Sharing Knowledge
Providing the latest news, views and information from Oneserve focused on the social housing sector
Combatting damp and mould in Social Housing
Find out first-hand how Hillingdon Council are tackling damp and mould with Oneserve. In this podcast, Liam Bentley, Operations Manager for Repairs and Voids at Hillingdon Council, talks us through the damp and mould challenge the Council faces and how they have adapted their use of Oneserve to set up a robust process for logging, …
Groundbreaking tenant survey unveils a critical 'Customer Centricity’ gap in UK Social Housing
A new UK-wide survey of social housing tenants has revealed that tenant satisfaction levels are driven by such low expectations that their primary driver is to simply have a ‘safe home’. This is despite having aspirations to receive a level of service from their landlord comparable to that of major retailers like Amazon. Chronic underfunding …
How Hillingdon Council is using Oneserve to maintain better homes
By Liam Bentley, Operations Manager for Repairs and Voids, Hillingdon Council As the Operations Manager for Repairs and Voids at Hillingdon Council, I’m deeply aware of the impact that damp, mould, and condensation (DMC) issues can have on our residents. With about 35,000 to 40,000 repairs each year across a diverse property stock of around …
Beyond Four Walls: Unveiling tenant perspectives in UK Social Housing
Gain an understanding of Oneserve’s revealing ‘Beyond Four Walls’ tenant perspective report in this insightful podcast. Oneserve Chief Executive, Chris Proctor, offers his expert analysis on Oneserve’s ‘Beyond Four Walls’ survey results which saw the views of over 500 UK Social Housing tenants recorded. The survey results reveal the true perceptions and experiences of social …
Hillingdon Council: Tackling damp and mould with Oneserve
Hillingdon Council – Tackling damp and mould with Oneserve Hillingdon Council’s repairs and voids team is responsible for managing 35,000 to 40,000 repairs every year, across 10,000 properties. This includes about 3,000 leaseholders and 1,300 communal spaces. The team also supports minor adaptations to both tenanted and private properties and carries out a wide range …
New Client focus: Loreburn Housing Association chooses Oneserve for unparalleled customer service
When Loreburn Housing Association decided the time had come to look for a new job management system, they knew that finding a new software partner with dedicated social housing expertise and a proven track history of delivering excellent customer service, was a must.
The Regulator puts data at the heart of decision making in the housing sector - now providers need to rise to the challenge
The challenges presented by poor data (or lack of key data ….or any data at all) and record-keeping are increasingly evident in the housing sector, causing distress and basic health and safety issues for tenants and eroding trust in landlords.
New Client focus: Langstane Housing Association's journey to embrace SaaS
Langstane Housing Association is on a mission to modernise their ways of working. As part of their current IT strategy, they are looking at moving from on-premise solutions to SaaS products which will enable the social landlord to automate tasks wherever possible.
In social Housing what you can prove is more important than what you know
By Chris Proctor A Hollywood film about two LAPD narcotics officers isn’t the most obvious place to find lessons for the social housing sector. But 2001’s Training Day starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke has a line in it which has always struck me as critical to my line of work (which is admittedly quite …
Coordinating 50+ Mobile Engineers Effectively At Fixatex
Coordinating 50+ mobile engineers effectively at Fixatex Fixatex, an electrical contractor specialising in the UK housing sector, has experienced impressive growth thanks to Oneserve. With the help of Oneserve, Fixatex’s team has expanded by 50%, and they have achieved every monthly KPI. Moreover, the company’s revenue increased by a noteworthy 52%. Currently, Fixatex employs 15 …
Delivering Exceptional Social Housing Services with Oneserve
Delivering Exceptional Social Housing Services with Oneserve For over 40 years, MCP Property Services has been providing communities with social housing maintenance solutions across London and the East of England. Their extensive list of services encompasses repairs & maintenance, aid & adaptations, cyclical & capital works, and gas & electrical compliance. To deliver the best …
Southern Housing Group's Efforts to Deliver Outstanding Customer Service
Southern Housing Group’s Efforts to Deliver Outstanding Customer Service Southern Housing Group is one of the largest housing associations in southern England, offering over 28,000 homes to over 72,000 residents. To improve customer service, the group created Southern Maintenance Services (SMS) to bring previously outsourced work in-house. Savings of circa £200,000 within 8 months of …
Enhancing Residents' Repair Experience through Supportive Services
Enhancing Residents’ Repair Experience through Supportive Services With over six decades of experience in responsive repairs and maintenance, roofing, and construction, Breyer Group employs over 400 professionals. Their primary objective is to ensure that residents have a positive experience when repairing their homes, a principle that guides their operations across all projects. Spend 60 – …
New Client focus: Elevating Irwell Valley's digital strategy with Oneserve's adaptive solutions
Irwell Valley Homes are on a journey to refresh their digital strategy. Within this, they were looking for job management software that offered good product flexibility as well as integrated repair and scheduling capabilities.
