[SAC0008]
Written evidence submitted by VIVO Defence Services
Introduction to VIVO
VIVO Defence Services provide hard facilities management services on behalf of the Defence Infrastructure Organisation’s (DIO) Future Defence Infrastructure Services (FDIS) programme.
We are a joint venture between Serco and Equans, able to benefit from the experience and resources of both our parent organisations:
- Serco has supported the UK military for nearly six decades, commencing at RAF Fylingdales in 1964. They currently service c70 military contracts including asset and engineering services at HMNBs Portsmouth, Clyde and Devonport and facilities management at the Defence Academy.
- Equans is a global leader across the defence, government, and private sector with decades of experience in the design, financing, building, and operating of low-carbon energy saving and generation schemes across the world. This gives VIVO access to unrivalled experience and capability to help meet the MOD’s Zero Carbon and Sustainability ambitions. They are also a significant housing maintenance provider, including their contract with Birmingham City Council.
VIVO operate the Built Estate contracts in the central and southwest regions, the Regional Accommodation Maintenance Services (RAMS) contracts in the southwest and southeast regions, and at 11 United States Visiting Forces (USVF) bases across England.
Executive Summary
Since VIVO commenced services to the FDIS Accommodation contract in April 2022 we have been committed to enabling defence capability, particularly through enhancing the lived experience of the families.
The service that families have experienced has been inconsistent: the VIVO service has been above target on different estates at different times which demonstrates that the Pinnacle/VIVO model does work, but we recognise that the general level of performance has not consistently been at the level at which we designed VIVO to deliver. This has been incredibly disappointing for us, but we know the frustration for the families has been far higher.
There were four key reasons for this:
- We inherited almost 7,500 open jobs at launch from the previous supplier. This was unexpected and added significant pressure.
- Reactive job volumes have been much higher than expected, with over 17% more tasks than planned from an estate that needed far more remedial work than we expected.
- Our technology and systems needed further development and optimisation to allow the delivery of an efficient service, including the integration with Pinnacle’s systems which also had similar challenges.
- Our first winter was much more challenging than normal, with severe cold weather, and the impact of the nationwide media and customer focus on damp and mould cases.
We began responding to these challenges before ISD, and since then have continued to adapt to the changing landscape:
- We’ve invested heavily in additional resources, increasing the number of engineers and operatives, and management and support roles, from c1,200 to nearly 2,000.
- We developed new agile processes to mitigate and manage heating failures, damp and mould cases, and the gas safety surge to achieve the required levels of compliance.
- Our engagement with the families and stakeholders has been transformed with a robust framework of family-facing events, close engagement with all three family federations, and direct engagement with the Heads of Establishments and their teams.
These changes needed investment and we made the decision to commit additional funding and resources from our Accommodation contract into the improvement and optimisation of our delivery. In addition, DIO have exercised their right to withhold our profits to also invest into the contract.
Pleasingly our actions have had a significant effect since our service experienced its most challenging period in early 2023:
- Our customer satisfaction has increased to c83% against the 90% acceptable level of performance: good progress but further to go.
- All three military family federations recently shared with us that they have seen very significant decreases in escalated problems and concerns.
- The levels of complaints from the families, social media contacts, and the briefings from many of our Heads of Establishment confirm that we have made considerable progress, although more to do.
Please find below evidence to support this summary, against headings listed in the ‘Call to Evidence’. Please note, we have only addressed the evidence points relevant to VIVO.
- What measures have been put in place to resolve the housing maintenance issues, hold service providers to account and ease the cost of living for service families?
1.1 Key Issue: Legacy Works
- VIVO inherited 7,490 legacy jobs at launch. To resolve this we mobilised a team and separate supply chain to manage them independently from ‘business as usual’.
- DIO worked closely with VIVO, tracking progress on daily calls and through the Supplier Alliance to resolve these issues while keeping the families informed, with almost all cases now resolved.
