Housing repairs joy (York Liberal Democrats)

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

Housing repairs joy

December 10, 2008 12:00 AM

New ways of dealing with housing repair have proved a hit with tenants in York, recent figures have shown.

The partnership arrangement between Housing Services and Neighbourhood Services has led to an improvement in the time taken to carry out both emergency and non emergency repairs with tenants satisfaction levels rising.

ü The percentage of emergency repairs completed within 24hours has risen from 89.83% in 2006/07 to 94.59% in the first 7 months of 08/09.

ü The percentage of urgent repairs completed within Government timescales has risen from 83.4% in 06/07 to 90% last year and stands at 95.7% so far this year.

ü And the number of days taken to complete urgent repairs has dropped from 1.94 days to 1.26 days over 2 years and non-urgent from 9.68 days in 06/07 to 7.97 last year. Tenants now wait an average of 7.33 days for repairs to be completed.

Cllr Ann Reid, Executive Member for Neighbourhood Services today welcomed the improvements. "The Liberal Democrat council has always felt that a closer working relationship between the Housing Services, who commission the work, and Neighbourhood Services, who carry it out, would be beneficial for our tenants and this has proved to be the case. Housing repairs staff are now based at the Eco depot and this has led to close working relationship between staff with the same goal - to carry out repairs as quickly and efficiently as possible."

The new arrangements have also led to increased tenant satisfaction. In the July 2008 Customer satisfaction survey 87% of respondents were satisfied with the repairs service, rising to 90% for urgent repairs and 94% where tenants made an appointment for non urgent repairs to be made. 92% of all tenants rated the quality of work as "good" and this leapt to 98% when an appointment had been made.

Cllr Sue Galloway, Executive Member for Housing and Adult Service is delighted with the improved service. "Tenants are now telling me how happy they are with the improvements to the service and in particular appreciate that workmen arrive when they say they are going too. The customer survey backed this up with 94% of respondents saying that where an appointment had been made for an emergency the repair worker had met the appointment. 98% of respondents who made an appointment for a non urgent repair said the worker was punctual. People often have to make arrangements to be at home and it is important that our staff are punctual and efficient. Our improved service seems to be meeting those requirements."