Town & Country Housing Corporate Strategy 2019-21
WELCOME TO OUR 2019-21 STRATEGY On 9th May 2019 Town and Country Housing joined the Peabody Group as a distinct operating subsidiary. This exciting move gives huge opportunity to Town and Country Housing, bringing together two strong organisations with ambition, great reputations and shared vision and values. Town and Country Housing will retain its name but rebrand to reflect being part of the Peabody family. We will retain our local governance, management and operating arrangements. We will utilise our existing excellent reputation and our new brand to increase our influence on the regional housing agenda, to drive positive change and invest in long term, local partnerships to support that change.
Town and Country Housing will continue to operate within our heartland of Kent and East Sussex. Through the strength of being part of a large group, we will be able to create additional financial capacity and build 500 more homes each year than would be possible alone.
We will continue to deliver excellent landlord services from our offices in Kent, and to listen to the views of our customers in developing and improving our service offer. We will also continue to work with our customers to help them sustain their tenancies and to improve their lives. We will ensure our homes are genuinely affordable to those who cannot access the market and utilise our reputation, local knowledge and relationships to make a difference to, and support those that need a pathway to housing.
We commit to continue to invest in the fabric of our homes to ensure all our homes are decent, safe and warm. The two organisations will learn from each other to broaden our knowledge base. We will invest in technology to support our work and our customers. We will make intelligent ‘data led’ decisions to inform priorities and our investments.
We will invest in our people, support learning and development and create a working environment where our staff can flourish, innovate and perform effectively. The short life of this strategy is to allow: • • • • •
The integration of some central services. The alignment, bedding in and testing of new systems, policies and processes. The gearing up of the development programme. The planned major operational service redesign. The important focus on our customers, our people, our culture and delivering ‘business as usual’ in times of change.
Bob Heapy Chief Executive
Our Mission To help people make the most of their lives by providing good quality homes, excellent services and supporting the communities within which we work.
Our Values
Our values closely align with those of our group parent. • • • • •
We are AMBITIOUS for our customers, our communities and each other. We are CARING in the way we work, how we treat the people we work with. We will COLLABORATE with each other, with partners and stakeholders to deliver more for our customers. EMPOWERING, we will support and empower our customers and colleagues to help them realise their potential. We are TRUSTED to keep our promises. We will do what we say.
In delivering against these values we want to INNOVATE to find creative ways to solve problems and be HUMAN and KIND in the way we speak, write and act with both our customers and colleagues.
Our Priorities 2019 – 2021
1. Deliver the alignment plan within the new Group in year one. • • • • • •
Rebrand Town and Country Housing incrementally, as part of the Peabody Group. Invest in improvements to IT infrastructure and security. Integrate ICT, HR and Communications ‘back office’ functions. Transition to the Group’s Finance, Development and HR/Payroll systems. Deliver the programme of strategy and policy alignment and as appropriate embed changes to reporting and business processes. Develop plans for the alignment of property, housing management and CRM systems in 2020/2021 and beyond.
Measures Rebrand to Town and Country Housing Integration of ICT, HR and Communications teams Deliver the ‘day 1’ programme of actions
Day 1 of merger 31.03.20 30.05.2019
2. Continue to be an efficient, effective and viable business. • • • • • • •
Maximise our financial capacity as a member of the Group and operate within the Group business plan parameters. Focus our spend priorities towards growth. Maintain our financial strength. Maintain and revise as appropriate our sophisticated risk and internal controls management tools including our internal ‘tramlines’. Have a local mitigation programme in place to manage a hard or no deal Brexit. Continue to monitor the roll out of the welfare benefit changes and manage the impact on revenues and our customers. Continue to focus on efficiency and value for money.
Measures Rent and service charge collection Void income loss Variance against Budget Surpluses Comply with our internal tramlines
>99% <1% <2% >5% All tramlines met
3. Build and maintain the best quality homes and neighbourhoods. • • • • • • • •
Gear up the development programme to achieve 800 new homes starts per year from 2021. Target an appropriate mix of scheme size and new homes tenure to maximise our capacity. Consider innovation in design and construction, Including off-site construction, partnerships, Joint Venture and new procurement models. Design and build quality new homes that people are proud to live in, reflecting local need and demographics. Ensure we continue to deliver some smaller rural schemes that maximise local impact. Deliver ‘active asset management’ by disposing of low performing assets to invest in new homes. Invest in and maintain our homes so that they are decent, safe and warm. Develop pilot projects targeted at property types where energy costs restrict the housing opportunities of the most financially disadvantaged residents.
