Press releases

Helena Propertycare's gas team gets perfect record

Helena's Gas Team has achieved an incredible "full house" in servicing every one of its properties in the borough within the past twelve months.

The multi departmental approach has seen two teams join together to co-ordinate activities, along with the company's in-house Propertycare team taking on full responsibility for gas servicing, work which was previously outsourced to an external contractor.

One of the benefits of their greater preparation, which includes a reminder close to the appointment day, is the massive increase in the proportion of people letting the engineer in at the first time of asking. The efforts of the gas team have benefited Assets and Neighbourhood teams, allowing them to concentrate on the fewer tenants this year who refuse to allow engineers to undertake the service. Their dedication and persistence has resulted in staff engaging with more difficult to reach tenants, informing them of the importance of having their appliances serviced and successfully persuading them to grant access.

In a small number of cases, Helena's in-house Legal team have become involved as a last resort, auditing the information available and, where necessary, taking people to court. This joint team effort has increasingly won over the minds of tenants convincing them of the value of having the safety certificate.

Speaking of the achievement, Haydn Hansford, Head of Helena Propertycare said, 'Since the beginning when we brought 20% of the Gas Contract in-house in April 2007, bringing the rest over in April 2008, we have seen a steady reduction in the number of properties without gas safety certificates. The relocation of the Assets Gas team to Propertycare and the subsequent team working has been instrumental in our success as well as the contributions from colleagues in Neighbourhoods and Legal.

'We believe that our performance will further improve in the new year with the introduction of PDA working and the issuing of electronic gas certificates as well as plans to use the Optitime Intelligent Scheduling system to assist us further in planning and securing visits to all of our properties'

16 December 2009

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