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STATES OF JERSEY
Public Accounts Committee Andium Homes - Repair and Maintenance
THURSDAY, 26th FEBRUARY 2015
Panel:
Deputy A.D. Lewis of St. Helier (Chairman)
Deputy J.A. Martin of St. Helier
Connétable C.H. Taylor of St. John
Deputy S.M. Wickenden of St. Helier
Mr. S. Warr en, Deputy Comptroller and Auditor General Mr. M. Robinson
Mr. R. Parker
Witnesses:
Chief Executive, Andium Homes
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes Chairman, Andium Homes
[13:20]
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
Welcome, as I said before. Firstly, the process today is just to find out a bit more about Andium Homes, what they have been doing in recent times. It is a relative new organisation. I would like to congratulate you on a huge amount of the report that the C. and A.G. (Comptroller and Auditor General) did. It is very, very positive about what Andium Homes have achieved, so well done. It is really good to see in an arm's length business from the States of Jersey that a model perhaps
for the future, for other departments maybe, is performing fundamentally pretty well. But it is routine for these sort of investigations to occur. The C. and A.G. does a report and we are then honour bound, as the Public Accounts Committee, to review it and then call a hearing. So nothing sinister about this, it is not trying to find problems, it is just trying to find out more so we can report back to the States of Jersey a full report on how Andium Homes is performing. Certainly the planned maintenance elements of what you do ... it is clean bill of health and you have gone beyond the benchmarking for that which is really great, so well done. The other elements, the unplanned maintenance is the bit that we are perhaps more interested in because clearly it is an issue that we want to find out more about. So the process is going to be we are going to ask you some questions, also from my colleagues, I shall not be asking all the questions by any means so we have discussed that order before you arrived, and draw out information that may be of use to other States Members in assessing how they feel Andium Homes, as a new body, is performing. So, first of all, we are just going to talk a little bit about the information, management information, that we feel that should be coming from Andium Homes in order to inform its shareholders, if you want to use that word, of the States of Jersey as to how you perform. First off I would like to know if you are satisfied that you have all the information necessary to run an economic and efficient housing repairs and maintenance service? I do not know who would like to kick off with an answer to that.
Chairman, Andium Homes:
I suppose it would be best characterised at the moment to say I think we have got adequate information. That is not to say that is all the information that we need. One of the decisions that the board of Andium has taken is to renew its I.T. (Information Technology) system in its entirety. We are running currently on a very old housing management system and while that is okay, it is good enough, it is not state of the art by any means and we have decided to renew the whole thing. We have taken a decision to initiate that process. That is obviously quite a lengthy, a long drawn-out one because we've got to specify a new system, go out for tender and develop it. That is obviously intended to give us the level of management information we would need for the future. So that is just a sort of general background to that.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
Okay. Could you perhaps tell us a bit more about your procurement process for an I.T. system? What are you looking for?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
If I could just go back a little bit on that, to add to what the Chair said, it was that, I think, being part and parcel of the States of Jersey and therefore one size will fit all, for Housing it just was not assisting our business and directing the service to our tenants. So, for instance, the States system
is so incredibly secure that you cannot do remote working and you cannot use mobile devices and therefore it may be great for Health and it may be good for other things, but actually for the entity and a business within the States of Jersey like Housing, for instance, it just was not suitable. So what we are looking for in our I.T. is effectively something that we can do the mobile working, we can use the mobile devices, we can get the information from our tenants that drops into our system that you can interrogate on a live basis, not a 2 to 3 month later basis. It is hosting that server outside of, away from the States of Jersey. So our programme is going to be ... in 18 months we will be away from the States of Jersey completely with a whole integrated I.T. housing system. It was in the paper the other night, a line of business request for expressions of interest. So, as the Chair said, the I.T. strategy was approved and we are moving on with that, and it will be a top to bottom review, new I.T. systems throughout and the list is endless. If I was to paraphrase it, I would say we are in the dark ages in terms of I.T. So whether we are collecting lots of data we are still not being able to interrogate it in the way that we, as a modern social housing provider, ought to be. The new I.T. system will absolutely allow us to do that. We talk about ... strayed into a bit about checking jobs and things like that. We want to be able to do that with remote devices, mobile devices so that we can see our tenants, they can sign for things, et cetera, and you can drop it in a cradle and it is populating all of the information underneath that. John's an I.T. specialist so I do not know if you want to ...
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
Yes, just to summarise our I.T. strategy. The line of business system is the key piece of that strategy. That would support basically all the underlying activities of Andium Homes, but related to that also is remote working, also integration with telephony. When a client rings up, we want to know who that client is so we can answer the phone: "Good morning, Mrs. Whoever", not: "Hello" and then find out their details. We want that to come up on the screen. We want to have much more integration, but we also need to focus on our clients. Digital inclusion is an important aspect for us moving forward. We have already made contact with Digital Jersey and I am speaking to them about our strategy and how it fits into the whole process. Our people ... our staff are out on site a lot of the time. They are undertaking inspections. They need to have access to the data of their tenancies real time, they need to record inspections as they are going about inspecting, taking photographs. We cannot do that at the moment so we need to do all that. We need to provide our clients with facilities that they can check their rent account, make payments, look at the status of repair jobs, all those sorts of things. At the moment they have to ring up or come in. Those are less efficient than being able to provide those things online.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
What is your time scale for ... obviously you have just done a procurement exercise, I assume that there are some actual systems on the shelf that are used by ... similar to a housing association, for example, in the U.K. (United Kingdom). On the basis of that you can then tailor it for local use, what do you think realistically is your timescale to introduce such a system, because this is going to revolutionise your data capture and your ability to run your business in the way that you want to.
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
The procurement exercise we have just started this week, we aim to sign contracts in September this year and from what we have researched we believe an implementation timetable of about a year is realistic.
Deputy S.M. Wickenden:
I also notice that you have advertised for a maintenance manager.
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes: Head of property maintenance.
