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Stoke Council launches repairs and maintenance company
A Midlands council has handed over responsibility for repairs and maintenance of its housing stock to its new subsidiary company.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council will give the company, named Unitas, £42m a year to run its 18,500 homes and 600 public buildings.
Unitas was initially intended to be a repairs vehicle only, taking over the work of Kier Stoke, a joint venture between the council and Kier Group which had been operating since 2008 and ended on Saturday.
However, the council’s Conservative-Independent coalition cabinet voted to expand the company’s responsibilities to carry out all housing services last month, including allocations, homelessness services and development.
Only repairs and maintenance services have been transferred to Unitas for now, with plans to give the company responsibility for all housing services subject to consultation.
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Around 450 Kier Stoke staff have been transferred to the new company, as well as another 30 council employees.
Another 260 housing department employees will move to Unitas if its expansion goes ahead.
Unitas will be carrying out an average of 600 repairs a day, with a target to refurbish 1,500 void units a year.
Stoke has the highest number of council homes with serious health and safety hazards of any other local authority.
It had 443 units with category one hazards at the start of 2017/18 – more than every stock-retaining London borough combined.
Around 9% of the authority’s stock does not meet the Decent Homes Standard.
David Conway, leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council, said: “I have made clear from the start what I wanted to achieve with the creation of Unitas and I’m proud to have seen my ambitions realised as the company is officially launched.
“Unitas has been designed to offer an improved, more flexible service for tenants and will ensure that property owned by the council is maintained to a high standard.
“It will also continue our push towards making services more commercially minded – driving efficiency and supporting the local economy.”
