Social Housing: The causes and consequences of short-termism for outsourced maintenance.

The study sought to identify the possible impact of short-term duration contracts on stakeholders engaged in a sector of the FM market place. Its focus is on the trading relationships between private sector “Suppliers” and public sector “Buyers” providing Repairs and Maintenance (R&M) services to the Social housing market sector. Outsourcing is a feature of this market, with notices being published on OJEU. In 2010 the value of these contracted services was in excess of £10.0bn. The context of the study relates to my appointment as an Interim Operations Director for a FM service provider. Analysis of its contracts by duration identified a disparity in performance for all stakeholders. Contracts of less than 48 months were challenging in terms of service capacity, returned poorer gross and net margins, and had lower customer satisfaction and staff satisfaction survey results, particularly when TUPE was involved. The longer term contracts had differing problems but were on target for operational and financial budgets, which was also reflected within higher customer satisfaction scores. Given this dichotomy why were the R&M contracts for such short durations? Was this a feature of this market or outsourced FM contracts in general? The study focuses on the causes for short duration trading and the consequences for the stakeholders that potentially arise out of short-term contracts. A pragmatic approach to the research methodology was adopted that used both quantitative and qualitative methods within a triangulated process. Semi-structured interviews, Ethnography and document analysis were utilised to gather data. The findings from the research demonstrated that EU procurement regulations coupled with traditional working practices within the value network and supported by the standard forms of contract introduced excessive transaction costs, impeded innovation, investment and, inhibited service quality and the creation of value for all stakeholders.