NCH strategy guide 2014 to 2019

Our strategy2014to2019www.newportcityhomes.com

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Delivering excellent servicesand

improving homes and neighbourhoodswhile

adding value to residents and the city

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www.newportcityhomes.com

Our strategy 2014 to 2019

Contents

Foreword from the Chair and Chief Executive 1

Our vision, values, mission and aims 2

Challenges and opportunities 3

Our priorities 4

Making a difference together 5

Improving services 6

Better homes and neighbourhoods 7

Every pound must count 8

Performance actions and measures 2014/2015 financial year 9

Performance priorities 2014/2015 financial year 10

We are committed to using our strengths to deliver:

• better homes;• better services;• better neighbourhoods; and • a better Newport.

These commitments will help us to focus on our core aims to:

• deliver excellent services;• improve homes and neighbourhoods; and• add value to residents and the city.

To achieve our vision, mission and values, and to continue to improve and add value, we have put in place a performance management framework. This framework will focus on our annual performance priorities, and each year we will aim to make sure these match those of our residents’ representative body, the CityWide Panel.

In delivering these priorities we will continue to listen to residents and our partners, learn from that feedback and improve our services.

This plan is ambitious and includes the current and future aims of our Board and residents. Residents and our dedicated staff teams are at the centre of all our work, which in turn are supported by our core values. Also, we recognise that to be successful we cannot work alone, so are committed to working with our local, regional and national partners for the benefit of the neighbourhoods where we aim to make a difference.

Our performance framework, service delivery priorities and other key documents set out what we will do to deliver innovative, fair, value-for-money services and improvements that consistently meet, or go beyond, residents’ expectations.

Chris England Board Chair Peter Cahill Chief Executive

1 – Foreword

This plan sets out our strategic direction and priorities for the next five years. It provides a framework to make sure that we focus our efforts and resources on those activities that will positively affect the lives of residents and the neighbourhoods of Newport.

Foreword from the Chair and Chief Executive


Photo: Board Chair, Chief Executive and Chair of CityWide Panel, Cyril Waters.

Our vision

Our ambition is to deliver an excellent service and give everyone the opportunity to transform the quality of their homes, communities and lives. We want to encourage residents to get involved with us and create a confident, dynamic organisation that listens, learns and continues to improve.

Our mission

We have a passion for providing quality homes and services by investing in people, places and partnerships.

Our values

We pride ourselves on being FIRST for people, places and partnerships.

Fair - in our policies and practices as a landlord and as an employer, recognising the efforts and contribution of our people.

Innovative - working to continuously improve, welcome change and try our best to find great solutions that turn our vision into reality.

Respectful - of the value and worth of each person, and aim to include everyone in all our activities.

Sincere - open and transparent, we value, trust and want the views of others, and respond appropriately to residents and employees.

Trustworthy - being accountable and responsible for our words and actions, living by our values and delivering our vision.

Our aims

We aim to make sure people live in places that meet their needs and expectations by delivering quality services and working effectively with our partners.

We will focus on:

• putting residents at the heart of everything we do;

• high-quality homes and services;• service outcomes;• effective partnerships;• being accountable for what we do;• looking after our resources and managing

risks;• regenerating neighbourhoods and the

environment alongside improving homes;• long-term solutions; and• investing in people, places and partnerships.

2 – Our vision, values, mission and aims


Our vision, values, mission and aims

3 – Challenges and opportunities

Challenges and opportunities


The key challenges are as follows:

• Welfare reform (for example, the introduction of ‘bedroom tax’ and Universal Credit).

• Changes in the housing market with a decline in home ownership as it becomes more difficult to get a mortgage and the average house price to earnings ratio remains high.

• Lack of housing set against new evidence that shows a fall in demand for social housing.

• Increased need for care and support to help an ageing population to live independently.

• High rates of unemployment and economic inactivity.

• Reduction in grants and subsidies as money-saving measures take effect.

• Pressure on public services which residents rely on.

• Poor standards of quality and management in a private rented sector that is expanding.

• Local government reorganisation alongside the reform of public services.

• Meeting the housing and regeneration ambitions for the city.

All these challenges will greatly affect residents and the increasing number of households who want our help.

These challenges give us the opportunity to use our resources (people and finances) and strong financial position in the best way. We need to make sure we keep our reputation and ‘can do’ approach and so attract support from residents and partners. We are the largest provider of affordable housing in Newport. Once we achieve our priority of bringing homes up to Welsh Housing Quality Standard we aim to play a major role in providing new homes and so contributing to developing and managing a vibrant rented sector in the city.

