Date: 01 September 2011 at 17:34

Subject: Hot Water on Curnock Estate

Dear Resident,

Re: Heating Problems on Curnock Estate

I have been asked to look into the issues raised in your e-mail of the 25th August.

I have spoken to Contact Camden who run the out of hours Housing Repairs telephone service and they have confirmed that they received your call at approximately 6:30 am on the morning of Thursday the 25th of August. The Customer Services Officer who took your call correctly informed you that the priority for the lack of hot water between May and October attracts a 3 day response time. However, because it was a communal heating system and the problem affected more that one flat, he used his discretion and did actually process the job as a priority and passed it to Apollo, our heating contractor, straight away. Somehow there was a breakdown in communication as you were under the impression that no action was being taken by this officer and therefore you sent an e-mail to the Housing Repairs Inbox a few minutes later at 6:45. The reference number for the order raised by the Customer Services Officer was 1210726/1 so I am not sure why you were given a reference number of 1210723. As you know a representative from our heating contractor (Apollo) did attend at 8:30 am that morning and resolved the problems by 9:30 am.

I can not easily identify who else you spoke to that morning as the only information relating to your calls on our system was put on there by the individual you first spoke to. However all Customer Services Officers should understand our policy around the priorities for different types of housing repair and they should have given you a consistent response that there is a 3 day response time to lack of hot water during the warmer months. They should have also been able to ascertain that discretion had been used and that the repair was being responded to as a priority. I apologise that you were given different information depending on who you spoke to and we will look to see how we can make sure all Customer Service Officers have access to consistent and correct information.

I have also spoken at length about the performance of the district heating system with the lead person from Apollo, our heating contractors for the Curnock Estate. He has informed me that the issue on the 25th August has been the only unplanned outage over the last 4 months. He did tell me that there had been several days of planned downtime over the last 12 months or so whilst the major upgrade of the heating distribution pipe-work and more recently the replacement of the hot water distribution pipe-work has been undertaken. It is apparent that on some occasions the planned work has taken significantly longer than expected and has run into the evening/night sometimes resulting in the hot water/heating not being restored and available during the evening/early morning hours when most people are home and want to use it.

Repairs Policy

The Right to Repair legislation specifies how quickly we must carry out certain repairs including those to heating and hot water systems. The regulation stipulates that loss of heating and or hot water during colder months (1 November to 30 April) should be repaired within one working day, whereas loss of heating and hot water during warmer months (1 May to 31 October) should be repaired within three to seven working days. I can confirm that our published Repairs Policy booklets, which are comprehensively consulted upon, have always been consistent with this legislation showing response times for repairs falling under this category of 1 working day during the colder months and 3 working days during the warmer months.

Compensation Policy

When there has been a failure to supply heating, hot water or bulk gas for three consecutive days or more during the heating season (last week of September to the end of May) we will refund our customers. We make refunds based on the gross weekly charge made to the resident for landlord controlled heating, hot water or gas. The refund is a pro rata weekly amount (including the first three days). For leaseholders who have incurred loss of heating, hot water or gas supply, the actualised annual service charge is adjusted to reflect this refund.

In addition to any refund, we pay compensation when heating or hot water is unavailable for longer than a two week period. We will pay £1.20 per day for the loss of both heating and hot water, and 80p per day for the loss of hot water only or loss of heating only. The amount payable will be for the total period including the initial two weeks. We only pay compensation when we have not provided alternatives and we control the hot water/heating or gas supply.

Unfortunately it does not appear from the information that I have received that the conditions for compensation or refund payments have been met.

Housing Repairs Inbox

Contact Camden is the Council’s consolidated customer service team dealing with all methods of customer contact including telephone, e-mail and walk-ins and the management of the Housing Repairs Inbox lies with their processing team. This team’s responsibilities are to raise repairs where appropriate and to follow up on works orders that have not been attended to. They also deal with a number of other areas such as leaseholder and heating rebate enquiries. The telephony and processing teams within Contact Camden work together at the same location and constantly liaise on repairs request that come in through the various channels. In this case, as the job had already been raised on Northgate by the Customer Service Officer who you spoke to on the telephone, the processing team took no further action as it was clear that the job was in hand.

