Annual Report 2011—12
Contents
About us
Message from the Chair
03
Better service for residents Helping residents Well maintained estates Involving our residents Helping people move
04 06 07 08 09
Providing quality homes New homes for East London Regeneration in action
10 12 14
Care and supported housing New accommodation Support programmes Foyer living Helping people lead more fulfilling lives
16 18 20 22 23
Community 24 East Potential: John Lewis charity of the year 26 £200k boost for Newham sustainable living 27 Community Champions 28 New exhibitions at East Gallery 29 Speed networking at Starting Point 29 Employment and Training Providing routes to work Support from our partners Beyond the Olympics The results
30 32 33 34 35
East Thames Improving East Thames programme Our corporate responsibility Board highlights Performance and stats Our funders Board and governance Our directors
36 38 39 39 40 41 42 43
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About us
East Thames is a registered social landlord and social regeneration charity with over 30 years experience. We are the largest housing association operating solely in east London and Essex and among London’s top 15. We build and support sustainable neighbourhoods through different parts of our business: –– We manage and/or own nearly 13,500 affordable homes for: social rent, intermediate rent and affordable home ownership. –– We provide support and accommodation in over 80 schemes for nearly 2,000 people with a wide range of needs, including: older people, younger people at risk of becoming homeless, people with a learning disability or mental health needs, and women escaping violence. –– We give people a chance to succeed through community programmes that include: employment and training, art and culture, sustainable living, and health and wellbeing.
Our mission is: To make a positive and lasting contribution to the neighbourhoods in which we work.
A message from our Chair and Chief Executive
Everything we do at East Thames centres on making people’s lives better – whether it’s providing quality landlord services, building new affordable homes, improving neighbourhoods in east London or helping people get a job. But to achieve these things we need to run a tight business, constantly reminding ourselves of being in the business of charity. The challenges facing our sector are well known. Funding has reduced while the need for housing only increases. We have continued to build new homes for people on low to moderate incomes – well designed, sustainable homes which people want to live in. Offering reliable, efficient and valued services for our existing residents and customers continues to be our number one priority. We are focused on providing good landlord services and care and supported services, as well as offering residents support to manage their finances through welfare and debt advice.
A good home is a great start, but it’s not everything. So we have continued to invest in employment and community programmes. Through our training, mentoring and employment support, we’ve helped get someone a job every working day of the year. We’ve also scrutinised our own business, making savings and reducing our costs but also investing in technology which will deliver a better service for customers. We’ve made good progress, but are continuing these efforts throughout the coming year. Funding for our sector remains tight, but our recent successful bond issue has secured £250m of long-term funding to spend on building new homes and improving existing ones. But we can’t do any of this on our own. Our partnerships with local authorities, government, other charities and businesses allow us to make a difference. We’d like to thank all our partners for working with us and helping us improve homes, lives and communities.
Tina Tietjen Chair of East Thames Group
June Barnes Chief Executive of East Thames Group
We are the backbone of social and affordable housing in east London, continuing to deliver high quality homes and leading the charge for community regeneration.
Message from our Chair and Chief Executive
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A better service for residents Our residents want us to be trustworthy, reliable and friendly, and above all to be a good landlord. At East Thames we want to do the basics well – things like repairing homes quickly, cleaning and maintaining estates to a high standard and dealing with issues quickly. We also improve our services and give extra help like welfare and debt advice.
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Service for residents
2011/12: the big stories Better services –– Throughout the year we’ve been asking residents how we can improve our repairs and maintenance services. We’re now on the search for a long-term repairs and maintenance provider to build on the improvements made over the last few years. –– Our programme to ensure tenants have safe homes to live in remains a top priority. We’ve carried out nearly 8,000 gas safety inspections and hundreds of extra fire risk assessments. –– We launched our resident scrutiny panel, with each of the members elected by their fellow residents. They have started to assess our services and provide recommendations for improvements.
Helping our residents –– We have recorded our lowest ever rent arrears performance. It means we’re helping our residents stay out of debt and ensuring we collect the rent to pay for services. This will become even more important as welfare reforms are introduced in April 2013. –– Last May we helped launch ‘g15 London Moves’ – a pioneering scheme to enable social housing residents to move closer to where they work, or to potential job opportunities. –– We have helped residents to move for work and family reasons, tackled unlawful subletting and continued to help shared owners increase the stake they own in their home.
–– Our estates remain well maintained, through a regular and rigorous cleaning and ground maintenance inspection regime, and we’ve spent more than £2m on decoration such as painting.
Our net promoter score measures how many customers would recommend us, compared to those who wouldn’t recommend us. Our promoter score is 26, and has increased massively since we started measuring this three years ago.
Service for residents
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Helping residents escape the poverty trap
£10,419
The money 13 residents in our rent arrears pilot project reduced their arrears by this year.
Working to reduce rent arrears is crucial to the wellbeing of our tenants, and for the financial health of social landlords. As part of that work, this year we ran a financial exclusion pilot project. The project began in October, and worked with 20 East Thames residents facing eviction – offering them debt advice, mentoring and employment support to help them reduce their debt and the risk of losing their home. Our employment and training team helped the participants to set up bank accounts, direct debits and manage their budgets. Crucially, they also received help to find a job. At the end of the pilot project, 13 of the 20 participants had reduced their arrears, including four people who got rid of them altogether. Six people found a job and another four have gone on to further training and education. We consider the pilot a big success and are now continuing the project. The project will also help us and our residents get ready for the introduction of Universal Credit in 2013. Universal Credit includes a move to monthly rather than weekly benefit payments, while housing benefits will be paid to individuals rather than directly to landlords. This will mean more residents will struggle to manage their money. We will need to be on hand to help them.
