The panel of contractors has been set up by i-Flair, a consortium of eight housing associations operating across Inverclyde, East Renfrewshire and Renfrewshire, working in collaboration with Procurement for Housing (PfH) Scotland.
Kilbarchan Maintenance Services, GD Chalmers, Alwurk Electric and Timetra are among the first firms selected to provide general repairs and specialist works. Others are able to apply to join at any time.
i-Flair’s eight members are the housing associations of Barrhead, Bridgewater, Cloch, Ferguslie Park, Linstone, Oak Tree, Paisley and Williamsburgh – all of whom had recently been struggling to find reliable firms to provide a satisfactory service.
In previous years, repairs services were procured through fixed frameworks and larger companies generally won the work. But since 2021, the number of national firms in the market has reduced. With fewer contractors bidding for work, i-Flair members have seen a dip in service quality, they said, and when companies do tender, they don’t always have capacity to deliver.
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PfH Scotland and i-Flair set up a dynamic purchasing system (DPS), rather than a fixed framework, so contractors can join at any point and housing associations have a larger pool of approved companies from which to choose. Contractors on the i-Flair DPS provide core services including general repairs, joinery, plumbing, heating and electrical, as well as more specialist works such as pest control, glazing, drainage and roofing.
PfH Scotland account manager Ross Barty said: “Local SME businesses are well suited to delivering responsive repairs. They have good local knowledge and care about the communities they work in and they’re flexible, fitting with the way housing associations want to work. We took the decision to create a DPS because it allows social landlords to select, for example, three electrical contractors for one project. This makes the volume of work more manageable for smaller businesses and it also gives housing associations reassurance in terms of resource and capacity.”
Ivor McCauley, head of operations at Ferguslie Park Housing Association, said: “Every month housing associations have tough repairs targets to meet and to do that you need agile, reliable contractors – something we just haven’t had for a number of years. I’m really pleased with the bespoke DPS that i-Flair has developed with PfH Scotland. We’ve already had an excellent response from contractors who are joining up and we’re now investigating a similar DPS but for planned maintenance.”
Contractors wanting to join i-Flair’s DPS for responsive repairs & voids can find out more via in-tendhost.co.uk/procurementforhousing
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