The Governor - June 2013 by HQN Limited

Governor the

HQN'S MAGAZINE FOR BOARDS, EXECUTIVES AND LEADERS

JUNE 2013

Enjoy the CIH conference with the new HCA-approved cocktail THE (POST)

COSMOPOLITAN The recipe for success: First chill the ratings agencies Squeeze lenders Add a generous portion of anxiety Shake violently Guaranteed free of all diversified ingredients 100% strength board Not suitable for students

Places for People HCA's regulatory framework consultation Building local The future for Riverside

the network

The Network Annual Conference

Come together to get the best out of the private rented sector It’s big and it’s growing – are we making the most of it? Thursday 18 July 2013

DoubleTree by Hilton London – West End

To book: www.hqnetwork.co.uk/events

The private rented sector is booming. In some areas private landlords own more homes than all the social landlords put together. We are starting to see the growth of a new breed of large-scale private landlords. Councils are asking private landlords to take their fair share of homeless people. Housing associations are beginning to oﬀer homes at market rents.

Suzanne McBride, HQN Associate and specialist in homelessness, allocations and private sector housing solutions

But there are concerns with the sector. Shelter warns of the disruption to family life caused by short lets and repeated moves. How do you deal with rogue landlords? Some councils work in partnership with landlords but others do take a tougher line. Lots of people now live in the private rented sector so it will be a key battleground in the 2015 election. The Labour Party is already talking about new laws to clamp down on the worst abuses.

Shelter

Every council and housing association needs to think about how it responds to the growth of the private landlord. Our conference will help you to do this.

Ian Dick, Strategic Manager, London Borough of Newham Tony Mousdale, Divisional Manager – Housing, Liverpool City Council

Ian Potter, Managing Director, The Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA)

Alistair McIntosh, HQN Chief Executive and the conference chair, leads an expert panel of speakers including: Roger Jarman, HQN Associate and expert on the private rented sector

This event is free to full Housing Quality Network members. Contact us if you are unsure of your membership level. Standard delegate fee for non-members will be £275 + VAT The fee includes refreshments, lunch and a detailed information pack. Please inform us in advance of any special dietary requirements. Please click on booking link above for further details.

The Residential Landlords Association (RLA)

Who should attend?

Timings

This conference is an essential day for everyone with an interest in the private rented sector, including: • Chief executives, managing directors, directors and all key strategists and decision makers • Departmental leads, managers and specialist oﬃcers from: – Housing strategy and policy – Operations and service delivery

Conference speakers

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– Lettings and allocations teams – Business management and ﬁnance – Specialist oﬃcers from PRS teams – Neighbourhood management – Customer service managers.

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Who are we? Fast, practical guidance KEEP on everything to do with CALM housing. HQN provides AN D high-quality advice, tailored HQN support and training to councils, ALMOs, housing associations and other housing providers. Find out more about us and our network membership by visiting www.hqnetwork.co.uk or call us on 0845 4747 004.

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Let’s get ready to rumble! Will we see a bust-up at the CIH conference to rival the clash between Gove and head teachers? Our leaders are angry about welfare reform and the lack of housebuilding. Should they vent their fury on Mark Prisk?

CONTENTS

In one way it would be an act of great cruelty. Gove has no reason to fear the baying head teachers. Another dose of inspection will put paid to their little games. But Grant Shapps did away with our inspectors so his replacement as housing minister has no bodyguards.

Let’s get ready to rumble! Comment by HQN Chief Executive Alistair McIntosh

Risk assessment What can the growth of Places for People teach us?

Adjusting the framework Proposed changes to the HCA’s regulatory framework

Clearing the hurdles Another month, another set of housebuilding figures

What’s around the corner? Riverside’s Carol Matthews takes a peep into the future

Greening the sector HQN’s innovative tie-in with the University of Sheffield

Remember the ALMO ALMOs to HAs - insights from those who've made the move

Just the job It should be easy to fill your job vacancy – shouldn’t it?

Will we ever see inspection for housing again? Certainly you might be able to find things for them to do. No one knows why the running costs of housing associations vary so much. Could inspectors get to grips with this and save some money? The FT has exposed huge differences in the costs of council pension schemes. We might well see the same variances in the yield of new homes through self-financing. Why wouldn’t a minister want to keep an eye on this through inspectors? Maybe Shapps boxed his successors in and they are just too embarrassed to bring inspection back. That’s odd – as it’s the government’s weapon of choice for everything else. Still, although you can never say never, why would Prisk bother going back to inspection? Is there any space for inspectors? We already have bodies to police health and safety in housing. Welfare reform will cut the incomes of landlords and make them more efficient. Private landlords are bigger than social housing in some key areas. Prisk might think that this is a potent cocktail of competition and cuts. You do need to add to the HCA ambulance fleet. But apart from that, why do more? There is one voice missing from all of this debate. You don’t hear an outcry from tenants about their landlords. They are not screaming for the inspectors to come back. Yes, the papers are full of the bedroom tax but so far the government gets the blame for that. It also takes the rap for the dearth of housebuilding. Yet perhaps we do need to do more to listen to our tenants. We need to learn from the residents we have before we build for the new ones. It’s amazing what you can find out.

