The National House Maintenance Forum (NHMF) aims to set the standards for repairs and maintenance for social housing.
Almost 20 years ago a group of housing associations in the south west of England commissioned a comprehensive schedule of rates that specified all the repairs that might be required to rented housing. It set a standard for the cost and quality of repairs, and transformed the procurement of repairs and maintenance in the social housing sector. This was adopted by the National Housing Federation and published as the NHF Schedule of Rates.
The benefits of a standard schedule of rates soon became obvious. Contractors became familiar with it and could price their services more competitively. Following the 1994 Egan Report on Rethinking Construction it formed the basis for partnering arrangements, using a wide variety of payment mechanisms targeted at reducing the cost of repairs without undermining the profitability of the contractors delivering the service.
The NHMF evolved from the group elected by users to manage future development of the NHF Schedules, now the M3NHF Schedule of Rates, and is funded by their annual licence fees. To do this effectively they became actively engaged in researching best practice in the maintenance of social housing. Since 2004 they have held an annual Maintenance Conference with dozens of small workshops at which groups of maintenance managers can share their experience and learn from each other.
The NHMF is serviced by M3, which began life as a subsidiary of the National Housing Federation, and sells the M3NHF Schedule of Rates and a whole range of related products, covering the maintenance of social housing. M3 also sells a facilities management schedule, covering the maintenance of public, healthcare and educational buildings, leisure facilities, residential care homes, commercial properties and residential accommodation.
Each year the NHMF invites maintenance managers who are proud of what their organisation has done to submit projects for awards, which are presented at the conference dinner.
The top award this year for the most innovative project went to Willow Park Housing Trust for their employment and training initiatives in south Manchester. They invested £400,000 of the money they had saved through improved productivity into helping local unemployed people gain skills and find work, lifting 140 people off benefits in the last year.
The Best Client award went to Bromford Living; Amicus won the award for the Best Managed Contract; the award for Best DLO went to Parkway Green Housing Trust for their Repairs Excellence Project and the Best Use of IT award went to Bourneville Village Trust for a well-integrated asset management system.
“Each year the standard of entries surpass the previous year,” says Secretary of the NHMF and former MD of M3, Dave Treanor. “Before the Forum existed there was a distinct lack of focus on maintenance issues, but by bringing together maintenance managers and building a resource of best practice solutions we have firmly shone the spotlight on this aspect of the industry and helped to deliver improved rental housing maintenance and repair services.”
Dave has been involved with the M3NHF Schedule of Rates since it was first thought of but is considering retiring from his position with the Forum in the near future. Reflecting on his time spent with the organisation he says”, I’m very proud of the work I have done with the Forum. It has been quite an interesting project which has had real success in improving the delivery of maintenance and repair in Social Housing.”
During 2012 the NHMF is setting up a contractor forum to involve contractors in guiding the development of the schedules and other products.
For further information visit the website: www.nhmf.co.uk.