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Service for residents
Rent arrears and evictions among The East Thames customer accounts team East Thames have done a fantastic job reducing our rent residents are at arrears levels to 3.3%. This is the lowest level an all-time low – of rent arrears we’ve had in recent years and comes at a time of heightened financial difficultly, largely thanks to the support and when many landlords have seen rent arrears go up. This great result has been achieved advice from our through targeted resident communication and dedicated financial free debt and benefit advice for residents. inclusion officers. 3.3% - a low level of rent arrears
It puts us in a strong position ahead of the introduction of the Government’s Universal Credit, which will see housing benefits paid to residents instead of landlords.
“Our pilot project brings David was referred to our Rent Arrears pilot together financial project in June 2011. He’d recently lost his job. inclusion, rent That, combined with debt pressures from and employment, other organisations, meant he was in arrears something housing of £1,300. associations are Together we created an action plan to update uniquely well his CV, help him search for a job, gain officeplaced to do.” David’s story
based work experience and update his lapsed construction card qualification.
John Bryson Employment To do that, David attended Routes to Work programmes pre-placement training in July and started a two-week placement in our Customer Contact manager at team in September. Following that, a six-month East Thames role as a customer-contact advisor came up and David got it. He’s since got help from our Welfare Benefits advisors and has agreed a repayment plan with our income team to pay off his arrears.
Well maintained estates and quality services
We installed new windows and redecoarated a bathroom in Maureen’s home.
Going for gold Last year we inspected our estates to check on the quality of cleaning and grounds maintenance. The inspections involve our neighbourhood managers and residents. The good news is 89% of our estates were rated gold or silver, a 7% increase from last year.
20 households tackled for fraud Our neighbourhood managers visit residents at home to check that the person living in the property is indeed the tenant. Since April 2011 our investigations have led to:
Safe neighbourhoods About half the reports we get for anti-social behaviour are related to noise problems. We’ve offered more mediation than before, brought the issues to the attention of our residents, and even produced a short DVD during Noise Action Week to bring this subject to life.
–– 15 tenants handing their property back to East Thames
–– 3 tenants being evicted
–– 2 tenants handing a property back to another housing association.
7,910 £2m 99% 90% gas service inspections were carried out– reaching 99.9% tenanted households in the year.
was spent on decorating homes and care schemes, including painting and re-decoration.
of our homes meet the government’s decent homes standard.
residents are satisfied with the lettings service and we visit all new tenants within the first 2 months.
Service for residents
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Involving our residents
A new repairs and maintenance provider
New ways for residents to get involved
We’re always looking to improve the services we offer residents. Last year, one of the areas we focused on was repairs and maintenance. Our long-term plan is to find a partner organisation to carry out repairs, maintenance and asset management on our behalf. As part of the process, we carried out a residents survey to see what improvements people particularly wanted to see. We had a great response, with over 500 replies. With this information we can make sure we find the right long-term partner.
We’ve made various changes to the way residents can monitor and get involved with our services. For example, residents now have a number of different ways to get involved – ranging from being a mystery shopper through to becoming one of our resident board members. That way people can pick a way to get involved that fits with work and other time commitments.
We’ve also appointed ten residents to our new Strategic Maintenance Panel that will make sure the new partner we eventually choose meets the needs and expectations of our residents.
This year we created our new Resident Scrutiny Panel – an idea that came from consulting over 1,000 residents back in 2010. This elected panel of residents represents all the various communities we work with, and scrutinises our services – making sure we’re driving real improvements residents genuinely care about.
“This is a good opportunity for me to be part of the change, rather than complaining about how things are done. Apart from being a good experience and giving me an insight into how East Thames works, being on the panel means I have a role in choosing a supplier who can provide a better service.” Ayo Maintenance panel member
New Residents Scrutiny Panel
“The scrutiny panel is a great opportunity for me to represent my area and speak up about issues and put forward constructive solutions to make our area a better place to live. It feels good to know that my input will make a change. If you don’t speak up, you won’t see results.” Gavin Housing Scrutiny Panel member Our scrutiny panel members were elected by their local community.
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Service for residents
Helping people move
G15 London Moves
G15: first mover
At East Thames we’re part of the g15, a group of London’s 15 largest social landlords. And in May we launched the pilot scheme, g15 London Moves.
The first resident to be accepted for a move under the g15 London Moves scheme was Toby, an East Thames Newham resident who moved to an A2Dominion home in Harrow:
This pilot scheme allowed social housing residents to move closer to work or job opportunities. It did this by providing the chance for g15 social tenants to move to another g15 home in London. Each member of the g15 group provided around 5% of their available empty properties to the scheme, which meant around 190 homes over the year. Residents then used a website to bid for properties, similar to the Choice Based Lettings system.
“g15 London Moves was the ideal scheme for me as it allowed me to make a move across London to the area where I work. This has made a huge difference to my life, as without the lengthy travel for work I save around £70 per week and gain an extra four hours a day. I’m also closer to my mother who lives in west London.”
The pilot allowed g15 members to test out the system and better understand demand for moving across London. Some of the learning has been included in the Mayor of London’s Housing Moves, which was launched earlier this year to help all social housing residents move for work and other reasons.
There is strong demand for social tenants to move for work and family reasons, 1,000 people registered for the g15 pilot to move home.
Toby moved to be closer to work and his family.
Service for residents
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Providing quality homes for London London is seriously short of high-quality, affordable homes. At East Thames we’re working hard to build those homes, and to make the best use of the ones we have.
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Housing
2011/12: the big stories With the Olympics in our neighbourhood, this was always going to be a busy and exciting year for our housing programme. Here are the highlights: New homes for east London –– In December, we joined our Triathlon partners, Southern Housing Group and First Base to launch East Village – the new legacy identity for the athletes’ village. The village will provide quality homes for over 6,000 Londoners after the Games, in a space the size of St James’s Park. Triathlon is offering nearly 1,400 affordable homes in the village. QDD will own the other 1,400 homes, which will mainly be offered for private rented accommodation.
