Harrogate Borough Council aims to provide a first class service by working with you, our tenants, residents and clients, with the ambition of ensuring your needs are catered for and expectations met or exceeded.
We understand that having work done can be disruptive and for some of you, a cause for concern, so we aim to work closely with you to help minimise the impact of the work we carry out as far as is practicable, as part of delivering the first class service we aspire to.
In brief, we intend to achieve this high level of service by doing the following things.
How we treat you
- Keeping our appointments unless missing them is unavoidable.
- Notifying you as soon as possible if an appointment has to be rearranged due to unforeseen circumstances.
- Ensuring all our staff have personal photo-identification and/or wear IHMT uniform.
- Keeping you informed of progress at all times, especially if the work is interrupted before it is completed.
- Treating you with respect and maintaining confidentiality at all times.
- Taking time to understand your needs, on each occasion we interact.
- Helping you move heavy appliances or furniture when necessary.
How we treat your home
- Working with you to keep your home secure during works.
- Treating your home and possessions with the utmost respect.
- Not swearing or smoking (including e-cigarettes or vaping devices) in your home.
- Not playing radios, music, etc. at your home.
How we do our work
- Providing good, quality workmanship and a friendly face.
- Not leaving you without services we provide and maintain, for any longer than necessary.
- Not starting work before 8am, or finishing later than 5:00pm and not working at weekends, unless you have agreed to such an arrangement.
- Conducting our work in a health conscious and safe manner at all times.
- Managing and controlling noise and dust levels to keep them to the minimum possible.
- Maintaining acceptable levels of cleanliness and tidiness, including not leaving any rubbish / waste material in your home or garden for longer than necessary.
- Not using any of the facilities in your home without your permission.
- Not using your vacuum cleaner, brushes etc. to clean up and not using your dustbin.
- Keeping your neighbourhood safe and tidy, so far as it is within our responsibility.
Delivering customer care
It is the responsibility of all property services employees involved in providing the in house maintenance team service, to deliver this customer care policy. The whole site team, frontline staff, office and support staff have a vital role to play in delivering the aims of this policy to you, our customers.
Standards will be monitored and we welcome your feedback through customer satisfaction questionnaires or by contacting us.
Equality and diversity
We recognise the benefits of employing individuals from a range of backgrounds from the communities in which we operate. It is our aim to create a diverse workforce which reflects the local population and which has the skill and cultural understanding to achieve our service objectives.
We will aim treat all our customers equally and fairly, irrespective of marital status, race, ethnic origin, colour, nationality, disability, gender identity, religion or age, whilst considering the diverse needs of all.
Our workforce will be trained to understand, and comply with our legal obligations in respect of equality and diversity.
The in house maintenance team code of conduct
All operatives of the in house maintenance team and those who support them in supervisory, management and administrative roles, should ensure that their conduct promotes the good reputation and values of the council.
This code of conduct has been developed to define what we feel are both practical and commercially acceptable standards of conduct, and to provide further detail to the bullet point list above, where needed.
How we treat you
- Keeping our appointments unless missing them is unavoidable.
- Sometimes things will happen that stop us reaching you at the agreed time, such as:
- vehicle breakdown
- operative called to an emergency
- previous jobs taking longer than anticipated
- Sometimes things will happen that stop us reaching you at the agreed time, such as:
- Notifying you as soon as possible if an appointment has to be rearranged due to unforeseen circumstances:
- either the operative who was due to attend or another member of the team will contact you if the appointment has to be significantly altered from the agreed time, at the earliest available opportunity
- Ensuring all our staff have personal photo identification and / or wear in house maintenance team uniform:
- our staff member should introduce themselves to you and present photo ID when visiting your property
- staff members should be tidily dressed (with some allowance for marks unavoidably picked up due to the physical and practical nature of their job) and be wearing clothing bearing the council's logo
- Keeping you informed of progress at all times, especially if the work is interrupted before it is completed:
- you should receive a receipt letter for each repair you report, which will include the date by which we should complete the work
- if the repair is larger than it first appeared, our operative should let you know roughly how long the repair will take to complete
- if the operative needs to leave your property during a repair, they should:
- let you know they are leaving
- make things as safe as possible, then advise you if there are any hazards you should be aware of, due to the repair being only partly complete and let you know what is safe for you to do
- give you an approximate time they will return
- contact you again later, if they are likely to return at a very different time to their first estimate
- Our operative should let you know if other work will need to be done at a later date, to make a full repair or to “make good” damage unavoidably caused during the repair work.
