Value for Money – self-assessment 2014-15

Contents

About St Mungo’s Broadway 3 What value for money means to us and our achievements so far 4 Our strategic approach to delivering value for money 4 Managing risk 5 An efficient and effective organisation: our achievements in 2014-15 6 A growing organisation: our achievements in 2014-15 7 Effective financial management 9 Effective performance management 10 Effective asset management 10 Achieving value in our health and wellbeing services 12 Delivering value in skills, work and employment services 13 Our future plans for delivering value for money 14 Conclusion 15

About this document This document presents to our stakeholders an assessment of our performance in delivering value for money (VFM) during 2014-15. It demonstrates how VFM was a key factor behind the creation of the new St Mungo’s Broadway and how VFM is at the heart of everything we do going forward. The report is based on our first year of operation as a merged organisation and shows how we have already started to drive efficiencies and how we intend to deliver further VFM improvements in the future. It reports on progress against the action points we identified in last year’s self-assessment where these remain relevant, as well as new or revised actions that have emerged from the integration process.

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About St Mungo’s Broadway Following the merger between St Mungo Community Housing Association and Broadway Homelessness and Support on 1 April 2014, Broadway became the wholly owned subsidiary of St Mungo Community Housing Association. The organisation became known as St Mungo’s Broadway from that date. All of Broadway’s trading activity was transferred to St Mungo Community Housing Association from 1 July 2014. Unless otherwise specified therefore, figures in this report refer to St Mungo Community Housing Association and not Broadway Homelessness and Support between 1 April and 30 June 2014. The decision to merge was taken because both organisations felt the time was right to create a bold, new organisation providing a depth and range of services for homeless and vulnerable people, building on the work undertaken over many years by both charities. This is something which neither organisation could achieve on its own.

During 2014-15, a total of 16,391 clients used our residential, outreach, skills and employment and health services, with a further 5,900 clients receiving advice from our offender services teams.

Our new organisation:

The new organisation has five key ambitions:







Provides a bed and support to 2,500 people every night through our hostels, supported housing and other accommodation projects. Employs 1,300 staff and benefits from the support of 800 volunteers who gave 110,000 hours of their time in 2014-15 to help us provide services. Holds 128 contracts from public sector commissioners such as local authorities, the Greater London Authority and Clinical Commissioning Groups. Runs 230 services across London and the South of England including hostels, outreach teams, skills and employment services, services for people in mental health crisis and advice to people in prison who risk becoming homeless on release.



Service Excellence: high quality, safe and effective services. Growth: more services for a greater number of clients in more areas. Financial Strength: overcoming challenging funding environments and securing the charity’s future. Profile and Influence: a strong reputation and an independent voice. People Management and Organisational Development: supporting talent and developing a positive internal culture.

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What value for money (VFM) means to us and our achievements so far Delivering better VFM and driving efficiencies from the newly created organisation was one of the key objectives of the merger. By operating more efficiently, we can deliver more services and improve outcomes for our customers. VFM is therefore integral to our success as a business and at the heart of our Corporate strategy going forward. 2014-15 was a year where we began the complex task of integrating our systems, processes and services and operating as one organisation. Inevitably, integration has brought challenges, particularly in such a difficult external operating environment. Nevertheless, 2014-15 has seen us lay the groundwork for a new, leaner and more efficient organisation. Through the integration process we have identified ways that our new organisation can work more efficiently and effectively as well as economies of scale that are being explored. The new organisation will also be in a stronger position to grow through winning new contracts as we become more competitive, and be better positioned to increase income from fundraising. Integration has already delivered significant savings: almost £1.2million from the streamlining of the management team. In addition, we have identified further VFM gains

we plan to make in the next three years, for example by the start of 2016-17 we will have plans in place to support our target to reduce central overhead costs by £1.5m (to reach 12% of turnover) by 2017-18. At the same time as delivering this major organisational change, we have continued to deliver a quality service to our clients. Across our services, the main indicator of effectiveness we use is reported outcomes, using the Outcome Star method. During 2014-15, clients reported a 73% overall positive outcome across 196 projects, up from 71% the previous year. We also review client satisfaction. Our most recent client satisfaction survey shows that:

91% of clients are satisfied with the overall service provided by St Mungo’s Broadway. 90% are satisfied with the support they receive and; 88% agree that St Mungo’s Broadway services are helping them make a positive change in their lives.

