London Borough of Havering

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Facts and figures

  • Duration: Five-year contract
  • £2m p.a.
  • 35 employees
  • 50,000 helpdesk calls p.a.
  • 10,992 repairs per year
  • London’s third largest borough with a population of over 220,000, covering an area of 11,227 hectares and managing over 11,000 homes for rent

Homes for Havering

London Borough of Havering’s housing portfolio is worth around £500m with approximately £7m spent each year on maintenance and home improvements to ensure good quality, affordable housing is available for local people.

Homes for Havering is a not-for-profit organisation, entirely owned by the London Borough of Havering, looking after more than 11,000 properties. In July 2006, Homes for Havering officially became the Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) that manages, maintains and improves local housing stock.

Interserve first teamed up with Homes for Havering in 1999 when it secured the contract for gas servicing and maintenance for around a third of the council’s housing properties.

Impressed by our approach, we were invited to tender for the entire borough and then awarded the extensive contract in 2004. The wider service offering to Homes for Havering has been a consequence of collaborative working and improved communication with both the ALMO and local residents.

Services

  • Annual domestic gas servicing
  • Annual Gas Landlord Safety Certificates (CP12)         
  • Reactive maintenance to gas appliances
  • Planned maintenance to communal areas
  • Replacement of internal and external lighting
  • Maintenance of emergency lighting systems
  • Maintenance and testing to dry risers
  • Planned maintenance to lightning protection systems
  • Water hygiene maintenance to L8 for all communal properties        
  • Statutory lift maintenance
  • Electrical services

Achievements

  • Homes for Havering staff seconded to Interserve throughout the implementation phase to ease communication and to build trust between both parties
  • Collaborative working is achieved through the sharing of joint office space
  • A rigorous quality control system is in place and a random 10 per cent of all works are checked on site
  • Customer satisfaction: A follow-up letter is sent to all residents once works are complete to invite feedback on our service, allowing us to review our approach and implement continuous improvements to the partnership
  • Recruiting from within the Borough: Interserve has formalised a scheme with these two local education establishments for the provision of vocational experience with a focus to return the long-term unemployed to work
  • CORGI and NICEIC registered and accredited for Quality, Health and Safety
  • Continuous improvement year-on-year