Value for Money (VFM) Self – Assessment Statement September 2013 What VFM Means to New Charter VFM is a clear priority for New Charter and underpins everything we do. In 2010 we created our ten year transformational Corporate Plan which sets out our vision to achieve Great Homes, Great Neighbourhoods and Great People. Our headline objectives to 2020 state that we will:
Be a leading social business, supporting individuals and building communities. Be a partner of choice for local authorities and other agencies and be nationally influential. Own or manage 30,000 homes. Be striving towards carbon neutrality. Be financially strong, making use of new and existing assets in the delivery of our vision.
Specific targets within the plan which tie into our strategic approach to VFM include:
Re-engineering our organisation to meet the challenges of the next ten years and to better deliver our vision. Exploring novel financial solutions to drive maximum value from our current and future asset base.
New Charter is much more than a provider of good quality homes. Investing in education forms a key part of our vision. The establishment of the Great Academies Education Trust in 2012 follows on from our successful sponsorship of the New Charter Academy in 2008. The Education Trust enables us to sponsor multiple academies and demonstrates our long term commitment to schools and young people. We also support community ventures, for example, helping to secure a future for independent local news through Tameside Radio and the Tameside Reporter. This is why our approach to VFM incorporates not just a sound understanding of our cost base but measurable social and environmental impacts. This self-assessment statement demonstrates the progress we have made to date in achieving our objectives and provides specific examples of both cashable savings and the social impact of our activities. It concludes with an overview of our VFM improvement action plan showing the activities we will undertake to build on the current foundation.
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New Charter’s Strategic Approach to VFM Our strategic vision is set out in our Value for Money Strategy (2011): “To deliver excellent services in an economic, efficient and effective way which will enable the provision of sustainable, good quality and desirable homes and contribute towards improving local communities”. As an organisation we appreciate that in order to deliver our Corporate Plan we must maximise social value and financial capacity. By using customer profiling and intelligence to ensure we are investing in the right areas, delivering our services effectively and achieving VFM gains, we can create the capacity to deliver our objectives. We believe that delivering VFM requires an organic approach whereby VFM principles are naturally fully integrated in the delivery of all our activities and the mind set of staff. Our Boards play an integral role in ensuring that VFM is embedded in decision making ensuring that:
Our Business plans are viable and set to meet customer needs Budgets are monitored and audited Service performance including cost and quality is reported and monitored on an ongoing basis New business opportunities receive a thorough options appraisal A robust strategic and operational risk register is in place.
Equally our customers have a key role to play. New Charter has been awarded coregulatory champion status with TPAS (Tenant Participatory Advisory Service)and has continued to work with the other 9 co-regulatory champions throughout the year to share knowledge of scrutiny and co-regulation; this has included contributing to good practice guides published by the Centre of Public Scrutiny. New Charter has also been successful on bids to work with TPAS throughout the following two years delivering “Tenant Central” a training program to equip tenants with the skills to lead change in their communities. New Charter‟s Tenant Management Team (TMT) work closely with both customers and staff on scrutiny projects to review and develop our services. This year, the team have completed projects looking at how we make a charge for a repair, how we involve customers, window cleaning and a peer review with another housing provider. TMT and Tenant Panel reports carry equal weighting within our governance structure – which means that their recommendations must be delivered.
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CASE STUDY: Involving our customers in VFM – Green Charter The biggest change in the way services are provided came as a result of a TMT report in 2011 which looked at the way we provide grounds maintenance services for our tenants – this includes services such as grass cutting, pruning and care and maintenance of green areas on estates. This was consistently highlighted as a priority area and had shown higher levels of dissatisfaction. TMT produced a report, after extensive consultation with our customers, with 77 recommendations for service improvement. The main recommendation was that New Charter should bring the work in-house. This was achieved in April 2012 through the establishment of “Green Charter” New Charter‟s grounds maintenance service. This has seen improved quality for customers (customer satisfaction with the service went from 25% in 2012 to 83.7% in 2013) and is anticipated to achieve £1m in savings over 5 years.