ULPS Improves Repairs Service with Oneserve for 8 Years
ULPS Improves Repairs Service with Oneserve for 8 Years For over 8 years, Oneserve has played a crucial role in United Living Property Services’ (ULPS) responsive repairs service. ULPS manages 40,000 properties and processes around 160,000 repair appointments through Oneserve annually. Vastly improved customer feedback Reduced ‘no access’ appointments by 45% Extra level of visibility …
Assisting With The Supply And Upkeep Of Central Heating Systems In Newly Constructed Properties
Assisting with the supply and upkeep of central heating systems in newly constructed properties Advanced Heating Wales is a company with 60 employees that provides plumbing and heating equipment maintenance services to both commercial and private clients. Their primary area of expertise lies in the installation of central heating systems for newly constructed properties. They …
Revamping and upgrading windows for social housing organisations
Revamping and upgrading windows for social housing organisations Crystal Clear Window Works provides window contracting services to social housing organisations across the UK. Their unique process enables them to repair and re-engineer windows affected by condensation damage, and they have serviced thousands of clients. With over 50 principle contracts built up over the years, they …
Assisting FSG in Process Management and Client Communication
Assisting FSG in Process Management and Client Communication FSG Property Services Ltd specialises in refurbishment and maintenance of social housing. The company collaborates with local authorities, registered social landlords, private homeowners, landlords, and developers. Their in-house teams operate across several contracts spanning from Buckinghamshire to Northamptonshire. Centralised data keep everyone informed Streamlined processes that can …
Optimising Gilmartins' Mobile Workforce: Enhancing Systems and Processes
Optimising Gilmartins’ Mobile Workforce: Enhancing Systems and Processes Gilmartins is a contractor that specialises in property maintenance, with expertise in building repairs and maintenance. With over two decades of experience, the company provides domestic services to a wide range of sectors, including Education, Retail, Health, Hotels, Heritage, Design and Build, Developments, Commercial, and Public …
Enhancing Operational Efficiency Of MD Group Through Intelligent Scheduling
Enhancing operational efficiency of MD Group through intelligent scheduling MD Group is a building services company based in Bristol, specialising in the affordable housing and public sectors. They experienced rapid growth, opening 6 new offices and experiencing a 500% increase in annual revenue over a 5-year period. Reduced engineers’ travel time Increased the number …
Gravesham Borough Council: Streamlining the Maintenance of 6,000 Properties with Over 60 Engineers
Gravesham Borough Council: Streamlining the Maintenance of 6,000 Properties with Over 60 Engineers Gravesham Borough Council is a local authority that provides a wide range of services to its residents, including the maintenance of nearly 6,000 properties in Kent, utilising a team of over 60 engineers. However, their services were previously managed through paper-based processes, …
The Case of Streamlining Maintenance Management at One Housing Group
The Case of Streamlining Maintenance Management at One Housing Group One Housing Group is a renowned provider of housing, care, and support services across London and the South East, managing over 16,000 properties. The company’s Direct Labour Organization (DLO) was established in 2014 to maintain the housing stock. Complete visibility of their operatives’ work An …
Islington Council's Efforts to Manage Over 25,000 Properties
Islington Council’s Efforts to Manage Over 25,000 Properties With a portfolio of over 25,000 properties, Islington Council provides essential services to its residents. In 2012, the council brought the majority of its work in-house after relying on contractors. However, the systems and processes left behind by the previous contractor were not sufficient to meet their …
Sovini: Maximising productivity
Helping Sovini maintain over 13,000 homes in the North West The Sovini Group operates a unique model in the social housing sector. Created in 2010 it brings together commercial activities with social and not-for-profit businesses. Based in North West England, it manages and maintains more than 14,000 homes. It also operates several companies in the …
Social housing - What makes good data?
