Estate Services is concerned with the contract cleaning, gardening and caretaker services provided to the communal areas of our schemes where tenants/leaseholders pay a service charge. Estate Services is not directly linked with Maintenance where the repairs and upkeep of our schemes are facilitated.

Our Team

In our team, we have an Estate Services Manager, an Estate Services Officer, 25 Caretakers, 1 Gardener and 3 Cleaners. Our team expands as we build new properties which require Estate Services.

Inspections

Our properties receiving estate services are formally inspected quarterly. If the scheme has a Caretaker the Estate Services Manager or the Estate Services Officer carries out the inspection, where there is no caretaker and contract services, the Neighbourhood Officer carries out the inspection. On sites with caretakers, schemes are inspected monthly.

During the quarterly inspections, each site is scored between 0-3 stars, 3 stars is the highest score. Our target is to achieve 3 stars on all of our inspected stock. The results of these star ratings are reported to committee quarterly.

Quality Housing Services (QHS)

We have joined the QHS, to achieve excellence in the services we deliver. In Estate Services, one of the things they measure as excellence is having monthly communal inspections. Where we have Caretakers in our schemes this is being done. In order to work towards the target of inspecting all communal areas monthly, we are in the process of recruiting resident monitors to inspect the areas where they live and report any concerns to their Neighbourhood Officer. If you are interested in the work of a Resident Monitor, contact the Estate Services Manager.

Surveys

Annually we send out tenant satisfaction surveys to our tenants/leaseholders receiving estate services. This enables us to ascertain how satisfied our tenants are with the services they are receiving. An action plan from these surveys is for us to re-tender our contracts, ideally to one supplier who can provide a multi-functional service. If you are interested in this project contact the Estate Services Manager for more information.

Removing Grafitti

For removing offensive grafitti in our estates, our target is 24 hours. For inoffensive grafitti, our target is 5 days.