ATPAVENIR TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS
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04Housing · Policy and change

Repairs fixed first time. Damp found early.

A housing association wanted to fix more repairs on the first visit, and to find damp and mould before residents had to report it twice.

Client
A housing association in England
Scale
Tens of thousands of homes, across several regions
Duration
Eight months, including a twelve-week pilot
Team
Three from ATP, with a data engineer from our network

A representative example of our work. Client details are withheld.

A street of brick homes at dusk, warm light in the windows and a white van at the kerb

The problem

What it was costing.

Residents reported the same repair two and three times, and operatives arrived without the right parts. Damp and mould cases were tracked on spreadsheets, just as new legal timescales for social landlords made every missed day a breach.

The solution

A safer process, then the technology, then the teams.

We set the association’s rules for AI and resident data, rebuilt repairs and damp and mould handling around the new legal timescales, and supported the teams who run them every day.

Policy

  • Resident data.Which data may be used and for what, and never for decisions about a tenancy.
  • Awaab’s Law.The legal timescales for damp and mould hazards written into policy, with clear escalation.
  • Flags, not filters.Models flag homes for a visit; they never push a resident’s report down the queue.
  • Equality.Checks that flags reach every group of residents fairly, including those who report least.
  • Governance.Board oversight, a named owner and a register of every model in use.

Process

  • Repairs reported once.Residents describe the problem in their own words or with a photo; the call handler confirms the trade and parts suggested.
  • Damp and mould tracked.Every case followed against the legal timescales, from first contact to final inspection.
  • Early warning.Property, repairs and sensor data combined to rank homes for a visit before a report comes in.
  • Right first time.Job notes and parts lists prepared before the operative arrives.
  • Complaints read for causes.Themes drawn from complaints each month and fed back into the repairs plan.

Change

  • Residents first.A resident panel tested the new reporting journey before it launched.
  • The contact centre.Call handlers trained on the new triage, with the old route kept until the new one proved itself.
  • The trades.Mobile job sheets designed with the operatives who use them.
  • A pilot in one region.Twelve weeks, with a success measure and a stop condition agreed with the board.
  • Handover.Dashboards, procedures and model monitoring owned by the association’s own teams.

The payoff

Measured against the baseline.

Not everything moved. Sensors were fitted in only one home in five, so where there are none the early warning relies on repairs history. The association adds sensors as it refits.

What’s next

Built to carry on without us.

The association is extending the early warning model to heating and electrical safety, and sharing its approach to resident data with neighbouring landlords.

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