Deputy S.M. Wickenden:
Head of property maintenance. Within the scope of tendering an I.T. system, would it not be pertinent to have them in place first so they can have input on the I.T. system that is going to help them?
[13:30]
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
Well, the line of business system covers repairs, but it also covers everything else we do. Lettings, rents, all sorts of things, and we do have a repairs team that are, you know, very well skilled. So ideally, yes, but we need to move on. This is very crucial to our delivering a better service to our clients.
Deputy S.M. Wickenden:
That is going forward, but at the moment you still collate the information more manually and when you are doing inspections you would probably schedule it and have all that information with the person. So I think the question was, are you satisfied you have all the information necessary to run an economic and efficient housing repairs and maintenance service now?
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
I think the data quality is not as good as we want it to be. Obviously there is ... you know, we want it to be accurate, we want it to be reliable. We also want it timely and there are lots of other ... by writing things down, transposing ... you know, taking pictures. It is a very manual process, takes time. Inevitably there will be mistakes whereas if you had an online form you could fill it in, have the integration ...
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
But between now and September you are having to manage with what you have got. Can you do anything better with what you have got in the interim without any further major expenditure?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
Yes, I think we can. I think we have introduced ... we have tried to free up some staff for those inspections and gathering initial data. We also talked to you about, or mentioned I think, the estates visits where we have got every single member of staff out and about once every quarter. Everyone has got 100 homes each, even me, so we all go out, we are gathering data and we are able to receive that assistance. The problem is the integration of that data. So absolutely, why have we got a new I.T. strategy? Because, as I said, we simply are not where we ought to be. We are in the dark ages in terms of I.T. In all honesty our housing management system is 20 years old. Would we be here now if we were part of the States of Jersey? We would not have a new I.T. strategy because by the time you had got permission to get forward with it, because it had to be integrated with every man and his dog quite honestly. That is the States of the Jersey. It is not a criticism but it is a fact that that is the way that it has to work and because you are a company of 50 plus staff, I am afraid we did not figure in the scheme of things in the same way that Health and Education would. So would we be where we are now? No, if we were not Andium Homes. So we absolutely need a better I.T. system to be in the kind of company that we want to be.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
How do you provide the management information that is required by you to the Treasury now? How do you provide it and when do you provide it?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
What, in terms of the K.P.I.s (Key Performance Indicators)?
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
No, management information to the Treasury. I am talking about management accounts and so on. Do you ...
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
Yes. The information provision to the Treasury is managed under a Memorandum of Understanding and we are required to provide 6 monthly and annual reports as other companies would do, plus we meet the Minister for Treasury and Resources on a quarterly basis.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
So do you produce monthly management accounts as well?
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes: Yes, we do.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
You do, but the Treasury gets quarterly information.
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes: Yes.
Deputy J.A. Martin:
Chair, could I just have a quick supplementary? The Chairman said probably 18 months before it was all up and running, the new I.T. system. Has it been completely costed as well?
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
We have a budget for this I.T. implementation.
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
£780,000. That includes ... that is not just for the line of business system, that includes things like ...
Chief Executives, Andium Homes: P.D.A.s (Personal Digital Assistant).
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
P.D.A.s absolutely. Obviously things like replacing cameras for ... you know, we have cameras for anti-social behaviour, to monitor that. At the moment they are not linked into anything so we have to go out and collect. Now, obviously that is very labour intensive so part of that budget is to replace that, and to extend it where our clients want it.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
So there is an opportunity of investment for saving as well, so do you anticipate this reducing some of the manual input. Of course you do, but staff as well?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
We have identified that there is 3 staff savings as a result of this, which in a company of 50 plus staff is significant. We talked, I think, about our response repair service where we have got, for instance, 12,000 orders produced annually. You are seeing 4 actions on each one, so that is 48,000 activities on these orders. That is going to be through a new response repairs contract and our new I.T. system, it is going to be completely changed. We will be able to redirect those resources to provide that checking governance around our responsive repairs contract but also we are going to make savings. So we have identified within the I.T. strategy 3 staff savings.
Mr. R. Parker:
How does the new system impact your contractors?
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
It is not just the system, it is also how we propose to change the way we manage response repairs. The board agreed this week to start a process of retendering our response repairs and void contracts, and to go, as Ian was saying, through a much more ... rather than manage the process around the inputs, raising an order, paying an invoice, that type of thing, is manage the process via the outcomes. So we can inspect more of the jobs, make sure you are getting what you are paying for rather than just checking an invoice. It is all very well checking an invoice 4 times or authorising it 4 times. If you do not know if the job has been done, it is a bit pointless. So we are looking to towards a price per property, so a fixed price per property for a particular trade or number of trades. So you have the contractor who undertakes plumbing and electrical works for you, for example, and you pay that contractor 12 instalments of X. So the actual invoicing side becomes very simple. Rather than dealing with 6,000 invoices, you are dealing with 12. But you manage that contract and you inspect what they are doing to a much greater degree.
Mr. R. Parker:
So how do you inspect it at the moment and deal with variations?
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
How do we inspect it? We do not inspect enough, to be fair. That is why we want to change the emphasis so that we are out and about inspecting what has been done and making sure we are getting the job that we want. Also making sure that our clients are satisfied with the job.
Mr. R. Parker:
Things like variations to contractual rates, how does that get authorised?
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
At the moment it is based on a schedule of rates. We have a thick book of everything, which describes every type of job imaginable, obviously not every one, and assigns a price. So the problem is somebody rings up and says: "I have not got any hot water", okay, so is that an electrical problem because the immersion heater has gone, or have they got any water at all? Well, you know, it is what sort of job? You can ask them all the questions but ultimately, you know, the tradesman gets to the premises and looks at the job and it becomes something else. So there are lots of changes to schedules, rates and all that needs to managed and the price change of that particular order, that needs to be managed. So, not only does your order initially need to be raised but there is also what the changes to pay for the job that was done finally.
Mr. R. Parker:
What level is that variation sort of managed at or authorised?
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
It depends on the value. We are doing 12,000 jobs for 1.8 million so it is not a very high value per job but we obviously inspect the higher value ones because those are the ones that are more likely to have a variation.