1.2 Key Issue: Missed Appointments
- A technical integration challenge between Pinnacle’s and VIVO’s systems resulted in many missed appointments in summer 2022.
- Working with Pinnacle we mobilised a dedicated team, led by a member of our Senior Leadership Team, and engaged additional supply chain resources to resolve these technology-generated issues by autumn 2022.
1.3 Key Issue: Increase in Complaints
- As a result of the above we experienced a significant increase in complaints as families were not being kept updated on repair work, and jobs were taking too long.
- To address this, in addition to the standalone teams mobilised for legacy work and missed appointments, VIVO established a new Customer Care Team and Local Customer Liaison Officers to manage escalated and multi-faceted complaints quickly and effectively, resulting in the average number of days to resolve escalated cases dropping from 30 to two.
- VIVO has launched a project called ‘Operation Fulfilment’ to improve the management and communication of follow-on work, reduce the number of repeat failed visits and ensure families are confident of next steps when a first-time fix is not achieved. This was piloted in August 2023 and will be fully deployed by the end of this year.
- Family ‘High Impact’ Days were introduced with families invited to attend a surgery-type event to raise issues direct with VIVO managers, with our Operatives on-hand to immediately resolve issues in the home.
1.4 Key Issue: Damp & Mould
Media coverage of the tragic death of Awaab Ishak in Rochdale led to an increased concern among service families about damp and mould, much of which was due to an historic under-investment in repairs.
- In response to this we worked to assess the severity of each case. VIVO deployed a damp and mould task force (ref 4) to carry out “eyes on” visits at properties listed as category four or five severity (the worst), arrange first responder visits and surveys, and to advise DIO of work required, and then manage the works. To deliver an effective remedial programme of work we have developed and trialled a fast-track process that involves producing standard packages of work to cater for every home and categorise them depending on need. This allows costs to be signed off and improvements delivered more quickly and effectively
- An 18-month programme (with £25 million allocated from DIO to date until March 2024) to remediate 2,400 identified properties across our two regions has now been established. This followed VIVO’s trial at 100 properties in Aldershot in June/July 2023.
- In addition to carrying out remedial repairs to prevent damp and mould (such as providing better ventilation and insulation, and repointing brickwork if needed, making homes warmer, more comfortable and more energy efficient), each package of works includes providing constant running extractor fans to areas of homes at risk of high humidity levels, redecoration where needed, and a wireless monitor for real time-monitoring in order to carry out pro-active work, if required, to prevent reoccurrences.
- Our billable works team has also replaced doors, windows, and roofs at 487 homes up to August 2023 worth £3.6m. A further £62m is to be invested across the estate, with £25m already approved by DIO, with work scheduled to be completed by March 2024.
1.5 Key Issue: Heating and Hot water failures
- A prolonged cold spell during December 2022 (ref 3), coupled with an historic under-investment in repairs, resulted in a substantial increase in heating and hot water issues as freezing temperatures caused heating systems to fail and pipes to burst. Between December 2022 and March 2023 VIVO were called out to homes due to loss of heating 10,960 times.
- Prior to Christmas 2022, the average fix time for complete loss of heating was 93.8hrs. VIVO reduced this to 46.4 hrs by mid-January and 38.3 hrs by March 2024. We also invested in significant stocks of portable heaters to provide temporary support while we fixed the issues.
- To avoid such a significant surge this coming winter we have completed a full analysis of work volumes and trade skill requirements from last year and shared these with operational management and its supply chain.
- In addition, resource planning to meet last year’s peak requirements has begun and informative communications advising families how to prepare for winter (such as proactive boiler checks) are to be rolled out via Pinnacle.
1.6 Key Issue: Landlord Gas Safety Inspections (LGSIs)
- The asset information for homes transferred to VIVO at the start of the contract took some months to review, identify and rectify errors, and consolidate into a plan.
