May 2016 Ref: BES01

Value For Money Strategy

Renewal: May 2017

CONTENTS: 1.0

The Vision

2.0

Strategic Aims and Objectives

3.0

Delivery of Strategy

4.0

Aiming High

5.0

Roles and Responsibilities

6.0

Customer and Stakeholder Engagement

Appendices Appendix 1 – Homes & Communities Agency’s Value for Money Standard

1.0 The Vision 1.1 SHG is committed to delivering excellent value and services. Our strategy is to be a strong and effective business well placed and able to support and benefit our tenants, customers and communities. Our Corporate Plan (2015-20) sets out our core purpose, values and ambitions:     

More Homes More Choice Excellent Services and Satisfied Customers Well Run Growing and Developing our Business Working for Sustainable Communities

1.2 This Strategy is a way of governing how we behave, our decisions and actions. It provides us with a simple way of demonstrating to ourselves and others that we have a clear and comprehensive approach to ensure that we can make the most of all of our resources, operating efficiently, effectively and economically whilst achieving our social goals. 1.3 This Strategy underscores our triple bottom line: Return to our business, Return to our customers; and Return to our communities for the investments that we make. These returns inform our thinking and decision making with all reports made to the Board of Management highlighting how we expect these returns to be realised. 1.4 We also believe that the Strategy contributes to our compliance with the HCA’s VfM Standard. The Standard and a copy of this VFM Strategy, our latest VfM self assessment and our Corporate Plan are on our website. We communicate our corporate ambitions, our performance against our targets and the Regulatory Standards, including VfM, to our tenants through regular meetings of the Executive and our tenant representative bodies, and via quarterly newsletters to all tenants. 2.0 Strategic aims and objectives 2.1 This Strategy is designed to deliver our ambitions and achieve the following:  The very best outcome from the considered use of all of the resources which we have at our disposal and an ability to increase available resources through doing things differently.  Maximum benefit for our tenants, other service users and communities and an understanding that choices have to be made between competing priorities.  More opportunities to improve and develop our business further.  More openness to self-evaluation and involvement of stakeholders in helping to shape how we work.  A culture throughout the organisation which recognises the importance of managing performance, providing great value and customer care and which sees Value for Money activity embedded into the work of every team.

2.2 This Strategy avoids VfM being seen as a stand-alone exercise and more of something that is now part of our business effectiveness DNA. 2.3 This Strategy encourages participation from everyone in the organisation by embedding VfM work into all personal development plans and service operational plans. 2.4 This Strategy will shape how we inform our tenants, customers, partners and stakeholders on how we have become a more efficient and effective organisation, delivering value and setting out clearly how we intend to use (re-invest) any monetary savings generated through planned economies and efficiencies. Through our Scrutiny Panel, TRIP we can evidence tenants having real influence over how we shape our services making them more efficient, effective and tenant focussed. 2.5 This Strategy will increasingly involve us working collaboratively with others to achieve more for our businesses, our customers and our communities. 3.0 Delivering the VfM Strategy 3.1 This VfM Strategy is built around business effectiveness based on the document “Social Hearts Business Heads” published by Housemark.

Corporate Objectives

Outcomes

Activities and Resources

Value for Money

Delivery and Performance

Using our Assets

3.2 Step 1 – The Corporate Objectives As a foundation to our strategy it is crucial to have clear corporate objectives. These are periodically reviewed to ensure they remain relevant and in line with our overall vision. The Group’s core objectives are set out in a Corporate Plan which is widely communicated to stakeholders, including being referred to clearly in our regular newsletters to tenants and annual report. The current Plan 2015-20 contains 5 ambitions and progress against each of these is reviewed regularly.

3.3 Step 2 – Activities and Resources The Group refinanced in 2014 to ensure sufficient capacity to deliver our ambitions consequently improving our viability rating to the highest V1. In response to the Government’s planned rent reductions we have rewritten and stress tested our Business Plan to ensure that we remain financially sound and focused on our core business objectives. Our annual business planning process and budget review ensures that adequate resources are available to meet our funder covenants and support necessary activities. This means that resources are allocated, and savings reinvested in the correct balance to the following activities:     

Funding to meet new homes targets Funding to invest in existing stock Funding for agreed customer services Funding for sustainable communities Funding for business growth and development