From the press Our regular round-up from the world press’s view of governance 18

One of our new projects illustrates this very well. We have been working with the University of Sheffield and others to plough through academic research looking for nuggets that will help landlords. To start with, we read lots of very clever papers on green issues (see pages 12 and 13 for more). Every type of scheme has been analysed by the academics. Of course landlords have done some great work. But there have been a few hiccups and extra costs because they did not understand how tenants would use the new technology. This just goes to show how the common sense of landlords and tenants can be different. And that’s something that worries me with welfare reform. A gap in understanding between tenants and staff of an inch today will be a mile wide next year. If we don’t do a decent job of getting the rent in, we could see brutal service cuts. Tenants will be angry when that happens. The head teachers say they spend Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on tenterhooks waiting for the call from Ofsted. We gain a lot of time in our diaries without the threat of inspection. The top academics say that we should listen more to tenants. They can point to flaws in our well-laid plans. So let’s use that spare time well and talk to tenants. That’s the key to running good services and keeping inspection at bay.

Alistair McIntosh Chief Executive, HQN

Lonely at the top… Skills set Welfare society Balancing act

All articles in The Governor were written by Kate Murray unless otherwise stated. Designed by Paul Miller Print management

Prontaprint Scarborough

Turnstone Media & PR (www.turnstonemedia.co.uk)

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HQN’S MAGAZINE FOR BOARDS, EXECUTIVES AND LEADERS

RISK

ASSESSMENT With diversification and risk top of the agenda, what can the growth of Places for People teach us? Its chief exec shares some insights There can’t be too many businesses in any sector, anywhere, that have racked up such a significant list of acquisitions in such a short space of time as Places for People. Over the last few months, the housing group has unveiled a raft of big deals, including acquiring property management company Touchstone, which manages 21,000 properties across the residential, student and commercial markets, and Residential Management Group, a company managing more than 60,000 leasehold properties for the public and private sector. It’s also bought DC Leisure, which manages leisure facilities for some 28 local authorities; snapped up a portfolio of 271 retirement homes for £18.35m from Grainger and acquired 925 private rented homes for £70m from property developers Terrace Hill, as well as announcing a new partnership with retirement rental specialists Girlings. A new direction It’s an impressive roster of activity – but does it signal a new direction for the group? And are there any wider lessons for housing organisations as they attempt to balance commercial imperatives with core purpose and risks with rewards? Places for People chief executive David Cowans says there’s been no change of tack and the deals done recently by his organisation are just an example of that famous golfing adage ‘the more I practise, the luckier I get’.

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”These are just the recent iterations of a long-term strategy,” he says. “This is a long-term process for us. We started moving into a diverse range of activities many years ago and we take a long-term view of the market. That’s something everybody says, but there’s not always a lot of evidence of the governance processes in place for that.” Diversification may be a huge topic in housing just now, with the HCA looking at how it can best keep tabs on a more commercial, more diverse sector post-Cosmopolitan. But for Mr Cowans, diversification shouldn’t ever be about what others are doing. “You have to have a strategic view – if you are doing things because it’s the fashion or other people are doing it, it’s not a strategy,” he says. Improving life chances Places for People’s own strategy comes from a long-held desire to improve the places where it works and the life chances for the people who live there, Mr Cowans stresses. Hence, for example, its decision a few years back to open nurseries to allow residents to access affordable childcare. “People were telling us that’s what they wanted. The traditional position would be to argue and lobby with others that they should do do that, but we took the decision to do it ourselves,” says Mr Cowans. “It wasn’t because we wanted to go into childcare, but because we wanted to improve people’s lives and respond to what they

HQN’S MAGAZINE FOR BOARDS, EXECUTIVES AND LEADERS

were telling us. We created 700 childcare places and then sold that business once we’d achieved our objective.” Places for People has long gone its own way. It undertook its first mixed tenure scheme back in 1999 and has been involved in market rent for years. More recent innovations include becoming the first social housing provider in the UK to issue a retail bond. Even in the company it keeps, Places for People stands apart. Mr Cowans tells how at a recent RESI conference for the property industry, his organisation was one of only two registered providers in attendance. Ask him about the ‘housing sector’ and it’s clearly not a term he’s comfortable with. Every organisation, he insists, has to take responsibility for its own strategy. For Places for People, that’s meant building an organisation which now owns or manages 143,000 properties. “I’m not bothered about the numbers and I never have been,” says Mr Cowans. “I don’t care how many properties we have – it’s irrelevant. It’s the difference we make that matters. All we can do is the best we can to be the most relevant and make the most difference. We don’t do things to pioneer them. It happens to be the case that we end up doing that

THE COWANS WAY: ”There’s nothing wrong with deciding you want to do just the traditional business as long as it comes from an examination of your operating environment, where you can offer the best value, be most relevant and how you can make the best use of resources.”

but we are doing it to solve problems.” Good governance But what about the risks? Mr Cowans stresses that over the years, Places for People has built up excellent business planning and risk management processes. Good corporate governance, he says, is all about ‘what you have learned and what are the processes you are going to improve’. His organisation, he says, has an excellent board, with a strong set of skills and very high calibre of people. “There is the appropriate balance of support and challenge, which is crucial,” he says. “We are critical of ourselves – tolerance of a high level of critical intervention is really important. Everything is looked at on the basis of ‘did we make a difference?’” The approach as he describes it is all about looking for new ways to do more, based on the two constants of improving places and improving choices. “What we are prepared to do is look to solve problems in very commercial ways that are fully cognisant of the risks and rewards. It’s about achieving social outcomes with commercial methods – that is very important.” In the future, we can continue to expect Places for People to innovate. Or, as Mr Cowans puts it: “We will continue to try and find ways of making the biggest difference. What’s the point otherwise of doing this?”

David Cowans Places for People chief executive

”For boards, the key questions are: to what extent does the board understand its operating environment right across the piece, in what ways does it want to respond, and how creative does it want to be measured against the risks?”

”You need to be asking what are you about, what business are you in and what do you want to do to make the most difference you possibly can.”