Our strategic approach to delivering value for money On 1 April 2014, Broadway became a wholly owned subsidiary charity of St Mungo’s with both organisations overseen by one Board and one Executive team. The new Board is comprised of members of the St Mungo’s and Broadway Boards of Trustees. Over the last 12 months, the new Board has led the development of a new vision for the organisation, in consultation with staff, clients, commissioners and supporters. The work will be completed during 201516 and will frame the development of a new five year Organisational strategy and business plan. Delivering value by optimising the social and economic return on our assets will be an integral part of this process.

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The Board provide a strategic lead on VFM by:



Developing a new Organisational strategy which ensures that we are taking into account the challenges in the operating environment while not departing from our charitable purpose which is to house and help homeless people. Reviewing our five year projections and using these as the basis of scenario planning to inform the Organisational strategy. Ensuring that expected VFM gains from the merger are realised. Putting in place a reporting structure through the Finance committee to measure VFM over time and ensure identified efficiencies are realised. Setting the budget, reviewing regular financial reports and action plans to correct deviations. Ensuring that every report they receive covers VFM issues.

The Board has recognised that the integration programme across all areas of our operation is substantial and that, in some cases, it may need to take a ‘spend to save’ approach across some systems and processes (for example, our HR and rents systems) in order to deliver longer term VFM gains.

In addition, the Board continued to ensure that the organisation’s actions remain appropriate to the context of our work, the needs and ambitions of our clients and the environment in which we operate. Our organisation focuses on people and services as opposed to being geared solely to development and management of housing. Our challenge is therefore to apply measures of value that are relevant to our business, the needs of the people using our services and the communities they live in, while also providing confidence that we are diligently pursuing value which enables us to have increased impact. The Board will consider what measures of value are needed as it develops the Organisational strategy during 2015-16. This will ensure that we are building our approach to value across our business planning for the next five years. Through the change process, we have taken the opportunity to consult and engage with staff to seek solutions for cost efficiencies and greater competitiveness. This will be ongoing over 2015-16 as we involve our staff in the development of the Organisational strategy including discussing the opportunities and challenges that come from the external environment.

Managing risk Our operating environment brings inevitable challenges. The merger was in part undertaken in recognition that we would be better placed to face these challenges as a single entity. Looking at our income:

and in particular rough sleeping, is continuing to increase – with greater demands for our services. The risks we have identified include:



33% came from our assets in the form of rental and service charges. 56% is income from contracts/services commissioned by the public sector. 11% is from charitable fundraising.



All of these income streams are under pressure, whether through proposed changes to the rent formula, continuing downward pressure on costs when bidding for new contracts or the challenges of fundraising in a crowded market. This is taking place at a time when homelessness,



Further reductions in spending by local authorities and other statutory funders. Our need to remain competitive in bidding for services. Changes to benefits and the rents regime and the effect of these on our income. Challenges in fundraising and needing to review how we use unrestricted income. Changing client groups who have different/reduced entitlements to services. Being able to attract and retain staff with the right skills and competencies.

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All of these income streams are under pressure, whether through proposed changes to the rent formula, continuing downward pressure on costs when bidding for new contracts or the challenges of fundraising in a crowded market.

The Board is managing the risks by extensively stress testing our five year financial projections, applying our Growth Plan and Bidding strategy as we pursue new contracts and developing a new business plan and Organisational strategy in the light of these scenarios. We have also identified two key responses to these challenges: running an efficient and effective organisation and an ambitious growth strategy.