- Treating you with respect and maintaining confidentiality at all times:
- our staff should refer to you using your title and surname unless you have expressly asked them to address you more informally
- our staff will not share your information with anyone not duly authorised to receive it
- the person visiting your home should adjust their behaviour in response to your needs, to ensure that:
- you are comfortable with the way they conduct themselves in your home
- you fully understand everything you need to, about the repair work
- your questions about the work are satisfactorily answered
- Taking time to understand your needs, on each occasion we interact:
- our staff member should take account of your needs during their visit, for example, needs arising from your age, sex, disability, race or cultural / ethnic identity, religion or belief, gender identity and whether or not you are pregnant or have very young children
- Helping you move heavy appliances or furniture when necessary:
- we would usually expect able-bodied people to move furniture or appliances for us when necessary, to provide adequate access to carry out a repair - this is to protect both you and our staff from the embarrassment and difficulties that can arise from accidental damage to your possessions
- we recognise, however, that some people are not physically capable of moving larger items, without risk to their health or safety - in such cases, our staff will assist with this and replace items to their original position when the repair is complete, always taking all reasonable care of your possessions
How we treat your home
- Working with you to keep your home secure during works:
- the security of your home is primarily your responsibility but we recognise that we have a part to play when we are working at your home
- our operatives will, whenever possible and practical given the nature of the work, ensure your security-related requests are complied with
- we will never leave your home insecure and unattended but if you do need to leave an operative working in your home, please make arrangements for them to secure it when they leave, in case you do not return before the repair is complete (for example, leave a key with them, that they can post through your letterbox after locking the door)
- Treating your home and possessions with the utmost respect:
- we will ask you to move any of your possessions that may be affected by the repair work out of harm’s way, before starting work
- we will use protective covers where there is a risk of dust, paint, etc. spreading beyond the immediate working area
- we will use protective floor coverings for more prolonged work where there is likely to be a lot of coming-and-going from your home and this is likely to soil your carpets or other flooring
- we will take care when moving around, and carrying tools and equipment around your home
- we will not use your possessions, tools or access equipment for any part of our work
- Not using any of the facilities in your home without your permission:
- sometimes it will be necessary for us to use electrical equipment, run a gas appliance or use water from your home as part of carrying out the work - when this is the case, our staff member should:
- always ask you for permission
- use your resources as economically and for as short a time as possible to carry out the work effectively
- on occasion, an operative may ask to use washing and / or toilet facilities in your home - in this case, our staff member should
- always ask you for permission
- take care of your possessions
- return the facility they use to the level of cleanliness it was before they made use of it
- sometimes it will be necessary for us to use electrical equipment, run a gas appliance or use water from your home as part of carrying out the work - when this is the case, our staff member should:
We would respectfully ask that you do not unreasonably withhold your permission regarding these things.
