Contractors wanted for £490m of repairs and voids works

The service provider Procurement for Housing (PfH) is looking for contractors to deliver £490m worth of responsive repairs and voids works for social landlords.

PfH, which has over 900 social landlord members, has designed a new dynamic purchasing system (DPS) to help housing providers clear their backlog of non-essential maintenance jobs and have a flexible way of procuring repairs in the future. New suppliers can join the DPS at any time, unlike a framework.

Categories of the DPS include full-service delivery of responsive repairs and voids, general repairs and joinery, plumbing and heating, electrical and specialist works.

For each category, contractors will be required to either supplement a social landlord’s in-house direct labour organisation or to fully manage an outsourced repairs and voids service, which may include call handling, repairs diagnostics and work scheduling.

The backlog of non-emergency social housing repairs was estimated to be 1.5m jobs at the end of May 2020. With the easing of lockdown restrictions, social landlords now have to address considerable demand whilst also remobilising their repairs teams safely and compliantly.

The DPS aims to help social landlords manage these challenges and also support small, local contractors by streamlining the tender process. Once suppliers have passed the DPS selection procedure, they can quickly bid for any opportunities by submitting a tender. There is no need for them to go through the selection stage again and again for each contract opportunity.

‘With a significant number of repairs operatives in the sector not working, social landlords are dealing with unprecedented staff shortages plus the pressure of social distancing on maintenance jobs,’ said PfH’s managing director, Steve Malone.

‘We hope this DPS will help the sector to overcome some of these problems whilst also supporting SME contractors who can quickly register and bid without having to go through a time-consuming tender process.’

PfH’s DPS for Responsive Works & Voids will run for five years with the option to extend for another five years. To apply for inclusion visit: https://in-tendhost.co.uk/procurementforhousing/aspx/Home

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