Current Arrangements to Ensure Delivery of VFM A robust financial strategy is in place, with strong management accounting, budgetary control and effective financial management; this ensures resources match Corporate Plan objectives. VFM features in both management information sessions and companywide Team Briefs to ensure that all staff are mindful of our objectives and priorities – all staff attend an annual Great Vine session where we set out our forthcoming budget, explain how our income is derived and talk about key pressures on our finances. Embracing and embedding a culture of VFM was a theme of the management information session held in 2013. Residents and other key stakeholders have involvement in the Business Planning process including an annual event based on the outcomes from our STAR (Survey of Tenants and Residents) survey which allows our residents to state their investment priorities for the forthcoming year. The Group is involved in Benchmarking, including Housemark, together with regular peer / sector reviews undertaken by both internal auditors and external assessors. This information is used to compare the cost and quality of our services with comparable registered providers, driving service improvement planning and scrutiny projects.
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Measuring Performance Customer Satisfaction Customer satisfaction with New Charter services is high, reflecting our commitment to providing cost effective, high quality, customer focused services. In 2012 our STAR survey showed overall satisfaction to be: Aksa Homes 81% Gedling Homes 92% New Charter Homes 94% Key Performance Indicators We have a robust performance monitoring framework in place which ensures that we are able to track progress toward delivery of our objectives. Each service area has a KPI linked to corporate plan objectives which have been developed in partnership with our customers to ensure that we are measuring what is valued. KPIs are reported monthly to our senior management team, bi-monthly to Board and on an on-going basis to our customers via the website and customer newsletters. We are active members of HouseMark and regularly participate in performance benchmarking clubs. We are currently developing and improving our framework so that it is more accessible to all staff and includes outcome focused measures - this is a key aim for 2013/14. Environmental Impact The Clean Care team has developed an environmental policy relating to the cleaning of communal areas. Only eco-friendly cleaning products are used. Recycling facilities are currently available on a number of estates, with a roll-out programme planned for the forthcoming year. A key project undertaken in 2012-13 was a review of waste management with the local authority, which involved increasing numbers of all the large waste bins and recycling bins. A year into the project and we have already witnessed significant savings in terms of tipping costs £27k together with the impact on the neighbourhoods appearance. New Charter supports furniture recycling scheme, and has actively encouraged and supported the start-up of Second Generation Furniture, a local social enterprise that New Charter provides support to „in kind‟. Staff and residents have received training on issues such as affordable warmth and fuel poverty; awareness raising has also been undertaken via leaflets and advice days.
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Social Impact The Group readily embraces its Corporate Social Responsibility, and, as an example, during 2012/13 launched its Great Opportunities Programme. This initiative is designed to work with and help our residents back into work, training and volunteering. It provides a platform towards work through a volunteering, work placement and work clubs. During the last 12 months, the programme has provided 81 people with training, secured 48 voluntary work placements for those of workable age and been successful in supporting 80 people gain paid employment. We have set up 9 job clubs as part of this project that operates from our local hubs. The voluntary work placements have included positions with Green Charter, CleanCare, admin roles and 2nd Generation Furnishings. New Charter has also introduced a „worklessness‟ forum theatre project with Theatrebus, aimed at preventing young people becoming unemployed after leaving school. Analysis of staff time involved in running this programme equates to £61k pa. The scheme has been undertaken by existing staff resources within the Regeneration Team, thus no additional costs have been incurred by the Group. A great example of doing more for less! The results in terms of addressing worklessness in our communities greatly assist in our corporate aim to deliver Great Neighbourhoods. Developing a robust approach to measuring social impact is a key aim of our VIP programme (see below) for 2013-14.