Our strong presence means we will be able to enter into productive partnerships that will result in a range of activities and growth. We will continue to work with our social care and health partners to support residents to live independently and develop new services, which will help us to be seen as the partner of choice. We aim to make sure all our activities are contributing to the local authorities’ Single Integrated Plan and the priorities of jobs and skills, economic opportunity, health and well-being and vibrant and successful places.

Despite the challenges listed above we are a dynamic and confident organisation that will not only survive but thrive. We have the people and resources to deal with the challenges and make the most of opportunities.

We are working in challenging times with economic decline set alongside Welsh and Westminster government reforms that will reshape the housing landscape.

4 – Our priorities

Our priorities

We want to be an excellent organisation, and aim to continuously improve and add value to our services. We add value through new investment and services which in turn has a positive effect on jobs, training opportunities and the local economy. Our priorities emphasise the importance of good governance (putting in place proper arrangements for

overseeing what we do), a high-quality service and sound financial ‘caretaking’.

We must listen, learn and improve if we are to meet, or go beyond, the expectations of residents and our partners.


We are passionate about becoming the housing provider of choice in Newport, where our services are high-quality, visible, and accessible. It is important that we develop and deliver an efficient, caring and consistent service across the city, reflecting local priorities that match residents’ different needs and expectations.

Working with the CityWide Panel of residents will shape the way in which our Board governs. The interests of residents will be at the heart of governance and decision-making. We will support the wide range of resident groups that work with us to influence and shape how our services are designed and delivered.

We will continually assess our performance and be accountable to our residents, partners and our regulator, the Welsh Government,

in an honest and straightforward way. Our Board will make sure it follows good practice on overseeing what we do and that it has the skills and knowledge to manage risk and deliver its vision. It will oversee how services are performing and whether they are improving, and allocate resources to meet agreed priorities. The measures and targets that have been set are ones that the Board and CityWide Panel agree are the most important

We have established a clear set of priorities for the period ahead. We are committed to working in partnership with residents and staff to make a difference when providing homes and services. The strength of our Board comes from the range of skills, knowledge and experience it can contribute when setting out a clear strategic vision and the priorities that will support it.

5 – Our priorities: Making a difference together

in terms of outcomes for residents and for our success. The Board recognises how important it is to develop the CityWide Panel as a ‘critical friend’ and encourage residents to challenge and review our core services.

Putting residents at the heart of our organisation will be reflected in the Board and CityWide Panel working together, and in encouraging and supporting share members. While the number of share members has increased significantly, their role and contribution to the organisation needs further work to reinforce our accountability and openness.

Being an excellent provider, employer and partner is at the centre of our governance.

As an employer we want to support our staff in delivering improved services. We will value and reward our staff so that we have the right people with the right skills, knowledge and attitudes to deliver excellent customer service. We want to make sure that investing in, and supporting, our staff establishes a culture that delivers excellent outcomes for residents and our partners. We want all staff to demonstrate a passion for our values and the objectives we have set. Our strategy for 2014 to 2019 will be supported by effective governance and a strong performance management framework.

Our priorities Making a difference together


Welfare reform will have a significant effect on residents and our ability to recover income to meet our financial responsibilities. We will have to adapt how we deliver our main housing services alongside our partners. We must focus resources invested in neighbourhoods, financial inclusion (many of our residents do not have access to conventional financial services and debt advice), community safety and tenancy support teams on providing the best possible service and making sure tenants stay in their homes. It will be just as important to work with our local authority, housing

association and voluntary sector partners to manage the changes ahead and reduce the effect on residents and the neighbourhoods where we work. The introduction of the ‘bedroom tax’ for underoccupied properties has been a new challenge in relation to collecting income and our ability to offer alternative smaller accommodation. Successfully managing the Common Housing Register, with our partners, will be vital in allowing fair access to housing and helping us to meet needs and let homes effectively.

Our overall aim is to provide an integrated service to residents. Residents’ demands have shown us the importance of a ‘one team, one service’ approach.

6 – Our priorities: Improving services

Our priorities Improving services


We will develop and support residents’ reviews of our services and use feedback to continuously improve what we do.

This is consistent with our commitment to listen, learn and improve. We must be able to demonstrate clear outcomes from involving residents and make sure this is established throughout the organisation. Demonstrating these outcomes is equally important across all services if our performance management and improvement framework is to be fully effective.

Information from resident insight and satisfaction surveys will help to shape and improve services. Improving services to

homeowners, while making sure we recover costs on investment and management, is an ongoing priority. We will continue to look for social enterprise opportunities in support of local employment and training initiatives.

