Openreach – Improving Service
At the start of this year you may well recall that the UK experienced the worst storms for 16 years which caused significant damage to the Openreach overhead network. Whilst most regions were affected, some fared worse than others (South West, Wales, North West and Scotland). Service, as you would expect, was adversely affected and it was all hands to the pump. In spite of this, we were able to maintain good service on backhaul and provision requiring a frames jumper.
However, the really positive news that came out of the adverse weather conditions was that the experience demonstrated that our concentration on quality in the network is now beginning to pay off. As the attached graph clearly illustrates a spite of a huge hike in rainfall, compared to the previous year, the network held up well as indicated in the fault intake which is clearly disproportionate to the rainfall increase.
Our effort and concentration therefore, post the storm period, has been to consolidate and sustain our repair performance whilst improving the provision lead times offered. We are pleased to report that both of these challenges are being met with considerable success.
Our current focus is to further reduce the range and variation between regions and this is being supported by movement of key resources between regions, in the form of task forces.
To summarise, a number of key activities have been put in place over the last few months which have acted as a catalyst for improved service levels in Openreach.
They are:
Improved network resilience
True leverage of the single, united Openreach workforce
Speed of actions and response
Step change in overtime availability requiring a real culture change
Improved resourcing processes and training on frames work
‘Preparing for Peaks’ programme
Resource flexibility.
We ended March with provision lead times offered as Business five working days and Consumer eight working days. This was achieved whilst maintaining control of repair. Good progress and a significant step in the right direction for our customers.