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Cruden Property Services Shortlisted at National Housing Maintenance Forum

Cruden Property Services Shortlisted at National Housing Maintenance Forum Picture
Monday 4th April 2011

The teams from the Harvest Housing Group partnership were delighted to attend the 2011 Best Practice in Maintenance Awards for the National Housing Maintenance Forum in March 2011.


The partnership came runner up in two of the five competitive catagories; Best Client for the client organisation that was best at meeting residents' needs in the provision of a maintenance service and Best Contract for the best managed external contract for maintenance.
Harvest set up the partnering repairs and gas maintenance contract with Cruden Property Services and PH Jones in 2007, covering 10,000 homes. Their customer repairs panel advised on how it should work. They were involved in selecting the contractors, and take part in an annual review of how well the service operates.


Appointments are made at first contact, with out of hours provision and 24 hour cover available. Customers can choose to get reminders or appointments via text, email, or phone. Customer enquiries can be transferred directly to the contractor via the Harvest call centre. There is an emphasis on completing jobs in one visit. Leaseholders are also involved.
One of our customers said "I believe involving customers in each stage of the process significantly enhanced the project and gave customers a real say in both the design of the repairs and gas service and selection of the new partners".


Harvest jointly employs 100 staff with Cruden and PH Jones. A clear framework sets out the objectives for the partnership, how the services are to be delivered to customers and to what standard. An annual best and final offer sets the target price for the work to be delivered. Contractors' actual costs and core profit each month are compared against this target. Harvest then shares any savings or overspends with the partners.


In 2009-10 the partnership delivered £6.8m worth of target price work for an actual cost of £6.6m delivering £200,000 extra value for our customers. In 2010-11 £3.4m of target price work has been for an actual cost of £3.2m, delivering another £200,000 extra value in the first six months to September 2010.

Lee Woods, Director Harvest Housing commented "Nothing gives me more pleasure than to achieve what many see as the holy grail in a responsive maintenance environment, and that is, high levels of customer satisfaction, service excellence, and perhaps the most difficult challenge – that of achieving Value for Money and cost certainty – and we are doing all three"

Chris Pugh, Operations Director at Cruden Property Services attended the event and commented "People and relationships are central to our success; customers, client and contractors working collaboratively to deliver excellent services, and taking a pro-active approach to resolving problems that are inevitable in a reactive service provision. After 3 years the partnership is delivering national top quartile performance, a focus on the customer and service improvement is key to our success"






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