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HQN’S MAGAZINE FOR BOARDS, EXECUTIVES AND LEADERS

A more diverse and riskier housing sector calls for a new way of regulating. Will the HCA’s proposals do the trick?

ADJUSTING THE REDRAWING THE RULES: THE HOUSING SECTOR RESPONDS ”It is possible that some providers might withdraw rom diversified activity as a consequence of the proposed regulatory approach. Although this might be a positive outcome in some cases and reduce the overall exposure of social housing to risks, it could also have the unintended consequence of reducing capital generation and, therefore, the capacity to develop future social housing in the sector overall. We believe the regulator should be mindful of these potential impacts, and seek to strike the best balance. Doing so will require cross-sector discussion and engagement and we are encouraged that the review approach seeks to build consensus as far as possible.”

”Rules only get you so far. The rules have to be reasonable but you do need to catch and punish people that break them. Look at the new 20 miles an hour speed limits that are coming in. They make sense on safety grounds. But no one polices them. So they have no impact. Rules don’t work without the right people to enforce them.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders

Housing Quality Network

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“The HCA is taking on some new staff. That is welcome news. They are the keys to the effectiveness of the new HCA regime. It will be their job to intervene at these decisive stages in dealing with problem cases.”

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When the Homes and Communities Agency announced that it was consulting over changing its regulatory framework, the idea was to reassure. The proposed changes, the regulator said, would allow it to ‘deliver its statutory objectives more effectively, whilst maintaining the confidence of investors, tenants and other key stakeholders in the sector at a time when providers are diversifying into a broader range of activities and the number of new companies registering to provide social housing is increasing’. But if the agency hoped to provide an instant confidence boost to those unnerved by the collapse of Cosmopolitan Housing, it was soon clear that, for some at least, its proposals had done anything but. Ratings agency Moody’s even cited the regulator’s proposals in its reasoning for downgrading the ratings of 29 housing associations last month. Extreme situations Moody’s said it saw ‘challenges’ in the ability of the regulator, the HCA, to step in and protect associations and their creditors in ‘extreme situations’. “The eventual conclusion of the Cosmopolitan Housing Group's merger with Sanctuary Group illustrated the difficulties the regulator faces in ensuring a satisfactory outcome when a HA encounters financial distress,” Moody’s explained. “Additionally, a recent discussion document issued by the regulator on proposals to adjust the regulatory framework leads Moody's to be more cautious in its assessment of the likelihood of timely government action.” The proposals may not have gone enough for some. Yet they do represent a significant shift in three key areas. Firstly there are proposals to ‘ring-fence’ the social housing side of the business. Then there are the plans – living wills – providers involved in potentially risky operations will have

to draw up and finally the plans to prevent asset-stripping of social housing. The intention of the proposals, according to HCA regulation committee chair Julian Ashby, is to keep pace with the changes in the operating environment. “The inherited framework was designed for a relatively homogeneous sector of not for profit providers. There are now for-profit providers joining the sector and increasingly diverse business models. Some aspects of the framework are no longer fit for purpose,” he has said, adding: “It is as much in the sector’s interest as ours that we minimise the risks of provider failure.” Non-traditional business Few would disagree. But as the National Housing Federation points out in its response to the consultation, housing providers have been encouraged to diversify – both because of the drastic reduction in grant and by an encouragement from government to do more in areas such as market renting. Their ability to do more non-traditional business is something that will need to be promoted unless there is to be an astonishing return to old-style grant-funded development to meet rising levels of housing need. Then there’s the issue of ensuring the regulator has the right resources to do the job. According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, the HCA needs to make a robust case to government to ensure it has the appropriate resources in place to beef up viability regulation. The HCA’s stated aim of protecting social housing, while at the same time encouraging new supply and minimising interference, is always going to be a big ask. For organisations tasked with managing the risks of an increasingly complex operating environment, questions remain about whether the new framework will offer the right balance between reassurance for taxpayers and lenders and the freedom to innovate.

fRamEwORK ”The approach outlined in the HCA paper relies too much on a template borrowed from the privatised utilities, and fails to recognise the distinctive features of the social housing sector. The requirement for businesses to be split into separate ring-fenced entities presents enormous operational problems, besides making it more difficult and expensive for the sector to finance its activities. “The HCA’s approach assumes that social housing activities are relatively safe and all other activities are more risky. Experience shows that this proposition is incorrect. Nor is there any evidence that the proposed approach would either have prevented past problems or help solve future ones.

“While some elements of the HCA proposal may be needed to meet the challenge created by the arrival of a for-profit element in the sector, this remains very small and should not provide a basis for regulating the sector as a whole. “A better approach would be to encourage all providers to adopt a thorough and robust approach to the assessment of risk, in whatever part of their business, and to plan how that risk can be managed. This can provide the HCA with the assurance that it legitimately seeks for the protection of social housing assets, whilst avoiding an organisational upheaval that would damage the sector’s ability to meet housing need.” National Housing Federation

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HQN’S MAGAZINE FOR BOARDS, EXECUTIVES AND LEADERS

ClEaRINg

THE HURDLES Building local could offer a faster track to easing the housing shortage

“YOU CAN’T AFFORD A GUNG-HO, STACK ‘EM HIGH, BUILD ‘EM CHEAP APPROACH. IT JUST WON’T WORK.” Tony Stacey South Yorkshire Housing Association chief executive

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HQN’S MAGAZINE FOR BOARDS, EXECUTIVES AND LEADERS

Another month, another set of worrying housebuilding figures. When the latest construction statistics were announced in May, completions were down 8% – prompting housing charity Shelter to warn that ‘a generation's hope for a home of their own is continuing to slip away because of our chronic shortage of affordable homes’. Many, like Shelter, are calling for bold action and large-scale projects to deliver the new homes we need. But might the best way of securing those homes be through more, smaller-scale projects rather than huge projects that can struggle to win community support?

