 |
Congratulations to Portsmouth City Council’s housing service for scooping a prestigious innovation award this week.
This is on top of Owen Buckwell, Head of Housing Portsmouth City Council, winning an international management prize last year.
The service won the Planning Forum’s innovation award for Service Transformation for how it halved the cost of repair, and saved £2m a year across the service by transforming the service to focus on what actually matters to the customer.
This has been done using the Vanguard Method, a particular Systems Thinking approach, where the service has removed traditional targets, such as cost and process, and focused instead on people and value with astonishing results. For instance, prospective tenants are seen much more quickly by housing, specialists and repairs are now provided at the specific time requested by tenants – 75% within 48 hours – and completed to a high standard on the first visit, so they ‘stay fixed.’
The awards were presented at the Planning Forum’s 11th conference in Birmingham on Tuesday (12 April), with other awards also going to British Gas, gem, LV=, Shop Direct and Autoglass. James Hill, housing manager, said: “We’re very pleased to have won this award. We’ve made huge changes to the way we work as a service, with the end result being better customer service, happier people and cost savings. “Apart from Surrey County Council, we were the only public sector winners on the evening, and I’m extremely proud of our service and how we’re working every day to improve the experience for our residents and customers.” “These are fantastic achievements,” says Paul Smedley, executive director of the Professional Planning Forum. “Surrey and Portsmouth have made a colossal cultural shift and actually changed the way that they manage operations. “Customers and agents have been listened to and it has had a massive impact on the customer experience. Every senior management team can learn something from their approach; that’s what makes these organisations such worthy winners.”
The winners were selected by a team of judges who visited each of the 20 shortlisted organisations, and then assessed them against a strict set of criteria.
The award was collected by Owen Buckwell, head of housing, James Hill, housing manager, Elaine Bastable, housing options manager, Nicola Clannachan, senior housing options manager and Karen Stagg, customer service manager for the Buckland area housing office.
From the Systems Thinking Review
|
