Industry news
HA chooses multiple contractors for £90m of repairs work
S
ocial landlord A2 Dominion, has bucked the trend by splitting its repair and maintenance work for the next four years
across 16 contractors. The contracts are for both planned and
cyclical works including kitchen and bathroom replacements, external and communal redecoration and external repairs. While across the sector most landlords have
sought long-term partnership deals with one or two major contractors or have set up in-house repairs businesses, the move by A2 Dominion stands out for being different. But Gary Bellenger, assistant director of property services at the association, believes their model will deliver many advantages to the business and their tenants.
Value for money
“Using 16 contractors gives us a mixed economy,” he explained. “This allows us to match the best-placed contractors to deliver the repair works for the best price. Being limited to a small number of large national contractors can lead to work being delivered outside of the contractors’
core areas of business, resulting in inferior delivery or value for money.”
Risk spreading
“Procurement is time-consuming and an expensive business for everyone involved. While we don’t expect poor performance or failure from the contractors, should either occur, our frameworks allow us to respond quickly and efficiently, minimising the impact to our customers and to our repairs programmes.”
Better relationships
“We are excited about building new and highly collaborative relationships with the framework contractors. An example of this is where all contractors on our frameworks have signed up to using a new joint project management tool. The list of contractors being used includes some of the big names, familiar to many across the sector (such as Kier, Mitie, Morgan Sindall, Mulalley and Ian Williams) and it will be interesting to see the progress made and whether the planned benefits are delivered.”
UK 'must insulate
25 million homes' As many as 25 million homes need
insulating by 2050 to meet carbon emission targets – equivalent to more than one home every minute. Britain has some of the least energy
efficient homes in Europe and has agreed to cut carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. A third of current emissions come from heating poorly insulated and draughty buildings. In a report to Parliament, the Green Building Council says that four out of five homes that will be occupied in 2050 have already been built. It also points out that too much focus has been on energy prices and switching suppliers, which deliver negligible savings of about £25 a year. Construction experts say the current
situation offers an unmissable opportunity under the Government's new infrastructure agenda. A drive to insulate roofs, walls and floors could create thousands more jobs, as well as lower energy bills and improve people’s health, comfort and happiness.
Hassle
The Green Deal scheme for owner-occupiers collapsed amid criticism that interest rates for insulation were too high and the work was too much hassle. Pay back periods for improvement works were considered to be too long, despite their positive impact on property values. The report recommends:
• Setting staged targets for refurbishing buildings;
• Reintroducing the "zero-carbon" standard for buildings from 2020;
• Recognising energy efficiency as a national infrastructure priority;
• Setting long-term trajectories for ratcheting up home energy standards;
• Obliging commercial buildings to display the amount of energy they use.
Midlands HA to pilot a DIY
repairs scheme Bromford has launched a six-month pilot scheme requiring new tenants to carry out their own simple home repairs, in about one third of their stock. Technical staff will provide tenants with
toolkits and teach them how to carry out basic repairs as the social landlord attempts to cut down on the number of maintenance call-outs. “As Bromford increasingly focuses on offering
customers a far more coaching-led approach, we are keen to explore whether this evolving relationship between customers and our repairs team will lead to improved resilience in our communities as well as a reduction in these
types of call-outs which we believe customers could be able to do for themselves,” said Jason Holder, head of home maintenance at Bromford. Under Bromford’s scheme, engineers will visit
new tenants around two weeks after they move in and coach them on small DIY jobs including stopping leaking taps and toilets, bleeding radiators, replacing fuses and identifying minor heating and electrical faults. The pilot will be run in Bromford’s 10,429
homes in Staffordshire and Shropshire. It follows a small test last year that found
tenants were keen to do simple repairs with training and support.
Julie Hirigoyen, head of the GBC, said: "People will have warmer homes and lower bills; they will live longer, happier lives; we will be able to address climate change and carbon emissions. "Driving up demand for retro-fitting
homes is essential for any policy to be a success - the Green Deal told us just offering financial incentives isn't necessarily the only solution. We need to make it all easy, attractive and affordable.” Ms Hirigoyen called for support for
innovation among builders. This includes finding new ways of insulating homes so residents do not have to be re-housed, while works are underway. This could include the use of robots.
“A drive to insulate roofs, walls and floors could create thousands more jobs”
www.housingmmonline.co.uk | HMM May 2017 | 13
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