10 aborted, whereas if we were slapdash it could be as many as five in 10. There’s a strong dose of reality now – you kind of think you can’t afford to get it wrong.”

“The calls to develop more housing as a solution to the country’s economic problems are growing and growing,” says South Yorkshire Housing Association chief executive Tony Stacey. “We do hear that the solution is to go with very large sites and with the large housebuilders or large associations and give them a wodge of money and let them do volume building across a region. But I don’t think that’s the right solution either in terms of using resources or in terms of communities.”

“Getting a new development off the ground is like a hurdle race but you never know exactly how many hurdles there are until you’ve crossed the finishing line,” says Mr Stacey. “With all the obstacles that are put in your way, if you are not very creative and very proactive and don’t build strong relationships you are not going to get over them.”

Mr Stacey is chair of the PlaceShapers group of almost 100 community-focused housing associations. The group’s recent report, Build Local, sets out how its members tackle tricky development sites and get communities on board – an approach which, according to Lord Best in his foreword for the report, ‘may not achieve the economies of scale claimed by the very largest providers’ but does make for ‘strong local ties and a shared philosophy of going beyond simply producing the numbers’. Not just numbers The Build Local philosophy also won the endorsement of housing minister Mark Prisk. “While we are ambitious to increase the supply of housing, we are also acutely aware of the danger of simply chasing numbers,” he said at the launch of the report, adding: “In the push to hit targets, governments in the past have ended up promoting housing estates which were poorly designed and badly built. And rarely did those estates reflect what local people actually wanted.” According to Mr Prisk it’s not just the numbers that count, it’s the design, the layout, the quality and the importance of mixing uses and mixing tenures. All music to developing associations’ ears of course, but whatever the minister’s fine words, the pressure to deliver is there. And in these tough economic times, housing providers can’t afford to get it wrong. “The realities of the obstacles around new housebuilding are so great and the risks to organisations of getting it wrong are so severe that you need to ensure you are doing it right,” Mr Stacey says. “We are writing off £100,000 a year on abortive schemes that don’t go ahead – and we probably only have one in

So what can a ‘build local’ approach bring to all housing providers wanting to do their bit to meet the demand for new homes? The PlaceShapers group says success lies in the ability to forge partnerships, to get sometimes hostile communities onside and to solve problems. As the report puts it, it’s about ‘making the improbable possible’. Obstacle race

Accord Housing Group, another PlaceShapers organisation, sees getting the community involved in the development process as a key factor in ensuring the success of a development. Its Waterfront South development in Walsall, one of the recent developments featured in the Build Local report, is a high-profile scheme of more than 300 homes, including key worker accommodation. Accord stepped in to help rescue the development when the crash hit – and the group’s director of regeneration Alan Yates says associations with a stake in the community need to use their local knowledge to give a lead to others. “Somebody has to be first one to make a move – and it’s often a brave move,” he says. “Once people see a development going up, there are others who then come in.” Some of the PlaceShapers schemes are much smaller than the Walsall one, though – and the group says the contribution smaller sites can make to meeting housing need shouldn’t be underplayed in the rush to plug the gaps in supply. ”You can’t afford a gung-ho, stack ‘em high, build ‘em cheap approach. It just won’t work,” says Mr Stacey. “We are having to try and turn somersaults to find every way of sweating assets and asking whether we can sell this or get leaseback on this to get some capital. We might want to build 1,000 homes but even 200 or 300 can make a big difference; and they may be on 10 sites, with 30 homes at each rather than one large site but they will be well thought-out schemes, not just little boxes.” If the housing minister is true to his word, this small-scale, community-focused approach will continue to be a crucial component in meeting housing need. But according to the PlaceShapers group, government support in the form of certainty about funding, making more land available and making more investment available, through for example, community savings bonds or changing gearing ratios on borrowing, will all be vital.

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HQN’S MAGAZINE FOR BOARDS, EXECUTIVES AND LEADERS

Carol matthews was taken aback when on her first week as a housing officer in Sheffield nearly 30 years ago she was given a rent bag and shown how to do the weekly rent round. “I remember thinking: ‘What the hell am I doing? Why are we doing it like this?’” she recalls now. The days of door-to-door rent collection are long gone for Riverside chief executive Ms Matthews – and for most social landlords, at least while housing benefit is paid directly to them. But, she suggests, housing providers now need to learn from their past to ensure they continue to thrive. “Rent collection is going back up the agenda,” she says. “We are going to have to move from wholesale collection to retail; modern businesses, using modern technology with the capacity to do more face-to-face work in the pursuit of rent and service charges.” Planning for the future It’s just this sort of planning for a business that’s fit for the the future, but built on the best of the past, that will characterise the successful social landlords in the years to come, says Ms Matthews. Since she took the helm at 50,000-home Riverside in early 2012, she’s made a big mark on the sector. Recently voted by her

WHAT’S

AROUND THE

CORNER? 10

For the boss of one of England’s biggest housing associations, running a thriving business in these challenging times is all about looking around corners – and getting the rent in the Governor JUNE 2013

