Posted 14.03.14
Each year the National House Maintenance Forum (NHMF) invites maintenance managers who are particularly proud of what their organisation has done to submit projects for awards. These are presented at the NHMF Conference Awards Dinner.
The award this year for the 'Project of the Year' went to United Welsh, Mears Group and Celtic Horizons - for developing a model that reduces the tenants' journey and improves service delivery. It also introduces new concepts, including the Complete Property Service - a creative lean working approach to improve efficiency and maximise resources by:
Other successes were:
Liz Circuit, Secretary to the NHMF and Director at M3, said:
"Before the NHMF existed there was a lack of focus on housing maintenance issues, but by bringing together maintenance managers and building a resource of best practice solutions we have firmly shone the spotlight on this aspect of the industry and helped to deliver improved rental housing maintenance and repair services.
"We can certainly see that a lot of organisations are working very hard to go beyond social and corporate responsibility and really provide a good service for their tenants.
"This year the Forum redefined its award categories. Previously we included a Best Client, Best Contractor and Most Innovative award, but we found this was a little restrictive as just about every entry included something innovative.
"We also changed them to take into account the fact there are a lot of in-house maintenance providers now. Also, maintenance services are being asked to do a lot more management duties so their responsibilities are wider than just sorting out repairs on houses.
"We decided to have a Project of the Year awarded to the most outstanding entry regardless of the category to which it was entered. The outstanding project for 2014 demonstrated the success of three organisations working in partnership using their combined skills to deliver their project."
The NHMF is serviced by M3, which began life as a subsidiary of the National Housing Federation, and sells the M3NHF Schedule of Rates and a whole range of related products, covering the maintenance of social housing.