In the latest Oneserve podcast, our CEO, Chris Proctor discusses how good data can help housing providers make better decisions, improve service delivery, and ultimately enhance the lives of tenants. If you’re interested in learning more about good data in social housing, we invite you to attend our upcoming webinar on March 30th. Our panel …
Oneserve Talk Podcast - Meet the Team - Lisa Tomlins
Meet Lisa Tomlins, Oneserve’s Technical Consultant. We catch up with Lisa to find out more about her career, her role at Oneserve and how she is support housing associations across the UK. To listen to our other Meet the Team podcasts, please click here. To keep up to date with everything happening in UK social …
Improve your repairs service with customer obsession
The latest Housing Ombudsman report which reviewed service complaints between 2021-2022, has highlighted that one of the biggest complaints is that more action needs to be taken by landlords to improve the quality of homes and service. Social Housing landlords undoubtedly face many challenges currently from upgrading their properties to meet minimum energy efficiency standards, …
How to use KPIs to measure your service delivery processes
How many times have you tried to measure your service delivery process performance but have found yourself severely frustrated, and staring at a screen that makes very little sense? Finding out ways to improve your processes in order to meet your performance objectives can thwart anyone’s day – especially if you’re struggling to find data …
4 Key Field Service KPIs for Social Housing Providers
Improving field service metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) is a top priority for many managers of repairs and maintenance services within social housing organisations. But with so much data available from various sources, it can be difficult to determine which KPIs to focus on. Utilising field service KPIs and analytics can enhance the performance …
How to create capacity for retrofit projects
As the UK’s social housing stock comes under increasing scrutiny, it is clear that the time has come for landlords to prioritise retrofitting their housing stock to improve standards for tenants. In our previous blog, we explored the multiple challenges that social housing landlords are facing currently and why these may be preventing them from …
Oneserve Talk Podcast - Social housing 2023: A year of challenges and change
Oneserve Chief Executive, Chris Proctor looks ahead to 2023 and the challenges and opportunities facing the social housing sector.
It’s time to put retrofit schemes at the top of the agenda
With the UK’s current cost of living crisis and other recent news reports putting the condition and suitability of the country’s social housing stock into question, the retrofit topic has again become a major subject of discussion. A perfect storm has been created where rising bills are putting many social housing tenants into fuel poverty …
Looking beyond the obvious to fix labour shortages
Our latest blog from Oneserve Chief Executive Christopher Proctor. The obvious solution to a problem isn’t always the best one. Let’s take the war in Ukraine, which has impacted global oil and gas supplies. Finding new fossil fuel supplies might be the obvious solution – to replace like with like. But is it the most sustainable …
Can technology help landlords facing cost-of-living pressures?
Our latest blog from Oneserve Chief Executive Christopher Proctor This September’s quarterly survey from the Regulator of Social Housing made for grim reading for the sector. Inflation and labour and material shortages are hammering providers’ ability to deliver on planned investment in everything from new affordable homes to repairs and maintenance programmes. Across the country, not …
Oneserve Talk Podcast – Episode 3: Social Housing Sector Challenges
The third episode of our podcast series is here. During this episode with our CEO Chris Proctor, we discuss the impact of rising costs, a shrinking workforce, and how technology can assist in meeting the challenges of the future in the social housing sector. If you missed the last episode, you can find it here. …
Supporting gas compliance and servicing
To coincide with Gas Safety Week 2022, we thought we’d demonstrate how Oneserve supports the housing sector in meeting their gas servicing requirements Collaboration Our gas servicing solution enables collaborative working. It offers complete visibility end-to-end with client, contractor, back-office staff and engineers all accessing and using the system at appropriate points in the processes. …
Oneserve Talk Podcast - Episode 2: Introducing Oneserve
The second episode of our Oneserve Talk Podcast is here. This week, our CEO Chris Proctor, introduces Oneserve. Chris explains how we are supporting social housing landlords and contractors across the UK with our configurable cloud-based field service management software. You can listen to our first podcast episode, Meet the Team here. To keep up …
Oneserve Talk Podcast - Episode 1: Meet the Team
We’re pleased to launch our new podcast series! The first episode introduces you to Oneserve’s Chief Executive, Chris Proctor. He talks about his career, the motivations behind his work here at Oneserve, and his simple but effective business philosophy, “Do good, do better”. You can listen below. Want to find out more about what Oneserve can …
5 reasons ineffective processes can damage your business
Every one of us work in a business that requires process and yet so many of us find the subject uninspiring. But despite our initial lack of interest, we all need to wake up to the importance of processes particularly when delivering repairs and maintenance services.
Why is stock control so important in field service management?
Effective parts and stock management is vital for any field service organisation looking to deliver a great service. Many field service visits require a part, so if operatives’ vans are not kept stocked with the necessary parts, they may be unable to complete jobs. Read on to find out more.
