Read Six Town Housing's latest Business Plan below, outlining our aims for 2021 - 2024.
Contents
2. Six Town Housing at a glance
Foreword
We provide much more than good quality housing.
For us, it’s always been about Great Communities, Excellent Services and Inspiring People; as reflected in our Mission Statement. Social purpose remains at our core and we deliver a diverse range of services that not only ensure the homes we manage and own are maintained to a high standard, but also enrich communities, transform lives and support local economic growth. By doing this, we are helping the Council deliver its bold ambitions and protect its assets; ensuring its neighbourhoods remain sustainable, its communities are empowered and the life chances of its residents improve.
As we’ve grown and changed over the last fifteen years, we’ve never forgotten our core purpose. Our Customers always come first and will remain at the heart of everything we do. We have a strong track record of doing this and ensuring the services we provide are delivered to a high standard and the properties we manage are decent, safe and well maintained.
Beyond our core service offer, we have taken on new opportunities and diversified. We’ve learnt how to build new homes, know how to generate additional income and have become more commercially minded. This is important as it has enabled us to reinvest resources into improving services, increase the supply of housing and improve the Council’s housing stock. We also remain firmly rooted in the communities we serve and have developed deep connections with our customers, the Council and our partners. This makes us unique and we are proud of the contribution we make to the local economy and the wellbeing of the borough’s residents.
Ongoing scrutiny of our performance and the services we provide by the Customer Review Group will ensure we continue delivering improvements to services and performance.
We’re not an organisation that stands still. We have ambitious plans for the future and want to become a truly customer focused organisation. One that continues to provide excellent services to our customers, helps people improve their life chances and ensures the homes we own and manage are safe, decent and energy efficient. Our business plan has been shaped by our customers, captures the essence of what we are trying to achieve and how we will take forward our transformation programme. It focuses on our priorities for the future, outlines potential risks and opportunities and sets out how we will work together with our customers, the Council and partners to make a difference in the communities we serve. Central to this will be recovering from the damaging effects of Covid19, building back better and supporting our communities to thrive.
Six Town Housing at a glance
Annual turnover: £20m
Homes: 7,713 homes managed
Colleagues: 234 staff
Our vision is clear: Great Communities, Excellent Services and Inspiring People
Our strategic objectives are focused: Customers at the Heart | Homes for the Future | Places to be proud of | Dynamic business leading the way
Context
There can be no doubt that we are operating in uncertain and challenging times.
The challenges we face have never been greater. As we publish our business plan, the country is in the midst of a pandemic and faces significant social and economic difficulties. Challenges that will be felt for generations to come. The fallout from the UK’s departure from the European Union is also uncertain, unemployment is on the rise and inequalities are deepening, nationally and locally. Inevitably, the impact of these challenges will be felt more deeply in the communities we serve. Our business plan has been developed in response to these challenges and forms the basis of our recovery plan.
The housing landscape is also changing. Homelessness is on the increase, housing supply remains challenging and the ongoing rollout of welfare reforms continue to have an adverse impact on tenants and social landlords across the country. Meanwhile, the tragic events at Grenfell has placed the spotlight on building safety and ensuring tenants’ voices are heard. Retrofitting thousands of homes to become zero-carbon and meeting higher building safety standards will, inevitably place further demands on limited resources. The Government’s recently published White Paper will also lead to changes on the regulatory front, with plans to strengthen the role of the Regulator of Social Housing and introduce significant reforms to consumer regulation.
At a local level, the Bury 2030 Strategy sets out an ambitious vision for the future. One in which everyone has equal access to opportunities and where no-one is left behind. We welcome the proposals set out in Bury 2030, including the plans to reorganise public services at a neighbourhood level and forge different types of relationships with residents and businesses. Our strong place shaping role, together with our local presence across Bury’s neighbourhoods and relationship with our customers means we are well positioned to assist with this. The Housing Strategy and Inclusion Strategy also provide a valuable framework and will guide the work we do over the coming years, as does the adult social care transformation programme and the need to expand the portfolio of supported housing options for older people and those with additional needs.
We also know the Council, NHS and other partners are under immense financial pressures, at a time when demand for services is increasing. As a key strategic partner, we want to do all we can to support the Council in these difficult times.
Against this backdrop, we know we will need to continue to adapt and work differently. This will include challenging conventional approaches to interventions, encouraging more cross boundary working and integrating thinking. Central to this will be redesigning services offered to customers with complex needs in partnership with the Council and other agencies. More than ever before, we need to build community capacity and resilience if we are to manage and reduce demand for services and generate prosperity.
