Doing things better, doing bett

Transcription

Doing Things Better,
Doing Better Things
MerthyrValleys
H O M E S
Self
Assessment
2012
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Merthyr Tydfil CF47 8LD
Contents
Page
Message from MVH
2
1
Our Community
4
2
Merthyr Valleys Homes
6
3
In our assessment we asked ourselves
11
3.1
Do we put citizens first?
11
3.2
Are we good at governance?
21
3.3
Do we know what to do and when to do it?
27
3.4
Are we financially sound?
32
3.5
Do we work with others to improve our community?
40
3.6
Do we improve homes to a high standard?
45
3.7
Do we have a fair process for letting homes?
55
3.8
Are we a good manager of housing?
60
3.9
Are we good at repairing homes?
67
4
3.10 Do we have a good housing service for owners?
72
Our approach to assessing outcomes
76
Methodology
76
Major projects in progress at September 1 2012
82
Completed projects since the December 2011 Self assessment 85
1
A Message from MVH
Message from
Merthyr Valleys
Homes
In March 2011 we produced our first
assessment of our performance assessed
against a framework designed by the
Welsh Government. Since this initial report
we produced ‘doing things better, doing
better things’ in December 2011, and this
comprehensive assessment has been the
subject of continuous review. This report is
the latest review and takes us up to
September 2012.
The headline from this self assessment is
that Merthyr Valleys Homes continues to
drive forward and we believe we are now
doing many things better and we are making
a difference in our community by doing
better things.
In 2008 tenants voted to transfer to
Merthyr Valleys Homes, and we promised
to:
2
• improve the housing stock by spending
£69.5 million on investment in repairs;
• make improvements to the housing
service;
• invest in the local economy; and
• retain rents at the same level as the
former Local Authority.
We are now moving closer to meeting
these important promises and from our first
assessment in March 2011 we have made
significant progress in every area. We
have:
• made improvements in over 70% of
homes and we are now confident that we
can deliver the WHQS improvements by
2014;
• a stronger business plan which now
includes a significant new investment
stream for non traditional properties, it has
revised covenants and has been
approved by our funders;
• completed a 50% stock survey that we
have incorporated into our 30 year
business plan;
A Message from MVH
• moved efficiency savings into the tenant
priority of responsive repairs;
• passed the 60% point in delivering
promises to made our tenants at transfer
on property improvments;
• carried out a STATUS survey and tenant
satisfaction is improving, and in some
important areas (such as customer
contact and responsive repairs), it is high;
• carried out a comprehensive doorstep
survey of over 1100 tenants and the
results have influenced our direction;
• a new five year Corporate Strategy that
reflects our community’s aspirations, our
local heritage and our values;
• targeted our spending in our local
economy and in the last financial year we
spent over £11m in the local area;
• received the CIH Welsh Housing Award
2011 for our work in ‘developing and
regenerating communities’, in conjunction
with British Gas. Our external insulation
programme in Trelewis provided
community and environmental gains with
tenants benefitting from improved
aesthetics and reduced energy costs;
• achieved recognition when our work in
three areas of involving tenants was
commended at the TPAS Wales awards;
• continued to invest in training and
supporting people in the community, with
a further eight FutureJobs Fund
placements this year, four of which are
now working for MVH. In addition we
currently have seven apprentices, and in
conjunction with local colleges, have two
work experience placements;
• continued to support local organisations
and last year we gave grants of over
£44,000 to local organisations;
• worked with the Fire and Rescue service
and invested in fire safety improvements
across our housing stock; and
• reduced the number of homes without a
landlord gas safety certificate to only
those properties where we are in the
process of taking legal action. And on
several occasions we had no homes
without a current certificate.
At the start of every section we provide a
graphic assessment of the impact on our
tenants of the decisions and actions we have
made. This demonstrates that we have
become an organisation focusing on the
things that matter to our tenants.
Self assessment
Merthyr Valleys Homes made a detailed self
assessment submission to the Welsh
Government on the 31 December 2011 and
this report provides an update. It allows the
reader to follow progress and for financial
information the report uses the yearend audit
account figures 2011/2 approved by the
external auditors and the Board in
September 2012. Other information has
been collated until September 2012.
We are aware that there are many
improvements yet to be made both in our
organisation and in our community. Merthyr
remains one of the most deprived
communities in the UK and our new
Corporate Strategy sets out how we are
going to play our part in making positive
changes.
We have improved our governance
arrangements and we have changed our
organisational structure. We now believe that
we will finish delivering the promises made to
tenants at transfer, and we will play our part
in making Merthyr a better place to live and
work.
3
1. Our Community
1.Our Community
Merthyr as a place to
work and live
The Borough of Merthyr Tydfil has much in
common with its neighbouring towns, but
is proud to be quite different. Merthyr Tydfil
was one of the most significant towns of
the Industrial Revolution, and is steeped in
history. Since the 1980’s, the area has
suffered as a result of the decline of steel
industry and coal mining and other
traditional heavy industries. Many, who no
longer work in these industries, are still
suffering from diseases linked to their
former employment. Merthyr Tydfil is an
area which faces significant social and
economic issues.
The Borough extends from Dowlais in the
north, to Bedlinog in the south, and is
approximately ten miles in distance. At just
4
over 11,000 hectares, it is one of the most
compact authorities in Wales. The Borough
has a population of 55,699 people (ONS
2006);less than 2% of the Welsh population
of approximately 3 million and it is one of the
smallest populations of any local authority in
Wales.
The 2001 Census tells us that over 90% of
Merthyr Tydfil’s population was born in Wales
(compared with around 75% nationally), and
one in ten people aged three or more can
speak Welsh, compared with one in five
nationally.
The current population of Merthyr Tydfil is
55,699. Over the 30 year period 2001 to
2030 the population is projected to increase
by just 0.3%, 55,900, compared to the
Wales projected increase of nearly 14% over
the same period. 2.6% of the population is
from a non-white ethnic background
(population estimates 2009). Most are from
a Polish or Portuguese background.
Demand for social housing has increased.
1. Our Community
The latest figures from the Local Authority
show that by October 2011 there had been
45 families in bed and breakfast
accommodation - this is already higher than
the figure for the whole of 2010. The number
of households on the waiting list is the
highest it has ever been at 2,051
households.
The Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation
2011 identified a mixed picture of Merthyr
Tydfil. It showed a Borough with good
services and investment in housing,
combined with intense poverty and
deprivation. Merthyr Valleys Homes operates
in the most deprived wards, including the
ward of Penydarren which is ranked as the
fourth most deprived super output areas in
Wales. In 2011 Merthyr is ranked as:
occupied accommodation, and 27% more of
its population living in social housing, than
the rest of Wales. In Wales, the house type
that has the highest rate of poor quality of
‘unfitness’ is ter¬raced housing. Merthyr
Tydfil has 59% of terraced housing
compared to the Welsh average of 34%.
During 2011, Savills have carried out a
further stock condition survey of 2,175
properties, meaning that we now have
survey data on 2,895 properties (68% of our
stock). This information has allowed us to set
out our remaining WHQS predictions,
providing comfort to our stakeholders that
our 2014 target will be met, and improving
the condition of our stock in the Borough.
• the most deprived Local Authority;
• the Local Authority with the poorest level
of health;
• the second most deprived area in terms
of income; and
• the second most deprived area for
community safety, including recorded
crime, youth and adult offending, and fire
safety.
This contrasted with the evidence in the
deprivation index which found that the
Borough was one of the least deprived areas
for services. This is reflected by the
expanding commercial growth in Merthyr –
with the recent announcement of the plan to
invest £30m to extend the Cyfarthfa Retail
Park, including a flagship Marks and
Spencer store, making Merthyr Tydfil the
‘premier shopping area for the Heads of the
Valleys’.
In 2009, 4.9% of private housing stock was
estimated to be unfit for human habitation
compared to 8% in 2004. Merthyr Tydfil has
6% fewer households living in owner
“Merthyr is ranked as
the most deprived Local
Authority.”
1
Statistics for Wales – Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation 2011
5
2. Merthyr Valleys Homes
2. Merthyr
Valleys Homes
About us
Merthyr Valleys Homes is a
registered social landlord providing
affordable homes for
4,237properties in Merthyr Tydfil and
the surrounding area. Merthyr
Valleys Homes came into being after
tenants voted to transfer their homes
from Merthyr Tydfil County Borough
Council (MTCBC) to a new not-forprofit housing association. Prior to
transfer, a number of key promises
were agreed with tenants – these are
detailed in the formal offer document
to tenants. Merthyr Valleys Homes
have committed to invest £69.5
million in a programme of property
improvements and neighbourhood
regeneration in the first five years.
On 30 March 2009, the housing
stock from MTCBC was transferred
to Merthyr Valleys Homes.
The type of homes
we provide
We manage homes within eleven
wards across the County Borough,
with the biggest single concentration
of our stock being in the Gurnos
ward. A small number of our
properties are designated as sheltered
housing, with approximately 200
sheltered homes clustered within six
schemes. We also offer a small
amount of temporary
accommodation, and properties
where we provide supported living.
6
Our new visions
During the summer of 2012 the Board adopted a new vision for MVH following the extensive
door knocking survey “stepping out”.
This new vision identified the priority as being providing excellent housing and repair services,
and identified a central role for Merthyr Valleys Homes in regenerating our neighbourhoods.
Themes
Strategic goals
Live with us
Creating a housing service that is excellent
Putting tenants at the heart of our organisation
Creating a fairer community
Work with us
Having a proud and productive workforce
Working with social enterprises
Supporting local democracy
Improve with us
Creating quality homes
Improving our neighbourhoods
Improving economic inequality
Our Corporate Strategy is submitted as part of our self assessment and demonstrates the
new vision and confidence of Merthyr Valleys Homes.
Our Board of Management
The Board has responsibility for everything
Merthyr Valleys Homes does. The role of the
Board is to lead, direct, control, scrutinise
and challenge the organisation’s work. Our
Board members have to ensure that they act
in the best interests of the organisation,
exercising independent judgement, acting in
good faith, using reasonable care and acting
within their powers.
We are governed by a Board of four tenant
members elected through a ballot, four
independent members appointed by the
Board, and four Local Authority members
appointed by the Local Authority (Merthyr
Tydfil County Borough Council). To meet the
challenges ahead, a number of co-opted
Board members have been appointed to
strengthen the Board, bringing a range of
skills and expertise between them.
As of 1 September 2012 the Board are:
Tenant
members
Avril Richards
Fran Bevan
Jacqueline Sullivan
Vacancy
Independent
members
David Lewis
Martin Jones
Stephanie Howarth
Nicola Evans
Local Authority
members
Cllr Bill Smith
Cllr Chris Barry
Cllr Tom Lewis
Cllr Howard Barrett
Co-opted
members
John Chown
Stephen Cook
7
Governance
Following an externally facilitated governance
review in 2010, we have developed our
governance framework to ensure that our
governance arrangements are fit for
purpose. To meet the challenges ahead the
Board have reviewed the committee
structure. In addition to the Audit
Committee, a Policy Committee was
established in 2011 to review and scrutinise
strategies and policies, and
recommendations will be made to the Board.
In addition to Board members and officers a
tenant from our Residents Participation
Forum sits on the Policy Committee. The
work of this Committee has seen 41 new
policies recommended to the Board for
adoption
The Audit Committee manage and review
progress in meeting all Internal Audit
recommendations and they have taken a
very proactive responsibility for risk
management. The Committee make
quarterly reports to the Board on strategic
risk and they review the departmental risk
registers.
8
long standing councillors Bill Smith and
Howard Barrett returning to the Board, a coopted tenant Board member Tom Lewis who
was elected as a Councillor was also
nominated to the Board. The remaining
Council place was filled by Councillor Chris
Barrie, the Cabinet Member who has
housing in his portfolio.
Management and Staff
Elections for three places on the Board took
place during summer of 2012 and the results
will be announced at the AGM in September
2012. This was the second year when
elections for the Board have been contested.
In an attempt to widen the appeal MVH
posted the election address of each
prospective candidate on YouTube and
linked these to the election notices sent to
every tenant.
In April 2011 a new Chief Executive, Michael
Owen, joined Merthyr Valleys Homes. By
June 2011 the new Directors of Housing and
Finance, Victoria Slade and Lorraine Oates
were appointed. Paul Allen joined the
organisation as Director of Asset
Management in September. This team are
supported by an operational senior
management team, many of whom have
been with Merthyr Valleys Homes since
incorporation, giving a nice balance of new
and ideas and local knowledge.
The local elections in May 2012 were
originally a significant strategic risk for MVH if
the Council changed control and replaced
supportive Board members. The new
administration had confidence in the
progress at MVH and the changes of Council
nominations have been positive with two
We have recently reviewed our organisation
in order to get the right staff structure to
support the Board in delivering the business
plan. We are focusing more on those
services that impact directly on tenants, and
are confident that the structure will allow us
to meet our objectives.
Merthyr Valleys Homes
Management Structure
Chief Executive
Mike Owen
Chief Executive
Claire Payne
Corporate Services
Manager
Allison Soroko, Myra
Jones (Maternity Cover)
Director of Finance
& Resources
Director of Housing
Lorraine Oates
Head of ICT
Sharif Biharie
Head of Finance
Marisa Cass
Regeneration
Manager
Sally Richards
Housing Policy &
Research Manager
Nicola Aubrey
Victoria Slade
Director of Asset
Management
Paul Allen
Head of Housing
Maria Lewis
Divisional Manager
Mark Sawyer
Health & Safety
Manager
Sarah Roberts
HR Manager
Ruth Llewellyn
We are committed to the development of our
staff and we provide a range of training and
support. Since transfer our staff have
focused on delivering the best possible
service to our tenants, and have received
training in a number of key areas:
• achieving the disability symbol, committing
to employing, keeping and developing the
abilities of disabled staff;
• equality and diversity;
• starting to work towards Investors in
People which demonstrates a
commitment to developing all staff and
creating an engaged workforce.
• health and safety; and
• Information Technology.
In addition, staff have received and will
continue to have training in specialist services
and areas of skill relative to their role.
We have a highly committed workforce, and
over the past year we have responded
positively to our staff by:
• Iitroducing an Employee Assistance
Programme – allowing staff and their
families to access counselling and advice
services;
• developing a Well@Work group,
committed to improving the health of the
workforce; and
An example of the collaborative approach to
organisation development and management
was the star chamber budget setting process
adopted for 2012/3. Six staff from across
the organisation joined the Chief Executive
and the Finance Director to consider each
team’s bids for the 2012/3 budget. Budget
submissions were challenged and corporate
goals received priority.
9
“We are aware that many of
our objectives will only be
realised through building on
our successful partnerships
with other organisations in
the public, voluntary and
private sectors.”
enterprise strategy and special standing
orders to help empower these organisations
when it comes to the award of contracts.
3G’s Development Trust
ArAgor Photographic
Canolfan Soar
Chairin Welfare Reform T&F Grp
CHC Financial Inclusion Network
Our Partners
Communities First
We work in partnership with our tenants and
leaseholders. Our Resident Participation
Forum (RPF) is a strategic forum with an
overview of all tenant participation
opportunities. The RPF links with the Board
to make sure that we are a customer
focused and customer led organisation. Our
Quality and Design Forum (QDF) consists of
tenants and leaseholders, and it is influential
and instrumental in the development and
review of our planned improvement
programme and responsive repairs services.
In addition to these forums, we have a
number of tenant led forums and panels
looking at other areas of the business.
Credit Action
We are aware that many of our objectives
will only be realised through building on our
successful partnerships with other
organisations in the public, voluntary and
private sectors. We work in partnership with
the Merthyr Tydfil Local Services Board
(LSB). The LSB consists of leaders of
organisations that deliver key services to the
community, and has an independent Chair.
The LSB is responsible for ensuring that the
Community Plan for Merthyr Tydfil is
delivered. We also have improved our
partnership working with Merthyr Tydfil
County Borough Council (MTCBC),
We have supported many of these
organisations and we have adopted a social
10
Credit Union
Gellideg Foundation Group
Green Horizons
Hafal
Merthyr Citizens Advice bureau
Merthyr Financial Inclusion Group
Merthyr People First
Merthyr Tydfil Institute for the Blind
Powys Financial Inclusion Forum
South East Wales Job Centre Plus
South Wales Rent Forum
Trefechan Community Association
Tydfil Training
Voluntary Action Merthyr Tydfil
Welsh Financial Capability Forum
3 In our assessment we asked ourselves
3.1 Do we put citizens first?
In answering this question we have identified that
tenants told us they wanted
more face to face contact in
service delivery and we now
visit all people in financial
difficulty - this has resulted in
no evictions since March 2012
over 140 staff visited over 1100
homes in June to listen and consult
with tenants, and this extensive
consultation has influenced our
Corporate Strategy and all cascading
strategies and policies
we involved tenants in
decision making on rent
setting – they voted on
the rent increase for
2011/2012
tenants were fully involved in
setting the capital budget and
switched £3m of resources
from external improvements
to energy saving works
we involved tenants in
deciding the discount
rate for direct debit rent
payers
we changed our contractors
and our approach to
contracting after a review
about how they dealt with
vulnerable tenants
tenants told us we need to be
clearer with our policies and
last year tenants were involved
in creating 41 new policies
and published standards
Delivery Outcome GF1
We place the people who want to use our services at the heart of our work – putting the citizen first
11
The progress up to
January 2012
The Board and Executive Management Team
recognised that we had limited data on our
tenants at point of transfer, and needed to
better understand who our tenants are, and
what their requirements are in order to tailor
our services and activities accordingly.
Earlier this year we completed an information
gathering and analysis exercise with
Experian. The socio-demographic
characteristics of our tenants was analysed,
and patterns in this data allowed us to
identify characteristics and behaviours,
allowing us to better understand our tenants
and the communities in which they live. In
addition, we commissioned MVH’s first
STATUS survey – the survey was
undertaken on our behalf in May 2011. The
purpose of the survey was to find the views
of our tenants on our current service levels
and opportunities for improved services. We
had a good response rate - 43% of
households completed and returned the
survey, and 79% of respondents agreed that
we can use their profile data. Overall
satisfaction was shown as 82%. We have
started to use the data gained from these
exercises to drive service improvements, and
will use the data to compare satisfaction
levels and trends with other similar Housing
Associations. Some examples of how we are
using this information are set out below:
• Experian data, along with STATUS survey
results and in-house arrears monitoring,
has helped us to decide where to target
floating money and debt advice surgeries
across the Borough. It has also re-shaped
our financial inclusion strategy, as it tested
assumptions we had previously made, for
example, about the numbers of tenants
who pay more for fuel because of the use
12
of pre-payment meters, and how people
prefer to be contacted with information.
• Both Experian and STATUS information
are being used to develop neighbourhood
profiles to help us to understand and work
towards local priorities in distinct
neighbourhood areas, rather than
applying broad priorities across the
Borough. For example, we now know that
tenants in Gurnos want their
neighbourhood to feel cleaner and safer,
so we will include these priorities in a
neighbourhood management plan,
supported by a budget bid in the current
budget setting round, for 2012.