- This, and the fact our operatives were unable to gain access to some properties despite repeated attempts, led to 2,769 LGSIs being overdue in May 2023 out of more than 28,000 SFA properties in our regions.
- To mitigate this VIVO worked collaboratively with DIO and the Chain of Command to put in place a programme to gain access to properties between 22nd May and 30th June 2023.
- The safety of the families is of paramount importance to VIVO, which fully embraces a family first and safety-first approach to the delivery of repair and maintenance works. To reflect this we are implementing a revised process to ensure the estate remains compliant from 1st September 2023. This will see a “red card” process implemented, when maintenance providers have significant access issues, being overseen by RAMS rather than the National Accommodation Maintenance Service (NAMS). This enables maintenance providers to operate in conjunction with Regional DIO teams to give greater ownership, accountability, and faster resolution when access is not available.
1.7 Invested in a restructured Senior Management Team
- VIVO has worked closely with organisations specialising in hiring people with a military background to engage people who have a strong insight into military accommodation and culture. VIVO has also recruited a senior manager to lead Customer Care and oversee a new team of 20 customer care colleagues, which was not previously part of the contracts.
1.8 The benefits that these initiatives have generated
- The investment in resources and the collaboration between all parties has led to significant changes in operational performance as well as culture and behaviours, which is a key aim of the FDIS programme.
- Missed appointments have reduced substantially: in January 2023 VIVO missed 3.3% of appointments compared to June this year when this was just 1.9% following investment in resources and training. However, whilst these figures show a significant reduction, VIVO fully understands that every missed appointment causes frustration for families and will continue working to drive further improvements.
- Complaints have reduced by 65% in the same period. In addition, VIVO’s incoming complaint rate for new work orders has nearly halved to 3 per cent, with more than one in four related to properties suffering damp and mould which need repairs under the damp and mould scheme before complaints can be closed.
- Increased positive engagement with the family federations, with all three reporting very significant decreases in maintenance problems escalated to them this summer compared to any point since the contracts launched in April 2022.
- Our latest customer satisfaction levels show 83.1% of families responding to our fast feedback surveys are satisfied with our services in the southwest and 84%, in the southeast, against an acceptable target of 90%.
- Do the new Future Defence Infrastructure Services (FDIS) contracts for Service Family Accommodation represent value for money and are they operating effectively?
DIO provide assurance around value for money, and we believe the FDIS contracts over their life will deliver value for money and greater benefits as they mature and new innovations are realised. In this paper we have described the actions we have taken to ensure we play our role in that.
A critical element of operational effectiveness is collaboration, and we have played a proactive role in this area. Mobilisation represented a challenging period, but all partners are beyond this stage and the learning each has gained has contributed heavily towards a collegiate collaborative approach. This enables us to continue to provide improvement and long-term sustainable solutions.
Examples of collaboration include:
- A seniors’ meeting, which sees DIO’s Chief Executive and the senior leaders of Pinnacle, Amey and VIVO meeting monthly to have frank discussions about current performance, the actions required, and the collaboration required to deliver them.
- Bi-weekly calls on customer complaints with DIO and Pinnacle.
- A weekly visibility steering group working through IT and systems challenges.
- Weekly Pinnacle/VIVO collaboration Meetings.
- Diagnostic model improvement meetings to improve fault diagnosis and skill assignments.
- A “Case Handling Model” implemented for repeat return calls and appointments failures. A VIVO Manager is now permanently based in the Pinnacle Helpdesk to ensure collaboration.
3 Are there examples of good practice in provision of service accommodation, which could be replicated across Defence?
3.1 Access to Services
VIVO, working with Pinnacle, has implemented improved appointments systems, including online booking, facilitating accurate fault diagnosis and the scheduling and tracking of appointments.
