Remodeling and reprocuring essential services

PROJECT BRIEF

The Challenge

Hammersmith and Fulham required their housing repairs and maintenance services to be remodelled and re-procured, as their old contracts were coming to an end. The borough also wanted to reconsider their model of delivery to improve their service delivery to local residents.

The key focus of the brief had both a short and long term component:
- The Council needed a short term procurement of key services to keep the key functions of the housing and maintenance service running for a 15 month timeline.
- And following this, a procurement for a new, remodeled, improved service set up over a decade long period.

Key Service Provisions

Procurement
Asset Management
Direct Labour and Repairs Contract Management
Strategy
Commercial insight
Leadership and people

Key Facts

17,000 properties across the borough, including 12,000 council homes and 5,000 leaseholder properties.
The total value of the housing maintenance service contracts was £200 million.

OUR METHODS AND OUTCOMES

Strategic planning — short and long term

Just Housing Group worked with the Council to develop a future model, procure the interim solution and help procure the long term contractors most likely to deliver Hammersmith and Fulham’s vision for its future service.

Key to success — improved contract management

A priority outcome throughout this project was to build a sustainable client management function. So often, contractor delivery is undermined by ineffective and inconsistent client management. This needed to be addressed centrally as part of the overall service design.

Working across all relevant stakeholders a key challenge was to create a commercial model for pricing and performance that increased transparency of operations, encouraged ongoing cost efficiencies and prompted more effective service delivery.
All these outputs would deliver practical, tangible benefits for residents: providing better repairs, estate maintenance and other services.

Hammersmith and Fulham put considerable resource into improving this key function, with Just Housing Group providing
- Clear and straight forward contract documentation;
- New performance monitoring systems.
The client team was able to build upon this information to manage their contractors in a fair, transparent and effective manner.

PROJECT SUCCESSES

Through the use of both interim and long term models, Hammersmith and Fulham has been able to establish the foundations for an improved repairs and maintenance service
Hammersmith and Fulham has regained control of critical operational elements that had previously been outsourced as part of the previous delivery model
The development of clear outcomes as part of the procurement process has enabled more effective monitoring of operations
The introduction of ongoing client management support has established greater consistency and ensured that lessons learnt through the process have been built into the future model.