s network of 8,000 properties in Basingstoke Hampshire, works on a step by step basis and data is logged on the system by planners as and when decisions are made. This resulted in a 64 per cent reduction in live job orders. 

Four plasma screens in the office display up to the minute monitoring of all repair jobs – live, allocated and completed, as well as a GPS vehicle tracking system. The system gives planners a holistic view of the services which allows them to make informed decisions based on the data available. 

With a mission to improve repair service, Sovereign and MITIE brought together tenants, operatives, customer service advisors, maintenance surveyors and supervisors to assess the repairs workflow and identify weaknesses within the process. 

The key to designing this work flow was to assess what decisions need to be made, by whom and in what timeframe, and to then create an IT system to support this flow. And by empowering the right people to make decisions at the right stage of the process, MITIE minimised the time and money wasted in down time as a result of unnecessary and inefficient processes. 

Paul Concannon, Regional manager for MITIE said, “We understood that tenants require a service which was right the first time and delivered in line with their schedules. When a resident calls in for a service, they tell us the best time to visit, and our call centre planners then resource the most suitable operative, by skill and location, to complete this job.” 

Peter Vincent, Building Surveying Manager Sovereign Kingfisher praised the new approach which has already seen impressive results. 

“We reduced repair end to end times from 18 days to 4 days and reduced live job orders from 1,600 to 575 in just 5 months. We have also experienced a substantial reduction in call volume, a sign of happier residents. ” he said. 

-ENDS-

Notes for editors

What is MITIE?
We’re the strategic outsourcing company. What does that mean in practice? We manage facilities, properties and assets for our clients across the UK and beyond.

We work with our clients in three ways; some take full advantage of our whole range of expertise, others may only need one aspect of what we do:

Strategy and consultancy
+ Facilities and project management
+ Service delivery

Our strategic input can add value at the highest level by helping clients to manage their assets, while our practical management expertise can save customers money and reduce their carbon emissions. We work with a vast number of clients in every industry across both the public and private sectors and deliver the broadest range of services that can be found in one place: from integrated facilities management to engineering maintenance to lifecycle energy management and much more.

There’s a lot more to MITIE than you probably think. We’re a big company with big ambitions – a leading FTSE 250 support services business, with more than 56,000 people, revenues in excess of £1.7bn, and a reputation for being the best.

Visit us at www.mitie.com