We encourage and support tenant
involvement, and the number of tenants
interested in becoming involved in shaping
our services is steadily increasing. We have
made some changes to the way we support
tenant involvement, including the
development of a Residents Participation
Forum (RPF). This is a strategic overarching
forum of tenants and leaseholders who have
a clear and influential role within the
organisation, with an overview of all tenant
participation opportunities.
The RPF meet on a bi-monthly basis, to
discuss matters of policy and priority, to
work with the Board and Executive
Management Team in decision-making, and
to assess and scrutinise Merthyr Valleys
Homes’ performance and services. An
example of this joint working was that the
Board and RPF held a joint meeting to
consider the implications of the Welsh
Government's proposals on changes to the
mechanism for setting rents. Out of this joint
working session the tenants wrote directly to
the First Minister and encouraged the Board
to honour the promises made to tenants at
transfer on rent levels. Assurances from civil
servants and the Housing Minister continued
to be monitored by RPF as rent increases
and the delivery of future promises are an
area of great importance for the panel.
The RPF have been involved in the self
assessment process. We consulted with
them at the beginning of the year when
establishing our approach, and involved a
sub-group of the RPF in scrutinising key
areas of our initial assessment. Members of
the RPF also sit on other committees and
forums, for example, we have co-opted one
of the RPF members on to our Policy
Committee, thus strengthening tenants’
influence and involvement in the
development and review of strategies and
policies.
In addition to our other tenant forums,
including our Quality and Design Forum,
Communications Forum and Environment
Panel, we have expanded tenant
participation to include ‘mystery shoppers’
to test our services, and ‘tenant enquirers’
from our established Quality and Design
Forum, to carry out satisfaction surveys
directly with other tenants who have had
work carried out to their homes as part of
the WHQS programme. We are accurately
capturing our tenant contribution in
accordance with the Wales Council for
Voluntary Action’s guidance, and year to
date (up to November 2011) tenants have
contributed 850 hours, or in monetary terms
£8,650.
We held tenant Board member elections in
the summer, seeking expressions of interest
from tenants who were interested in
standing. We received ten expressions of
interest from tenants who were not already
engaging with us. Following the tenant
elections, we gained a three tenant Board
members, and for those tenants who were
not successful, the majority of them are
“The review highlighted that
82% of the action plan has
been completed with the
remaining actions planned
for subsequent years.”
engaging with us on other forums. To
support succession planning, we are
introducing the Chartered Institute for
Housing’s (CIH) ‘Active Learning for
Residents’ programme, offering all tenants
the opportunity to develop their skills (and
gain a qualification) in Governance, and
other key areas.
The Tenant Participation Strategy and action
plan 2010 – 2013 was reviewed in January
2011, in line with our commitment to
annually review it. This highlighted that 82%
of the action plan has been completed with
the remaining actions planned for
subsequent years. The review highlighted a
number of key advancements, and these
have formed the focus for 2011/12. The next
scheduled review is January 2012, and
during the financial year 2012/13, the next
three year strategy will be developed in
conjunction with our stakeholders.
In looking at the 2012/13 budget setting
process and the future business plan we
have involved tenants from the outset. A
training session on stock condition surveys
and the link to budgets was carried out and
the tenants joined representatives from
Savills and officers to look at the results of
the stock condition survey and the
projections on key expenditure areas. This
joint working influenced the Board report
setting the business plan and all tenants are
being consulted on the key areas of
expenditure and capital programmes for the
next two years.
13
We have developed a range of
communication channels through which
tenants and service users can contact us
and access our services. We have reviewed
our reception area. We maintain a very busy
town centre reception and following
feedback received from tenants who have
visited us, we introduced an electronic notice
board, detailing key information on the
organisation, including properties available
and details of how we are performing. This
has proved popular with tenants visiting our
Head Office.
We have access to language line services,
so tenants may communicate with us in their
chosen language. In addition, we promote
the availability of the translation services that
we provide on all of our corporate literature.
We have recently translated documents into
Polish following tenants’ requests. Our main
communication documents are of course
available in alternative formats, including
audio, larger text and Braille. We are now
reviewing our tenant profiling data in more
detail to provide the right format of
documents for households automatically.
We have built on the feedback that we have
received on communications to date by
holding a focus group with a group of
tenants in one of our Sheltered Schemes.
The data from the Experian exercise
provided us with an overview of
communication preferences. Older people
were identified as a ‘harder to reach’ group
in the data gathered via Experian, so we
targeted this group to review our
communication methods. We provide
tenants with up to date information on
service delivery, how we are performing,
news articles etc, via our quarterly newsletter
‘Hometalk’. Tenants have a say in the
content and the look of the newsletter, via
our Communications Forum. We received a
14
lot of positive feedback from tenants,
including comments like, ‘Like content of the
newsletter it is easy to read’, and ‘good
information, is understandable’. We have a
public facing website, available in both
Welsh and English. Although this tenant
focus group where not major users of the
website, we feel it needs further
improvements as identified in our
communications strategy.
“We received a lot of positive
feedback from tenants,
including comments like,
‘Like content of the
newsletter it is easy to read’,
and ‘good information, is
understandable’.”
Following feedback received from the RPF
focus group and feedback from tenants who
have used the complaints process, we
decided to change our complaints policy.
We involved staff and tenants in the
development of our new policy, adopted by
the Board in November 2011, and the
adopted policy now meets the ‘Complaints
Model Wales’ best practice guidance
published by the Public Services Ombudsman
for Wales in July 2011. We have refined and
now provide better communication on our
complaints policy and procedure. We are
currently putting together a training program
for staff, providing guidance in handling and
resolving disputes, and are communicating
out to tenants and service users in the form of
an article in ‘Hometalk’ in December 2011,
and the development of a new service leaflet
and website section early 2012. We will review
the take up and effectiveness of the service in
2012.
We have also improved our performance in
this important area by introducing a
dedicated complaints administrator – a
single point of contact for tenants and
service users to submit a formal complaint.
We have published a direct telephone
number and e-mail address to ensure a
speedy route to the right person. This has
assisted our performance by acknowledging
complaints within a short timeframe (two
days) and meeting our response targets. We
have introduced a complaints satisfaction
survey to identify how tenants rated their
experience of the service, and to identify
areas for improvement. We are aiming to
improve the response rate by introducing a
telephone survey early next year.
Progress since
January 2012
Listening to our tenants
‘Stepping Out’ Door Knocking
Exercise
During June, Merthyr Valleys Homes’ staff
conducted a door knocking exercise across
the Borough, conducting a survey on the
doorstep.
We visited over 1,100 homes during the
week and the survey team included staff
from across the organisation (including our
Property Services Team), joined by Board
members. We purposely sought responses
from some of our harder to reach areas of
the Borough, where we don’t have a great
amount of tenant involvement and/or
feedback.
The aim of the exercise was to find out what
our tenants think of our services, and to find
out what tenants think our focus should be
for the future. The exercise also provided us
with an opportunity to be visible in the
communities in which we operate, and to
take the opportunity to address ongoing
issues that tenants may have. In addition,
staff encouraged tenants to complete a
tenant profiling questionnaire where we were
missing key profile data. This was a postal
questionnaire with freepost return.
The response received from both tenants
and staff was extremely positive. Staff, and
in particular back office staff, enjoyed visiting
our customers, and the team building
between staff from different departments
helped to improve working relationships.
This exercise allowed staff to focus their
attention on issues that are important to
tenants. A report entitled “stepping out”
was published and the key messages were
sent out to tenants in our recent Hometalk
newsletter. The key messages were:
• tenants are proud of their
neighbourhoods and want to keep it
peaceful;
• tenants want us to complete our WHQS
work; and
• tenants rate the repairs service provided
by MVH as good and enjoy Hometalk,
our newsletter.
One of the most pleasing aspects of the
survey was the very positive messages
people had about their communities. Using
a statistical package word cloud (this
software highlights with larger text the most
frequently used expressions) and it gives a
very good snapshot of the key tenant
issues.
The data from “stepping out” informed the
Corporate Strategy and helped set many of
the targets in this new strategy.
15
Tenant Participation
Impact Report
We encourage and support tenant
involvement, and the number of tenants
becoming involved with us is steadily
increasing. We have accurately captured our
tenant contribution in the form of our Tenant
Participation Impact Report. The aim of the
report is to record the difference tenants,
16
leaseholders and residents have made to
our services, homes and communities. The
report conclusively proves that tenants have
been involved not just in the management of
their homes, but in everything that we do –
from specifying and monitoring improvement
and repairs contracts, to the award of
grants and sponsorship, to checking
services.
TPAS Cymru Participation Awards
In May 2012, Merthyr Valleys Homes won
three awards at the TPAS Cymru Awards:
The report concludes that the involvement
of tenants covers every part of the business.
During 2011/12, over 1,400 voluntary hours
have been given by tenants and
leaseholders. Each opportunity is graded
using a ‘Commitment Scale’, according to
the amount of time and influence (agreed in
conjunction with each of the forums/panels).
The report demonstrates that tenants are
shaping our services, reviewing our
performance and assisting us in developing
our plans for the future.
TPAS review of MVH’s Local
Tenant Participation Strategy
The National Tenant Participation Strategy
aims to improve theoverall standard of
tenant participation in Wales. In order to
achieve this, MVH is required to submit a
Local Tenant Participation Strategy for
assessment by TPAS Cymru as required by
the Welsh Government. Overall the strategy
has scored well in the assessment, with six
areas assessed as being ‘Good’, four areas
assessed as ‘Satisfactory’ and only two
areas recommended as ‘scope for
Improvement’. The conclusion was that ‘the
strategy is clear and well structured and is
particularly good in its frank analysis and
discussion of current activities and
improvements needed’.
1. The first award was a ‘third place’ award,
and was presented to the Resident
Participation Forum for all the work that
they have carried out within such a small
space of time. The category was
‘Empowering People to Improve Services’
– this award celebrates the benefits of
tenant involvement in bringing about
improvements in housing services. Projects
that empower and involve people to:
• influence improvements to landlord
services;and
• build skills, capacity and knowledge
(through training / support).
2. The next winning award was a ‘third
place’ award to Merthyr Valleys Homes for
all the work that has been carried out with
the Residents Participation Forum and by
the Tenant Participation Champions. The
category was ‘The Roy Parry
Mainstreaming Tenant Participation’
Award – this is awarded to a landlord who
can evidence that tenant participation is at
the heart of their organisation. In this
category judges expected to see initiatives
which clearly demonstrate progress being
made towards mainstreaming tenant
participation with staff and / or tenants.
3. The final winning award was a ‘third place’
award to Nancy Little for all of her hard
work in carrying out tenant participation
over a number of years. The category was
‘Inspirational Colleague’, which is
awarded to any member of staff who has
demonstrated diligence and dedication to
participation values and activities. Nancy
was nominated by the tenants themselves
which is a fantastic recognition.
17
Active Learning for Residents
We have recently introduced the Chartered
Institute for Housing (CIH) ‘Active Learning
for Residents’ programme, offering tenants
the opportunity to develop their skills, and
gain a qualification in a number of key areas.
We are currently engaging with four tenants
who are active in their communities, and all
are studying towards the Level 2 Award in
Community Action. The qualification is a
vocationally related qualification for the
housing sector (equivalent to GCSE level).
Learners will have the opportunity to
progress on to Level 3 awards in the areas
of Governance and Resident Scrutiny if they
choose to. Three residents are currently
enrolled on the course.
A number of staff from across the business
(including Senior Managers and Tenant
Participation Champions), have been trained
up as ‘Recognisers’, providing support to
learners for the duration of the programme.
Reviewing Communication
Methods
We are in the process of reviewing the
effectiveness of our current communication
methods, and whether tenants are
interested in other methods of
communication, such as texting services, email and social media (Facebook and/or
twitter). We are aiming to make it easy for
tenants to contact us, using a range of
methods, and will look at whether there are
additional ways that tenants would like us to
use for us to communicate information and
advice to them. A section on
communication was included in the
‘Stepping Out’ questionnaire, and the
feedback gathered will inform what we do in
this area.
We have expanded our communications in
alternative languages out across the
18
“Recently key staff have
received some basic
language skills training in
both Polish and Portuguese.”
Borough, targeting Polish, Portuguese and
Welsh outlets, and by providing editions of
our Hometalk newsletter to tenants who
have listed Polish as their preferred first
language.
We are striving towards further developing
our verbal communication skills in order to
deal with our tenants as effectively as
possible. Recently key staff have received
some basic language skills training in both
Polish and Portuguese via funded training
through a Glamorgan Gates initiative.
Complaints
Following the development of our new
Complaints Policy (approved by Board in
November 2011), we have rolled out a
training programme for key staff, informing
them of the key changes to the policy and
making them aware of the complaints
process. We have issued staff with the new
complaints leaflet and also have issued
frontline staff with a complaints card which
shows the telephone number and e-mail
address for signposting tenants to the
dedicated complaints administrator.
We have distributed the complaints leaflet in
our lettings packs, reception area, sheltered
scheme communal areas etc. In addition,
we included a detailed article on complaints
in the December 2011 version of Hometalk,
advising tenants how they can complain,
and the process that will be followed. We
followed this up with an article in the April
2012 edition of Hometalk, providing tenants
with a summary of complaints received
during 2011/12. We are reviewing the take
up of the complaints process (along with a
“The focus of these
environmental grants will be
to improve the look and feel
of our neighbourhoods and
they are themed around
safer, cleaner and greener
goals.”
Recruitment
performance measure) on a quarterly basis,
and will be introducing a complaints
satisfaction telephone survey in the second
quarter of 2013.
Community Environmental
Programme
We have also worked with our Community
Environmental Panel and will launch the new
£1m community environmental grant
programme at the AGM in September. The
focus of these environmental grants will be
to improve the look and feel of our
neighbourhoods and they are themed
around safer, cleaner and greener goals.
The funding for this programme was
identified as part of the stock condition
survey and will be used to complete our
WHQS environmental commitments. We
are allowing tenants to bid and award the
key improvements in this important area of
expenditure.
The Chair of RPF has been instrumental in
helping to appoint the new Community
Development Officer and the Trainee Tenant
Participation Officer, by being involved in
shortlisting and interviewing candidates.
This year we have been able to extend the
number of RPF members that can assist us
with recruitment and selection, by providing
bespoke training. This helps us to make
sure that recruitment and selection
processes reflect a tenant’s perspective.
Tenant profiling
We have continued to obtain profiling
information on every tenant to allow us to
provide a housing service designed for each
tenant. We are currently following up non returned surveys and using telephone
interviews to increase the number of returns.
We currently have profiled information on
40% of tenants.
19
Delivery outcome summary GF1
In Place
3 Consulted with all tenants on the
capital expenditure in the 2012/13
business plan.
3 Better understanding of our potential
and current tenants via Experian and
STATUS survey, and by increasing the
collection of tenant profiling data via
Housing Officers and ‘Stepping Out’
exercise.
3 Conducted the ‘Stepping Out’
exercise asking tenants what they
think of our services – reviewing the
data collected to inform our business
planning processes.
3 Improved tenant consultation and
involvement through our Residents
Participation Forum.
3 Development a Tenant Participation
Impact Report, demonstrating the
level of tenant involvement for
2011/12.
3 Increased our range of
communication methods, to include
an electronic notice board and
dedicated e-mail addresses and
telephone numbers.
3 Updated our Complaints Policy in line
with the Complaints Model Wales.
3 Promoted the Complaints Policy (both
internally and externally), and
implemented training program on
complaints handling for staff within
the organisation.
20
3 Introduced the active learning for
Residents programme for tenants.
3 Launching our Community
Environmental Programme.
Putting in Place
< Using tenant profiling data to better
inform our decision making in order to
improve existing services and to
identify new services.
< Implementing our Welsh Language
Scheme. Developing a training
program for staff who want to learn to
speak Welsh.
< Reviewing our external website.
< Increasing the number of tenants who
are shareholding members, and
attending AGM.
< Review of our tenant handbook.
< Developing a new Tenant Partnership
Strategy.
To Do
8 Review our Communications Strategy
including website and personnal
media.
8 Develop a new Tenant Partnership
strategy.
3.2 Are we good at
governance?
In answering this question we
have identified that
all our board papers
and meetings are in the
public arena
we have changed our Finance
Regulations to allow social
enterprises to contract easily with
us and we already awarded
contracts to the Gellideg
Foundation Group
we have changed our Finance
Regulations to allow social
enterprises to contract easily with
us and we already awarded
contracts to the Gellideg
Foundation Group
we have held open
Board meetings
throughout the
borough
we have tracked hate crimes and
changed our approach. We have
become a hate crime reporting
centre, identified hate crime hot
spots and placed more resources
into tackling hate crime
We live public sector values, by conducting our affairs with honesty and integrity, and demonstrate good governance
21
3.2 Are we good at governance?
The progress up to
January 2012
We are open about what we do as an
organisation. Prior to transfer, a number of
promises were made to tenants in an offer
document – a copy of the promises that were
made is available to view on our website.
Earlier this year we reviewed our Corporate
Plan, setting out six strategic priorities for the
next five years. The priorities link into the
promises made to tenants prior to transfer. We
reviewed the Corporate Plan with our Board,
staff and tenants (through original input into
the transfer promises), and the Corporate
Plan is available to view via our website, and
performance against the six strategic priorities
is outlined in our 2011 Annual Report. The six
strategic priorities are the themes that we
work to within the organisation, and all
policies, strategies and reports are linked to
these themes. We are in the process of
reviewing our vision and values for the
organisation, and to date have involved the
Board (during a Board away day) and staff
(during a recent staff away day) in developing
them. This will be our focus for 2012.
The Board publishes an Annual Report,
outlining our annual performance against our
key priority areas, information about the
Board and our financial accounts. The report
is made available for staff, tenants, service
users and third parties to view. Feedback
received from stakeholders earlier in the year
indicated that we were not as open an
informing as we could be. As a result, we
have embraced the principle of openness,
and have introduced an ‘Openness and
Sharing Information Policy’. Our ideas,
knowledge and information are openly
shared, and there are transparent and
honest decision making processes. All nonconfidential board agendas, minutes and
22
“We want to be an
organisation that recognises
that responds appropriately
and is accessible to the
different needs of all our
community.”
papers (including supporting documentation)
are available to staff and tenants and third
parties.
We want to be an organisation that
recognises that responds appropriately and
is accessible to the different needs of all our
community. Working with MTCBC, we found
that hate crime incidents related to race
were being reported, and affecting some of
the emerging communities on our estates.
We anticipated that with a squeeze on public
sector resources, as well as scarcity of
housing and proposed changes to welfare
benefits, that this could become a significant
area of risk. We commissioned an
independent assessment of our approach to
community cohesion, which was presented
to the Board in November 2011. The
assessment used interviews and focus
groups with involved tenants, partners,
board members and front-line staff. It has
highlighted a community leadership role for
MVH as a landlord, and we are now working
to deliver an improvement plan which
focuses on promoting fairness and equality
both within the organisation and out in
communities. This will be a key theme for the
refresh of our vision and values.