Operational plans for each part of the Group set out in more detail the activities required to help us to achieve these objectives and are used to help shape team and individual staff targets. 3.4 Step 3 – Using our Assets With resources in place the next part of the process is to ensure that we are using our assets effectively. This requires careful management of physical assets – our homes and estates - as well as our human resources to:  Deliver the right sort of homes in the right place. As a developing housing association we have strong internal mechanisms and external partnerships to ensure that we accurately target needs at a price that we can afford. Our Development Strategy supports this activity.  Evaluate existing assets and ensure that under performing assets are disposed of or invested in taking into account operational needs and community wishes. We use our Asset Management Plan to provide a framework for this.Ensure that we have the right staff with the right skills in the right place at the right time to meet changing business demands and work pressures. We have a clear Human Resources Strategy which sets out our approach to developing and retaining a highly skilled, well motivated and supported workforce equipped to help us achieve our objectives. 3.5 Step 4 – Performance and Delivery We will only know if we have been successful if we set clear targets and have a mechanism to measure progress against those targets. With a new pay structure and performance appraisal framework in place from April 2016 we have introduced a clear mean by which we can recognise and reward effective performance and delivery. This will also support and reinforce a culture that helps us to improve our VFM Our Achieve Academy and eLearning programme, designed to deliver training and skills more efficiently, will be used to further develop staff effectiveness. It is important that we also measure our progress as a business alongside the activity of other similar organisations by benchmarking via Housemark – a nationally recognised, independent benchmarking organisation in the social housing sector. Our measures include social value as well as financial values and track our direction of

travel. We use benchmarking to measure our cost, resource allocation, performance, satisfaction and overall value for money against past results so we can identify and monitor improvements made and still needed when compared to peers. We provide regular reports to our Board of Management on our financial and social return on investment. When asking our Boards and Committees to make decisions or commitments to projects our reports highlight whether and how the action or project will provide a return to the business, to our tenants and our communities as well as the more obvious financial and resource implications. We believe this helps to ensure a continued focus on value for money in everything we do. Our Annual VfM self assessment provides an ideal opportunity to highlight performance over the year in a snapshot. Each year, SHG will publish a VfM self assessment together with any regulatory judgements that we receive and notify stakeholders accordingly. 3.6 Step 5 – Outcomes Each year the SHG Board assesses the outcomes that have been achieved as well as targets missed and makes a judgment about our overall effectiveness. This will be part of our self assessment. Organisational, team and individual outcomes will inform decisions on pay and reward. 4.0 Aiming High 4.1 In translating the VfM model into an effective plan we continually build on existing policy and procedures rather than seek to re-invent the wheel. Our Business Effectiveness Framework – entitled ‘Aiming High’ is regularly updated and is a direct connection between this Strategy, performance management and delivery. It clearly explains roles, responsibilities and expectations. 5.0 Roles and Responsibilities 5.1 Parent Board Delivering VFM is a partnership between the Group’s Boards and Executive but is fundamentally a matter for everyone in the Group. The Parent (Shropshire Housing) Board of Management is responsible for setting corporate objectives and the strategies needed to deliver them, including this strategy and related strategies such as our Asset Management Strategy and our Procurement Strategy. It is responsible for regularly reviewing progress with the Executive Team and for directing where adjustments are necessary. The Board completes an annual assessment of VfM outcomes and is responsible for reporting these to stakeholders including the Regulator. The Board, delegates to the Remuneration and Human Resources Committee decisions on senior pay and reward linked to performance, retaining responsibility for decisions regarding remuneration of the Chief Executive. RH&R Committee approves pay and reward frameworks for staff generally. 5.2 Audit and Risk Committee The Audit and Risk Committee completes an annual review of this Strategy and periodic review of ‘Aiming High’ and approves operational targets and performance measures annually. It also considers which specific targets should be measured, to ensure that the Executive maintains focus on essential activity, and is responsible for reviewing the draft annual VfM self assessment for the Board. The Committee also

