Meet Sue Fix. Because Safe Homes Don't Maintain Themselves

Why Your Children's Home Needs Proper Maintenance Tracking

Let's talk about something nobody wants to deal with until it becomes a crisis: maintenance in your children's residential home.

You know the scenario. A young person reports their bedroom radiator isn't working. You write it in the logbook. Three weeks later, they're still sleeping in a cold room, the issue's been mentioned in handovers at least a dozen times, and you can't quite remember if anyone rang the plumber or if that got lost somewhere between the safeguarding incident on Tuesday and the Ofsted monitoring visit on Friday.

Meanwhile, you've got a broken washing machine that's been "on the list" for two months, a fence panel that's been wonky since before Christmas, and a fire door that doesn't close properly. You know about all of them. You've even mentioned them in team meetings. But somehow, they're still not fixed. This isn't because you're disorganised or your team isn't trying. It's because tracking maintenance in a children's home using paper logbooks, WhatsApp groups, and hoping someone remembers is a system designed to fail.

Why Maintenance Tracking Fails in Residential Children's Homes

Most residential homes don't have a maintenance problem. They have a maintenance tracking problem. Issues get reported but not logged properly. Jobs get logged but not allocated. Tasks get allocated but not followed up. Contractors get called but nobody knows if they've attended. Your team is frustrated because they've reported the same broken window lock five times.

The problem isn't that staff don't care. The problem is that residential children's homes are complex, busy environments where urgent safeguarding issues (rightly) take priority over a dripping tap. Until that dripping tap becomes a flood at 2am, and suddenly it's a crisis that could have been prevented.

What Proper Maintenance Tracking Looks Like

Effective maintenance management in children's homes isn't complicated, but it does require a system that works with how your home operates.You need to be able to:

• Log issues quickly when they're reported (by children, staff, or visitors) without hunting for a specific form or remembering to mention it later
• See what's outstanding at a glance, not by reading through weeks of handover notes
• Allocate responsibility clearly so everyone knows who's dealing with what
• Track progress from "reported" through "in progress" to "completed"
• Store evidence like photos of damage and invoices from contractors
• Report easily for Ofsted, placing authorities, or your management board
• Most importantly, you need a system that doesn't add to your workload. If logging maintenance is a faff, it won't get done consistently. If checking what's outstanding requires trawling through multiple places, managers won't have visibility. And if there's no accountability built in, things will slip.
  

How Sue Fix Changes Maintenance Management

Sue Fix is the maintenance tracking feature built into Sue Solutions' residential children's home software. It's designed specifically for the realities of running a children's home, not adapted from generic property management systems that don't understand your context.

Here's how it works in practice

A young person tells you their bedroom door handle is loose. Instead of writing it in a book that might get read or might get missed, you log it in Sue Fix on your phone while you're standing in their room. Takes about 30 seconds. You can photograph the issue right there. The system automatically timestamps it and flags it as requiring attention.

Your manager reviews outstanding maintenance. They open their dashboard and see every logged issue across the home, colour-coded by urgency and how long it's been outstanding. They can see who's responsible for each job, what stage it's at, and what's overdue. No hunting through paperwork or asking around.

The task gets allocated. Your deputy manager assigns the door handle job to themselves and changes the status to "in progress." They call a handyman who agrees to come Thursday. They update the record with the appointment details. Everyone can see this.

The job gets done. The handyman fixes the door handle. Your deputy photographs the completed repair, uploads the invoice, marks it as complete, and the system automatically logs when it was resolved and by whom.

You have an audit trail. Three months later, when Ofsted asks about property maintenance, you can show them exactly what's been reported, how quickly issues were resolved, and evidence of completion. When the young person's social worker asks about the living environment, you can demonstrate that repairs are tracked and completed promptly.More importantly, the young person sees that when they report something broken, adults fix it. That matters.

Why This Matters for Outcomes, Not Just Compliance

Proper maintenance tracking isn't just about Ofsted or meeting regulations. It's about the message we send to children about their worth and their living environment. A well-maintained home, where issues get fixed promptly, tells children they deserve good things. It models that when something's wrong, adults deal with it. It demonstrates consistency and follow-through. These aren't small things when you're working with vulnerable young people.

The Practical Realities Your System Needs to Handle

Children's residential homes aren't like other properties. Your maintenance system needs to account for:

• Safeguarding considerations. Some repairs can't wait. A broken lock on a child's bedroom door isn't just "maintenance" – it's a safeguarding issue. Your system needs to flag urgent items and escalate appropriately.
• Multiple stakeholders. Staff might report issues. Children might report issues. Visitors might notice problems. Contractors might identify additional work needed. Your system needs to capture all of this without creating bottlenecks where only certain people can log jobs.
• Evidence requirements. Ofsted wants to see that homes are well-maintained. Placing authorities want reassurance about living conditions. Insurance companies want records of repairs. You need photographs, receipts, completion dates, and contractor details all in one place.
• Budget tracking. Your responsible individual or finance team needs to see what maintenance is costing. When the boiler breaks, you need to justify the expense to your trustees or owners. Having clear records of what's been spent and why matters.
• Shift patterns. Day staff might log an issue that night staff need to know about. Relief workers covering shifts need to see what's outstanding. Your system must work across your whole team, not just senior managers.
  

