Northgate Public Services has been busy over the past few months, signing housing services deals with Hammersmith and Fulham Homes, LHA-ASRA and Ipswich Borough Council.
Hammersmith and Fulham Homes hopes to realise £4.7 million in efficiency savings by 2010 following a contract with Northgate. The self-financing deal, which links fees to Northgate’s performance, centres on Hammersmith and Fulham Homes improving its housing services in areas such as refurbishment and repairs, leaseholder management and customer services, while delivering sustainable efficiencies and meeting the Decent Homes standard for its 10,000 properties.
Ipswich Borough Council has signed a three-year contract with Northgate to transform its housing services. The project goals include efficiency savings of £1.8 million over the three years, which will then be redirected to improve the council’s housing stock. The project is intended to be self-funding, with Northgate only paid on the basis of results, and will focus on achieving the Decent Homes standard for the council’s 8000 houses by 2014.
Ipswich Borough Council has worked with Northgate before on a benefits project which delivered £1 million of savings and reduced the waiting time for new claimants to 27 days. As a result, the council moved from being in the worst performing quarter of local councils to the top quarter.
Steven Wells, who is responsible for housing at Ipswich Borough Council, said, “The council is determined to deliver first-class housing services which focus on the needs of Ipswich citizens. This plan will bring better services and greater efficiencies, and over the next three years we will cut bureaucracy and invest in even better homes for our tenants.”
In a £125,000 deal, LHA-ASRA is rolling out a citizen relationship management system from Northgate with the aim of improving communications with residents in its 11,500 properties across the Midlands and Greater London.
The new system will enable staff to provide an improved service, with better access to information when responding to customer enquiries. The system will also provide reporting on customer needs through continuous monitoring of enquiry trends and responses.
Anil Majevadia, group director of customer care and IT, LHA-ASRA, said, “Our ambition is to provide our customers with a service which deals with their enquiry at first point of contact, a key ingredient of which is the use of effective information and communication systems, We expect to reduce the administrative burden on front-line staff, enabling them to deliver better services on the ground.”