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
The cultural change for us is moving away from the input to the outcome. A lot of time is spent and has been spent in the past on the process and a lot of time taken up with, say, 48,000 movements rather than the outcome. I think our I.T. strategy and our new response repairs contact is shifting that emphasis, quite rightly to the outcomes for them to deliver ... demonstrate that we can deliver that value for money, because that is what the C. and A.G. was talking about. We identified very much with it.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
That is good; we will be asking a question about that later.
Mr. M. Robinson:
You mentioned the inspections and you said that you did not think there were quite enough being undertaken at the moment. I presume that is responsive work. I note that the report says that adequate arrangements in place for inspection of completed planned maintenance. Have you any plans to increase the amount of inspections and how would you do it?
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
By freeing up people from their desks and dealing with invoices they can be out and about inspecting works. It is as simple as that.
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
I think those estate visits, I have to say, having been out there and ... I look after Hue Court. That is a very, very useful exercise when you are out and about. Okay, directly linked with checking work, but you are meeting people face to face, very valuable. I have met the majority of people in Hue Court. The feedback we are getting is absolutely invaluable about services that we are providing and that is the kind of thing that we can input into our outcome management data and get that real feel for, are we hitting the right mark? So it has been crucial to us, it has been really helpful getting out and about and talking to people face to face.
Deputy A.D. Lewis : That is excellent.
The Connétable of St. John :
At the moment how do you use these results to gauge client satisfaction?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
We have various surveys. We conduct surveys, paper surveys where we are getting feedback from our tenants, which is recording about 93 per cent satisfaction. But what we want to build in with our new I.T. strategy and the response repair contract is obviously much more information coming into us, be it electronically, be it from those estates visits, getting those inspections going, getting people's sign off when they are having a job carried out. When you get a parcel from the post office you actually now have an electronic thing that you sign for. That would be fantastic for us, people signing for a piece of work that has been done and interrogating that data.
Deputy S.M. Wickenden:
The survey, is it about the repairs and maintenance or is it a general one?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
It is both. Obviously we are getting feedback from our clients about the service we are providing. What we want to do though is we want to improve that feedback and give them feedback about the information that we are giving. Again, one of the things is the C. and A.G.'s report saying about the importance of giving feedback to your customers, absolutely. We are talking about the introduction of an annual survey. We are talking about having meetings with our tenants' forum and reporting back to them on a quarterly basis about the information coming back on client
customer satisfaction. The annual survey is really important to us and will appear in our community news magazine saying: "This is what we are reporting to you." So we find those face to face meetings, as I say, invaluable and it is that ability to give them the feedback that they absolutely want.
Deputy S.M. Wickenden:
When do you think you can get those kind of meetings together? Are you already starting that process to try and get that level of engagement increased?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
Yes, we have already got our tenants' forum going. We have already got those estate visits. I know I keep talking about that but I think the ability to have 50 plus staff out with 100 homes each has again been invaluable. So that feedback is important. I think with the new suite of K.P.I.s that we will be wanting to introduce with our new response repairs contract, that gives us the opportunity to feed back to people about the things that really matter. Let us get this repair done the first time. Nothing irritates people more, nothing damages your reputation more than trying to have a repair done and somebody has got to come back and do it again. So that is really absolutely crucially important. The other thing when I was asking tenants what irritated them or what they found frustrating was at the time was contractors were coming to them to carry out the repairs. You know, they are working and they have ... so we are talking to the contractors about evening repairs, weekend repairs, about appointments and about appointments being kept. So there is a K.P.I. about that that we can report back to them on. Therefore we know about holding our contractors to account. These are their customers and that is vitally important too.
[13:45]
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
Just because we are paying a contractor, that is irrelevant. It should be that they are providing our clients who pay rent, which funds everything, with a service as if they were paying. That is really important to us and something we are trying to work on with our contractors.
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
If I can just say, very briefly, that is another cultural change that we are working on. These are customers to our contractors. They are not remote, they are customers and need to be treated as such.
The Connétable of St. John :
So with that in mind, every contractor does a bad job occasionally, are you picking up any pattern between contractors, are some better than others and what actions are you taking?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
Yes, we are picking that up. A good example is a contract on, I think it was, kitchens where we dismissed a particular contractor because of their performance, which we do do. I think one of the very interesting things as the C. and A. G. was saying, and again this is a cultural change, is that when we recruited contractors in the past in a tender for a contract, and they got ... say it was a £900,000 contract, we would have 3 contractors, £300,000 each. We would assume or we would say that that standard had to be a certain level and because they were meeting that standard they all got £300,000 each. Very interestingly, the C. and A.G. was raising her eyebrows saying: "That is not how I would expect to do it. I want to see you monitoring the performance among the 3 and obviously this one is performing better and you are able to direct more work to them then there is healthy competition." Absolutely a big tick for that, we like that. Where we come from in the past is this straitjacket process where you awarded the contract and, my word, you better make sure that everyone gets around about the same amount of the contract because that is the way it has been tendered, that is what contractors expect and that is what the former Comptroller and Auditor General liked to see. So it has sort of shifted, which is great.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
I think there was an unintended consequence from that which maybe had not been predicted which now, with K.P.I.s can put right.
Chief Executive, Andium Homes: Yes, and we think that is great.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
With tenant survey feedback form, does a tenant, when a job is done on their house, no matter how big or small, get given some kind of form to complete and return to you should they wish to?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes: It is not every tenant, is it?
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes: No, a number of surveys are sent out ...
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
I appreciate there is a separate thing here which you send out other surveys and are regulated to selective tenants but I was thinking as when buys services from lots of places you will often get ... like British Airways, you will get a survey form straight through after you have checked in. "How has your flight gone?" "Well, I have not been on it yet, actually." That type of survey process, is there any ...
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
We have not done that in the past but what we certainly are doing with these telephone services which will be coming into play in the next couple of months ...
