Our Repairs & Maintenance Services Excellence Group recently held its first official meeting, as we look at new ways we can work together to improve our repairs services. 

Every three months, ForHousing tenants and colleagues will meet to review the performance of our repairs and maintenance and gas services team, looking at customer satisfaction and complaints, and making sure we’re held to account to deliver the best service we can.  

At this meeting, six tenants were joined by ForHousing colleagues across the business from Repairs, Safe Homes, Customer Insight and Tenant Engagement teams. 

Please read on for the latest updates on how we’re working to improve services and make sure tenants’ needs remain our top priority

We know that how we look after neighbourhoods and making sure they are places people are proud to live really matters to you.  

Our Customer Reviewer role – which is similar to our mystery shoppers – is currently playing a vital role in reviewing how we deliver our grounds maintenance services to check we’re doing what we say we will and whether the service meets the needs of all tenants. We’ll update everyone on the changes and findings in the next blog.  

The Scrutiny Group, another group led by tenants to assess our services, is also working with the Neighbourhoods team on an internal review to check how easy it is for tenants to find grounds maintenance information on the ForHousing website. The Repairs & Maintenance Group is also going to support this. 

Tenants have asked for the Arboricultural Officer at ForHousing to join the next meeting to discuss our work around grounds maintenance and how we look after trees in your community.  

Fun fact: ForHousing looks after three million trees! 

Jamie McDonald, Executive Director of Customer Experience Repairs and Maintenance, shared an update on Liberty and its new owner, Wates. Liberty was acquired by Wates in October 2024, and we’re currently transitioning the delivery of repairs services to the Wates brand.  

While the rebrand is taking place, you’ll see both Wates and Liberty teams delivering our repairs service until the middle of summer.   

After the summer, Wates will be responsible for carrying out repairs and maintenance work such as damp repairs, plastering, and plumbing. 

Liberty will take care of heating and gas repairs in homes, including boiler repairs and servicing and gas safety checks. 

Tenants raised concerns about the out of hours service and response times – particularly for gas repairs.  

The Gas Repairs team currently aims to respond to an emergency repair within 24 hours, but we will look at how this service is performing and where it can be improved. 

To help with this, we’ve introduced a new system called CX. It sends two separate surveys to tenants who have had emergency repairs completed, and another to those who have had out of hours emergency repairs completed.  

These surveys will help us keep track of how satisfied tenants are with the service and highlight opportunities for improvement.  

The Data and Analytics team also shared some useful insights from recent ‘Overall Satisfaction’ surveys, revealing that we have achieved an 88% satisfaction rate, surpassing our target of 85%. This shows we’re heading in the right direction with improving our repairs service. 

These surveys also gathered tenant feedback on areas for improvement, with common concerns around multiple cancellations and delays affecting work, as well as a lack of communication and updates on the progress of repairs.  

We will use this feedback to drive ongoing improvements to the repairs service, which reminds us why tenant feedback is so valuable in shaping our services. 

ForHousing also gave an update on the performance of gas repairs, sharing that tenant satisfaction for repairs at the start of the year is at 79% (against a target of 95%) and tenant satisfaction for servicing is at 93% (with a target set at 98%).  

To boost our gas repairs performance, we have identified key areas such as reviewing our system letters, improving response times at the Customer Connect Hub, and delivering more staff training. 

Jamie McDonald led a discussion on Awaab’s Law, which comes into effect from October 2025. 

The legislation will place a legal duty on social landlords to address hazards such as damp and mould within specific timeframes: emergency repairs must be started within 24 hours and completed within 48 hours, while non-emergency hazards must be addressed within 14 calendar days. 

To make sure we’re prepared and well-positioned before these changes are implemented, we’ve already carried out training and extra guidance on the damp process and procedures for front-line staff. 

We’ve also centralised our damp inspection process and invested in increasing the number of damp surveyors, which means works can be completed at a faster rate while making sure quality work is delivered.  

Our tenant satisfaction statistics for damp and mould show that we’re on the right track, with the rate of tenant satisfaction rising from 50% to 78% from December 2024 to January 2025.  

The group talked about ForHousing’s next steps to make sure we’re proactive in tackling damp and mould issues while keeping tenant wellbeing a top priority. This includes looking at how we can ensure faster responses and better outcomes that prevent future repairs and making sure we’re punctual and on time when attending homes for service appointments. 

We’ve continued to make improvements on our work around disrepairs, which is when something we’re responsible for has not been fixed within a reasonable timeframe after being reported.  

This is particularly important as we’ve seen a rise in tenants instructing solicitors to make these claims on their behalf – a process which can be stressful and time-consuming. 

While we always aim to provide a high-quality service that exceeds tenants’ expectations, we encourage tenants to go through our complaints procedure if they are unhappy with a service. 

A new leaflet has been produced which outlines how tenants can follow ForHousing’s complaints procedure to raise any issues.  

The Disrepair leaflet had some positive feedback with tenants saying that it is clear, informative, and much-needed.  

One tenant also raised concerns about claims companies and individuals who wrongly claim to work for ForHousing or the government, specifically targeting the Brookhouse area. In response to this, the Neighbourhoods team will soon hand out an updated leaflet to tenants  across this area to make sure they have the right information.  

A concern raised by tenants was that they aren’t sure who is responsible for gutter cleaning in their neighbourhoods. 

ForHousing is responsible for gutter cleaning, and ForHousing will make sure this information is shared clearly in communications. 

The Repairs and Maintenance team shared an overview of our Power BI dashboard, which is our system that tracks how we’re performing against our set targets, and gave an update on how we’re currently performing. 

At the start of the year, 77.3% of tenants were satisfied with repairs (with a target of 74%) and 71.4% of tenants are satisfied with the time taken to complete repairs (almost reaching our target of 72%). 

Using the new Wates systems, the process of job-raising is going to improve as it will soon be possible to edit and add events to existing jobs without having to close and re-raise them. 

This should help smooth out any difficulties with the system and improve the overall repair booking experience. 

The first meeting of the group was a great success, with tenants offering valuable insights and feedback to help shape the future of the Repairs & Maintenance services at ForHousing.  

Moving forward, the group will continue to meet regularly to make sure that tenants’ voices play a key role in improving services.  

We’re always looking for more people to get involved. If you would like to take part in our next meeting, you can find more details here.  

We want to thank everyone who took part, we’ll keep you updated on what’s next!