Business Plan 2009-2012 1. Effective pathways out of homelessness 2. Skilled interventions to motivate and achieve change 3. Positive contributions to neighbourhoods, communities and society 4. User empowerment and involvement 5. Financial stability and robust governance 6. Communicating our experience and understanding the barriers leading to homelessness. 1) Effective pathways out of homelessness Thames Reach is entirely committed to securing ways out of homelessness for those who find themselves on the street or in insecure, inadequate accommodation. We also provide a range of prevention services to help people avoid homelessness in the first place. Breaking cycles that lead to repeat homelessness is crucial and helping people to maintain themselves and become self-sufficient is therefore an essential part of our approach. We focus strongly on helping service users to build confidence and resilience. Social exclusion blights the lives of many of Thames Reach’s service users, so helping people develop and maintain strong social networks with families and friends is also of paramount importance. The different initiatives described under this key delivery objective form a pathway away from homelessness. There are many routes away from homelessness and social exclusion and, given that the journey can be long and painful, numerous obstacles and diversions that can lead to people moving backwards. The pathway out is therefore rarely linear. Our job is to maximise the different options people can choose, using Thames Reach and others. As our ethos and values state, we are committed to never giving up on people, no matter how complex, chaotic and challenging they may be. This section covers four areas: a. b. c. d.

Prevention, including hostels diversion Street work Hostels as places of change Sustainability: Tenancy support; education, training and employment.

a. Prevention

1

Thames Reach has always undertaken work to help people avoid homelessness, and especially street homelessness. Where it is possible, our interventions will be minimal; that is, of the ‘light touch’ variety as we actively seek to avoid creating dependency. Building on current activities, we will strengthen our service delivery in the area of prevention. For many of the people we meet on the streets, especially the most vulnerable, a place in a hostel is a good option. Here they can stabilise and begin to develop the confidence and skills to move forward with their lives. However, for others a hostel is not the right option. Indeed, the hostel environment can be counter-productive for some people, especially if they are new to homelessness. During the period of the business plan we will seek to increase our capacity to divert people away from hostels in the following ways: i. Advice work to prevent homelessness Over the last three years we have developed effective advice services working in specific settings, often as part of a collaborative approach with partners. The advice is directed primarily at those individuals who struggle to break cycles of behaviour which place them at risk of homelessness and those who are in danger of their housing situation deteriorating, increasing the danger of them becoming street homeless. Different parts of the organisation have developed this expertise, notably: •

•

•

The HAWK team - Working with the probation service in outer east London the team has succeeded in building up a reputation for assisting ex-offenders by providing imaginative housing options and support in related areas such as debt counselling and provision of employment advice. Camberwell Shop-front - A crucial part of the service offered as an element of the Southwark Reach floating support service is ‘shop-front’ advice for residents of Southwark in areas such as housing benefit, employment rights, debt counselling etc Greenhouse Walk-in - The Greenhouse Walk-in, managed in partnership with the City and Hackney Primary Care Trust (PCT), offers housing advice to people in Hackney who need help to find somewhere to live or assistance in maintaining their accommodation. Practical interventions are also made by Greenhouse Walk-in staff to help central and eastern European nationals improve their employability and avoid sleeping rough.

Thames Reach is not aiming to become a major provider of advice services; this is not a core business area. However, we will continue to seek opportunities to offer advice that can divert people away from homelessness, benefit people whose tenancies are at risk and increase self-sufficiency and resilience. We will improve our ability to focus on those individuals who frequently return to us with recurring problems so that they can be linked with

2

specialist support and the underlying problems that create their cycle of dependence addressed. ii. Hostel diversion work Through our role on the London Delivery Board 1 and linked fora, we are exploring in depth the pathways away from rough sleeping which, statistics show, tend to be narrowly linear. The route off the street is invariably via a hostel. The hostels pathway in London is, for many, an unsuccessful journey that results in repeat homelessness. The most recent statistics (2008-09) show that 30% of the people moving into a hostel are either evicted or abandon. Of the 50% who do undertake a planned move out of a hostel, onethird of these individuals are referred on to another hostel, creating a ‘churn’ of long-term homeless around the system. Although Thames Reach’s hostels have a very good record in terms of successful move on, there is a greater need to divert people away from the hostel system and to find more successful routes out of homelessness. During the business plan period we will undertake initiatives to divert people away from using hostels so that the routes out of homelessness are more varied and the overall impact more effective. It is especially important to target those people do not require the relatively high level of support provided in hostels. Unless we can reduce dependence on a small number of central London hostels to help people off of the street, we will not end street homelessness by 2012. This approach will build on some excellent work already underway in Thames Reach, including: •