Equality and Diversity training has been
provided to Board, staff and tenant panels
and forums. Equality Impact Assessment
training has been delivered to key members
of staff, and we are in the process of
conducting impact assessments on all of our
3.1
3.2 Are
Do we
we put
good
citizens
at governance?
first?
existing policies and procedures to ensure
that we are not unfairly discriminating against
any service users. The completion of this
work will ensure that we are committed to
improving our decision making.
We have developed a draft Welsh Language
Scheme to ensure that will fulfil our statutory
obligations towards engaging with our Welsh
tenants who prefer to deal with us through
the medium of Welsh. We are currently
putting together a training plan for staff who
have expressed an interest in learning to
speak Welsh, and at our recent staff away
day we engaged with ‘Canolfan a Menter
Gymraeg Merthyr Tudful’ in providing staff
with an overview on promoting the use of
Welsh on a community level. We currently
offer to translate all corporate documents
into Welsh. We have committed to making
key documents available in Welsh for those
tenants who prefer to use Welsh as their
chosen language, and will strive to identify
tenants’ chosen first language through on
going tenant profiling.
“As part of the promises
made to tenants, and in line
with our ‘Communities’
corporate priority, we are
committed to creating
opportunities for local people
and local businesses.”
As part of the promises made to tenants,
and in line with our ‘Communities’ corporate
priority, we are committed to creating
opportunities for local people and local
businesses. Our WHQS contractors R&M
Williams and Bullock Cymruare utilising local
labour in line with the PPC 2000 contracts
(with the i 2 i investment requirements on
training and local contractors). Although our
additional WHQS contractors FHM and
Apollo are not contracted using PPC
contracts, they have adopted a more
proactive response than is required in their
contracts. Both have delivered community
benefits, providing free local facility
improvements. For example, FHM honoured
its commitment to the community by
installing a new kitchen in a nursery in
Aberfan. Both organisations employ a
substantial majority of staff from the local
area. We are looking to extend this further,
and are in discussions with FHM to develop
a programme of full time staff and
apprentices recruited from the local area.
One of the largest local employers in Merthyr
Tydfil is Remploy, the UK’s leading employer
of disabled people. Remploy have
manufactured the majority of the UPVC
doors and windows for our WHQS works
carried out by our in-house team. We have
experienced some quality control issues, but
are working closely with the management
team at Remploy and are hopeful that our
investment of £1.3m in UPVC works over the
next two years will be spent with Remploy.
Over the past year we have offered
placements for unemployed people through
the Future Jobs Fund (FJF) scheme. We
have offered both fixed term contracts and
permanent positions to four former FJF staff
members. The FJF programme has come to
a close, however, we are continuing to
support young people in the area, and are
currently offering a number of work
experience placements for college students.
We also run an apprentice program, and
currently have seven apprentices.
We are further maximising our corporate
social opportunities by linking with a number
of organisations. We have grant and
sponsorship schemes, and have supported a
number of local organisations. Year to date we
23
have awarded more than £22,000 in grants
and sponsorship to 18 organisations. We are
in the process of establishing a Corporate
Social Responsibility (CSR) database, and are
holding an event in January (in conjunction
with Voluntary Action Merthyr Tydfil) to
promote our grant and sponsorship schemes,
and to launch our ‘Time to Help’ scheme. The
aim of the scheme is to provide one-off project
support in staff time to groups. We have a
number of highly skilled staff in a number of
key business areas that could provide
guidance and support, for example, in terms
of HR, ICT or communications support. In
addition, staff that have vocational
qualifications, such as coaching or youth
work, could also provide assistance.
take up, we target a floating surgery service
based on data about arrears and the profile
of our tenants, but also offer an appointment
service based in the advisor’s offices, and a
drop in service in our office. From the data
we have about the service, we know that
more than 60% of the tenants we refer to the
service attend their appointment. We have
also committed a significant level of
investment to Moneyline Cymru to enable
them to open a shop in Merthyr Tydfil –
which will serve the Borough and other
deprived areas in South Wales.
We recognise that we have a duty to assist
our tenants in maximising their income and
supporting value for money initiatives within
the community and have employed a
dedicated Income Maximisation Officer. As a
result we have drafted a Financial Inclusion
Strategy. The original aim of the strategy has
shifted in conjunction with the introduction of
the welfare reform bill. The strategy will aim
to implement actions to enable tenants to be
able to understand, prepare and respond to
the proposed changes. We have provided
awareness training to all of our staff and
stakeholders in all areas relating to Welfare
Reform.
Vision / Corporate Strategy
We have a central role by proactively
assisting tenants by informing them early of
any arrears and signposting them to financial
and benefits advice. We have also secured
low cost insurance options and provide
tenants with a MVH budget planner and
regular money saving tips. We actively
support the referral to and use a number of
debt advisory bodies, the main providers
being a local credit union and the Citizens
Advice Bureau (CAB). To try to maximise
24
Progress since
January 2012
Following Board and Staff away days last
autumn, the organisation agreed that a fresh
new vision was needed, and that our
corporate strategy should be revised. The
start of this process was the self
assessment in December 2011 and the
budget setting against a series of corporate
priorities. The new Corporate Strategy has
now been approved and is published along
with this self assessment. The new strategy
is based around three themes and a number
of strategic goals:
Live with us
Work with us
Improve with us
Linked to each of these are a series of
strong statements setting out very clearly
what we want to do and what Merthyr
Valleys Homes believes in. The statements
have been influenced by stepping out, by
previous reports and statements of the
Board, issues and statements identified at
the away days and existing values that
already underpin the organisation. The
3.1
3.2 Are
Do we
we put
good
citizens
at governance?
first?
Corporate Strategy links to the ambitions in
the Housing White Paper Homes for Wales
and has been shared by our local Council
and contains a number of targets and goals.
However the strategy recognises that we
are working in new economic times and that
the Welfare Benefit Reforms proposed by
the UK Government will change the
communities we work with beyond
recognition. Our work on income recovery
and ameliorating the impact of welfare
benefit reform will be our biggest priority in
the next few years.
Equality and Diversity
Working in conjunction with MTCBC, we
found that hate crime incidents related to race
were being reported and affecting some of
the communities on our estates. Board
members, staff, and some key stakeholders
have been working with Harris Beider, a
Professor of Community Cohesion, to
develop and implement an improvement plan.
A working group, with representation from
Board, the Resident Participation Forum and
staff, has been established to deliver the
improvement plan. To date, we have:
• signed up to become a third party
reporting centre for hate crime. We will be
working with community groups and
networks to publicise this;
existing social enterprises in the Borough, in
order to achieve our corporate social
responsibilities and to achieve maximum
economic benefit. We now have a new
strategy and financial standing orders to
support existing social enterprises. The first
example of this has been the awarding of a
new style of grounds maintenance contract to
the Gellideg Foundation Group. We have set
ambitious targets for working with other local
social enterprises over the next three years.
We are continuing to support local
organisations through our Grant and
Sponsorship schemes. During 2011/12, we
awarded over £40,000 in grants and
sponsorship to local organisations working in
the Borough.
We are continuing to support young people in
the area by offering work experience
placements for college students. In addition,
we are looking at ways in which we can
support the ‘Jobs Growth Wales’ scheme by
offering employment experience
opportunities.
Board development
We have continued the governance project to
increase the capacity of the Board. An
external financial consultant has delivered a
range of training courses to the Board, Audit
Committee and staff. These are as follows:
• arranged monthly housing advice
sessions with the Polish communities; and
• budget setting;
• we are in the process of delivering
‘development sessions’ for our staff.
• fraud and bribery; and
Strengthening the economic
base in our communities
As part of the promises made to tenants at
point of transfer, we are committed to creating
opportunities for local people and local
businesses. We are looking to work with
• role of the Audit Committee;
• financial regulations and contract
standing orders.
In addition the Board have been keen to
strengthen its financial capacity further and
have recruited an accountant to join the
Board. As part of the more intensive scrutiny
of expenditure the Audit Committee reviewed
in detail the final accounts.
25
In Place
Putting in Place
3 We have a new Corporate Strategy,
which has been informed by tenants
< Implementing our Welsh Language
Scheme, and developing a training
program for staff.
3 We publish balanced information
about the organisation.
3 We have embraced the principle of
‘openness’ and have implemented an
‘Openness and Sharing Information
Policy’.
3 We are working towards improving
the economic, social and
environmental circumstances in the
local community through various
means.
3 Our principle contractors are
committed to creating opportunities
for local people and local businesses.
3 We have a better understanding of
diversity and equality.
3 Developing our Financial Inclusion
Strategy to reflect the Welfare Reform
Bill.
26
< An approach to equality and diversity
that is focused on service delivery and
fairness.
< Developing our ‘Time to Help’
scheme in order to assist local groups
in key business and vocational areas.
< Adopt the Value Wales Community
benefit calculator in order to capture
the community benefit delivered by
our contractors.
To Do
8 Improve our website in order to
improve how we publish information
about the organisation.
3.1
3 InDo
ourwe
assessment
put citizens
wefirst?
asked ourselves
3.3 Do we have clear plans
and do we deliver them?
we have a new Corporate
Strategy sets clear goals and
ambitions for MVH and is
supported by the Board and
the staff
the Board and elected
tenants have collaborated
on setting capital budgets
our budget has shifted over
£1m of expenditure from
central services to front line
tenant services
we have improved our
management of risk and finance
with board member training and
have recruited an accountant and
solicitor to join our Board
We make sure our purpose is clear and we achieve what we set out to do – knowing who does what and why
27
3.3 Do we have clear plans and do we deliver them?
The progress up to
January 2012
MVH is an independent Registered Social
Landlord (RSL), a Large Scale Voluntary
Transfer (LSVT) organisation registered as an
Industrial & Provident Society with charitable
status. The Board composition is an equal
representation of tenants, local authority and
independent members. Currently, we have
12 Board members, with three co-optees.
At the end of 2010, we had an externally
facilitated governance review. This led to an
action plan that has been overseen by our
Governance Working Group – a task and
finish group (consisting of Board members
and key officers) established by the Board to
take forward the governance issues arising
directly and indirectly from the review.. The
group has reviewed the Board’s Terms of
Reference and Code of Conduct, ensuring
that the Board are clear about their role and
responsibilities. A number of policies have
and introduced and others have been
updated to strengthen our governance
framework. All of our policies have been
developed in line with Community Housing
Cymru’s ‘Charter for Good Governance’ and
National Housing Federation models for best
practice. We have engaged with an external
consultant to assist in us reviewing our
financial management framework including
our Financial Regulations, Contract Standing
Orders and Treasury Management Policies.
We are in the process of developing a user
guide to the updated financial
framework/standing orders, and training will
be rolled out to staff in 2012.
We have reviewed our Board recruitment
processes in order to ensure that our Board
reflects the community in which we operate,
and to facilitate a skills based selection
process for Board membership. As a result,
28
“The Board have identified
training and development
needs, and this will inform
the Board training and
development plan for the
next year.”
we have recruited new members that have
the necessary skills and experience that we
require. We have introduced a formal
induction process to ensure a consistent
approach. A competency framework has
been developed to provide the Board with a
tool to help them ensure that they have,
between them, the right skills and expertise
to effectively lead the organisation. At our
externally facilitated Board away day in
September, Board members reviewed the
effectiveness of the Board and the
organisation against our business priorities.
The Board have identified training and
development needs, and this will inform the
Board training and development plan for the
next year. In 2012 we will use the 'Excellence
in Governance’ compliance checklist to carry
3.3 Do we put
havecitizens
clear plans
3.1
first?and do we deliver them?
out a further assessment of our governance
arrangements in 2012.
Merthyr Valleys Homes has a vision and set
of values that were determined prior to
transfer. Following the governance review, the
Board have decided to review and consult on
a new overall message, moving towards a
more Merthyr appropriate value statement.
This is an objective for 2012. However the
proposed new vision will sit over the current
corporate plan strategic priorities of Finance;
People; Deliver; Tenants; Homes and
Communities - as detailed in our message
house. Fairness, equality and diversity will be
the themes which underpin our priorities.
We are committed to being an open,
transparent and accountable organisation in
the way we operate our business. In June we
introduced an ‘Openness and Sharing
Information Policy’ - our meetings are open
to staff and the public (with the exception of
confidential matters), and meeting agendas,
minutes and reports are available to view.
The benefit of this is that the organisation is
making future decisions in an open
environment and we can be questioned
about our decisions. This has been further
developed by holding Board meetings in
venues throughout the Borough to
encourage tenants to attend.
We are currently working to develop our
tenant scrutiny function. We have attended
TPAS events to learn about best practice in
this respect. We see this as being critical to
providing constructive challenge to the way
we do things, and a key element of our
performance management framework.
Although this is still developing, a number of
tenant scrutiny mechanisms already exist,
such as mystery shoppers and tenant
inquirers, but the scrutiny function will be key
to pulling all of that work together across the
organisation.
“We are committed to
being open, transparent and
accountable organisation in
the way we operate our
business.”
Board reviews performance in relation to
service delivery and financial performance on
a quarterly basis. We have a rolling
programme of Board agenda items, and this
has been developed to include regular
updates and reviews of our planning
framework. Earlier in the year, we reviewed
our Key Performance Indicator (KPI)
reporting system, in response to a Board
request for core service indicators to be
reviewed and data to be presented in a more
accessible way. Our performance reports
use the ‘Red, Amber, Green’ (RAG) system,
along with a trend indicator and
commentary. As a result, Board members
can better monitor and challenge the
organisations’ performance. Linked to this
performance agenda we have staff one to
ones and appraisals are linked back to our
key priorities, via departmental and individual
objectives.
We have recently reviewed our organisational
structure to ensure that we have the right
arrangements in place in order to deliver our
objectives. For example, the Housing
Directorate has been restructured to allow
stronger joint working on financial inclusion
between the area housing and income
teams, supported by revised job
descriptions. In assets we reduced the
client contractor dual operation but have
strengthened the financial knowledge of cost
of operation with the PST team now having a
trading account.
We are actively involving our staff in planning
and development activities. At our staff away
29
3.3 Do we have clear plans and do we deliver them?
day in October, we held a session ‘How
Good Are We?’ where we asked staff to vote
as to how they think we are performing in
key areas of the business. The results were
compared to performance data, and
tenants’ feedback. Following this session,
we held a number of staff focus groups to
explore our performance further, reviewing
and actively seeking suggestions as to how
we can improve. This feedback will assist us
in developing our priorities
Progress since
January 2012
Changes to the Board
The Board composition is an equal
representation of tenants, local authority and
independent members. At the 1 September
we have 11 Board members plus two cooptees, and we have until the AGM one
tenant Board member vacancy,
The Board appointed Nicola Evans in March
2012 as an independent member to fill a
mid-term vacancy. Nicola applied for an
independent position in 2011, and although
not successful at that time, was co-opted to
sit on our Policy Committee as a form of
succession planning – this has proved to be
extremely effective.
Following the local elections in May 2012,
Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council
(MTCBC) appointed two new Councillors to
sit on our Board. Following discussions
between our Chief Executive and MTCBC
regarding continuity, skills and experience,
we retained two Local Authority nominated
Councillors, and retained a former tenant
Board co-opted member, who was elected
as a Councillor. This demonstrates the
positive relationship between MVH and
MTCBC.
30
“We are continuing to
develop our tenant
scrutiny function.”
Governance
The Governance Working Group is a task
and finish group originally established by the
Board to oversee the actions arising out of
the externally facilitated governance review in
2010/11.
A number of policies and governance
documents have been introduced / reviewed
in recent months in order to strengthen and
continuously improve our governance
framework. We have also reviewed our
financial management framework. We
updated our budget setting processes, and
provided staff with training as appropriate. A
number of staff from our Staff Consultative
Group were involved in the ‘Star Chamber’
budget setting process, providing an
independent viewpoint and assisted in the
decision making process. We have re-written
our Financial Regulations and Contract
Standing Orders, and are in the process of
reviewing existing / developing new financial
policies over the next few months, including
Treasury Management and Fraud and Bribery.
Tenant Scrutiny
We are continuing to develop our tenant
scrutiny function. In addition to mystery
shoppers and tenant enquirers, it has been
agreed that the members of the Resident
Participation Forum (RPF) will carry out a
scrutiny function – this has been written into
the RPF Terms of Reference. In March 2012
we held a training session ‘Introduction to
Performance Information’ which was
facilitated by TPAS. During 2012, the RPF
will start with the scrutiny of performance
information.
3.3 Do we put
havecitizens
clear plans
3.1
first?and do we deliver them?
In Place
3 We have addressed the actions
identified during the externally
facilitated governance review.
3 Internal assessment of our
governance arrangements.
3 We have reviewed our organisational
structure to ensure that we have the
right arrangements in place in order
to deliver our objectives.
3 We have introduced an ‘Openness
and Sharing Information’ policy, and
hold open Board meetings.
3 We have reviewed our Key
Performance Indicators (KPI)
reporting system to include a RAG
system, a trend indicator and
commentary.
3 Reviewed our vision and values
• Reviewed our financial
management framework with an
associated training program for
staff.
• Developed a Board training and
development plan.
Putting in Place
< Working to develop our tenant
scrutiny function.
To Do
8 Review the model rules to ensure
they meet changing needs of
organisations.
31
3.4 Are we financially sound?
we have a fully funded
business approved by our
lenders
there is greater financial
control at all levels of
the organisation
we have used our management
of risk to change the provisions
for bad debts in our new
business plan as a result of
welfare benefit reform
we managed our capital
programme very tightly and
used the maximum amount of
resources available in funders
covenants meaning more properties
were improved than ever before
32
We are a financially sound and viable business
our business plan includes
over £23m of additional
responsive repair
expenditure to meet this
key tenant expectations
3.4 Are
we put
financially
3.1
Do we
citizenssound?
first?
The progress up to
January 2012
We have a fully funded 30 year Financial
Business Plan, backed by our funders (RBS
and Principality) -this was a pre-requisite for
the transfer to proceed in March 2009. The
financial business plan was approved by and
signed off by the Board, in the presence of
the funding advisers in March 2009, prior to
the transfer proceeding. To complement this,
in accordance with the requirements of the
funding agreement, MVH entered into three
forward fix rate loan agreements on the day
of transfer, to effectively control future
mortgage costs within budget.
MVH secured a maximum loan facility of
£40million, together with the Welsh
Government (WG) dowry amounting to
£87million, spread over the 28 year term.
The WG have committed a five year dowry
payment to MVH, beyond which it will be
subject to review and completion of our
business plan achievements, notably the
completion of the WHQS programme.
“We acknowledge that we
were slow to recognise that
the early WHQS
programme was not being
spent according to the
projected profile.”
