Wrexham Council have made a significant step forward for service delivery as they announce a major reduction in their housing repairs backlog.
A Repairs Improvement Group was set up in February 2025, which consists of a small number of officers and the Lead Member for Housing and Climate Change. The purpose of the group was to explore ways to continually reduce the number of active repairs, monitor performance and drive improvements.
The Housing Department aim to prioritise reducing the repairs backlog, and provide good quality repairs which are delivered within the allocated time scales to their 11,087 housing stock.
The department receive regular requests for repairs, with 43,499 repairs being reported to the Housing Service Centre in the previous financial year. These jobs are then passed on to the Council’s in house Direct Labour Organisation (DLO) or an external contractor.
Resource levels, service demands, apprentices, capacity and outputs will continue to be monitored to provide the best service delivery. In doing so, the Housing Department have seen a significant reduction in the repairs backlog.
In January 2024, the overall active repairs figure stood at 5,507. As of 6th July 2025, the active repairs list includes a total of 2,995 repairs jobs. Therefore, from January 2024 until 6 July 2025, there has been an overall reduction of 2,512 active and ongoing repairs, with 611 of the current list already booked in with Contract Holders.
The in house DLO handle an average of 1,751 jobs per month, meaning the backlog is edging closer to the monthly average, suggesting vast progress in stabilising workloads.
Groundwork repairs in particular have improved by an impressive 95.06% over the past 12 months, which is an outstanding achievement.
On 16th July, Housing will be taking an update to the Homes & Environment Scrutiny Committee to present the recent repairs improvements.
The improvement is a combination of increased operative recruitment and targeted scheduling efforts. As new staff are being trained and integrated into the current working practices, the Council remains positive that they will see a continuation of improvement.
There has been significant focus on future-proofing the workforce by continuing to train staff, to match the fast pace of changing technologies and practices. The Repairs team actively support an apprenticeship programme, demonstrating this with their five apprentices who are developing their skills to meet the high standards.
Seasonal demand heavily influences the active repair list, with named storms and adverse weather often causing delays and added constraints. For example, in December 2024 802 jobs were received in a four day period, such influxes can cause service delays and play a role in the continued fluctuation in repairs figures.
Councillor David A Bithell, Lead Member for Housing and Climate Change and Julie M Francis, Chief Officer for Housing agreed that, “The reduction in our repairs backlog is a testament to the renewed focus to deliver a high quality and timely repair service to the contract holders across Wrexham. Through collaboration and investment in the future workforce, we are pleased to be making strong progress and are looking forward to seeing how this can improve further.”
Going forward, the repairs department will continue to utilise staff who usually work on empty properties, make precise priorities, monitor workloads regularly, work more efficiently, utilise ICT systems available for recording works and continue to have regular discussions with the internal Repairs Improvement Group.