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
But could your suppliers, when they do the work, leave a form, a brief form saying whether they felt they had a good job done today and whether it has been done to their satisfaction, which they can choose to complete or not?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes: Absolutely, yes.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
Is that something you do now?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes: We do not do that at the moment.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
Do you think that would be a good idea?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
I think it would be a good idea because I think we would like to introduce that with a suite of customer feedback forms. Not ... what is really important to us, and this is the opportunity with the new response repairs contract, is about developing that suite of K.P.I.s but also that customer surveying to give us that information that we need in order to provide them with the best service. So I think we are just in that process.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
Where I am coming from is if you put that in place it would help you mould your K.P.I.s by having that information now. Because I know you do not really have the I.T. systems currently to even take that information and use it as well as you could, but in the interim between now and September ... normally the procurement of these systems take longer so it could be next year before you have the data you really need, would this be useful for you to formulate your K.P.I.s by having a customer response form for every job?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
Absolutely, I think what I am saying is that of course we would want to do something like that but it is also important that as part of this response repair new contract that we are going to need to make sure that we are running this programme and this new contract in the way that it ought to be run. So, yes.
Chairman, Andium Homes:
It is worth adding to that that it is obviously not just about the physical repair, we are also interested in how a contractor is behaving when they go into someone's home. That sort of customer care at a personal level is very important as well as the actual repair to the property, as it were.
Mr. R. Parker:
Is there anything that if you have not had a response related to a repair within a particular timeframe then that repair has been accepted as being of the appropriate standard by the tenant?
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes: If we do not hear anything, do you mean?
Mr. R. Parker:
Yes, because I am thinking there is a liability that obviously a tenant needs to leave a property in a particular state. So the question is what is their contractual aspect between the tenant in relation to that repair being done to the appropriate standard?
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
In terms of when a tenant moves out, we undertake a pre-void inspection, we call it. Before they leave, we inspect and we go around with the tenant and say: "Well, you need to do something about that" and that sort of thing and then we would expect those things to be followed up on before the keys are handed back.
Deputy S.M. Wickenden:
Can I just have a supplementary there? Are you not at a risk when you have not been doing the inspections on the work which happened when a tenant leaves a property when you go around and ascertain that something is not in the right place, that it could have been done by a contractor badly and then you are putting the emphasis on the exiting tenant to repair something that was done badly in the first place? Is there a risk of that?
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes: We do not do enough inspections ...
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
You could not, could you? As you are currently resourced you could not inspect every job and would not be expected to do so.
Chairman, Andium Homes:
We do rely very much on tenant feedback if things have gone wrong, I think, in those circumstances. But certainly a higher proportion of post inspection would be very valuable.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
Did you not say there was a bench level whereby if it was over a certain amount you would routinely inspect? What level is that? Did you say £12,000?
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes: No, there were 12,000 jobs.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
Sorry, is there a limit? Let us say it is a very expensive repair, is that the sort of thing you are more likely to inspect? Is there a limit that you would not not inspect because it was over a certain amount?
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
We do a random sample of the response repair jobs, but for planned maintenance jobs we do inspect all of them.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
I am sure you would, but let us say it was a response job that turned into a very big job, would you inspect that?
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes: Yes.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
Is there an amount or is it just gut feel?
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
It would depend on the type of job, I think, and how complex. But the higher the value the more likely we are to do an inspection.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
Yes, the more important the inspection.
Deputy S.M. Wickenden:
About timeliness and quality of response repairs, how do you know that the individual contractors are meeting those standards that you have set? So for timeliness, they have turned up on time. Do you normally want feedback or ...?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
Again, I think that is from our surveys and the feedback from our tenants in terms of the service that they are getting. I think we are coming back to where we were before. It simply is not enough to give us the information that we require at this stage. We understand that and we appreciate it and we are obviously doing something about it in terms of our new response repairs contract. I think the other area I would just mention, because I think it is pertinent, is about the staff numbers. Andium Homes is just over 50 staff. If you compare that to social housing landlords in the U.K., and in every review we have had, the last reviewed by Professor Christine Whitehead, was that our staff numbers - as I think she described it - are parsimonious. They are tight. We do not have huge numbers of staff and if you do compare us to other social housing providers, it is tight. That is why we need to make sure that we get the most out of our I.T. and our new contracts because we absolutely do not want to add to our overheads. We are not looking to recruit more staff, we have to live within our means. So I think that is an important point, cutting your cloth according to what you have got. That weighs heavily with us.
Deputy S.M. Wickenden:
On that point, once you have made the savings or efficiencies through the I.T, system, will there be a level of training that your staff will have to do to undertake different roles? You said that you might be able to get them out doing other jobs rather than invoicing.
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
Absolutely. This is the shift away from the input, the public sector input, the amount of time that is spent where people are extremely busy but curious or dubious about the amount of value. Again, I do not mean that rudely. I just think it is symptomatic of some of the problems, the inputs do too much and the outcomes are not focused enough. So I think the I.T. system gives us a real advantage. It used to be called business process re-engineering, I think it is called Lean now - I do not know what it is called - but what I do know is that we are looking at all of our processes and the I.T. system will enable us to redesign and get those sorted out. Some staff will be redirected to other things, and opportunities to train to do other things, and with the best will in the world through natural turnover some of those people will leave and we will not replace them. I think absolutely Andium Homes' focus is about that and obviously keeping our numbers in check, and where we can reducing them.
Deputy S.M. Wickenden:
In I.T. systems there is a level of - I know in big corporations - disaster recovery or business continuity. If the I.T. system went down, how would you continue to provide the service to your customers? Now, that would obviously be a manual process. Is that something you are going to look at before you get the I.T. system so you have got it in place, or after?
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes: Obviously, before.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
Presumably you have something in place already?
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes: Yes.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
Because you do not have an adequate I.T. system, does not ...