•

Working with housing options teams - Thames Reach staff at the Greenhouse Walk-in have undertaken work in conjunction with the Housing Options team at Hackney Council, whereby they take responsibility for assisting people who do not have a statutory right to housing. They frequently refer them into a shared house in the private rented sector (PRS). This option is often preferred to a referral into a shelter or hostel. We will actively seek to replicate this model working with other local authorities, in particular emphasising its importance as a means of preventing new arrivals coming onto the street. Lewisham Hostels Diversions Project – As an illustration of the interest in this approach, the London Housing Foundation (LHF) has allocated funding towards developing such an approach, working with the London Borough of Lewisham and Thames Reach’s Lewisham services.

1

The London Delivery Board has been established to oversee the reduction of rough sleeping in London to zero and is led by the London Mayor’s Director of Housing.

3

This diversionary work is crucial if we are to end rough sleeping by 2012 as street count information shows that new arrivals make up over 50% of the street population. b. Street work The business plan covers a unique period as we run up to the commencement of the 2012 Olympics, the target date for ending rough sleeping in London. Over the next three years the development of our street work services will be given special attention. i. Establishing an effective 21st century street work model Thames Reach has recently embarked on an initiative working with consultants funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) that uses Thames Reach’s ‘balanced score-card’ audit system as a quality assurance framework to establish the standards expected from all teams undertaking street work. We aim to be at the forefront of new developments in street-work and will focus on moving away from the need for a precise ‘verification’ of a person being a rough sleeper in order to receive assistance and towards a more general assessment of need based on vulnerability as the key prioritising factor. At the commencement of the business plan period we have specific contractual responsibilities for street work delivery in Tower Hamlets, Hammersmith and Fulham, Croydon and Lambeth, and manage the London Street Rescue service covering 20 other London boroughs. We are very well placed to pioneer the changes needed to reduce the number of people sleeping rough. We will actively collaborate in improving the level of intelligence gathered and the way the information is disseminated and used and develop a strong enforcement approach to harmful street activities such as begging, drug misuse and street drinking, working closely with the police and other street-based services. ii. Reconnections The reconnections pilot has put Thames Reach at the forefront of the work to reconnect people from Central and Eastern Europe who are struggling on the streets of London, with family and friends back home. This work will enable Thames Reach to develop expertise in the practice of reconnecting people more generally; for example, reconnecting a person to their home area in the UK before they become entrenched on the street. iii. Other routes off the street Other options can be offered as an alternative to a hostel. For example, our joint work with the London Ambulance Service has enabled us, where there is

4

an associated health issue, to help more people off the streets and into hospital. Other examples of alternative forms of accommodation that we will seek to develop during the Business Plan period include: • •

An assessment centre. A small unit achieving a regular throughput of individuals whose needs can be rapidly assessed and responded to within a short five to ten day time frame. Access to a pool of short-life flats, available from housing associations to let to people in housing need. Licences rather than tenancies are offered and a below-market rent charged to reflect the quality of the units which are not of a standard to let as tenancies. A pilot is currently underway with a supportive housing association.

c. Hostels as places of change Thames Reach has not identified the management of more large hostels as an area of development and we are aware that some key local authorities have indicated a wish to move away from hostels as the default accommodation option for homeless and vulnerable people. Our four hostels all have very good reputations. However we are determined to ensure that our hostels can be yet more effective as accommodation pathways away from homelessness; places where we can address health needs and skills gaps with greater success. During the period of the business plan a programme will be established to reprioritise and improve our hostel outcomes. It will: • • • • •

Address the ‘unplanned moves’ figure from hostels in collaboration with Homeless Link who have been funded to explore this issue and improve performance across the sector. Examine whether we can further improve the linkage to second stage housing projects within Thames Reach. Explore how we can help people with severe substance misuse problems reduce their dependence on drink and drugs and improve their health. Develop ways in which our hostel residents can benefit from the creative assistance of Thames Reach’s Vision Impossible arts tutors and increase involvement with other purposeful activities. More clearly define expectations about how hostel residents use their time, with an emphasis on skills development and making changes in lifestyle.

