In an astonishing turn-around, The Dispute Service, the not-for-profit company operating the Tenancy Deposit Scheme, has announced its recovery from the previous year’s losses.
Operating surpluses for the last financial year were £2.8m, as opposed to a loss of around £600,000 the previous year.
The improved financial performance has come after a string of new appointments, including chief executive Steve Harriott.
There has also been the dismantling of the so-called Berlin Wall – members had criticised the TDS for being unapproachable – and the continuation of a recovery programme after the TDS’s near financial collapse three years ago.
It also improved its website which members said was ‘pompous’.
Other changes have been to the subscription model, which have included a discounting mechanism of up to 60% for members with a lower level of disputes.
Membership has grown slightly, from 3,598 offices in 2009/10 to 3,637 in 2010/11. The number of tenancies protected was down marginally from 969,810 to 960,148 but the value of the deposits safeguarded rose from £933.4m to £1,013.8m.
Deposit disputes received rose from 12,164 to 13,847. However, the year saw a levelling off in the increase of the number of disputes referred. This is due to members resolving disputes locally instead of resorting to adjudication.
The biggest single cause of disputes continued to be cleaning, followed by damages and redecoration.
During 2010/11, the TDS contact centre handled over 100,000 calls and responded to nearly 20,000 emails. Calls were answered on average within 15 seconds, against the government contract target of 90 seconds. Customer satisfaction ratings for the centre among tenants, landlords and agents were very high.
New membership services introduced during the year included the formation of the Member Relations team, a countrywide programme of ‘Meet TDS Events’, the members e-newsletter ‘TDS Update’, the E-Consultation Network and the Members Forum, drawn from a range of private sector rental operations.
Launching the Annual Review, ‘TDS Refreshed’, the chairman of the Dispute Service, Professor Martin Partington, said: “The whole company has worked magnificently to deliver cost-effective customer service to all our members.
“This puts us in a very strong position to lead the way in tenancy deposit protection and to develop the business throughout the UK.”
‘TDS Refreshed’, the Annual Review 2011, can be viewed on the Tenancy Deposit Scheme website at
www.tds.gb.com/annual-reports.html
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Comments
Sorry I meant enough adjudicators - they have more than enough disputes!!!
When you reach as low a point as TDS did there are only two options - obliteration or a slow climb back up.
Looks like TDS has managed the lkatter but only by the skin of its teeth.
13847 is an awful lot of adjudications especially given two facors - TDS doesn't have enough of them and ther are only about 220 working days in a year. That is 63 every single working day of the year.
These numbers are bound to increase for two obvious reasons.
First the number of tenants is increasing, by extrapolation of %ages now so must disputes referred.
Second as long as any scheme continues to make judgements in favour of the tenant for no matter how small an amount but where their case was weak or especially where the tenant was just trying it on - which is quite often as of course it is free so they have nothing to lose - then the numbers are bound to increase. Because dispute referrers will become serial dispute referrers.
Why not if you got an unexpected and probably unjustified result last time you tried it on?
I still say there is only any need for one scheme - DPS Custodial. At least the Scots have seen sense.
I am struggling to understand why the abandonment of an obviously profoundly flawed business plan and a massive increase in charging (£3m - £8m) resulting in a significant trading surplus can justify being described as 'astonishing'. Particularly as the changes pre dated the recruitment of the new CEO who seems to be credited with this miracle.
The question is, as a 'not for profit' organisation, who will receive the windfall, the shareholders or the users?