An efficient and effective organisation: our achievements in 2014-15 Our merger was driven in part by the intention to deliver improved VFM, with planned reductions in back office costs and opportunities to spread overheads across a wider service base. Moreover, the wider spread of service types, locations and assets will make the new organisation better able to compete for more and different contracts and provide a greater range and depth of services to our clients. At the outset, we identified a minimum of £1.5m in savings from the merger, including savings from rationalising senior management, central and support staffing structures. We have already made good progress in achieving this target and have plans to achieve a further £1.5m of savings by setting a target to reduce our central overheads from 14% of turnover in 2014-15 to 12% by 2017-18. During 2015-16 our plan to manage the costs of our agency staff is targeted to save £325,000 (its first year of operation).

During 2014-15 we:







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Restructured and streamlined the senior management and business support services teams, deleting 19 posts and achieving savings of £1,181,600 in the year. Devised and implemented a plan to manage the cost of agency staff (see the case study opposite). This will enable us to make considerable savings while ensuring that our clients receive appropriate, quality levels of support. The savings made through this process will enable us to support activities that would not otherwise be funded and to support the training and development of our staff. Undertook a significant integration programme with our HR, Finance and IT approaches and teams. This included investing in a new integrated Human Resources Management System. Our investment in this is vital in underpinning the HR strategy of the new organisation and building an effective culture. The new system was implemented in April 2015 and will drive future efficiencies by improving self servicing for staff, assisting our managers to embed a new performance management culture and support our efforts to better record and reduce our sickness absence lost time rate. We have also put in place a new IT system to improve accessibility and performance. Rationalised offices and developed a new Office strategy which will see us amalgamate our office requirements and reduce the number of main offices from four to three during 2015-16. As well as savings in direct office costs, this will generate savings in travel time and costs and in facilities management costs.

We have also used the benefits of the newly merged organisation to drive procurement savings. Our target is to reduce expenditure on goods and services by at least 2%, saving £500k. We have made a start on this in 201415 by reducing expenditure on agency staff.

Case study – improving VFM in the use of agency and locum staff During 2014-15 we implemented a major project to reduce usage levels and costs of locums. This is a major item of expenditure for us, with costs of over £6 million in 2013-14.



Having concluded that the existing arrangements were not delivering VFM, we decided to re-procure the contract. In doing this, we sought:

A new supplier, Neuven Solutions Ltd, was appointed in March 2015. While the headline savings for the system are relatively modest (the new system is about £10,000 a year cheaper than the previous one to operate), the new approach will allow us to make substantial savings once our more rigorous new practices and behaviours around the use of agencies, overtime and locums are fully embedded.



A costing structure based on a transactional charge rather than service charge. An incentive for the supplier to support us in delivering a high-performing locum bank. A self service approach, making it more flexible for managers. To better plan resources, with improved real-time information, changes in policies and processes and



a new approach to how managers and teams plan cover.

The new system came into effect from April 2015 and we estimate the total net savings will be £325,000 in Year 1, rising to £2,500,000 by the end of the third year.

A growing organisation: our achievements in 2014-15 Growth is important to us as an organisation. As well as helping deliver economies of scale, our ability to secure new contracts is a key indicator of the VFM we achieve, as contracts are awarded on a combination of quality and price. We won or retained 27 contracts in 2014-15 with a combined value in year of £6.3m. These successes reflect the value we deliver for commissioners in terms of cost, quality and outcomes. This represented a 51% success rate for bid submissions, a figure we will look to improve in 2015-16. We have set a target of £1.5m of income from new business in 2015-16. This means we are likely to need to win new business with a total contract value of over £3m (as many contracts run for longer than a single year).

We manage risk through careful assessment and appraisal of new opportunities. This includes assessing whether opportunities meet our criteria for strategic relevance, meet the price threshold we have set (covering costs including an overhead contribution at an agreed level), deliver a safe and effective service and support the overall growth plan. Decisions are agreed by Directors and, where necessary, Executive Directors. Proposals exceeding agreed sums or risk criteria require approval by the Board. The Board developed a Service Growth Plan during 201415. The strategy is ambitious but pragmatic, supporting growth in those geographical and service areas where we already have a presence and reputation.