We acknowledge that we were slow to
recognise that the early WHQS programme
was not being spent according to the
projected profile. We have developed, and
are further refining, monitoring and reporting
mechanisms to ensure that any deviation
from the profile can be quickly identified and
remedied. We have taken steps to catch up
with our expenditure profile, by bringing in
new contractors for some works, and
switching other works to be done by our
direct labour force.
In both 2009/10 and 2010/11 spending on
the WHQS programme fell behind the
assumptions in the original business plan
and we have revised our 30 year Financial
Business Plan accordingly to reflect this and
the additional spend required to catch up the
programme.
The 2011/12 Business Plan has been
reconciled back to the Transfer Plan and
steps have been taken to bring it back into
line with what was originally anticipated for
example, reductions in the establishment
with fixed term contract posts ceasing and
savings in running costs agreed by the
Board. These actions have created
headroom in the Business Plan thus enabling
increased budgets for Responsive and Void
repairs in future years, creating a more
sustainable Property Services Team.
The revised plan was approved by our Board
in June 2011 and received funders’ approval
in September 2011. Revised loan covenants
have been issued by our lenders based on
the new Financial Business Plan. A new
Stock Condition Survey by Savills is in line
with the 2011/12 Business Plan
assumptions.
We have also engaged with an external
consultant to assist in us reviewing our
financial management framework including
our Financial Regulations, Contract Standing
Orders and Treasury Management Policy. A
revised Treasury Management Policy will give
more flexibility to the organisation whilst
being mindful of risk. A recent investment
strategy has secured an additional £41k for
MVH in 2011/12
We are in the process of developing a user
33
guide to the updated financial
framework/standing orders, and training will
be rolled out to key staff in quarter 4 of
2011/12. This will ensure that staff are aware
of the financial regulations of the
organisation.
We have strengthened the annual budget
setting process over the financial year by
providing budget training and monthly one to
one budget review meetings for budget
holders. The regular review meetings have
led to greater control of over and under
spend, and budget holders have the
opportunity to identify issues with their
respective budget areas. The revised
budget proforma (one budget = one
expense code) will enable managers to set
budgets more easily. Growth and savings are
easily identifiable as is the overall impact on
the bottom line. All budget requests will be
signed off by the relevant Director. This new
approach will lend itself to the creation of a
budget book.The introduction of a budget
virement procedure allows recycling of under
spent budgets, leading to more accurate
financial re-forecasting.
The quarterly management accounts format
was reviewed in the last financial year in
response to the Board’s desire to receive a
more strategic overview of business
developments and this now means the
Board now have real financial control. The
format has been further improved, by
providing a tabulated report with supporting
details in the appendices. This has resulted
in a simpler, reader friendly, high level report.
Following feedback from Board members,
more focus has been placed on WHQS
performance and cost, with detailed
narrative to support the reports. This
programme is monitored monthly on
performance and quarterly on costs and
cash flow. Cash flow forecasts are now
34
provided by the cost consultants and are
used on year end forecasts and treasury
management. This has enabled Board to
decide priorities of capital spending,for
example postponing some work at St Tydfil’s
Court in favour of progressing with the
WHQS programme, introducing more
flexibility into the programme of work.
“Following feedback from
Board members, more focus
has been placed on WHQS
performance and cost, with
detailed narrative to support
the reports.”
In November 2011 a trading account for the
Property Services Team was presented to
Board. This shows the value of works done
by the department compared to the costs to
run the department. This report will be
submitted to Board on a quarterly basis.
Further work will be carried out on this as the
year progresses.
3.4 Are
we put
financially
3.1
Do we
citizenssound?
first?
The Audit Committee is meeting quarterly
and has good attendance basis. This
Committee is responsible for receiving and
considering external and internal audit
reports, and for reviewing risk for the
organisation. The Audit Committee have
met with the external auditors without the
Executive Management Team in order to
ensure that the Audit Committee and the
auditors can be open and honest with each
other and not overly influenced by the
Executive Management Team. The Audit
Committee are actively reviewing internal
audit reports and recommendations, and are
working with the Executive Management
Team to ensure that corrective measures are
taken and effective controls are in place.
Audit Committee review the annual Internal
Audit Plan at each meeting to monitor
progress. Audit Committee training has been
offered to all Board members and the
majority undertook the training. This has had
a noticable effect on the level of questions
now being asked at meetings. Outstanding
internal audit recommendations have been
monitored since March 2011. Since
introducing a simple monitoring process the
number of overdue recommendations has
halved from 36% to 18%. Managers are now
setting realistic timescales and the influence
of reporting to the Audit Committee has
raised the importance of implementation.
Audit Committee now play an active role in
monitoring risk by reviewing MVH’s overarching risk map on a quarterly basis and
commending it to the Board for discussion
bi-annually.
The Internal Audit Service is now led by
MVH. We review the plan proposed by Orbit
and decide which areas of work require
auditing, adding or reducing days and areas
of work. Instead of auditing areas of strength
we have switched resources to areas of
“The Executive
Management Team score
the over-arching risks and
Audit Committee monitor
the over-arching risk map
and make recommendations
to Board bi-annually.”
concern, for example moving audit time from
participation and estate management to
health and safety compliance.
In line with our Risk Management Policy, we
have developed departmental risk maps,
which feed into an overarching risk map for
the organisation. The Executive Management
Team score the over-arching risks and Audit
Committee monitor the over-arching risk map
and make recommendations to Board biannually. Risk management needs further
embedding in the organisation but this is
proposed to be done through Directorate
meetings and the Health and Safety
Committee.
At our July 2011 Board meeting, our Board
and Residents Participation Forum took part
in a joint presentation and discussion about
the new rent policy consultation. The report
included options we may consider and the
effect on our future rental income and the
effects of the policy on the Business Plan in
the future.This consultation exercise proved
invaluable as we identified how tenants felt
about the proposal and formed the basis of
our response to the Welsh Government on
the new policy as well as generating a letter
from the tenants direct to the First Minister.
The outcome for the risk map was a
reduction in the risk score for this area since
a subsequent annoucement has delayed the
implementation following response from
organisations and tenants.
35
Following on from the formulation of a
Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) for ICT
services, with the assistance of an external
consultant, we have developed and tested a
Business Continuity Plan for the
organisation. We have identified the critical
functions within the business, assessed the
associated risks and formulated a business
recovery team to ensure that, should a major
incident occur, we can maintain and deliver
the critical services that we provide to our
customers. This has been tested both
theoretically and “for real” when the water
supply was shut off for the day. Both tests
proved that the DRP works.
We have a comprehensive insurance
programme in place to cover all of our
business activities. We are currently working
in conjunction with our insurance broker
(Acumus) to strengthen our insurance
policies and procedures in order to minimise
risk. We have employed a dedicated
insurance administrator, so we have a central
point for dealing with insurance cases in the
organsiation. This has resulted in a more
timely response in reporting and dealing with
claims, and provides tenants and third
parties with a central point of contact. We
are paying particular attention to further
developing two key areas with regards to
insurance - fleet management and slips, trips
and falls, in order to minimise risk to the
business, and in turn, reduce our insurance
premiums. An example of this is our
approach to driver risk in our fleet of vehicles
and all drivers are due to undertake on-line
risk assessments. Improvements in the
internal processing of insurance claims have
started to identify the true costs to the
organisation, and significantly increased the
value of claims. This will make us more
aware of the impact of incidents and enable
us to consider our “risk appetite” with
excess levels.
36
Progress since
January 2012
Business Plan
A revised business plan including an
additional £3m investment in our non
traditional properties has been agreed with
our Funders. This business plan is prudent,
with an increased provision for voids and
bad debts.
Delivering Services within
Budget
Service expenditure was monitored
throughout the year by the Board. We
maximised the cash available to us during
the year, within £16,000 of a deficit cash flow
covenant of £9.631m. The Statutory
accounts for 2011/12 have been audited
and signed off by the Board. The auditors
issued an unqualified audit opinion and all
covenants were complied with.
Financial Management
Framework
We are continuing to work with an external
consultant in reviewing and updating our
financial management framework. We have
recently revised our Financial Regulations,
Contract Standing Orders and Treasury
Management Policy and Strategy. This has
resulted in more flexibility, whilst being
mindful of risk. Training on the changes to
the Financial Regulations and Contract
Standing Orders has been provided to the
Senior Management Team and Executive
Management Team with further training for
key staff planned for October 2012. This will
ensure that our tenants’ money is being
spent appropriately and with probity.
To further strengthen the framework a
considerable amount of time has been spent
developing a range of fraud related policies
3.4 Are
we put
financially
3.1
Do we
citizenssound?
first?
including Bribery (which includes Gifts and
Hospitality) and Money Laundering. This work
has been reviewed by our internal auditors and
recommendations incorporated into the final
approved versions. Many other policies are
cross referenced to ensure that our staff act in
the appropriate manner and are aware of
different types of fraud to escalate potential
breaches. The financial stewardship of tenants’
monies is of paramount importance to us.
Service Matters (Orbit Group) to carry out
some fundamental reviews in the intervening
period between the expiration of their contract
and the new service commencing. This will
put us in a good position to begin with the
internal audit service. The audits conducted
between April and October 2012 have been:-
We have appointed an external provider
‘Sector’ to provide MVH with on-going
advice and support on our treasury
operations. Sector have recently carried out
a review of MVH’s loan facility and fixed rate
agreements to provide advice on how best
for the organisation to proceed. Their
recommendations were that the current loan
facility should be retained and the fixed rate
agreements should be reviewed periodically
to ensure that they remain suitable for MVH.
This has given the Board comfort. Sector will
provide advice and support for a 3 year
period.
• Creditors Audit - Green
Audit Committee / Internal Audit
The Audit Committee are continuing to meet
on a quarterly basis. Recently, the Audit
Committee Terms of Reference have been
reviewed, clearly detailing the authority given
to the Audit Committee by the Board, and the
parameters within which it shall operate. The
terms of reference will allow the members of
the Audit Committee to better understand its
functions and their responsibilities.
Merthyr Valleys Homes are partnering with
three other LSVTs in order to provide our
own internal audit services. This is due to be
set up in October 2012. The aim is that we
will have a service that is better value for
money, and will be sharing best practice
between the partnering organisations.
We have used our former Internal Auditors -
• Sinking Fund Review - Amber
• Anti-Fraud - Amber
• Payroll Audit – Green
• Land Audit - Amber
Whilst there is no direct benefit to tenants
from this, the Audit Committee contains 2
Tenant Board members who can review the
audits; meet with the auditors (both internal
and external) independently and monitor the
implementation of recommendations as well
as influence the audit work plan. The indirect
benefit to tenants is the scrutiny function that
this committee carries out on the internal
controls of the organisation.
Employment Tax and VAT Health
check
We appointed KPMG to carry out both
health checks. The Employment Tax health
check went well and has identified areas
where we should strengthen some internal
controls but reassured us that our core
processes are sound. The VAT health check
was commissioned to ensure that we are
maximising our VAT recovery. It revealed that
we were operating our system of recovery
well. The outcome of both of these reviews
means that tenants’ money is being
protected through minimising risk of fines
and maximising income. MVH is focussing
on continuous improvement in the way we
run our services.
37
Insurance
We are continuing to work with our insurance provider Acumus to strengthen our insurance
processes in order to minimise risk and reduce costs. Both the number of claims and
associated values have reduced year on year (as indicated in the table below). This is very
positive for MVH and has contributed to the modest increase in premium costs for 2012/13.
Insurance
Type
Number
of Claims
2010/11
Number
of Claims
2011/12
Value
of Claims
2010/11
Value
of Claims
2011/12
Increase/
(Decrease)
21
44
£175,449
£109,884
(£65,565)
Combined Liability
3
1
£30,519
0
(£30,519)
Personal Accident
0
0
0
0
0
Motor
9
3
£46,982
£10,575
(£36,407)
33
48
£252,950
£120,459
(£132,491)
Property Stock
TOTAL
Our agreement with Acumus ceases in March 2013, and the service needs to be re-tendered
during 2012/13. Board have approved the use of external advisors to conduct the OJEU
tendering process on our behalf, and to act as independent advisors for a three year period
thereafter. This will assist us in achieving value for money, and will allow us to improve our
insurance arrangements through added value for our tenants which will be a requirement of
the tender.
38
3.4 Are
we put
financially
3.1
Do we
citizenssound?
first?
In Place
Putting in Place
3 Revised 30 year Financial Business
Plan and loan covenants, including
scenario planning approved by Board
and backed by our funders.
3 Dowry gap funding – 5 year payment
guarantee from point of transfer.
3 Revised Quarterly Management
Accounts reports focussing on
strategic overview of business
developments and particularly capital
expenditure and monitoring.
3 Improved annual budget setting
procedures.
3 External auditor approved our
Financial Statements.
3 We are leading our Internal Audit
programme focusing on the areas the
business feels should be prioritised.
3 Disaster recovery plan in place for the
organisation.
3 Comprehensive tailored insurance
programme in order to cover all
aspects of the business.
3 Property Services Team trading
account to monitor performance
presented to Board.
3 Separate Capital Programme reports
whenever a Board decision is
required to alter the works
programme.
3 Create a budget book for 2012/13.
3 Driver risk assessments.
3 Updated financial management
framework and policies.
< Embedding risk management in the
organisation through Directorate
meetings and the Health and Safety
Committee.
To Do
8 Monitor and report productivity
increases and efficiency gains
secured within the Property Services
Team.
8 Value for money monitoring and
performance.
Establish budget review committee to
manage budget changes from
October 2013 after first six months of
benefit reform becomes apparent.
39
3.5 Do we work with others
to improve our community?
We have adjusted our Tenancy
Conditions to tackle the
problem of unlicensed motor
bikes following a joint
operation with the police
We gave over
£40,000 in grants and
sponsor ship to
community
we have funded
Moneyline Cymru to open
in Merthyr town centre
We’ve been working closely
and successfully with the
police to tackle the theft of
metal from properties
worked closely with the
council to house and
support vulnerable
people
improved fire safety in
the award winning
Forsythia Youth Project
we have financially supported
key financial advice
organisations CAB Merthyr
and Credit Action
we have awarded new
social enterprises
contracts for grounds
maintenance
40
We engage with others to enhance and maximise outcomes for our service users and the community
3.5
Do we
we put
work
with others
3.1 Do
citizens
first?to improve our community?
The progress up to
January 2012
We have established a number of successful
partnerships with organisations in order to
achieve our objectives. We support the Local
Authority in the delivery of its strategic
housing role, and as identified below, we
attend a range of forums and partnerships,
including the Local Services Board, and we
will be attending the new strategic housing
forum following the Council’s restructure of
its partnership arrangements.
We participate in the Borough’s Common
Housing Register (CHR), which is governed
by a common allocations policy. This
means that new and existing tenants are
able to apply for a home owned by, or
receive housing advice from, any of the
participating partners in the Borough – and
so have to only make one application or
approach regardless of the housing provider.
All applications are assessed on the same
basis and this partnership approach provides
consistency for people in housing need. The
CHR also gives an indication of housing
need, which in conjunction with the Local
Housing Market Assessment enables the
Local Authority to strategically plan for future
housing provision. We are contributing to the
Council’s review of its allocations policy.
In response to feedback from new and
existing tenants, and Board members, that
the Borough-wide choice based lettings
scheme is sometimes hard to understand,
we have worked to promote a better
understanding of the scheme to benefit the
Borough. Examples include developing an
editorial for the local media, training session
for Board members, and more recently, we
have held outreach surgeries with young
people and with the Polish community to
ensure that people understand the scheme
and how to access it.
We are active members of the Managing
Access to Adapted and Supported
Housing scheme (MAASH), which was
developed by MTCBC and a range of other
housing providers and support agencies.
The aim of the scheme is to facilitate
effective partnership working across the
Borough, to ensure the needs of the most
vulnerable members of our community are
met effectively and efficiently, enabling them
to access housing and support services that
adequately meet their needs. This scheme
not only aims to ensure that adapted
properties are utilised to the best effect, but
also ensures that we receive referrals that
are most suited to the service we provide,
and that schemes are used to their
maximum capacity. The outcome for
tenants and prospective tenants is that
better use is made of existing adaptations
within general needs housing stock, and that
tenants who need support to sustain their
tenancy receive it in a co-ordinated and
timely way.
We assist the Local Authority to meet its
statutory homeless duty through the direct
provision of accommodation Last year we
increased our provision of temporary
accommodation in to nine units, which
assisted the Local Authority to meet the
relevant target in its Housing Strategy Action
Plan. This year we have secured additional
revenue grant funding for the remainder of
the financial year from the Council to
increase the amount of hours of housing
related support we provide to tenants of
temporary accommodation. Part of the
successful bid for this was being able to
demonstrate tangible improvements in the
quality of life of service users – please see
case studies1 and 2.
41
3.5 Do we work with others to improve our community?
We are members of the Community Safety
Partnership. The partnership meets
regularly, with the aim of reducing Anti Social
Behaviour (ASB) within Merthyr Tydfil. One
of the benefits of the partnership approach is
that complaints are dealt with in a consistent
and structured way, with support from
specialist agencies where it is needed. For
example, decisions on remedies for complex
or serious cases are made by an ASB
Working Group – which ensures that local
intelligence and expertise is used effectively.
Through partnership working we have been
able to make use of remedies such as Anti
Social Behaviour Orders and injunctions.
Merthyr Valleys Homes has been recognised
by the Welsh Government as meeting the
Wales Housing Management Standard for
Anti Social Behaviour. In doing so we have
made a visible commitment to tenants,
service users and other parties to do all we
reasonably can to provide excellent services
to tackle anti-social behaviour through our
housing management and community roles.
So far in 2011/12 we have successfully
applied for eight injunctions, one suspended
possession order and secured two court
undertakings in serious ASB cases. But we
also take action where we can to support
tenancies, and take enforcement action to
tackle smaller issues, such as untidy
gardens, because we know that this reduces
the attractiveness of schemes and estates
for other residents.
We have also worked closely and
successfully with the Police to secure a
conviction, through surveillance provided by
us, following a number of thefts from empty
properties. Improved security and publicity
about the case means we have not had any
further thefts or attempted thefts from empty
properties. The eventual prosecution
included custodial sentences and a Criminal
42
“Merthyr Valleys Homes has
been recognised by the
Welsh Government as
meeting the Wales Housing
Management Standard for
Anti Social Behaviour.”
ASB Order baring the perpetrators from
entering any of our homes.
We are involved in a range of other
partnerships within the Borough which
include the Multi Agency Diversity Forum
(MADF), including a sub-group where we
task and review housing actions in the
Borough’s Community Cohesion Strategy
and Action Plan, the Heads of the Valleys
Third Sector Contact Group, Voluntary
Action Merthyr Tydfil Health and Social Care
Forum and the Multi-Agency Play Strategy
Group. All of these partnerships and groups
contribute to both MTCBC’s and MVH’s
strategic aims for the Borough’s residents.