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
People could still ring up and we could still contact people. They are various ways of doing these things and ultimately response repairs is about having somebody out in somebody's house doing a job. That can be done much more efficiently with an efficient I.T. system in place but the job can still be done without any I.T. If things go wrong, you know, we get in a car and we go around. It is like when you have an emergency. It is an Island 9 by 5, we get out to where we need to be and organise it. We ring up the contractors and we have contractors who provide 24 hour emergency services. Those jobs do not get raised to an I.T. system, we have somebody on call, the tenants ring the number when they have an emergency, it goes through to that person, that person rings up the person on call and they attend. That is the back up, effectively.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
That is good. We spoke a bit about K.P.I.s and seeing as the C. and A.G. struggled a bit to get exactly what your K.P.I.s are it might be worth ... this is what the report managed to acquire. Clearly a lot more K.P.I.s will be considered in your eventual I.T. system, but I am just curious to know how you chose these K.P.I.s as they stand now. Are you satisfied that they are the right ones to give the checks and balances that you would require to monitor the service and the quality of the work with your contractors?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
I think they are useful K.P.I.s and I think, like in any business ... this was a group of K.P.I.s that were put together in a certain period of time and we have moved on from there. So, you know, we are looking another stage of K.P.I.s or additional K.P.I.s, these were the ones that we are reporting on here but of course we collect a whole host. I think collecting data is not necessarily the problem, it is how we interpret it and make sure it is used to give us the best possible way of delivering the service. So are these appropriate? Yes, I think they are appropriate but I think absolutely they have to become more sophisticated and we have to add to them and we are.
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
They need to be built into the contracts from day one so that the contractor is bound to provide you with the information and there is an understanding of what is required. Certainly what we are going to do with our new contracts, we are going to build in obviously customer satisfaction overall, defects from the client post-inspection - if I can go through these fairly quickly - whether the response repair has been completed on time, whether the void has been completed on time, safety, any accident rates, whether it is a first time fix, whether the appointment was kept on time, and if there were any defect notices.
Deputy S.M. Wickenden:
Will there be anything if they do not reach those targets?
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
Yes, the contract will be if they do not meet the targets the contract will have a 6 month termination.
[14:00]
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
The other thing I would like to say is about the response repair contract that we have, we are going to involve and engage with our clients and we are putting together a group of our clients who are going to be working with us on this new contract. We want to hear from customers about the K.P.I.s the things that really matter to them because it might sound curious but how many business do not do that? So we want to be sitting down with them, what is it that is really important? Have we got these K.P.I.s right? So we want our clients right in at the beginning of this response repair new contract to make sure that it is delivering the service that they want and they require and, of course we can talk to them about the ability to pay for these as well. So that is really important. So it is about getting them right in at the beginning and we are doing that. That, as I say, has already started.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
So you are doing that now, you are not waiting for the I.T. system you are developing them now.
Chief Executive, Andium Homes: Yes.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
Because this information is then passed on to the board, I believe, on a quarterly basis, is that right?
Chairman, Andium Homes: Each meeting.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
Monthly? Okay. How do you differentiate between your board and your management team and who is getting which bit of information first? Do you précis that for your board or is the management team meeting weekly to review how things are going?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
The management team meets monthly and then obviously there are operational meetings more regularly. But one thing we want to do is to avoid is secondary meetings and we have certainly got rid of quite a few meetings, to be honest, that were not adding value. So, yes, the management team is considering these, not just these K.P.I.s but others and we are obviously reporting to the board. Not just those but we report some additional K.P.I.s as well.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
So as the chairman do you think you are getting adequate information from the management team, the other executive team? Do you feel that you are getting information that you require as a general rule?
Chairman, Andium Homes:
Yes, there are certain items the board reviews at each meeting as part of the financial management information that comes out. I think my colleagues have covered the question of the adequacy of the K.P.I.s but we want to expand the range that are part of the new arrangements. So we are not regarding these as being an ideal set. They are the set, in as sense, which the organisation inherited at the time. It is difficult to add to them by manual systems so we are willing to wait a while until we get the I.T. in place but, yes, they are very much actively monitored by the board.
Deputy J.A. Martin:
Can I have a supplementary? On the key performance indicators, you said not ideal now but now and in the future, do you use those indicators to ... these are for response maintenance but will you and do you use them for planned maintenance? You are getting an indication of your contractors from responsive but how does this feed through to when you have actual planned, larger maintenance?
Chairman, Andium Homes:
Each of the planned maintenance contracts, because they are bigger than single contracts, they are run as a single entity each. Yes, performance measures within that, there is a contract completion date, there are performance measures as it goes along in terms of the quality of work of the responsive contractor. But if we discover that one contractor is starting to fall behind or fail on a maintenance contract, as the Chief Executive said, we will terminate that contract.
Deputy J.A. Martin:
What I think I am trying to get to is this will monitor daily and responsive so you will then get a good database. So you are going for bigger work so you should - maybe or not - have red flags or very good indicators for one. It will feed in, that is my question, these will feed into the bigger contracts that are planned?
Chairman, Andium Homes:
Yes, there are 2 sides to that. One is the information on what is going wrong in the stock, which bits of the buildings are failing most, directs where we put our attention on the planned maintenance front. Secondly, obviously, the K.P.I.s, particularly ones which we hope will be reflecting more the priorities of the tenants, will also inform those planned maintenance contracts.
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
Can I just say on that of course, Deputy , our condition survey is absolutely key for our planned maintenance programme, updated bi-annually, carried out originally in 2010 and that was the thing that gives us the decent understanding, gives us the peg in the ground so to speak. In 2010 it was 75 per cent decent home standard compliant. If we had done nothing we would be down to 40 per cent. We are reporting at the end of 2014 at 82 per cent decent home standard compliant. So it is the condition survey that is driving the planned maintenance. These K.P.I.s feed into it but to be honest it is that condition survey, and we are updating that all the time because of the amount of work that we are carrying out on stock. So we are ahead of where we said we would be on the decent homes compliance, which is excellent news.
Mr. R. Parker:
Sorry, on the repairs and maintenance, has that got an impact on the specifications of materials that you use on the planned maintenance?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
I would say it absolutely informs on it, yes.