Customer Involvement and Scrutiny We have well-established, resourced and influential Tenant Panels and scrutiny teams. New Charter Homes has a Tenant Management Team (TMT) which has undertaken a number of scrutiny reviews, including caretaking, grounds maintenance, responsive repairs and window cleaning. Similar panels are in place at Gedling and Aksa Homes. The reviews are robust and cover service delivery, efficiency and VFM, with recommendations based upon clear evidence and decisive actions identified to improve services. Some examples are: Caretaking Service Review – In 2010 as a result of low satisfaction with the service, TMT undertook a comprehensive review. The review resulted in revised ways of working and service standards. Saving of over £100k was achieved. In 2012 we reviewed the caretaking services in tower blocks to ensure that charges were appropriate. This resulted in a reduction in one block and no increase in one other. Grounds Maintenance Review – The TMT review of Grounds Maintenance was instrumental in the decision to bring the service in-house. Green Charter was created in 2012. This new addition to New Charter has been relocated in new premises, which has 5
resulted in further cashable savings. We have launched a pilot of low cost grounds maintenance service, designed to help older and vulnerable customers maintain their gardens, this service is provided within existing resources. A review of the grounds maintenance service charge is on-going following the establishment of Green Charter. The delivery of the service is starting to show improved customer satisfaction 83.7% and we are on target to save £1m over the next 5 years.
Embedding a VFM Culture New Charter recognises that in order to deliver its VFM strategy it needs to embed a culture throughout the organisation including Board Members, customers as well as all staff. In March 2012, 16 members of staff from across the Group were trained in VFM (HQN). Recognising staff as the number one asset of the organisation is essential and reflected in the excellent service delivered by the Group. In the last year independent assessors working on behalf of Investors in People (IiP) have congratulated New Charter on its „excellent‟ management and focus on employee development and wellbeing. The assessors found that New Charter met IiP standards in every single one of a possible 196 indicators, but that in 157 of these, practices met the standard of a “high Performance” workplace, demonstrating a “world class” standard of people management. The score ensure that the company retains its existing gold status. Observations from the assessors included: “an enlightened approach to corporate social responsibility embracing key elements such as the environment, community engagement and charitable support” As well as maintaining its gold status, New Charter also retained its Health & Wellbeing award, demonstrating the Groups commitment to the welfare of its employees. We regularly measure and review the cost and performance of our operational (people) assets, recognising that good quality skilled staff who are happy in their work deliver a better service to their customers, both internally and externally. A performance management framework is embedded across all of the staff with 6 monthly appraisals undertaken. Our latest Employee satisfaction survey showed 98% of colleagues are happy working at New Charter. This is further evidenced by the reduced staff turnover. In the last financial year only 26 staff left the Group, this represents a 3% staff turnover, which enables us to reduce our costs on recruiting and re-training new staff, as our analysis shows it costs £9k for every new starter. Attendance and absence monitoring is monitored on a weekly basis. The well-being of our staff is important to us. In the last financial year, the absence rate for the Group was 3.33%. 6
Compared with the Housing sector generally, we are just below the average of 3.6%, but unfortunately just above our internal target of 3%. The financial cost of this level of absence equates to £533 per employee on average. Sick pay costs the Group £450k in the last financial year. This is a key ratio that is monitored weekly and managers are trained in adopting and implementing a clear attendance management policy. To help with the wellbeing of staff, we have introduces healthy activities such as Healthy Eating, Get Up From Your Desk, Running Clubs, Cycling Clubs as well as Breaking Habits, Relaxation, Get Checked and access to counselling.
Transformational Activity – Re-engineering our Organisation A range of internal and external drivers are increasing the pressure on organisations like New Charter to carry out rigorous checks to assess whether their fiscal investments and deployment of staff offer both value for money and make the best possible difference to our communities, partnerships and the neighbourhoods in which we operate. Over the last 3 years, we have taken business decisions, in consultation with customers, to ensure that our customers have the right products and services at the right quality. Resident involvement in shaping the business is central to our ethos.
