Dane Housing Group has turned to GIS to improve and streamline all areas of its business, including maintenance and repairs, voids management, asset management and tenant communications.
Mark Felton, contracts manager, Dane Housing, said, “Accurate data is a cornerstone of our business. However, we didn’t have all the detail we needed when the properties were transferred from the local authority, although we did have staff with over 30 years’ knowledge and experience. We needed to capture all that and more, and identified GIS as the way to do it.”
Dane chose ArcGIS from ESRI after seeing it in operation at nearby organisations, with ArcView and ArcReader running on a terminal server which can be accessed by all desktop users, and ArcPad on a PDA. OS MasterMap is used for the core topographical and address data. Alex Hill, GIS officer, Dane Housing, said, “We have used OS MasterMap from the outset to support the new grounds maintenance contact, as a basis for our land terrier, for voids analysis and action, and for a number of other purposes. Thanks to our GIS, we can go into a meeting with a contractor for a large project with accurate and up-to-date information rather than the hand-coloured maps and plans used previously.”
Dane’s first task was to produce plans for retendering its grounds maintenance contract. The efficiency of the GIS system meant the survey team had more time to better measure the areas to be maintained, such as excluding hardstandings and garage areas which made up 20 per cent of the area involved, resulting in a commensurate cost reduction in the maintenance contract. One year after completing the new maintenance contract, Dane found that grounds maintenance telephone calls from residents had fallen from a peak of 85 in one week to just a few calls each week.
Having completed the grounds maintenance work, Dane was able to focus on updating its land terrier. Hill said, “Understanding what land we own and what properties we own is fundamental. In order to resolve land ownership and property boundary disputes, both potential areas of contention, it is vital that we have accurate information at our fingertips. That is why we needed to ensure that our terrier was 100 per cent accurate, adding the boundaries that we had obtained from our right-to-buy files. It took just four months to put 20,000 ‘T’ marks onto the system, and we are now confident that we know precisely which land is ours. Thanks to OS MasterMap, we are confident that we are not paying for repairs that are the responsibility of others.”
Dane was also keen to reduce the number and duration of its voids. Felton said, “In 2004 we were running at 9.3 weeks per void, now reduced to 3.3 weeks, with a modest reduction in void numbers from 325 to 310. This is not entirely due to GIS, but it has enabled us to map voids and repeat voids so we can find out if there is an underlying issue that we can resolve.”
The GIS system, including OS MasterMap Address Layer 2, helps with tenant communications. Hill explained, “We have prospective tenants who don’t know the area. We use Address Layer 2 data to build a picture of all local amenities for an area. We provide a map, a description of the area, a map showing the property and a photo of the property. With all that information up front, they can quickly see if the area is suitable for them. In this way we are expecting to reduce void periods by a further two or three days.”
The initial cost of the system, including Ordnance Survey mapping was around £35,000, with annual costs of £9000 for support and Ordnance Survey licence fees. Felton said, “These costs have been more than covered by the efficiencies we have generated – over three years, we will have saved £100 000 on the grounds maintenance contract alone.”
Dane’s asset management strategy and processes have also been affected by the GIS system. Felton explained, “Asset values depend on proper maintenance. It is therefore vital that we have accurate information with which to plan such maintenance. We have used the GIS to value our assets and to help us to value planned works as well. This links into our asset strategy, into the amount of property and the amount we invest in maintenance.”
Mike Doran, director of community and supported housing, Dane Housing, said, “Before the implementation of the GIS system, much of our information regarding property, customers and general neighbourhood data was collated separately and could not be easily shared. By using GIS to overlay and present data which [previously] required deciphering, both senior managers and front-line staff have an easy-to-use overview of property type and condition as well as specific customer information such as needs for aids and adaptations.”