Emergency Repairs Team

The Emergency Telephone Service also falls under the Contact Camden umbrella and operate the out of hours service Monday to Friday and all day on Saturdays, Sundays and Public Holidays therefore it was a member of this team that you spoke to on the morning of the 25th August. They respond to emergency situations for a number of service areas and they have set criteria to determine which housing repairs issues they will deal with outside of normal working hours. They will normally only accept housing repair calls where there is danger to people or property and the repair will usually be to make the situation safe. This is why you were advised that, for the type of problem you were experiencing, you should really ring after 8am when the normal Housing Repair service is in operation.

I have seen correspondence that you sent us in the winter of 2009 where there were similar issues with the district heating system so I am aware that you have been experiencing problems with your heating and hot water supply over the last 18 months or so and therefore I can understand your frustration. Obviously the major upgrade work that has taken place since May 2010, to which you have made a considerable contribution as a leaseholder, is intended to try and improve the reliability of the district heating system that services your estate. I also know that you are aware that the problem on the 25th August was the result of low gas pressure causing the boilers to trip out. This appears to be a recurring issue and the National Grid has been made aware of our concerns and they have monitored gas pressure over a short period of time with no problem being seen. However we will work with them to ensure that a longer period of monitoring is undertaken to highlight the intermittent low gas pressure issue that we are certain exists.

We are very sorry for the inconvenience that has been caused and we would like to assure you that we are doing everything to improve the reliability of the heating system that serves your estate.

If you have any questions, please contact me on 020 7974 1554.

Yours sincerely

Martin Fox ACMA, MBCS
Head of Customer Assurance
Finance and Resources
Housing and Adult Social Care
London Borough of Camden

Telephone: 020 7974 1554
Mobile : 07917 040271
Fax: 020 7916 2009
Web: www.camden.gov.uk

3rd Floor
38-50 Bidborough Street
London WC1H 9DB

Thank you for your e-mail.

Unfortunately, your email did not consider all the facts and did not answer all my questions. Could you please answer my questions below in the same order as shown?

1) Mr Valdrin Rexha stated in his email on 31-08-2011 to Cllr Roger Robinson that the target is “3 working days” while in your email/letter you stated: “…should be repaired within three to seven working days .” Which one is the correct answer?

2) You and your employees in repairs team advise me to call them during the office hours for any repairs. Mr Richard Michael in his email on 27-05-2011 advised me to call the Camden Contact Centre or the Emergency Telephone Service. Which is the correct answer?

3) When did this repair policy change?

4) Why did you change the policy from 4 hours response time to seven working days?

5) When did you inform the leaseholders and/or the council tenants about the above new targets?

6) You stated in your letter that the Repairs Policy Booklets “…which are comprehensively consulted upon”. Have you consulted the residents about those changes? When? Any proof?

7) Could you please provide us with a copy of the SLA (Service Level Agreement) that you have with the contractors and the amount of money saved by the new policy.

8) Does the Camden Council find acceptable for the 750 approx. tenants to be without hot water/heating for SEVEN working days (i.e. approx 11 days if the problem is reported on Friday afternoon)? Please have in mind that some residents are disabled, or have kids or are elderly people.

9) You stated in your letter that Apollo informed you that: “…the issue on the 25th August has been the only unplanned outage over the last 4 months“. However this is untrue because on the 27 th May 2011 we had a loss of hot water due to power fault overnight . Please read more here: http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/388 The original emails are available if you need them.

10) Also on the 25-03-2011 we did not have hot water for two days due to “a problem with the systems within the boiler house”. Please see Ms Julie Humphrey’s letter to the residents on the following link: http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/381 and that link: http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/379

11) On the 02-03-2011 Mr Tony Bowcut gave us the following reasons concerning the lack of hot water for three days :

a. The lack of hot water on Saturday 26-02-2011 was due to computer malfunction on the boiler room.

b. The lack of hot water on Sunday 27-02-2011 was due to problems with the gas supply due to the gas works on the estate.

c. Read more at this link: http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/363

12) In your e-mail you also stated that: “ I cannot easily identify who else you spoke to that morning as the only information relating to your calls on our system was put on there by the individual you first spoke to.” This statement is wrong since

a. You know the name of the emergency guy who gave me a reference (1210723) that did not exist!

b. In my previous e-mail I gave you the name of the last person I talked to. His name was Adrian and he gave another reference number (REF: 1210726/1). He also said that he does not know what the other teams do. I totally understand him since there is so much and deliberate bureaucracy in order to avoid any responsibility.

c. You must have three entries in your database regarding my calls. Three people gave three numbers.

