Checks/balances

The Council's Scrutiny Committee asked Lewisham Homes if leaseholders have the opportunity to check that repairs and maintenance have actually been carried out and carried out to an acceptable standard. LH said ‘Leaseholders have the opportunity to take part in estate inspections and be members of Tenant Resident Associations where repairs issues are raised. In addition residents are able to request a post inspection of communal repairs and may attend the inspection.’

The official target for post inspection of repairs is 10% but has only reached 6% (Leasehold Improvement Group January 2010 Info Pack). Hardly any repair work is checked! The majority of respondents in the Select Committee’s survey were dissatisfied with the standards of repairs and maintenance carried out, but their only recourse are the Estate Inspections and their TRA, if they have one.

Repairs raised at TRA meetings

Items reported at TRA meetings are duly noted by an LH officer, if in attendance. The next meeting then might be attended by a different officer who is unable to report back on whether items have been followed up. Historically, persistent queries have been stalled on, or responded to with weak answers amounting to a brush off. A single and continuous point of contact would help clear the backlog of neglect.

Estate Inspections

Meanwhile, the Estate Inspections are completely inadequate and almost meaningless since they record very little of substance whilst boasting 90-100% pass rates. Giving notice to residents of inspections only began last year but it is still unlikely residents in full time work will attend them. They are not published (see note 1 below), whilst informed input from residents (our chance to comment on repairs) is often ignored. Estate inspections might record cobwebs and dust, obstructions on balconies and illegal vehicles, but will miss blocked and broken gutters, blocked drains, dangerous paving and fagbut infested flowerbeds filled with broken glass. What is the point, then, of the regular Estate Inspections, if nothing significant reported in them is to be acted upon?

Work recorded as done when it hasn't been done

Furthermore, Estate Inspection reports can contain fiction: they may record that Repairs have been ordered and completed when they are not. We have evidence that both inspections and repairs are liable to be completely fictional. The ground floor concrete facia of Castell House has been charged for as a repair done in May 2008. It is then pointed out to the Inspector in May 2009 as a repair still requiring attention, and recorded by the Inspector as having been done in June 2009. It is then noted as requiring attention in Leif Law’s report in July 2009 (see note 2 below).

In the Leasehold Improvement Group’s January 2010 Info Pack it is minuted ‘the question was raised regarding notifying residents of communal jobs logged and of getting signed receipt on completion of a communal repair. Andrew Barratt explained that this would not always be possible and may increase costs’. More fobbing off. We believe that a method can be found – for instance the caretakers already keep a log of the reports they make, and jobs are recorded on the system. It was noted in the Committee’s report that L&Q residents can sign off communal repairs when completed by the contractor.

At a Property Services Improvement Group meeting (November 2009) a resident asked that tenants and residents should be more involved, notified of communal repairs being carried out and able to confirm them being done. Workshops at this meeting further stressed the point. It was noted that ‘Lewisham Homes Repairs and Caretaking are discussing ways to improve post inspections by greater liaison between Works Supervisors and Caretakers’ .

We therefore welcome the Public Accounts Select Committee’s recommendation that a review should take place on how Lewisham Homes checks the quality of repairs, maintenance and major works in a sufficiently robust manner.  They certainly need to increase the present 6% rate of post inspections. Leaseholders could help this process if they were given the information in the first place on when and where repairs are taking place.

The Committee recommended that LH implement a system whereby (they) are required to make a reduction to the annual service charge bill if performance targets fall below a certain level and they requested that the review identified a mechanism whereby leaseholder input can help drive forward this change. We hope that ‘input’ isn’t interpreted as yet another Special Interest Group.

NOTES

1. Unpublished Estate Inspection Reports
The results of the May inspection have never been published on the LH website. In fact, perhaps due to a redesign of the LH website, there are very few reports published at all with previously published reports going back to January having been removed. By December 2009, reports for only 7 out of 114 areas covered in May in our area (Giffin) were available, and did not include Crossfields. Currently, only 16 are available covering November (the May reports have disappeared and 15 other November reports have broken links)  – and do not include Crossfields.

2. Fictional Report
We are now in receipt of the May 2009 reports of the Regular Inspection conducted by Barry Matthews and attended by us. This was not published at the time and still does not appear on the website and was only supplied after a lot of pressure. The average score over 8 blocks was 90.75%, and many of the items contained in the later Leif Law report were noted by Mr Matthews (as alerted by us) but not included in his report. However, there is one item he does include, which we alerted him to in May.

Mr Matthews raised a Repair Order for this item and in the same report recorded that the work has been done. However, this same item is recorded some three weeks later in Mr Law’s report as requiring attention. As a result of Mr Law’s report this job has now actually been done, but was certainly NOT done on 24 June.

Repair Breakdown 2008/2009:
Castell: Repair all cracks on grnd floor walkway facia from flats 1-9. £84.00
Repair order 3645819. Date 28/5/08.
Scheduled Estate Inspection with Barry Matthews, Quality Officer, 28 May 2009:
Castell House: Concrete to be made good outside flats 6,7,8.
Repair order 376650. Date completed 24/6/09.
Programmed Estate Inspection with Leif Law, 14 July 2009:
Castell House: Lumps of concrete have come away from the edge of the ground floor balconies.
  

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