Page 2539 - Week 08 - Thursday, 5 August 2021

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Housing ACT—maintenance

Ms Berry (in reply to a supplementary question by Ms Lawder on Wednesday, 23 June 2021):

Both Housing ACT and Programmed Facilities Management (Programmed), are committed to continuous improvement and to make sure that the Total Facilities Management contract is achieving the spirit of its intent – to preserve and maintain Housing ACT dwellings, maintain a tenant focus and a responsiveness to tenant needs in the delivery of services.

Development of the new contract involved extensive consultation with tenants, community housing providers, unions, ACT Government subject matter experts, sub-contractors, industry, and relevant commercial consultants. Consideration was given to the 2016 Auditor General’s performance audit and the 18 recommendations for improvement.

The current contract incorporates an integrated performance management system that encourages Programmed to achieve the highest levels of service delivery, tenant engagement and satisfaction and organisational performance.

There are 50 key performance indicators that Programmed are measured against. Housing ACT expects an excellent service and incentive payments will not be made if there are any areas of underperformance anywhere in the contract.

Programmed measure tenant satisfaction as part of their performance reporting. In May this year, Programmed reported a satisfaction rate of Housing ACT tenants with subcontractors at 84%.

Again, in May this year, Programmed contacted Housing ACT tenants who had spoken with the call centre staff and asked for feedback. This resulted in a satisfaction level of 98%.

Programmed also contact tenants who have submitted complaints to see how they felt the complaints process was undertaken. 91% of Housing ACT tenants who lodged a complaint were satisfied with the process.

Improvements in day-to-day lives of Housing ACT tenants;

Housing ACT’s Total Facilities Manager (TFM), Programmed Facilities Management (Programmed), identified consistently high call volumes to the call centre during the morning where the service level was not able to be achieved and consistently low call volumes during the later afternoon hours. Programmed undertook a trial in the change of hours of operation in the Canberra Call Centre to allow the high volume of calls to be handled locally. This trial resulted in better customer service outcomes for Housing ACT tenants including fewer abandoned calls and the ability to resolve the issue on the first phone call. These arrangements have now been made permanent.


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