3Sixty year 1 review

[Mark Brough]

We intended to undertake a review of 3Sixty's first-year performance. Robin kindly dug out the KPIs. Copied here is my emailed submission to the directors 23 May 2023:

Thank you Martin for suggesting a review of the KPIs and an agenda. I suggest that this meeting should not only review our situation, but should work up some solutions.

When we laid out those KPIs, we never expected that 3Sixty's performance would be so lacking. And so KPIs aside, I note with concern that 3Sixty have not facilitated our #1 criterion for switching, namely for directors to move from managing to directing, and for directors to spend much less time on their responsibility. This is generally due to carelessness and lack of diligence.

I see two issues:

1) 3Sixty are not sufficiently helpful. They have not helped we directors to step back somewhat.

For example:

• Not making a note to follow up on requests and actions from directors, without one of us having to remind and nag and correct.
• Not providing a reasonable amount of explanation and justification on spending requests.
• Not bothering to do the arithmetic for us on spending requests - VAT and total cost
• Ignoring questions and queries from directors.
• Dismissing Kevin's "standing orders".
• Carelessly providing ambiguous responses when finally a response is forthcoming.
• Lackadaisical approach to not attempting to get things right first time.
• FixFlo - something very odd going on - despite requesting FixFlo reports since earlier this year, despite being told in a board meeting that we would get regular FixFlo reports - we have still not received one for many months. I for one have lost the will to live requesting this. Anecdotes from neighbours refute Alex's claim that all is in order and there's not really much to see on FixFlo.

Such lack of empathy and forethought is wasting a lot of our time in low-level trivial back-and-forth messaging.

2) Mistakes. Too many downright mistakes - big and small - are being made.

For example:

• Signing-off a completely bad-quality PPM.
• A quote for £10,000 for lift tests, when it should have been £2,000.
• Instructing David Bath to replace a door closer, when it only needed adjustment.
• Incorrect specification of works for car park CCTV.
• Stating, of fire door remediation, "your chance of getting it paid for is zero".
• Has there been some mistake over the size of the estate for insurance purposes?
• Acting under the belief that SDM has had internet fibre installed.
• Mixing cold white luminaires with warm white luminaires.

It is we directors who are constantly having to first double-check on things, and then challenge them with 3Sixty, and then respond to follow-up messages. Instead of just leaving 3Sixty to get things right first time.

I note we are in "special measures". And that Adam has recently protested that they took us on not knowing the extent of our issues. But here is the list which I prepared for Adam, Alex and Laura when they first came to tour the estate with us over a year ago:

• Need to make progress
• Lower college street, leak, rendering, cavity, roof, flags , yards - priority
• Frequent leaks
• Major items: balconies, roofs, access, man safe, fire system, fire doors, EWS1
• Smoke vents
• Core 7, fire door
• Fire system, sovereign, cause and effect, audit
• Vehicle entrance gates. Elex Liz Peddle.
• Courtyard, lighting, seats wrong height, gardening, vehicle access
• Roller shutter, water ingress, rats
• door access system
• Car park top, lighting, cleaning, fire stopping, protection of sewerage
• Down to bin store, more bins, holidays, blackboard, jet wash, fire risks
• Corner garden
• Bike store, insufficient space, clear out, tape over cracks
• Car charging

So Adam is on shaky ground in protesting too much that he was not aware of our issues - this is a pretty comprehensive list! Note that very little of this has been sorted, and of that that has, much has been achieved by Tony Bath.

Solutions Just a few quick ideas:

1. Adam Booth should be our account manager, not Alex Rush. It is as though Adam has lost interest in his organisation's inadequacies.
2. We offered to buy them extra short term resource, but they just wasted more of our/Kevin's time with this collaborative gesture.
3. Solidarity as a board. We need to act with assertive solidarity in keeping pressure on 3Sixty to up their game. For example:

• when I complained that only two of my messages had received a reply in five months, Robin kindly offered to speak with Adam, was fed a cock-and-bull excuse by Adam, and Robin capitulated and came back to me telling me that my approach to 3Sixty had to improve!
• When I pointed out a bug in NSGL's procedures, Robin and Tony brought it up with Mark Newman, was fed a cock-and-bull story about me being careless, and came back to explain that my use of the system was at fault.

We must come up with some better solutions than these quick suggestions for next year.