What your committee needs to be shown about the lifts.

The questions about the lifts that come up at committee meetings usually appear suddenly. How much did we spend? Why did it fail twice in March? Are we compliant? Whoever is holding the folder that night does their best from memory, an action item gets minuted, and the same questions come back next quarter.

A one-page lift summary, tabled before anyone asks, avoids nearly all of this. It should have four sections, and none of them require technical knowledge to complete.

Costs

Compare this year with last year, and maintenance fees against extras. Two numbers side by side answer the question every treasurer actually has: is the lift costing more than it used to, and if so, is that the contract fee rising or additional charges creeping in? If extras are growing faster than the contract fee, that is worth a line of explanation, because extras are the part of lift spend a building can usually do something about.

Reliability

The number of breakdowns in the period, and whether any fault is recurring. A lift that failed twice for the same reason is a different situation from a lift that failed twice for different reasons. The first is a repair that has not held; the second may just be an ordinary run of luck. Committees make better decisions when they can tell those apart.

Compliance

When the registration is due to renew, and when the most recent inspection took place. These are dates, not judgements, and they belong on the page precisely because they are dull. Compliance questions at meetings are rarely about detail. They are one member asking "are we covered?" and the honest answer being visible on paper.

Decisions

Any matter that requires a yes from the committee, together with a recommendation and a cost. A committee presented with a decision, a recommendation and a number can resolve it in minutes. A committee presented with an open question cannot, and the lift waits another quarter.

One page, honestly kept

A single page, no technical terms, with figures a treasurer can verify against the invoices. Table it every meeting, even when nothing has happened, because "nothing has happened" is itself information the committee should have on record.

The discipline matters more than the design. The building that keeps this page has, in four short sections, the history that answers most disputes: what was spent, what broke, what was inspected and what was decided. Very few buildings hold that history in one place. The ones that do are noticeably harder to overcharge.

We have a ready-made version of exactly this page: the four sections laid out on a single A4 sheet, ready to fill in from your invoices and service records. Get in touch and we will send it over. There is no fee and no follow-up sales call. It is simply a useful document to have.

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