13) In the first paragraph of your letter you imply that the emergency guy raised a job because he used his discretion. This is wrong and untrue. The emergency guy informed me about the new and unacceptable policy, gave me a wrong reference number and said goodbye. The second person who I spoke to (an Asian guy) raised a job and gave a reference number that the third guy, Adrian, could not find in your cumbersome system. I was on the phone for 15 minutes while he was searching the inefficient database. I have studied databases in my MSc and I can tell you that your database for the repairs is not fit for purpose or your employees does not know how to use it.

14) Another observation is that the people in the Housing Repairs Inbox team never reply to emails and never provide a reference number. Why?

In the last 9 months:

-- there were 21 days without hot water (planned or not),

-- a more than £10,000 bill towards the major works which have not improved the situation,

-- a change in your repairs policy without any consultation with the residents and of course

--- a lot of frustration for all the residents who are expected by people like you to have a normal life without hot water for 11 days or maybe more (if your contractors do not have the right spare parts).

Yours sincerely

Thank you for your e-mail. In response to your questions:

1. To be absolutely clear our target for responding to lack of hot water during the warmer months (May to October) is 3 working days.

2. Strictly speaking you should only ring the ETS service out of hours if there is an immediate danger to persons or property. You should ring the Contact Centre between 8am and 6 pm Monday to Friday to report all other repairs. However our out-of-hours Customer Service Officers do have discretion and therefore if a whole estate is without heating or hot water (particularly over a weekend during the colder months) then, if this is rung through, they will try and get the remedial work underway if they can. Because of the volume of e-mails we receive, the response times can be variable which is why we would advise only using this method for non-urgent repairs.

3. I have gone back to documents more than 10 years old and this demonstrates that there has been no change in the repairs policy in this regard (i.e. it has always been 3 working days during the warmer months and 1 working day during the colder months).

4. I can not find any documentation that shows that we have ever had a policy of 4 hours response time.

5. As far as I am aware we have not changed the target so we have not needed to inform tenants or leaseholders.

6. Any changes to our Repairs Policy are always consulted on using existing mechanisms such as District Management Committees and resident focus groups before they are published.

7. I will pass on your request for a copy of the contractor SLA through to our Freedom of Information team, although I would re-iterate we have not changed our policy and therefore there are no savings to realise.

8. Our target times are in line with the Right to Repair legislation which sets out the statutory requirement for social landlords across the country to respond to different types of repair. As stated above, the response time would be 3 working days during the summer (not 7). If the problem happened at the start of a weekend then in theory residents could be without heating or hot water during the warmer months for up to 5 days. However, also as stated above, if a district heating failure affecting many people was reported to the out of hours team we would endeavour to restore heating and hot water as quickly as we could (which is what happened in this instance). We recognise that there may be vulnerable residents on the estate.

9. I should have been clearer in relaying what was said to me about issues with your district heating system. I was informed that there had been no breakdowns of the heating system as such in the last 4 months. The unplanned outages were as a result of a power supply surge or drop tripping the boilers out on the 26 th May and then low gas pressure tripping the boilers out on the 25 th August. I apologise for not relaying the information provided correctly.

10. As stated in my letter I am aware that unfortunately you have had recurring problems with the heating/hot water system over a significant period of time.

11. As stated in my letter I am aware that unfortunately you have had recurring problems with the heating/hot water system over a significant period of time.

12. I looked at our repairs system and the only entries were by the original call taker and it was he who raised the order - reference 1210726/1. Adrian is a Customer Services Officer that works normal hours. He would have looked up your district heating system in our database, seen that an order had already been raised by the out of hours staff and quoted the order number to you. I apologise that you did not get clear information about who had done what when you spoke to different members of our staff.

13. I apologise that you did not get clear information from our staff and we will look to see how we can improve the use of our database to give a better response in similar situations in the future.

14. I will pass this observation on to the Contact Camden management team.

I apologise to you for giving you incorrect information with respect to point 9. above.

As stated in my letter, I understand your frustration with the situation and, if you would kindly send me the list of breakdowns that you have recorded, I will review whether our criteria for compensation/refund, as set out in my letter, have been met.

Yours sincerely

Martin Fox
Head of Customer Assurance

Telephone: 020 7974 1554

Thank you for your e-mail.

My understanding is:

1) The RESPONSE TIME to lack of hot water is "3 working days"

2) The REPAIR TIME for loss of hot water is "within 3 to 7 working days"

3) Based on the discretion of the repairs team the repair will be done within 7 working days (spare parts available) or more if the spare parts are not available and the contractor will have to order them.

