Meet the Innovators

Xmbrace: Nick Jeffreys

Presentation: Beyond Housing Repairs – scheduling for the whole organisation

The need has never been greater to leverage technology to support more efficient and effective service delivery. Councils are looking to bring more and more services into Corporate Contact Centres, many requiring real-time bookings and each having complex rules governing availability. At the same time there are real opportunities to make savings and improve service by offering self-service. Add to this the efficiencies available within each service from scheduling and real-time working and the IT savings from system consolidation and the case for deploying scheduling organisation wide is compelling.

Nick Jeffreys, Sales & Marketing Director
Nick Jeffreys has been responsible for Xmbrace’s market positioning and for its consistent growth over the last 9 years. Nick is a regular speaker on best practice within Housing Repairs and works closely with customers to drive improvement from their investment in scheduling. Prior to joining Xmbrace Nick spent 10 years implementing and selling ERP systems into the manufacturing sector.

Xmbrace: Richard Winch

Presentation: Driving efficiencies with scheduling – are KPIs useful?

Performance in housing repairs is always being measured and compared, with KPIs coming and going like the seasons. Anecdotally, most people within the industry are sceptical about the value of these measures for comparison purposes but are they useful for driving improvement within the organisation? In this presentation Richard will identify indicators and trends common to the most effective organisations and suggest which areas should be targeted to achieve the greatest results.

Richard Winch, Operations Director
Richard Winch is responsible for overseeing Xmbrace’s projects and services, product development and support. He has led the development of Xmbrace’s OPTI-TIME product, including the addition of new functionality for scheduling voids and planned maintenance, gas servicing and performance reporting. Winch’s background is in the implementation of ERP systems across a range of industry sectors and he previously ran a large practice in Atos Origin. Winch’s career began in the consumer goods and aerospace sectors.

Whitefriars Housing Group:

Presentation: Repairs For 2010 And Beyond – A Voyage Of Discovery

In 2006, Whitefriars set out to create a repairs service capable of being amongst the best in the country. Is it there yet? Whitefriars would say not yet, but they believe they are getting there. This session takes you on a journey through the last four years to give the highs and lows, describes what has and hasn’t been done, what has been achieved and what is still yet to be achieved. It’s a journey of innovation and partnership, involving internal and external contractors and customers that has introduced new technology and working practices and delivered real cultural change and performance improvement.

Richard Osborne, Director - Property Services
Richard is Director - Property Services for Whitefriars Housing Group. He describes himself as a seasoned professional having worked within social housing for more years than he dares to admit. Delivering change is his forte. Originally a housing management specialist, in 2006 he switched to asset management and began the process of modernising the repairs service and DSO, Whitefriars HomeWorks. This a process he describes as rewarding but never ending.

Poole Housing Partnership & Signpost Services

Presentation: 3 Star Partnering

Repairs and Maintenance is frequently seen from Status Reports as one of the most important services that are supplied by Registered Providers to their tenants. The basis of this presentation will be to highlight key fundamental areas that should be considered to assist organisations with the delivery of an Excellent Repairs and Maintenance Service. The presentation will be focused on service delivery and will include examples of best practice methodology that have been used in real life. This presentation is intended to give a view from both the contractor ‘Signpost Services’ and the client ‘Poole Housing Partnership’ (PHP), a 3 Star ‘Excellent’ organisation, and of how the contract delivery and relationship they have has assisted in improving the repairs service to the residents.

Mike Harrison, Head of Technical Services

Mike has over 20 years experience in facilities management. He joined PHP in 2005 to head 3 main areas of the business: Response Repairs, Capital programmes (including Decent Homes) and Asset Management. All these areas have had year-on-year improvements within PHP’s peer group, culminating in a 3star – excellent grading from the Audit Commission 2008.

Mike moved to PHP following 7 years in Lebanon where he was Director of Physical Plant at the American University of Beirut.

Following a military career in the Royal Engineers where he qualified as a Clerk of Works, Mike joined Serco and was the Works Service Manager for the Gosport area covering 6 bases.

Stuart Brookes, Divisional Director Operations

Stuart joined Signpost Services in 2003, to lead their building maintenance division. Signpost Services employ 220 operatives delivering over 100,000 Responsive, Planned and M&E maintenance orders to the Spectrum Housing Group along with other external Social Housing providers across the South West of England.

Since joining Signpost Services Stuart has assisted in securing external business valued at circa £50M and assisted in increasing Signpost’s annual turnover from £11MPA to projected 2010/2011 turnover of £23MPA

Within the last 12 months Signpost Services have been awarded Considerate Constructors Bronze Award for an Electrical Rewire Contract for Poole Housing Partnership, ROSPA Gold award and British Safety Council International Award. Signpost Services are also one of only a few building maintenance contractors throughout the UK who have achieved the OHSAS 18001/1999 (Health and Safety Management) system.