Reshaping the Group and its Services The Group recognises that it has to adapt to the changing external environment to ensure it continues to deliver its services as efficiently and economically as possible. Aksa Homes Since joining the Group, Aksa has transformed itself from a specialist BME association to a community regeneration vehicle, focusing beyond its traditional role and boundaries. We recognised that Aksa could achieve maximum impact in its communities by broadening its role beyond housing management services. For this reason, services are now provided by New Charter Homes, achieving efficiencies and economies of scale, leaving Aksa staff free to concentrate on a range of new project work – from setting up a Social Lettings Agency, language skills and support into work through to developing social enterprise within communities. Some examples of work undertaken in 2012/13 include:
Working to draw up social enterprise plans to encourage residents to start their own business or become self employed Aksa „into work‟ – tailored support and help for individuals to access work opportunities Extended opportunities for people in private rented sector via „Homes for All‟ social lettings agency
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Programme of monthly advice and support as well as initiatives to maximise income such as Specialist welfare Reform Team (SWAT) and the Affordable warmth programme.
New Charter Homes
CASE STUDY: New Charter Homes Charitable Status Conversion New Charter Homes was originally incorporated as a company limited by guarantee. In the early years whilst we were undertaking the huge investment in our stock, this company constitution was fit for purpose. What became apparent is that as the company completed the initial 10 year investment program and moved from a trading deficit to a surplus, under its current constitution the company would be liable for corporation tax. In order to mitigate this potential huge tax bill of £78m, New Charter Homes was successfully converted to Charitable Status in March 2012. Conversion to charitable status meant that the tax liability was removed and that this money could be used to improve the provision of services to residents.
Threshold In April 2012 Threshold became the newest member of the Group. Threshold is a registered charity that works and supports vulnerable adults and children. Being part of the Group, Threshold has been able to gain a lot of support and expertise from New Charter which has resulted in some economies of scale for the organisation. Additionally Threshold brings into the Group a vast area of new expertise resulting in a mutually beneficial arrangement. CASE STUDY: Forming new partnerships - Threshold Joining the Group Since becoming part of the Group, Threshold has been successful in winning a number of external contracts; some of which are being delivered in partnership with New Charter Homes and Aksa. These include:
Winning a £680k Supporting People accommodation based contract in Oldham for Generic housing needs. Successfully negotiating the continuation of £316k funding for the Supporting People service including the Oldham‟s Women refuge. Winning a £370k Supporting People accommodation based contract in Tameside and a linked £260k Activities and Personalisation contract Commencing work on empty homes in Trafford with a £170k capital allocation. Threshold has had to demonstrate not only that it could deliver the service to the required standard, but that its price was competitive, in a climate of reducing Supporting People Grant.8 This has been achieved by reviewing how the service is delivered and reviewing staffing restructures where necessary.
Customer insight Customer insight is used to develop comprehensive knowledge and understanding of our customers‟ behaviours, beliefs, needs, desires and aspirations to deliver services aligned to their needs and expectations. We use a range of methods and activities to gather and use customer insight, one of the most important of which is the annual survey (STAR) which not only gauges satisfaction but asks our customers to identify priorities and issues of concern. Key transformational projects have flowed from this. CASE STUDY: Improving communication – creating Connect Connect is New Charter‟s contact centre, created in 2011 following a review of the cost and quality of existing telephony services after concerns were highlighted by customers. Following an option appraisal and consultation, a decision to invest over £600K over 3 years to create a central contact centre with a bespoke Customer Relationship Management system was taken. Connect now delivers all telephony services on behalf of the Group and operates 365 days a year after bringing in-house an external contract. Since the introduction of Connect there has been a substantial improvement in the quality of service offered and customer satisfaction. Average calls answered stands at 94% compared to a pre-Connect 72%; customer satisfaction has improved from 81% to 90%. The contact centre now provides services for external organisations, bringing in income to the Group.