We know that we also need to continue focusing our energies on transforming the business and driving forward cultural changes so that we become a more customer focused and commercially minded company. For us, it’s about having the right people, with the right attitude and right skills, doing the right things, at the right time.
Our new Organisational Development Strategy will be instrumental in helping us bring about real, sustained cultural change. Our continued investment in new technology will also be key. Only by doing this, will we be able to improve access to services and ensure our staff are able to work at times and in ways that best suit them and our customers.
We know our ambitious plans will only be delivered if we remain financially strong and manage risks effectively. That’s why we take care of our resources, maximise income opportunities and look for more efficient ways of doing things all the time. Achieving value for money is central to our business plan and our Value for Money Strategy will be key to helping us achieve this. Only by doing this, can we generate savings that can be reinvested into the services we provide and the homes we manage. This is central to what we call business effectiveness.
Our operating principles
Customers at the heart: Listening, valuing and acting on what customers say. In return, we expect them to look after their homes and respect their neighbours and community.
Property first: Always looking after the Council's assets and the investment we make in the homes we manage and own.
Our people: Values driven, empowered and talented.
In partnership: Working collaboratively and building strong relationships
Lean and efficient: Spending wisely and doing things efficiently so that we can deliver more outcomes for our customers and the Council.
Digitally minded: Driving improvements and cost savings through automation, self-service and emerging technology.
Intelligence lead: Using data intelligently to make evidence based decisions.
Good governance: We meet the highest possible standards when making and implementing decisions, always giving priority to the safety and security of customers and colleagues.
Inclusive: Valuing and respecting differences. Acting fairly at all times.
Flexible and Adaptable: Responsive to business needs.
Our strategic objectives
Customers at the heart
Delivering brilliant services every day
We will:
- Embrace technological opportunities which improve customer access and enhance our customers’ experience.
- Ensure the services we offer are inclusive and adjust our approach to meet individual customer’s needs.
- Strengthen our tenant engagement and scrutiny arrangements to ensure we respond more effectively to tenants’ voices. We will use the feedback we receive to drive service improvements and further innovation.
- Build stronger links with health and social care commissioners and providers to help promote independent living and improve health outcomes.
- Strengthen our tenancy support offer to prevent homelessness and support our customers to live independent, prosperous and fulfilling lives.
- Review our customer offers and ensure they are aligned to the Government’s White Paper.
We know we will have achieved it when:
- Our customers tell us we provide brilliant services, feel listened to and know we will act on their feedback.
- Customers can access services in ways and at times that suit them.
- Services are tailored to meet individual customer’s needs.
- Our work in communities leads to better outcomes for our customers.
- We are recognised as an exemplar in our customer-driven approach.
- Our housing management costs reduce.
Measures of success (long term):
- Overall customer satisfaction.
- Customer satisfaction with the repairs service.
- Number of complaints relating to fairness and/or respect.
- Customer satisfaction with landlord’s engagement with tenants.
- Customers satisfied we listen to their views and act upon them.
- Number of customer complaints reduced.
- % of complaints resolved within agreed timescales.
- Customer satisfaction with the way their complaint was handled.
- Percentage of digital interactions.
- Repairs right first time.
Homes for the future
Providing decent homes, that are safe and energy efficient
We will:
- Invest in the homes we manage and own to ensure they continue to meet the Decent Homes Standard.
- Ensure all of the homes we manage and own are safe and compliant with statutory and regulatory requirements.
- Support the Council to increase the supply of affordable housing and supported housing options for older adults and adults with additional needs.
- Ensure the homes we manage and own are carbon neutral by 2038.
- Support the Council to make evidence based investment decisions about the housing stock to ensure its future sustainability.
- Strive to ensure the homes we manage meet our customers’ needs, now and in the future.
- Work in partnership to drive up standards in the private rented sector.
We will know we have achieved it when:
- We consistently complete all required safety checks and resolve issues in a timely manner; providing information and assurance to customers.
- We are making progress in achieving our energy efficiency targets, in line with the Council’s Carbon Neutral Strategy.
- The properties we manage and own meet the Decent Homes Standard.
- The data we hold about the assets we manage and own inform future investment, development and disposal decisions.
- We expand into new areas of work that will add value.
- We are recognised as having a best-in-class approach to safe and energy efficiency.
- Our customers tell us we provide a brilliant repairs and maintenance service.
Measures of success (long term):
- Percentage of homes that meet the Decent Homes Standard.