HQN’S MAGAZINE FOR BOARDS, EXECUTIVES AND LEADERS

peers as the top housing association chief exec in 24Housing’s Power Players, she’s been described as ‘the first of a new generation of leadership in the very large associations’. She’s modest about the plaudits – but pleased with the recognition Riverside is gaining as an organisation which campaigns on the issues which matter to its customers, most notably on the bedroom tax. “We are not going to get on our soapbox every day, but we will speak out where we’ve got something to say,” she says. She’s proud too of the work that Riverside does with some of the most vulnerable groups in society, citing particularly its work around mental health, domestic violence and homelessness and its growing specialisation in supporting forces veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. And while many housing organisations are retrenching from the care and support field, she wants to continue with work that, for an organisation of the size of Riverside, continues to make an important contribution both to its bottom line and its communities. “We see the risks, but also the opportunities and the link back to the vision and values of our organisation. It’s not just about doing the stuff that’s easy, it’s about endeavouring to do stuff that’s tough and sticking with it.” That’s also a feature of Riverside’s approach to delivering new homes. The association has stuck with its building business through a few tough years and it’s now making a profit again. It’s also involved in other initiatives, including a major joint venture with Lovell, to bring in surpluses to build. “Finding ways of creating your own capital subsidy still seems to be the right way if you want to help the unhomed. I don’t see that UK plc will ever go back to a grant programme on a large scale,” she says. “The sector has been one of the heroes of the last two or three years – we have stepped up to the plate and we are taking the vast majority of the risk on development. That means more homes, more jobs but it also means associations are much riskier.” Branching out Riverside, she says, is at neither extreme of the new social housing landscape. It’s not battening down the hatches and avoiding new risks altogether – but neither is it diversifying to such an extent that social housing is

just one of a number of businesses within a wider portfolio. “I think the next five years will see us branching out, but branching out from our core. Where you will see us diversify is into the community and services around our elderly demographic, not just our own customers but homeowners. We are also starting to move into some of the health agenda, particularly telehealth.” All of this, Ms Matthews suggests, is not just creating added value, but, in the face of welfare reform, vital risk mitigation. “All the things that are added value now – like food banks, credit unions, creating apprenticeships – in five years they will be business as usual. At the moment there’s a lot of value added activity I describe as market stall – we have a day on job opportunities, and it’s very much up to folk to come and talk to us. In the future we’ll see much more riskbased intervention, targeting the customers we need to help to get into work partly because it’s the right thing for them but also because we need to safeguard our income.” The futurology stuff For all of this to work, says Matthews, you need a highlyskilled board, offering the right mix of skills to ‘fiercely challenge and fiercely support’. ”It’s a different business now. The risk is with the association rather than us just administering grant and collecting Housing Benefit,” she says. “It’s about having a range of skills and experience on your board to handle that and not just sector skills but those other business skills. You need people who are good at the futurology stuff – looking around corners and predicting the challenges you will face.” That might mean deciding some things – like Riverside’s abandoned plans to take on struggling Cosmopolitan Housing Group – are just too risky. But boards and senior executives need to think about more than short-term opportunities. “With the scale of risks and opportunities we face, if we want to be running our businesses in five years we absolutely need to be thinking how we create the financial and organisational capacity so we have got choices,” Ms Matthews says. “It’s a long-term business and we aren’t a steward, we are a servant. Our job is to hand the business on in a better condition than when we took it on.”

“WE ARE NOT GOING TO GET ON OUR SOAPBOX EVERY DAY, BUT WE WILL SPEAK OUT WHERE WE’VE GOT SOMETHING TO SAY.” Carol matthews Riverside chief executive the Governor JUNE 2013

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THE The green agenda has huge implications for social landlords and their tenants. The scale of the task is huge: the UK national carbon delivery plan says that by 2050, the emissions footprint of our buildings will need to be almost zero. For new homes, housing providers need to keep abreast of the latest technologies to deliver highly eﬃcient yet practical solutions which will allow emissions from housing to be approaching zero by that target date. For existing homes, there is a major challenge in updating

often poorly insulated or hard-to-treat stock. How is the sector responding? How do tenants benefit once they move in to an eco-home? What really works when it comes to retrofit? Answering these sorts of questions requires tapping into research projects looking in detail at what really works. Here we take a look at some of the latest studies in the green field, courtesy of the first publication from the Evidence project. Evidence is a new tie-up between HQN, the University of Sheffield, the Housing Studies Association

New research can provide valuable insights for social landlords as they bid to go green 12

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and the Economic and Social Research Council, designed to get academic research work into the hands of housing practitioners to inform their work. At the coalface: how tenants respond to green technology in their homes A project by Sheﬃeld Hallam University showed residents’ experience of an eco-home, including ﬁlming at two projects.

ambitious retroﬁt activity. In contrast, Eco will move into largely untried high-cost works, creating risk and possible supply chain problems. Then there is the question of high Green Deal interest rates and the lack of government underwriting. Overall, the authors say, the reduction in fuel poverty will be modest and will not compensate for planned reductions in government-funded programmes. Fit for the future: retrofitting that works

Filming revealed dramatic variations in practical understanding on the eco-technology. Some occupants coped easily, while others did not. For example, one respondent said she never touched the controls on the central heating system from the day she moved as she did not understand them; another said she had been advised to leave the thermostat permanently at 30 degrees C; another believed at ﬁrst, though she now knew otherwise, that the panels on the roof (for hot water only) would deliver free electricity. Tenants also complained repeatedly that they had received inadequate advice from the social landlord about how to operate the technology. On seeing the video, the social landlord in Manchester expressed an initial concern about whether the tenants’ experience was typical. Later, the landlord reported that it planned to use the completed video to train its management staff. The social landlord in Rotherham was already aware of the poor level of public understanding of eco-features in the home and had obtained funds to employ community energy champions to employ community energy champions to provide energy advice to its tenants. The Green Deal: will uptake meet predictions? According to the Department for Energy and Climate Change, which has tested potential uptake through a consumer survey, demand is set to reach signiﬁcant levels (830,000 cavity wall insulations and 364,000 loft insulations for example) by March 2015. But research, both from Oxford University and Brunel University and Buro Happold, is more sceptical. The Oxford team suggests several reasons why the combination of Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation (Eco) will actually deliver less than in the past. First the Green Deal loans will focus on low-cost measures, ruling out more

