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Strategic Objective

Bigger, Better, Bolder and Beyond

Five year strategy

Sept 2020 to March 2025

Welcome to our new Bigger, Better, Bolder and Beyond strategy for 2020 – 2025

Welcome to our new and exciting plans for the next five years. Our purpose remains the same, to provide social housing to those in need and is as important now as it ever was. Our motivations from our last strategy Bigger, Better, Bolder haven’t diminished and continue to run through this new five year strategy and Beyond. We are committed to providing “homes for living, communities for life”.

Bigger, Better, Bolder and Beyond outlines our key drivers over the next five years:

• deliver more homes,

• be a great landlord,

• support our residents and local communities

• and do more to protect the environment.

We’ve spent the last few years restructuring and reorganising the business in preparation for a new way of working. Yet nobody could have predicted that we, along with the rest of the world, would have to change the way we work so radically, as a result of the global pandemic. And whilst this may have delayed the launch of our new five year plan it hasn’t dampened our ambitions or abilities. What the pandemic has reinforced strongly is the importance of suitable good quality homes and how vital strong supportive local communities are, and we will continue to deliver both over the next five years.

We’ll provide more houses across all affordable housing tenures and more new homes for sale to generate funds to support our ambitious social housing goals. We’ll introduce new ways to access our services, allowing residents to keep track of anything related to their tenancy or home.

We’ll encourage all our residents to get involved, be part of and help shape our services and community engagement, ensuring we continue to work together.

It is vital we do more to protect the environment and help reduce global warming. This is why we have a new environment strategy designed to help us step up and take responsibility to reduce our carbon footprint and overall impact on the world.

Being flexible and adaptable is necessary in today’s world, that way we ensure we’re able to meet future challenges; this has been demonstrated by the outbreak of COVID-19, something we can learn from. We will be vigilant and alert to changes in the economy and environment we work in to make sure we are efficient and effective in delivering our plans for residents.

But we can’t do this alone; we have a number of partners helping us to deliver seamless services. And we’ll continue to work alongside health and social care, education and training providers.

Whilst keeping a clear focus on great customer service, this aspiring five year plan represents a significant change to the way we work and provide services –we can’t wait to start this journey together.

One way our residents can benefit is from our programme to make homes as energy efficient as possible.

Stephen Stringer Board Chair of Fairhive Homes

Providing excellent customer service is important to us.

1 Increase housing supply for people in need

• Provide over 1,000 homes by 2025

• Raise income through various means to fund charitable objectives

• Expand our operating area

• Build homes with high standards of energy efficiency, reducing energy costs for our residents and energy use within our stock

OUR

5 KEY OBJECTIVES

2 Provide services that meet customer needs

• Listen to, involve and empower our residents

• Provide high-quality services that meet the needs of our residents

• Encourage residents to access services independently

• Shape our services according to resident needs

3 Run an efficient and effective business

• Manage our business effectively and ensure our culture supports our customer centric values

• Implement a working environment with maximum flexibility and minimum constraints

• Create a dynamic organisation where employees feel inspired and valued

• Gain the required finance to support growth

4 Reduce environmental impact and improve sustainability

• Enhance the environmental performance of homes

• Increase environmental awareness of employees and residents

• Improve the environmental sustainability of how we work

• Support local community based environmental improvements

5 Invest in homes and communities

• Deliver efficient and effective management of our properties

• Enable thriving communities where people want to live

• Provide safe and well maintained housing

• Introduce a customer portal for tenants to diagnose and schedule repair works

Increase housing supply for people in need

“With a clear commitment to providing more housing – we’ll make sure all our new homes are affordable and build new homes that reflect local needs.”

Julie Porter | Executive Director of Development

We’re determined to help relieve the pressure on affordability created by changes to household benefits and high cost private sector homes. Within our affordable programme, we aim to achieve 20% social rent, 50% affordable rent and 30% shared ownership.

Additionally, we aim for 10% of our new homes across these tenures to be accessible to older residents. We’ll generate more income by expanding the area we operate in and work with partners to build more houses for sale.

In addition, we’ll reduce our carbon footprint by using sustainable materials and minimising our construction waste. And by making the best use of technology, we’ll leave a legacy of well built homes with great design and style.

Our goals:

> Provide over 1,000 homes by 2025.

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> Raise income through various means to fund charitable objectives.

> Expand our operating area.

Build homes with high standards of energy efficiency, reducing energy costs for our residents and energy use within our stock.

50% Affordable rent

20% Social rent

30% Shared ownership

> Construction of new homes.

> Income generation.

> High standard of energy efficiency in new homes.

Provide services that meet customer needs

Rising customer expectations, together with the digitalisation of services, means our residents want more choice and opportunity to have their say in the way services are run.