We also support a number of community
based enterprises, for example, through the
provision of premises for peppercorn rents,
as we recognise the value that these
organizations bring to our estates and
communities. A positive example is the
Forsythia Youth Project, which supports
young people, and the Gellideg Foundation,
which is working to socially and
economically regenerate one of the most
deprived estates in the Borough.
We are active members of the Merthyr Tydfil
Financial Inclusion Forum, which aims to
reduce financial exclusion levels in Merthyr
Tydfil. We have developed a draft Financial
Inclusion Strategy and action plan with the
aim being to assist our tenants in managing
their money effectively and securely. This is
very important to us given the demographics
3.5 Do
Do we
we put
work
with others
3.1
citizens
first?to improve our community?
of the Borough, and the real and increasing
pressures on our tenants and their ability to
sustain their tenancies.
By working towards achieving the Welsh
Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) we are
ensuring the future provision of quality
homes within the Borough. We have
developed a planned improvement
programme to carry out these works and our
tenant led Quality and Design Forum was
involved with the appointment of contractors
as part of this programme.
We support improvement in the housing
sector and participate in conferences and
seminars, we have joined the Chartered
Institute in Housing (CIH) in Ireland for
discussions on regulation in that country and
we have provided speakers at a number of
HouseMark events on good practice. We
are active participants in CIH Cymru,
Community Housing Cymru (CHC) and we
have representatives on both CIH and CHC’s
management boards.
We are members of procurement
consortiums (for example, Procurement for
Housing, City West) with framework
agreements for procurement of goods and
services. The benefit of this is that the
framework agreements bear the contract
risk, and are competitively priced, which
means that we can stretch our resources to
deliver more for our tenants.
Progress since
January 2012
Creating safe communities
The management of safe communities
remains a tenant priority. We have continued
to work closely with the police and PCSO
surgeries take place each week in our office.
We hold detailed case conferences with
“Our housing team were
found to be experienced,
with an in-depth knowledge
of the communities in
which they operate.”
partners in the police on complex cases and
we have achieved the Wales Housing
Management Standard for Anti Social
Behaviour.
To ensure that we continue to provide an
excellent service, an independent desktop
review was commissioned, and undertaken
by CIH in May 2012. The conclusion was
that we deal with ASB very well, and have
adopted a victim centred approach.
Supporting victims and witnesses is a
particular strength for MVH and housing
officers understand that this is a priority early staff intervention has avoided case
escalation. Our housing team were found to
be experienced, with an in-depth knowledge
of the communities in which they operate. In
addition, the report concluded that we
demonstrate good partnership working with
other agencies.
43
3.5 Do we work with others to improve our community?
In Place
Putting in Place
3 We have established a number of
successful partnerships with
organisations.
< We are continuing our financial
inclusion work in order to assist our
tenants in managing their money
effectively and securely.
3 Promoted a better understanding of
the choice based lettings scheme.
3 We have secured additional revenue
grant funding to increase our housing
related support.
3 Meeting the Wales Housing
Management Standard for Anti Social
Behaviour.
3 Supporting local community based
enterprises.
44
To Do
8 Create neighbour management
plans.
3.1
3.6 Do
Do we
we put
improve
citizens
homes
first?to a high standard?
3.6 Do we improve homes
to a high standard?
consulted all tenants on the
spending priorities in the
plan and moved over £3m
into energy efficiency
measures
we have a
comprehensive stock
condition survey
a WHQS standard that
has been set with
tenants
identified resources in our
business plan to find long
term solutions to problems
associated with non
traditional properties
an on target
programme to meet
WHQS
sufficient resources in
our business plan to
meet all future and back
log repair requirements
we have created a £1.1m
programme of tenant led
community improvement
programme
Delivery Outcome LS1
We build and renovate homes to a good quality
45
3.6 Do we improve homes to a high standard?
The progress up to
January 2012
Building new homes is not a business priority
for us at the moment. We are however
working the council to identify land in our
ownership that could be used to support the
councils’ affordable housing programme. An
Asset Management Strategy is being
developed that will set out our long term
investment plans, look at the best use of our
assets including land and identify properties
for refurbishment or replacement.
We are now well on our way to providing
good quality homes and Savills have
confirmed that by the year end 63% of
properties will meet the Welsh Housing
Quality Standard (WHQS) and we have the
resources and plans to deliver the remain
47% by our 2014 target date.
The capital programme for 2010/11 was
under spent by £4.915m or nearly 50% and
this followed the poor performance in 2009
when nearly 70% of the programme was
under spent. Despite the poor performance
overall there were a few areas that need
highlighting. The performance on gas boiler
and central heating upgrades was good and
this was delivered through our own
workforce that achieved high satisfaction
levels, local employment targets as all the
staff are from the local area and included the
recruitment of an apprentice. The external
insulation programme carried out in
conjunction with British Gas at Mandeg,
Trelewis was an award winner at the Welsh
Housing Awards and it provided huge
benefits to tenants, the local community and
the environment. During the year we
successfully drew down £1m from the
Heads of the Valleys ARBED fund.
In anticipation of the poor year end
46
“Savills have confirmed that
by the year end 63% of
properties will meet the
Welsh Housing Quality
Standard (WHQS)”
performance Merthyr Valleys Homes let two
more additional kitchen, bathroom and
electrical contracts to FHM and Apollo; these
contractors were let following competitive
tenders and the prices received by Merthyr
Valleys Homes were very competitive and
reflected the difficult building market. Both
contactors required difficult post tender
contract negotiations and considerable
gearing up and were not running at full
speed until October 2011.
By the end of quarter two we had achieved a
capital programme running that was
predicted to use all the available resources
within the financial year.
3.6
Do we
we put
improve
homes
3.1 Do
citizens
Contract
or
Number of
properties
in contract
Contract
value
£‘000’s
Number of
properties
invoiced
R&M Williams
Phase 4
89
652
89
652
0
686
R&M Williams
Phase 5
216
1,307
90
678
1,220
1,311
Apollo
366
1,965
72
378
1,529
1,414
FHM
830
4,634
111
664
2,725
2,663
PST
100
463
20
70
492
492
Bullock
62
350
0
0
350
350
TOTAL
1,663
9,371
382
2,442
6,308
6,916
0
809
6,308
7,725
R&M Williams
Phase 6
GRAND TOTAL
Paid Budget
£‘000’s £‘000’s
100
1,763
10,180
382
2.442
Forecast
£‘000’s
Of the total revised programme of £10.154m, over 60%, £6.3m relates to the WHQS
programme of kitchens, bathrooms and re-wiring. Four external contractors, together with
our own Property Services Team, were expected to deliver 1,168 improved properties by 31
March 2012. The table above shows actual payments and predicted spend for 2011/12 of
£7.725m.
The non-WHQS element of the programme totals £3.846m which has now been allocated as
detailed in the table below:
Expenditure
Budget
£‘000’s
PST
£‘000’s
External
contract
£‘000’s
Roofing
451
310
141
Boundary walls
& fences
340
250
Heating
500
0
UPVC Windows
& Doors
1,093
1,093
Forsythia Close
60
Not
Let
£‘000’s
500
60
Actual
spend
£‘000’s
Estimated
spend
£‘000’s
176
451
251
340
425
575
430
1,200
0
60
47
Expenditure
Budget
£‘000’s
PST
£‘000’s
External
contract
£‘000’s
Not
Let
£‘000’s
Actual
spend
£‘000’s
Estimated
spend
£‘000’s
Mandeg
20
20
0
20
The Green –
Car Park
65
65
0
65
100
100
0
100
30
30
0
0
External wall
insulation
600
600
0
0
Triple glazed
windows
260
260
0
0
Roof railings
50
50
0
0
Boilers
200
200
0
200
Lift renewal
196
196
0
0
Contingency
138
138
0
0
Grant income
(257)
(257)
(45)
(20)
1,552
1,251
2,992
Fire Safety Upgrades
Non Traditional
Properties
TOTAL
3,846
1,653
641
Of the remaining capital works £1.653m has been committed with our own workforce and
external contracts totalling £641k have been let, leaving only £1.552m to be let. Both the
roofing programme and the external walls programme are forecast to be fully committed by
the year end. The UPVC programme is slightly behind schedule, but is catching up. A
commitment to purchase windows from Remploy is likely to result in an overspend of £107k
on this budget by the year end. Total forecast capital for 2010/11 is shown below and
includes the further acceleration of the WHQS programme with R and M Williams:MVH own workforce £‘000’s
Contracts £‘000’s
TOTAL £‘000’s
492
6,424
6,916
Other
1,653
1,339
2,992
Total
2,145
7,763
9,908
0
809
809
2.145
8,572
10,717
WHQS
Accelerated
WHQS
Total
48
3.6
Do we
we put
improve
homes
3.1 Do
citizens
During 2011/12 Savills have carried out a further stock condition survey of 2175 properties
meaning in total we have survey data on 2895 properties. The data is validated by Savills
and a full report can be provided on request. Merthyr Valleys Homes have been working with
Greg Wheeler, a Director of Savills, to produce realistic financial projections and these have
been modelled and inserted into the 30 year business plan approved by the funders for
2011/12 onwards.
The process of reviewing the survey data and the future budget projections has been
scrutinised by members of the tenants Quality Design Forum and a newsletter will be
published to all tenants following Board consideration of the issues in December 2011. The
table below shows our progress in meeting the WHQS targets
Components
Projections for
completions
by 2011/12
Projections for
completions
2012/13
Projections for
completions
2013/14
Roofs
95%
98%
100%
Windows
90%
95%
100%
External doors
90%
90%
100%
Kitchens
63%
81%
100%
Bathrooms
75%
87%
100%
Central heating
92%
96%
100%
Electrical systems
90%
94%
100%
Smoke detectors
83%
91%
100%
Energy rating
100%
Note 1
External works
77%
83%
100%
All components
63%
81%
100%
Note 1
The data from the revised stock condition survey is still being cleansed and we will not have
revised SAP rating figure until March 2012, however with continued investment in central heating
and further investment in external insulation we are confident of reaching the SAP target.
We are confident of the projections and have contracts in place for the two weakest areas of
our planned kitchen and bathroom programme and believe a programme of delivering 775
kitchens is realistic and deliverable. By mid way through this year we had installed 427
kitchens after a slow start.
The headline from the survey and business plan discussions with Savills is that we have the
resources and time to deliver in full the WHQS target Welsh Government.
49
The stock survey changed a number of assumptions in our forward expenditure programme
but the total cost of future repairs remains within the recent business plan approved by our
funders. Annex 1 and 2 show the full elemental breakdown of the projected expenditure and
the plan now includes a more realistic spend of future responsive and cyclical repairs.
In addition to the WHQS programme at transfer Merthyr Valleys Homes committed to deliver
a number of itemised promises on elements of improvement within the first five years. The
table below shows the extent of these promises and identifies that we have the resources to
deliver the majority of them and we are working with tenants to define some of the other
elements.
Element
Transfer
Promises
2010/11
Projected
2011/12
Position
To Do by
March
2014
Provision in
first 5 years
of SCS
Kitchen
2500
950
1550
2400
Bathroom
2000
950
1050
1900
700
60
640
1036
Electrics
3000
1000
2000
2400
Windows
1400
1000
400
400
Doors
3000
Heating & Boilers
1500
1110
390
629
£400,000
£400,000
£500,000
Fencing/paths
£1,300,000
£1,300,000
£180,000
Environmental Improvements
£4,400,000
£4,350,000
£5,940,000
Roofs
Common Areas
£50,000
*The promises identified doors not properties and we are still calculating our commitment on
doors.
The two budgets where the promises to
tenants were based on national averages
rather than stock survey findings were paths
and environment works budget lines of
£1.3m and £4.4m respectively in the original
plan. The Quality Design Forum will be
recommending to the Board that the
commitment on paths is reduced following
survey data to a contingency sum of only
£180,000 and the money switched to
external insulation programmes and other
50
external environmental improvement
programmes.
In June 2011 the Board identified that the
future cost of responsive, cyclical and voids
repairs in the business plan reduced by 25%
after the completion of the WHQS work.
After identifying costs savings we stretched
the current budget levels for three further
years. However as part of reassessing our
future repair need in our stock condition
3.6
Do we
we put
improve
homes
3.1 Do
citizens
survey we have increased within the
balanced a more realistic level of future
revenue repairs. In future we will have a
budget provision of £3.6m per annum.
We did not maximise the opportunities for
local procurement to date as pragmatism to
deliver the capital programme took
precedence over community and other
benefits. After discussions the two main
contractors FHM and Apollo have now
adopted a more proactive response to the
issue than is required in their contract and
both have delivered community benefits
including providing free of costs local facility
improvements and both employ a substantial
majority of staff from the local area. In
discussions about how we can extend this
relationship further, FHM are now developing
a programme of full time staff and
apprentices all recruited locally, as they are in
the process of moving away from the sub
contractor route.
As stated earlier, the Trelewis energy
efficiency works completed this year was a
partnership between Merthyr Valleys Homes,
British Gas and Joyners from Gwent. All
employment and products were sourced
within a 15 mile radius of Trelewis and it will
be our model for future projects.
One of the largest local employers in Merthyr
is Remploy and our contract with this
company to manufacture UPVC doors and
windows ended due to quality control issues.
However, the benefits to the local community
of this company were extensive and we have
worked closely with a new management
team at Remploy and have recently
completed a programme of new doors and
windows with this company. We are now
hoping that our investment in UPVC of
£1.3m in the next two years will be spent
with Remploy.
Despite not driving procurement benefits we
did spent over £10m in the local economy
during 2010/11 sustaining jobs and local
businesses. The procurement potential of
our remaining investment is now being
discussed with i2i and targeted recruitment
and SME clauses will be included and
managed in future programmes
“A member of the Quality
Design Forum sits on the
strategic core group that
oversees the progress and
performance of each of the
main contractors. ”
There are currently four main contractors
delivering the kitchen, bathroom, and
electrical WHQS upgrades. Two are
appointed on a PPC 2000 partnering
framework and the others are appointed on
an NEC3 framework. The qualitative criteria
for the contracts included an evaluation
based on the targeted recruitment and
training tool kit. Members of the tenant
Quality Design Forum have received training
in contractor selection and had a presence
on the selection panel that evaluated and
scored the contractor PQQs and tender
submissions.
A member of the Quality Design Forum sits
on the strategic core group that oversees the
progress and performance of each of the
main contractors. The key areas of
performance that are monitored are
customer satisfaction, progress against plan,
average completion times, and component
costs. The ‘Can Do Tool Kit’ has also been
adopted in each of the contracts and
community benefit is monitored through
levels of local employment and level of work
opportunities created.
51
Progress since January 2012
WHQS Progress Update
The table below is the component breakdown up to the 31 March 2012 and we are now
confident that all components will reach the WHQS standard by 2014. Since December 2011
we have reviewed in more detail the findings from Savills. For some component we have
revised raw survey data with our own repair information giving us greater confidence.
However revision has adjusted downwards completions in central heating, electrical and
smoke detectors. We remain confident that WHQS will be achieved in all areas.
Stock at
31 March
2012
Numbers
Improved
at 31 March
2012
Number of
property
already
meeting
standard
Percentage
fully
compliant
at 31 March
2012
Roofs and associated
components
4,198
178
3,498
88%
Windows
4,198
664
2,798
82%
Energy rating (SAP ≥ 65)
4,198
2,610
0
62%
Central heating systems
4,198
1,077
2,115
76%
Mains powered smoke detectors
4,198
2,632
0
63%
Gardens and external
storage up and including
the boundary of the property
4,198
1,060
0
25%
Component
The table below is an update figure to the 1 July 2012 for the key kitchen bathroom and
electrical rewiring components of the WHQS programme.
Stock at
31 March
2012
Numbers
Improved
at 1 July
2012
Number of
property
already
meeting
standard
Percentage
fully
compliant
at 1 July
2012
Kitchens
4,198
1581
1,698
78%
Bathrooms
4,198
1429
2,198
86%
Central heating systems
4,198
1,106
2,115
78%
Doors
4,198
1717
1,995
88%
Windows
4,198
723
2,798
83%
Electrical systems
4,198
1872
1,198
73%
Component
52
3.6
Do we
we put
improve
homes
3.1 Do
citizens
We are continuing to progress with the
Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS)
works. We have provided our tenants with
an updated ‘Planned Improvement
Programme’ – this was distributed in April
2012. This is an annual programme for the
period 2012/13. Over this year, we are
planning to upgrade a further 750 kitchens,
bathrooms and electrical upgrades, and will
be spending approximately £13m. In
addition, we have introduced a 5 year
cyclical painting programme.
The biggest change in the profile of
expenditure has been the tenants wanting an
increase in expenditure on energy efficiency
insulation measures at the expense of
external works. This has resulted in a major
shift in expenditure through the next five
years. We have also set aside £1.1m for a
tenant led community programme and this
we believe will allow us to meet the WHQS
target on external area improvements.
St Tydfil’s Court
A significant programme of improvement
works is underway in one of our sheltered
schemes, St Tydfil’s Court. We have completed
the heating and fire door installation
programmes, and external works are close to
completion. We worked closely with the
Council to ensure that the finished design
details are in line with the proposed plans for
the town centre regeneration development.
Energy Improvements
Following our consultation exercise with
tenants in February 2012, we have listened
to what our tenants want, and are carrying
out a number of external wall insulation
projects as a result. We have secured
extended ARBED and CESP funding to
continue with works across the Borough.
We have external wall insulation projects on
“A significant programme of
improvement works is
underway in one of our
sheltered schemes, St
Tydfil’s Court.”
going at Caedraw, and Canonbie Crescent
and over 180 non traditional properties in the
Gurnos area. These energy efficiency
measures have three main benefits:
• improved homes are cheaper to heat and
the savings will reduce fuel poverty and
mitigate the impact of welfare benefit
reform;
• homes look clean and smart from the
outside. The effect has been to transform
the look and feel of neighbours improved
like Mandeg; and
• the impact on the environment is positive,
with lower CO2 emissions.
Procurement through local
suppliers
Following the self assessment in December
2011 the Remploy Factory in Merthyr has now
closed. We are working to source alternative
UPVC products from other suppliers working
with disadvantaged communities.
Reviewing the effective delivery
of major contracts
We carried out a major review of our
management of major contracts and the
effectiveness of contractors to deal with
vulnerable tenants. This review identified a
number of changes in our data management
and training that have been addressed. It also
identified that the type of delivery model
employed by the contractor did seem to reflect
on the quality of the contractor in dealing with
vulnerable tenants. Those contractors that
directly employed staff and those contractors
53
that employed a single sub contractor to carry
out their work, were the best at managing the
impact of the work in peoples homes. As part of
the review we will assess all future contractors to
ensure we work with contractors directly
employing staff, this provides continuity on site,
builds better relationships between the
contractor and tenants, allows us to better
monitor CRB, training and our CDMM
responsibilities. Finally contractors that employ
local staff have a greater economic benefit for
community and help us reach our goal of
economic equality for our community.
We have also been more effective in managing
the capital programme expenditure within our
lending covenants. The table below shows the
cash flow covenant and the outturn expenditure.