has responsibility for agreeing internal audit plans and considering the advice and recommendations contained within audit reports including on VfM. From time to time the Committee reviews service areas, departmental operations and regularly receives Tenant and Resident Improvement Panel (TRIP) reports and considers what actions, if any, may be required to improve or streamline performance. 5.3 Senior Team Senior Management Team (SMT) is responsible for regular monitoring of performance and ensuring that targets are delivered. It receives monthly exception reports from the Operational Management Team (OMT) and it makes recommendations to Audit and Risk Committee and ensures that lower level operational plans and targets are delivered by departments/teams. Senior Management Team utilises a range of techniques to improve efficiency in each service area/department such as benchmarking, best practice reviews and customer satisfaction surveys, such as the biannual STAR survey. SMT members are also responsible for ensuring appropriate and effective procurement in their service area, ensuring timely tendering or market testing of services, looking for appropriate opportunities to jointly purchase goods and services either via consortia or in partnership with other housing providers. SMT considers monthly updates of VfM savings suggested from across the organisation. 5.4 Staff All staff are responsible for their own performance and making themselves aware of the Group’s approach to VfM and are encouraged to identify opportunities in their area of work where VfM could be achieved. These are reported monthly to SMT. Our PRiDE values provide a cultural compass ensuring that all staff are Passionate, Resourceful, Innovative, Determined and Effective in their actions. SHG holds a Staff Conference every two years to strengthen key corporate themes. 6.0 Customer and Stakeholder Engagement 6.1 The Corporate Services Team co-ordinates the review of “Aiming High”. In line with our Customer Services and Communication Strategies they help to ensure that accurate and objective information is provided in a timely and accessible way to customers and tenants. We communicate with our customers in a variety of ways, via our website, telephone and text messaging, meetings and face to face contact but we principally communicate our VfM story through our quarterly tenant newsletters. 6.2We see our scrutiny panel (TRIP) as being central to the process of service review and improvement. SHG holds Stakeholder Conferences every two years to promote key corporate messages and capture feedback. We use our regular meetings with tenant representative bodies TASS and TARCA, tenant magazines, mail outs and other communications to ensure that our tenants are aware of service changes and offers. 6.3 We work closely with other landlords operating in Shropshire in an attempt to better address the collective needs of Shropshire residents and tenants and to be responsive to priority issues facing our Council Partners. We are, for instance members of the Shropshire Social Housing Forum and alongside Severnside and ST&RH key partners in the Sustain Consortium, a service delivery partnership. 6.4 The table below broadly illustrates our delivery cycle and 2016 timetable for decision making to ensure we involve Board Members and stakeholders in shaping and monitoring our approach to VFM.

January



February March

     

April May

    

June

July

   

August September

    

October November December

    

Budget and Business planning day– Board of Management approval of Budget and financial strategy (14.1.16) Scrutiny Panel will report on reviews up to 3 times per year Following Board approval to Budgets, engagement with funders End of Financial year, closing of accounts Operational Plans prepared and operational targets set by Audit and Risk Committee Staff appraisals commenced– including review of performance and setting of targets for individuals Board update on progress against 2015/16 VfM targets and VfM target setting for 2016/17 Internal Audit to carry out advisory review of VfM Audit and Risk to discuss VfM Strategy and any initial comments from Audit to inform self-assessment approach Annual report on Corporate Plan achievements considered by the Board alongside discussion of key priority areas emerging from Operational Plans for coming year VfM section in accounts updated. VfM Strategy agreed by Board and uploaded to website Auditing of the 2015/16 accounts Annual event with Community Panels, Scrutiny Panel and TASS/TARCA to celebrate successes and review effectiveness Audit and Risk and Board meetings agree VfM self-assessment summary for the accounts Present Final accounts including Social Accounts Submit 15/16 benchmarking data to Housemark Agree VfM communication to tenants with links to our website and full self assessment Tenants Annual Report finalised including VfM Communication Housemark reports produced –validated by 9th September and published 26th September Audit and Risk receive and approve finalised VfM self assessment 30/9 submit VFM self-assessment with final accounts to HCA Feedback from TASS and TARCA on VfM and consultation on VFM 2017/18 Combined AGM’s with Shareholders and Stakeholder event to include VfM achievements and challenges to the business Tenants Annual Report Published SHG Annual Report published Commence review of revenue and capital budgets and stress testing Annual feedback from Housemark (to be agreed) Identification of service areas where costs need further exploration (based on Housemark data)

Appendix 1

Value for Money Standard Required outcomes Registered providers shall articulate and deliver a comprehensive and strategic approach to achieving value for money in meeting their organisation’s objectives. Their boards must maintain a robust assessment of the performance of all their assets and resources (including for example financial, social and environmental returns). This will take into account the interests of and commitments to stakeholders, and be available to them in a way that is transparent and accessible. This means managing their resources economically, efficiently and effectively to provide quality services and homes, and planning for and delivering on-going improvements in value for money. Specific expectations 1.1

Registered providers shall: • •

• • 1.2

have a robust approach to making decisions on the use of resources to deliver the provider’s objectives, including an understanding of the trade offs and opportunity costs of its decisions understand the return on its assets, and have a strategy for optimising the future returns on assets – including rigorous appraisal of all potential options for improving value for money including the potential benefits in alternative delivery models - measured against the organisation’s purpose and objectives have performance management and scrutiny functions which are effective at driving and delivering improved value for money performance understand the costs and outcomes of delivering specific services and which underlying factors influence these costs and how they do so.

Registered providers’ boards shall demonstrate to stakeholders how they are meeting this standard. As part of that process, on an annual basis, they will publish a robust self assessment which sets out in a way that is transparent and accessible to stakeholders how they are achieving value for money in delivering their purpose and objectives. The assessment shall: • • •

enable stakeholders to understand the return on assets measured against the organisation’s objectives set out the absolute and comparative costs of delivering specific services evidence the value for money gains that have been and will be made and how these have and will be realised over time