CASE STUDY: New Charter Homes - Neighbourhood Plans Neighbourhood plans were launched in 2013 to ensure that we were deriving maximum value from the activities we undertook in our communities. The neighbourhoods were all redefined and new plans developed based on customer insight, performance measures and information provided by key stakeholders, leading to an evaluation of neighbourhoods from 3 star to 5 star. To deliver the plans we restructured our staffing teams to ensure that we had the right people and leadership team in place to co-ordinate actions, focus on performance management and the delivery of high quality services to customers. The plans, which run for three years, measure levels of crime and employment, quality of health services and education, social impacts including the happiness of residents, family income levels and the amount of rent arrears in an area. This tailored approach to our neighbourhoods is helping us to work more effectively with partners on local issues and target resources effectively. The new-star rating gives us an outcome based system to measure how well a neighbourhood is doing. Performance monitoring is designed to be multi-layered in relation to neighbourhood sustainability, assessment on stakeholder perception and the development of more analytical social return on investment over time. 9
Recognising our Risks We have recently undertaken a thorough and robust review of our risk management framework, which includes rating all risks with and without controls. Being alive to the risks we face as an organisation ensure resources are allocated efficiently.
CASE STUDY: Supporting tenants through Welfare Reform Substantial resources have been directed towards Welfare Reform, recognising this is the organisations number one risk. A new team has been established SWAT (Specialist Welfare Advice Team). As this was a new team, additional resources were required. The team is made up of 5 members of staff at an annual cost of £190k. Since the inception of SWAT, the team have been busy working with our tenants preparing them for the impact the „bedroom tax‟ and „universal credit‟. To-date they have carried out just over 2,000 visits, as we are aware that the only way to deliver the message to those affected is to make contact on a one-to-one basis. The SWAT team works closely with the Money Care Team (New Charter & Aksa) and Money Wise (Gedling). These two teams provide debt advice and welfare benefit advice. The costs of these teams are £337k. In the last 12 months, these teams have dealt with: - Money Care - Welfare Benefit. Working with 332 clients, gaining £942k of benefits for customers, of which £399k was housing benefits contributing towards our excellent collection rate. This is an increase of 44 more clients than the previous year, resulting in a 13% increase, at no additional cost. What is remarkable is the substantial increase in benefit gains on the last year, which at £300k is a staggering increase of 32%. - Money Care - Debt Advice. Working with 343 clients with a total debt of £2.9m. As a result of the intervention from this team, £1.2m has been written off by various customer creditors. This team has seem a client increase of 101 (29%) compared with the previous year. - Gedling - Money Wise Team has worked with 82 customers and has realised over £210k in money gain for them, £46k was housing benefit contributing towards the collection rate. This is a 6.5% increase in gains compared to the year before. We have analysed the referrals over the last 12 months, 59 new clients have been identified via the SWAT team, resulting in gains from welfare benefit and reduction in debt for the household £192k. The economic and social value that these teams contribute cannot be under estimated: our aim, in order to maintain financial viability, is to collect as much rent as possible. These interventions help with educating, informing and assisting our tenants to fulfil their responsibility which complements our Financial Inclusion Agenda. Our overall aim is to keep our tenants in their home, as research suggests that on average an eviction cost £6.5k. Although still early days, recent monitoring from the Group shows that tenants affected by welfare reform are making some contribution towards the shortfall. This is positive to note and a real reflection of the hard work carried out by the teams.
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Transformational activity – driving maximum value from our assets New Charter has a detailed Asset Management Strategy that sets out how it will approach investment in order to maximise value and ensure that its assets remain sustainable. Ensuring that we achieve maximum value from our asset base is one of our key financial measures. For each of our funding facilities, one of the loan covenants is Asset Cover. This gives us and our Funder‟s confidence that we are spending our money on the enhancement of our stock, upon which our funding facility is secured. The Asset Cover ratio measures our asset valuation compared to our outstanding debt. We are happy to report that this covenant has been comfortably met. The Group currently has a funding facility of £415m. Current average cost of capital is 5.75%. An independent stock condition survey is undertaken every five years. This identifies the stock type, geographical location and in turn informs investment decisions to ensure the right investment occurs in the right properties, at the right time. A methodology called DRIPS (Demolition, Replace, Invest, Post-pone, Sell) process is in place, this system is used for identifying under-performing properties. In the last 12 months the Group has invested £33m in its stock. Since inception we have spent in excess of £410m which has raised the quality, demand and asset value of the stock and also helped to support and stimulate the local economy.
