In the spring 2016 edition of atHome magazine we told you about our plans to improve our Caretaking Service. Earlier this year we invited all residents who receive the service to give us their views and then consulted in detail with those who expressed an interest in telling us what they liked about the service and how they wanted to see it improve in the future.

We are pleased to announce that the new Caretaking Service launches today, Monday 5th December.

New patches

Where previously there were four larger area teams covering the borough with a mixture of caretaking types, the new Caretaking Service now consists of six teams and a larger fleet of vehicles, with each team covering a smaller local ‘area’. Each area will have a dedicated Estate Services Manager who will monitor standards and ensure the quality of service provided to residents.

We know it is important to you that you receive a consistent local caretaking presence, so we have designed the new service to deliver this, whilst also ensuring the service is as flexible and responsive as possible to residents’ needs. This will mean we can deliver consistently great service across all estates.

The teams will be as follows:

Team 1 – West Hendon & Edgware
Team 2 – Grahame Park
Team 3 – Hendon
Team 4 – Finchley & Cricklewood
Team 5 – Muswell Hill
Team 6 – Barnet

Caretaking teams

You may have been used to having just one residential caretaker on your estate, now we will have caretaking teams who share a broad local knowledge of an estate and its surrounds. This approach reduces lone working for some of our caretakers, as well as ensuring a more resilient service for you.

Where a caretaker is currently based may not change, but they will come off the estate during the week to help out on other properties and in return be aided by a team of caretakers on their own estate. This means that our larger estates can still be covered by a knowledgeable team even when your ‘main’ caretaker is on leave.

Out-of-hours caretaking service

Caretakers who were previously residential will no longer be available out-of-hours, so please contact our Contact Centre on (Freephone 0800 389 5225), who will handle all emergency needs centrally.

Daily cleaning standards

The new service has adopted a new set of standards and a team-based caretaking approach, which will require it to meet the nationally-recognised HouseMark cleaning standards. Our quality assurance processes will be focused on ensuring that the HouseMark standards are consistently maintained across all estates.

Customer Satisfaction

We will also be introducing telephone surveys and an online survey to collect your feedback on how we are doing. You can complete the survey by clicking here.