A weird and confusing topic, one I’m not very good in but trying to learn!
I’ve been having some back and forth with VIVO and it’s not progressing anywhere. When I’m asking for clarififcation, they are doing very very well at dodging questions / being vague / not answering which is irritating. I’m searching for someone who can (in layman’s terms) advise what actually is VIVOs contract?
For a little bit of context:
We’ve a tree blocking the outdoor emergency lighting to a rear gate, it was reported to VIVO and they’ve come back saying it’s not in contract? The same tree is collapsing an exterior fence, to which VIVO also say isn’t in their contract, nor the tree beginning to tower over a building?
(First two issues are due to a tree within the TA Centre Grounds so partially understand if the answer is to approach the TA Centre, but the tree over a building is within RAFAC land. We are a squadron positioned next to a TA Centre)
I was under the impression all 3 instances were covered under VIVO (as did the rest of the squadron staff).
As I say, not my specialist area, I’ve been doing some reading. From what I’ve read on SharePoint in two separate parts of the slide park ‘Core Mainenance’ & ‘Enhanced Reactive Maintenance Response Categories’; Ground Works & Breaches to Security should be covered. Whilst the fence leaning is a very minor breach (held up by shrubbery) the trees I would have thought would be covered under ground maintenance. When I questioned VIVO on this I received a reply of “Grounds work is not within our contract I do apologise” & now I’m simply confused.
If anyone can advise / support (here or with directions) I’d be grateful!
(The leaning fence was reported to RFCA some time ago but I thought it had moved to VIVO)
From what I know / read, VIVO are part of the ‘new’ way of reporting minor value works / building issues (and more (?)). VIVO cover South West & Central regions (VINCI the South East & mitie Scots and NI).
The simplest way I could find it put out there was " VIVO are responsible for delivering asset and facilities management services for 8 RFCA regions. Core Services will be provided to all assets of the Volunteer Estate to keep affected properties safe, legal and operational." (Sign in to your account)
There would be squadron staff willing to do the grounds work ourselves but it’d be putting us at risk of injury and ‘not following procedure’, but procedure isn’t working.
We are waiting for one big storm to drop the huge 60ft tree on the top of our Sqn. I’ve emailed and mentioned it to many, and no one has a clue what to do. Just hope it doesn’t fall when we are in the building as we will make the news for the wrong reasons.
Yes, ours is VINCI which is why I had to Google VIVO!
Have you tried actually calling them and having a chat with someone? Can sometimes get more across that way compared to email. Albeit it’s then not recorded.
Might give it a go tomorrow but if they’ve been so vague about what is in contract via email (where our documents say ground work is covered and they say it isn’t); I feel it may be very one sided.
If you’re in a ‘normal’ Wing, still under the ‘old’ style, then yes. If you have pillars, then you’ll have a specific infra person. So in LaSER we have a WExO level person as our Intra lead.
Maybe doesnt help much in terms of VIVO but we have a grassy area around our squadron building. Previously when the building and grounds were maintained by RFCA they had a local contractor come in and cut this reasonably regularly.
Since the switch to MITIE we found out through our WExO that grounds maintenamce is not included in the contract and we as CFAV as not allowed to cut it due to H&S.
Our WExO has been main point of contact rather than dealing with MITIE direct so maybe someone to go and ask as you might find other squadrons in a similar position.
VIVO’s job is to farm as many help desk tickets as possible, grade them in order of priority. Other than send the odd token email to show they are ‘progressing’ the urgent safety matters they then wait until they have a critical mass of outstanding work and then when they are challenged on their lack of completed requests they point to their mountain of tickets and say they are currently under ‘unexpected’ levels of demand and will complete work when capacity allows. Then once the urgent safety issues result in Sqn closures, the buildings become unoccupied and therefore the safety issue is removed and the tickets is downgraded to non-priority, never to be looked at again.