Prior to joining Signpost, Stuart worked for Dudley MBC’s Building Services Division for 13 years, where he managed Responsive Maintenance. This consisted in the delivery of a service for over 30,000 properties with 400 directly employed operatives.

Helena Partnerships:

Presentation: Business Transformation

Helena Partnerships is one of the most progressive housing associations in the North West with a 2 star rating to show for it. The organisation thrives on a culture of continuous improvement and is now looking to the future. The presentation will explore Helena’s vision for the future, looking at how this is being developed internally to provide a platform for change. It will also explain how a changing relationship with the local community and external environment are expected to be key factors that shape the organization over the coming 5 years.

Rob Young, Chief Executive
Rob is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing, having qualified in 1980. He has worked in housing for nearly 35 years, gaining wide experience at an operational and strategic management level. He has worked across Merseyside, Manchester and North Cheshire for local authorities, a new town and several housing associations.

As Chief Executive of Helena Partnerships since April 2002, Rob has overseen the development of an ambitious, vibrant and award winning new housing association that has quickly established itself as a partner, landlord and employer of choice, achieving an Audit Commission “2 star/promising prospects” assessment during 2006.

Rob has spent the last 25 years managing change at senior and corporate levels, working with Council and RSL Board Members on policy, strategy and organisational development, corporate governance, business planning, risk/performance management and option appraisals.

Specific experience has also been gained in continuous improvement, contract/agency services management, resident involvement, rent strategies, asset management, private sector housing renewal, community investment and regeneration.

Rob has served in a voluntary capacity on the board of a stock transfer RSL and the regional committee of a national RSL, as well as being a director of a charitable drug rehabilitation agency. He is a member of St Helens Together, the local strategic partnership for St Helens, and a Director of St Helens Chamber. He is vice chair of the North West Housing Forum in his representative capacity for the National Housing Federation.

About Helena Partnerships
Helena Partnerships launched in July 2008. It was formerly known as Helena Housing, a well respected social landlord with 13,000 homes in St Helens, Merseyside. Helena Housing, which formed in 2002, already had a great reputation for delivering its promises and making a real difference on our estates.

Nottingham City Homes:

Presentation: The Future of Housing Repairs: How Might Mobile Technology Need To Evolve To Deal With Future Pressures?

As we look to the future and evolving how we conduct housing repairs we are dependent on technology enabling us to meet the challenges ahead. Topics to be discussed include retrofit and the Great British refurb. What repairs will be necessary? What might the stock and demographics be like? Will there be less physical activity on site and more remote diagnostics and solutions? In this presentation we will pose some of the questions about the future and share our views with the audience. We will also take a look at such topics as future logistics, electric vehicles and planning and connectivity.

Mark Johnson, Director - Property Services
Mark Johnson is Director of Property Services for Nottingham City Homes (NCH) having joined the organisation in 2007 as Assistant Director. NCH manage and maintain over 29,000 houses on behalf of Nottingham City Council. Mark is passionate about getting the best for tenants and in helping Nottingham to achieve its full potential.

Mark says: “Being part of the improvement in Nottingham’s housing stock is one of the most challenging and inspiring parts of my role at NCH. It’s about more than bricks and mortar. We can help fight worklessness, fuel poverty and crime if we invest the right way”

The Property Services directorate for which Mark is responsible employs over 500 people including over 400 within the Direct Labour Organisation and the directorate has an annual turnover of over £60m.

Mark is currently studying for an EMBA at Sheffield University and his career in manufacturing and maintainence has meant time within both the public and private sectors around the North and Midlands. Before Nottingham City Homes, Mark worked for Rotherham 2010, like NCH an Arms Length Management Organisation.

Newcastle City Council:

Presentation: Upwardly Mobile: Exploiting IT To Innovate & Improve Services

Newcastle City Council has delivered a range of projects over the last 5+ years which have exploited technology. Neil will talk about Newcastle’s experience and how they have exploited opportunities to deliver change and real business benefits in a number of their front-line services through the deployment of flexible and mobile working.

Areas covered will include:

• Service re-engineering and innovation to deliver better citizen-focused services
• Workforce development and modernisation
• Delivering real business benefits – cashable and non-cashable
• Optimising assets, enhancing service flexibility
• Improving performance management
• Achieving green targets

Neil will also talk about Newcastle’s current plans and aspirations as they look to mobilise other services in the next 18 months.

Neil Golightly, Head of Performance - Planning & Programmes
Neil has over 20 years of public sector experience in a variety of roles. Having started out in planning and regeneration, he has worked in a number of different disciplines including IT, HR, Economic Development and Programme, Project and Business Management. In his current role he is leading the transformation of a number of services at Newcastle City Council, which includes exploiting the benefits of technology.

