Echelon was appointed to manage the mobilisation of an eight-year contract to support Wandle’s in-house DLO with repairs and voids works across its property portfolio.

Following a rigorous, three-stage competitive selection process Wandle awarded an eight-year contract to Mears to provide technical support and expertise, IT infrastructure and access to its supply chain, while the repairs service, and its staff, remain employed by Wandle. Echelon put an interim manager in place, to lead on shaping the new service and improving processes, with a particular focus on IT, HR and finance. The manager stayed in place for a month after the contract went live to ensure that all KPIs were producing correct results.

Echelon supported Wandle with the recruitment of new staff to work on the contract and worked with its HR team to realign the DLO, ensuring that all skillsets were sufficiently covered. Wandle’s policies and procedures were collaboratively reviewed and Echelon helped it to create and embed KPIs, as well as training staff to analyse and understand the data. The IT system was reconfigured to integrate with the repairs service, providing a clear picture of where money was being spent and on what type of repairs. Budgets were set to align with the new project and Echelon helped Wandle to drill down beyond key budget heading information, to establish exactly where and how money was being spent.