Regeneration in action –– We finished the first of over 800 new homes being built on the Ocean Estate in Stepney as part of our £200m three-year regeneration project. As part of this project we are working on with Tower Hamlets Council, we are also refurbishing hundreds of council-owned homes. –– In Spring this year we submitted our plans to regenerate New Union Wharf. This is the largest of three estates we own where we are re-developing homes.
We’re going to deliver 2,600 high-quality, affordable homes for east London by March 2015.
–– In December we also signed a £13.2 million contract to continue as an approved Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) development partner for the next three years. The funding allows us to build 357 affordable homes by 2015. We are building more than 800 new homes in Stepney Green.
Housing
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New homes for East London
The East Village will provide 1,379 affordable homes.
The East Village: a home for 6,000 Londoners The East Village was officially launched in December – the legacy identity for the Athlete’s Village. We’re delighted to be involved. It’s one of the most high-profile legacies from the Olympics. More importantly, it will provide quality homes for over 6,000 Londoners in an open space the size of St James’s Park. East Village will be owned and run by QDD (a joint venture between Qatari Diar Real Estate Development Company and Delancey) and Triathlon Homes (a joint venture between First Base, East Thames Group and Southern Housing Group). Together we’ll provide 2,818 new homes. Within that, Triathlon will own and manage 1,379 affordable homes, of which 675 will be new social-rented homes. www.eastvillagelondon.com www.triathlonhomes.com
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Housing
“East Village will offer a great new place for people to live, work and study. It is a fantastic example of how the Olympic legacy is unfolding in the heart of East London.” Boris Johnson Mayor of London
Building a balanced, sustainable community One big success this year has been agreeing the lettings strategy for the social rented homes at East Village with the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and Mayor of Newham, Sir Robin Wales. The aim of this letting strategy is to create a mixed, balanced and sustainable community. To do that, many homes will be pre-allocated to residents straight after the Olympics. This is nearly a year before residents can move in – at least six months earlier than usual. It means residents who aren’t employed will have longer to find work before they move in. We’ll help through skills audits, training and work-access programmes. On top of that, Newham Council will be able to nominate residents for more than half the social rented homes – the largest amount ever available to the borough from one development.
Construction is well under way to deliver schemes in Stepney Green.
£13.2m for 357 new homes In December we signed a £13.2 million contract with the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) to continue to be an approved HCA development partner. This funding gives us the go-ahead to build 357 new homes for shared ownership and affordable rent by March 2015 – above and beyond the 2,600 affordable homes we’re already on track to deliver.
95% of new residents are satisfied with their new home.
Housing
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Regeneration in action
Ocean Estate residents have worked with our architects on the new landscaping designs, including new paved, grassed and play areas, a re-designed parking lay out and increased street lighting.
Full steam ahead at Ocean Estate East Thames has been working in partnership with the London Borough of Tower Hamlets for the past two years to regenerate the Ocean Estate in Stepney Green. As part of this innovative partnership, we have a dual role, building more than 800 new homes and carrying out improvements to the existing council owed homes. The £200m investment in the area is transforming homes, lives and communities and we are working with a range of partners including Bellway, Wates Living Space, First Base, Levitt Bernstein, PRP Architects and Spitalfields Housing Association. –– Residents have worked with our architects on the landscape designs for the estate, and in March we started this work.
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Housing
–– By the end of the financial year we’d installed new kitchens and bathrooms in more than 600 council homes. We’re also well advanced on work to windows and roofs, which will transform more than 1,000 homes by 2013. –– We’ve been working on more than 800 new homes that will be available for social rent, shared ownership and private sale. We’ll finish the first new homes in late 2012. –– We’ve opened a new community centre offering a health centre, housing office and other community facilities. We’ve also run a wide range of employment and training courses, including in construction. See the DVD we produced to show what has been achieved at the Ocean Estate: www.east-thames.co.uk/ocean-estate
Ocean resident Nazma in her new kitchen
Regenerating our estates We are investing in regenerating our own housing estates by replacing ageing homes with modern and energy efficient homes. At Hammond House in Tower Hamlets and Hammond Court in Waltham Forest we are re-building quality homes for residents. At our New Union Wharf estate in Tower Hamlets we are planning to replace 189 ageing apartments with 400 high-quality homes, while preserving the strong existing community. We have just submitted plans to the council for approval and have been working closely with residents over the past year on the designs for the new homes. We hope to get planning permission later this year, and then appoint a building partner.
Awards
160 new homes for East London and Essex We’ve completed 160 new homes across four London boroughs during the last financial year. A number of the new homes were built on land that was previously disused or derelict, like in Waltham Forest where we have built new homes on derelict garage sites. In this way we’re replacing trouble spots with new family sized homes for the local community. More homes to come We are currently in the process of building another 1,300 under construction, as well as 1,379 homes on the Athletes Village as part of our Triathlon Homes joint venture with Southern Housing and First Base.
Redbridge greener homes project picks up third award This project was crowned Retrofit Project of the Year at the Construction News Awards 2011 and has made 20 Redbridge properties up to 80% more energy efficient. Paper Mill Place wins Waltham Forest Design Award Our largest new build development in Waltham Forest picked up the Best Residential Scheme award as part of the borough’s annual design awards. Built on a former industrial site, the new homes have made a huge contribution to the wider regeneration of the area.
Housing
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Delivering care and supported housing for the community At East Thames we’re supported-housing specialists. We provide support and accommodation for around 2,000 people – in a way that meets the needs of the community and makes every pound of our funders’ money count. We support the elderly, young people at risk of becoming homeless, people with disabilities like mental-health problems and learning disabilities, women fleeing abuse and many other vulnerable groups.