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The new growth strategy sets out our objectives around three broad themes: 1. Broadening our horizons: offering a greater range of services to a greater range of people in a greater range of areas. 2. Innovation and partnership: developing new service models and relationships, new funding streams, approaches and service models and partners. 3. “Sharpening our saw”: increasing our competitiveness through improved targeting; improved knowledge, relationship and service marketing and more robust due diligence, cost control and contract management.

Central to our growth strategy is our success at stretching public funding by the strategic use of fundraised income. By attracting external funding we increase the resources available, enabling us to add value to our contracts by offering support over and above that commissioned. These charitably-funded services (including LifeWorks, our psychotherapy service; skills/employment training initiatives such as Putting Down Roots and our Recovery College) are available to clients across all of our commissioned services, complementing them and enhancing outcomes by helping clients to progress in their recovery. This, in turn, supports our work to achieve the outcomes agreed with the commissioners of our contracted services.

Adding value to contracts through fundraising Our award-winning LifeWorks project tackles social exclusion by providing psychotherapy to residents in our hostels and supported housing clients who would not otherwise be able to receive this type of therapy to address trauma and other psychological problems. Last year 124 people used LifeWorks; of these 98% achieved a positive change on the mental wellbeing impact assessment toolkit that we use and 91% were sustaining or achieving positive change in their housing situation. LifeWorks is funded almost entirely through fundraised income, (£275,000 in 2014-15).

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The new Organisational strategy which we will develop during 2015-16 will look at the extent to which this blended approach can be continued given the overall funding environment and our organisational ambitions and priorities. Prior to the merger, St Mungo’s developed a new Fundraising strategy that aimed to grow fundraising income, to reach a net figure of £5m by 2018. In 2014-15 we raised £7.5m with a net income figure of £4.1m. The total money raised from fundraising has been increasing but there are challenges in securing this continued growth. We have worked hard to maximise our return on investment figures. We achieved this last year by spending less than budgeted on fundraising while exceeding our income target. Where we do invest, it is with the aim of providing sustainable longterm voluntary income. We invest significantly in the acquisition and stewardship of donors; particularly in recruiting new regular givers. We know that a large number of these donors will continue to support St Mungo’s Broadway with a monthly donation for many years into the future and provide a solid base of regular, ongoing income. Our new donor recruitment investment also increases the profile of our work, helping us to tell the public about the urgency of helping homeless people, as well as supporting our campaigning work and providing a source of future legacy income. We also continue to think carefully about how we use unrestricted fundraising income – ensuring that we are able to continue to support important, life-changing projects while also developing innovative new projects. This is important as we seek to manage the risks in our operating environment and respond to the increased need for our services. We have to think carefully about how we use unrestricted fundraising income and ask ourselves what the priority is when setting budgets each year.

Effective financial management

Our definition of value in this area includes:





Rationalising our support services to maximise investment in frontline services, balancing our ability to deliver high quality services with a competitive approach to winning new business. Effective treasury management, ensuring that, should we enter into any long-term borrowings, these would be negotiated at the best prices and creating flexibility to raise more funds in the future. Maximising our procurement savings.

The table below shows turnover and surplus of our predecessor organisations in 2013 and 2014 alongside the results from our first year post merger. Last year we achieved a better than target surplus, of £752,000 (target was £250,000). We use the surplus to provide for improvements and upgrades to our buildings. We are running a stock condition survey during 2015-16 but expect this to detail that we need to make provision for between £900,000 and £1.2m a year over a five year period. £’ 000

2013 St Mungo’s Broadway 2014 St Mungo’s Broadway 2015 St Mungo’s Broadway (incl Broadway from 1 July 2015) Broadway (1 April 2015 to 30 June 2015)

Turnover Surplus (Exc (Inc investment investment income) income) 48,857 15,550

1,251 (255)

53,639 15,221

657 (53)

69,014

903

3,569

(171)