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
We have a set of standards that we use for new build as well planned maintenance and response repairs. Take kitchens as an example. We have a standard kitchen that we put in all our properties. In the bad old days we used to get some very good kitchens but they were end of line. So as soon as the door fell off you could not get any spares. Romerils, who import the kitchens for us, they have a container full of bits. So if a kitchen needs to be repaired you go down and get the door and it matches. You do not have to replace the whole kitchen. It might seem like every time you walk into one of our homes it is the same kitchen but we can repair and replace them and they can be replaced quickly. It drives value because we are ... this year we are replacing over 300 kitchens as part of our planned maintenance. You know, you can drive economy through that bulk purchasing.
Mr. R. Parker:
I know the problem through things like certain pipe work and the choice of coloured sanitary ware was a classic.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
We will move on to another theme now, if that is okay. It is about how Andium Homes satisfies itself that it is performing efficiency and effectiveness in the allocation of its work. So Judy is going to kick off with a question on this one.
Deputy J.A. Martin:
I think you have touched on some of this but it is more specific. Do you think that allocating work equally between multiple contractors undertaking responsive work always secures value for money? If so, why? If not, what are you doing to address the issue?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
Of course under the old system we have got the schedule of rates and, as you were saying, the contractors meet or a required to meet a certain standard within that contract and therefore if they are meeting that standard then the work is allocated between them on an equal basis. We have moved on from that. It does look slightly archaic and therefore again with the range of K.P.I.s that you introduce you are able to monitor the performance of your contractors, and that is what we want to do, under the contract and be awarding the work on the basis of their performance but also that some actually might be quite capable of doing more work than the others. That is hugely important. So, again, it is a more sophisticated way of approaching the problem. So was that the right way of doing it? No. We are not going to be doing that in our new response repairs contract.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
Have you already moved on from that?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
We have, to be honest. But it is a transition so I would not say to you that it is fully operational but we have, yes.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
All your suppliers understand that?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
Yes, absolutely. But we have dismissed some contractors so I think it would be quite wrong to say that we are not looking at performance, we are and we have dismissed some contractors. One of the things that I could say about the market development, that excites us. With the new response repairs contracts we want to get out into the market. We are going to hold these bidder meetings, we are going to meet contractors who have never worked for us before and start talking to them about work for us, about how large their businesses are and bringing in some new blood. That is not to say we have not got some very good contractors; we have. That element of competition, bringing people in, I think it shows we are being open and transparent and I think that is the professional way of going about it.
Deputy S.M. Wickenden:
Would you say there was a lack of incentive or motivation to do the best possible job in the way they did beforehand when they were guaranteed the work?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
I think it is part of that cultural change and I think about the sophistication of the contract and the way that we are obtaining information on their performance. I think it is just a revolution for Andium Homes and we are excited about that. We want to do that. We feel under the new system that we are able to do that. We are masters, effectively, of our own destiny. So, to be honest, that is what we want to do. That is the area we want to move into. So I agree with you, I think it looks stale, it looks old-fashioned and it is past its sell by date and we want to move on from it.
Mr. M. Robinson:
I presume that one of the reasons for the previous equal allocation was to avoid any allegations of impropriety, so there was fairness across the field. How are you going to address those issues going forward if you move away from equal allocation?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
Again, I think on the monitoring performance, those K.P.I.s, getting the information back from our residents, inspecting the work, interrogating the information that we are getting and having those performance reviews with our contractors. I think it is part of that cultural change that you are providing a service to valued clients and, to be honest, you better be on the ball because they are working with us to make sure that you deliver the service that is required. So, again, as I say, it is not just as cultural change for Andium Homes but it is a cultural change for contractors, and I think that is hugely important.
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
It is also about making it clear in the contract to begin with that if you do not perform as well as your peers you will get a lesser level of allocation. If you make it clear up front what the rules of the game are, there is an upside for good performance.
Mr. M. Robinson:
I am just curious, has there been any feedback from the contractors on changing the equal allocation status?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
Yes, because I think ... look, what does it tell you about people that some are very keen on it, very up for it, very hungry for the work and want to deliver, and there are others that, perhaps, life is passing them by. But that is the way we are going to go. I think that is very telling about contractors ...
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
I can see the Deputy C. and A.G. nodding and smiling. You are bang on-message there. The next question, I think, has largely been answered, has it not, Chris?
The Connétable of St. John :
It has largely been answered but going on from what you just said, the tenants themselves, do they know which contractor has come to do the job for them or is it just a plumber has turned up and done a job? Do they know whether it is plumber A, B, C or who the plumber works for?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
They would but more by accident than design. I think that, again, is where we absolutely will bring the contractors into the work that we are doing. We want people to know who these contractors are. We want them to be accountable for the work that they are doing. You can sit here and you can hear some of the criticism of some of the response repairs but you never hear about the contractor behind them, it is Andium Homes, which is fair enough, we are the people ... that is fine. But what we want is you are in this with us and this is about your performance as well and want our contractors to know who you are with the right livery, the right uniforms and the right attitude, just that cultural change, and to be proud that you are providing a service for Andium Homes to these people. They need to know.
The Connétable of St. John :
They need to know because you cannot know who is giving a good service unless you know who they work for.
Chief Executive, Andium Homes: Well, we know but they do not know.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
Is there a way currently of them knowing who has done it rather than: "Oh, the plumber is coming tomorrow and the plumber is called Joe." You do not know where he has come from.
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
We do tell them but I do not think it is ... it is not done in such a way that I think it is part of that service. Again, as I say, when we design it, that is the person who is providing that service.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
That is why I was wondering if your customer feedback form was given to everybody and it said: "This is who performed the work today", they know and if they choose to comment back they can.
