Mail from: iain longstaff
To: Paul Dolan; Claire Stone; Damian Roche; Darren Whitfield; Paul Norton; Glenn Radford
Subject: Lambert Court,
Dear Mr Dolan
Congratulations on your appointment to the board of Prospect housing. Obviously within your peer group you are held in wide regard. Not so here at Lambert Court.
There are four hardstanding communal areas with open staircase. It takes approximately 1 hour to undertake the cleaning of all four. Initially the contract with Ideal was for a weekly clean with an cost of over £3000. Prior to this the cleaning cost for 2016-2017 was £1350. An increase of around 120%.
In April of 2018 I spoke to the audit supervisor Jackie Jackson at Ideal and she herself confirmed the weekly clean was not necessary. I also spoke to Chris Dring the contracts manager for the region who said that the contract could be changed to monthly directly contradicting Accent's stance. I also petitioned the residents to reconfirm that no one wanted a weekly clean.
After much perseverance the cleaning was reduced to monthly. However as the contract is tied to Ideal the cost of the service is disportionate to the work involved. It is now £1887 for approx 12 hours work on site cleaning. That equates to £157.25 per hour.I have found a local company that can undertake the communal cleaning on a monthly basis including the internal windows at a saving to the residents. This firm can also provide a complete window cleaning service including the cleaning of the velux roof windows (which again I believe are part of the existing contract but which are never cleaned.) They will also do a regular full gutter and downpipe clean which will save on the repeated call outs for blocked gulleys etc.
I sent the information off to Accent at the start of December and have since enquired as to any developments and what action Accent have taken to look into this.
I have heard nothing back and so we carry on being exploited by paying these costs. It is ludicrous to believe you can impose a one size fits all policy. This is where you need to adopt some leadership as your staff are constrained by these policies and have no incentive to change.
In order to streamline your organisation you contracted ESH as your repairs and maintenance contractors for the northern region.
One of our main concerns is with the lack of accountability in regard to repair works and invoicing.
A report is filed with Accent which is then passed onto ESH. ESH either complete the works themselves or sub contract it out. Invoices are then completed and passed on to Accent. Finally we receive the annual bill for all these charges.
We had a small leak in the roof which after a couple of visits was repaired. The second visit involved a scaffold company travelling all the way down from Blyth in Northumberland. The roofer came down from Durham. An invoice was raised for £1475 for the work.
There was never any check put in place to validate this invoice. Only after drawing it to the attention of Darren Whitfield did I receive this initial reply. ‘I’m satisfied that the costs are appropriate and not duplicated from the original order, and despite what the description on the work order suggested, no charges have been made for scaffolding.
If I had left it at that then the invoicing would have stood and we would have paid the bill. I requested the breakdown of the actual invoice from ESH and the schedule of rates charged. On looking at the invoice there were charges for 8 square metres of slate lifted and 23.5 metres of 150mm leadwork. I requested Accent come and inspect the work and Paul Norton agreed that he could see no lead work and approx 1 square metre of slates had been lifted. The invoicing of these additional works came to over £1000.
I contacted Darren back in December and he has been in touch with ESH to find out why we were invoiced for the work. I have heard nothing back. I, therefore, have contacted the police and have given them a statement prior to them investigating the matter. If this is a genuine mistake it still raises the serious question on accountability on behalf of Accent and what checks are in place to avoid this.
The fact that numerous invoices are raised by a multitude of various sub contractors as well as ESH themselves with little checks in place to prove either the work has been done or the correct invoicing sent out is appalling. Accent do not need to care whether the invoicing is accurate as the cost is simply passed on to the residents. There is no accountability on the part of Accent. There is no leadership.
During 2020 we have had other charges presented by Accent which were inaccurate and unless spotted by residents and reported back to Accent would have been paid. We should not be here to monitor all of this. We pay Accent as a management company and expect a professional and diligent service.
Why is it that we have to constantly solve your problems.
Why is it that unless you are constantly challenged nothing gets implemented.
As CEO you are responsible for the quality of staff you employ and I speak on behalf of all the residents here that we have little confidence in your team.
I know that you do have staff that feel a genuine desire to help and do this to the best of their ability. This problem is further compounded by the structure of your system which is inflexible and difficult to change and your staff obviously have difficulty in making decisions within that framework.
Your business model is designed purely to benefit Accent as a company, to ease the workload on your employees and to ensure that you have a glowing financial report which will enable Accent to grow as a business regardless of the cost to the actual customers you are meant to serve.
It is certainly not customer driven.