Northern experience shows the way

Willmott Dixon Partnerships (WDP) is applying everything it has learned from its contract in the north of Birmingham to its new deployment in the south. The result is expected to be a quicker, smoother – and more cost-effective – service for the city council and its tenants

Practice makes perfect, as the adage goes, and when Willmott Dixon Partnerships (WDP) goes live next month with its new responsive repairs and voids contract in the south of Birmingham, it will have had plenty of experience to call upon – so it is expecting to hit the ground running.

The company already has a strong relationship with Birmingham City Council (BCC). For the last two years, in its former guise as Inspace Partnerships, WDP has been working hard to deliver the repairs service in the north of the city. What is has learned from its delivery of the contract in the north, not just in terms of managing the operations, but in rolling out the delivery structure, the company intends to transfer to the new south contract to enact a faster, smoother deployment.

Birmingham is the largest stock-retained council landlord in the country, with some 65,000 properties –of all types – and when WDP ’s contract for the south goes live next month, the company will become responsible for delivering the repairs and voids to 70 per cent of the council’s homes. So, it’s a massive, not to mention challenging job, but both partners are enthusiastic about working together as one to deliver a good service, but also to realise the benefits of the potential economies of scale inherent in such a large-scale venture.

“The bigger the contract the more flexibility you have to respond to changes in the political or the commercial environment,” said John Broughton, WDP ’s associate director for Birmingham. “There are two contracts here, bid for separately, but now we have them we’ll be looking to see what opportunities there are to realise the benefits of economies of scale, the synergies between the two, so we will be looking to take advantage of the size.”

Given the current economic climate, and the General Election looming, the prospects for a seismic shift in both the political and commercial environment are not inconsiderable, so making every pound count has become even more important to ensure the delivery of a quality service. That’s already an important consideration in any partnership, of course, but the era of belt-tightening will inevitably raise the bar on such cost efficiency measures – and further emphasise the strength of partnership working. “We can say with a degree of certainty that any incoming government will have to arrest its borrowing, and one of the target areas for a new central government will be savings through the local authorities – and that is going to give us pressure. This is going to mean that our respective organisations must absolutely maximise every pound that we spend on behalf of our tenants,” said Bob Brown, the council’s assistant director of asset management and maintenance.

The city’s budget for repairs and maintenance is currently around £66 million, but looking ahead the council knows it needs to up its game, which is why the right partner is essential. With WDP , it feels it has gained exactly that. The company not only proved itself during the tender process for the south contract, but in its ongoing successful delivery of the north contract. And the two are now looking to see how this ‘doubling up’ of contracts can be used to forge the cost-savings and efficiencies required to deliver a quality service in the leaner years ahead.

The north has shown the way, not just in terms of the day-to-day operational improvements that WDP can bring to bear, but also in the logistical process of preparing for and rolling out a new contract. Indeed, with what it has learned, it is fully expecting the roll-out of the south contract to be a faster and more streamlined process.

Key to its successful delivery was the implementation of a strong IT backbone and mobile working infrastructure, connecting the council’s systems with WDP ’s so that they had consistency in the data and an ability to communicate effectively. This interfacing also included the council’s outsourced contact centre partner Service Birmingham – a technical challenge that was well worth the effort for the resulting efficiencies.

Issuing PDA s to the 373 operatives in the field, and linking up with Optitime dynamic scheduling software meant they could receive jobs and report back ‘on the move’. This improved response times, reduced vehicle drive time, and made better use of stock control so that operatives no longer needed to make a daily trek to the depot. Productivity shot up as a result from an average 1.5 jobs a day per operative to over five. Multi-skilling of the operatives also helped to drive up performance, with more and more jobs completed right first time, which also meant less hassle for the tenants.

The north contract has notched up some impressive statistics: with 98 per cent of right to repairs jobs completed on time; customer satisfaction for repairs and maintenance standing at 95 per cent; and 92 per cent of all jobs undertaken completed on the first visit. Naturally, the partners are looking to do more than replicate this performance in the south contract but take performance to higher levels across both operational territories.

Rolling out the structure for the delivery of the south contract is now in its final stages, establishing the IT infrastructure ready to be ‘plugged in and fired up’ on the start date, assembling the van fleet, and TUPE ing over around 450 operatives from the previous contractor, Mitie. The smooth transition is being assisted by the amicable nature of the handover; in itself a testament to the benefits of partnering.

“The bigger the contract, the bigger the logistics, but logistics is a relatively straightforward process once you know what you have to do – we have done all that in the north and from that we’ll transfer the benefits to the south,” Broughton said. Even so, he adds, for those last final stages of switchover: “There’ll be some 24-hour working over the Easter weekend.” So spare the partners a thought next month over the Bank Holidays, but they both regard the sacrifice as worth it for the rewards of a quicker and smoother service delivery.

Going forward, both Brown and Broughton are keen for their respective teams to co-locate in the same building – and ideally share desks – which will generate greater efficiencies and benefits to the relationship. This leads on to another idea that the two partners are considering, and that is to establish one overall managing system for the north and south contracts. By combining the two operational hubs under one structure, it is expected that greater efficiencies and cost-savings can be forged to help take the delivery of a quality service to new levels.

There’s more to a successful partnership than getting the structures right, however, as Brown explained: “Structures come into it, but it’s actually about having a culture. And that’s one of the things that stands out with Willmott Dixon. They have that culture whereby they want to work and partner with us. We have a very strong relationship and a commonality of purpose. There are lots of synergies and our relationship with WDP is a really good example of where local authorities can work closely with a commercial partner.”

Broughton shares the passion for working together as one: “My personal objective in all of this is the ‘virtual company’ that delivers a top rate service to the tenant. We both have a passion for service excellence and to give the tenants the best we possibly can.”