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Care and supported housing
2011/12: the big stories We have over 80 care and support schemes in east London and Essex, providing homes and support for nearly 2,000 people. Our strong local knowledge and experience working with local health and support organisations is what makes us unique. We’re also a registered provider of these services, regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). This year, like always, we’ve had a very busy time: New accommodation –– In November 2011 we launched Tolpuddle House in Epping, next to the new Zinc Arts Centre. Together we’re providing a unique combination of arts, training and supported housing for disabled and disadvantaged people. –– In mid 2011 we started developing Dreywood Gardens in Havering. By early 2013 we’ll have delivered 98 high-quality care homes for people over 55.
Support programmes We’ve successfully set up the Work Ready Programme – a supported employment and training programme to give work experience to residents with learning disabilities and mental-health needs. We also launched our Take Charge course at Waltham Forest – a new eight-week course run in partnership with Mind, specifically for people with mental health needs. Foyer living This year we continued to put on activities and events in our foyers – from Dragons’ Dens to Master Chefs – specially for young people and young parents.
We’re one of the largest London providers of foyer accommodation for people aged 16-25, and we want that to continue. We provide a safe place to live and the support young people need to turn their lives around.
Young and old got together for a celebration at Janson and Gurney house, an older people’s scheme in Stratford.
Care and supported housing
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New accommodation
HRH The Earl of Wessex met residents at the launch of Tolpuddle House.
Tolpuddle House In November 2011, HRH The Earl of Wessex opened a groundbreaking new facility, Zinc Arts Centre in Epping, run by the arts and education charity, Zinc. The £7.5 million centre offers arts, training and supported housing for disabled and disadvantaged people, and is the first fully accessible residential centre of its kind in the UK. Our role has been to deliver and run Tolpuddle House, the supported housing scheme next to the centre. Tolpuddle House includes 25 short-stay rooms for 41 guests, and nine supported-housing flats.
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Care and supported housing
The plan is for people to stay at Tolpuddle House while getting a tailored training programme at the Centre. People can stay up to three years to take part in training covering everything from arts, catering and hospitality to housekeeping, independent living and essential life skills. The Zinc Arts Centre and Tolpuddle House combination is a unique concept. It’s also the first scheme we’ve developed without upfront Supporting-People funding. We built the units with a Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) Local Housing Grant of £720,000, supported by Epping Forest District Council, and the revenue for Tolpuddle House will come from the residents’ personal-care budgets.
“Once I’ve got more experience here I will start sending out my CV. Being here has given me new motivation.” Jason, 26 Tolpuddle House resident
“The vision for Tolpuddle House was to create a unique service combining supported housing and employment training.” Chris Woodhead East Thames Assistant Director of Customer and Neighbourhood Services
Dreywood Gardens: 98 new care homes Over the last year we’ve been working closely with Havering Council on plans for Dreywood Gardens, built on the site of a rundown sheltered housing scheme in Gidea Park that was demolished in early 2011. In its place we’ve started building 98 new homes for people over 55 that will be ready in January 2013. The new development will include self-contained one and two-bedroom apartments in a safe, secure environment. It will be equipped to provide all the various types of support needed by residents moving in. But for the first time in a scheme like this it will also include extra care services available 24 hours
a day for when people need special attention. The £12 million scheme is funded by the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), who have provided a £5.3 million Social Housing Grant, and by us, with a £7 million contribution. We’re really pleased with progress at Dreywood Gardens. We’re particularly pleased that twenty of the units will be available for older people wanting shared ownership. This is an ownership scheme where people buy a share in their home while paying subsidised rent on the remainder – giving people the security of home ownership in an affordable way.
“We want our elderly residents to live as independently as possible. It’s what they want, and it also has the added benefit of keeping costs down for local taxpayers.” Councillor Lesley Kelly, Cabinet Member for Housing
We’re also pleased to say the scheme will meet the Code for Sustainable Homes level 4. This means it will include various energy, water and waste-saving measures like a ‘brown roof’ for harvesting water. 20% of the energy used in the homes will also be generated from a renewable source. Care and supported housing
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Support programmes
Work Ready: helping people with mental health problems into work People with support needs often face tough barriers when it comes to finding work. In fact, only 6.4% of people with learning disabilities are in employment, while 65% say they’d like to be. As a result, providing support and training to help them make the transition into the workplace has been a focus of ours for some years. And this year we’ve set up the Work Ready Programme – a programme giving work experience to residents with learning disabilities and mental-health needs, and helping them get jobs afterwards.
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Care and supported housing
The training lasts three to six months depending on an individual’s need, and so far eight of our residents have been on the programme. We’d like to thank our partners, Compass, who are providing work placements at our head office and care schemes, including roles in catering, post and print rooms and care and support work. We’d also like to thank our other partner, Newham Workplace, for providing many hours of one-to-one sessions with support workers, flexible support and work as part of the programme.
6.4% of people with learning disabilities are in paid employment, while 65% say they’d like to be. Take Charge This year we also launched the Take Charge course at Waltham Forest. This is a new eight-week course run by us and the charity Mind, specifically for people with mental health needs. It aims to prepare residents for independent living by helping them take control of key areas of their life like money, benefits, medication, housing and employment. “The course was good. It helped me on how to talk to my psychiatrist about my medication being lowered.” Mary Resident at Greg Close who attended the course.
Care and supported housing
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Foyer living
Support for young people and parents Our foyers provide accommodation for young people aged 16-24 at risk of being homeless. But they’re more than a place to say. They also help young people get back into education or employment, and help them address the underlying problems they have. With about 600 young people living in our foyers in east London and Essex, we’re the largest provider of foyer accommodation in the UK. Our foyer residents stay for between six months and two years. Our aim is to help them move on to independent living or back with their family. As part of this process, we put on a number of activities and special events each year, particularly for young parents. This year was no exception, with plenty of very successful events enjoyed by all:
Lifeskills Workshop The Great Marvellous Cool Living (GMCL) mental health project, run from our First-Step foyer, received funding from Comic Relief to run life-skills workshops covering topics like employment, training and healthy eating. ‘Dragon’s Den’ held for International Women’s day Held at our foyer in Barking, this great idea gave young women under 25 the chance to explore activities they could turn into small businesses, and then pitch them to ‘dragons’ from our long-time supporters, John Lewis and the Blackwood Group. The winning idea – a great little cake decorating business - then got a small start-up donation along with free support and advice.