Due to the focus on integration, our turnover increased only slightly in 2014-15. Our budgeted turnover for 2015-16 is £72.8m. The following table breaks down our income in rent, support contracts (local authority, central government and other public sector funding for providing support) and fundraising. £’ 000 2013 St Mungo’s Broadway 2014 St Mungo’s Broadway 2015 St Mungo’s Broadway (incl Broadway from 1 July 2015) Broadway (1 April 2015 to 30 June 2015)

Rent

Support Fundraising Contracts

16,643 5,080

26,575 9,348

5,639 1,122

17,579 4,693

29,504 9,784

6,565 806

21,734

38,636

7,563

1,218

2,329

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We deploy our accumulated reserves to achieve our principal objective of supporting homeless people. After setting aside a prudent amount to cover day-to-day financial commitments, reserves are invested in property that provides accommodation to homeless people. At the end of the year unrestricted reserves were £20.9m of which £12.2m was invested in property and £8.5m was used for day-to-day commitments.

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Effective performance management In the first year following our merger one of our priorities was the integration of core systems to enable us to put in place a comprehensive performance management system across the new organisation. This was a complex task requiring a comprehensive review of our management information requirements as well as the systems and how they are used. Our focus in 2014-15 was therefore ensuring that we

had robust management information and establishing a baseline for key metrics to drive forward change. 2015-16 will see us implementing these changes and focusing strongly on performance management. We have developed action plans in several areas: voids, bad debts and arrears. For example our target for voids is a reduction to 5% (from 9% in 2014-15) whilst bad debts will be held at 3% of rental income.

Effective asset management

Driving value in asset management means:

In 2014-15 we:







Achieving growth through creative solutions in a way that delivers the greatest benefits for customers, stakeholders and St Mungo’s Broadway. Understanding our stock, its value and how well it performs and using the information to make robust medium and long term investment decisions.

Although our services extend well beyond the provision of accommodation, our built assets are the cornerstone of our approach to working with people who are homeless. We have a dynamic approach to asset management based on the changing requirements of clients and commissioners. To support our planning and decision making in this area, we are developing a new Asset Management strategy which will mirror our Organisational strategy.





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Agreed a New Liquidity and Reserves Policy which will ensure that we maximise investment in our assets so that we are able to achieve our primary objective of supporting homeless people whilst retaining sufficient funds to meet our short term financial commitments. Started to devise a new Asset Management strategy for the merged organisation that will: - Identify a proportion of reserves for investment. - Provide overall direction for our future development strategy, both social rent and private rented. - Build complementary partnerships with Registered Provider(s) with strong development expertise. - Plan a stock condition survey which will be carried out in 2015-16. Put in place a revised development appraisal methodology to ensure swift and effective decision making within a clear governance and risk management framework. Levered in over £56 million of private investment through our innovative Real Lettings Property Fund, enabling us to provide homes for over 240 homeless households.

Case study – Innovation and growth: the Real Lettings Property Fund A particularly innovative example of our approach to offering housing options to those who need them, bringing new units into use and including exploring options for financing is the Real Lettings Property Fund (RLPF). The RLPF is a residential property fund launched by Broadway in partnership with social investment company Resonance in 2013-14. It builds on the experience of Real Lettings, a social letting agency set up by Broadway and now part of St Mungo’s Broadway. For over five years, it has leased properties from private landlords to rent to people experiencing homelessness who are able to live independently but who find it hard to rent good quality accommodation in the private rented sector. The RLPF acquires one and two bedroom flats across Greater London, leasing them to St Mungo’s Broadway to make available (through Real Lettings) to homeless families and individuals who are ready for independent living but struggle to access private rented accommodation. The RLPF exceeded anticipated levels of social