3.2 Collaborative Approach.
See point 2
3.3 New Technology
VIVO has implemented technology not used within service accommodation before such as “BCM Connect” boiler sensors to detect boiler faults, and “Multidot” smart temperature and humidity monitors (at properties after new fast track damp and mould repairs take place) for real time monitoring of humidity so proactive work, if needed, can be carried out to prevent a re-occurrence.
3.4 Agility
We have developed new packages of work across void refurbishments and damp and mould treatment, including an agile mobilisation process. This enables teams to scale up ways of working on need and could be utilised across all FDIS contracts.
- Is enough money being invested to modernise and future proof military accommodation and how long will it take for all military accommodation to meet an acceptable standard of energy efficiency?
While decisions around investment into military family homes is not a matter for VIVO, it is clear that significant funding is needed to improve energy efficiency in many properties due to their age and condition, in addition to modernising the SFA estate which was largely constructed between 1950 and 1970 and not designed to be still in use today. The work VIVO is doing includes:
4.1 Billable Works
VIVO is currently delivering £35m of major projects to improve energy efficiency in homes, with an additional £3.6m already delivered. A further £28m is awaiting DIO approval with all work scheduled to be completed by March 2024. These includes providing multiple properties, in phases, with new windows and doors, roofs and external wall Insulation.
4.2 Project Phoenix
In the summer of 2022, VIVO launched Project Phoenix to upgrade Building Energy Management Systems (BEMs) across the Built Estate to allow energy consuming plant to be better controlled and monitored. This new infrastructure will enable data collection from sub-meters as many have not been read since installation. This data will allow VIVO to better understand energy consumption across sites and propose further initiatives. DIO have approved 14 sites for upgrade and the first, RAF Leeming, is almost 50 percent complete.
4.3 Investment in proactive Damp and Mould repairs
See point 1.4
4.4 Void Refurbishments
- There has been a large number of “void” (non-habitable) properties across the SFA estate for a significant length of time.
- VIVO undertook a successful pilot in July 2023 to demonstrate a quick and scalable refurbishment programme to get properties back into use.
- DIO has now allocated £69m to this work which commenced in August. VIVO has identified 800 properties in high-demand locations that are now undergoing refurbishment until March 2024. This includes work to improve energy efficiency.
4.5 Energy efficiency ambitions
- There is an increased level of funding to improve energy efficiency of military accommodation focused on improving insulation, but more needs to be undertaken.
- A more programmatic approach to modernising boilers is needed with a preference for low or zero carbon solutions. In addition, all homes should have smart thermostats for efficient boiler usage.
- A co-ordinated programme across the estate for identification and assessment of new home technology is also needed. This should be stimulated by clear policy for the minimum level of EPC (Energy Performance Contract) and timescales by which this should be achieved. VIVO would be keen to support this work and has the expertise in place to help.
References:
- The increased demand VIVO experienced on its services across the Accommodation contracts comes from job volumes and changes made to the priority of specific jobs, with many having shorter response times in the new contract. VIVO’s figures show this increased demand by 19.3% in the southwest, and 14.3% in the southeast in 2022/23 compared to the previous period, which equates to c17% across the two regions.
- The table below shows the increase in resources available to VIVO’s RAMS contracts to carry out maintenance on SFA homes across its two regions. Please note the figure equates to number of people, not FTE.
Element | ISD | Jul-23 | Notes |
VIVO Direct Employees | 220 | 240 | 52 roles transferred to Tier 1 suppliers on 31st March 2023. This figure follows this transfer. The comparative figure for July 2023, if this transfer did not take place is 292 |
No of Tier 1 Contractor Employees used on Contract | 678 | 1,197 | |
No of Subcontractor Employees | 311 | 529 | |
TOTAL | 1,209 | 1,966 | Increase of 757, or 63% |
| | | |
- Met Office: A review of the UK’s climate in 2022 - Carbon Brief.
- The dedicated damp and mould taskforce consists of an operations manager, small works managers (covering areas within each region) and project manager and administrative support.
30 August 2023
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