Made up about the Olympics Former foyer resident, Marcella was recently given funding from our Aspirations Fund to run a series of ‘make me up’ sessions at Barking and Dagenham Foyer. More than 30 residents turned up at the grand finale – an Olympicinspired photo shoot, with residents choosing outfits inspired by their favourite sports. Barking’s answer to Jamie Oliver In mid 2011, Barking and Dagenham Foyer residents’ committee ran their own Master Chef competition. Four intense rounds saw eight residents battle it out for the title. But in the end there was a clear winner. Vivian John we salute you, and your stuffed peppers.
Dragon’s Den.
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Care and supported housing
Helping people lead more fulfilling lives Staff at recruitment consultancy, Blackwood Group, roll up their sleeves and get to work decorating Dames House, a care home for older people in Waltham Forest.
Community spirit improves quality of life, and it’s something we foster wherever and whenever we can throughout the year. For example, in October last year, residents at Beddalls Court Farm, our older-people’s supported living scheme in Beckton, were joined by students from the neighbouring Kingsford Community School to celebrate Harvest Festival. The students came with hand-picked, organic fruit and vegetables for each of the residents. In summer 2011 residents and staff at our six Waltham Forest mental health schemes also ran an inter-scheme master chef competition. The winner was Drayton Lodge, with a very special rendition of meringue with a twist.
Helping people lead active lives Euro 2012 was not the only football success this year with our own East Living Football Club (ELFC) winning the Tower Hamlets London Tigers tournament. The ELFC is made up of residents and coached by staff from a number of our mental health care schemes. Marc Paevie one of the team’s coaches explains: “This is a massive achievement for everyone involved in ELFC. The team was originally formed to motivate residents from our mental health schemes by promoting their independence, maintaining their mental and physical well being, and building on their leadership skills. This success is a massive boost to achieving the ultimate vision for these residents which is to help them become independent and find employment.”
During 2011/12 we achieved A or B results for every inspection of our care and supported living schemes. 78% of care and foyer residents moving on to independent living met the aims in their support plans.
Care and supported housing
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We will ensure our residents can access all the opportunities east London and Essex have to offer. And we’ll give them the skills they need to improve their local communities.
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Community
Building better lives in the community At East Thames we’re committed to the charitable and community work we do. Work that helps people fulfil their potential and lead better lives. 2011/12: the big stories Like always, this year has been a very busy year. Here are a few highlights: –– Our charitable arm – East Potential – became John Lewis Stratford City’s 2012 Charity of the Year. –– We launched our new Inspired to Sustainable Living programme in Newham. The £200k programme is helping Newham residents lead greener, more sustainable lives. –– We’ve been helping people in Newham grow their own fruit and veg at four sites across the borough – all on previously disused land. –– Twenty Tower Hamlet residents have graduated from our community champions programme, and the programme intake has doubled in a matter of months.
Montbazon Court residents Jim and Frank in the garden.
Community
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East Potential: John Lewis charity of the year
“We do a lot of work in this area to help prevent homelessness. It’s hugely rewarding work and we’re ecstatic that John Lewis wants to support us.” Pamela Gardner, Director at East Potential “Our aim is to provide vital support through community projects involving many of our passionate Partners, so that we can help East Potential continue its life-changing work in east London.” Terry Saunders Community Liaison Coordinator for John Lewis Stratford City.
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Community
One of the great news stories this year has been that our charitable arm – East Potential – has become John Lewis Stratford City’s 2012 Charity of the Year. This means that for the rest of 2012 the store’s partners (all their employees are partners) will be fundraising for us. The money will go towards programmes to fight homelessness and help young people improve their lives. We’re the first charity to be supported by the department store, which opened in September 2011, and we’re tremendously excited about this opportunity. East Potential works to improve people’s lives and relies on funding from government, local authorities, trusts and businesses to run a variety of programmes.
A sleep out involving John Lewis partners and East Thames staff raised more than £4,000 for East Potential.
£200k boost for Newham sustainable living
“I didn’t realise how much water and energy we use day to day. It’s crazy amounts! This has shown me that small changes can make a big difference and be better for my home, family and community.” Shaz, Local resident
In April last year we launched our ‘Inspired to Sustainable Living’ programme in Newham. The £200k programme has been funded by Defra, and is designed to help Newham residents lead greener, more sustainable lives. We’ve given local residents free resource packs full of tools and advice to make their homes greener and cheaper to run. We’ve also been signing up and training local people as environmental volunteers to help spread the word. We’ve created two foodgrowing sites for young people from our foyers. These sites will help them learn about growing, cooking and eating fresh seasonal produce. We’re one of four organisations to get funding from Defra as part of their Inspiring Sustainable Living grants. The project will run until 2013, and we’ll be tracking how well the programme has done at encouraging residents to be greener. We have also worked with food growing co-operative OrganicLea to turn four disused sites into food growing areas for our residents and their neighbours in Newham.
Foyer resident Meshack learning to grow vegetables.
Community
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Community Champions: Record-breaking turnout at Ocean Estate
Our community champions programme tackles unemployment by equipping people with the skills and know-how to bring positive changes to their community and to help them get jobs. The current programme is based on the Ocean Estate and has enjoyed huge success this year – nearly 50 Tower Hamlets residents graduated. Every participant on the course is accredited with the National Open College Network level one award. They also receive continued support to find a job. In fact, their hard work has already paid off, with 15 participants now in jobs and 13 in further education. “The community champions programme has been a godsend for me. Already I have an interview, I am now more confident than ever and feel that I can do anything I put my mind to. This programme is so relevant.” Mohammed Community Champion Graduate
2,515
People have taken part in our community and employment and training programmes.