There will be important physical improvements to our buildings. We will upgrade the physical quality of both Stamford Street and Graham House

5

hostels using central government funding provided through the Places of Change programme. The work to help our hostel residents make better progress in all aspects of their life links directly with business plan delivery objective 2, skilled interventions to motivate and achieve change. Whilst making greater demands of hostel residents and raising aspirations, we will continue to strive to maintain and support the most complex and chaotic users of our hostels. Eviction from our hostels will remain a last resort. d. Sustainability: Tenancy support and education, training and employment i.

Tenancy support

Tenancy support is a Thames Reach core business area. We have succeeded in substantially growing this area of work between 2006 and 2009. During the 2009-12 business plan period many of our current contracts will be coming up for re-commissioning and a major objective will be to secure their continuation. We will actively work with local authorities to help them achieve their local priorities reflected through the National Indicators agreed with central government, many of which are employment, housing and healthrelated. There will be opportunities to win additional floating support contracts. With the ending of the Supporting People funding framework and its replacement with Area Based Grants there may be possibilities of competing for contracts which encompass a wider range of activities including employment and health-related elements. We will seek to develop our service approach, based on high expectations around change and recovery. Where our housing projects do not lend themselves easily to achieving the kind of interventions that are needed - for example, the level of support that can be offered at the location may not be adequate to achieve the changes desired – we will seek to remodel or reprovision properties. In some schemes the amount of sharing does not make it easy for tenants to progress as intended and we will continue to replace shared units with self-contained where this is necessary and practical. During the business plan period we will continue to develop our expertise in the area of tenancy support, extending our range of expertise and ensuring that our services maximise the opportunity for individual service users to be in control of their own support plan and, wherever possible, to make their own decisions about how money provided to meet their support needs is spent. This objective aligns with the government’s agenda around the personalisation of services.

6

Thames Reach has positioned itself as a generic tenancy support provider and we have a deserved reputation for working with complex, chaotic and vulnerable tenants. Over the next three years we will move away from the position of being perceived predominantly as a generic provider to one where we are also seen to have the necessary specialist knowledge and skills to address the specific needs of people with substance misuse problems and offending histories. The distinctive delivery approach which will accompany this development is covered below under key delivery objective 2, skilled interventions to motivate and achieve change. ii.

Substance misuse

We have already embarked on an ambitious and considered move towards developing our skills, and improving our reputation in delivering outcomes for people with substance misuse problems. In essence, we are seeking to move from managing the problematic consequences of substance misuse to skilled interventions to motivate and achieve change. The key elements in this change programme are: • • •

Changes in culture Improvements in skills Effective management.

We have developed some important new treatment services and this change is one that the organisation has embraced and must be progressed further. Further detail on how this programme of change will be delivered can be found in Thames Reach’s Substance Misuse Strategy. As part of this change we will also select preferred partners who offer complementary approaches and resources. Together we will seek to demonstrate best practice in collaborative working and increase commissioning opportunities. iii.

Work with ex-offenders

The second development area is at a more embryonic stage and the strategy will be developed during the first year of the business plan. Thames Reach works with substantial numbers of people who have experienced prison and are churning around the criminal justice system. For example, around 40% of rough sleepers have experience of prison. As note above, some of our services such as the HAWK team undertake work with the probation service. Another example is our Southwark Reach floating support service where staff support MAPPA offenders referred by probation. However, despite our background in working with ex-offenders, including some with extreme histories, we have had only limited success in winning offender-related contracts. We will seek to improve our work with offenders and to develop our understanding of how the criminal justice system operates.

7

In doing so we will be better able to demonstrate that we have the necessary knowledge and links to deliver a highly effective service to this group and will measure how this is reflected in commissioning outcomes. iv.

