We are committed to delivering excellent Value for Money services (VFM) that are of the highest quality and reflect the needs and priorities of customers and the wider communities.
We are committed to delivering excellent Value for Money (VFM) services that are of the highest quality and reflect the needs and priorities of customers and the wider communities.
During 2023-24, we have continued our Value for Money (VFM) journey. We completed year 3 of our Value for Money Strategy (2021-2024) and have prioritised improvements in our lettings, rents, repairs and customer experience to reflect the addendum to our Corporate Plan (2021-24).
The Board has closely monitored performance against the Regulator's VFM Metrics alongside continuing our participation and involvement with the Housemark Value for Money Sector Scorecard. They have also reviewed the Governance and operating structure to ensure it optimises potential benefits and is appropriate for meeting the aims and objectives of the Company.
Our Corporate Plan, 'Building A Better Future 2021-2024', reflects our VFM priorities and strategic objectives going forward and sets out clear, measurable targets to improve our performance against key measurements between 2021 and 2024.
Performance against our VFM measurements is detailed in our statutory financial statements.
The target figures detailed in the financial statements are embedded within our Corporate Plan and are actively monitored by the Board.
During 2023-24, we retained our G1 regulatory rating for governance and were regraded to V2 for Viability, confirming that we are compliant with viability requirements. For more details, you can view our Governance and Viability Rating in section 5 of our Financial Statements.
During 2023-24, we will continue to use our experiences, achievements and challenges from this year to continue our VFM journey to drive down costs, maximise the use and return on our assets, improve services and increase customer satisfaction, specifically in our key service improvement priorities for our 4R's: effective Rent collection, reduced Re-let times, improved customer Respect; and improved Repairs service.
Our Corporate Plan 2024-2027 outlines our strategic objectives against which we have set out our framework to demonstrate Value For Money through our Value for Money Strategy, Value for Money Policy and Value for Money Metrics (measures). We will also set our expectations of achievements against the metrics and report on them annually, in addition to setting out our cash and non-cash efficiency gains.
Our Value for Money (VFM) report and key achievements are contained within our Annual Report and Financial Statement which can be downloaded or viewed as a pdf.
Our whole organisation is focused on delivering value for money for customers and the taxpayers, through a continuous improvement approach. We aim to drive down costs, improve services, maximise the use and return on our assets and drive-up customer satisfaction.
Value for Money (VFM) is crucial to us as it forms the foundation for delivering on our priorities year after year. It involves improving services, maintaining our existing properties, managing cost pressures, fulfilling our liabilities, and safeguarding our services to our customers while protecting our resources.
Delivering Value for Money (VFM) is an integrated and embedded approach to our work rather than a separate task. VFM is not only about cutting costs; it also emphasises the importance of quality and costs and the relationship between investment and performance. These factors form the foundation of our approach to VFM.
In essence, what VFM means to us includes:
Our approach to VFM has developed in response to the changing environment, customer and investment priorities, and the focus on continual improvement to keep Community Housing strong.
The Regulator for Social Housing (RSH) has specific expectations of housing associations regarding VFM, which are set out in the April 2018 VFM Standard and related guidance for 2021. Our VFM Strategy enables us to express how we achieve these RSH expectations.
Our Corporate Plan 2024-2027 sets out the ambition of Community Housing "to provide affordable, quality homes and deliver great services in safe communities".
We believe that we achieve value for money in the running of our business through the following principles:
Recognising that the wellbeing, remuneration and professionalism of our Colleagues is key to customer satisfaction and excellent service delivery.
Build relationships with our customers to manage arrears, and to let homes as quickly as we can, having regard to the quality of our homes.
Investing in existing and new homes at the right time to maximise the benefit to our customers.
Making the best use of our resources with digital and lean processes to minimise effort.
The effective management of our finances to provide long-term resilience and readily available liquidity to invest in homes and services.
Delivering value from our supply chain and effectively procuring goods and services whilst balancing cost and quality.
In other words, we need clarity of purpose, the ability to deliver on our promises to customers, the ability to spend wisely, and the ability to work efficiently and effectively.
VFM is incorporated into both strategic and operational activities. The Board reviews the Company's Corporate Plan annually, which sets the operational targets to be delivered and measured.
Our VFM strategy is intrinsically linked, and underpinned by our other key strategies:
The Tenant Voice Group (TVG) links the governing body and customers to ensure that customers can contribute to strategic decision making and inform the development of customer services. They contribute to effective co-regulation by reviewing and scrutinising customer service delivery and holding the Company accountable for performance that falls below these targets. They work hard with the company to get the best value for tenants and residents.
Our commitment to co-regulation means we work closely with tenants and residents to involve them in making decisions about their homes and services.
Measuring and monitoring our progress is key to understanding if we are achieving our VFM objectives. Our direction of travel is tracked through a combination of key internal metrics, and our performance is compared appropriately and promptly against external competitors.
A cycle of monitoring and measurement reporting from Board/EMT to operational and individual objectives and targets.
We evidence progress and achievement of VFM objectives through a multitude of ways throughout the business.
EMT sets the efficiency targets and specific areas of focus for the annual budget, with a focus on improving the operating margin and reducing the Headline Social Cost Per Unit. The budget then goes through a series of review from finance, EMT, the wider Leadership Team and the Audit and Assurance Committee before being approved by the Board.
There is also a robust reforecasting process at the 6-month point in the financial year to ensure that investment priorities and savings are aligned to key service areas during the financial year.
The annual Business Plan, with the budget used for Year 1, also includes efficiency targets and any investment needed to deliver the strategic objectives annually. In addition, the Recovery Plan and associated mitigations will form part of the plan's annual update and response to robust stress testing scenarios.
The Board receives a range of VFM updates and reports throughout the year including:
The EMT looks at the same items as the Board but on a more frequent basis prior to presenting to Board.
In addition, our customers receive an Annual Report that includes information on costs and performance. We also produce KPI reports that are available on our website and contain metrics that matter to our customers and the business.
We benchmark our performance on a granular and whole business level by taking part in Housemark's benchmarking surveys throughout the year and on an annual basis.
We benchmark our performance against sector peers based with stock of between 4,000 and 15,000, in the West, East and Central Midland regions, and who are traditional housing providers. We also use bespoke peer groups where relevant.
We use the RSH's Global Accounts and Sector Scorecard to undertake an annual comparison and peer review of our key service costs and performance, allowing wider comparison with the housing sector as a whole.
Cost and performance comparisons are undertaken, and further analysis and investigation, where required, are undertaken to inform actions to improve performance, cost and/or outcomes.
To demonstrate our commitment to providing Value For Money to all of our stakeholders, in our statutory financial statements, we:
View our current Value For Money Strategy.
