FM Operational Performance FRS (March 23)
Renfrewshire Council · 30 March 2023
Back to Finance, Resources and Customer Services Policy Board — 30 March 2023 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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To: Finance, Resources and Customer Services Policy Board On: 30 March 2023 Report by: Director of Environment & Infrastructure Heading: Facilities Management Operational Performance Report 1 Summary 1.1 Environment & Infrastructure brings together a range of Council services and activities, with both strategic and operational responsibilities. This report provides an operational performance update on Facilities Management (Hard and Soft Services) delivered by Environment & Infrastructure since the last Policy Board in February 2023. 1.2 Building Services continue to operate normal day to day business and our emergency out of hours repairs. The supply issue with materials has improved and only remains in a few areas where longer lead in times continue to be experienced. The service continues to manage all works. 2 Recommendations It is recommended that members of the Finance, Resources and Customer Services Policy Board: 2.1 Notes the content of this report.
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3 Operational Update 3.1 Responsive Repairs The chart below shows the volume of responsive repairs reported by tenants on a weekly basis for January and February of 2023. The service experienced very high levels of emergency/ qualifying repairs following the Christmas and New Year break which remained high throughout January but has dropped back to more normal levels in February. This corresponds directly to the weather and temperatures experienced. Building Services deploy resources from other areas of the business to ensure the emergencies and qualifying repairs are attended. From the beginning of January to 28 February 2023 there have been 14,229 repairs reported in total. 5,556 of which have been done so as emergencies and 1,395 out of hours.
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Considering the percentage of repair requests that are emergencies compared to the total number of requests, the graph above demonstrates that there has been a weekly trend of around 35-45% of calls classified as emergencies. Of these, around 20-25% are typically out of hours repair requests for emergencies. Work will be undertaken to assess why so many calls are deemed to be emergencies and what can be done to lower this number. The graph shows quarter 3, October to December and the first two months of quarter four, January and February. The clear peaks from mid-December through to the start of January correlate to the extreme high volume of calls (previously reported to board in February). The graph above provides further evidence of the similarly extreme percentage of calls that were emergencies and out of hours requests. 3.2 Domestic Gas Servicing From 1 January to 28 February 2023, the domestic gas servicing and repairs team carried out 2,315 gas services. Of these, 110 services were not able to be completed due to no access being granted at the time of the visit. The figures for January/February 2023 are in line with the same time period last year where the Services carried out were 2,237 with 132 instances of no access. It should be noted that during the winter months, the service works closely with Housing colleagues to try to programme less gas servicing to allow the resources to be realigned to emergency and responsive calls as detailed in Section 3.1. 3.3 Voids 3.3.1 Building Services continue to work closely with Housing colleagues to maximise the number of houses that are returned to the letting pool and prioritise houses based on current needs of those requiring housing. A total of 105 voids have been completed and have been returned to the letting pool in January and February 2023. A total of 631 voids have been returned to the letting pool in 2022/23 to the end of February 2023.
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3.3.2 The volume of works within void houses remains high, often due to the age of the property or the condition that it has been left in by the vacating tenant. As at the 28 February, Housing have 143 void properties currently in process. This is a reduction of 27 since the previous board report. 1 January – 28 February 2023 Void Returns 1 January 2023 -28 February 2023 Full Void Works* *Inclusive Gas Central Heating (GCH) install *Inclusive Asbestos Removal (ASB RE) Preliminary Works 102 13 4 111 4 April 2022 – 28 February 2023 Void Returns 4 April 2022 -28 February 2023 Full Void Works* *Inclusive Gas Central Heating (GCH) install *Inclusive Asbestos Removal (ASB RE) Preliminary Works 631 95 71 551 The number of SHQS properties completed from 4 April 2022 – 28 February 2023 is 99. 3.4 Electrical Testing programme As part of the on-going electrical compliance requirement of Landlords, Building Services, and other external contractors, have been working in partnership with Housing to carry out the statutory 5-year check of electrics within every tenanted household cross Renfrewshire (approx. 12,500 houses). 2022 - 2023 Quarter 1 - 639 Quarter 2 - 280 Quarter 3 – 42* Jan- Feb 2023 - 110 Since the beginning of 2021 a total of 3,853 houses have been fully electrical tested by Building Services. Where it has not been possible to gain access to carry out the statutory checks, a process has been implemented to ensure continued compliance standards are met.