Health

Additionally, we will seek to develop our relationship with PCTs which, from 2009, have been given a much greater commissioning role. We envisage more opportunities to bid for contracts that are jointly commissioned by local authorities and PCTs. This will require Thames Reach to have a better understanding of the overall health needs of our service users and the service responses that can address them. Thames Reach has a number of highly successful specialist mental health services with strong track records for working with vulnerable and chaotic people in poor mental health. We will continue to improve our reputation for delivering effective specialist mental health services where our partnership approach is especially apparent; for example, with the Start team in Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham and the Joint Homelessness Team in Westminster. Our approach will be to align our services and take up opportunities arising from the reform of the National Health Service set out in the Dharzi review. The review emphasises the importance of increasing patient rights, developing services that encourage wellbeing and effective prevention and encourages greater personal control by recipients of services. These are all areas that figure significantly in the 2009-12 business plan. We will seek to contribute to Joint Strategic Needs Assessments through which PCTs, local authorities and partners are required to make a formal assessment of the needs of their local populations and establish plans for meeting them. v.

Employment, training and education

The last business plan had a strong focus on helping people into education, training and employment. The target of 20% of service users engaging in formal education, training and employment was exceeded but now we need to move to a new level and ensure that by the end of 2012 at least 25% of our service users are in full time or part time employment. With the economy in recession at the start of the business plan period, this will be a notably challenge. The main new employment-related project which will become operational during the period is the employment academy. The employment academy, funded under the Places of Change programme, will be developed with our key partners, the London Boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark. It will offer a range of employment services from a single location. Situated within the building will be training rooms, meeting areas, space for businesses including a social enterprise café, existing Thames Reach employment projects and various services provided by other voluntary sector organisations and the

8

local authorities. Service users will be expected to use the facilities in a structured and purposeful way with a clear plan and objectives. It is envisaged that the employment academy will make a significant contribution towards helping the two local authorities achieve their National Indicator targets linked to worklessness. The main focus during the period will be to help service users into mainstream jobs and to support them to sustain their employment and progress to jobs that are more secure and better paid. This will be done by: •

• •

Continuing to develop programmes such as TRaVEL and Moving in Moving On (MIMO), our painting and decorating programme. These help skill-up people and enable them to acclimatise to the requirements of work and to understand the expectations of the employer. Developing better links with key employers either via a range of voluntary, business and public sector bodies or directly, where it is practical and advantageous to do so. Developing our capacity, often in partnership with employment specialists, to offer in-work support and career progression.

Both of these areas will be supported by Thames Reach’s Breakthrough Project which is focused on the need to help people get into mainstream employment. The Breakthrough Project also seeks to highlight and address the obstacles that prevent people making the transition from worklessness into employment, for example the high rates of dyslexia and the very poor literacy and numeracy skills that seriously handicap a significant number of Thames Reach service users. Thames Reach teams and services will be encouraged to sell their expertise and develop self-generated income streams wherever possible. We will continue to support StreetShine, the shoe care business in which Thames Reach has a majority shareholder stake as it seeks to restructure its business and to champion the social enterprise model which combines social objectives with a strong entrepreneurial, business-focused approach. The opportunity to become self-employed or to join a social enterprise organisation will be options that service users will be actively supported to consider and prepare for. Over the next three years, SHiFT, our painting, decorating and refurbishment team will focus on offering a high quality internal service to Thames Reach. This work will provide SHiFT with a major income stream. SHiFT will not undertake external work (with a few exceptions) until it has established its credentials as a Direct Labour Organisation (DLO) within Thames Reach. 2) Skilled interventions to motivate and achieve change a. Improvements in casework management

