Mayor of Hackney, Cllr McKenzie and carpenter Anton Christophe
Mayor of Hackney, Cllr McKenzie and carpenter Anton Christophe
Mayor of Hackney, Cllr McKenzie and carpenter Anton Christophe
Hackney,
03
August
2022
|
11:47
Europe/London

Drive to improve our repairs service continues as pandemic backlog cleared

Hackney Council’s drive to continually enhance its housing repairs service has taken a ‘big step forward’ with the clearing of the backlog of repairs built up during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Over the last eight months the Council’s repairs staff have worked hard to clear the more than 7,000 outstanding repairs that were remaining from the pandemic when it was only able to undertake emergency work.

While the Council still has outstanding repair jobs to complete, none of them date from before the start of this year. It is an important part of the Council’s commitment to delivering a first class repairs service to people living in Hackney Council homes across the borough.

Now the Council is looking to push forward with delivering further improvements to its repairs service - including working with residents to develop a new repairs charter, outlining what people should expect from the service.

The Council receives more than 6,500 repairs requests a month and has appointed 26 new recruits - including carpenters, plumbers, plasterers, electricians and gas engineers - as part of its work to achieve its ambitions.

“
Philip Glanville, Mayor of Hackney

Clearing the backlog of housing repairs that built up during the pandemic is a big step forward on our journey to delivering the fully responsive, visible and effective repairs service our tenants and leaseholders want and need.

Our existing and new staff have worked hard to tackle the backlog caused by the pandemic and I thank them for their efforts. 

We still have a way to go but we are making good progress towards achieving our aim. The additional staff we are bringing in to bolster the capacity of our repairs service is just part of our continued commitment to delivering a high quality service for our residents.

Philip Glanville, Mayor of Hackney
„
“
Cllr Clayeon McKenzie, Cabinet Member for Housing Services

We are one of London’s largest social landlords and we are committed to delivering a first class repairs service to everyone living in one of our more than 30,000 homes.

While there is still work to do, the clearing of the pandemic backlog, while improving resident satisfaction, is an important marker in delivering on our ambitions and meeting the needs of our residents.

Working with residents we will be developing our new repairs charter in the next few months, outlining what people should expect from the repairs service.  This is just another example of the measures we are putting in place to ensure our residents are front and centre of everything the repairs team does

Cllr Clayeon McKenzie, Cabinet Member for Housing Services
„

Repairs facts:

  • In November 2021 the Council put an additional £1 million into the repairs service to help tackle the pandemic repairs backlog.
  • The Council receives more than 80,000 repairs requests a year - more than 6,500 a month. 
  • In June, 83 per cent of the repairs due to be completed that month were finished on time - the highest percentage since October 2021. 
  • Over the last 12 months the Council has been unable to access properties to carry out requested repairs on 3,395 occasions.
  • In June 2022 the Council received 14,000 calls relating to repairs.  People waited less than three minutes for an emergency call to be answered, while overall people waited on average 17 minutes to speak to an advisor.
  • The overall customer satisfaction with how the Council handles repairs calls was 70.3% for the period July 2021 to July 2022. The monthly satisfaction figure for July 2022 was 77.9% compared to 69.4% in June 2022 and 65.5% in May 2022.
  • Residents' satisfaction levels with the quality of repair work in July 2022 was 73% compared to 62% in June 2022 and 57% in January.
  • The council's repair service achieved an overall satisfaction of 68.3% in July 2022 compared to 58.5% in June 2022 and 56.9% in May 2022. The council is continually looking at ways to improve the service it delivers, which will lead to increased customer satisfaction.

Anyone wanting to report a repair or find out how their request is progressing should call 020 8356 3691 (Mon-Fri 8am-7pm; Sat 9am-1pm). They can also use the call back service where people will receive a call without losing their place in the queue. 

Or they can report online via the live webchat service (available Mon-Fri 9am-4pm) at hackney.gov.uk/repairs