- Not swearing or smoking (including e-cigarettes or vaping devices) in your home:
- in addition to not using swear words, our staff members should avoid any unkind, embarrassing, inflammatory or damaging words or gestures when they are at work;
- our staff are under instruction not to smoke in your home or garden (even if you smoke yourself), in their work vehicles or in any place where a smoking ban or restriction is in place;
- e-cigarettes and other electronic vaporising devices are included in these restrictions on smoking
- Not playing radios, music, at your home:
- our operatives should not play their own radios or play their personal digital devices through a speaker, in or around your home, (use of in-ear headphones is permitted, providing the staff member remains responsive to you if you require their attention)
How we do our work
- Providing good, quality workmanship and a friendly face:
- we hope that you experience our team members as friendly, courteous and respectful when they are dealing with or visiting you - please contact us and let us know if this has not been your experience on a specific occasion
- our operatives should carry out your repairs to a good standard, leaving a tidy and neat repair; if a temporary repair has to be made to make something safe, before the final repair can be made, it may not be possible to carry out the temporary repair to the same standard expected for the final repair
- we will aim to keep any incidental damage to a minimum but if some damage is caused as a result of the repair (e.g. some plaster damage if a new electrical fitting is installed), the operative should either:
- make the damage good themselves as part of the repair or if they do not have the skills themselves
- arrange for a follow-on repair to happen as soon as possible
- please note that redecoration of repaired items is not included in our service
- Not leaving you without services we provide and maintain, for any longer than necessary:
- we will ensure essential services are connected or re-connected and tested once the repair is complete, or at the end of each working day if the repair takes more than one day to complete - for clarity, we would define essential services as:
- mains cold water service to at least the kitchen sink, one WC and one bathing facility
- hot water for bathing (this could be a shower unit, over a bath or in a wet room)
- electrical power, (although it may be necessary to isolate some areas subject to the repair work)
- a source of space heating between 01 November and 30 April each year - this could take the form of one or two portable heaters if the main heating system is not working
- we will ensure essential services are connected or re-connected and tested once the repair is complete, or at the end of each working day if the repair takes more than one day to complete - for clarity, we would define essential services as:
- Not starting work before 8am, or finishing later than 5:00pm and not working at weekends, unless you have agreed to such an arrangement:
- this is to ensure both you and you neighbours are not unreasonably disturbed by our repair activities
- the council’s general policy is that only emergency repair work is carried out at the weekends but on rare occasions it can be to both your and our advantage to complete works started during the week, over the weekend (you should be fully consulted if we propose to do this and have the right to refuse, except where the council believes the problem being repaired would put you or others in significant danger if it were not attended to as quickly as possible)
- Conducting our work in a health conscious and safe manner at all times:
- we will make a risk assessment of every repair activity, using a standard set of prepared assessments as a guide - the context within which the repair is to be carried out will form part of the risk assessment
- if an operative judges that carrying out a repair would put themselves, you or anyone in the vicinity in danger, the repair will not take place until a manager has assessed the situation and an appropriate solution is agreed
- we will undertake the repair in the safest way possible
- where necessary for your safety and in order to protect you from the risk of harm, you may be advised to:
- keep out of certain areas of your home until you are informed it is safe; we may put up barriers, close doors or create enclosures,
- take extra care when moving around certain areas of your home during the repair work
- operatives are issued with PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) where it is required to minimise risks they encounter in their work
- operatives are issued with appropriate access equipment for the work they carry out and should not use ladders, steps belonging to you
- materials and tools should be placed (and stored if necessary during longer duration works) so that they do not pose a danger to you or your household
- all accidents and “near miss” incidents will be recorded and reported through the council’s Health and Safety reporting systems
- Managing and controlling noise and dust levels to keep them to the minimum possible:
- we will use dust-extraction tools wherever possible for tasks that are expected to create reasonable levels of dust
- we may construct an enclosure by covering doors, windows, etc. to contain dust and debris where high levels of dust may be created
- we will give you, and your neighbours when required, a warning of particularly noisy work and provide advice about how long the noisy process might last
- we will keep noisy operations as short as possible and take steps to minimise noise where we can, (e.g. closing doors between rooms)
- please understand that it will not be possible to carry out some repairs without causing considerable noise
- Maintaining acceptable levels of cleanliness and tidiness, including not leaving any rubbish / waste material in your home or garden for longer than necessary:
- operatives should keep their work area reasonably tidy, clearing debris and waste material at regular intervals
we will keep other areas of your home in tidy order if we are keeping or storing tools or materials not being used in the immediate work area -
the work area will be given a good final clean by our team member either at the completion of the repair or at the end of each day for longer duration work
- operatives should keep their work area reasonably tidy, clearing debris and waste material at regular intervals
- Not using your vacuum cleaner, brushes etc. to clean up and not using your dustbin:
- our team members are provided with appropriate tools for cleaning up after their work - they should not use yours
- all waste, rubbish and spare materials should be removed from your home completely and taken away in our vans
- Keeping your neighbourhood safe and tidy, so far as it is within our responsibility:
- our team members should park considerately and safely
- our tools or materials should not be placed so they create hazards for others
- all waste and rubbish created by our repair activities should be removed from the area