A pilot scheme allowing workers to take council vehicles home and use handheld devices has resulted in a 30% increase in productivity and a reduction in job repair completion times.

Having originally been rolled out to three Building Maintenance Division (BMD) staff earlier this year, the home to work and mobile working pilots were expanded to include 25 Inchyra Depot workers.

A further 35 maintenance employees and eight emergency team workers are now benefitting from mobile working, which provides access to Android devices that receive work instructions with no delay and automatically replenish stock when a threshold is hit.

Discussions are underway with trade unions to expand the scope of home to work.

Home to work and mobile working are two of five work strands within the Council of the Future Redesign of BMD project, which aims to establish a more efficient and effective property repair service for council tenants.

The three remaining strands are:

• Depot rationalisation: The move from three to two depots is complete, with the aim to establish one super depot at Inchyra by 2020.
• Work scheduling (East area): Has resulted in an increased number of appointments available to customers each month. It also allows staff to phone tenants prior to arrival and spare capacity can be identified to fulfil appointments if staff are delayed.
• Organisational: A review of the service and its structure will be undertaken, in conjunction with trade unions, with the aim of producing a five-year business/workforce plan.