Measures New homes starts in 2019/20 and 2020/21 Customer satisfaction with new homes Ratio of planned and programmed maintenance to responsive Customer satisfaction with repairs service Annual disposal proceeds through active asset management
>400 and >600 >90% >60/40 >95% >£3.0m
4. Be an excellent landlord, proud of the services we deliver. • • • • • •
Deliver high quality, reliable and modern services that reflect customer need. Keep our customers safe, ensure all statutory Health and Safety and compliance issues are effectively managed. Deliver a responsive maintenance service that balances high customer satisfaction with cost efficiency in delivery. Ensure our customers can engage with us in the most effective and appropriate way. Utilise technology to assist in redesigning our service offer to achieve ‘digital by default’ with appropriate support. Support those tenants who are not able to manage their tenancies on line.
Measures Overall customer satisfaction Compliance with five key health and safety measures 75% customer transactions available on-line Ensure service charge variances are contained within 5% variance
>85% 100% By 2021 By 31.03.20
5. Support those most vulnerable in our homes and in society. • • • • • •
Supporting dependence to independence giving appropriate support. Identifying offers to support those most disadvantaged by the changes in the welfare benefit system. Maximise the number of new homes that are genuinely ‘affordable’. Develop solutions to support those that are homeless. >6% of annual operating costs is utilised for ‘support’ of residents. Focus on key themes to support tenancy sustainment of access to learning, skills and employment opportunities, health and wellbeing advice, money and financial inclusion advice.
Measures New social rented homes started in 2019/20 and 2020/21 >6% of annual operating cost for ‘support’ Those accessing tenancy sustainment opportunities
50 and 100
Annual target >250
6. Provide excellent governance and leadership during times of change. • • • • •
Complete a review of the new governance structures eighteen months postmerger to ensure they are fit for purpose. Town and Country Housing’s Executive to lead by example on transition issues. Provide a package of appropriate local support measures for staff during transition. Buy into the Groups learning and development programme to support staff. Complete the refurbishment of our offices at Monson house to provide high quality, flexible working environment.
Measures Review of effectiveness of new governance structures complete with any recommendations made Vacancies filled internally Refurb of Monson House complete
7. Increase our influence on the local agenda. • • • • •
31.10.20
35% By 31.03.21
Prepare for a major intervention at Showfields Estate including planning for need with residents. Utilise our new brand to extend relationships and play a greater role in influencing the regional agenda. Advocate genuinely affordable homes for social rent and availability of shared ownership, particularly in high value areas. Promote our achievements and innovation to our stakeholders and partners through multimedia channels. Work with the Group to ensure our achievements are publicised externally and internally.
Measures Feasibility plan for Showfields completed New internal & external Communications Strategy New Brand to replace old brand across all business
Commentary
31.03.2020 30.09.2019 31.03.2020
During the life of our previous strategy, Town and Country Housing Group made significant, positive progress against a backdrop of a challenging operating environment. We can evidence that we are a high performing, very efficient business with high customer satisfaction when compared to our peers.
We managed the impact of the government-imposed rent cuts well by producing and implementing a mitigation plan early. We identified clearly what our core service offer should be and found significant cost savings, so we could redirect financial capacity into much needed new homes without compromising operational service standards. We redefined our wider offer, we were able to assist our residents sustain their tenancies with money support, financial inclusion and access to learning, skills and employment opportunities. In addition, we were quick to respond to the welfare benefit changes and manage void loss, which all assisted to sustain our revenues. We are proud that we have been able to maintain rent collection at 100% and void loss at 0.7%.
We continued to grow, delivering 534 new homes in 2016 – 2019 and have maintained our asset investment in our existing homes investing over £29m in 2016-19.
Countrywise Repairs, our responsive maintenance Joint Venture with Wates Living Space continues to be efficient and perform well on the ground delivering 17,000 repairs per annum and gaining high customer satisfaction.
With this as a positive starting point, we began to look at how and where we could deliver more utilising our skills and track record to position Town and Country for the future ensuring we protect our identity, our reputation and those things we do very well.
It was clear to us that our operating environment was becoming more challenging and would continue to do so particularly with larger housing associations entering the local space. We also recognised that we were constrained in terms of development capacity. Our Board had considered merger before, particularly with businesses of similar size and geography. We had not found the ideal partner. Peabody approached us in January 2018.
Peabody was attracted to us by our efficient business model, high performance, excellent regional reputation and the potential we offered to address the undersupply of affordable housing in our region. The approach was different to usual merger approaches as TCHG were not â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;distressedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; nor was it was about driving cost efficiencies. The decision to join Peabody was driven by creating the capacity to build significantly more new homes in a region of high demand and where entering the market is difficult for many. We were attracted by Peabodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s strong reputation together with the promise of an enduring local presence with local decision making on operations.
As well as greater development capacity Town & Country will derive other additional benefits. These include investment in ICT systems, opportunity for additional staff learning and development, opportunity for staff to progress within the larger Group and access to research and policy resources.
Town & Country Housing and Peabody are an excellent fit. We believe that by coming together we will be able to offer more in terms of new homes and to our existing tenants in terms of a more responsive, supportive and value for money service in the future. We are proud of our past and excited about our future.