2010 Rotherham is an Arm’s Length Housing Management Organisation (ALMO), set up in 2005 by Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council to manage, maintain and improve council homes in Rotherham. The organisation is a not-profit-making organisation and is owned and managed by the Council, with local tenants taking an active role in influencing its direction. Its goals are to provide services that are valued by tenants, residents and the Council and to contribute to building sustainable communities with services that compare favourably with the best housing providers in the country.

2010 Rotherham is responsible for the day-to-day management and maintenance of some 21,500 domestic and 350 commercial council-owned properties.

The establishment of 2010 Rotherham has enabled access to the resources required to tackle the maintenance, modernisation and improvement needs of the Council’s housing stock through the Government’s Decent Homes programme. Its aim is to bring the domestic housing stock up to the Decent Homes standard by 2010 - hence its name.

Three contractors, together with 2010 Rotherham, form the Rotherham Decent Homes Partnership to undertake the surveying, securing and refurbishment works required to bring the housing stock to decency standards.

At the same time, the organisation is committed to delivering recognisable value for money, and delivering a high level of service to tenants.

As part of this strategy, the ALMO planned to implement hand-held technology to reduce inefficiencies and deliver faster service to customers. In preparation for this move, the organisation streamlined its responsive repairs service into a single depot that could be centrally controlled through the use of hand-held technology and electronic diaries for front-line operatives.

2010 Rotherham began looking at mobile solutions to deliver and manage work orders for its 300 operatives. Jon Cocker, IT Manager said: “The solution of utilising a highly skilled mobile workforce using handheld PDAs was seen as the natural solution to all our requirements.”

In particular the organisation saw potential for improving response times for emergency repairs, the ability to meet agreed appointment times, and provide a value for money repairs service.

The ALMO took a look at several potential mobile solutions, but was particularly impressed by 1st Touch. The solution was a fully working integrated package, which, crucially, was already proving highly successful at Morrison plc in Birmingham. Says Jon: “The demonstration of the working system at Morrison was very persuasive, and was certainly instrumental in our decision. We could choose the 1st Touch solution with confidence knowing that we were buying a ready to use and proven off-the-shelf solution.” 

The product met, and in some cases, exceeded the ALMO’s criteria.

Through its previous experience in working with other solution providers, 1st Touch was able to integrate its mobile solution into 2010 Rotherham’s Xmbrace Opti-time software, ROCC Uniclass enterprise database and Keyfax diagnostics repairs too, providing a seamless solution across disparate systems.

Jon concludes that “We saw this as a solution that perfectly matched our view of how mobile systems could work for our organisation.”

The solution drives all aspects of repairs and maintenance for Rotherham’s council properties, covering both emergency repairs and scheduled works such as annual gas maintenance plans.

As a first step, to greater cost-efficiency in service delivery and to improve its environmental credentials, 2010 Rotherham began to look for alternative solutions for processing its annual 130,000 work orders – which required an astonishing 1.5 million paper-based transactions a year.

In future 2010 Rotherham is planning to implement a dispatch courier service and a voids programmed works module.

Further 1st Touch solutions in the pipeline for Rotherham are Customer Satisfaction Surveys, Gas Safety and Electrical Test certificates, all of which will be completed using forms on the PDA.