The primary reason for the low out turn in earlier
year is the under spend on WHQS.
2009/10 £’000s
2010/11 £’000s
2011/12 £’000s
(18,199)
(8,939)
(9,631)
Outturn
(6,425)
(3,480)
(9,615)
Difference
11,774
5,459
16
Cash Flow Covenant
Delivery Outcome LS1 Summary
In Place
Putting in Place
3 Detailed plans to deliver the
remainder of the WHQS programme.
< Procurement and regeneration
opportunities for the remainder of the
capital programme.
3 A 30 year validated stock data
condition survey and report.
3 Realistic levels of investment in
responsive, cyclical and voids repairs
through the life of the business plan.
< Contracts for the delivery of £4.8m of
WHQS.
To Do
3 Contracts to deliver nearly £9m of the
remain WHQS programme.
8 Deliver the remainder of the WHQS
programme of £4.8m.
3 Accurate street by street programme
of improvements.
8 Maximise the training and recruitment
opportunities through capital spend.
8 To procure future works through
smaller contractors committed to
Merthyr and who can deliver quality
improvements to vulnerable tenants.
54
3.1
3.7 Do we have
put citizens
a fair process
first? for letting homes?
3.7 Do we have a fair
process for letting homes?
100% of allocations come
through the Council’s
Choice Based Lettings
system
tenants told us the Choice
Based Lettings was complex
and we worked with the
Council to improve and
simplify it
increased
resources to
sustain tenancies
we have reduced void
levels to the lowest level
ever
we provide temporary
housing units to help the
council manage its
homelessness duties
we have incorporated OT
assessments and adaptation
improvements into WHQS
programme allowing people to
remain in their homes
We let homes in a fair, transparent and effective way
55
3.6 Do
Dowe
wehave
improve
tofor
a high
standard?
3.7
a fairhomes
process
letting
homes?
The progress up to
January 2012
We have adopted the common allocation
policy of Merthyr Tydfil County Borough
Council (MTCBC). This ensures that all
applicants are assessed on the same basis,
and can apply for any vacancies across the
Borough at any of the participating four
registered social landlords. The policy is
based on a Choice Based Lettings (CBL)
scheme, called the ‘Tai Dewis’ scheme – the
administration of this scheme is the
responsibility of MTCBC. Properties are
advertised on a weekly basis,enabling
people to bid for them in line with their
assessed needs, through a variety of
methods, in the areas of their choice. The
adverts are circulated to a wide variety of
organisations.
The CBL scheme ensures that the
allocations process is transparent and gives
prospective tenants an indication of how
long they may have to wait for a property in a
particular area, which can help them to make
informed choices about which properties to
bid for. We operate a lettings plan which
reflects reasonable preference as identified in
the Code of Guidance distributed by the
Welsh Government. An internal audit of our
lettings and allocations identified that the
allocations system is operating effectively,
and we are supporting the Local Authority by
meeting, and exceeding, the lettings targets
that they have set for us.
We are currently working with MTCBC in
making improvements to the current Tai
Dewis scheme, including our involvement in
a review of the allocations policy. We drafted
and shared an editorial with the other
partners in response to a number of tenants
having difficulty understanding the process.
We regularly communicate the allocations
56
process to our tenants, including articles in
our ‘Hometalk’ newsletter, and our website
In September 2011, we introduced the
national ‘Homeswapper’ scheme to our
tenants – this scheme is the UK’s largest
community of social housing tenants looking
to swap homes. To date, we have 63
registered tenants. This will assist us in the
future with the planned welfare reforms, as
tenants who are under occupying homes will
have a wider choice.
We work with a range of partners and
agencies to ensure that homelessness is
prevented and reduced. We have nine units
of temporary accommodation, and provide
floating support to help tenants embed
themselves into the community. Various
support services are offered, including
support in obtaining benefits, grants etc and
help with social skills. The aim is to assist
tenants in sustaining a tenancy long term.
We work in partnership with other
organisations to meet the needs of tenants.
A Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) protocol
has been developed between ourselves,
MTCBC and Merthyr Care and Repair. The
grants are awarded for essential adaptations
to give a disabled person greater
independence within their home or easier
access and egress from their home. Under
the protocol, we undertake minor
adaptations up to the value of £5,000, which
helps to speed up the adaptations process
for our tenants. We carry out annual
servicing of adaptations, such as stair lifts
and ceiling track hoists
As promised to tenants at point of transfer,
we have increased the quality of
improvements and choices to tenants
moving into one of our properties. In
conjunction with a sub-group of the tenant
led Quality Design Forum (QDF), we have
3.1 Do we have
put citizens
3.7
a fair process
developed a ‘Void Property Re-let
Standard’. Previously, we referred to the
Local Authority lettings standard, but we
found this to be too vague, and were having
to return to properties to address snagging
issues. Some improvements have been
made following tenants’ contributions, for
example, we now carry our external works
including clearing gardens.
The members of the QDF sub-group ‘spot
inspect’ a random number of void properties
both when they are returned, and again
before they are re-let, to ensure that the
standard is being maintained and is
consistent. A checklist is used to ensure
consistency, and the inspection is done
independently of staff assessments. A void
property report is submitted by the group,
confirming their findings. To date, the subgroup have accepted all of the properties that
they have inspected, thus confirming that the
standard is being adhered to. By improving
the standard, our ready to let homes are
meeting our tenants’ expectations at the
point when they move into the property. We
have reduced the number of issues and
minor repairs requested by tenants moving
into a re-let property, and the Housing
Officers have confirmed that there are fewer
issues to deal with following the change.
In addition to improving the letting standard,
we have also reviewed our decorating
scheme. Tenants, if they prefer to decorate
themselves, are offered the opportunity to
have an allowance in the form of an e-card
(to use at B&Q) to decorate the property
themselves, to a maximum of £300. This has
led to tenants having more choice and has
led to tenants feeling proud of their property,
and has assisted in the time taken to re-let
void properties, as well as a reduction in cost
to the organisation. We have had a good
take up from tenants – year to date, we have
issued over £20,000 in e-cards to over 160
tenants.
We have also focused on prevention methods.
We request that tenants give us 28 days notice
of their intention to give up their property and
we have developed the process to clearly
identify tenants’ responsibilities. Tenants from
the Quality and Design Forum and staff have
been involved in the development of an ‘exit
standard’ – a checklist for tenants informing
them of what they need to do when leaving a
property. This is due to be communicated out
to tenants early 2012, and will form part of the
lettings pack.
Although a lot of work has been done in this
area, we need to make some further
improvements. We need to improve our
communications between departments to
ensure that the whole process is a lean as
possible.
Progress since January 2012
Improving the ‘Tai Dewis’ Choice
Based Lettings Scheme
We recognise that the current economic
climate is increasing the demand for our
homes, and so it is increasingly important
that people understand how homes are
allocated. It is also important for people to
know, particularly in times where there are
more and more people bidding for a
relatively small number of properties, that the
allocations policy is fair, and applied
consistently.
We have been working closely with MTCBC
to review the Tai Dewis scheme. This gave
us the opportunity to provide feedback from
some of our new tenants to MTCBC about
their experience of using the scheme. This
has helped to inform some key
recommendations for change, which include:
57
3.6 Do
Dowe
wehave
improve
tofor
a high
standard?
3.7
a fairhomes
process
letting
homes?
• raising the equity limit that would prevent
an applicant from being eligible to apply
for a home – the limit had been in place
for some time and did not take account
of changing economic circumstances and
the impact this had on the demand for
affordable rented homes; and
• a more flexible bidding process which will
increase the pool of available properties
that applicants are able to bid for. The
previous restrictions were frequently
raised by applicants as being confusing
and limiting their choices.
The review also highlighted the need for all
partners within the scheme to work closely
together to see how we can deal with the
anticipated high demand for smaller
properties as the result of changes to welfare
benefits. This will help all of the partners to
make sure we are making best use of
existing stock.
We intend to re-launch the scheme in
November 2012. The changes will allow
greater flexibility for tenants and potential
tenants, and provide a simplified scheme
that will be easier to understand.
Publicising routes into housing
In addition to regular features in our
newsletter, and a newspaper advertorial, we
have started to do more outreach work to
make sure that prospective tenants
understand how affordable rented homes are
allocated in the Borough. This includes
sessions at schools, as well as within
emerging communities. One example is of a
housing advice session with the Polish
community at a preferred community venue
– which is now followed up by regular
attendance at Polish Forum meetings.
Homelessness prevention
We continue to provide floating support to
58
assist tenants in sustaining a long term
tenancy, and have secured further funding
for an additional support officer until March
2013. This has enabled us to expand our
service and provide more support to more
tenants who need it. There are a number of
cases where support from MVH has
successfully prevented homelessness,
helping the local authority to make better use
of its resources, and promoting more stable
communities.
Management of empty homes
Changes to welfare benefits and increasing
pressure on people to make ends meet
means that we anticipate a potential increase
in demand for our homes. We know that in
tight knit communities like the ones we work
in, the sight of empty homes is a cause for
concern and sometimes friction in the
community.
We are continuing to improve the way we
manage empty homes. Communication
between different departments has been
improved by co-locating the PST Void
Supervisors and Housing Allocations team.
This has resulted in better partnership
working in terms of scheduling and managing
the time taken to repair and re-let empty
homes by having more efficient processes.
During the summer the number of void
properties dropped to 68 the lowest it has
ever been at either MVH or the Council.
We have reviewed our Voids Policy to include
a ‘Re-let Standard’ that was developed with
the tenant-led Quality and Design Forum. The
standard is checked by staff and tenant
inspectors to make sure that new homes
meet an agreed specification, that new
tenants know what to expect from their new
home and that the number of repairs ordered
by tenants after moving in is reduced.
3.1 Do we have
put citizens
3.7
a fair process
Delivery Outcome LS2 Summary
In Place
3 Implemented the national
‘Homeswapper’ scheme, which
means that tenants have a wider
choice of housing options.
3 Provided floating support to help
sustain tenancies; and manage nine
units of temporary accommodation to
help people make the transition to
settled accommodation. We have
secured extra funding for an additional
support post so that we can provide
more support to more people.
3 Implemented a new re-let standard
for empty homes, and introduced
inspections by tenant inspectors. This
helps to make sure that empty homes
meet an agreed standard, that new
tenants know what to expect, and a
reduction in the number of repairs
that new tenants need to report after
they have moved in.
3 Reviewed our decorating allowance
scheme, with substantial take up by
tenants, improving the level of choice
they have about how to decorate
their new home and keeping our
assets in good order.
3 Extended our outreach work to help
prospective tenants understand how
housing is allocated within the
Borough – and how to access advice
and support.
Worked with partners to review and
improve the borough-wide choice
based lettings scheme – improving
the level of choice for tenants.
Putting in Place
< Communicating the ‘exit standard’ for
tenants.
To Do
8 Re-launch the improved choice
based lettings scheme.
8 Regularly review feedback from new
letting surveys to see what other
changes and improvements we could
make.
8 Work with the Council to develop a
downsizing policy.
3 Co-located teams to improve
communications between
departments to ensure that the way
we manage the repair and re-let of
empty homes is as effective as
possible. The number of empty
homes is at its lowest for some time.
59
3.8 Are we a good manager of housing?
3.8 Are we a good manager
of housing?
we listened to our
tenants about the
importance of peaceful
neighbourhoods
we meet the Welsh
ASB standard
had an external validation
of our ASB service that
showed we used all the
appropriate methods and
know what we were doing
we do more
active pre tenancy
management
we have revised our
approach to rent arrears
and financial inclusion and
have made no evictions
since March 2012
we have prepared for the
changes in welfare benefit and
switched more resources into
financial management
60
We manage our homes effectively
we have also
resourced diversionary
activities
our tenants wanted a more
outward reaching service
and we now do more home
visits and neighbourhood
activity
we have consulted on service
charges and specifications
and improved services
including providing additional
caretaking
3.8
Arewe
weput
a good
manager
3.1 Do
citizens
first? of housing?
The progress up to
January 2012
We offer a range of tenancy agreements
which are compatible with the purpose of
the housing. Temporary tenancy agreements
are used for tenants in temporary
accommodation units (we currently have
nine temporary units). For those tenants in
temporary accommodation, regular support
is provided for example, assisting the tenant
to obtain benefits that they are entitled to.
We provide tenants with an opportunity to
sustain a short term tenancy, with the
intention of transferring them into a property.
This transition has proved to be successful,
and here is an example of a tenant that we
have assisted.
Tenants who move out of temporary
accommodation into a property, and all new
tenants, are signed up to an assured short
hold tenancy. This type of tenancy is a
probationary tenancy. It is an opportunity for
the tenant to have responsibility for a
property, and to embed themselves into the
community. After twelve months, providing
there have been no breaches of the tenancy,
the tenancy will become an assured tenancy.
We make clear the rights and duties of the
tenant and landlord from the start of a
tenancy. Evictions are only used as a last
resort and the numbers have been reducing
year on year. In the first six months of
2011/12, there were two evictions, both for
rent arrears. In comparison, over the
previous two years there were 12 evictions
(2009/10) and 10 evictions (2010/11).
We use a range of methods and
interventions to ensure that tenancies are
sustained. Our tenancy agreements were
updated in 2009/10 to make them easier to
understand, and tenants were involved in
this process. Our housing officers explain the
terms of the tenancy on sign up, and provide
the tenants with a ‘letting pack’, containing
information about MVH and services from
other organisations and agencies. In
addition the newly appointed Income
Maximisation Officer also attends Sign up to
give additional advice, assess financial
capacity, budgeting pre letting and pre
tenancy training. The Housing Officers
conduct three week and twelve week postlet visits to determine if the tenants need and
additional support and/or guidance in order
to ensure that the tenancy is sustained.
Although tenancy turnover has remained
static, the level of evictions is significantly
reduced. The proportion of tenants who are
not intending to move from their MVH
property in the next three years is higher
than average.
We provide all tenants with a tenant
handbook, outlining the obligations and
responsibilities of both the tenant and MVH.
Our Housing Officers hold a number of
Housing Surgeries across the Borough, and
we provide tenants with additional
communications, such as leaflets and
articles in Hometalk.
MVH is an accredited support provider and
receive a grant for the purpose of providing
housing related support. We have a
dedicated tenancy support officer, and are
exploring further support opportunities.
Tenant profiling is ongoing, and this will
assist us in identifying the need for additional
housing support.
We are members of the Borough’s Managing
Access to Adapted and Supported Housing
(MAASH) partnership, and receive referrals
via this scheme. We also get referrals from
officers within the organisation.
We offer a range of payment methods for
61
3.6 Are
Do we improve
homes toofa housing?
high standard?
3.8
a good manager
tenants and leaseholders, and these are
communicated in various ways, including
verbally advising tenants when they sign a
tenancy agreement, via a service leaflet, in
our tenant handbook and on our website.
During 2011, we have improved our
payment methods to include a monthly
direct debit payment option and taking
payments over the telephone, using ‘World
Pay’. In addition, we have trained up our
Contact Centre staff to take payments over
the telephone, so tenants don’t have to be
transferred to a member of the Income
Department. We continue to review our
payment methods to include chip and pin,
and additional agreements with the Credit
Union. The take up of these additional
services have been good, and has assisted
in the percentage of rents being collected,
with an average of over 96 per cent being
collected in the last quarter.
We provide our tenants with information
regarding budgetary and debt advice at the
earliest opportunity – when they sign a
tenancy agreement our Housing Officers
inform tenants of the assistance that we can
provide. We monitor rent arrears, and
provide early notification to tenants who are
in two weeks (or more) rent arrears. This has
contributed to a reduction in rent arrears .For
those tenants who are in longer term rent
arrears, we provide them with debt advice
referrals to third party organisations,
including Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) and
Credit Action. We have improved our
support services to tenants by strengthening
our relationship with Credit Union, and offer
a floating surgery service, an appointments
service, and a drop in service at our Head
Office. We are promoting the services of
Money Line Cymru, and are supporting the
introduction of a high street shop in Merthyr
Tydfil. We also assist tenants via the use of
62
“The information gathered
from the STATUS survey has
helped the group to refocus on key priority areas.”
promotional schemes, such as assistance
with white goods and furniture recycling
schemes.
We have an established Financial Inclusion
Steering Group, consisting of a cross
functional group of staff members. The focus
of the group is not just on reducing debt, but
also looking at wider preventative measures.
Our Financial Inclusion Strategy mirrors the
five core themes of the Welsh Government
Strategy, and the original action plan
(developed in 2010) has been worked
through. Some of the actions implemented
include the development of a budget planner
and the implementation of a decorating
allowance, using an ‘e-card’. The information
gathered from the STATUS survey has
helped the group to re-focus on key priority
areas. The group are currently reviewing
financial capability with supported tenants.
Also representatives from the group are
engaging with various financial inclusion
groups and forums (including Community
3.1
3.8 Do
Arewe
weput
a good
citizens
manager
first? of housing?
“We estimate that over
1000 households will see a
reduction in their income,
and over £600,000 of
additional rent ”
Housing Cymru’s financial inclusion network
and the Merthyr Tydfil forum) in the collective
development of a ‘Financial Health Check’
for tenants. The main aim for 2012 will be to
consider the impacts of the forthcoming
welfare reforms.
Over 80 per cent of tenants are satisfied with
their area as a place to live. This compares
very favourably to a benchmark group of
over 100 housing providers. However we
recognise that within different
neighbourhoods, tenants have different
priorities for improvements, for example, in
Gurnos they would like to see less litter, but
in the town they see disruptive young people
and teenagers being a problem in their area.
We are using this information to develop
neighbourhood management plans, so that
we are focusing projects and resources on
the local level issues which are important to
our tenants. This will also enable us to make
sure that we are pulling in the key partners
who can support our work.
We knew that development of
neighbourhood plans was dependent on the
results of the STATUS survey, but wanted to
try to deal with local issues in the meantime.
In April we dedicated £10,000 to Area
Housing Officers and Sheltered Scheme
Managers, to support the estate walkabout
programme, enabling officers to decide with
tenants and residents on small scale
improvements .For example we have
included planting schemes to improve the
appearance of sheltered scheme entrances
and gardens, additional security works, and
fencing.
STATUS 2011 tells us that tenant satisfaction
with the service they receive from us when
they report Anti Social Behaviour is above
average, that is for ease of getting hold of
the right person, and that that person is able
to deal effectively with the case.
Progress since
January 2012
The reform of Welfare Benefits
We have analysed and modelled the effects
of the changes to welfare benefits on our
tenants. We estimate that over 1000
households will see a reduction in their
income, and over £600,000 of additional rent
will have to be recovered from our tenants.
This is top of our risk map, and has been
factored into our business planning, and so
we have spent a considerable amount of
time and effort on trying to understand likely
effects and impacts – and take action to
mitigate them. This has included:
• training for Board members, involved
tenants and key front line staff to help
them understand the changes and how it
will affect MVH and our tenants. This is
helping to ensure that we have a number
of people who are well informed and can
signpost, assist, and raise awareness
amongst our tenants – as well as manage
risk to the organisation;
• developing and implementing a
communications strategy. We knew from
some tenant meetings that not everyone
was aware of, or understood, the
changes that are coming and that we
needed to do more to help people
prepare. We have focused more on face
to face communication as a result, for
63
3.6 Are
Do we improve
high standard?
