15 September 2025
Separating responsive repairs from planned work in mixed logs
A kitchen programme looks like a spike in ‘joinery’ if the extract has no planned-works flag. Boards then hear that joinery demand exploded in June, when the only change was a capital scheme reaching the third floor of one block.
At intake we ask how planned jobs enter the same system as tenant-raised repairs. Some landlords use a job type; some use a contractor code; some use nothing. If the flag is unreliable, we keep those jobs in a labelled ‘mixed’ series rather than pretending we have isolated true responsive demand.
Gas servicing is a frequent contaminant. Annual visits generate tickets that are not tenant complaints. Counting them as heating demand inflates winter charts and makes a later servicing catch-up look like a crisis. We would rather drop servicing from a demand page, with a footnote, than leave it in.
Right-to-repair and disrepair cases also sit awkwardly. They are real work and real cost, but they are not the same as a dripping tap raised on a Tuesday. A short annex listing those cases by month is usually clearer than folding them into the main trade mix.
Housing officers often already know which codes are ‘dirty’. The study is useful when that knowledge has to travel to a new director or a new contractor. The chart is then a record of the agreement, not a discovery of a secret in the spreadsheet.