2012 - Festival Housing

HAPPY WITHGROUNDSMAINTENANCEWe are pleased to report thatfor a further year there has beenan increase in tenants’satisfaction with our groundsmaintenance service. BeckySmith, Festival’s maintenanceofficer, said “Satisfaction withthe service has risen a further10.4% last year which is on topof the 3.8% achieved in theprevious year. It was alsopleasing to see that a detailedanalysis of the 300 surveysreceived showed that there hasbeen a general increase insatisfaction in all areas of theservice - grass cutting, shrub bedmaintenance, cleanliness andlevel of information provided.”During last year our maincontractor made around 6,500individual site visits of whichonly eight were undertakenoutside the 8-12 working daytarget which was as a result ofmachinery breakdown.LEARNING FROM COMPLAINTSWe logged 56 formal complaints during 2011/12.40 complaints were from Elgar and 14 from Spatenants. Two complaints were from applicants.This was a decrease of 11 from the previous year.We had fewer complaints aboutrepairs and maintenance butmore about rent and particularlyallocations and lettings thanprevious years. Although themajority of complaints areeither partially or wholly upheldthis tends not to be so forcomplaints from applicants. Thisis because staff generally followthe correct policies andprocedures in allocatingproperties. However, peopleoften complain when they areunable to move to what theyregard as a more suitable home.There has been an increasingtrend in complaints beingescalated through the stagesand nine were reviewed by apanel of board members. Thishas led to some minorrecommendations.It is true that the number offormal complaints would reduceif we could stop all those thatstem from a lack ofcommunication betweenindividuals and/or departments.But staff are human andoccasionally will forget to dosomething or a repair will beoverlooked. Hopefully changingthe way we work will improvethings in this area.Complaints need to be kept inperspective and set against thenumber of properties,approaching 10,000, and thenumber of customers we dealwith.We always take complaintsseriously and carry out thoroughinvestigations. We seecomplaints as a great way oflearning about ourselves and asgood resident involvement.Festival Flyer Summer 2012 29