Orwell’s Francesca Claydon appointed Repairs Roundtable Vice Chair

We’re delighted to share that Francesca Claydon, Orwell’s Head of Repairs and Estates, has been appointed Vice Chair of the Social Housing Alliance repairs roundtable.

We caught up with Francesca to discuss her role, what it means for Orwell, and how collaboration across the sector can help drive improvements in repairs and maintenance services for customers.

What is the Social Housing Alliance Group?

The Social Housing Alliance is an umbrella group for repairs, compliance, electrical and fleet roundtables.

There are 13 members, all of which are local social housing providers covering East Anglia to overcome social housing challenges together by:

• Collaborative working.
• Sharing best practice.
• Keeping up to date and compliant on legislative changes.
• Hosting events such as the recent Awaab’s Law session.

How does the repairs roundtable work?

The repairs roundtable is to ensure we are all working towards an excellent repairs service for our residents, by talking through challenges these could be recruitment or retention of colleagues. Legislative changes, where we must change our service and ensure we are legally compliant. Or possibly materials/contractor issues, we discuss and share best practice.

What is your involvement within the group?

I will support the chair, help organise and host our events with our sponsor AICO. Facilitate networking and collaboration between members and champion good practice.

The main agenda item is Awaab’s Law phase 2 this year, we’ve already had an implementation session, we will be discussing over the coming months what is working well and what needs improving. We often find we all experience the same problems and together we can improve or quite often solve them.

Into the new year we will be hosting sessions on recruitment, progression, making the trades more inclusive and appealing. We know when house building increases, we find recruitment more difficult, therefore more organisations are turning to apprentices and upskilling existing colleagues. Here at Orwell, we’ve been pleased to have both Charlie Farrow and Reece Stedman progress internally and we welcome Sunny Last as a new apprentice.

With Francesca appointed as Vice Chair, we look forward to supporting the ongoing work of the Repairs Roundtable and the wider Social Housing Alliance to drive improvements that make a real difference for customers.