We are pleased to announce the start of a new era in our grounds maintenance and cleaning services across the estates. From Monday, 5 February 2024, residents will notice the arrival of Just Ask contractors who will be delivering new services.
In 2022, Hexagon began a procurement exercise to review and re-tender the cleaning and estate maintenance services that were due to expire in May 2023. We had received a lot of feedback regarding the existing services at the time and we wanted to put it right. The new tender started with a fresh look at what both customers and colleagues wanted against what was currently being delivered. We listened to residents’ feedback and built the new contract to provide better value for money. The new service had to be better.
To ensure that we got it right, Hexagon commissioned consultants, FFT, to help us make sure the contract was right. We also asked some residents to help us review the tender documents and then to take part in reviewing the submissions, including the interviews and presentations, from the top three successful tenders.
So, what is different?
- Hexagon and Just Ask have an agreed set of standards that they will work to. Both the cleaning team and the grounds maintenance team will work together. They will also have a close working relationship with our own Estate Services Contract Monitors, Leo and Jonathan.
- Just Ask have agreed a bespoke programme for each scheme, estate, or site. There will be ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos uploaded to a portal that we can access in real time. We are working on a portal that customers can also access these images as part of our wider digital access programme.
- Residents will see posters on their notice boards that will give them an overview of the services delivered and contact details for Just Ask in the event of any concerns.
- Just Ask has also recruited a dedicated team for the Hexagon properties, with named Supervisors for each of the grounds maintenance and cleaning teams. All staff have received specific, appropriate training and are all DBS checked (Disclosure and Baring Service).
- We will be using resident satisfaction surveys to assess how well the service is running.
How much will it cost?
- Residents will see an increase in their service charges. This is unavoidable and reflects the actual cost of delivering the service in 2024.
- Just Ask submitted a competitive tender, which was independently benchmarked across the sector during the tender process.
- Just Ask will also have a dedicated Deep Cleaning operative, to deal with some of the more challenging cleans that we are required to carry out.
- There is also an on-going issue with bulk waste. When there is rubbish dumped, these will have to be recharged to the schemes concerned. So, we need to work in partnership with residents to try to keep this to a minimum. Hexagon has previously absorbed many of these costs, but this is not sustainable moving forward.
If you have any queries about the new cleaning and grounds maintenance service, you can contact our Estate Services Contract Monitors, Jonathan Powell and Leo Gibbons-Plowright on 020 8778 6699 or Just Ask directly on 020 3746 8500 or via email at hexagon@justaskservices.co.uk.
