Fortem and Birmingham City Council are reflecting on the legacy of a partnership spanning nearly two decades, as the long-standing housing maintenance contract comes to a close.

Since securing the contract in 2007, Fortem has maintained and improved more than 40,000 council homes across the city, delivering more than one million repairs and invested in homes, services and communities across Birmingham.

The partnership also transformed service delivery, improving on-time repairs from 86% to 95.3% and reducing average void turnaround times from 32 days to just 16. Alongside these operational improvements, Fortem and Birmingham City Council worked closely with residents, using Housing Liaison Boards to listen to customer feedback and shape local initiatives and service improvements.

Over the course of the partnership, more than 800 Fortem colleagues worked across Birmingham at its peak, helping deliver services while supporting local employment, skills development and community investment.

One of the partnership’s most significant legacies is the 4Life Training Academy in Aston. Backed by a £1m investment, the academy provided skills training, qualifications, work experience and routes into employment for local people, while supporting wider community investment by creating opportunities for residents who may not otherwise have accessed training and helping develop the future workforce.

Driving innovation

The scale and complexity of the Birmingham contract also helped drive innovation across the wider business. Initiatives first developed in the city, including new welfare procedures, environmental roles and operational processes, were later adopted across other Fortem contracts.

The launch of the ReferIT app in 2018 enabled field teams to quickly escalate safeguarding and property condition concerns, while joint customer service improvements, including enhanced call-handling guidance, strengthened use of service data and improved communication with residents, as well as helping to improve response times and the customer experience.

Throughout the partnership, Fortem and Birmingham City Council adapted to significant changes across the housing sector, responding to evolving regulation, resident expectations and wider economic challenges while continuing to strengthen compliance, safety and customer outcomes.

Judy Hegarty, Managing Director at Fortem, said: “Birmingham has played a huge role in shaping Fortem into the organisation it is today. The scale of the contract challenged us to innovate, adapt and continually improve, but the real achievement has been the relationships built along the way.

“Together with Birmingham City Council, we’ve delivered improvements that have made a lasting difference to residents while creating opportunities for local people, supporting careers and helping shape best practice across the wider housing sector. We’re incredibly proud of what has been achieved together.”

Wayne Davies, Director of Asset Management at Birmingham City Council commented: “It’s been around 18 years that Fortem has been working with us. They’re an easy partner to work with. We understand each other. We’re very clear and collaborative in the way that we work. “The behaviour, the attitude, the people that we’ve worked with, they’re professionals through and through, and that’s worked really well for us.”

While the contract is ending, the legacy of the partnership will continue through the communities it supported, the people whose careers it helped shape and the innovations that continue to influence housing services across the sector.

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