Understanding our costs – key services and VFM gains Efficiency savings, both cashable and non-cashable have been achieved during the year. Whilst recognising the cash savings, it is also important to us to recognise the impact that we have on our customers and the wider community. Key services and projects include: Development In the last financial year we have spent £19m on new development. This substantial spend resulted in 192 new properties for the Group. This is our highest area of spend and achieving Value for Money is paramount. Estimates suggest that for every £1 spent by an English housing association on the construction of a new home, a further £3 is spent in the wider economy (Savills and Oxford Economics, 2010). In the last financial year, through the JVNorth Development Consortium, a full OJEU procurement tendering process was undertaken for both contractors and consultants, evidencing our commitment to achieving the most competitive price, whilst maintaining the right quality. We were successful in achieving HCA grant through the Affordable Homes Programme, being awarded £24,750 per unit. In the last financial year we received £1.5m in HCA grant. All new build properties have been let at an Affordable Rent Level. 11
All development schemes are appraised using an industry recognised development financial model (Sector). All standard assumptions are updated annually and have recently been benchmarked as part of an Internal Audit. Asset analysis focuses on discounted cash flow calculations and internal rates of return. All schemes to-date have shown a positive Net Present Value. Our investment goes beyond building or buying properties: Environmental Impact: All new build are constructed to at least sustainable code Level 3 (a step above standard building control targets). Our development at St Petersfield was our first Sustainability Code 4 scheme. To achieve this properties benefit from photovoltaic panels and super-efficient insulation helping to reduce our customers‟ energy bills. Social Impact: The result of this significant investment has resulted in 450 people housed and 25 modern apprentices, training opportunities and work experience for local people, created within the supply chain. Beatrix House was the Group‟s first purpose built Extra Care Scheme, it replaced a sheltered scheme which contained a number of bedsits which were unpopular with residents and difficult to let. HCA grant was received for this scheme, together with a grant of £900k from Tameside MBC. The scheme includes a community café and hairdressers, these facilities are open to the wider community this encourages community cohesion and social inclusion. Repairs, Maintenance & Investments New Charter Building Company undertakes the majority of New Charter Homes and Aksa repairs and investment work. Value for Money is high on the agenda at NC Building Company and efficiency savings are built into the operational culture, particularly in procuring materials. In the last financial year £9.8m was expended on materials. All materials are tendered and where volumes are appropriate, the EU procurement route is followed. The Building Company is a member of the Yorkshire Purchasing Organisation, Procurement for Housing and Procure Plus as well as having in-house expertise. New Charter is one of only a handful of organisations to have recently been awarded the HQN accreditation for Repairs & Maintenance (including Asset Management and Gas Safety). This is great recognition for all the hard work undertaken in this area, as we are well aware from listening to our customers that the maintenance of their homes is one of their top priorities. Observations from the HQN accreditation include: There is a high degree of scrutiny of the performance of the Building Company in particular in relation to reactive repairs, and planned and cyclical maintenance. New Charter is an extremely open and transparent organisation in relation to providing performance and management information to staff and tenants.
