Laing

John Laing Integrated Services were awarded the contract by the London Borough of Hounslow to manage:

• 120 parks and open spaces including 3 nationally recognised Country Parks
• 11 libraries
• An urban farm
• 34 allotment sites
• 9 cemeteries
• Three heritage sites - Hogarth’s House, Boston Manor House and Gunnersbury Park Estate and Museum
• The Paul Robeson Theatre and the Redlees Artist Studio

For more information on the Hounslow project, go to: http://www.hounslow.info/index.htm

Ongoing activity

JLIS are committed to making improvements to all the services and facilities under our management and increase participation in the activities they offer - the ultimate aim being to raise the profile of libraries, parks, arts and heritage services in Hounslow. A £5.7 million library capital investment programme will be delivered during 2009/2010 that will refurbish and refresh the boroughs libraries.

The delivery of our service will maximise community benefits and address community issues around social inclusion/exclusion, access to opportunities, education, learning and development, health and well-being, community safety, community cohesion and engagement. We will utilise the parks, libraries, theatre, museum and artist studios as a focus for community activity and engagement.

The contract for the parks is for 10 years and 15 years for the libraries. Therefore, wehave adopteda planned approach in agreement with elected members, officers and friends groups to bring about short, medium and long term measures to improve customer service and satisfaction.

Key Achievements to date include:
Improving library infrastructure and technology

• Library Systems Upgrade Programme
• Pilot using state of the art Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology with a view to introducing the technology in other libraries in Hounslow. RFID will speed up processes and ultimately bring about service improvements for library users.
• Increase in library attendance by 7%
• Increase in event attendance by 18%

Performance – working to 111 Key Performance Indicators, which include:

• Inspection Reporting
• Complaints
• Reactive building maintenance
• Quality Assurance
• Library Opening Hours
• Staffing
• Marketing and promotions

Monitoring

• Self monitoring by EQ24/7 – bespoke transparent contract monitoring platform
• Monitoring of performance standards, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly inspections and reports
• Performance report to LBH, monthly as well as client log-in to view live data

Parks

• Green Flag status awarded to 3 parks: Boston Manor, Cranford Park and Bedfont Lakes Country Park
• £400,000 grant awarded to Crane Park as part of Mayor of London’s “Help a London Park” scheme
• Recruitment of a Parks and Development Community Officer to develop park educational activities to address community needs

Arts

• Paul Robeson Theatre
• Upgrade of facilities to be completed September 2009
• Re-opening of the Café Bar. Partnership arrangement with Barnados charity to include operation of café and introduction of training kitchen
• Relaunch of an Arts Programme including dance and music workshops, drama performances with the City Lit Theatre Company and a pantomime at Christmas.