9

Thames Reach has already embarked on a major initiative to improve the quality of our work with service users. Through the casework management programme we will improve the quality of our casework, with greater emphasise on achieving, measuring and evidencing change in our work with service users. The new approach is strongly aspirational, expecting more from service users and requiring a more purposeful approach from staff in their engagement with service users. We will also continue to develop motivational techniques for working with service users based on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and similar models. This very significant change in our approach is being overseen by the Service Improvement Group (SIG) led at a senior level by Thames Reach’s two Service Directors. b. Greater flexibility in the use of offices Along with developments in our approach to engaging with service users we will continue to encourage ways in which staff can be more mobile and less office-bound. As a result of the technological IT developments being introduced during 2009, staff will have greater freedom to work at different sites away from their main office. Greater efficiency in use of time will improve the overall service to service users. It will also assist the organisation to be more cost-effective in its use of its offices. During the business plan period we will undertake a full review of how our offices are currently being used and make recommendations about more effective use of the space. Pilots will be undertaken to assess the benefits of greater desk-sharing and the creation of more shared break-out space for staff and service users. c. Staff training and a career pathway within Thames Reach The changes envisaged require committed, competent staff who feel supported by the organisation, find the work both challenging and enjoyable, and are well trained and appropriately empowered to make decisions in their day to day work. We will continue to make a big investment in staff training and ensure that there are clear pathways through the organisation for staff wishing to further their careers at Thames Reach and who are able to develop the requisite skills and attitude to take up new roles. The pathways programme, established to encourage staff to move into management positions, will be retained and developed. Our commitment to addressing the issue that a relatively small number of staff from a black and minority ethnic (BME) background are in management positions within Thames Reach will continue. We will also seek to ensure that, at all levels within the staff group, people with disabilities find Thames Reach to be a disability-friendly organisation and

10

that the number of staff who define themselves as having a disability increases during the business plan period. We will do this through improving the accessibility and functionality of workplaces and systems for people with disabilities and commission training and support to improve disability awareness levels. d. Improvements in staff wellbeing It is extremely pleasing to see from the Sunday Times Best Companies to Work for results that Thames Reach is regarded by staff as a very good employer, where levels of work place stress are low. However, over the next three years we will give special attention to improving the well-being of staff, help them to achieve a good work-life balance and find ways in which stress levels can be reduced and tackle the ongoing higher than sector-average sickness levels at Thames Reach. We will continue to help staff find a good work-life balance e. Service users as skilled members of staff By the end of the last business plan period, 71 staff members, 18% of the staff group, were former or current users of services for homeless people. This was an outstanding achievement and exceeded the target of 15%. The initiative that led to the achievement of this target, Giving Real Opportunities for Work (GROW) has succeeded in creating a positive and permanent culture change at Thames Reach and during the business plan period we will continue to build on this achievement, bring even more service users into the work-force and increase the capability of people with a history of homelessness to create positive change through being inspiring role models. The roll-out of National GROW is addressed under key delivery objective 6, below. f. Succession planning The board, through the governance committee, has requested that greater attention be given to the issue of succession planning at Thames Reach so that the organisation can be confident that it is successfully addressing the need to ensure that the best staff are recruited and retained and that our effectiveness is not reduced as a result of the unexpected loss of key personnel. The 2009-2012 business plan therefore includes a succession planning review, and the results of this will be considered by the full board. 3) Positive contributions to neighbourhoods, communities and society During the business plan period we will explicitly seek to move to a position where our services are regarded as a local asset. We will offer resources to local communities and, following a programme of actions, be able to illustrate the benefits of our services and the contribution we make to addressing social ills and building harmonious community relations.

11

The relationships our services have with people in the neighbourhoods where they are situated have generally been good. However, there is a great deal more that we can do to invest in local communities. We will address this as a specific programme over the next three years including: • •

At a strategic level where we will seek to be more involved in Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) and with the business community At a local level, where teams will be expected through annual work plans to show how they are contributing to the local community and finding ways of enabling the public to understand our work and the needs of homeless and socially excluded people.

We expect that over the next three years there will be increasing opportunities for Thames Reach to extend the use of our services as local resources. For example, the employment academy that we are developing in south London will focus on meeting the needs of the local population; both people in the community who are workless and need to improve their employability and the local population more broadly which can use some of the facilities available at the employment academy. The objective is to reach a point where each Thames Reach service is being actively supported by members of the local community, some of who are prepared to invest time in Thames Reach. In return, we must be able to show the value to communities gained from having Thames Reach projects situated within them. Our communications strategy, primarily addressed under key delivery objective 6, communicating our experience and understanding the barriers leading to homelessness, will place greater emphasis on the need to raise our profile positively on a local level. We will also develop our environmental policy to ensure that Thames Reach fulfils its wider corporate social responsibilities to improve sustainability and quality of life. 4. User empowerment and involvement Thames Reach is developing a distinctive approach to user empowerment based on the triple pillars of Person Centred Planning (PCP), mutual support and strong social networks. a. PCP A person-centred approach has always been central to Thames Reach’s service delivery with an expectation that the individual service user contributes fully to developing and fulfilling the objectives established through their own support plan. Over the last two years we have strived to further develop the lead role service users take in establishing their goals and the steps to achieving them through Blue Salmon, a website for service users to help them