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Challenging performance targets are in place which is reviewed regularly. Overall repair costs are on average £84.80 (NCH & Aksa) which is recognised by HQN and HouseMark as competitive and upper quartile. Gedling Homes is higher £120 this is lower quartile and is subject to a management improvement plan. Housemark recognise that these high costs can be attributed to a fairly new organisation that has recently transferred. The Group is reporting 99.58% first time fix using the HouseMark definition, which again is upper quartile. Performance in all areas is top quartile, with the average time to complete a repair standing at 5.34 days. For Major Repairs, recent benchmarking carried out as part of an Internal Audit demonstrates that both costs and customer satisfaction are both upper quartile as per HouseMark. Measuring the value of cashable savings is also important to us, in the last financial year Property Services have made efficiency savings of £606k. The biggest efficiency saving was achieved after careful negotiation and partnership working with British Gas resulted in just over 700 Smart meters being installed free of charge into Sheltered and Communal areas. The initial quote provided by British Gas to undertake this work was in the region of £175k. We also measure the smaller savings, recognising that these are still important to embed a VFM Culture throughout the Group. For example, we were able to save £6k by recycling furniture from the head office to some of the sheltered scheme offices, resulting in not having to buy new furniture. New Charter has established a VAT Group. This allows inter-company transactions to be completed with no VAT charged. VAT uplift is applied in order to cover the unrecoverable VAT. This leads to a 10% VAT saving on all repairs and investments, saving NC Homes and Aksa a significant amount of money - £24.2m. Gedling Homes also benefits from a VAT Shelter on all investment works, resulting in all VAT being recoverable £6.9m. Environmental Impact: New Charter has a well-developed Environmental Sustainability Strategy and associated action plan in place addressing issues such as reduction in fuel bills for residents. A guide for residents on energy efficiency and usage has been published. NC Homes and Aksa is 100% compliant with the Decent Homes Programme, and Gedling Homes 95%. The energy efficiency of the stock has also been significantly improved moving the average SAP rating for all properties to 68. New Charter is one of the first RPs in the UK to install „Marley Ecologic‟ roof tiles. Ecologic is an innovative and unique concrete roof tile that improves air quality and is manufactured using 50% recycled material, making it one of the most environmentally beneficial and highly sustainable roofing product in the market. We secured funding of £524k towards Cavendish Mill cavity wall installation and energy efficiency measures including a bio-mass boiler and the external wall insulation upgrade to 13
24 properties in Gedling. Department of Energy and Climate Change funding for the GoEarly Green Deal Scheme was £176k for energy efficient heating works. Social Impact: A large proportion of the work undertaken has been carried out by New Charter Building Company, who has a majority of the workforce living within the borough of Tameside - 85%. The organisation also recognises the importance of Apprenticeships, 39 apprentices have been recruited since 2001, with 23 still employed. This demonstrates our commitment to training and providing a realistic career opportunity for local people. The subcontractor policy adopted by NCBC encourages the use of local subcontractors, in order to support the local economy and businesses. In the last financial year, £7.6m was spent with 49% spent in the local are (5 miles radius) increasing to 68% if you include all subcontractors within a 10 mile radius. The local supply chain (within 15 miles radius) has supplied 69% of building materials, this equates to a spend of £6.6m. Neighbourhood services New Charter has a good understanding of its costs and the drivers in respect of estate services (£2.9m net spend 2012/13). New Charter has high levels of performance and satisfaction. The staffing structured was addressed as part of the development of the Neighbourhood Plans, which resulted in cashable savings of £312k. Neighbourhood teams are providing a much wider and effective service that goes way beyond solely a landlord function as demonstrated throughout this report. An achievement in 2012-13 was to record the lowest number of empty homes since transfer translating into £400k savings on rent loss. HQN undertook their annual assessment for the Neighbourhood Accreditation to ensure that the standards required are being maintained, that we deliver VFM and that we can demonstrate that we are continuing to deliver a quality service for our customers. Our assessors concluded: “New Charter has continued to be innovative in its delivery of estate management services, with plans in place that should lead to better services, increased satisfaction and increased value for money” “New Charter is to be commended for its outward looking philosophy and its all-encompassing approach to developing services, engaging with relevant stakeholders to tailor services to the needs of localities”
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CASE STUDY: Neighbourhood services – social impact and partnership working – Smallshaw-Hurst Local Integrated Service (LIS) programme. Partnership working is paramount to the delivery of our corporate plan. The Local Integrated Service (LIS) pilot is a co-ordinated programme of separate but linked interventions with families identified as troubled, run in partnership with Tameside Council. The focus has been on co-ordinating service delivery across an increasing scale of complexity and need for families, providing short term outreach and direct access to drug, alcohol, mental health, parenting programmes and debt advice services and more intensive support. Families who progress through the programme and stabilise can access an intensive programme of training and support to address worklessness and make a successful move into employment. Over the last 12 months robust quantitative and qualitative evidence has begun to emerge that the LIS Programme is improving outcomes for families. These include making the journey towards sustainable employment, actively integrating services from different agencies to establish a „Team around a family‟, identifying and resolving issues which have a negative impact on a child/family and enabling individual access into relevant and appropriate services. New Charter has invested £40k to fund the Lead Officer, in addition „in kind‟ resources have also been provided. The pilot has worked with 99 families, made up of 121 working age adults and 261 children. Input data from the programme into the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities / Commission for New Economy Cost Benefit Analysis tool evidences that for every £1 invested in the programme, benefits worth £7.35 will be realised across partner organisations. Cashable savings over 5 years for all partners amounting to £745k.This project offers evidence that where it is actively mediated through a trusted partner, such integration between services ay local, neighbourhood level is able to deliver significant fiscal benefit and social impact.
