Domestic gas, heating and hot water
Clear provides competent technical advice from qualified Gas Managers to help landlords with their obligations under all relevant legislation.
Gas has long been recognised as a key compliance area with dangers of both natural gas itself and its by-products being widely acknowledged.
However, the provision of heating and hot water has become more complex for landlords in recent years with additional legislative requirements regarding energy efficiency and electrical safety as well as increasing energy costs, and the drive towards net zero all becoming areas that require expert advice.
Clear's portfolio of services includes:
- Quality assurance regimes
- Audit of policies and processes
- Process management
- Certificate review and validation
- Specification provision
- Incident investigation (below RIDDOR threshold)
- Assistance with overall compliance reporting
In addition, Clear offers IT support in terms of working with compliance reporting systems, guidance on defining reporting rules, bulk uploading of documentation, and advice on administration.
Gas safety inspections – our regime
Our inspection regime is fully integrated into our reporting software, and outcomes from inspections are reported live, especially those identified as ‘Immediately Dangerous (ID)’, these are automatically notified to duty holders.
All our reports are openly available to clients and contractors to facilitate honest and open conversations around quality and working collaboratively.
We can benchmark multiple suppliers of service, as well as analysing individual engineers for training or quality gaps.
Our inspectors
We employ appropriately Gas Safe qualified individuals to complete thorough quality assurance and investigative inspection regimes. All our inspectors have extensive experience of the issues around Social Housing, especially with regard to vulnerable residents and the skills required to provide the highest quality service to landlords.
Our administration team
Diary bookings and access rates are always a challenge in the Social Housing environment and our administration team is highly skilled at making confirmed bookings at convenient times for working residents. We offer out of hours appointments, where requested, and having worked through Covid we have a strong understanding of the nuances of individual residents, and what can be done to ensure we meet as many of the residents’ requests as is possible within the confines of our remit.
Our systems
- Our industry leading systems are accessible to all stakeholders.
- Our diary booking system includes text reminders and tracking of inspector progress.
- Our inspectors are provided with a lone working system which has alarm and notification functionality. In addition, the data capture audit system allows inspectors considerable flexibility to record situations on site with the appropriate corroborating evidence.
- Our clients benefit from the inherent flexibility of our system which makes it possible to alter what we are recording and reporting, based on the clients’ needs. Therefore, if a client requests changes to the audit form, this can be immediately activated and be in place the next working day.
The system for contractor works and cost control provides a complete audit trail of all decision making, all finance commitment and the associated point of approval, complete forward and current budgetary control, as well as a fully auditable set of annual accounts for analysis (including spend patterns).
What makes Clear different?
The Clear point of difference relates to our efficient contractor management and cost control protocols. Our bespoke system allows complete oversight of all contractor activities (including assessing/evidencing contractor competency) and contractor expenditure via desktop and/or quality assurance inspection regimes. Expenditure oversight includes monthly costs around 3* (or similar) contracts, as well chargeable works and capital expenditure projects.
We provide regular updates to our landlord clients ahead of planned changes in legislation and offer toolbox talks to their contractors to ensure best practice. For clients with larger housing portfolios, Clear provides representation within the wider elements of the landlord’s business and liaises with other key personnel such as Housing Officers, Leaseholders etc.
In addition, clients using Clear for guidance on domestic gas safety compliance can tap into our broader experience across a range of compliance streams, ensuring access to advice on commercial gas, electrical, fire (including detection) and water hygiene