Propeller and Manifest Consulting have helped South Kesteven District Council to comply with standards set by the Regulator for Social Housing and clear the regulatory notice issued against it.
In 2020, the council commissioned an audit that identified key areas of work needed to meet the RSH’s Home Standard. Based on the findings, the council referred itself to the regulator and was issued with a regulatory notice in February 2021.
A comprehensive action plan was drawn up to tackle areas of concern, mainly relating to inspection processes and the council’s awareness of the overall condition of its housing stock.
As part of its action plan, SKDC wanted to overhaul the way it managed compliance safety checks for gas, electrical, legionella, asbestos and fire safety. Details of these checks and the associated servicing requirements were collated and maintained using spreadsheets.
The council recognised the need for a more robust and efficient system than spreadsheets to give it greater control of compliance so joined forces with Propeller and Manifest.
Peter Salisbury, director of housing consulting, Manifest Consulting, said, “The process began with an in-depth review into the council’s property register and details of every residential building it owned or managed.
“Acting as a ‘critical friend’, we then worked with the SKDC team to establish exactly what types of safety checks were needed for each home and how frequently. Along with the latest inspection schedules and associated documentation, this enabled us to work with the SKDC team to identify any gaps.”
This baseline data was fed into Propeller’s cloud-based software for digital analysis. The results were then presented on a real-time, interactive dashboard showing the percentage of properties with an overdue or missing safety check.
Propeller developed an interface for the council’s contractors to upload details of safety checks, including reports and associated spreadsheets. This information is automatically fed into Propeller’s software so compliance can continue to be recorded.
To support the electrical and fire-safety inspections carried out by the council’s internal repairs team, Propeller implemented its mobile application. This allows details of safety checks to be automatically captured on a smartphone or tablet on site and then automatically fed into the compliance dashboard in real time.
Combined with other improvements and new ways of working adopted by SKDC, the system’s rapid implementation helped the council move towards compliance; while under regulatory notice, the dashboard was used to provide real-time evidence of this progress to the regulator.
Dave Carr, managing director, Propeller, said, “The dashboard provides a single, transparent view of compliance, which is fundamental to building safety. This allowed SKDC to understand its servicing progress and use this information to help provide assurance on safety and compliance as part of its wider action plan.”
SKDC’s housing service was given the all-clear by the RSH in October 2023.
Karen Bradford, chief executive, South Kesteven District Council, said, “A huge amount of hard work went into ensuring that the regulatory notice was lifted and we welcome the value that Manifest and Propeller brought to this process.”