Working with our health and social care partners in helping older and vulnerable residents to live more independently will continue to be important. Integrating our services for older people, such as sheltered housing and adaptations, alongside meeting the challenges of the health and mobility concerns of our residents, will be critical.

7 – Our priorities: Better homes and neighbourhoods

While we have focused so far on internal improvements, contracts for external and environmental work have begun. This will help us to achieve the Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) by the end of 2015 (apart from those homes or areas where the improvement work is being done in phases and will reach the standard at a later date). From all contracts and investment we will continue to get the most positive outcomes in

terms of local jobs, training opportunities and community benefits.

We need to continue with clear proposals for areas or projects which need more in-depth regeneration, in line with residents’ priorities and available resources. Similarly, using available land effectively will help us to develop and contribute to meeting housing need in the city. In doing this it will be important that the pace at which we work and the strengths

Improving resident outcomes from the investment programme on key indicators (measures of progress) such as quality, the time taken for contractors to complete work and communication, will be an ongoing priority.

Our priorities Better homes and neighbourhoods


and resources of the organisation and our partners are matched to deliver effective long-term solutions. Over the period of the plan we will have begun and completed a range of technically complex projects, such as refurbishing tower blocks, and put in place renewal schemes for specific areas or available land, in line with our housing and regeneration aims.

Our aim must be to get the service right first time and to meet residents’ expectations. To do this we will have to further improve processes and systems so that they are more efficient and effective and provide excellent

services for residents. We will continue to add to caretaking, estates and home-assistance services while setting and collecting appropriate service charges. Once we have achieved the WHQS environmental standard we will have appropriate internal and external resources available to maintain it.

We will take a strategic approach when making future investment decisions to help us decide how to allocate resources to agreed priorities, including making sure all of our homes are occupied.

8 – Our priorities: Every pound must count

Our priorities Every pound must count

Putting in place the new rent framework set by Welsh Government, while maintaining our financial strength, will be an important task over the next five years. The rent framework does provide financial certainty over the period of the plan but we will need to make sure we deliver our services as efficiently and effectively as possible. This in turn will help us to invest in our aims for quality homes, regeneration and growth.

We will continue to support managers to develop and change services while managing budgets effectively. Information services must continue to help develop and improve services

while showing that savings can be made from investing in new technology.

We need to compare our performance with other providers so that residents have the information available to judge the quality and cost of our services.

The current economic climate means we need to show that we are efficient and use resources wisely to achieve our vision and make a difference. Our financial strength and potential for the future will help us to achieve the ambitions we have set ourselves. We have an obligation to residents and our partners to make sure every pound counts.

We are committed to making sure we use our financial strength to improve outcomes for residents in terms of quality homes and services, the environment, skills and jobs. We have a fully funded plan in place to help us deliver priorities on improvements, regeneration, growth and services.


9 – Performance

Performance actions and measures 2014/2015 financial year


ActionsWe set annual performance priorities which will contain measures that will help us to understand our overall performance and the actions we must take to meet our priorities.

Let homes Manage tenancies

Repair homes Business support

“Find the right homes to meet the needs of new and existing residents.”

“Assist residents to maintain their tenancies, for as long as they need them.”

“Maintain properties and their surroundings to the right level of quality, and fix repairs first time, on time.”

“Support service delivery and improvement.”

MeasuresThese are the measures that will help us and others assess how we are performing.

Let homes Manage tenancies

Repair homes Business support

Homes occupied

More than 98%

Satisfaction with overall service

More than 80%

Repairs right first time

More than 85%

Loan covenant terms met

100%

Turnover rate

8% Rent arrears

Less than 6%

Satisfaction with reported repairs

More than 90%

Staff sickness absence

4.5%

Average time taken to re-let homes (routine)

28 days

Appointments kept

More than 90%

Staff turnover

5%

Our priorities for the year ahead

Let homes Keep as many of our homes occupied as possible by reducing turnover and the length of time properties remain empty before being let.

Manage tenancies Collect as much rent income as possible by being firm but fair when recovering arrears. Offer advice and support to help households experiencing financial difficulties to keep their home.

Repair homes Increase resident satisfaction with property repairs and investment works to their homes and neighbourhoods.

10 – Performance

Performance priorities 2014/2015 financial year


Newport City Homes Housing Association Limited is registered by the Financial Conduct Authority as an Industrial and Provident Society with charitable rules.

Registration No 30192R and with the Welsh Government Registration No L149.

NCH strategy guide 2014 to 2019

Documents

lives of residents

residents expectations

performance framework

quality homes

annual performance priorities

residents representative

better newport

neighbourhoods of newport