12

develop a life plan, created in collaboration with our partners Lemos & Crane. Unusually Blue Salmon covers areas such as identity and social networks and offers a framework that service users feel more relevant and encouraging than traditional support plan structures. PCP offers the opportunity of developing more effective casework with better outcomes by encouraging service users to initiate, shape and negotiate their own priorities instead of the plan being imposed by the support worker. The PCP approach is based on techniques and exercises designed to help individuals establish achievable goals based on positive experiences and challenges staff to be led by service users’ aspirations that may step beyond the usual boundaries imposed by traditional structures. The development of PCP within Thames Reach will align with the personalisation agenda that will be an increasingly significant element of the support and care framework in the UK over the next three years. Through PCP we will give greater emphasise to helping service users define and address their health needs. Many service users suffer from extremely poor physical and mental health. We will undertake a comprehensive assessment of the health needs of our service users and from this we will establish an organisational action plan to improve health and wellbeing. We will also continue our work to help service users increase their money management skills and level of financial awareness. Many of Thames Reach’s service users live close to the breadline and helping them to make the best decisions around expenditure is a crucial part of the key-worker support role and an important area where meaningful choices can be established and empowerment developed. b. Mutual support Thames Reach has been at the forefront of peer support programmes for over 10 years. Peer support is a very distinctive part of service delivery at Thames Reach and its benefits in terms of developing skills and increasing self-esteem can be seen in the work of TRaVEL and the Saturday Club. The Saturday Club is a group which is entirely user-led and provides mutual support to its members, most of whom are users of homelessness services, alongside activities and the opportunity to educate others about homelessness. Thames Reach will continue to encourage mutual support amongst its service users. Whilst we will always see it as vital for service users to be part of the community in which they settle and to develop interests and support systems outside Thames Reach, we do not regard it as a negative thing for service users to continue to find a bond with other people who have also experienced homelessness. We believe that these support structures can be positive for the individual and for Thames Reach, especially where the group is able to inform the organisation and the wider world about homelessness and how to escape it.

13

Some service users have chosen to develop a more formal role within Thames Reach as volunteers. Service user volunteers are frequently influential role models and they have a considerable impact on both staff and other service users. We will continue to support the use of service user volunteers across the organisation, complementing the work of staff. c. Social networks During the last business plan period important strides were made in helping service users develop natural and enduring social networks based around contact with families and friends. Despite this, the 2008 organisational service user consultation exercise to which over 600 service users responded reported that only 30% of service users felt that they had been assisted in developing strong social networks, yet over 65% wanted staff to help them to do so. As a consequence of these findings we will continue make the development of strong social networks a high priority. Progress in this area will be measured by using the outcomes star which is Thames Reach’s main instrument for tracking and analysing ‘soft’ outcomes. d. Extending user involvement The increased confidence gained by service users has enabled Thames Reach to make use of their experiences in a variety of ways which have been beneficial to the organisation. For example, service users have undertaken mystery shopping exercises, assisted with service user surveys, helped to trial new products, contributed as members of interview panels and teams bidding for new contracts and advised on campaigns. Over the next three years we will further increase the influence of service users and our approach and objectives will be established through a new User Involvement Policy. We will actively seek different ways of involving service users and increasing levels of customer satisfaction, particularly through exploiting new media opportunities including social networking facilities. Service users have direct contact with the board through events such as the service user conference. There is formal contact via the central council which brings together service user representatives and the board. At these meetings discussion takes place concerning various current and proposed activities and organisational developments. There are service user representatives on the services committee who act as expert advisors. During the period of the business plan the link between the board and service users will be sustained and reviewed with the objective of increasing the effectiveness of the engagement and increasing the input that service users can have into board debate. 5. Financial stability and robust governance