Affinity Sutton’s FutureFit programme involves the retrofit of some 100 homes with real-time research on the outcomes. A final report is due this summer. Key learning so far suggests that although there are some challenges, the social housing sector is willing and largely able to take up the retrofit agenda on a wide scale. Lots of work already done: the lowhanging fruit (boilers, cavity and loft insulation) already done in social housing Archetypes: adaptations to works packages on site highly likely due to particular nature of energy works, people’s lifestyles and inaccuracy of SAP Training: required for staff and supply chain in energyefficiency, in people as well as technical skills Engagement: 4.8% take-up, 23% drop out; retrofit requires a great deal of engagement before, during and after works Cost of engagement: this costs up to £1,350 per property Funding model: £130m gap that will not be covered by the savings to fund low package of works across our general needs stock, £2,900/property CO2: not as much carbon saved as predicted, only 18% with low package Cost of works: cost per measure higher than anticipated, therefore economies of scale required Engagement: works when people get to see the whole process in action.

All of the research extracts here are taken from the ﬁrst issue of Evidence, a collaboration between HQN, the University of Sheﬃeld and the Housing Studies Association and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The publication includes a series of articles on research projects and links to further resources. It is available at: http://www.hqnetwork.org.uk/evidence The next issue will be on homelessness, and the following one will be themed around our ageing society. the Governor JUNE 2013

HQN’S MAGAZINE FOR BOARDS, EXECUTIVES AND LEADERS

leading a housing provider should be pretty much the same no matter how your organisation is constituted, right? After all, the fundamentals of providing and managing a good home and giving your residents a say are the same no matter whether you’re a council, arm’s-length management organisation or housing association. That’s the theory of course.

Helen Evans, the former chief executive of Brent Housing Partnership who now heads up Network Housing Association, says she was recruited to Network firstly as operations director because of her ALMO background, which gave her a strong service quality focus. But once she was confronted with the different focus of a housing association, she found her own priorities shifting. familiar, but different

But in practice, council, ALMO and association bosses have faced very different challenges over the years. Yet it’s precisely because of those differences – with ALMOs focused on bringing about a rapid improvement in service quality and a step change in resident involvement – that some ALMO chief execs now find themselves having made the jump to the HA side of the fence.

“When I first came to Network, I found it to be a mix of the very familiar and very different. Obviously what was very familiar was the housing management side, the resident side and the aspirations for the way services should be delivered. But clearly very different were the finance and development sides,” she says. “Over the last two years, I think being involved in

REmEmBER THE

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HQN’S MAGAZINE FOR BOARDS, EXECUTIVES AND LEADERS

providing new homes and big regeneration projects has slightly altered my centre of gravity. I still have a focus on housing management and customer standards but I do think I’ve come to the view on the basis of my experience that providing people with new homes and regenerating clapped-out housing estates probably adds most to the sum of human happiness.” For Gordon Perry, formerly chief executive of Kensington and Chelsea TMO and now in charge at Accent Group, the biggest difference in making a switch for an ALMO is the freedom – but also the responsibility – for planning for the long term. “You do have more autonomy and control over your own destiny [at an HA]. You have the ability to make choices about how you grasp opportunities and tackle the challenges we are currently faced with,” he says. “But with power comes responsibility , and it certainly feels even more responsible as you are conscious that you are much more in control of the destiny of the organisation and of the impact it has both on customers and its staff than when you are an ALMO.” Big fans Both former ALMO bosses are still great fans of the model. “I am very proud of the fact that ALMOs transformed council housing management and very proud to have been a part of that,” says Mr Perry. One of their real strengths, as Ms Evans points out, is that they have ‘liberated’ the people who work for them from the more confined structures they had often been used to working in. “That can be incredibly empowering and can allow people to perform at a level they hadn’t previously aspired to,” she says. “I still think ALMOs are a fantastic model with a lot of potential, particularly since the HRA changes and even more so if the borrowing caps are lifted.” But for Mr Perry, there was a bit of a sense of ‘what next?’ with being at an ALMO after having achieved top

inspection ratings. He relishes the ability of a housing association to be able to make decisions about its future mission, especially in these challenging times. But he says he has taken the passion for resident involvement, a hallmark of the ALMO movement, into his housing association work. “I still believe in it passionately – but with a twist, that we have got to refocus on resident engagement not just involvement, for all those residents who don’t want to go into meetings and don’t want to be on committees.” For Accent, the focus on engagement has meant a review of its governance structures, which now sees customer service committees with local decision-making powers and chairs who all sit on the main group board. Plus the association is reaching out to engage residents in non-traditional ways, including social media, electronic scrutiny panels and satisfaction surveys sent by text every time, for example, a repair is carried out. Breadth of skills “We have got the breadth of skills required for the board but we have also got the local committees bound into our governance structures and very much embedded with residents and very much with local decision-making powers,” Mr Perry says. “Some boards have gone down the route of scrutiny committees – but my view is they just turn into moaning shops if they don’t have the power to do something.” For Ms Evans, leading a housing association means focusing on what she believes is its primary responsibility – building more homes. “Obviously we want to maintain a good standard for the homes we have in management already and obviously we want to support residents in these difficult times, but we also want to work with the environment we have and try and build more homes and transform more places. We are not the biggest, so we take a realistic view of the contribution we can make. We want to do as much as can but we won’t do that in a reckless way.”

