The BSHR recommended that registered providers should partner with residents, contractors, and frontline staff to develop and apply new standards defining what an excellent maintenance and repairs process looks like.

But what does excellent mean, and how should we try to get there? What does it ‘look like’? Throughout our work, we have investigated these questions, and have found that excellence can be approached in two complimentary ways.

Firstly, we know from our research that excellence is not possible without minimum standards being met. In our research, we found that the minimum standards that residents expect from their landlords are:

• Being treated with respect, and being believed, by housing providers and their contractors.
• Making repairs easy to report through multiple means (e.g. by phone, website, and app).
• Receiving clear, timely communication at every stage of the repairs process, especially when appointments are made or changed, and from operatives.
• Having clear and realistic timescales and expectations, as well as appointments that are kept to.
• Being honest about delays and problems, and working with residents to fix them as quickly as possible.
• Knowing and adapting to the variegated and often complex needs of different residents.
• Enabling operatives to complete their work well, by giving them clear instructions for each job and ensuring they are properly qualified for the work they are undertaking.
• A good quality of work, with homes left clean and tidy when it is completed.
• Monitoring and oversight by the landlord, especially checking the condition and quality of work done to homes.
• Publishing data on outcomes and performance, and doing so in a way that residents can understand and use to scrutinise performance.
• Clear, simple complaints procedures, for when things go wrong.

But secondly, we know that excellence might mean different things for different providers. Residents may attach different levels of importance to the above standards, or have additional standards that matter more to them and their communities.

This is why the definition of ‘excellence’ is not the same everywhere and for all time. Committing to delivering an excellent repairs and maintenance is both a promise to do the basics well, but also to work with residents on an ongoing basis to understand their priorities and where they want to see improvements made.

Put differently, the meaning of excellence is neither imposed from the top-down nor built entirely anew from the bottom-up, but an ongoing process that is defined and redefined in partnership with your residents, staff, and contractors.