1.8 The Department paid around £62 million in 2008-09 for facilities management and estate maintenance. It can make financial deductions for poor service delivery through the performance measurement system. We previously concluded that the system did not provide appropriate incentives, and recommended that the Department and Mapeley agree a system balancing rewards and reductions in payments. The Department and Mapeley introduced a revised system in 2005, but have yet to formally incorporate it into the contract. The revised system uses two key performance indicators measuring Mapeley's performance in reactive and planned maintenance.
1.9 Mapeley has improved its performance in reactive maintenance, reducing by 50 per cent the number of calls to its helpdesk that it does not respond to in the required time from an average of 1,200 calls a month in 2005-06 to 600 in 2008-09 (8 per cent of total calls). It has also improved its performance on planned maintenance, completing 98 per cent of planned tasks in March 2009.
1.10 The level of financial deductions has decreased as a result of improvements (Figure 5). Using a three-month rolling average, deductions have decreased by 55 per cent since June 2006 to £56,000 in March 2009. The Department's ambition is zero deductions.
1.11 In 2007 the Department commissioned an independent review to benchmark maintenance and cleaning costs against property portfolios of a similar size, which concluded that its costs were lower than the average costs of comparators.
1.12 If a breakdown occurs in a critical aspect of a building for over two hours (for example, no running water), the Department can classify the area as unavailable and claim a reduction in the facilities price for that space. By March 2009 the Department had received an unavailability credit for £8,000 covering two incidents since the start of the contract. It was also reviewing with Mapeley its outstanding claim of over £1 million for 144 other incidents recorded since 2001.4
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4 Mapeley put forward proposals to settle the matter in March 2009. Discussions between the parties continue.