Customer Evaluation Panel - Grounds Maintenance

We wanted to provide a further update about the grounds maintenance service that some of our customers receive.

To ensure all customers receive a service that provides better value for money, we’ve appointed new grounds maintenance contractors.

Following the conclusion of the procurement process, we’re pleased to confirm that we’ve appointed Tivoli Group Ltd to deliver the service in our east and west regions, with Grounds Care Group Ltd responsible for the south.

Affected customers will shortly be sent a letter confirming which contractor will be delivering their services.

We’d like to sincerely apologise for the time it’s taking to get to a fully functioning service.

We recognise that some schemes have received a significantly reduced service which has fallen well below the standards we expect and that our customers deserve and we’d like to thank affected customers for their patience during this time.

Now that the contract has been awarded, we’d like to confirm that any missed visits or work will be rescheduled before the end of the financial year to ensure customers receive the full service they’ve paid for via service charges.

Below is a summary of what the new contract includes:

• Grass cutting – Between March and October, we aim to cut the grass every two weeks (weather dependent). The grass will be cut with the mulch being dropped evenly over the grassed area. These clippings should disappear within a couple of days. This feeds the lawns, provides a significantly better value service and improves our environmental impact.
• Hedge cutting – This will typically be done once per year. This will take place outside of the bird nesting season, which is between February and July.
• Shrub pruning – All shrubs in communal areas will be pruned to a reasonable height. Some shrubs will require hard pruning, which may impact their appearance for a short period. Pruning is yearly, unless the shrubs create a health and safety hazard.
• Shrub beds – These will be kept weed-free through a combination of treatment and hand weeding.
• Weed control – Hard standing areas will normally receive four sprays during the growing season between March and October.
• Leaf collection – This will be done monthly between October and January.
• Hard areas – These will be swept monthly, with any litter being picked and debris removed.
• Trees – These aren’t covered by the regular grounds maintenance service. Instead, a periodic tree survey informs us of any required health and safety work.

To view the new specification in full, including a guide to when visits will take place and what work will be done, please visit our grounds maintenance page.

We’re currently working with our contractors to develop an online customer portal, which will allow you to check when your contractor is scheduled to visit. We're also looking to provide schedules to customers in alternative formats. More information about this will be provided soon.

Once fully up-to-speed, we’re confident that this change will deliver a better grounds maintenance service. We’ll continue to work closely with your contractor to ensure that happens as soon as possible.

If you have any further questions, please get in touch on 0800 111 4013 or fill in our online contact us form.

As many of our customers will be aware, we’re currently finalising the appointment of new grounds maintenance contractors.

In the interim, Tivoli Group Ltd are delivering a service on a caretaker basis in our east and west regions, with Grounds Care Group Ltd responsible for the south.

The caretaking service includes grass cutting, pathway weeding, litter picking and the clearance of hard-standing areas.

We acknowledge in some locations the new contractors have had to implement a very basic caretaking service, especially where the previous contractors didn’t complete work satisfactorily.

This is a temporary measure to ensure grass is cut and all schemes are visited during this initial growing period.

If any visits are missed during April and May, we'll make sure they’re rescheduled throughout the remaining months of the year to ensure the full grounds maintenance specification is met.

We appreciate your patience and understanding during this transition period before the launch of the new contract, which will initially run for the next three years, with an option to extend for an additional two.

The service will then be rolled out over the summer months. Once the new contractors are fully up-to-speed, we’re confident that this change will help us deliver an improved grounds maintenance service.

All customers who receive this service have been sent a letter and, where applicable an email, to update them on the process.

As part of our ongoing commitment to improve the services we provide, we’ve been working incredibly hard to introduce a new grounds maintenance contract.

Once confirmed, the new contract will initially run for the next three years, with an option to extend for an additional two.

The refreshed service will be rolled-out over the summer months, and we’d appreciate your patience and understanding during this period.

Once fully up-to-speed, we’re confident that this change will help us deliver an improved grounds maintenance service. We’ll be closely monitoring the contractor’s performance and, of course, we want to hear your feedback, too.

For more information about what the new contract does and doesn’t cover, please click here.

The customers involved in our procurement exercise, advised that they felt we should share more information on how we select contractors. On this page you can find the question that our customer evaluation panel is asking potential contractors to answer, and below you can read the questions being asked by Longhurst Group. Potential contractors must answer these questions and their responses are scored to determine which contractors go through to the next stage of the selection process.

Grounds maintenance questions and specification summary

The following is a summary of the questions being asked by Longhurst Group. Contractors who want to apply for the contract need to answer these.

The customer question will also be included within these questions. Contractors will also have a copy of the full specification and all other relevant information to enable them to answer these questions fully. Once received, the responses will be scored by various Longhurst Group colleagues and customers will score their own question. Following this, the highest-scoring potential contractors will be invited to the next stage of the process.

The following question has been drafted by LG customers and will be evaluated by LG customers. The 5 areas covered are of key importance to customers.

Specification – Contractors need to make sure that they complete all actions included within the specification and contract. Contractors need to understand the importance of doing this as it can cause health and safety issues if areas are missed. It also has an impact on how customers homes look and feel if they are not properly maintained.

Timescales – Contractors should attend regularly and not leave too long between visits. Areas of grounds maintenance should not be left to get overgrown and unmanageable. Contractors should understand that different times of year require different tasks and account for that in their visits.

Information/Communication – Customers should have access to the specification specific to their area, not general for all customers. They want to know exactly what contractors should be doing on site and when they will be attending. This could be through an online portal, but it must be kept up to date and information needs to be accessible to everyone.

Flexibility – Contractors need to be flexible in their approach, changes in weather mean that more work may be needed on site and time needs to be given for this. Weather issues or emergencies may mean visits are missed and contractors need to be flexible to ensure that they keep on top of things and do not let areas get overgrown. Dedicated operatives to each area would help to keep on top of this as they will know the area and work that needs to be completed better.

Can you please advise in the form of a statement or essay how you will achieve each of these points and also advise how you will monitor operatives work to ensure if it is being completed and to an acceptable standard and how often this will be monitored.