Ashfield Property Group - Good Numbers, Deteriorating Service
Ashfield Property Group manages 18 office buildings (about 320,000 m²) for six institutional clients. FM is delivered by four regional providers. The FM dashboard reports 96.4% of work orders closed within SLA, a 1.9% reactive-to-planned ratio, and 99.2% PPM completion; the operations director presents these as evidence that the system is working. Client satisfaction fell from 7.6 to 6.4 out of 10 over three quarters, and formal complaints rose 31%, mostly about cleaning quality and slow response in two buildings. Energy consumption is up 8% year on year against a 4% reduction target, and there is no asset condition data beyond the providers' own PPM records. Internal audit: two of eight planned audits completed; nine of fourteen corrective actions are more than 60 days overdue, four of them repeats of the same finding about missing contractor induction records. Last year's management review was a 40-minute slide presentation with no decisions recorded.
1. Evaluate whether Ashfield's monitoring satisfies clause 9.1, and redesign the indicator set.
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Clause 9.1 requires the organisation to determine what needs to be monitored and measured, the methods, when, who, and when results are analysed and evaluated - and to retain evidence. Ashfield has measurement but little evaluation. Three specific defects:
- The indicators measure activity, not outcome. Closure within SLA and PPM completion tell you the providers' systems are busy; they do not tell you whether clients are getting the service. The satisfaction and complaint data are the outcome signals, and they are contradicting the dashboard. When two data sets disagree, the auditor expects the organisation to have investigated, not chosen the flattering one.
- The measures are provider-defined and provider-reported. With four providers there is almost certainly inconsistent definitions - one may close a work order on arrival, another on sign-off. Data validation and common definitions are part of the method required by 9.1.
- Coverage gaps. No asset condition data, and energy is off target with no explanation, so the system cannot show whether FM is supporting organisational objectives.
A better set: a small balanced scorecard - client satisfaction and complaint root causes (lagging), response and completion times with audited definitions (operational), asset condition and criticality risk (leading), energy and cost per m² against target (outcome), and contractor induction compliance (compliance). Add a defined monthly analysis meeting that records what the data means and what will change, because 9.1 ends in evaluation, not reporting.
2. What should management review cover here, and why did last year's review fail?
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Clause 9.3 requires top management to review the FM system at planned intervals to ensure continuing suitability, adequacy and effectiveness. The required inputs include the status of actions from previous reviews; changes in external and internal issues; FM performance and effectiveness, including trends in nonconformities and corrective actions, monitoring and measurement results, and audit results; adequacy of resources; effectiveness of actions taken to address risks and opportunities; opportunities for improvement; and relevant interested-party feedback. Outputs must include decisions and actions relating to improvement opportunities and any need for changes to the system.
Last year's review failed on two counts. It had no decisions as outputs, which means 9.3 was not met regardless of the slides shown. And it had no analytical content: it did not confront the contradiction between a 96.4% closure rate and a 31% rise in complaints, nor the overdue corrective actions, nor the incomplete audit programme.
This year's review should be built around that contradiction. Inputs to force onto the agenda: complaint root-cause analysis by building; the two underperforming providers; the nine overdue actions and the four repeats; the six missed internal audits and why; energy performance against target; and the absence of asset condition data as a resource and risk decision. Outputs should be specific and owned - for example, approve read-only CAFM access for Ashfield, re-baseline the audit programme with named auditors and dates, and commission a condition survey on the two worst buildings. Record decisions, owners and dates; the auditor will read the minutes, not the deck.
3. Four corrective actions are repeats of the same contractor-indiction finding. How should clause 10.2 be applied?
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A repeat finding is evidence that the corrective action process is treating symptoms. Clause 10.2 requires the organisation to react to the nonconformity, evaluate the need for action to eliminate the cause, implement the action, review its effectiveness, update risks and opportunities determined during planning if necessary, and make changes to the FM system. It also requires documented information on the nature of the nonconformities, the actions taken and the results.
The likely history: someone chased the missing induction records, the contractor produced them, the action was closed, and the same gap reappeared at the next site or with the next subcontractor. That is correction, not corrective action.
The root-cause analysis should ask why induction records go missing: is induction triggered by a work order that subcontractors can bypass; does the contractor's system capture subcontractor inductions at all; does Ashfield's contract require evidence in a form it can audit; is the site supervisor accountable for checking before access is granted? The answer probably sits across the contract terms, the access control process and the evidence format - which is why re-requesting paperwork never fixes it.
After implementing the fix, effectiveness must be reviewed after a defined interval using data (for example, a sample of 20 contractor attendances per month traced to induction records), not a one-off assurance email. Recurrence should also be treated as a system risk under 6.1 and reported to management review under 9.3, and it is legitimate material for a nonconformity against 10.2 if the process itself is failing.