“I’m extremely proud of what participants have achieved over the last few weeks. What residents have achieved in this short space of time shows they are work ready and this is being recognised with job offers and interview opportunities.” Sue Withers East Thames Programmes Coordinator
As part of the Ocean Estate regeneration programme we’ve set a local employment target of 20%. Thanks to courses like community champions, we’re close to achieving it.
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Community
New exhibitions at East Gallery
Speed networking at Starting Point
East Gallery is the exhibition space at our head office in Stratford.
Starting Point is a local business support service we run in Barking, with funding from The Oak Foundation. Among many other things it offers hot desks, meeting rooms, business support and start-up funding. And in May last year it was host to our first ever ‘speed networking’ events.
In August last year, East Thames resident and artist, John Bunker held a solo exhibition of work inspired by and made from objects and materials found in his local area, Stepney. John’s work tells the story of Stepney and of his own personal experiences there. The exhibition reflected the journey John and his family took from homelessness through to finding find a new home with East Thames on Grand Union Place in Stepney, where they are now active members of the local community. “I thought it would be really interesting to show work that was created during a difficult time. We were set adrift in the city – in a strange kind of limbo, wondering where our home might be. Things took a turn for the better when we found a home through East Thames.” John Bunker Artist
The event was a chance for budding local community groups and social enterprises to get expert advice from our chief executive June Barnes, and to speed network with our marketing, finance and IT staff. The event was a great success, and a repeat event is already being planned. “This event was ideal for me to network and pick up more specialist skills. I am forever grateful for today, and for the overall service provided by Starting Point.” Olivia Jarret Who runs community engagement and leadership project DISAD from Starting Point
Community
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Employment and training Delivering sustainable, vibrant and successful communities has long been the aim of many housing associations. But a focus beyond the bricks and mortar is key in making existing and new neighbourhoods successful. At East Thames, we help local people and our residents get the right skills to improve their life chances. We help them get into work or further education, and provide opportunities for them to come together and build stronger communities. It’s an essential part of reducing both social and financial exclusion.
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Employment and training
2011/12: the big stories This year we’ve offered a range of employment and training services. We’ve also worked successfully with many local businesses to find job vacancies and match applicants to suitable roles. Tackling financial exclusion and unemployment –– Last year we helped 239 people into employment. 54% of people who attended our education and training went on to get a job or take up further education. 47% of these are East Thames residents. Support from our partners –– We couldn’t have achieved the strong results we’ve had this year without the terrific help from our partners including PwC, Trowers & Hamlins, Barclays and John Lewis, Stratford City.
Every working day of the year we’ve helped someone find a job which has improved their life.
Beyond the Olympics –– We’re aiming to have at least 50% of working-age residents living in the East Village’s social housing in employment when they move in. And finally… –– We’ve successfully launched or continued to run a whole host of employment and training programmes, including Community Champions programme, Construct Your Career course and our new East Thames graduate programme.
Construct your Career graduates
Employment and training
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Providing routes to work
Customer Contact Centre trainees Hannah, David and Jermaine, pictured with our contact centre team leader and Routes to Work co-ordinator.
At East Thames Group we focus on employment opportunities as ways to strengthen the communities in which we work. With rising unemployment and the UK’s difficult financial outlook, this work is more important than ever. 239 and counting Last year we helped 239 people into employment – nearly one job for every working day of the year. Our residents now make up 70% of participants in our employment and training programmes. This hasn’t always been the case, but over the past year we’ve made sure as many of our residents as possible benefit from the programmes we offer. In the past nine years, our Routes to Work programme has supported more than 1,000 people.
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Employment and training
We don’t just find work experience placements for participants, we also offer placements at East Thames. Our customer contact centre recently took three participants - all of whom went on to secure jobs with us.
“We were supported all the way and encouraged to apply for vacancies in the team and here we are, where we want to be.” Hannah, David and Jermaine
Support from our partners
Many of our participants do work experience with us here at East Thames. Many also go on to secure a job here, too. But we couldn’t have achieved the strong results we have this year without the terrific help we get from our many partners. Here are just some of the ways they’ve helped: PwC: sharing secrets to employment success In October, over 30 Newham residents received expert advice on how to improve their employability at a one-day event we hosted with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The event took place at the Newham Workplace Hub in Beckton. Throughout the day, residents got employment advice and support, interview practice and help with their CVs. The unique event gave people a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be mentored and supported by experienced leaders from a global professional-services firm.
Barclays As they have in previous years, this year Barclays hosted eight people on a three-month employment-mentoring programme. East Thames participants met regularly with their Barclays mentor to discuss career aspirations and the actions needed to achieve their goals. Barclays mentor participant, Tak, said the programme helped him understand how his mentor had got to where he is today, and gave his confidence a big boost. John Lewis Stratford City The work we’ve done with communities across east London and Essex has recently won us the support of John Lewis Stratford City, which named our charitable arm, East Potential, as their charity of 2012. This is fantastic news for us and will help us continue to fundraise to make a lasting difference.
Trowers & Hamlins Trowers & Hamlins are our lead solicitors. In each of the past few years they’ve given two of our employment trainees a fortnight’s work placement. East Thames resident and Trowers & Hamlins trainee, Thushari, has gone on to find employment since his stint with the solicitors. He described the work experience as superb and said the experience had made him more confident and driven.