3.8
a good manager
example, targeting door knocking at
geographical areas which we know are
likely to be hardest hit;
• taking a new approach to rent collection
and arrears recovery. New policies and
procedures are much more focused on
early stage intervention and support to
prevent people from getting into debt and
arrears in the first place, to help people
out of difficulty at an early stage, and to
sustain tenancies. The RPF and Policy
Committee have approved the new
approach.
• we are the lead partner on a sub-group of
the Borough’s strategic housing forum.
The sub-group, which is made up of the
Council and social landlords who operate
in the Borough, is tasked with
understanding and developing
partnership approaches to mitigating the
impact of welfare reforms. One example
is working better together to make best
use of existing stock; and
• we have been instrumental in bringing
Moneyline Cymru to Merthyr Tydfil town
centre. We made a significant
contribution but one which we felt would
benefit both tenants and the business by
extending the provision of independent
financial advice and assistance into the
Borough.
Rent Setting
We have recently responded to the Welsh
Government’s second consultation on Rent
Policy, outlining the organisation’s queries
and concerns. The next stage is for MVH to
assess our position and to consult with
tenants. A process has been agreed
involving tenants and Board members and
we will be commencing a Borough-wide
consultation exercise through the autumn.
64
“We worked with, and
consulted, involved and
non-involved tenants,
particularly those in schemes
which would be affected, to
overhaul our approach to
service charges. ”
The new rent setting model creates
anomalies for rent setting in Merthyr and
tenants will be need to be consulted on a
rent policy that is fairer but moves away from
the rent promise at transfer.
General Needs service charges
We worked with, and consulted, involved
and non-involved tenants, particularly those
in schemes which would be affected, to
overhaul our approach to service charges.
We recognised that with pooled charges,
tenants could not see that we were charging
fairly for services, or that as a business, we
were recovering the cost of services
provided from the people who received
them. We have introduced itemised service
charging, and with the consent of tenants
and Board, have started to charge for all of
the services provided. The consultation
around this was critical because the transfer
promises included a commitment not to
introduce new charges where services were
already provided – but which were not being
charged for at the time of transfer. Through
the consultation, tenants were able to decide
the scope, frequency and standard of the
services they receive – and the cost. Some
tenants chose to increase their costs by
specifying an enhanced caretaking service,
which is now in place.
Sustaining Tenancies
We are continuing to use a range of methods
3.1
3.8 Do
Arewe
weput
a good
citizens
manager
first? of housing?
and interventions to ensure that tenancies are
sustained. In addition to our Area Housing
Officers providing a ‘lettings pack’ on signup, we have introduced the attendance of
our Income Maximisation Officer in order to
provide advice and guidance to tenants on
how to maximise and manage their income.
We are also working with Merthyr Tydfil
County Borough Council to explore the
possibility of a Housing Benefits Officer
attending tenancy sign-ups.
We have changed the way we work to make
sure that the working relationships between
the Income Team and the Area Housing
Officers have been strengthened. This has
led to a reduction in duplication of tasks,
providing a better, more efficient service for
our tenants.
Evictions are only used as a last resort, and
numbers are continuing to reduce year on
year:
Period
Number of Evictions
2009/10
12
2010/11
10
2011/12
8
Year to date
Sept 2012
0
We are continuing to provide our tenants
with budgetary and debt advice, and are
continuing to work with third party
organisations, including Citizens Advice
Bureau (CAB) and Credit Action. We have
been promoting and supporting the services
of Moneyline Cymru, and it is anticipated
that a high street shop will be opening in
Merthyr town centre in autumn 2012.
“By achieving the
accreditation, we can
satisfy our residents and
other key stakeholders that
we are providing an
excellent standard of
service for our customers. ”
Sheltered Schemes’. By achieving the
accreditation, we can satisfy our residents
and other key stakeholders that we are
providing an excellent standard of service for
our customers. We have set up a task and
finish group, consisting of staff and
residents, in order to review our services
against a number of core standards, and
have developed / refined a number of
policies as a result. This has enabled us to
provide an enhanced range of services. We
have improved our communication by the
introduction of a quarterly newsletter for our
sheltered scheme residents, detailing the
achievements to date, and focusing on
topical areas of interest to our residents. This
bespoke communication is something that
we intend to continue with in the future.
To date, we have received a positive
response from the CHS advisor, and are on
target for the submission of our application
in November 2012.
CHS Accreditation
We are working towards the ‘Centre for
Housing Studies (CHS) Accreditation for
65
3.6 Are
Do we improve
high standard?
3.8
a good manager
Delivery outcome summary LS3
In Place
Putting in Place
3 Using a wider range of methods and
interventions to ensure that tenancies
are sustained, reducing the number of
evictions.
< Rent setting consultation and
communications strategy being
developed.
3 Greater choice of payment methods,
including monthly direct debit and
telephone payments.
3 Early notification to tenants who are in
arrears, with greater emphasis on
personal contact and face to face
communication.
3 Financial Inclusion Steering Group,
and strategy, focusing on wider
preventative measures and offering
tangible benefits to tenants.
3 Modelling and responding to the likely
impact of welfare benefit changes –
including business planning and
preparing tenants for change.
3 Extended financial support to
independent money advice providers.
3 Fairer service charging for general
needs tenants.
3 Enabled area officers, in conjunction
with tenants, to decide on small scale
area improvements by allocation of
budgets.
66
< CHS Accreditation.
To Do
8 Use Experian and STATUS survey
data to develop neighbourhood -management plans.
3.1
3.9 Do
Arewe
weput
good
citizens
at repairing
first? homes?
3.9 Are we good at
repairing homes?
our tenants tells us in very
large numbers our
responsive repair service
is good
we are now in the
second year of our
painting
programme
we have programme of
electrical upgrades meaning
all properties will reach the
latest electrical safety edition
we have identified an
additional £23m in the 30
years for responsive repairs
from efficiencies in other
budget areas
we currently have 100%
of homes with a valid
gas safety certificate
we worked with the fire
and rescue service to
improve fire safety in all
our flat blocks
We repair and maintain homes in an efficient, timely and cost effective way
67
3.6 Are
Do we improve
homes to ahomes?
high standard?
3.9
good at repairing
The progress up to
January 2012
Tenants through our STATUS survey told us
we have good repair service with 81% of
people satisfied with the service. Our focus
group and feed back from tenants was that
delivering repairs through own workforce is
their preferred way of delivering repairs
works.
At point of transfer we promised to deliver a
faster repairs service and a programme of
planned maintenance to keep properties up
to standard. This included completing:
• Emergency repairs within 24 hours
• Urgent repairs within three days
• Routine repairs within 15 working days
All repairs are recorded on our housing
management system, and we monitor how
we are performing via monthly key
indicators. This is how we are currently
measuring up against the promises made:
Indicator
Aug
Sept
Oct
% Emergency
repairs completed
within 24 hours
100.0
99.6
97.7
% Urgent repairs
completed within
3 days
96.7
91.6
96.0
% Routine repairs
completed within
15 days
91.4
96.9
92.8
We have improved our understanding of our
tenants’ requirements through consultation,
using a variety of methods, including
satisfaction surveys and focus groups, to
ensure that our tenants are satisfied with the
service received. We are using the
68
information from Experian and profiling to
help target our service to meet individual
needs. Our call handling staff are
experienced and knowledgeable extracting
information from tenants and allocating
appointments and making repair ordering
easy for customers.
Following consultation, we are confident that
our tenants find it easy to report a repair. We
offer tenants a variety of methods by which
to report a repair, although the preferred
methods remain via telephone and in
person. Outside of normal office hours we
offer an emergency repairs service, a service
level agreement with Lifeline. We have
recognised that our appointments system
has some limitations, and that we need to
improve our performance by working more
flexibly. We are in the process of introducing
Opti time – this will allow us to offer more
flexible appointments, and will allow us to
appoint jobs. In advance of going live we
have agreed with our repairs teams a new
multi skilled contract and training allowing
meaning the new appointment and
organisation system will further improve the
service for our tenants.
Gas safety remains an area of strength and
we have developed aGas Servicing and
Safety Policy, which ensures compliance
with statutory duties and our performance is
currently 99.04% of properties with a safety
certificate.
For the first time in a decade there has been
a painting programme for our homes and
feedback in the Galon Uchaf area has been
very positive. Internal painting is underway
in the Caedraw flat and plans and budgets
have been identified for a 7 year cyclical
programme of painting.
To deliver the right repairs service we needed
the right structure and we believe we have
3.1
3.9 Do
Arewe
weput
good
citizens
at repairing
first? homes?
now got the right structure with financial
rigidity across the spending areas and
operational flexibility across the delivery. We
have our own workforce the Property
Services Team who deliver nearly £4.5m of
our repairs and the team members have an
in-depth knowledge of our stock, our estates
and our tenants. This knowledge helps us
deliver an effective repair service but also
helps inform our future repair programmes.
We have recently developed business units
within this section to improve productivity
and enable planned programmes of work to
be defined. These include door and window
replacement; roofing works, painting
programmes and external environmental
works (walls and fencing).
We have developed a suitable assets
structure to deliver our planned improvement
works, comprising of Contracts Managers,
Surveyors, Co-ordinators and Tenant Liaison
Officers (TLO’s) with a particular focus on
assisting tenants through the improvement
programmes. Our TLO’s liaise with tenants
to ensure the programmes run as smoothly
as possible, and they collect tenant
feedback forms which capture areas in
which we can improve our delivery, helping
us shape our services.
We are serious about health and safety and
we have a Health and Safety Manager, we
are finalising our Asbestos Management Plan
and we carry out surveys to identify any
asbestos which may be present, ensuring
that we work in line with current H&S
regulations and guidance so that our
tenants, employees and contractors are duly
protected from exposure to asbestos. We
have also carried out assessments and
works across the borough to improve fire
safety. We have installed fire safety
measures in community use buildings such
the Forsythia Youth centre and are in the
“We have also carried out
assessments and works
across the borough to
improve fire safety.”
progress of carrying out works across the
low rise flats
We have invested in our asset management
database ‘keystone’ and associated training
to ensure we are utilising the system to its
full potential. We have effective component
accounting in place and this allows us to
depreciate of different components within
one property. We are currently liaising with
our insurance partners to further enhance
our processes in order to minimise risks and
potential claims, including carrying out
periodic site inspections
We receive only a few complaints regarding
our responsive repairs service. For the small
number of complaints that we receive, the
majority of these are regarding the time
taken to complete routine repairs. This is an
area that will improve further as a result of
the Opti time project.
Progress since
January 2012
Repairs Service
We are continuing to consult with our
tenants in order to review our repairs service,
and have recently undertaken our ‘Stepping
Out’ exercise, where we included a section
on repairs to improve our understanding of
tenants’ requirements and their perception of
our services through their experiences. This
data will be available in due course.
Tenant satisfaction levels for responsive
repairs remain high. We are continuing to
69
3.6 Are
Do we improve
homes to ahomes?
high standard?
3.9
good at repairing
monitor our performance in this area via
monthly key indicators
We have re-introduced a diagnostic system
for call handling in our Contact Centre to
ensure a fair and consistent approach to
repairs ordering, with the aim of more
accurately capturing the number of ‘priority
one’ repairs (i.e. repairs completed within 24
hours)
Our target is to complete 99% routine
repairs in 15 days. This is a stretching target
compared to the Housemark benchmarking
club for Welsh housing associations, whose
targets in 2011/12 ranged from 8 days to
28 days. For Quarter 1 of 2012/13, we
completed 94% of routine repairs within the
15 day target, despite working to clear a
backlog. Clearing a backlog means that
resources are being used to clear jobs which
were reported some time ago, but which
have not been completed – which will have a
negative impact on both the average days
taken to complete, and the % completed in
target time. It should also be noted that
although performance declined each quarter
through 2011/12, the performance in the first
quarter of 2012/13 represents an
improvement, increasing from 90% in target
time to 94% in target time.
Our target is to keep 97% of all
appointments made. Data on performance
and targets has been submitted by only 2
other Welsh housing associations to
Housemark. Using Housemark’s national
dataset (UK), targets for this indicator range
from 99% down to 95%. Lowest quartile
performance in 2011/12 was 96%. The last
two years quarterly data shows that our
performance in this area is weak compared
to others as despite missing only 119
appointments during the quarter, this
equates to a percentage performance which
is lower than the worst performers nationally
70
“100% of homes on the
1 September 2012 had a
valid CP12 gas safety
certificate.”
last year. This is a weakness we have already
identified and rather refine existing systems
we are close to implementing the Opti time
repairs appointment and management
system. We are also reviewing how we deal
with and follow up missed appointments.
Opti-time
We have made significant progress in the
introduction of the opti-time system for repair
ordering and management. We are now
introducing and testing the new software we
needed to run opti-time. Mobile devices
have been purchased, and training and
testing is completed and our go live date is
October 2012. The implementation of the
opti-time system will benefit tenants in that
we will be able to offer them more flexible
appointments, and will be able to better
appoint jobs.
Multi-skilling
All trade operatives are now working as
multi-skilled operatives, and a
comprehensive programme is underway. The
programme has been jointly funded by the
trade unions and Merthyr Valleys Homes.
This new flexible working has the support of
the staff and will help lower costs and
improve the quality of repairs for our
customers.
Gas safety
Gas safety remains an area of strength, and
we are ensuring compliance with statutory
duties. Performance has continued to be
maintained at an excellent level and currently
100% of homes on the 1 September 2012
had a valid CP12 gas safety certificate.
3.1
3.9 Do
Arewe
weput
good
citizens
at repairing
first? homes?
In Place
Putting in Place
3 Good tenant satisfaction levels for
responsive repairs and call handling.
< An Asbestos Management Plan.
3 We have gas safety procedures and
deliver high performance.
3 We have the right structure to deliver
high quality repairs.
3 Component accounting and asset
management information in a
management system Keystone.
3 A growing culture on health and
safety.
3 A knowledgeable and flexible
workforce who have agreed multi
skilled working along with new
conditions of employment.
< An Optitime system for repair ordering
and management.
< Fire safety plans and fire safety works
in all risk areas.
< Further develop the multi skill training
programme for all Property Services
Team.
To Do
8 Create a profile of all our customers to
ensure we can offer the right
responsive repair service to each
tenant.
3 A painting programme is now in
place.
71
3.10 Do we have a good service for homeowners?
3.10 Do we have a good
service for homeowners?
We carried out leaseholder
and right to buy audits and
found everything to the
standard expected
we have a sinking fund
for all leaseholder
income
we have consulted leaseholders
to a greater degree than is
required under Section 20
repair works
72
we were applauded at the
Leaseholder AGM this year for
the improvements on fire safety
and the better management of
leaseholder works
We provide fair and efficient services for owners
3.1 Do
3.10
Dowe
weput
have
citizens
a goodfirst?
The progress up to
January 2012
We provide advice to anyone who is
considering purchasing their property, and
this can range from initial help with the
completion of the application form through
to advice throughout the process until
completion of the purchase of the
property.All applicants are provided with the
Communities and Local Government
booklet, ‘Your Right to Buy Your Home’.
This booklet fully explains the Right to Buy
(RTB) process and is also available as a
download from the Communities and Local
Government web site. The booklet identifies
statutory timescales, which we are expected
to comply with. Following feedback received
from tenants, we are developing an in-house
booklet to fully explain our RTB process –
this will be published early next year. Each
RTB application that we receive is logged
onto a database enabling us to monitor the
process and ensure that the statutory
timescales are met.This year to date, we
have sold ten properties within the predefined timescales.
The conveyance process which enables
completion of the sale of the property is
carried out by Merthyr Tydfil County Borough
Council’s Legal Services Department. They
are locally based, thereby enabling requests
for completion of sales and any issues to be
dealt with quickly. To ensure value for money,
we carry out ad-hoc comparisons of the
open market valuations against our third
party valuations.
At point of transfer, we had little information
in terms of service charge breakdowns. We
established a service charge working group,
and as a result significant improvements
have been made. We are now more open
and transparent in the way service charges
are calculated to ensure fair and even
charges for tenants and leaseholders, and
we ensure that a breakdown of the service
charge is provided on invoices that we
generate. For example, we identified a
number of tenants in one of our blocks of
flats that were not paying for a particular
service being provided. We liaised with each
tenant accordingly, and now have a
consistent fair charge for all tenants. We
have legally consulted with leaseholders
(under the Common hold and Leaseholder
Reform Act 2002) regarding a portion charge
for provision of heating, resulting in a fair
charge for all.
We have increased our management
opportunities by changing the financial year
for service charges from October to
September, bringing this in line with the
usual financial year of April to March, and the
Leaseholder Forum approved this change.
At the beginning of the year we introduced a
new financial system with the aim of
improving arrears. We don’t have any
comparable figures from last year to
determine improvements made. However,
we can distinguish between debt subject to
a payment plan and monies owed, and have
a breakdown of charges, so have
experienced significant resource
improvements in-house. Our finance staff
have received debt management training, so
we are now more effective in taking
payments and collecting arrears.
Communications have improved, with the
introduction of a quarterly arrears meeting to
discuss cases and relevant actions to be
taken. We acknowledge that some work
remains to fully breakdown the service
charges in all areas, but are confident that
we will improve in this area. The stock
condition survey data that we are collecting
will assist us in this exercise.
73
3.6 Do
homes
to a for
highhomeowners?
standard?
3.10
Dowe
weimprove
have a good
service
We have a Leaseholder Forum that meets on
a monthly basis. In partnership with the
forum we are constantly striving to improve
the information and services that are
provided to our leaseholders and the forum
members review and scrutinise our services.
For example, we have acted on the
leaseholders’ requests to hold estate
walkabouts, and currently these are
occurring on a bi-monthly basis. This has
allowed us to identify repair and
maintenance issues, and has allowed
tenants and leaseholders to come together
to identify common issues. The minutes of
the leaseholder meetings are monitored to
ensure that all the action points raised are
carried out and completed.
We actively encourage leaseholders to
become involved in the forum, and ensure
that copies of the minutes are sent out to all
leaseholders to inform them of issues raised
an actions taken. A number of leaseholders
sit on other forums, (such as the Residents
Participation Forum and the Quality and
Design Forum) to ensure representation. We
are striving to improve our relationship with
our leaseholders. Earlier this year we offered
leaseholders the opportunity to receive a free
copy of their lease and to clarify issues about
its content. Around 20% of leaseholders
took up this opportunity. In addition’ in
conjunction with the members of the forum,
we are developing a Leaseholders’
Handbook. The purpose of this is to clearly
set out the rights and responsibilities of
leaseholders and to inform them of service
standards and other useful information. All
leaseholders will receive a copy early 2012.