14

In the last three years the organisation has exceeded its growth target of 15% net growth. Growth from 2006 to 2009 was 20.4% and Thames Reach extended its work into six new London boroughs 2. Thames Reach has a growth strategy, agreed by the board, which establishes growth priorities in terms of areas of work and geographical range. During the business plan period, progress against the growth strategy will be assessed and the strategy reviewed to see if it needs to be updated with regards to the challenging economic circumstances currently pertaining in the UK. The recession presents a very significant challenge to Thames Reach. During the business plan period we can expect the demands on our services to be greater than ever as people face a reduction in income, a contracting job market and an increased threat of homelessness. It is highly likely that the next Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) will lead to reduced public spending and therefore a reduction in the funding available to support socially excluded groups such as homeless people. The ending of the ring-fence on the Supporting People budget from April 2009 may also lead to funding drifting away from groups for whom local authorities do not have a statutory duty. The bulk of Thames Reach service users fall into this category. Thames Reach will continue to base its growth strategy on the core business model approach, established when the previous business plan was developed. We will invest time and resources in those operational areas where we have a strong reputation for excellent service delivery, a significant market share and can be cost effective. We will also continue our current approach of purchasing properties in order to strengthen Thames Reach financially, offer more and better services to our service users and to increase the organisation’s sustainability. The following specific initiatives will form part of the business plan: a. Retaining existing contracts As noted earlier, many of Thames Reach’s existing contracts are due for recommissioning during the business plan period and it is essential that the organisation retains as many of these as possible and positions itself to bring new services into management. Thames Reach has a stakeholder review process designed to help us understand the changing needs of commissioners and funders and we will continue to be committed to making effective use of the information arising from it. We will also continuously analyse our contract pricing to ensure that we are competitive and seek to show the wider cost benefits of providing services to our client groups, as well as the broader social return on investment. In order to build up the body of evidence around wider cost benefits and social return, we will occasionally undertake to track these benefits systematically, if 2

These are: Brent, Croydon, Sutton, Tower Hamlets, Hammersmith and Fulham and Greenwich.

15

necessary through paying for additional consultancy support. An example of this is the work being undertaken to measure the wider business impact of the national GROW programme. We will also collaborate with other organisations and academic institutions to develop the cost benefit and social return on investment body of evidence. b. Developing new areas of business As noted under key delivery objective 1, we will increase the skills and knowledge base of the organisation in order to undertake more work and deliver an increased number of services to people with substance misuse problems, offenders and those who suffer from significant physical and mental health problems associated with homelessness. c. Reducing office costs In 2008 the Senior Management Team reviewed the organisation’s contract pricing and from this exercise it was concluded that savings were required on office costs. The review that will be undertaken to explore how we can make more efficient use of our offices and improve service delivery through further developments in flexibility and responsiveness is covered above under key delivery objective 2. Over the business plan period we will improve the use of office space through, for example, desk sharing, increasing the accessibility of space and facilities for staff at offices which are not their primary location and sub-letting to other organisations. d. Property development Thames Reach has recently bought offices and a resource centre in Stockwell financed by reserves, supplemented by a grant from a trust funder. A new property development committee has been formed and a property development manager appointed for the first time. During the business plan period we will produce a property development strategy and investigate further opportunities to strengthen our balance sheet and to reduce costs over the long-term by purchasing buildings. Once it has been developed, Thames Reach will own the employment academy and there is also the possibility of the organisation taking ownership of the Robertson Street hostel in Clapham where we currently provide support and housing management services. We are only able to take ownership if we become a Registered Provider. During the business plan period we will assess the opportunities and risks of becoming a Registered Provider and seek to achieve this status should there be a compelling business case to do so. e. Cash, confidence and cost Particularly challenging financial conditions have led to the organisation focusing on reducing costs across the board under a programme called ‘cash, confidence an cost’ which will continue throughout the business plan period.