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*The pilot process commenced on the 12 December 2022 and challenges noted with access, thus giving a lower number. 3.5 Streetlighting From 1 January to 28 Feb 2023 year, the Street Lighting Team performed well with 98.8% of all reported dark lamps attended within the 7-day timescale. In addition, they attended 109 emergencies. Overall, from 1 April 2022 to 28 February 2023, the Street Lighting team have attended 579 emergencies. There are ongoing discussions with Procurement and Legal Services on the tendering for a back-up maintenance and small works Streetlighting contractor. Meetings are now diarised with a timetable for meeting the Finance, Resources and Customer Services Board in September 2023. There are challenges across the marketplace with recruitment and Renfrewshire Council is looking for a contractor to support the in-house service. 3.6 Capital works across the public building portfolio 3.6.1 The £1.5 million extended school toilet upgrade programme is progressing well with 12 schools now completed. The last school, Bridge of Weir Primary school, is around 60% complete and has run into March 2023. Additional refurbishment at Ferguslie Pre 5 centre has also been completed. 3.7 Energy 3.7.1 Installation of LED Lighting in the PPP Estate The installation programme has been complete with a reduction in electricity usage being noted at each of the completed schools. To date, Renfrewshire Council has spent a total budget of £1,803,898. Officers continue to work across the Council and with colleagues in PPP schools to ensure systems are working at their optimal performance. The final joint inspection for Gleniffer High School was conducted on 1 March 2023. As of 28 February, there were 51 items across all 9 sites on the ‘snagging list’. These are being worked through to sign off the installation work. Savings are being noted across the PPP estate with an update on figures to be provided at the next Board in June 2023. 3.7.2 Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategies (LHEES) Work is underway to procure a consultant to assist Renfrewshire Council in delivering the LHEES strategy before the end of 2023. Discussions with procurement and soft market testing to identify consultants with resource and experience to deliver has been undertaken. 3.7.3 CO2 Monitoring in Renfrewshire Schools The 1,765 CO2 monitors installed in all teaching spaces continue to allow teachers to monitor the air quality in their teaching spaces and act if carbon dioxide levels are noted to increase. This covers every teaching and learning space in Nurseries,
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Primary Schools, Secondary Schools and ASN Schools. The CO2 monitors are generating more than 130k readings per week during the hours of 8am - 4pm (Monday to Friday). Readings below 1,500PPM are deemed acceptable by the Scottish Government. Therefore, regular updates are reported to Children’s Services and the Trade Unions highlighting the number of readings exceeding the acceptable threshold. A summary of the readings for several weeks can be found below: The Energy Management Team have been working on creating an online portal to allow Teachers to access the readings in schools that use CO2 monitors through their Building Management System. The system also provides 24 hours of history. Teachers who have concerns have been asked to raise any issues with Soft FM Officers or Senior Facilities Officers who will then raise a job request on CAMIS. Once received, further investigations take place to identify the issue and discussion will take place with H&S if required to rectify these. The funding for the two monitoring officers ends in May 2023, by which point it is expected that the process will be become part of the “business as usual” running of the school. 3.8 PPP Schools 3.8.1 Renfrewshire Council and RSP/Amey continue to meet and discuss initiatives on a regular basis. The PPP Joint Energy Management Team have been focussing on Net Zero initiatives and links to existing Lifecycle Maintenance funding within the PPP contract to allow future works to be allocated sufficient funding. 3.8.2 Environment & Infrastructure have been working closely with Children’s Services and PPP Contractors (RSP/Amey) to reconfigure/increase toilet provision at St Andrews Academy to ensure adequate toilet provision is maintained. 3.8.3 To the end of quarter three 2022/23, 100% of statutory maintenance jobs have been completed on time by RSP/Amey.