Birmingham City Council:

Presentation: Multi-Partnership Working

In this presentation, Birmingham City Council will share their experience of multi-partnership working in Birmingham. They will illustrate the complexities of such partnerships and the benefits of their approach in terms of created customer, financial and internal actions and outcomes. The presentation will step you through Birmingham City Council’s journey that started in 2002, what they are doing now and what plans they have for the future.

Bill Pearch, Senior Partnership Manager
Bill is responsible for the Repair and maintenance and gas services to about 21k properties in North of the City. He is also responsible for the Repair and Maintenance service ‘front end’ as part of a corporate Customer First initiative through which all repair requests are requested. Bill previously worked in Glasgow setting up and managing a shared service in the South West of the City.

Peter Cresswell, Senior Partnership Manager
Pete Cresswell is the Senior Partnership Manager responsible for the repair and maintenance and gas services to approximately 43,000 properties in South and Central areas of the City. Pete was senior lead officer responsible for the procurement of the North repairs contracts and the current South repairs and citywide gas contracts that has resulted in savings in excess of £66M to the housing department. As a qualified quantity surveyor he also leads on commercial issues.

Asha Patel, Interim Project Manager
Asha Patel has a background of 20 years senior management experience in Local Authority Housing Maintenance and IT projects. She has worked on many implementations covering a variety of business and technical roles including BA, design and Project Management. In the last 5 years she has supported Birmingham City Council and their repairs and gas partners Project Managing and Implementing the Integrated Repairs Solution which combines Northgate Housing, Keyfax and OPTI-TIME. She is now involved in the City's Business Transformation Project, Customer First which integrates SAP with the Repairs Solution, is developing SAP with Northgate separately for financial integration and has just completed a 15 month Project to Procure new partners for the City's South Repairs and Citywide Gas Servicing works.

Servite Houses & Teal Consulting:

Presentation: Re-thinking Voids, Re-lettings and Income Management to Create More Sustainable Tenancies and More Effective & Efficient Services

Craig Glasper, Director Of Social Housing at Servite Houses, supported by consultant Paul McCoy, TEAL Consulting will present the outcomes and learning from Servite’s recently completed end to end review of voids and re-lettings using systems thinking. A project which transformed service delivery, eliminating non value adding activities, reducing service delivery steps from 65 to 27, reducing average voids days from 37 days to 17 days and delivering a £162,000 reduction in voids loss during a London based pilot. The project also delivered improved customer satisfaction through the ability to tailor service delivery and timeframes to meet individual customer circumstances and using direct customer feedback throughout the service delivery chain to drive continuous improvement. Craig will also present the learning and results to date from the organisation’s current review of income management. In particular, the presentation will highlight the benefits of applying a systems thinking approach across multiple services, in this case to better understand customer lifecycles and improve service effectiveness from first contact with the association to becoming an established resident with a sustainable tenancy. The presentation will also cover the role of technology in capturing end to end service delivery information, co-ordinating effective and efficient service delivery and creating and maintaining customer profiles, including risk profiling based on payment trends which can trigger proactive support for residents who may need advice in budgeting and managing their finances.

Craig Glasper, Director Of Social Housing
Craig Glasper FCIH, ACMI is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing. Started in Housing working for a Local Authority and has since worked for a number of Housing Associations in Operational and Strategic roles. Craig has worked in several very different areas ranging from the North east to Devon. Projects worked on include introducing new IT packages, planning for real exercises for potential stock transfers and partnering a repairs service. Craig is an experienced change manager and has been a mentor for university students, supervisor for the CIH on TPP and Apex and has authored course material for the CIH/CIOB.

Paul McCoy MSc CEng
Paul is an experienced manager and performance coach with a successful career background spanning some 25 years in the private sector. During this time he has held a variety of senior posts within strategy and planning, operations, project management, performance improvement, corporate change and organisational development and internal consulting services in organisations such as General Electric (USA) and BAE SYSTEMS. He has also led and supported cultural and transformational change within BAE SYSTEMS at corporate and divisional levels.

Since 2004 Paul has worked within the public, housing and welfare sectors helping organisations and teams apply systems thinking principles to transform service capabilities and performance, delivering upper quartile performance and customer satisfaction while achieving significant efficiency benefits. Paul has successfully completed such projects across a diverse range of organisations including central government departments, local authorities, housing associations, universities, health and leisure services, and integrated children’s services comprising education, health and social service departments. His work within the housing sector has included fundamental service reviews for marketing and sales, tenancy management, voids and allocations, responsive repairs, customer service operations and income management.

RCT Homes:

Presentation: Where is your Office?