Right to Buy
Following an internal audit on Right to Buy in
December 2011, it was confirmed that, for
the sample of sales reviewed, they had been
74
“We actively encourage
leaseholders to become
involved in the forum, and
ensure that copies of the
minutes are sent out to all
leaseholders to inform them
of issues raised an actions
taken.”
processed appropriately and in accordance
with statutory timescales. However, our
processes were ‘flat’, in terms of segregation
of duties. A number of improvements have
been made to our processes in line with the
audit recommendations, including review
and authorisation by the Head of Housing. A
Right to Buy Policy has been drafted, and
this will follow the appropriate review /
authorisation procedures in July, including
consultation with our tenants and
leaseholders on the Residents Participation
Forum. These improvements have led to a
more efficient process, and will result in an
effective process for our service users.
Leasehold Management
Following an internal audit on Leaseholder
Management in December 2011, some
further improvements have been made to
our processes in order to improve the
services that we provide to our leaseholders.
A draft Leaseholder Management Policy has
been developed, and will follow the
appropriate review / authorisation
procedures in July, including consultation
with our tenants and leaseholders on the
Residents Participation Forum. In addition,
we are continuing to work on the
development of a Leaseholder handbook –
this should be distributed in Q3 2012/13.
3.10Do
Dowe
weput
have
a goodfirst?
3.1
citizens
Service Charges
Sinking Fund
We are continuing to work to improve the
breakdown of our service charges, with the
aim of being fair, open and transparent with
our leaseholders, providing them with service
charges that are clear to understand. The
breakdown costs are based on actual costs
incurred by MVH, and to date, approximately
90% of our charges have been fully broken
down. This will result in cost savings for the
organisation, and has reduced the number
of complaints/queries raised by leaseholders
regarding service charges.
Previously in our accounts a provision was
made for monies paid by leaseholders post
transfer towards proposed capital works. We
can now identify the actual fund held on a
property by property basis and a Sinking
Fund Certificate showing the balance for
each tenant will be issued during the
summer 2012, and annually thereafter. This
will provide leaseholders with an accurate
reflection of monies held in trust and works
completed.
In Place
Putting in Place
3 We have established a service charge
working group, and have made
significant improvements in
determining service charge
breakdowns.
< Clearly setting out leaseholders’ rights
and responsibilities in the form of a
Leaseholder Handbook.
3 We have brought the service charges
in line with our financial year.
3 We have introduced a new financial
system to reduce arrears, and have
provided training.
< Our Leaseholder Forum is now in
place and working closely with MVH.
To Do
8 Resolve all outstanding sinking fund
issues with MTCBC.
3 Sinking Fund by property basis, with
annual statement to leaseholders.
3 Adopted a Right to Buy Policy and a
Leasehold Management Policy –
currently under consultation.
3 Consulted and review all services
charges.
75
4. Assessing Outcomes
4. Our approach to assessing outcomes
Methodology
For the comprehensive assessment carried out in December 2011 we carried out an
extensive review and involvement process set out below. This included extensive focus
groups and analysis. This work has not been repeat for this update to the self
assessment. However the update has been informed by
• Stepping out – our major consultation exercise in June 2012
• Our Corporate Strategy
• Analysis of year end performance and financial information
• The resident Participation forum
• The social enterprises we have worked with on our new strategy.
76
Identifying our outcomes is part of our
business planning process, and we have
taken into account the promises made to our
tenants at point of transfer, and the Welsh
Government delivery outcomes. We have six
corporate priorities, and have a number of
outcomes under these six broad headings.
We are continually assessing what we do,
and have a number of agreed indicators and
monitoring systems to validate our
indicators. Many of our indicators are
‘quantitative’, where we count numbers of
things that have happened. For example, we
have a suite of key performance indicators,
numerical measures against set performance
targets. Also we have gathered a great deal
of statistical information from the STATUS
survey that was carried out. Our quantitative
indicators demonstrate our performance,
and the changes that have occurred.
However, they don’t always assess tenants’
and service users’ views and experiences.
‘Qualitative methods’, on the other hand,
provide a different form of information about
our tenants’ and service users’ views and
experiences. They provide us with stories of
satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, tells us about
their experiences, and what services they
would like us to provide, or how we can
better our existing services. We wanted to
build on the results of the numerical
performance measures, and selected a
number of key business areas where we
wanted to find out more about people’s
experiences and perceptions. We held a
number of focus groups with both tenants
and staff, to gain their thoughts and
perceptions, and reasons why they reached
the conclusions that they had.
Tenant Focus Groups
Previously we have used a sub group of
elected tenants and leaseholders from our
Residents Participation Forum to review and
critique some of our delivery outcomes.
However, this time we wanted to gain the
views of a larger cross section of our tenant
base. We selected the focus groups based
on four tenant types:
a) Families (Gellideg)
b) Singles and couples (Trelewis)
c) Tenants > 50 years of age (Haven
Close, Troedyrhiw)
d) Younger people (aged 11 – 18)
(Forsythia Project, Gurnos)
The reason for this was to ensure
representation, and to give a voice to groups
of tenants that would not usually engage
with us on a regular basis. We selected four
key business areas:
Repairs and maintenance (Gellideg)
a) Planned improvement works
(Trelewis)
b) Communications (Haven Close)
c) Green spaces and community
(Forsythia Project)
These business areas were reviewed
previously, and we wanted to re-visit these
areas to determine whether tenants felt that
we have improved in these areas, and to
identify areas where we can make
improvements.
Tenant Focus Groups
Repairs and maintenance
Tenants felt that it was easy to report a
repair, with telephoning our Contact Centre
and visiting reception proving the preferred
methods of reporting a repair. Tenants rated
our appointments system as ‘fair’ or ‘good’,
although it was felt that waiting for a minor
repair took too long, and that our
77
appointments system is limited. Both of
these factors will improve with the
implementation of the opti-time system in
2012.
There was a mixed perception when tenants
were asked whether they felt that the repair
was completed in a timely manner. It
became apparent that tenants felt that our
in-house repairs and maintenance team
performed better than some of the external
contractors that we engage with, and that
there were clear inconsistencies between the
two. Therefore, we need to ensure that our
contractors’ performance is monitored more
closely. Generally both our in house teams
and contractors were perceived as being
polite, courteous and clean. However,
tenants felt that the tradesmen could be
better informed to signpost them to other
areas of the business on request. This is an
area that we can address with better internal
communications.
Planned improvement works
(WHQS)
The group of tenants in the focus group had
kitchens, bathrooms and electrical works, or
had external wall insulation in 2010. We
asked tenants to comment on the services
received prior to the WHQS works
commencing. Although generally tenants felt
that the communications they received
(letters, information packs etc) were easy to
understand, they felt that the changes
and/or delays to the programme rendered
some of the information obsolete. Tenants
felt that there were frequent delays between
planned start dates and actual start dates,
and that they could have been better
informed and kept up to date regarding
changes to the programme. There was a
mixed view on the performance of the
Tenant Liaison Officers, however, we have
78
increased our resources in this area in 2011
to address some issues that had been raised
in 2010.
The overall perception of the time taken to
complete the works was rated as ‘poor’. The
tenants who had the external wall insulation
acknowledged that the weather was a factor
in the time taken to complete the works.
However, the time taken to complete the
kitchens, bathrooms and electrical works
was felt to be too long, and outside of the
target time frame, leading to inconvenience
for tenants. The general satisfaction with the
planned improvement works in this area with
one contractor was found to be poor.
Several individual experiences or ‘stories’
were further reviewed and analysed as a
result of the focus group. As an organisation,
we have acknowledged that on site
management and contractor performance
was poor in 2010. This year we have
developed a strategic core group (which
includes tenant representation) to oversee
the progress and performance of each of the
four principle contractors, and on site
management has improved. The feedback
received during the session has informed
some of the areas for improvement in this
area.
Communications
Following the results of the Experian tenant
profiling exercise, it was found that the ‘older
people’had clear communication
preferences – more traditional methods. We
held a focus group with a number of tenants
over 50 in one of our sheltered schemes to
determine as to whether we are
communicating with them effectively. The
preferred methods of communication were
mailed letters/leaflets, and our quarterly
newsletter ‘Hometalk’, both being quoted as
‘easy to read’ and ‘easy to understand’. In
addition, communications received from the
Scheme Manager were noted. The group of
tenants didn’t use our website as a method
of communication, and rarely visited our
Head Office.
Tenants used a wide variety of more
traditional communication methods to
contact us, including letter, telephone,
contacting the Area Housing Officer and
visiting us. The methods of communication
not used were via our website, e-mail and
text. The communications received, and
communication methods used by tenants
were rated as ‘good’, and no members of
the focus group gave any negative
comments or raised any areas for
improvement. As an organisation, we need
to be mindful of the preferred
communication methods to ensure effective
communications are maintained.
Green spaces and community
The previous focus group that looked at this
area felt that we have not yet made an
impact on the environment within our estates
and that we don’t utilise the ‘green spaces’
in our communities. We wanted to gain the
perceptions of young people, as they
potentially may be our tenants of the future,
and this is an area that we felt they would
have a strong opinion on.
We asked the group to tell us what they liked
best about the area in which the live. The
strongest answer was the ‘Forsythia Project’,
as the youth base is extremely popular with
the teenagers in the area in terms of
recreation. However, their ‘houses’ and their
‘neighbours’ were rated as being some of
the things that they liked best, some quoting
the level of planned improvement works that
have already taken place to date.
We asked the group what they disliked most
about the area. The strongest answer by far
“The lack of recreational
activities in the area was
discussed, with the
conclusion that we could
use the green spaces
available in the community
to develop more
recreational and sporting
opportunities”
was the amount of drug dealing and abuse
in the area, although generally this was not
perceived as a threat, as the majority of the
group felt safe in the community. This is an
area that we have highlighted with the Local
Services Board.
Old, poor housing was noted, although the
completion of the WHQS works and
development of the voids processes will
assist with this issue. The lack of recreational
activities in the area was discussed, with the
conclusion that we could use the green
spaces available in the community to
develop more recreational and sporting
opportunities, including more football fields,
a bike track, a skate park and sporting
centre. We are putting additional resources
79
into external environmental improvement
programmes, and will consider the feedback
in determining project priorities.
“A lot of positive comments
were received, particularly
about front line staff,
commenting on their
professionalism and
helpfulness.”
Conclusion
The focus group tenants were fully
participative, and the sessions were
extremely useful providing us with a different
form of information and a depth of
understanding about what drives tenants’
opinions. A lot of positive comments were
received, particularly about front line staff,
commenting on their professionalism and
helpfulness. Many tenants were
complimentary about the services provided
in some key areas, but there was some
criticism of some of the services that we
provide (in particular, the planned
improvement programme) and many
suggestions as to how we could improve.
The main areas of concern have been
considered, and have informed our business
improvements.
Staff focus groups
We gather staff perceptions and experiences
in several ways. We have a well established
Staff Consultative Group (SCG) that meet on
a bi-monthly basis to discuss, review and
critique policies, procedures and HR issues
and organisational developments. The SCG
provide a quality assurance function for all
matters that affect staff within the
organisation. We held a staff away day
80
recently, where we reviewed staff
perceptions as to how we are performing as
an organisation in terms of service areas
(including housing management, planned
improvement works and repairs and
maintenance). The feedback received at the
staff away day led us to select some key
business areas where we wanted to explore
staff views further. We took four main areas:
a) Repairs and maintenance
b) Voids
c) Allocations, tenancies and
supporting tenants
d) Rents, service charges and
leaseholder services
A cross-functional panel of staff members
were selected for the focus groups. All
consisted of front line staff and support staff,
no management representatives present –
we wanted staff to honestly review and
critique our assessment, and how they think
we are performing in each of the respective
areas, with suggestions for improvement.
Below we have summarised the staff focus
group feedback, focusing in particular, on
the areas that were critiqued, and the
required improvements highlighted by staff.
Project
Description
Project
Manager
Corporate
Theme
Delivery
Outcome
Target
Date
%
Complete
Comments
Develop tenant
and leaseholder
profiling strategy
and process
To obtain a complete
profile of tenants and
leaseholders, and
ensure that all
information is recorded
and accessible
Head of
Housing
Tenants
GF1/GF2/LS2
LS3
March 2012
70%
Development of a
Customer
Services Strategy
Achieve some of the
promises made to tenants
by improving services and
improving access to
them. Improve the quality
and speed of responses
Head of
Housing
Tenants
GF1/LS3
March 2013
0%
Opti time and welfare reform
have made us review this
strategy and new date for March
2013 has been set
Fully embed our
Single Equality
Scheme, and
close down
actions identified
in the action plan
To maintain excellent
standards in all that we do
by ensuring that there is
equality of opportunity for
all, fostered in an
environment of mutual
respect and dignity.
HR
Manager
People /
Tenants
GF1/GF2
March 2012
80%
This review has been superseded
by the wider review conducted by
Professor Harris Beider. An initial
review has been completed and a
follow up programme agreed,
supported by a task and finish
group which includes a member
of RPF and the Board, which will
commence in January 2012. The
follow up programme includes
support to revise the Single
Equalities Scheme and associated
policies, training and support for
staff across the organisation, and
delivery of a bespoke action plan
designed to improve our
approach to community cohesion.
Major projects in progress at September 1 2012
81
82
Description
Project
Manager
Corporate
Theme
Delivery
Outcome
Target
Date
%
Complete
Comments
Publicise and
fully embed our
Welsh Language
Scheme, and
close down
actions identified
in Action Plan
To enable people to
communicate with us in
Welsh if this is their
preferred language. To
promote the use of the
Welsh language in the
community and the
workplace. To
implement a training
program for staff who
want to learn to speak
Welsh.
Corporate
Services
Manager
People /
Tenants
GF1/GF2
April 2012
60%
The original target date was
September 2011.
Programme has been
delayed due to other
business priorities
Develop
Regeneration
Strategy
Develop approach to
physical, social and
economic regeneration for
the benefits of tenants
and wider communities
Regeneration
Manager
Tenants /
Community
GF2/LS3
November
2012
50%
This work has commenced
through a follow up audit of
procurement and delivery of
recommendations – underway
however due to sickness it has
been delayed until 2013.
Further develop
our insurance
processes to
minimise risk with
a view to driving
down premium
costs
To minimise risks, drive
down associated costs
and premium costs. To
ensure that roles and
responsibilities are
outlined, and processes
are mapped.
Corporate
Services
Manager
Delivery
GF4/LS1
March 2012
60%
Original target was Sept 2011.
Delay due to changes to staff
structure.
Project
Description
Project
Manager
WHQS
Programme Year 3/4 Delivery
To maintain progress
against the WHQS
programme. Completion
of the scheduled works,
identification of associated
risks, and management of
associated contracts
Director of
Assets
Maximise
external funding
opportunities
To capitalise on
opportunities that exist to
maximise our spending
capacity
Director of
Assets
Review specialist
accommodation in
line with MAASH
Scheme and
Supporting People
Operational Plan
and work with
MTCBC to
develop specialist
and single person
accommodation
To future proof service
and maximise income
Head of
Housing
Achieve
Sheltered
Housing
Accreditation
and upgrade
Lifeline
Equipment
Accreditation will improve
services for tenants, will
improve the working
practices of scheme
managers, and will secure
funding for 'supporting
people' posts. Equipment
upgrade will improve
services, allow flexible
working and will reduce
maintenance costs
Housing
Policy &
Research
Manager
Corporate
Theme
Homes
Homes /
Communities
Tenants /
Homes
Tenants
Delivery
Outcome
Target
Date
%
Complete
Comments
GF5/LS4
March 2014
63%
Complete the remainder of
the WHQS programme in line
with Savills
recommendations.
LS1
On going
65%
Expenditure in this year has
maximised the grant income and
we anticipate over £1.2m
LS2
On going
80%
Project work has been completed
and the review is now with the
Council for political adoption
LS3
October
2012
80%
The achievement date has been
moved to October 2012 and
remains on target
Project
83
84
Description
Project
Manager
Corporate
Theme
Delivery
Outcome
Target
Date
%
Complete
Comments
Asbestos
Management
Plan
Embed a comprehensive
approach to the
management of asbestos
Director of
Assets
Tenants/
Homes/
People
LS4
Feb 2012
90%
Draft awaiting Board approval
Improve
responsive repairs
Fully implement Opti-time
and improve multi skill
working
Director of
Assets
Tenants/
People
LS4
April 2012
50%
On going
Review Tenant
and Leaseholder
Handbooks
The current handbook is
out of date and we need
a modern easy to use
handbook for new tenants
Director of
Housing
Tenants
GF2/LS5
June 2012
50%
Leaseholder handbook completed
and has been consulted with
leaseholder. Tenant handbook
currently under review. Target for
hand book is June 2013
Improve external
website
The current website is not
interactive and has limited
information and we need
a website that is easy to
use and allows a range of
interactive services
Corporate
Services
Manager
Tenants
GF1/GF2
June 2015
Increase
productivity and
financial control
systems within PST
To have a effective budget
management in place with
in all areas of PST
operation
Director of
Finance
Finance
GF4
Jan 2012
Neighbourhood
management
plans
To use Experian and
STATUS returns to
produce neighbourhood
management plans
Director of
Housing
Tenants
LS3
Dec 2014
Delayed until Corporate Strategy
completed
Profiled repairs
service
Create a database of
information from returns
to allow us to be more
responsive to individual
needs in our repair service
Director of
Assets
Tenants
LS4
Dec 2014
This has been delayed as we
continue to increase tenant profile
information to over 60%
Covered in Corporate strategy
and new date of 2015
70%
PST business plan will be
returning to Board in January.
Project
Completed projects
since the December 2011
self assessment Project
Description
Develop Financial Inclusion
Strategy
To increase tenant's ability to manage incomes and
have access to mainstream financial products
The development of a robust
and effective Governance
Framework
To ensure that our Board is effective and can
appropriately discharge its functions. To ensure that
governance arrangements comply with regulatory
requirements, and reflect our strategic objectives. To
deliver a clear vision and set of values for the
organisation that are at the heart of everyone's work.
Development of a Performance
Management Strategy and
Framework
To embed a performance management culture
where all activities are contributing to the six
strategic corporate objectives.
Develop a Data Protection
Strategy to ensure on going
compliance
To conduct a health check to ensure that MVH is
fully compliant with DPA legislation. To develop a
DPA Strategy, and outline areas for improvement
Create a budget book
Improve financial control across teams with the
introduction of a budget books
Review the vision and values
The message and vision from the transfer needs
refreshing
Develop general needs and
leaseholder service charges,
and income maximisation
Ensure that MVH complies with legal responsibilities
in terms of service charges. To ensure that MVH has
policies and processes in place to maximise income
through the recovery of debt. To determine a
consistent approach to rent charging
Establish service standards for
customer services
To establish a suite of service standards for
customer services against which we can measure
our performance
Produce street by street
programme of repair works
Tenants would like a realistic programme of
modernisation and painting for each month going
forward
85

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