Changes to our Repairs Service

We have made some changes to our Repairs Maintenance & Improvements policy so we can offer our customers a better service. The changes, as described below, will take effect from 4th April 2022.
The main changes with the new policy are: 

• To respond to our emergency services with a 4-hour response time. 
• To improve the way we deliver these services by not attending a customer’s home at unsociable hours. 

What are the changes? 

Under the old policy we would attend all emergencies within 4 hours. Customers have told us that this was less flexible for them; it sometimes meant customers would have to cancel plans to ensure they were at the property and, we attended in the evenings which wasn’t always what the customer wanted.  

Under the new policy we will attend most emergencies within 24 hours which gives both the customer and us, the flexibility to negotiate a mutually agreed appointment preventing unnecessary inconvenience for our customers.  

The new policy aims to ensure emergency repairs are completed at the first visit wherever possible as opposed to just making safe, which will improve the service we deliver to our customers and make us more efficient at delivering an emergency repairs service.  

Whilst the new policy focuses on most emergencies to be attended within 24 hours we still have some repairs which we feel cannot be left for 24 hours and will be attended to within 4 hours, however these are limited to those which are an immediate danger or a risk to health and safety. See below for more details.

New categorisation of repairs: 

1. Immediate danger (within 4 hours)  

Note: Repairs in this category includes repairs such as: fire, serious floods, structural damage, CO alerts, gas leaks, unsafe electrical fittings, unsafe gas fittings. 
 
This category is for repairs where there is an immediate danger to the health and safety of the occupant or risk of serious damage to the property if swift remedial action is not taken.  Whilst every effort will be made to undertake a full repair when responding to any repair request, this may not always be possible for an immediately dangerous situation and the remedial action taken may be to turn off the water, gas or electric to make a property safe (dependent on circumstance) and a further repair visit for follow on work may be required.  These types of repairs can only be reported via telephone. 

1. Emergency repair (within 24 hours) 

Note: Repairs in this category includes repairs such as: total loss of power, communal lighting not working, insecure properties, no hot water, no heating, blocked toilet or drains, fire alarm failure. 
 
An emergency repair may be required when a more urgent response is necessary but there is no immediate danger to the occupant or property, generally these types of repairs will cause a higher level of inconvenience for the customer compared to a routine repair and can only be reported via telephone.

1. Routine repair (within 28 calendar days)  

Note: Repairs in this category includes repairs such as: containable water leaks, toilet not flushing, dripping taps, shower not working, internal doors and woodwork, patch plastering.

A routine repair is non-urgent work carried out to maintain our customer’s homes or a component in it, until the next cycle of planned programme. Most repairs will fall into this category considering they do not carry a risk of danger to the occupant or serious damage to the property and can be reported via the self-service website, live chat, telephone, email, and letter or through Aspire colleague’s customer’s homes. 

1. Major repair (within 90 calendar days) 

Note: Repairs in this category includes repairs such as: path/driveway replacement, groundworks, major roof repairs, external brick wall repair or replacement, large plastering works, guttering works. 

This category is for our large repair works and is generally considered to be any repair that will take longer than one day to complete and/or may form part of a planned programme of works.  These repairs will require a pre-inspection to ascertain materials, labour hours and any specialist equipment such as machinery or scaffolding requirements. 

If you would like anymore support regarding our repairs service you can visit our page here to get more information.