“I wanted to come to this event to increase my confidence and really present myself in the best possible light. The interview role play has certainly helped do that.” Motunrayo Newham resident Employment and training
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Beyond the Olympics
Making East Village a successful neighbourhood Looking ahead, we’re particularly excited about the opportunity we have to implement employment and training initiatives at the newly launched East Village (formerly the Athletes Village on the Olympic Park). As part of Triathlon Homes (our joint venture with Southern Housing Group and First Base) we’re offering nearly 1,400 affordable homes on the village from mid 2013. We have a fantastic opportunity to make this new neighbourhood a real success. We’ll be carrying out skills audits, training and workaccess programmes to help residents move into employment. We’re aiming to have at least 50% of working-age residents living in the Village’s social housing in employment.
54% of our employment and training attendees found a job or took up further education.
“We look forward to working with our residents, many of whom are already taking positive steps to make their neighbourhood a great place to live.” June Barnes Chief Executive East Thames Group
Some of our routes to work graduates have found work at the new Westfield Stratford City.
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Employment and training
The results
We’ve successfully launched or continued to run a whole host of employment and training programmes. Here are just a few of the results:
Construct your Career – Mussie and Sean’s story Mussie and ex-serviceman Sean both live in hostels for the homeless, and faced an uncertain future until they enrolled on our Construct your Career course. The 16-week training course gave them the skills they needed in carpentry, plumbing, decorating, painting and electrical wiring to pursue a career in construction. A further two days’ health and safety training led to both men gaining their Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) card which enables them to work on construction sites.
“It was fantastic “I would not have to be given the been able to get great opportunity my qualification of getting or CSCS card involved with without Construct the construction Your Career. training. I’m on track now.” Ex-servicemen Mussie can find it very difficult to get back into civilian life.” Sean
Mohammed Rahman’s story After being unemployed for almost three years, Ocean Estate resident Mohammed signed up to the Community Champions programme to help boost his confidence and get him work-ready. After graduating he continued to receive training and support, which encouraged him to apply for – and get – the position of site supervisor at our new Harford Street community centre.
“This time last year I was out of work and didn’t know what I was going to do. Now I’m employed and it feels great. It’s definitely been life changing for me and I now look forward to my future.” Mohammed
Employment and training
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Providing a great place to work We work hard to make East Thames a great place to be – for our volunteers, our residents and our own staff. In the current climate we’re also working hard to be as efficient as we can be. This year we’ve focused a lot on that efficiency, while making sure our customer service culture and employee engagement stay at the high level we’re proud of.
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East Thames
Our customer accounts team were winners of our 2012 staff awards for their efforts to keep rent arrears low and support tenants with debt advice.
“One of the biggest positives is that overall staff engagement is 74% - this is a measure of how much effort and enthusiasm staff bring to East Thames. This is a great result and is higher than the average for housing associations which is 70%.” June Barnes East Thames Chief Executive
2011/12: the big stories Improving East Thames programme –– In 2010 we set ourselves the target of cutting our operating costs by 10% by 2013/14. This year we’ve set up a number of improvement projects to make that happen. Investing in volunteers –– Our volunteer programme has gone from strength to strength, and this year we were awarded the Investors in Volunteers quality standard. Board highlights –– Johanna Holmes, chair of East Homes, was awarded an OBE for services to the housing sector. –– Dominic Jebb, East Thames foyer resident in 2004, joined the East Homes board. Strong staff survey –– Our recent survey showed that staff are enthusiastic about delivering great customer services and proud to work for East Thames.
East Thames
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Improving East Thames programme
Creating a more efficient, better service Like many organisations we have faced the challenge of doing more for less. Tackling this challenge head on, we launched our Improving East Thames programme with the dual objective of reducing our costs and improving services. The main elements of the programme are: –– Finding a partner to deliver our maintenance and asset management services like responsive repairs, planned works and estate services. Our new partner will be starting in April 2013 following an intensive selection process. –– Delivering savings through scrutinising what we spend on products and services. We’ve worked with our largest providers to reduce costs and do things differently. –– Introducing new technology to allow customers to access more services online and streamline a number of our processes in the back office.
Engaging our staff A large portion of the money we spend goes on staffing, so it’s important that this represents a good investment. But we also value our team and want East Thames to be a great place to work. Every two years we carry out a staff survey to understand the views of our people and what we can improve on. The survey showed that staff engagement – the measures of how much effort and enthusiasm staff bring to East Thames – is at 74%, higher than the 70% average for housing associations. The results also showed that 91% of staff believe delivering effective service for customers is a priority, 74% said they are proud to work for the Group and 80% said they feel committed to the Group’s goals. We also carry out regular short staff surveys, have introduced a suggestion scheme and provide information through a staff intranet, weekly e-bulletin and at quarterly performance briefings. In response to feedback from staff, we have re-energised our learning and development programme, as staff told us there were not enough opportunities for career progression. We have introduced both leadership and management development programmes, and introduced e-learning so staff can learn when they choose to.
By 2013/14 we expect to have reduced our operating costs by 10%, which will mean a saving of about £9m. This will increase our operating surplus, making us a stronger and more resilient business, but also giving us more investment choices in the coming years. 38
East Thames
Our corporate responsibility
Board highlights
We want to make a lasting difference in our community and we rely on a lot of companies and individuals to help us. But we also make sure we support our own causes and programmes as part of our own corporate responsibility and because it’s part of our culture.
Johanna Holmes OBE
Here’s a few examples of what it looks like in practice: –– Last year we set up a new graduate programme with Tower Hamlets Council and hosted two graduates on six-month placements. –– We have supported a range of charities through employee fundraising, including our own East Potential charity. Our charity sleep out, which we did with John Lewis, raised more than £4,000. –– We have offered dozens of routes to work placements at East Thames to help job seekers gain practical work experience. Some of these people have gained permanent jobs with us. –– We offer a volunteering programme and many of our own staff volunteer their time outside of work hours. Some of our volunteers are gaining experience to get back into the workforce, but others volunteer their time simply to give back to their community, doing things like reading and spending time with our elderly residents. This programme was short-listed for a National Housing Federation (NHF) What we’re proud of award during the year.
