Fife Council is to introduce appointments for Council tenants whose properties need repairs.

The system, which is expected to start in January 2009 follows a series of roadshows earlier this year attended by tenants across Fife.

Additionally, the authority's Housing Services is in the process of buying a new product called 'Repair Finder' which will help its Contact Centre staff improve the diagnosis of faults when people ring in to report them.

Alan Russell, Senior Manager Housing Estates Services explained how initially the appointments scheme would allow people the choice of morning or afternoon ones, but would offer more detailed slots once staff experience in running the system grew.


"Fife performs above average in managing its housing repairs compared to similar councils. The new changes will help us improve this even further," he told today's meeting of the Housing and Communities Committee.

Other changes to be introduced include the provision of information to tenants about how to report a repair. The majority of routine repairs should also be completed within 30 days as opposed to the present 30 working days.

Tenants will also receive by post, a computer-generated receipt for all repairs including a description of the complaint and the priority level.

Alan added how in the longer term Fife Council was committed to achieving the Scottish Housing Quality Standard: "Making people aware of how to report a problem to hopefully stop minor ones becoming major will help us achieve this."

Among the views given by tenants during the roadshows more than 2/3 of tenants rated their annual gas service as good to excellent, 70% felt it was good or excellent to easily report a repair and 88% felt it was right to recharge people for repairs that were their responsibility.

More than half of the tenants thought the repairs service was good or excellent.

Athough around a third of tenants were not aware of the Right to Repair scheme.

(GK/JM)