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Summary of Savings and added value initiatives to-date: Initiative
Cashable Saving
Added Value
Grounds Maintenance inhouse service “Green Charter”
£1m over 5 years
Re-engineered the service in response to TMT recommendations.
Integration of Threshold
Won £1.8m of external contracts
Connect
Investment of £600k CRM system
Neighbourhood Plans
Staff savings £312k
Money Care & Money Wise Team
Annual cost £337k
NC Homes Charitable Status
£78m over the 30 year Business Plan
Repairs, Maintenance & Investment
£606k Cashable Savings & £700k Grant towards Green initiatives
Reduction in Void Properties
£400k reduction on Void Loss
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Performance
Improved service delivery. Satisfaction increased from 25% in 2012 to 83.7% in 2013. Security of To be employment. evaluated as Joint up working part of the contract appraisal Service provided Customer Group wide leading to satisfaction better consistency of improved from service. 81% to 90% Average calls answered 94% compared to preConnect 72% Driving maximum 94% Satisfied – value for our activities number one for in communities an organisation of this size Gains in excess of Substantial £1.1m, of which increase in £385k was housing gains achieved benefit contributing to compared with our excellent the previous collection rate. year, £300k which is an increase of 32% No liability to Additional Corporation Tax resources for our customers Enhancement of our Costs and stock. Employment of performance it local labour & top quartile as apprentices. per Working towards our HouseMark. Environmental Sustainability Strategy. Improved Void levels communities and lowest since more properties inception – 129 available to let voids
Key Development areas and actions New Charter‟s strategic approach to VFM continues to be one of maximising value, delivering business effectiveness and VFM gains while investing in homes, communities, education and customers to improve their well-being. However, we acknowledge how the current climate and key risks such as Welfare Reform have put the Business Plan under pressure and necessitate a further drive for VFM across the Group. To achieve this we have developed a comprehensive action plan which will be implemented in 2013/14 and subject to 6 monthly reviews. Headline actions are:
Comprehensive review and update our VFM strategy with stakeholder input Undertake periodic zero based budgeting Increase and improve customer involvement, ensuring customers influence our priorities and activities Pro-actively use Benchmarking data, to inform decisions and identify areas for either tenant scrutiny or service reviews. Have a better understanding of the costs for our „core‟ activities and „‟non-core‟ activities. Better understand and evidence our return on assets Demonstrate outcomes and Social Return on Investment Better co-ordination of customer feedback and intelligence to drive operational activity and business decisions that will maximise social value.
Social Return on Investment is key to our approach to VFM - it provides a structured approach for capturing the breadth of value produced by the Group, SROI is about value, rather than money. We have started a programme of training for staff and Board members, which we will also be looking to roll-out to our customers. The programme is VIP:
Value -
Analysis of the VFM delivered by the Group‟s work and activities.
Impact-
Analysis of the social value of the work and activities of the Group and its key partnerships.
Performance
Capturing and measuring outcome based data and stories about the performance of the Group and its business units.
The Value Impact Performance programme will be grounded in complex interdependencies between; a means to capture and measure data and stories about the performance of the Group and its business units; fiscal analysis of the value for money delivered by the Group‟s work and activities; and analysis of the social value which the work and activities of the Group achieve with residents and neighbourhoods and for partners and the wider community. This will further develop the value for money culture within the organisation. 17
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