Being in charge of a housing association can be very different from heading up an ALMO. Two members of a select but growing club who’ve jumped to the other side of the fence pass on some insights

the Governor JUNE 2013

HQN’S MAGAZINE FOR BOARDS, EXECUTIVES AND LEADERS

With austerity continuing to bite, it should be easy to find someone to fill your job vacancy, shouldn’t it? Not necessarily

FROM THE

PRESS The debate about women in business has been dominated by discussion about women on boards – but there are wider issues which need addressing, says Labour MP Seema Malhotra. Writing for The Guardian’s Women in Leadership network, Ms Malhotra says women need more support both when they are looking to enter the world of work and later to make the most of their careers. “The problem facing young women in

the Governor JUNE 2013

Britain today is not their lack of ambition, but the lack of ambition for them,” she says. “But perhaps we shouldn't be surprised – in a cabinet of 25 with just four women, there are simply not enough voices at the top table shouting out for the millions of women who want to get on.” Anyone who enjoyed the recent biopic of Abraham Lincoln might be interested in the question posed in the Harvard Business Review: can you, just like the famous US president, overdo your people skills? The magazine cites the work of Lincoln biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin, who has looked at whether Abe might have been a greater leader had he not been quite so caring and reluctant to take tough decisions like removing General George McClellan from his post. “Well-liked

HQN’S MAGAZINE FOR BOARDS, EXECUTIVES AND LEADERS

It might seem at first sight like employers have got it easy when it comes to finding the people they need to join their teams. After all, the tough economic climate means there are ever more people chasing every opportunity. As the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development puts it, it’s a battleground out there for job-seekers.

Partly it might be about people sticking where they are given that job insecurity is rife. The public sector in particular, thanks to well-publicised cuts programmes and job losses, may not appear the best career option for would-be high-flyers. Partly too it may be about pay, at a time when bearing down on costs is so key. A survey released by allpay Legal last month of more than 100 housing professionals found that being able to pay the right amount to attract and retain staff was one of their main concerns, beaten to the top spot only by concerns over pensions provision. The survey found that more than half of the those surveyed expected their organisations to grow over the next four years – but, unsurprisingly, the majority thought their pay, terms and conditions would remain the same.

Yet, as always, it’s a more complicated picture than the headlines might suggest. There may be 45 people competing for every lower-skilled post – and a significant number too for medium- and higher-skilled ones too (see box) – but many employers are still struggling to find the right people to appoint. The public sector tends to get more applicants than in the private sector for both medium- and higher-skilled roles – but in many cases employers just don’t think many of those who applied were up to the job. According to the CIPD’s latest Labour Market Outlook report, published last month, only half of applicants for public sector jobs were considered suitable. Almost three-quarters of employers said they would be prepared to wait for up to a year to get the right candidate for one of their top jobs.

We all know that brilliant staff will be crucial in meeting the challenges ahead for housing. With the competition for talent now, according to the CIPD, greater in many public sector organisations than it’s ever been, housing providers won’t want to lose sight of the need to attract the leaders of the future. There are many good examples out there of housing organisations working hard to make their organisations great places to work. Surfeit of job-seekers or not, there’s no room to ease off as the talent hunt continues.

In housing, there are signs that recruiting the right people will remain a challenge in the months and years to come.

THE EMPLOYMENT CHALLENGE • The public sector has an average of 30 applicants for medium-skilled roles compared with 25 in the private sector, and 15 applicants for higher-skilled roles compared with 10 in the private sector • Half of those who apply for mediumand higher-skilled roles in the public sector are considered suitable for the jobs

• Eighty-two percent of all public sector organisations reported problems in filling some vacancies in 2012, compared with 66% in 2011 • Thirty-eight percent of public sector organisations found it particularly difficult to fill vacancies at manager and specialist levels and another 19% reported problems with finding candidates for senior manager and director level posts

leaders, if they are honest with themselves, shy away from tough action because they fear it will hurt their reputation,” the article says. Rich countries are creating more jobs – by creating worse jobs, the Atlantic reports. It says the UN's International Labor Organisation’s annual World of Work report shows how job quality is worsening around the globe. One feature is the ‘mini-job’ – part-time work that’s better than being unemployed but worse than a good job. Crowdfunding could be the key to turning NIMBYs into YIMBYs (‘yes in my back yard’, of course) according to a crowdfunding advocate quoted in The Economist. Crowdfunding – where web users pledge cash to

• Retention problems have been on the increase in the public sector, with 40% of organisations saying in 2012 they were struggling to retain managers and more senior staff, compared with 25% in 2011. Sources: CIPD Labour Market Outlook; CIPD/Hays resourcing and planning survey

support fledgling projects – has often been used to help musicians or artists get their work in front of the public. But now it’s increasingly helping civic projects which otherwise might have struggled to get off the ground, including, says The Economist, a pedestrian walkway in Rotterdam and a community centre in Wales. Does the UK’s second city need a ‘champion for housing’? That’s the debate in Birmingham, with the city council’s Lib Dem leader Paul Tilsley telling the Birmingham Mail that the lack of a single cabinet member for housing has resulted in a ‘blurred strategic vision’. But with responsibility for management and maintenance devolved to district committees, council leader Sir Albert Bore says a full-time cabinet member for housing ‘would have very little to do’.

