2018-2021 Value for Money Strategy
1. Introduction This strategy details our continued commitment to delivering value for money (VfM) from 2018-21. VfM remains a key focus at Town & Country Housing Group (TCHG) and while excellent progress continues to be made, we want to challenge ourselves to do more. Given the evolving landscape in the social housing sector, the strategy is intended to serve as a working document which can be further developed to incorporate future service and legislative changes. Likewise, the accompanying strategic action plan will be reviewed annually to ensure it remains relevant and reflects current business needs. The ongoing service redesign programme will continue to deliver a range of efficiency savings, resulting from the digitalisation of services and the increased focus on self service options, via the TCHG website and ‘My Home Online’. Staff and other resources will also continue to be more efficiently deployed as a result of the programme. Delivery of the strategy and action plan is overseen by TCHG Board which has overall responsibility for VfM and for making efficiency decisions. Progress is also closely monitored and reviewed by Executive Management Team, the VfM Group and the Investment and Finance Committee. The key elements which inform our approach are: • • • •
The Corporate Strategy - sets out our mission, vision and overall objectives; The VfM Strategy - details our VfM objectives and key priorities to improve VfM; The 30 year Business Plan - shows our overall financial plans to deliver the objectives, including income & expenditure balance sheets and cash flows; • Annual budgets - agreed by TCHG Board to reflect the position set out in the Business Plan; • The Annual Delivery Plan - sets out the specific actions that will be taken during the year to help deliver efficiencies and our overall objectives; • Team plans and individual objectives - translate the high level priorities contained in the Annual Delivery Plan into tangible actions. In addition, the resident scrutiny panel has continued to provide independent scrutiny to improve the quality of services and VfM. To date, they have undertaken six service reviews and made 117 improvement recommendations to TCHG Board, with the vast majority accepted and now implemented.
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The VfM Strategy 2018-20 focuses on the delivery of five strategic objectives: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Maximise the use of ICT to deliver excellent services; Provide high quality homes; Examine structures and processes to improve efficiency and services; Deliver social and environmental value to residents and wider communities; Proactively manage assets.
The VfM Strategy 2018-20 also reflects the five key themes of the Corporate Strategy 2016-20: • • • • •
Viability – continued viability, innovation, efficiency and financial capacity; Growth – growth and asset investment; Residents – keeping residents at the heart of our business; Leadership - effective governance, leadership and people; Support – supporting the most vulnerable in our homes.
2. VfM definition TCHG’s definition of VfM is as follows: ‘To produce as much social, financial and environmental value as possible from the resources we use in order to deliver quality homes and services, in neighbourhoods people choose, with the ultimate goal of improving lives’. Our social objectives include the provision of good quality, affordable homes and support for vulnerable customers where required. We also provide social value to the wider community through the delivery of digital inclusion opportunities such as ICT training.
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3. Our strategic objectives and key priorities Maximise the use of ICT to deliver excellent services To achieve this, we will: • Improve the customer experience through ongoing ICT innovations; • Deliver an increasing number of digital services and self service options via the TCHG website and ‘My Home Online’; • Work towards ensuring our key contractors and partners do similar by improving their digital offer; • Improve the digital literacy of staff through training so they are better able to exploit all available ICT; • Further develop the functionality of ICT for mobile based staff to improve efficiency and service consistency; • Promote digital inclusion opportunities for residents and wider communities. Provide high quality homes To achieve this, we will: • • • •
Provide homes that are well maintained and fit for the future; Utilise the stock condition survey to inform delivery of the asset management programme; Improve low SAP rated homes; Deliver a ‘whole house’ approach to planned repairs & maintenance.
Examine structures and processes to improve efficiency and services To achieve this, we will: • Seek to reduce our operating costs per unit each year to deliver our business plan objectives; • Implement the service redesign programme; • Benchmark our costs and services against our peers and use the outcomes to review high cost services and identify potential efficiency savings; • Utilise procurement processes to review service delivery, standards and costs; • Facilitate resident scrutiny of services; • Frequently monitor and report performance against the objectives and key priorities detailed in this strategy and accompanying action plan; • Demonstrate VfM to stakeholders.
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Deliver social and environmental value to residents and wider communities To achieve this, we will: • Ensure investment in non social housing activities delivers quantifiable outcomes; • Continue to provide services and products which promote financial inclusion and resilience to mitigate the impact of welfare reform; • Formalise our approach to delivering social value through procurement. Proactively manage assets To achieve this, we will: • Utilise operating surpluses to build new homes and fund investment in existing stock; • Improve our customer offer by disposing of housing stock which is not fit for purpose or where disproportionate high investment is required (e.g. non viable low SAP rating) and reinvest the monies raised in new homes; • Mitigate the impact of reduced rental income due to welfare reform.
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4. Regulatory background In April 2018, the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) published a revised VfM standard which requires registered providers to publish evidence in their annual statutory accounts (financial statements) to enable stakeholders to understand: • The registered provider’s performance against its own VfM • targets and any metrics set out by the RSH, and how that performance compares to peers; • Measurable plans to address any areas of underperformance, including clearly stating any areas where improvements would not be appropriate and the rationale for this. TCHG demonstrates compliance with the regulatory requirements through reporting on the RSH’s seven metrics. Indeed, this information was included in the 2017-18 financial statements, alongside confirmation of efficiency savings delivered against target in 2017-18 and efficiency savings projected for 2018-19.
5. Current position The latest available Global Accounts (2016-17) published by the RSH showed that TCHG’s overall social housing cost per unit was well below the median average and in the lowest 25% for registered providers in England. To retain this low cost base, we continue to utilise staff and other resources in the most efficient ways possible. In 2016/17, we delivered efficiency savings totalling £980,167 (exceeding our target of £679,080). These efficiency savings and those achieved in previous years have enabled us to achieve our corporate objective of at least maintaining the total number of social rented homes. We continue to perform strongly in key service areas such as rent and service charge collection and customer satisfaction with overall services. All of our homes continue to meet the government’s decent homes standard and our cost per home for major works and external decorating was below the average when compared to our peers in 2016/17. These improvements were delivered despite a number of challenges including the welfare reform agenda and the annual 1% reduction in rents. During 2017/18, we started using the ‘sector scorecard’ which consists of various standard performance indicators, designed to help registered providers improve performance and VfM through comparison with peers.
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Monson House Monson Way Tunbridge Wells Kent TN1 1LQ Tel: 01892 501480 www.tchg.org.uk