Local jobs with new DLO
Ten local jobs have been created in Northants by asra Housing Association's new Direct Labour Organisation (DLO). The Group, which has nearly 1,300 properties in the county, worked with Just Housing and residents to bring their repair work in-house. The project began in October 2011 and was delivered in just over six months.
Following a successful open day, attended by more than 50 people, the organisation received nearly 100 applications for the new jobs, including plumbers, electricians, joiners and general tradesmen, as well as a work scheduler overseeing day-to-day operations.
Just Housing led on designing and implementing the new DLO alongside asra staff, and held a series of resident events to gain strong local support and advocacy for the new organisation.
Sophie Fitzhugh, service delivery manager for Northamptonshire, said: 'Our number one aim is to improve service standards, ensuring tenants' repairs are managed quickly and efficiently with minimum disruption.
'By managing the process in-house, we will also be able to pick up on maintenance trends that will allow us to anticipate potential problem areas, and offer new services such as local MOT days when the team will visit specific locations to carry out a variety of smaller repair jobs.'
Residents are providing ongoing feedback on the team's performance through customer satisfaction surveys, and a scrutiny panel which monitors performance against agreed targets.
As well as offering customers a quicker, more efficient service, the Group hopes that bringing the service in-house will make cost savings in the longer term.
If the pilot proves successful, it will be rolled out across its housing projects in Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and London.
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