This presentation will cover the work RCT Homes have been doing around mobile working. They will discuss customer satisfaction on PDA, vehicle check on PDA, income recovery / repair inspections using notebook PCs and why they use them and email on all PDA’s Home Working capabilities. They will also touch on job scheduling, as this has also has reduced the need for the operatives to travel to and from the main offices.

Alun E.J.Dowling MSc, Head of ICT
Alun has over 20 years experience in the IT sector, primarily within the public sector. He undertook the implementation of the Capita Housing system for Rhondda Cynon Taff County Borough Council, before moving to RCT Homes as Head of ICT.

He has managed the successful implementation of a state of the art ICT infrastructure, with the Capita Housing system being the main housing system of choice. RCT Homes now has an ICT infrastructure built on energy saving, best of breed technologies utilising Virtualisation and thin-client devices for high availability, together with IP Telephony with full integration into the Office suite.

As Head of ICT he is always looking for opportunities to improve communication, reduce turnaround times together with wasteful paper production, and thus lower communication costs.

Malcolm Wilson, Operations Director
Malcolm has more than 20 years’ experience working for registered social landlords (RSLs). Until April 2007 he was Finance Services Director of Wandle Housing Association in south London; before joining RCT Homes as Resources Director and Company Secretary.

He began his career in local government and new town development corporations, before working as a management consultant specialising in business planning and building maintenance performance.

Malcolm was appointed to the Board of a failing London Association by the Housing Corporation; and is a former non-executive director of Community Building Services, a subsidiary of Affinity Sutton, one of the largest housing groups in the UK.

He was appointed to the Board of Dragon Savers Credit Union in March 2009; and is a member of the Steering Group for Moneyline Cymru.

Malcolm chaired the southern LSVT Finance Group, and was Secretary of the northern LSVT Finance Group, both for over two years.

He sat on the NHF Committee that organised the 2005 Finance Conference at Warwick University; as well as being involved in organising the CHC Resources Conference in 2009.

Malcolm is regularly asked to speak at industry events on a wide range of topics.

Stockport Homes:

Presentation: Innovative Partnership Setups – One System, Two Teams

Stockport Homes has used the opportunity for a major contractor review and systems upgrade to set up a collaborative partnership under the new banner of Repair 1st. This innovative setup gives many major opportunities as well as some challenges.

Hear what the intentions of Repair 1st were, the obstacles they faced in the run up to the contract and since the new team was formed and learn about their journey so far.

Mark Hudson, Director of Technical Services:
Mark has worked within the construction and housing industry for almost 30 years. Mark started as an Apprentice Joiner and moved up through the ranks within the private sector. Mark is responsible for the Capital Investment Programme, the Repairs Service and the New Build Property Programme across the Borough.

As a Director of GM Procure he was influential in its set-up and continues to play a pivotal role in the strategic leadership of this cutting edge successful consortium. Mark is committed to continually providing and delivering the highest quality innovative services to customers.

Mark manages a gymnastics club in his spare time and has three lively sons who are all keen football players.

Karl Colyer, Head of Partnership Delivery
Karl has worked in the Housing sector for 10 years and for 20 years in the automotive and aerospace sectors. Karl heads up the repairs and voids activities at Stockport Homes and is building more productive relationships with the contractor base

Rok:

Presentation: Building One Team

This workshop explores the relationship between Home Group South and Rok in the delivery of planned and reactive maintenance. The relationship has been successfully developed following a structured process that includes all the key stakeholders. The inclusive nature of the processes has empowered team members and has brought about some innovative ideas to drive up service standards. The workshop will look at some of the lessons learned and share the experience of both parties.

Kevin Flavin
Kevin Flavin is the Partnering & Innovations Manager at Rok. Kevin is responsible for developing mould breaking customer experiences in the Housing Maintenance sector.

Trafford Housing Trust:

Presentation: Strategic Transformation Programme utilising CRM

Trafford Housing Trust is an independent housing company set up by the government following the stock transfer of 9,000 homes under the previous ownership of Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council. Our vision is "to be at the heart of creating neighbourhoods that are safe, clean, with strong communities and
are places that people choose to live in."

In this presentation we will look at the use of CRM as part of the strategic transformation programme with Trafford Housing Trust. More specifically we will examine the following:

• What were the outcomes we wished to achieve as a result of the transformation programme?
• How did we determine our course of action?
• Why did we implement a CRM system?
• What are the results to date?
• What are the lessons learned?

Martin Saunders
Martin Saunders is Director of Transformation and as such is responsible for delivering all the changes that will bring about our customer revolution.To date he has been working on setting up the Customer Hub and improving neighbourhood services. His focus in the next few months will be around moving the Trust to our new Head Office location at Sale Point, Manchester and re-structuring some of the support services. Martin has worked in housing in Trafford for twelve years and was Head of Housing Services for five years.