Today, 6 June, our new Repairs Contract with Gilmartins goes live

This repairs contract covers around two-thirds of day-to-day repairs but excludes specialist services such as electrical, gas, door entry and lifts. These will be procured separately through different procurement exercises as the current contracts near their end.

The new repairs contract with Gilmartins is a long-term agreement of five years with the option to extend by a further five years, giving a maximum 10-year contract length. A long-term contract (with break clauses) provides for a stable ground for continuous improvement in customer service and efficiency. Gilmartins have been appointed following a comprehensive procurement process. The assessment was on both price and quality with 70% based on quality. They achieved the highest scores for both the price and quality elements of the tender.  

As part of the new repairs contract, there has been lots of collaborative work going on to ensure our residents see some big changes in the way our repairs service is delivered.
 
When you report a repair, you’ll now get an SMS message to allow you to track the status of your repair, the location of the Gilmartins operative coming to do the work in real-time and have the ability to message and re-arrange repair appointments. You’ll also now be asked to rate your repair after the job is completed via an SMS link, and if there are any issues at all we’ll follow up with a phone call to make sure we learn from the mistake and make things right.
 
New service standards

With a new service standard and approach to service delivery, shaped by feedback from residents, we believe the new repairs contract will deliver positive outcomes for our residents. The new contract really focuses on your expectations of better communication, improved levels of first-time fixes and the quality of work completing repairs jobs in your homes. 

Some key changes based on resident feedback include a stronger approach to:

• Appointments - better communication with you throughout a repair job to avoid any missed appointments and to ensure you get updates on the day 
• Quality of work –  we have set targets for the amount of jobs we’ll inspect once any work is completed and will now record ‘before and after’ photos for each job
• Contract management - our team have had training on the new contract and we have expanded the range of things we measure performance on to ensure we deliver a great service
• Communication – we’ll be in contact to keep you updated if there is any delay or issues in completing your repair
• Online access – In the first year of the contract we will work with Gilmartins to develop a way for our residents to report, track and monitor repairs through a ‘website’ or ‘app’.
• Out-of-hours call handling -  Gilmartins will now handle our out-of-hours emergency calls for repairs and either send their own operatives or refer a job directly to our third-party specialist contractor, for example, specialist lift contractors. 

We recently ran a training session to ensure that the team at Gilmartins understand and works to our values, and service standards, to make sure the partnership delivers great customer service to our residents and we’re excited to start delivering the improvements.
 
Check out the animation below to find out more about the benefits you’ll see when booking a repair from the launch date of the new contract on 6 June.

Our Director of Resident Services, Pam Bhamra has been working alongside the team at Gilmartins to deliver the new contract: “I’m excited to announce, following an extensive procurement process, we’re continuing our long-term partnership with our repair’s contractor, Gilmartins with improvements to services our residents will be able to see immediately. You will now be able to track their repair, the location of the Gilmartins operative in real time via an SMS link and have the ability to message and re-arrange repairs appointments. In addition to this we’ve been doing lots of collaborative work alongside the team from Gilmartins to ensure our values and service standards are aligned to ensure the best service possible is delivered to our residents.”
 
Dean Bradley, Managing Director at Gilmartins is “delighted to continue our long-term partnership as an ‘alliance partner’ of Origin Housing and we are proud to be continuing to deliver services to Origin’s Residents.
Our business is built on long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with clients, customers and suppliers, providing a personal service which delivers the highest levels of customer care. This in line with Origin Housing’s values of taking the lead, creating energy, trust, generosity, staying grounded and remembering the little things and Origin Housing’s vision of providing great homes, positive people and strong communities.
We continue to have a dedicated team of experienced staff at Gilmartins, within the Operations team and call centre and our Operatives working in your homes and communal areas.
We look forward to the future working alongside Origin Housing’s team exploring how we can continue to deliver great service, add further innovations and social value to the communities we serve.”