16

The programme requires teams to demonstrate savings, scrutinise expenditure closely and bring additional discipline to overall cost control. f. Fundraising Thames Reach receives most of its funding from statutory sources, notably local authority contracts, and the focus is intentionally on maintaining existing contracts and winning new ones. However, we also wish to increase the actual income achieved through non-statutory sources, primarily trusts but also from public donation. The fund-raising strategy will be reviewed and aligned to the new business plan. Specifically, the various programmes established through the business plan will provide a coherent platform on which fund-raising proposals can be built. The objective is to find sources of unrestricted funding and support that can sustain services and programmes in the long-term and offer the flexibility to address new pressure points and allow for experiment and innovation. Initially fund-raising priorities will be based upon funding existing services and initiatives which are suffering a financial shortfall, but staff and service users will be encouraged to formulate ideas for new services and for meeting new needs or existing needs in new ways. g. Governance review Thames Reach has an excellent reputation for strong governance and transparency. We will continue to give attention to improving our governance arrangements and during the business plan period ensure that the board’s performance is scrutinised through an evaluation undertaken by an external consultant. Thames Reach is currently an exempt charity and Industrial and Provident Society. The organisation is required to seek a primary regulator and will explore the option of becoming a charity registered with the Charity Commission. We will also undertake to review the legal structures that could be adopted to enable Thames Reach to take ownership of properties which have Social Housing Grant (SHG) attached so that in the future Thames Reach can consider taking into ownership its hostels or other supported housing schemes. 6. Communicating our experience and understanding the barriers leading to homelessness a. Influencing through our frontline experience

17

Thames Reach has a vision of a society where street homelessness is permanently ended. The strong moral imperative that is at the centre of our work is set out in our ethos and values statements. To enable us to achieve our mission, that everyone has a decent home, experiences supportive relationships and can lead fulfilled lives, it is important that we can influence policy-makers, opinion-formers and the public. During the last three years we have developed a number of compelling campaigns to draw attention to issues such as how money from the public given to people begging on the street is invariably spent on hard drugs, the damage done by super strength drinks and the needs of service users whose health problems make them older than their years (the ‘young olds’). We also need to communicate with clarity and persuasiveness to commissioners and funders so that they fully understand our business and the approach that enables us to offer an enormous range of effective services to homeless and socially excluded men and women. Where we have developed a model that works, we will seek to achieve a wider impact through extending it on a national or international scale. An example of this is GROW, now being funded by central government so that its impact in terms of bringing service users into the workforce can extend across the homelessness sector nationally. b. Listening to staff and service users Internally, staff and service users must to be kept abreast of organisational developments in an open and honest way and provided with opportunities to influence the organisation’s direction of travel. They must be supported to raise the profile of their services and assisted to communicate what they do crisply and effectively. c. Communications strategy During the business plan period a communications strategy will be created to ensure that we deliver effectively in three key areas: • • •

Campaigns on issues directly affecting homeless people Influencing commissioners and funders Ensuring that staff and service users can understand and influence the organisation’s direction of travel.

The new communications strategy will place particular emphasis on the following: i.

Service users being able to directly achieve influence

We have been especially successful when service users have been given the opportunity, supported by the communications team at Thames Reach, to tell their stories and give their opinions directly to the media, politicians and other

18

opinion-shapers and policy makers. This approach will be continued and extended. ii.

Greater emphasis in linking our messages with fund-raising

The strategy will strengthen the tie-in between the campaign message and Thames Reach’s effectiveness in delivering high quality services to some of society’s most vulnerable people. We seek to see a stronger return in terms of financial support for Thames Reach. iii.

Achieving more impact on a local level

To link with the need for Thames Reach to have a positive impact on local communities and to maximise opportunities to win new business, a greater emphasise will be given to responding to local agendas. iv.

Making use of new media

We will exploit the opportunities to get our messages over externally and internally through new media such as Twitter, Facebook and others formats. The Thames Reach website will be further improved and new opportunities provided through which service users can give their opinions about the services being delivered by Thames Reach. d. Understanding the barriers Thames Reach will be actively involved in research to increase our understanding of what interventions help people move away from homelessness and social exclusion on a permanent basis. We want to know more how to overcome the various barriers that prevent this from happening as well as ways of addressing the triggers that can lead to people returning to homelessness. At the start of the business plan period we are involved with five pieces of research that we expect to influence our service delivery over the period. Findings from these pieces of research will be routinely disseminated and we will seek to measure the impact of the research on our approach to service delivery and the outcomes we achieve.

19