investment, bringing in £56.85m by the close date of March 2015 from L&Q Foundation, Big Society Capital, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Lankelly Chase Foundation and the City of London (through City Bridge Trust), London Borough of Croydon, Trust for London, Panahpur and individual high net worth investors. Already 154 tenants who had experienced homelessness, or were at risk of doing so, are living in property leased from the Fund. By January 2016 the Fund will have purchased 240 homes across London. The Fund is a great example of how we are using our resources, expertise and reputation to lever in private investment and how our management and support services help its tenants to secure good quality housing and so avoid homelessness. The benefits to tenants are measured in terms of improving their housing options (including eventually moving on to other stable accommodation), achieving progress towards work, and developing greater resilience against repeat homelessness for people who would otherwise have needed expensive temporary accommodation. It is an exemplar of how publicprivate sector partnership can deliver savings to the public purse and improve lives. In March 2015 the Board agreed to explore setting up a National Homeless Property Fund (RLPF2).

In 2015-16 we will be responsible for 2,477 bedspaces (in hostels, supported accommodation and self contained housing) compared to 1,873 bedspaces in 2014-15. For properties that we own, our maintenance costs have increased slightly from £777 per unit, per annum in 2014 (St Mungo’s only) to £801 per unit, per annum in 2014-15.

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Achieving value in our health and wellbeing services We define value in our health and wellbeing services as:

Identifying schemes that add value for service users and commissioners. The efficient operation of schemes that contribute to meaningful outcomes for service users. Using our charitable funds when to do so adds sufficient value, measured against outcomes. Monitoring outcomes to assess the efficacy and value of schemes.

Supporting our clients to look after and improve their health is a central part of our work. Our 2014 statistics on the health of clients in our hostels and supported housing services show that:



47% of clients report a significant medical condition. 65% report a mental health problem, with 44% having a diagnosis of depression and 27% a diagnosis of anxiety. 52% have a substance misuse need (which means they use alcohol problematically and/or they misuse prescribed drugs or use illicit drugs). 27% have substance use, physical health and mental health needs.

We provide a broad range of clinical, wellbeing and health promotion services which reach people excluded from other sources of medical and social care. In terms of delivering wider social value, this is a key area for us. With the increasing pressure on NHS budgets and on A&E services, working with our clients to reduce their demands on acute services represents a real opportunity to improve outcomes and make significant savings for the public purse. A starting point for this is making sure that clients are able to get primary health care when they need it, avoiding the use of A&E services and hospital admissions. The proportion of clients in our residential projects recorded as being registered with a GP has increased over 2014-15; from 57% to 63%.

1 Data from New Economy: Unit Cost Database

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We have a real expertise in developing effective, tailored services that make an impact on our clients and which reduce the overall pressure on public spending. An example of our work in this area is the London Hospital Discharge Network (HDN). St Mungo’s opened this in 2013-14, funded by a £3.6m grant from a Department of Health initiative aimed at boosting hospital aftercare for homeless people. It was one of the largest projects funded by this initiative and provides 24 beds, located in existing projects, but specifically designed for homeless people leaving hospital who need follow on nursing aftercare. There have been positive outcomes from the service in terms of reducing demands on acute NHS services. During the three months at the HDN, clients achieved a 97% attendance rate at primary care appointments (with GPs, dentists, opticians, podiatry and substance use services). There was a reduction in emergency hospital admissions from an average of 12 in the three months prior, to only two admissions. One client who attended A&E 30 times in the three months prior to staying in the HDN, reduced their A&E attendances to only three. Given that the average cost of an inpatient admission is £1,863 per episode and the costs per incident of A&E admission are £1171, this represents a substantial saving to the NHS. Our other achievements across our health and wellbeing services in 2014-15 include:



Investing £2.7m on health and care related services and activities, excluding capital spend. Our Complex Needs team worked with 622 clients in 2014-15. They delivered 1,430 interventions in substance use, 1,518 for physical health and 682 for mental wellbeing. Amalgamating all of our health services into one Directorate, generating savings of £80,000. Developing a new Health strategy that meets the needs of the new organisation. Increasing the resources available to us by securing £1.4m of continuation funding for the London Hospital Discharge Network and our StreetMed service from one Clinical Commissioning Group.