Deputy S.M. Wickenden:
We are very lucky in Jersey that we are a very safe environment but the U.K. they will send the registration number of the car and stuff. So you know exactly who is going to help you and you do not let anyone incorrect in the building. But, again, that will come with new technology as well.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
We have a third thing we would like to move on to. This is about how Andium Homes plans to enhance and monitor the effectiveness of tenant engagement. Now, you have told us a bit about that already and we have been looking at your Facebook page today and how impressed we are with your engagement using social media. I think you are doing that really well, so well done. Various other things you may want to start considering and we have a few questions about that. So at the moment why do you think the tenant satisfaction survey response rates are lower than the average in the U.K., and what steps are you taking to improve them? I assume your social media engagement is one of those?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
It is, but I also think it is about developing that partnership. One thing I think we are all very proud of is that we have one of our tenants who is a director of the company and we are about to recruit another. We are very proud of the fact that we are the social provider, the only social provider, that is doing that and that is key.
[14:15]
This is a person who is a fully fledged director, who is part and parcel of the decision making right at the very top of the organisation. So that is absolutely key. That is a big cultural change and it is brilliant. Our tenants' forum, we have got to do some more work with that. We talked about something very grand called the Andium Academy. What the Andium Academy is about is actually setting up a training organisation to develop people's skills and bring them into the management of social housing. We have already arranged trips to the U.K. but, to be honest, we are asking other people to come into an organisation that of the size that we are, the value of our stock and the range of our services and we need to give them that training to enable them to take a very active part in the tenants' forum and hopefully step up to the board itself. So the Andium Academy, sounds very grand, but it is a great idea of instigating training and link the surveys we want to introduce. The thing that I am very keen about is to bring our customers into the heart of
what we are doing in the company. I think that is really important, bringing people in, meeting with staff, breaking down the barriers, seeing some of the issues that have to be dealt with. What we always find is when we do that the relationships are very good. They are very helpful, they are very productive and people who we are providing the service to absolutely tell us what it is they are looking for and what the problems are. They know and that is absolutely invaluable. So there is a whole range of things that I feel that, culturally, we are just different. We are just... changed. We are still on the beginning of the journey. It is a long one but, to be honest, it really is about bringing that customer into the heart of the business and making them feel part of what we are trying to do. That is providing them with the best service we can.
Chairman, Andium Homes:
If I can just follow that up saying that I think it is invaluable for the board to have customer representation on it. You know, you hear not just what the officers tell you, not what you think is going on in the world, it is somebody sitting there saying: "Actually, it is not like that on the ground." There is a reality check there which is very important for the organisation. So we very much welcome that kind of tenant representation on the board.
Mr. M. Robinson:
Could I just ask, just to follow on from that theme, the estate visits, will they mean that every tenant will be visited by an officer of Andium Homes during the course of whatever period, a year or quarter? Will it result in that?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
I would not say a quarter. What we would certainly say is within a year we would want to visit ... I do not know about everybody but we would certainly try to. Certainly for my own visits I have knocked on everybody's door. Some people wish to engage and some people, quite honestly, do not. Perhaps it is not for this meeting but I would say to you is that, meeting people, you do meet a lot of people who are very lonely in Jersey. That is something we perhaps should bear in mind. So these visits are ...
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
We discovered that when we were canvassing during the elections.
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
Yes. That is something that has hit all of us, is when we have been visiting just how lonely and isolated some people would be. So that is our aim, is to get out there and meet people and, I tell you what, the honest feedback you get, it is good for you. Some of it is hard but some of it is very, very positive and it is nice to have a pat on the back, so good stuff.
Deputy S.M. Wickenden:
So your customer is the heart of your business and that is where you want to be. When it comes down to feedback, what are you going to be doing to make sure that that feedback also goes with your tenants? Have you got any plans to give the feedback to your tenants and how?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
Yes, I mentioned before that obviously we have our tenants' forum and we want to work with the tenants' forum about the benefit there, but we are going to do quarterly reports to the tenants' forum. I talked about this annual survey before that we would be putting out to everybody giving feedback about the services we are providing and our performance, how we are doing. If we are the mature organisation that I certainly want us to be, and I know the board wants us to be, that is about facing the reality of some things we get right and some things we get wrong. We need to be able to do that. So, as I say, tenants' forum, getting tenants involved in this new response repairs contract and surveys and trying to engage with people on the residents' associations. That is really important that we have got residents' associations. It is tough for people to keep these going because they are busy people, they have to give up their time and sometimes they can be single issue residents groups. Something may have come about as a result of a problem on the estate and once that problem has been solved they can sometimes disappear but what we are trying to do is keep them going, keep them involved and feel that they are making a difference by giving them the feedback and making the changes. That is important. If you are going to listen do something about it, do not just listen.
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
As a result of some of the estate visits we did last year we have built in what we found from talking to the residents about how to make this programme this year. I am the rep for Clos De Roncier and the residents there were saying to me things like: "You are replacing our fencing, one panel at a time." Okay, we need to learn from that and do something different. Maybe a wall is better because it is quite windy up there. We published our next programme on our website and we also did a promotion through social media, and through our community news, and we told people what we were going to do. Now, we cannot say: "These are the 300-odd kitchens we are going to do" but we talked about in general terms we are going to be looking at doing these decorations, these sorts of things. All of that really has come from talking to the residents while we were out and about.
Deputy S.M. Wickenden:
So since the establishment of Andium Homes, are you satisfied with the pace of increased tenant participation?
Chairman, Andium Homes:
No. You can never be satisfied with the pace of something so it would sound awfully complacent to say: "Yes, of course we are satisfied at the rate at which we are going." No, we would like to see ourselves moving quicker. I guess it is just the organisation is now just 8 months old, we are trying to move simultaneously on virtually every front in the organisation and that inevitably means that we are moving perhaps slower than we would ideally have liked to. But, yes, there is a whole series of improvements that have already occurred. You mentioned the social media side already and we are trying to build on each of those improvements as we go along.
Deputy S.M. Wickenden:
I have to tell you, when I go around and speak to other companies as part of my role, I use your social media as an example of what to do right. So I think you are doing a very good job there.
Chief Executive, Andium Homes: Thank you.
Deputy S.M. Wickenden: Sorry, that is a personal point.
