Sample project: Whitefriars
Making Cultural Change –A case study
Whitefriars Housing Group were formed by an LSVT in September 2000, taking ownership of Coventry City Council’s 20,500 homes. Whitefriars’ investment is to be paid back over their 30 year business plan. They have a £240m improvement programme and carry out 70,000 responsive repairs, 16,000 gas repairs and manage 2,000 changes of tenancy per year.
Whitefriars originally retained Coventry City Council’s DLO as their contractor, eventually transferring them into the Whitefriars Housing Group in 2004 as Whitefriars HomeWorks. The workforce currently has 130 craftworkers engaged on responsive, voids and planned works. Gas servicing and repairs are carried out by external contractors.
In February 2005 a review identified the need for complete modernisation of the Repairs and Maintenance Service. This was followed in June 2005 by the commission of a re-engineering consultancy who carried out a 3 month in-depth analysis on site.
This included interviews and surveys with employees and produced a report with recommendations. Whitefriars engaged M3 Consultancy to work with them in November 2005 and the Repair and Maintenance Project Team was commissioned a month later.
The Project goals were to:
- Significantly improve productivity
- Achieve a fully effective Whitefriars Home Works able to compete in the national market
- Whitefriars Home Works to change their culture and achieve I.I.P
- Achieve better management competences
- Contribute to joined up services
- Complete Home Works integration into Whitefriars family
The Project Team agreed the approach to meeting these goals by managing the process through a series of sub groups. They also determined the Project outline which was to;
- Understand the re-engineering report
- Obtain buy-in and ownership from stakeholders
- Determine the initial plan and priorities
- Identify what outcomes were required
- Implement
- Review and measure progress
- Promote a culture change by demonstrating and reinforcing the Values set by Whitefriars Housing Group
- Determine an identity for the project…………
| The Vision | The Core Aims – A service that Is FAB |
|---|---|
 |  |
The initial plan outlined the areas that had been identified for improvement in the HomeWorks business
- The implementation of a Scheduling and appointment tool for managing responsive repairs – Xmbrace Opti-time
- A tool for accurately diagnosing repairs
- The implementation of a new works management system for void repairs
- The setting up of a dedicated planned maintenance team
- The setting up of a Craft-worker/Manager project forum
- Develop a communication strategy for the business
- Develop and implement a model to measure the success of new methods of working.
A wide range issues therefore needed to be tackled and the Project Team established groups of managers, staff and craftworkers to ensure that all views were captured and issues were thoroughly examined. Involvement and communication was key to ensuring that all areas of the business affected by change were comfortable with any proposals suggested.
Priority was given to verbal communication using forums and team briefings supported by written confirmation throughout the process.
Responsive Repairs
The aim was to ensure that a better service was provided to customers and cost benefits were achieved for the business. The advantages gained by making changes were that the correct job would be raised, managers would have better information on the deployment of their workforce, overheads would be reduced, there would be less travel time and overall a better and more reliable service to customers.
Service targets were set for response repairs as;
- All jobs scheduled at point of order
- All jobs for internals or externals works requiring tenant access appointed at point of order
- 70% of all work completed within single visit
- All appointed jobs visited within max of 7 working days of order
- 97% of all jobs completed within target
- 95% of all appointments kept
- 50% reduction in ‘No access’
Void Repairs
The aim was to reduce void turnaround times to increase rental stream, reliably meet target completion dates and also to deliver the void programme within the desired quality and cost.
Service targets were set for void repairs as;
- 95% post inspection pass rate
- Reduce void work period by an average of 10 working days
- 95% compliance with completion date targets
- 5% Voids – golden good-bye
- 5% Voids – fast tracked
To deliver these requirements a new management and staffing structure was put into place combining the HomeWorks and Technical Services functions. The structure was designed to give clear line-management responsibilities. Each team member has a clearly defined role which gives them the ability to focus on core areas of the business and service requirements and targets. There are clear lines of communication in place and duplication of effort has been removed.
Administration and performance reporting responsibilities were removed from the operational teams and a new Business Support Unit was introduced into the structure to give improved administration services, provide exception reporting and give a recognised lead on future business developments, This enables the operational service teams to concentrate on delivery of core service targets .
Craftworkers have been involved in the project throughout and empowered on site to determine job requirement on responsive repairs. There has been significant improvement in management of the craftworker teams with pro-active two way communication, increased quality control and better customer liaison taking place.
Success measures so far have indicated:
- a reduction in void repairs times by 75%,
- the numbers of voids ‘in repair’ down by 75%
- void costs down by 5%
- planned maintenance turnover up by 100%
- significant productivity savings projected for responsive repairs
- improved customer services
Whitefriars HomeWorks have also achieved IIP status during this period of change.
The change of culture within HomeWorks has been significant. They have moved from being part of the City Council where their focus was to make the best return they could on the work they carried out for Whitefriars; to being fully integrated into the Whitefriars Housing Group.
Whitefriars HomeWorks now makes a substantial contribution to the success of Whitefriars Housing Group.
