Returning Customer since December 2016
The product itself has helped us immensely in reducing paperwork. It has increased the ability of the maintenance team to inspect and record everything they do and thus prove and track their own effectiveness.
Kevin Shackell, Neighbourhood Team Lead Technical
Manchester City Council - Neighbourhood Team
Safe+
Company
Manchester City Council - Neighbourhood Team
Services Provided
Playground and tree inspections, parks and open spaces asset management
Challenge
Previously used PlaySafe which fell into disuse; needed to re-establish a paperless asset register and inspection system across playgrounds, trees and parks
How PSS Helped
Asset register re-establishment, paperless inspection records, multi-database licence management, risk response improvement, public safety
About the company
Manchester City Council – Neighbourhood Team is a division of one of England's largest city councils. They returned to PSS in December 2016 after previously using PlaySafe. Within months they expanded their licence to cover Parks and Open Spaces.
Playgrounds
Paperless & Admin Efficiency
Manchester City Council's Neighbourhood Team manages a wide range of public-facing assets across the city — from playgrounds and trees to parks, open spaces and leisure centres. The team returned to PSS in December 2016, having previously used PlaySafe, PSS's original playground inspections product, for a considerable number of years before internal reorganisations led to its disuse.
Challenge
Operating across multiple asset types — playgrounds, trees, parks, open spaces and leisure centres — the team were managing fragmented paper-based processes with no single system to consolidate everything. Work was often completed but repairs went unrecorded, making it difficult to track maintenance team effectiveness, respond to high risk issues quickly and prove the quality of work being done.
Solution
Manchester City Council's Neighbourhood Team returned to PSS in December 2016, adopting PSSLive to manage their asset database and inspections for Playgrounds and Trees. Within just a few months, satisfaction with the product led the team to request a licence extension to cover an additional database for Parks and Open Spaces.
PSSLive consolidates all assets — from simple items such as goal posts through to entire Leisure Centres — into a single system. Everything can be entered, inspected and maintained in one place, removing the need to operate different systems for different asset areas.
Onboarding
Moving from a paper-based system to an electronic one was an initially difficult decision, but the benefits quickly outweighed the migration period. PSSLive's familiar core features — unchanged from the original PlaySafe product — made the transition smoother for returning users.
Results
- Single system consolidating all asset types — playgrounds, trees, parks, open spaces and leisure centres
- Significant reduction in paperwork across the team
- Improved recording of completed repairs and maintenance
- Faster response times for high risk issues
- Expanded from Playgrounds & Trees to Parks & Open Spaces within months of adoption
“PSSLive is a very good and robust system, it is user friendly, does what it says on the tin and I find it to be cost effective. It is a simple system that is easy for my team to engage with to get their work done. We are seeing a huge reduction in paperwork already. We are improving response times dealing with high risk issues and ultimately we are serving our public better.” — Kevin Shackell, Neighbourhood Team Lead Technical, Manchester City Council