Deputy J.A. Martin:
You have spoken a lot about the tenant engagement and the assistance they could give you in the way forward on planned maintenance and response maintenance, and also how do you plan to ... you just said you have not got enough, how do you plan to measure the extra engagement if there is any and to keep people involved? How will you measure who is involved now and who is involved after you have done this exercise or there is more avenues to participate?
Chairman, Andium Homes:
Well, I will just give a simple example. When we recruited for the tenant representatives on the board at that time, the recruitment was before Andium Homes was incorporated, we only made one appointment at that stage. We are just about to go out to fill a vacancy that exists and I hope now we will get a much more positive response from a wider range of people. That more people feel that Andium is up and running and they recognise it is there and they will feel interested in getting engaged. I think that presumably goes right the way down the whole organisation, so it will be a measure of how many active residents' associations are there? How many people are attending forum meetings, how many people are feeding back to us, whether it is online, through social media or whatever? So I think we have got measures at each of those levels and see an increase in the people who do feel it is worth engaging.
Deputy J.A. Martin:
Would you not agree, though, the underlying engagement, as John has just said, if tenants point out real problems that you listen to them and they are acted upon, and then they will keep engaged?
Chairman, Andium Homes: Yes.
Chief Operating Officer, Andium Homes:
There are quite a lot of community events starting to form as well. At Clos De Roncier we have got a spray painter coming up for the children over the Easter period to paint the ball court wall. I think I am involved in an Easter egg hunt at some point. You know, it is about building communities. I am an accountant, it is not the sort of thing I do but, hey, it is now. [Laughter]
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
Okay. So talking about tenant engagement, I think you have given us a lot of really useful feedback there, thank you very much. Do you think your tenants will begin to think that they are setting the standards themselves by this engagement? Is that your ultimate objective?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes: Yes, it is, very much so.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
So has that become one of your key propositions? If you had a mission statement, would that be there?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
Yes, I think we have some way to go. Obviously we absolutely have got some way to go on that but absolutely we want our clients to feel that they are part and parcel and they are involved with us in setting the standards, they are pointing out to us the services they want. We are bringing them into some of the issues we have to deal with. Part and parcel of the agreement is that it is not all easy stuff, there is some difficult stuff there. But if you bring people into it and discuss with them and engage with them then I think they have a much better understanding and they will be supportive of what we are trying to do. I think that is pretty key.
Chairman, Andium Homes:
Yes, for instance on retendering the responsive repairs contracts, we are setting up a procurement panel to oversee that process and that will have tenant representation on it. We are very keen that we get that feedback from tenants built into the specification in the first instances, to the assessment of the contractors and then to the process of monitoring what goes on on the ground after the contract is let.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
As you know we are meeting tenants' representatives after you leave today, so it will be very interesting to see if all or some of this has filtered through. Obviously, we are hoping, for your sake, that it has. We have heard some very positive useful information this afternoon. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Chief Executive, Andium Homes:
We are on a very exciting journey and we are absolutely delighted to have been incorporated and you definitely are going to see the improvements. One thing we would like to do after this hearing is to come back to you with a report on your report and the C. and A.G.'s report to tell you what we are doing and when we are going to do it by and keep you updated. We hope you do ask us back actually. The challenge is challenging, it is good and we want to be positive and mature about coming back and saying what we have got right and what we have not quite got there on. So we certainly will be issuing a report that will be very positive.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
As a P.A.C., slightly different to previous ones, we do intend to endeavour to meet every accounting officer of every States department and arm's length organisations of the States each year rather than doing one big review and then not seeing that accounting officer for 3 or 4 years. It is a 2-way relationship. We are here to help, not just to query and criticise. We hope the report we produce from this will enable the States Members to understand better, and the public, as to how you are operating as an entity of the States, in a very positive way, we hope. That is what this process is about, it is about finding information, passing it on to the right people and then getting everybody excited, like you clearly are excited about Andium Homes, which is great. It is also a possible model for the future of the other areas of government, which, if this works, which it clearly seems to be that 90 per cent of it is, then that is a really good starting point. In 8 months that is quite an achievement. So well done.
Chief Executive, Andium Homes: Thank you, it much appreciated.
The Connétable of St. John :
Completely different to all this, we sat in the States on Tuesday looking at the Strategic Plan and one of those objectives is St. Helier . Have you, as Andium Homes, been approached in any way to comment?
Chairman, Andium Homes:
Not officially, yet. In a sense, we are hoping equally to do the reverse, we are hoping to approach the States, because we now are involved in a number of potential sites, possible sites in St. Helier and very conscious of the opportunity there for regeneration of the centre of town and we would very much like to engage with the States and other interested parties in how that can be taken forward. So, yes, very much so.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
At the risk of creating more quangos and committees, I know the Constable of St. Helier is keen to engage with a group that will help with the regeneration and improvement of St. Helier . He obviously has a huge vested interest in that, as do we as Deputies of St. Helier , as do the whole population of Jersey who use St. Helier every day or every week. So it really is important. It was a very central part of the theme of the strategic plan debate that we had on Tuesday. So if there was an opportunity to engage in a more structured group, would Andium Homes be happy to do so?
Chairman, Andium Homes:
Absolutely. The only comment I would make is the size of the group. We need to have a group that is small enough to take decisions. So quite happy to come along to a debating forum and a decision-making body as well.
[14:30]
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
It is more of an oversight group, if you like, because there are bodies in the States that will make decisions and take things forward but what we want to make sure happens as States Members is that proper consideration is given for the residents of St. Helier and the users of St. Helier so we can build an urban area that we are all proud of and people want to live in it. Because you are going to be running homes in it, we want the tenants to be happy so it is very important that we have a really good urban plan for the whole of St. Helier , not one just for the north of St. Helier or one just for the waterfront but for the whole of St. Helier . That came out very strongly in the debate that the Constable of St. John was referring to. So if you are interested in engaging with that, and it sounds as if you very much are, that is good know.
Chairman, Andium Homes: Yes, we will be in touch.
Deputy A.D. Lewis :
Okay, thank you very much indeed.
[14:31]