4) If we assumed the maximum time for repair and that the repair is reported on a Friday late afteroon then the repair time would be 11 days or more (4 days for the weekends + 7 working days).

Could you please confirm the above?

Below you can find the list concerning the loss of hot water on the estate since December 2010 and specifically on the Goldthorpe building:

15-09-2011 - No Hot Water (Planned) (1 Day) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/429
08-09-2011 - No Cold Water (Planned) (1 Day) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/428
31-08-2011 - No Cold Water (Planned) (1 Day) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/425
24-08-2011 - No Hot Water (Unplanned) (1 Day) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/422 REF: 1210726/1
28-07-2011 - No Hot Water (Unplanned) (1 Day) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/404
27-07-2011 - No Hot Water (Planned) (1 Day) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/403
19-07-2011 - No Hot Water (Planned) (1 Day) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/400
27-05-2011 - No Hot Water (Unplanned) (1 Day) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/388
24-03-2011 - No Hot Water (Unplanned) (2 Days) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/381
21-03-2011 - No Hot Water (Planned) (1 Day) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/376
28-02-2011 - No Hot Water (Unplanned) (1 Day) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/363
27-02-2011 - No Hot Water (Unplanned) (1 Day) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/363
26-02-2011 - No Hot Water (Unplanned) (1 Day) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/363
10-02-2011 - No Hot Water (Planned) (1 Day) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/356
04-02-2011 - No Hot Water (Unplanned) (1 Day) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/352
03-02-2011 - No Hot Water (Planned) (1 Day) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/349
11-01-2011 - No Hot Water (Unplanned) (1 Day) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/340 REF: 1103387
04-01-2011 - No Hot Water (Unplanned) (1 Day) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/337
28-12-2010 - No Hot Water (Unplanned) (1 Day) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/334
20-12-2010 - No Hot Water (Unplanned) (4 Days) http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=node/331

TOTAL 22 Days without Hot Water and/or Heating
TOTAL 02 Days without Cold Water

The whole history of the Heating Problems including emails and other evidence can be found at the following link:
http://www.curnockestate.com/?q=taxonomy/term/11

Looking forward for your reply.

Yours sincerely

Dear Resident,

To confirm once more our policy is to respond and, wherever possible, complete a repair within 3 working days of the problem being reported where there is a total or partial loss of heating or hot water to a home between 1 May and 31 October. There are provisions within the Right to Repair legislation that allow this period to be extended in particular circumstances (e.g. if parts are not standard and not easily sourced). In most of the instances of unplanned loss of hot water that you have quoted the repair has been effected on the same day or the next day after the problem was reported (including weekends). You have made assumptions in your calculation of the maximum time for a repair taking 11 days or more which are subjective and therefore I can not validate your calculation.

My team has reviewed the information that you passed on to us where it has been reported that there has been loss of hot water for your estate and we have been able to validate all but 2 of the dates.

Unfortunately, as set out in my letter of the 1 st September, and confirmed in our response to a Freedom of Information request made by you in August, we only make refunds to leaseholders where there is a failure to supply hot water for 3 consecutive days or more. There was one period of 4 days in December 2010 which exceeded the criteria so I will arrange the appropriate refund to you. We only pay compensation when heating or hot water is unavailable for a period longer than 2 weeks and unfortunately no outages meet the criteria.

However I do appreciate the time you have put into making us aware of the considerable outages (many unplanned) that you have had at the Curnock estate, in spite of the investment in the heating system to which you have made a sizeable contribution, and therefore I am proposing to pay you £50 as a gesture of goodwill.

We will continue to review the performance of the Curnock Estate district heating system and make every effort to sustain the supply of heating and hot water to your estate.

Yours sincerely

Martin Fox
Head of Customer Assurance

Telephone: 020 7974 1554

Dear Stuart

This sum of £50 is certainly not the amount that should be paid to any Curnock resident with the appalling loss of heating and hot water over the time stated…..frankly the residents who phoned me weekend after weekend and night after night with no heating and hot water were very stressed out and I don’t think that £50 is enough to compensate them…….I have asked for proper compensation time and time again and this is not on.

Please can you discuss this with Mike Cooke and look at the mass of emails, letters etc from residents and me and see the stress they had and be prepared to increase the sum as compensation considerably.

I wait to hear

Regards

Roger

(Roger Robinson Cllr)

Relevant links/stories

Housing repairs service (PDF 128KB)

Repairs Policy Review