How to achieve excellence in social housing gas servicing programmes

2. Service Excellence – Our Approach Achieving a ‘3 Star’ approach to gas maintenance. That’s what we all want to see – you, your tenants and the Audit Commission! Our approach focuses on achieving this – not just ‘ticking’ one box, but rather providing a holistic approach that you can use all of or just a part of to achieve your service excellence ambitions. Our approach acknowledges that occasional reviews of your policies and procedures and monthly third party audit of completed CP12’s wont on their own, deliver an excellent service. A more robust, holistic approach is required. Pennington Choices ‘Service Excellence’ delivers this ! Developing Best practice CP12 record keeping Managing Access Closing the Contractor Performance loop - audit and QA Policies & Procedures 3 Star Gas Maintenance

5. Policies and Procedures Client policies and procedures set out what is to be achieved, how and the roles of the client, the contractor and Pennington. Use of our template policy and procedure is a good starting point where starting from fresh. Drawing on the results of testing and inspection, production of a service improvement plan in an easy to use Word document format, hosted on Pennington Workspace, for use by staff, contractor and tenants 1. Client policies and procedures 2. Contractor procedures and management arrangements 3. Review, assess, mock / short notice inspection, reality test 4. Identify improvements, action plan, change and adapt These should plan to turn the clients requirements into reality, such as planning the annual safety test programme as well as their Gas Safe registration requirements such as staff training, supervision and internal QA. A comprehensive programme of testing and inspection of both client and contractor arrangements – designed to ensure that arrangements are working on the ground or where change is needed

6. Contractor Performance – Audit & QA Assessment of customer satisfaction, CP12 and technical accuracy. Scores expressed as percentage, over time, in comparison to other contractors and engineers Short term action plan to address any defects found in the audited CP12s. Longer term action plan to address the underlying causes, which should lead to increased audit assessment scores. 1. Retrospective monthly audit completed 2. Results published on Pennington Workspace 3. Contractor and client staff, review and comment 4. Identify improvements, action plan, change and adapt Monthly trend report uploaded onto Workspace and key contacts alerted by e-mail within 5 days of month end. Tenant version available for customer involvement. Individual property reports published within 24 hours of completion. Comments on the report via Bulletin Board function. Online, collaborative dialogue between client and contractor as to actions required. Tenant representatives can follow the discussion.

10. Developing Best Practice Access to these four, complimentary tools for improving your organisational capacity for Achieving Excellence come as standard for all clients of Pennington Choices. Our template documents have been developed in collaboration with existing clients, so they are embedded with practical know how. Our annual benchmarking service, is fast becoming the key tool for service managers to demonstrate Best Value in gas maintenance and to drive improvement. Our monthly newsletter provides timely and informative advice on a salient gas related matter, while our training is second to none and covers all aspects of gas maintenance. Template policy and procedures National annual cost and performance benchmarking Monthly technical newsletter Programme of specialist training