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‘It needed to be a military operation,’ says Sue Cooper, managing director at the newly formed Affinity Sutton Repairs.
It certainly was. The 57,000-home landlord last month activated its plan to take the repairs and maintenance services for 16,900 homes in London and Kent in-house.
On ‘mobilisation day’ the landlord descended on Kent County Show Ground to arm 150 new staff with 106 fully branded vans, new tool kits, tablets and uniforms.
The mobilisation cost £250,000 and has gone smoothly. The service is up, running and responding to calls.
But why has Affinity Sutton decided to take this step?
The model is not new to Affinity Sutton. Since 2000, repairs to its 24,000 homes outside of London and Kent have been carried out by its other wholly-owned repairs company, CBS.
The recent history of the London homes is more potted. In 2012, Wilmott Dixon came on board to with a plan to manage the repairs services for 20 years. But that contract was axed after just 12 months, with Osborne stepping up to manage the contract on an interim basis for two years after that. During this period, the Affinity Sutton board took the decision to take control of repairs itself.
‘For us, there weren’t any stand out contractors out there. We were starting to feel that our in-house provider was providing a better service,’ says Neil McCall, group operations director.
CBS has good numbers. It has 86% customer satisfaction, six percentage points above the Housemark benchmark figure for the sector, and well ahead of many other large national providers.
It also has 92% at first time fixes, and 100% success at responding to emergency repairs within its target. ASR, the new contractor will be benchmarked against CBS’ performance.
To achieve this, Affinity Sutton is prepared to invest.
‘We are accepting that it might cost a little bit more, but we will be getting a better service and more control,’ says Mr McCall. He says the exact increased cost cannot be calculated until the service is running.
This thinking marks a shift in the way housing associations are approaching repairs and maintenance.
After some high profile failures, most notably the collapse of Circle’s contract with Kier, associations are starting to accept that cheapest is not always best.
‘Other housing associations have thought… the market rate was the lowest tender rate. It turns out that’s not sustainable, and I think you’ve seen a shift in outlook now,’ says Mr McCall.
Affinity Sutton are not alone in taking the in-house approach. Steve Douglas, a partner at consultancy Altair, says he is working directly with several looking to go down the same route. ‘Associations are increasingly taking responsibility for managing their own affairs,’ he says.
Nick Sterling, managing director at Osborne, agrees: ‘I believe there is a bit of a trend at the moment within the G15 [group of large London landlords] to look at doing things in house.
However he does have a word of caution for landlords looking at this approach: ‘This is cyclical. One of the big problems with an in house approach is what do you do in the summer months when there is less demand?
‘A big contractor can move staff around to other projects, but if you don’t have that you need to create work or just accept that your staff will be unproductive – both of which drive up your costs.’
ASR’s model involves investing in fully training the contractors and supplying their tools and vans. They then direct them to jobs using tablet computers – keeping management costs down. CBS manages a service stretching from Plymouth to Newcastle out of just one office.
It is also looking outside of the sector to develop its approach. Senior managers have sat down with Autoglass – the windscreen repair company – to learn how it co-ordinates the complex logistics of getting staff up and down the country in short timescales.
Affinity Sutton is not revealing the price per property the new company will offer, citing commerical confidentiality. The sector will be watching closely to see how well it performs in the coming months.
CBS Performance – The targets for ASR
• 86% appointments at first contact
• 86% Customer Satisfaction with repair
• 100% emergencies completed in target
• 95% routine repairs completed within 28 days
• 10 day average to complete repair
• 11 day average void turnaround
Source: Affinity Sutton