As some of our tenants who have recently reported repairs may have experienced, we have been having some significant challenges with our responsive repairs service.

Our main contractor has acknowledged that the service they provide has not been meeting the standards that our tenants have set for this contract. They have recently had to contend with some major challenges: the difficulties they are experiencing - along with many other responsive repair companies operating in the housing sector - in recruiting and retaining staff; sickness absences running at a higher level than usual; and large volumes of jobs being logged – a total of 8,280 in the four months from September to January.

In line with our tenant-led values, we are both fully committed to improving the responsive repairs service. Two months ago, we met with our contractor to put in place an action plan designed to deliver the improvements required. This will take time to achieve; however our tenants can be confident that we're doing everything that is needed to improve things as quickly as possible.

Mark Haines, Red Kite’s Director of Property, said:

"We acknowledge that our responsive repair service has fallen short of the high standards we aspire to provide for our tenants. We understand the frustration and inconvenience caused by delays, cancellations, and substandard work. We are sharing this with you as we believe transparency is key to building trust.

"We are working closely with our contractor to drive improved performance, and we remain committed to providing timely, efficient, and high-quality repairs for every tenant. We appreciate your patience and we encourage you to continue sharing your feedback as this is vital to our efforts to improve the service for everyone."

Since the action plan was agreed there have been signs of progress:

  • In the last two months six new tradespeople have joined the contractor’s team, bringing the total number of operatives on the contract to 30.
  • The number of ‘work in progress’ orders has decreased by 53% - on average each week they are completing 100 orders more than they are receiving.
  • Over 10% of all orders are now being completed on the same day they are raised.

This has been reflected in the results of satisfaction surveys, which have shown an 86% satisfaction rate from 242 responses over the last 30 days, rising to 90% from 55 responses in the last seven days.

We will continue to keep our tenants updated on service delivery, and we want to thank them for their patience as we continue to work with our contractor to develop the service together.