the Governor JUNE 2013

HQN’S MAGAZINE FOR BOARDS, EXECUTIVES AND LEADERS

GOVERNANCE ROUND-UP

lONElYAT THETOP... Getting the relationship between chair and chief exec right is one of the foundations for success in any business – and there’s no shortage of advice out there. But for housing leaders looking for some tips close to home, the recent thoughts of Homes and Communities Agency Chair Robert Napier are worth reading. Mr Napier, sharing his ideas on the chair/chief executive relationship just as new HCA chief executive Andy Rose was due to take up his post, said good chairs must always be available and must always keep listening. “I am never in a hurry to end a conversation with my CEO as my time is a precious commodity to them, and being a CEO can be a lonely job!” he said. “We have regular, formal meetings, but equally important are our informal chats at the beginning or end of the working day. I do have plenty of contact with other senior

executives but I never cross the line of the CEO’s authority, and will defer to them if issues are raised with me.” Mr Napier said he had four golden rules when it comes to working with a chief executive: Never drop your CEO in the soup – never undermine their authority • Just keep listening to the CEO and always respect their confidences Always praise your CEO when they have done a good job. CEOs are just like everyone else – they are not above praise Never be in a hurry to terminate conversations with your CEO and always be available.

SKIllS SET A review into the skills required to lead the voluntary sector has stressed the need for leaders to support each other and help develop the leaders of the future. The Leading Social review, commissioned by civic society minister Nick Hurd and led by former NSPCC chief executive Dame Mary Marsh, says there are urgent skills gaps in the not-for-profit sectors – and small businesses in the private sector – which could partly be plugged by better skills sharing both within and across sectors. Particular gaps include digital skills and innovation in finding new funding sources, the review suggests.

the Governor JUNE 2013

The review covered housing associations as well as charities and social enterprises and looked at a whole range of issues, including strengthening governance and developing leaders. It recommends that organisations should take developing their staff seriously – even when it means setting more robust expectations around performance. “The responsibility for developing and ‘growing’ people and making the most of potential has to be led from the top of organisations of all sizes including by their governance,” the review says. http://leadingsocial.org.uk/

HQN’S MAGAZINE FOR BOARDS, EXECUTIVES AND LEADERS

wElfaRE SOCIETY Housing providers are facing a massive challenge supporting those in their communities hit by welfare reform. But they may struggle to convince the public of the importance of their work, as attitudes to those on benefits harden. New research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation suggests that a growing number of people blame individuals – rather than society more generally – for poverty. According to the research by NatCen, support for welfare spending is at ‘a historical low’ and ‘appears to be moving in line with political policy and rhetoric, rather than economic circumstances’. The biggest shifts have been among younger people and Labour Party supporters, with 46% of the latter, for example, saying that if benefits were not as generous, people would learn to stand on their own

feet – up from 16% in 1987. Support for extra welfare spending has declined significantly – the biggest drop in recent years coming among those supporting spending on benefit for disabled people who can’t work. And while the public supports reducing child poverty, more than two-thirds blame it more on the behaviour of parents compared with 28% who put it down to wider social issues. Should all this matter to boards? Certainly, as social housing providers work to tackle inequality and improve life chances, the lack of sympathy with certain sections of society may become an issue. As JRF chief executive Julia Unwin puts it, the public is increasingly tough on those experiencing poverty, not tough on its causes. “The debate must go beyond a fixation with welfare and benefits tinkering – without jobs with proper wages and affordable housing and childcare, progress will hit the buffers,” she said.

BalaNCINg ACT It’s like walking a tightrope. That’s how a new report by The Smith Institute sums up the challenge for housing associations of trying to be commercially successful, while holding on to their social mission.

And there is a growing divergence between those who welcome their new entrepreneurial freedoms and those who are wary of the risks.

The report, Social hearted, commercially minded, explores the views of 50 senior housing association figures about the changing face of the sector. It highlights issues that association boards know only too well, such as the difficult choices of the people they should house through their development programmes and how far to go in their diversification plants.

But there are also grounds for optimism. Many associations are doing innovative things while trying to remain true to their social purpose. As the report points out: “While the housing association sector is diversifying to the extent that it is hard to describe it as a sector, one thing still binds associations together: they are still using their housing asset base to act for the good of society. All the money they earn, all the surpluses they make, are ploughed back into providing and managing more homes, getting more people back into work, or caring for the ageing and vulnerable.”

There are difficult issues. As the report points out, many are uncomfortable with the shift away from social rents.

http://www.smith-institute.org.uk/file/Social hearted commercially minded.pdf

the Governor JUNE 2013

THE KNOW LEDGE YOU NEED

The housing minister Mark Prisk said: “Your guide very much chimes with the Government’s thinking about the imperative to maximise VfM in the affordable housing sector”. HQN’s VfM guide helps you save money and protect standards, and suggests brand new ways of getting the most out of fusing the public and private sectors and how they can work together. Visit VfM page www.hqnetwork.co.uk/vfm

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University research could help improve housing services and plug some gaps in our knowledge. HQN, the University of Sheffield and the Housing Studies Association, supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, have set up a housing evidence network. We uncover the best research findings that could help you in your job, and turn it into useful guidance notes. Read the first newsletter Going Green www.hqnetwork.org.uk/evidence

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The definitive guide to scrutiny and co-regulation contains everything you need to know – dos and don’ts, case studies, sample documents, residents’ views and the findings from HQN’s online member survey. Free to members of The Residents’ Network, The Housing Quality Network and Neighbourhood Network, but hard copies can be purchased: contact theresidentsnetwork@hqnetwork.co.uk for details. $

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