A Day In the Life of Estate Management / Neighbourhoods Team

Sunday 9 March 2014

What is Estate Management?

• Definition:

“Managing the environment around properties and any common areas effectively, to ensure that the neighbourhood is an attractive, well-maintained and safe place to live”.

Old definition of what we look after!

Is this all that we do?

• This is a very old fashioned term. We will be calling ourselves the Neighbourhood Team in the future and this brings together:

• Place / environment management (the external)

• Tenancy / housing management (the property & the person)

• Allocating properties to the right people.

What Is An Average Day Like?

An Estate Manager week could include:•Check the condition of gardens.•Discuss a change of tenancy request.•Serve a Notice To Quit on an abandoned property.•Attend a meeting with other agencies about a vulnerable tenant.•Arrange for a charity to assist a tenant.•Deal with a complaint about a dog.•Carry out a visit with the fire service. •Estate Walkabout.•Lots of paperwork!

What Is An Average Day Like?

An Estate Caretakers week could include:•Help clear a garden for a tenant so they can maintain.•Scrub off graffiti.•Sweep up glass outside the local shops and flats.•Attend the local residents meeting.•Plant bulbs on an estate.•Help with a clearance for a vulnerable tenant.•Collect a fridge and dispose of safely. •Help clean bathroom vents in a sheltered scheme.•Speak to some local kids with the police.

How can staff use their time better?

There is a lot of paperwork which needs a lot of time to type up at the moment, for example:

•Estate Walkabout sheets.•File notes from interviews with tenants.•Action Plans for anti social behaviour or other visits such as to hoarders.•Inventories from evictions & abandonments.•Paperwork for mutual exchanges.•New tenant visits & surveys.

The answer?

Better IT including:

•Mobile working – able to type up as they go.•Able to access house files digitally.•Improving tasks by automating more contacts such as reminders to tenants about visits.•More time to concentrate on providing support and work more efficiently.

Case Studies

• We want to share some every day scenarios with you & get your thoughts as to how you would deal with them?

• We will then share a day in the life of our front line staff.

Case Study 1

Case Study 2