What Happens When Maintenance Gets Ignored

Let's be clear about the consequences of poor maintenance tracking in children's homes:

• Small problems become big problems. That dripping tap leads to water damage. The wonky fence panel comes down in a storm. The faulty fire door fails inspection. Preventable issues escalate because they weren't dealt with promptly.
• Ofsted notices. During inspections, they talk to children about their living environment. They look at bedrooms. They check safety features. If your maintenance is visibly poor, it reflects badly on your home's overall quality.
• Costs escalate. Emergency repairs cost more than planned maintenance. Replacing things that could have been fixed costs more than fixing them. Poor maintenance tracking hits your budget where it hurts.

Getting Your Team to Actually Use a Maintenance System

The best maintenance tracking system in the world is useless if your team won't use it. This is where many homes fall down. They implement a system, staff resist it because it feels like extra work, and within months everyone's back to scribbling issues in the handover book. Sue Fix works because it's designed to be easier than your current system, not an additional burden. Logging an issue on your phone is quicker than writing it down and easier than remembering to mention it later. Checking what's outstanding is faster than reading handover notes. Following up is clearer when you can see status updates.

But you still need to embed it properly:

• Train your whole team, including bank staff and night workers. If only day staff know how to use it, issues reported overnight won't get logged properly.
• Make it part of handover, not an afterthought. Checking outstanding maintenance should be as routine as checking which young people are in the building.
• Hold people accountable for updating records. If your deputy logs a job but never marks it complete, the system loses value. This isn't about micromanaging – it's about maintaining data integrity.
• Celebrate quick wins. When a young person reports something and it's fixed within 24 hours, acknowledge that. When your manager can pull a report for Ofsted in 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes, recognise the benefit.

The Difference Between Maintenance Software and Children's Home Software

You might be thinking, "Can't we just use a general property maintenance app?" Technically, yes. But it won't work as well as a system designed specifically for residential children's homes.

Generic property apps don't integrate with your daily logs, incident reports, and care planning. They don't understand safeguarding escalation. They don't link to the specific room or young person affected. They don't generate reports in the format Ofsted or placing authorities expect.

Sue Fix is part of our residential children's home software, so maintenance tracking is connected to everything else you're doing. When a young person damages property during an incident, you can link the maintenance record directly to the incident report. When Ofsted reviews care standards, they can see both your incident management and your property maintenance in one system.

That integration matters. Your home doesn't operate in silos, and your software shouldn't either.

Questions Children's Residential Homes Managers Actually Ask

How long does it take to log a maintenance issue in Sue Fix?

About 30 seconds. You can do it from your phone while you're looking at the problem. If you want to add a photo or detailed notes, maybe a minute. It's quicker than writing it in a handover book and more reliable than hoping you'll remember to mention it later.

What happens to urgent safety issues?

You can flag items as urgent or critical, which triggers immediate notifications to senior staff. For things like broken locks, non-functioning fire safety equipment, or serious security concerns, the system ensures the right people know immediately rather than waiting for the next handover.

How do we track contractors and invoices?

Each maintenance record can store contractor details, appointment times, costs, and copies of invoices. You can upload photos of completed work, so you've got a full audit trail from problem identified through to job completed and paid for.

What if we use external maintenance companies?

Sue Fix works with however you handle repairs. Whether you've got an in-house maintenance person, use a local handyman, or have contracts with specialist firms, you can log all of this. The system tracks who did what and when, regardless of whether they're employees or contractors.

What if staff forget to update the system when jobs are done?

The system flags overdue updates, so managers can see if someone logged a job as "in progress" three weeks ago but never marked it complete. That visibility creates accountability. Most teams quickly develop the habit of closing out jobs because it's satisfying to tick things off.

Does this replace our paper maintenance logbook?

It can and probably should. Maintaining parallel systems (one digital, one paper) creates work and opportunities for things to fall through gaps. Most homes find that once Sue Fix is embedded, the paper version becomes redundant. But during transition, some homes keep both temporarily.

How does this help with Ofsted inspections?

Inspectors often ask children about their living environment and ask managers about property maintenance. With Sue Fix, you can immediately show them what's been reported, how quickly issues were resolved, and evidence of completion. You can demonstrate that when children report problems, adults respond. That's powerful during inspection.



What about planned maintenance, not just reactive repairs?

Sue Fix handles both. You can schedule regular maintenance tasks (boiler servicing, fire alarm testing, garden maintenance) and track whether they're completed on time. This ensures essential preventative maintenance doesn't get forgotten during busy periods.