100% satisfaction with Council Housing Repairs Service (York Liberal Democrats)

York Liberal Democrats <info@yorklibdems.org.uk>

100% satisfaction with Council Housing Repairs Service

September 30, 2008 12:00 AM

100% of council house tenants are satisfied with the overall service of repair works, as well as punctuality, speed, the attitude of staff, and the way the repair work was carried out.

These excellent results are the findings of the latest survey on the Council's Housing Repairs service, and relate to repair works carried out by appointment. The survey, carried out in June, asked tenants their views on emergency/urgent repairs, appointed repairs, and non-appointed repairs.

Appointed repairs are usually repairs internal to the home, and therefore an appointment is set so the repair worker has access to the house. Non-appointed repairs are generally repair works for external things, such as a roof or garden gate, which do not require access and therefore can be carried out at any time within the 25 days timescale.

Summary of the survey results…

For appointed repairs:

§ Satisfaction with overall service - 100%

§ Satisfaction with staff's attitude towards the tenant and their home - 100%

§ Satisfaction with speed of repair work -100%

§ Satisfaction with quality of repair - 95%

§ Overall satisfaction with repair works (keeping dirt/mess to a minimum) - 100%

§ Satisfaction with friendliness of staff - 98%

§ Satisfaction with initial person of contact (for all three aspects: friendliness, competence and the overall service provided) - 98%

§ Satisfaction with the time taken for a repair worker to visit - 94%

§ Satisfaction with punctuality of staff - 100%

For all repairs:

§ Satisfaction with overall service - 90%

§ Satisfaction with staff's attitude towards the tenant and their home - 97%

§ Satisfaction with speed of repair work - 97%

§ Satisfaction with quality of repair - 93%

§ Overall satisfaction with repair works (keeping dirt/mess to a minimum) - 95%

§ Satisfaction with friendliness of staff - 97%

§ Satisfaction with initial person of contact (for all three aspects: friendliness, competence and the overall service provided) - 94%

§ Satisfaction with the time taken for a repair worker to visit - 85%

Satisfaction with overall service by repair type

§ Appointed repairs - 100%

§ Emergency - 88%

§ Non-appointed - 85%

§ All repairs - 90%

Cllr Ann Reid, Liberal Democrat Executive Member for Neighbourhood Services, welcomed the latest results of the Housing Repairs Survey. She said: "It is excellent news that council staff, from customer services staff who are tenants' initial point of contact, through to repair workers who go into tenants' homes, are providing such a good service. I would like to thank them for all their hard work in carrying out such a high standard of service, working quickly and efficiently, whilst being friendly and helpful to council tenants."

Cllr Sue Galloway, Liberal Democrat Executive Member for Housing, said: "I am delighted that we have such satisfied customers with an almost unprecedented 100% satisfaction level. The closer partnership working between Housing and Neighbourhood Services is paying off and we now have Housing Repairs staff working at the EcoDepot, which should enable us to deliver better services to our customers."

City of York Council's Housing Repairs team decided to conduct a three month pilot to survey opinion on the Housing Repairs service in October 2007, when a sample was selected at random which totalled 500 tenant customers in each of the three months. The research was continued from January 2008, and each month 500 tenants who requested a repair to their homes were asked for their views. For the June 2008 survey the response rate was 213 responses (43%), of these responses 51 (24%) were from the appointed survey, 59 (28%) were from the non-appointed, and 103 (48%) were from the emergency / urgent survey.