Lambeth Living’s Chief Executive has spoken of the long awaited plans to restructure the Lambeth ALMO in her first interview given exclusively to wera.org.uk. Staff at the organisation found out on Tuesday what the changes will mean to them and to the services they deliver.  Residents can also listen to how it will matter to them and what impact the new restructuring will have on estate services.

In the interview with WERA Chair, Dave McEvoy, Cathy Deplessis denied it was solely to save money and insisted it was as much about improving the services to residents across the borough. “This is about seeking to address some of the key concerns residents have made to us, and the top one is seeing improvements in the repairs service, better standards of customer service and seeing what we do to improve on Anti-Social Behaviour.”

After months of discussions with residents and staff as well as numerous public meetings; a plan has been established to tackle the issues and reduce its outgoing costs in the current political and economic climate.

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A pilot scheme has already been established and is operating in the central area, in which Weir Estate is part of and forms part of one of the three new lambeth areas which are now North, Central and South rather than split into several areas. Cathy Deplessis said that the pilot was already making huge difference to the services in the pilot area on customer service “We are finding already this is making improvements in the central area where we are anticipating ordinary people will see a far better service, such an example is we have a new designed customer service team we will be doing two things improving the culture of the organisation, we will have a dedicated customer service team in each area.”

She then adds “Our business is quite a complex one and it can appear that it can take several people to give what should be a straight forward answer to the customer, the new customer service teams will now take full ownership of that and the other teams in the office will be responsible for giving a clear and good answer back to the team to then report back to the customer [Resident].”

Lambeth Living has been seeking to change the attitudes and impression of the organisation amongst Lambeth’s residents after much negative press. The ALMO was implemented by Lambeth Council in 2008.

As part of the restructuring plans, Lambeth Living have also entered in to some of the biggest contracts to deliver services in the borough’s history Cathy Deplessis explained “The council for sometime has been considering how to improve its repairs service, its major part of the contract between the resident and the council that the council does the repairs and the resident pays the rent. What we know from customer satisfaction is the repairs have a major impact on the level of satisfaction with the service; there is no doubt this has been far lower than anyone would like it to be and we have been procuring and letting brand new repairs contracts with a life of seven (7) plus three(3) years. With these contracts they are designed that we work in a very different way and focus far more on customers.”

In answer to questions about job losses from the front line which it had been rumoured up to seventy frontline jobs could be lost under the restructuring proposals, Cathy confirmed this is the highest level expected but may well be lower while those affected consider whether to apply for other posts being created under the restructure “I think there is no doubt that in these difficult times, financially that everyone in the public sector and Lambeth Living too needs to do its bit and there is no doubt that what happens with the Housing Revenue Account [HRA] there is only certain amount of money available to pay for the service. Therefore it’s very important we make sure that every penny we got we spend it wisely. As part of this we had to look at front line services and what levels of staffing is appropriate to deliver on the expectations of the resident and the council as our major client. There is no doubt that there will be an overall reduction in staff numbers and as a private company our client is the council, they are our main share holder and we have to live within the fee. It is also very difficult to make staff redundant but we have been able to create some other specialist posts.”

“Residents shouldn’t see that greater deal of disruption as their point of contact will still be the Lambeth Service Centre. If anything residents should see an immediate benefit that they will now be able to go the customer service team who do the chasing around and finding out what’s going on.”

Lambeth Living currently has 401 permanent staff and their will be an increase of 9 new posts. Due to the creation of these new posts the number of staff leaving the organisation could be as low as forty.

“Our worst case estimate is between forty and seventy staff will leave the organisation with two thirds of staff remaining with us”

Lambeth Living has been heavily criticised for not acting on concerns and the indications things have not been working well. Cathy Deplessis makes it clear in her frank interview with wera.org.uk that they are now seeking to move forward despite the cuts which are to hit Lambeth Council following the coalition government’s spending review. “I have always recognised that particularly in this borough there has been objections on the basis that people think it has been set up to privatise the housing stock. I recognise those objections have been a philosophical objection and I have accepted that and I have never tried to change people’s minds on that as they entitled to their beliefs. I also recognise those who are objecting on philosophical beliefs do actually want to ALMO to improve.
In relation to the where the council is at, they have publicly accepted that the service is poor. They have had to find a way to improve this service. I believe we had a poorer start than other ALMO’s and we had a tougher start than others while having to focus on basic areas of service. I am not surprised by the criticisms and we have turned it around on many of those criticisms. I appreciate the difficulties but we are here for a reason. If you look at the history of the service, it is now being delivered far better.”

“We are now under a greater level of scrutiny. The proof is in the pudding and ALMO’s up and down the country have been set up to improve council services. The level of service for ALMO’s have been two stars and local authorities is one star, I believe there is no doubt there is a great emphasis now on improving the services that residents will see a difference with the structure.”

The cuts have already hit the decent homes funding which has been slashed by half, and Lambeth Living will still have submit a performance report to the regulator which is the Homes and Communities Agency.
Central Government has now changed the emphasis on achieving the previous two star rating and must now show they are cost effective and getting value from money.

Cathy has told of her concerns at the impact of cuts handed down to them from the spending review “I am very concerned, most of services are people, making services happen and we have already experienced a cut into our management fee. I am particularly concerned about any future cuts which will prevent us delivering a better level of service. We are all learning to live with less.”

There is many stages to the restructuring process and the go live date will be the 28th February next year and will take a further nine months to finalise as staff seeking other posts will have had to have secured a new job by the end of February 2011.

One of the newest changes will be engaging more with communities in order to listen to views on how the ALMO is performing following this new structure.

Residents can now expect information on the changes and branding which will show who is responsible for what in the new roles and restructure where residents will have a greater say. The ALMO is overseen by a board chaired by former Housing Minister and Streatham MP, Keith Hill.

You can hear the full interview above where Cathy Deplessis explains much more about the future for housing in Lambeth, under the Arms Length Management Organisation.