Delivering value in skills, work and employment services In terms of our skills, work and employment services, we define value as:

Offering more of our clients support to improve their skills and confidence so they can find and retain employment. Offering schemes that add value for service users and commissioners. Operating our schemes efficiently and in a way that contributes to meaningful outcomes for service users. Using our charitable funds in a targeted way to add sufficient value, measured against outcomes. Monitoring outcomes to assess the efficacy and value of schemes.

Our Recovery College is unique in the homeless sector, with courses co-designed by clients and staff. The Recovery College has now enrolled more than 600 students in London and Bristol and offers some 60 courses to our clients each term. Support to develop skills and progress towards employment also reaches into our other services such as hostels and supported housing. We add value to commissioned services by using fundraised income to support publicly-funded services. Many of our commissioners benefit from improvements in outcomes for clients from projects supported by fundraised income. This reflects our approach to value, identifying the key jigsaw pieces that lie beyond funder requirements but which can make the biggest impact on clients’ lives.

A poor education is often a contributing factor to homelessness, while unmet physical and mental health needs can seriously compromise a person’s employability. Our ‘Reading Counts’ research, published in June 2014, showed that 51% of homeless people lack the basic literacy skills needed for everyday life. Being unable to read, write or do maths to a basic standard makes it extremely difficult to recover from homelessness and find a job. It also impacts on people’s health and their ability to stay or get back in touch with friends and family. We provide one of the UK’s largest programmes providing support to homeless people to develop their skills and pursue opportunities for employment. Our clients have a range of skills needs, from needing support with reading, writing and getting online to boosting self esteem and more specific help with finding work. We have a considered, pragmatic and proven approach to supporting our clients towards and into employment. Our approaches deliver real value for clients and commissioners and deliver a very high social return on investment. We are reviewing mechanisms for showing progress in this area. Our Basic Skills team is currently piloting quantitative measures of progress in literacy and numeracy using the RAPPA tool. The outcomes of this pilot will be available in 2015-16.

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In 2014-15 we: Helped some 2,500 people in London to develop skills and make progress towards employment and 211 people to find jobs. In Bristol, 319 people used our Skills and Employment service. Supported 47 people with experience of homelessness (see case study) with our apprenticeship schemes. Integrated the existing teams to create a new Skills and Employment team. Implemented our new Employment and Skills strategy, with its emphasis on developing basic skills training capacity. The strategy includes a more robust accountability framework for our work in this area including setting challenging outcome measures; internal reporting and audit mechanisms and agreed service development plans.







With support from Jo Malone London, one of our corporate partners, launched our gardening project, ‘Putting Down Roots’ in Bristol, working with 21 clients to create a community garden in the centre of the city. As a result, we already have eight clients studying for the Level 1 Award in Ornamental Horticulture. Developed new partnerships with substance misuse treatment agencies bringing together recovery and employment support with substance misuse treatment programmes. This has resulted in two successful bids to deliver contracts with our partners, due to start operating during 2015-16. Undertook significant work on reporting activity and outcomes and improved data collection.

Our future plans for delivering value for money As our integration process continues and our new Corporate strategy is implemented, we intend to deliver further improvements in VFM. We will:





Finalise our new five year Organisational strategy which will look at improving outcomes for clients, setting five year goals for increasing those making positive move on, finding work and reducing levels of repeat homelessness. Develop a business plan based on stress testing and scenario planning, linked to key risk areas, service contracts, fundraising income and salary levels. Improve our performance management systems so that we can more effectively monitor and improve performance in key areas such as voids, bad debts and arrears. Develop a set of measures to draw together the social value of our services which allow us to manage effectively despite external challenges.

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Implement our Service Growth Plan which is an important element of our approach to managing our external environment as well as meeting our target to achieve £1.5m of income in £150k net growth in 2015-16. Further streamline our business support costs. All Executive Directors and Directors will be working with their teams to identify savings of 10% across management, staff and systems in business support teams over the two years from 2016-17 – an estimated saving of around £1.35m from central costs, releasing funds for front line services. Implement our strategy to reduce our rate of sickness absence lost time. Our target is to reduce this by 2%, saving up to £660,000 per year. Deliver procurement savings by launching an e-auction for our travel arrangements, tenders for furniture and office supplies as well as targeting further savings on mobile communications contracts and broadband supply.









