Our Caretaking Service

Our commitment to you

We're dedicated to providing excellent services to our customers. To identify the most important issues and deal with them effectively, we use a three step approach – 'listening, learning and delivering'.

Listening

Taking your views into account

Learning

Being open and honest, and learning from things that go well and things that don't go so well

Delivering

Innovating and making a difference

Objectives of the caretaking service

Our key objectives are to:

• Ensure clean, attractive and safer neighbourhoods
• Provide a high profile, accountable presence on our estates
• Improve the physical condition of estates through quick responses to residents' concerns
• Encourage residents to recycle and make use of the facilities provided
• Ensure animals do not cause environmental damage or nuisance on estates
• Deal efficiently with infestations
• Identify those responsible for unauthorised dumping and environmental damage
• Make sure all our residents in general needs flats (ie not supported housing) with communal stairs and landings receive the same, fair service
• Work with you and other agencies to help ensure your tenancy is successful and sustainable
• Work with the community and community groups to improve the appearance of housing estates
• Work closely with the tenant working group to monitor and continually improve our services

Our cleaning promise to you

• Once a week in our general needs flats (ie not supported housing) we will sweep all stairwells and communal landings, and dust banisters and window ledges. You will receive a letter informing you what day of the week this will take place.
• Where and when appropriate we will mop stairwells and landings. Some blocks have concrete stairs and landings which cannot be mopped. If there is a health and safety risk eg, ice, heavy rain, frost, we will not mop your block during that week.
• We will remove any dog faeces or other dirt from the building during our weekly visit.
• We will spot clean walls as necessary.
• We will remove cobwebs from communal landings as necessary.
• We will clean the insides of windows in communal areas once a month.
• We will replace internal communal light bulbs as necessary.
• We will tidy and disinfect bin stores/areas as necessary.
• We will remove offensive graffiti within 24 hours of receiving the request (between 8am and 4pm, Monday to Friday) in areas managed by us. Non offensive graffiti will be removed within 10 working days (ie Monday to Friday) of being reported (unless made permanent through scratching or type of application).
• We will respond to emergency requests where there is a risk to public health within 4 working days (ie between 8am and 4pm, Monday to Friday) of receiving the request.
• We will carry out non – emergency (ie no risk to public health) estate cleaning within 1 working week of the request.
• We will remove dumped rubbish from land managed by us within 5 working days, and will attempt to find those responsible. If rubbish is dumped on any other land we will report it to the appropriate department.

Cleaning programme for communal areas of blocks of flats

Monday

• New Beacon Road, Grantham
• Sharpe Road, Grantham

Tuesday

• Edward Road, Stamford
• Edinburgh Road, Stamford
• Charles Road, Stamford
• Churchill Road, Stamford
• Greyfriars / The Grange, Grantham
• Great Northern Court, Grantham
• Riverside, Grantham

Wednesday

• Empingham Road, Stamford
• Elizabeth Road, Stamford
• Foundry Road, Stamford
• Mountbatton Avenue, Stamford
• Trinity Road, Stamford
• Kinoulton Court, Grantham (all blocks)

Thursday

• St Peter's Road, Bourne
• Manor Court, Bourne
• Shillaker Court, Bourne
• Shaw Road, Grantham

All cleaning is carried out between 8am and 4pm. Signs will be placed in the work area when cleaning is taking place. Residents will be asked to remove anything that is in the way of the caretakers prior to cleaning.

Monitoring our service

We monitor our standards and objectives through:

• Annual customer surveys
• Quarterly meetings involving the Neighbourhood Services Team Leader, the Caretaking Team and the Senior Housing Officer
• Regular estate inspections with local tenant representatives
• The Estate Management Working Group, which is made up of our tenants
• Regular reports are provided to the Estate Management Working Group and our Senior Management Team to ensure we're meeting our standards and objectives.

Reporting to our customers

We produce an annual service report which is sent to all our tenants with an edition of Skyline Magazine.

Tell us how we're doing

We welcome your views on our services. Whether we're getting things right or wrong, everything you tell us helps us to improve the way we work.

You can contact us by letter, telephone, email, a personal visit to your local area housing office, or at any of our community events. You can also feed back to us through:

• Our complaints, compliments and comments procedure by telephoning, writing or emailing using the details below
• The annual service report, which includes a reply slip for your comments
• The annual survey that goes to all our customers

How to contact us

You can contact our neighbourhood services team on 01476 406373 or 01476 406084, email us at tenancy@southkesteven.gov.uk or complete an enquiry form.