We’re excited with the shift towards digital and will ensure it’s easier for all our residents to contact us and get support. By listening to, and acting on, resident feedback, we can work together to improve services.

With the continued roll out of Universal Credit, we’ll work to find creative solutions to help our residents maximise their income.

We’ll make sure that we provide services that reflect our social purpose and our ambition to grow.

“By listening to our residents and using the data we hold, we’ll offer services that meet their requirements.”

Faziela Dharsey

Continuous Improvement Manager

“We’ll continue to put residents first and will remain focused on their experiences and expectations.”

Heledd Williams Assistant Director of Housing

Our goals:

> Listen to, involve and empower our residents.

Measuring our success:

> Customer satisfaction.

> Doing what we say we will.

> Provide high-quality services that meet the needs of our residents.

> Encourage residents to access services independently.

> Shape our services according to resident needs.

> Influential resident involvement.

> Active resident online accounts.

> Empowering residents to succeed.

> Enabling tenancy sustainment.

> Accessible online services.

Working

Run an efficient and effective business

“We’ll continue to build a company where employees are engaged and passionate about what they do. We’ll introduce smarter ways of working by using technology and workplace design – meaning teams can work with the greatest flexibility with minimum constraints.”

Dean Gill | Executive Director of Operations

As technology and innovation moves quickly, we’ll continue to update our IT systems to provide the flexibility and efficiency that our residents and employees need.

The working environment and the expectations of employees and customers are changing. We’ll meet these challenges by

continually reviewing our processes and considering how services are delivered. Strong leadership and management are important to us. We’ll make sure we have people with the right skills and resources in the right place at the right time.

Our goals:

> Manage our business effectively and ensure our culture supports our customer centric values.

> Implement a working environment with maximum flexibility and minimum constraints.

> Create a dynamic organisation where employees feel inspired and valued.

Measuring our success:

> Positive stakeholder survey results.

> Meet regulatory standards and codes of governance.

> Employee engagement.

> Improving data management.

> Gain the required finance to support growth.

> Regular reviews on strategy successes and improvements.

> Raise our brand’s profile.

> Subsidiary companies meeting annual performance targets.

> Improve levels of data quality, availability and integrity.

Reduce environmental impact and improve sustainability

“We recognise the need to reduce the impact of our business on the environment. We know we must contribute towards the Government’s CO2 reduction target. We’ll reduce waste and promote activities that have positive environmental impacts.”

Andrew Rysdale | Assistant Director of Property

We’ll make sure that new and existing homes are adapted, where possible, to prevent unnecessary impact on our environment. Working towards reducing our environmental impact and improving our sustainability, we’ll give preference to partners who are working towards zero carbon, whilst using the most economical construction methods.

67% of our portfolio was built before 1974, a time when insulation wasn’t commonly used and building regulations were less focussed on energy consumption. The Government has committed to ‘net zero’ greenhouse gases by 2050. Housing in the UK accounts for 18% of all emissions, showing the importance of our role in environmental sustainability.

But we can’t do it alone, we need the support of our employees, residents and others. We’ll raise awareness of environmental issues and provide opportunities to protect the environment.

Our goals:

> Enhance the environmental performance of homes.

Measuring our success:

> Energy efficient homes.

> Environmental impact training for employees and residents.

> Increase environmental awareness of employees and residents.

> Improve the environmental sustainability of the way we work.

> Planting trees and hedgerows to enhance our green spaces.

> Reduction of carbon footprint from our office.

> Energy efficient fleet vehicles.

> Reduction in fuel poverty.

Invest in homes and communities

“We take pride in our work. We’ll provide safe and wellmaintained housing through proactive, cost effective asset management – finishing to high standards.”

Steve Wallin | Operations Business Manager

We’ll promote social inclusion and tenancy sustainment and improve estate environments, thereby providing strong, sustainable communities.

We’ll implement estate improvement programmes, tackle anti-social behaviour and deliver safeguarding initiatives, all of which will contribute to the creation of desirable communities.

Working with partners we’ll provide support to vulnerable residents, helping to reduce social isolation and assisting with independent living.

Properties will continue to be maintained through planned improvements and an efficient responsive repairs service.

Effective asset management will ensure that we consider low performing properties for sale. The proceeds from these properties will be allocated to the development of highperforming, energy efficient homes.

Our goals: Measuring our success:

> Deliver efficient and effective management of our properties.

> Enable thriving communities where people want to live.

> Provide safe and well maintained housing.

> Reduced need for responsive repairs.

> Satisfaction with our communal facilities.

> Prevention of evictions by proactively working with residents.

> Positive stakeholder survey results.

> Reduction in underoccupied properties.

Working with partners, we’ll reduce social isolation with the aim of protecting vulnerable residents.