Implement new IT systems. Once the migration of systems is completed by September 2015, we will restructure the IT team, targeting savings of around £43,000 in 2016-17 and £340,000 in 2017-18. Implement our new Office strategy, reducing our overall number of offices from four to one. Once those moves have taken place we will be in a position to review the cover needed from the facilities team in line with the overall objective to identify savings of 10% across business support teams. Market test a new Real Lettings Property Fund outside London. Finalise our Asset Management strategy, ensuring that any investment in new property fills gaps in the provision of service. We will also increase the return on the value of our property portfolio to make funds available for investment. Protect and enhance the value of our assets by undertaking a stock condition survey and develop a 15 year investment plan that will ensure all properties are kept in good order. This will allow us to plan annual maintenance budgets and so consider the most costeffective procurement route. We will also develop a rolling refurbishment programme based on the Stock Condition Survey and Asset Management strategy.





Finalise our new Health strategy and explore new opportunities to develop our health provision, so diversifying our income base and increasing income. At the same time we will seek further opportunities to fund our health work from statutory sources such as Clinical Commissioning Groups, NHS Trusts and combined health and social care budgets. Target forthcoming European Social Fund funding to support our work to help people experiencing homelessness progress towards the labour market. Seek to increase public sector funding or other forms of financing for our work. This will enable our fundraised support for this aspect of our work to be targeted at projects that need to be piloted or have development time or which we know would not otherwise be able to run.

Conclusion 2014-15 was a year of great change for St Mungo’s Broadway, integrating two organisations to create a dynamic new specialist provider with the potential to offer a greater range of services to our clients and commissioners. Throughout these changes, our services continued to operate successfully, with our clients receiving high quality support to address their immediate needs and focus on their recovery. The merger has given us the opportunity to review how we operate and to deliver a more effective, efficient and competitive organisation. This has already delivered

substantial savings and, as the integration process continues throughout 2015-16 and into 2016-17, further efficiencies will be delivered. For us, this focus on efficiency is key. Every pound we save is a pound we can use to add value to our frontline services. We are working hard to manage all of the areas that underpin our services as effectively and efficiently as possible; to use our assets intelligently and to ensure our central costs are reducing. This will give us the best possible platform to ensure our value is maximised through the lives we help rebuild as a result of our work.

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Case study – Supporting homeless people into work through apprenticeships The St Mungo’s Broadway Apprenticeship Scheme provides a supportive career pathway into the homeless sector for people who have experienced homelessness. It is a 12 month paid post which combines working as an Apprentice Project Worker in one of our projects with training. It offers apprentices the opportunity to gain the skills and experience needed to equip them to work in our frontline services and within the sector in the future. This year we have had four intakes of apprentices in London and Bristol, including four new trainee and apprentice job roles, including a trainee peer mentor

in Bath, assessment worker in Oxford and apprentice outreach worker in Bristol. In total 47 apprentices have worked across our projects this year, all with lived experience of homelessness. Of this year’s apprentices, 12 have already moved into full-time employment within St Mungo’s Broadway and there have been 24 graduations. The fiscal benefits of someone on JSA entering work are £10,321 per claimant per year.2 2 Data from New Economy: Unit Cost Database

St Mungo’s Broadway, Griffin House, 161 Hammersmith Road, London W6 8BS Tel: 020 8762 5500 Donations: 020 8600 3000 Email: [email protected] www.mungosbroadway.org.uk

St Mungo Community Housing Association, a company limited by guarantee Registered and Head Office: Griffin House, 161 Hammersmith Road, London W6 8BS Patron HRH The Duke of Kent, KG • Chief Executive and Secretary Howard Sinclair Charity No. 1149085 • Company No. 8225808 (England and Wales) • Housing Association No. LH0279