Housing Services staff deal with a range of matters related to maintaining the properties tenants live in. These include:
- Reactive repairs - including receiving and processing day to day repair requests
- Cyclical maintenance - including annual servicing of all gas appliances
- Planned Maintenance - including major component replacement and improvements such as installing new kitchens, bathrooms and replacement windows.
Staff spend a large amount of time out on Atrium’s estates ensuring both the houses and environment are well maintained. In addition, staff carry out a high number of home visits to tenants to inspect and survey the properties.
Tenant Choice
Day to Day Repairs
Repair Categories & Response Time
Right to Repair
Gas Maintenance
Scottish Housing Quality Standard
Tenant Choice
Many of the improvements Atrium carry out have an element of tenant choice and prior to any works commencing you may be invited along to an open day or roadshow to select a style of door or a colour of bathroom suite etc.
Tenants are currently involved in making choices for:
- Replacement Kitchens - style of units, colour of units, types of hamdles
- External Doors – glazed or unglazed and colour choices
Replacement windows – internal finishes
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Day to Day Repairs
Since April 2006, building and maintenance company Laidlaw Scott have been providing the reactive repairs service to Atrium’s stock after winning the 3 year tender.
Staff at Atrium Homes have immediate access to the company’s online jobs book. And that means in only a few keystrokes, the housing association can access the Laidlaw Scott website and a special section which shows the status of repairs to their properties.
Tenants will be able to quickly know what stage their repairs are at.
Atrium Homes Housing Services Manager, Joyce McCroskie said: “The online jobs book Laidlaw Scott provide as part of their service was one of the things which impressed us.
“They also have a proven track record working with housing associations all over Scotland and in England providing a planned maintenance service.
“Laidlaw Scott understands what is needed in the social rented housing sector and another thing that impressed us was their commitment to customer care. That is also one of our core values.”
Laidlaw Scott opened their local base at Campbell Street Business Park in Summer 2006 and are now able to offer a fast, local service to all Atrium’s customers.
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Repair Categories & Response Times
There are three repair categories with set response times. These are:
Emergency Repairs - These are repairs which threaten you or the property’s safety. They can also relate to the loss of essential services. Examples of emergency repairs are burst pipes, gas leaks or loss of ALL heating.
We will make these repairs safe within 3 hours.
Urgent Repairs - These are repairs which substantially inconvenience you. They can also relate to loss of services.Examples of urgent repairs are loss of hot water, individual electrical faults or rain penetration.
Our contractors will attend urgent repairs within 3 working days.
Routine Repairs - These are general repairs or renewals which are not classed as emergency or urgent repairs.Examples of routine repairs are repairs to internal joinery or communal aerials.
We will arrange for our contractors to complete these repairs within 5 working days.
All workmen carry identification. Please do not let anyone into your home without seeing identification first. We will have passed your access details with the order so please try to be at home at the times agreed. If you happen to be out on a routine repair, a card will be left for you to arrange a second visit.
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Right To Repair
From 30 September 2002, under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001, Scottish secure tenants and short Scottish secure tenants have the right to have small urgent repairs carried out by their landlord within a given timescale. This is called the Right to Repair scheme.
The scheme covers certain repairs up to the value of £350.00. These repairs are known as ‘qualifying repairs’. A list of these will be provided in a separate leaflet available on request. Our staff will be able to tell you whether your reported repair falls into this category and we will let you know the maximum time the job should take ,make access arrangements, tell you the last day the job should be done and give you details of another contractor.
Legislation entitles you the right to enlist the services of another contractor to carry out the repair, should the designated contractor fail to carry out repairs within the time limit set. You cannot use another contractor whom is not on your Landlord list.
The other contractor will advise the Landlord that you have requested them to carry out the repair. The Landlord will then pay you £15 compensation for the inconvenience.
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Gas Maintenance
On an annual basis , Atrium carries out gas servicing to all households with gas supply and appliances. This is a legislative requirement of Atrium Homes. Our nominated contractor will write to you when your house’s next annual maintenance is due to make arrangements for access. Please allow them to do the necessary work: it is being done for your safety.
All workmen carry identification. Please do not let anyone into your home without seeing identification first. We will have passed your access details with the order so please try to be at home at the times agreed. If you happen to be out on a routine repair, a card will be left for you to arrange a second visit.
We take our responsibility to carry out the annual gas servicing very seriously and will take legal action against any tenant who prevents access to allow this work to be carried out.
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Scottish Housing Quality Standard
In March 2003 the Scottish Executive issued the consultation paper ‘Modernising Scotland’s Social Housing’ in which it set out proposals for a national standard, based on a minimum set of quality measures for all houses in the social rented sector.
In February 2004, Scottish Ministers announced that, following the recommendations of the Housing Improvement Task Force and subsequent consultation, they would introduce the Scottish Housing Quality Standards to ensure a decent homes standards in the sector. 2015 has been set as the target date for achieving the Standard.
Each RSL and local authority had to prepare a Standard Delivery Plan outlining how they proposed to reach the SHQS within their stock and provide acceptable good quality housing as defined by the Standard. The plans were submitted in April 2005.
Atrium Homes submitted a Delivery Plan in line with the requirements and the plan was accepted by Communities Scotland as a realistic and achievable plan to ensure that Atrium’s stock meet the Scottish Housing Quality Standard.
