Renfrewshire Council's 13,200 housing tenants will benefit from a newly-improved repairs appointment system provided by the council's building services.

Housing convener Councillor Brian Lawson got a chance to experience the improvements first hand when he visited the Clark Street depot, building services' operating centre for the whole of Renfrewshire.

From the depot, building services provide a 24 hour a day 7 days a week repairs and standby emergency service for all council tenants and public buildings across Renfrewshire.

Amongst other services, the workforce covers housing and public building repairs, adapting properties for tenants with special needs, removing rot and damp from properties and testing water purification.

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Councillor Lawson was given a tour of the depot and shown the new work scheduling system which enables staff to monitor all jobs including the 66,000 housing and 11,000 public building response repairs they deal with a year.

As soon as a tradesperson completes a repair, this is registered and the system assigns them to the next job most suited to their skills and location assuring a quick and efficient service.

Another improvement is that a fleet of building services vans based at Clark Street are now fully stocked with a range of tools and equipment, meaning that officers can go straight to their next repair job without having to go back to the depot to restock their vans.

More tenants will also be given specific appointments to cut down the number of people having to wait in all day for council staff to visit. This will make life easier for the tenants, as well as reducing the number of jobs having to be rescheduled because tenants are not in when workmen call.

The service also has a new system in place to help tenants moving into a new council property, whereby they are assigned a new tenancy officer to liaise with them on any repairs needing to be done to the property.

Councillor Lawson said: "I was extremely impressed with the changes at the Clark Street depot. The new work management system gives a constantly updating overview of all repair jobs at every stage of the process."

(GK/JM)