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3.9 Hard FM - Support Services Following the combined efforts of both the service and contractor base, the compliance stats are nearing pre-Covid levels, posting one of the highest returns for number since 2019/20. In quarter three of 2022/23, 85% of compliance tasks have been completed. This demonstrates further improvement from 84% in quarter two and 70% in quarter one. Resolution of the challenges accessing properties and staffing issues for both the service and contractors have positively impacted compliance performance. Recruitment within the team has allowed a targeted focus on improving PPM works specifically for alarms and security. The challenge moving forward is to ensure compliance and continual improvement. Officers closely scrutinise suppliers who fail to meet target return dates, which in turn affects overall performance. The escalation of non-compliance and commercial pressures are expected to continue to improve performance over the coming months. 4 Soft FM (Facilities Management) 4.1 Capital Works The Scottish Government capital funding award of £876,000 will enable full redesign of kitchens within Barsail Primary School, Erskine, Bushes Primary school, Glenburn and Mossvale/St James Campus, Paisley. Soft FM has been working in partnership with Property & Technical Services and Corporate Procurement to progress the tender award. With an end date of late 2023 for completed development, 75% of primary schools will have returned to fully functioning production kitchens. These developments will support the delivery of meals to the remaining school premises and early years establishments. Further capital award funding from the Scottish Government may provide scope to increase this number further along with further improvements to established premises. Since the introduction of Universal Free School Meals (UFSM) in August 2021, production facilities in primary schools have increased from 12 to 24 kitchens, with a further 4 scheduled to be producing meals by end of March 2023. The increase in production kitchens has created 11 full time Senior Facilities Operative - Production Catering positions and 39 part time Facilities Operatives positions throughout Renfrewshire in 2022. It is expected that further recruitment will be required as works progress in 2023. 4.2 Deposit Return Scheme The Deposit Return Scheme is scheduled to be in place by 16 August 2023 across all Renfrewshire Council Secondary Schools and Renfrewshire House where qualifying beverages are sold e.g. cans of juice. Officers will continue to monitor updates from the Scottish Government to assess how this will be implemented.
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4.3 On-Line School Payments Work continues to improve the On-line School Payments; Cashless Catering (OSPCC) process, in particular around the technology at the point of sale. The change will continue to improve reporting elements (to allow continuous improvement), including functionality and will be fully implemented by 31 March 2023. Implications of the Report 1. Financial – Any financial elements referenced in this report will be progressed through the Council’s financial & budget planning process. 2. HR & Organisational Development – None 3. Community/Council Planning – the report details a range of activities which reflect local community and council planning themes. 4. Legal – As detailed in Section 3.5 of the report, Legal Services are assisting with the procurement of a back-up maintenance and small works Streetlighting contractor 5. Property/Assets - None 6. Information Technology - None 7. Equality & Human Rights – The recommendations contained within this report have been assessed in relation to their impact on equalities and human rights. No negative impacts on equality groups or potential for infringement of individuals’ human rights have been identified arising from the recommendations contained in the report. If required following implementation, the actual impact of the recommendations and the mitigating actions will be reviewed and monitored, and the results of the assessment will be published on the Council’s website. 8. Health & Safety – Advice and guidance is being given to protect the health and safety of employees and service users when carrying out priority services for the Council in line with government and health guidance. 9. Procurement – As noted within the report. 10. Risk – None 11. Privacy Impact – None 12. COSLA Policy Position – None 13. Climate Change – The work undertaken by the Energy Management Unit detailed in the report assists with Renfrewshire’s Net Zero targets. Close liaison is maintained
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with the Climate Emergency Lead Officer to help drive targets, actions and outcomes. List of Background Papers - none Author: Gordon McNeil, Director of Environment & Infrastructure