In June 2011 our very own Johanna Holmes, chair of East Homes, was awarded an OBE for services to the housing sector. Johanna has been Chair of East Homes since 2007 and also sits on our East Thames board. “I’m thrilled to receive the OBE. It was a total surprise and I’m very appreciative of the support I’ve received from everyone at East Homes and elsewhere in the social housing and homelessness sectors.”
Johanna Holmes Chair of East Homes
From East Thames foyer to East Homes Board Dominic Jebb first became an East Thames resident back in 2004 when he moved into Focus E15 foyer in Stratford. He then went on to do work experience with East Thames’ solicitors Trowers and Hamlins, which led to a full-time job. Seven years on, Dominic has joined the East Homes board. “If it wasn’t for the foyer programme I wouldn’t be where I am today. The reason I applied to be on the board is because of the path I’ve walked. I feel like I’ve walked through the whole system, which means I can help people who are in the same situation I was in. I know I can make other people think of what I went through and the support I needed.”
Dominic Jebb East Homes board member
East Thames
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Performance and stats
78.8%
160
3.3%
99.9%
customers are satisfied with the overall East Thames service
new homes developed and handed over
rent arrears at their lowest level ever
of homes meeting the government’s Decent Homes standard
94.7%
ÂŁ2.96m
of our estates achieved gold/ silver standard for cleanliness
surplus
2,600
239
95%
82%
New residents who are satisfied with their home
care and foyer residents moved on successfully to independent living
homes currently being developed
For more information about our financial performance, see our financial statement: www.east-thames.co.uk/financial-statements www.east-thames.co.uk/performance
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East Thames
jobs found for people in our employment programmes
Our funders
We would like to say a big thank you to all the organisations who provided us with important funding and support to carry out the work that we do. If you would like to help us make a difference by helping local people and changing lives, please call our fundraising team on 0208 536 3982 or email russ.mclean@east-potential.org.uk.
FUNDED BY
East Thames
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Board and governance
Our group structure East Thames Group is a registered provider, registered charity and company limited by guarantee. In addition to our parent group we have three main operational subsidiaries: East Homes owns and/or manages nearly 13,500 homes. We provide quality affordable housing, including social rented homes, supported housing, foyers, shared ownership and homes for outright sale and market rent. East Thames Partnerships and East Place are subsidiaries of East Homes and are established to manage private sale housing and property management respectively.
East Potential is the charitable part of our Group, providing programmes to help individuals lead better lives and develop communities. We do this through employment and training and community programmes. In addition to the operational subsidiaries, East Thames has East Treasury, East Regen and East Finance. East Thames is also an equal owner of Triathlon Homes, a joint venture with Southern Housing Group and First Base. It has been established to own and manage 1,379 homes on the athletes village after the 2012 Games are finished.
East Living provides care and supported services to just over 2,000 people in east London and Essex.
Our boards We have an overlapping Board structure, with six core members who sit on all four Boards – East Thames Group, East Homes, East Living and East Potential. We have two additional independent board members for each Board and three resident members on the East Homes Board. The Board meets regularly as one Group. East Thames core Board membership: Andrew Newell, Marianne Skelcher, Sheila Lewis, Shirley Watson, Mehban Chowdery and June Barnes. East Thames Group board independent members: Tina Tietjen (Chair) and Ashley West East Potential board independent members: Malcolm Basing (Chair) and Alec Dick East Living board independent members: Debbie Sorkin (Chair) and Rohan Hewavisenti
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East Thames
East Homes board independent members: Johanna Holmes (Chair) and Terry Price East Homes resident Board members: Philip Fearn, Dominic Jebb and Angela Williams We have two Group sub-committees – Group Risk Management and Audit Committee chaired by Ashley West and Group Governance and Remuneration Committee chaired by Marianne Skelcher. There are also two East Homes committees – the Customer Experience Committee chaired by Johanna Holmes and the Development and Asset Management committee chaired by Sheila Lewis. East Thames has adopted the National Housing Federation’s Excellence in Governance Code for Members and Good Practice Guidance. We are committed to transparency, with additional information on our website, including information about recruitment and selection to our Boards. You can find out more about our Board and the experience of our Board members at: www.east-thames.co.uk/board-members.
Our directors
Our senior team at East Thames comprises of: –– June Barnes, Chief Executive –– Geoff Pearce, Director of Development and Asset Management –– Pamela Gardner, Director of Communities and Neighbourhoods –– Suzanne Forster, Director of Finance –– Steve James, Director of Support Operations During the past year our directors have contributed to a number of boards and taken part in various think tanks to share their experience in social housing and urban regeneration. Some of the highlights include: –– Throughout the year June chaired Stratford Renaissance Partnership which brings
together all the key organisations involved in the regeneration of Stratford. After the Olympics she is handing the chair role to John Burton from Westfield Group. She continues as a Board member for the National Housing Federation. –– Geoff has been a member of the National House Building Council’s Foundation Advisory Board. –– Pamela is a member of the Ocean Estate Regeneration Trust which is establishing long-term community investment in the Stepney area. –– Suzanne is treasurer of Homeless International, a charity which addresses urban poverty issues in the developing world. –– Steve is a board member of his local Citizens Advice Bureau.
June Barnes accepts a cheque from the Blackwood Group who donated money to our Stratford foyer mother and baby unit.
Geoff Pearce shows Boris Johnson and Sir Robin Wales around the East Village.
East Thames
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29-35 West Ham Lane Stratford London E15 4PH Tel: 0845 600 0830 Fax: 020 8522 2001 Minicom: 020 8522 2006 www.east–thames.co.uk
Registered in England & Wales (4091100) Registered Charity (1084952) Tenant Services Authority Registered (LH4309) Member of the National Housing Federation