Planned preventative maintenance (PPM) – get it right on every visit
Are you looking to enhance a wider long-term asset management strategy? Perhaps you're looking to provide a better annual gas safety inspection service? A well designed and executed PPM programme, will save your organisation time and money and will ensure you keep on track of your compliance obligations.
The Oneserve Guide to Efficiency in Field Service Management
Efficient field operations allow companies to deliver a great service while minimising costs. Find out how your organisation can become more efficient with this comprehensive guide. The guide discusses the following four essential components to efficient field operations: Cost optimisation – given that positive cash flow is vital to all organisations, how can costs be optimised? …
Is Insourcing the Answer? Four In-House Repairs & Maintenance Teams Share Their Experience
This comprehensive eBook looks at the experiences of several organisations. The debate around insourcing repairs and maintenance services continues to rage in the UK social housing sector. There are arguments for different business models, each with their own strengths and potential risks. This comprehensive eBook looks at the experiences of the following four organisations, each …
Getting it right first time – How to build an effective DLO
Based on the experience of our client partner, One Vision Housing, this white paper explores the driving factors behind their decision to insource, together with how they achieved a 20% increase in productivity and transformed their ‘appointments made at first contact’ from 45% to 98%. We also look at why a housing provider may choose to …
Customer experience in social housing - an alternative perspective
Social housing, by its very nature, is a sector designed for the benefit of society and those in most need. It is however a sector at a pivotal turning point. This is undoubtedly a good thing, as the focus on social housing and the conditions in which tenants live have come sharply into focus, it …
A Property Contractors' guide to tackling COVID-19
This eBook looks at the complexities contractors currently face, reflecting on today’s lessons and providing guidance on the changes you will need to make to successfully get your business beyond this crisis. Discover how you can: Drive resilience during lockdown Deliver strategies to build a stronger future Adapt to working in unprecedented times Overcome today’s …
How to embrace digital transformation in Social Housing
Undoubtedly the Social Housing sector is facing a digital challenge. But what do we even mean by ‘digital’ in this context? ‘Digital’ is a broad term and it is highly likely that your perception differs to that of the person next to you. But does this matter?
The Social Housing sector's digital transformation - what to focus on
The Social Housing sector faces a fundamental digital challenge in 2020. A challenge that was substantial before the coronavirus outbreak, but now has been exacerbated to different levels.
The ever-increasing role of technology within a successful Contractor workforce
The pandemic forced a lot of industries to adjust to different ways of working and for many that has translated into a greater reliance on technology to support and facilitate this.
How Housing Associations can meet customers' changing expectations
It’s all about expectation – in Housing Executive Magazine’s latest issue, we talk about the importance of understanding your customers’ perspectives to deliver a more positive repairs and maintenance service.
Field Service: How to minimise the impact
The coronavirus pandemic is a deep humanitarian crisis that is also gravely affecting the global economy. As the UK battles with COVID-19 through travel bans, lockdowns and the closure of educational establishments, all those that can, are being asked to work from home.
Do you have a Plan B for the skilled workers' shortage?
Skills shortages have been looming over the construction sector since it began recovering from the global financial crisis in 2013.
Delivering real-time live alerts and engineer tracking
In a world where we have all become very familiar with receiving real-time updates from big brands like Amazon, Uber and DPD, Oneserve’s latest new feature allows you to deliver an enhanced experience to your customers, through sending real-time updates on the day of their appointment to keep them better informed.
Covid-19 guidance issued for Social Housing providers
The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government has published non-statutory guidance for social housing providers on how to effectively enforce standards in rented properties.
Achieving more together: Five ways building and property contractors can be more competitive
Like so many other industries, the building and construction sector was hit hard by the Coronavirus pandemic. Sites closed, work stopped and contracts were put on hold.
5 recommendations when providing emergency works during the coronavirus outbreak
During the COVID-19 lockdown a significant number of businesses have faced the complicated challenge of keeping a proportion of their business open.
3 key ways Job Management Software is supporting the return to the 'new normal' in housing repairs and maintenance
When the Housing Minister announced that Social Housing landlords should resume planned works and repairs on empty properties it was clear that resuming routine repairs would not be a simple task for landlords due to a number of pressures.
Gravesham Community Hub: Using Oneserve to case manage vulnerable residents during COVID 19
Creating an innovative solution to establish an open line of communication Gravesham Borough Council are a stock retaining local authority who provide a wide range of frontline services to their residents. Using Oneserve during the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed them to create an innovative solution, Gravesham Community Hub, which has established an open line of …