- Compliance with Health & Safety obligations.
- Customers feel their homes are safe and secure.
- Customer satisfaction with the adaptations service.
- % of homes with an EPC rating of C or above.
- Maintenance costs per home.
- Increase year on year in average Net Present Values of the stock we manage and own.
Places to be proud of
Supporting our communities and places to thrive.
We will:
- Invest in our neighbourhoods to ensure they look great and feel safe.
- Use our place shaping role to drive forward social and wellbeing improvements in our neighbourhoods through Bury’s early help intervention model.
- Work with our customers and partners to identify and strengthen existing community assets and resources.
- Provide opportunities that enhance life skills, employment opportunities and improve health and well-being outcomes for our customers. We will also ensure our approach is aligned to the Council’s Opportunity Guarantee and the work of the Voluntary, Community and Faith Alliance (VCFA).
- Build on our commitment to tackle poverty by helping our customers maximise their income.
- Work with our customers and partners to develop safe, connected and sustainable communities that grow and flourish.
- Use our role as a community connector to build links in neighbourhoods and support partner agencies who work with the most disadvantaged members of our communities.
We will know we have achieved it when:
- Services are co-designed in partnership with our customers and robust tenant scrutiny arrangements are in place to drive forward service and performance improvements.
- Our neighbourhoods are connected, resilient and feel safe.
- Our approach is aligned with Bury’s all age early help model and our staff are equipped with the skills to offer asset based, ‘whole person’ interventions.
- Our customers tell us their neighbourhood looks and feels great.
- Steps to Success is recognised as a national leader in the field of employment and training.
- Tenancies are sustained and our customers live healthy, prosperous and rewarding lives.
- Community capacity and resilience are strengthened and demand for services reduces.
Measures of success (long term):
- Customer satisfaction with their neighbourhood.
- Customer satisfaction with the management of the neighbourhood they live in.
- Customers satisfied that communal areas are kept clean and safe.
- % of communal areas meeting the required standard.
- Number of complaints relating to communal areas.
- Customers supported into training, volunteering, apprenticeships and work.
- Social value of our interventions.
- Tenancies sustained.
- Number of anti-social behaviour complaints.
- Customer satisfaction with the way in which their complaint of anti-social behaviour was dealt with.
- The level of community assets and resources.
Dynamic business, leading the way
Strong, resilient and fit for the future
We will:
- Develop and deliver an inclusive growth strategy that strengthens the company’s financial resilience and supports the delivery of Bury 2030 ambitions.
- Support and enable our talented team at every level to ensure that they can bring their best selves ‘to work’ at all times.
- Ensure we have the right people, with the right skills, in the right role, at the right time, for the right cost to deliver its business plan successfully.
- Optimise our operating performance to enhance financial strength.
- Optimise digital opportunities to improve service delivery and achieve efficiencies.
- Support the delivery of the Council’s Housing and Bury 2030 Strategies.
- Improve data driven decision making.
- Drive efficiencies and service effectiveness through our Value for Money Strategy.
- Ensure our workforce and services are inclusive and accessible to all.
- Strengthen our governance arrangements and ensure our Board is fit for the future.
We will know we have achieved it when:
- Our colleagues feel engaged and proud to work for Six Town Housing.
- We develop a culture and working environment where colleagues live and breathe our values, feel empowered and are able to work in ways and at times that suit them and our customers.
- We become adept at anticipating and implementing new ways of working.
- We are financially strong, operate efficiently and maximise our resources.
- We are considered as the partner of choice.
- We have strengthened our governance arrangements.
- Performance results are top quartile across all key activity areas.
- We routinely deploy technological solutions and support data-driven decision-making.
Measures of success (long term):
- Key performance indicators.
- Customer satisfaction with the opportunities to make their views known.
- Colleague satisfaction.
- % income from non-Management Fee sources.
- Workforce that reflects the diversity of the area.
- Compliance with Public Sector Equality Duty.
- Management cost per unit.
- % of staff that have completed the required training for the role.
Our people and culture
Our colleagues drive our success and play a crucial role in helping us achieve our long-term ambitions.
Our aim is to ensure they feel engaged, motivated and valued. Our ten year Management Agreement with the Council and the stimulus this creates will allow us to put our colleagues at the heart of our innovation, and we will ensure they are equipped with the understanding, support and freedom to excel in delivering our vision. To do this, we will need to continue transforming our culture to one where our colleagues feel empowered, can innovate and are trusted to deliver a service which truly puts our customers first.
We are committed to acting consistently, treating all with respect in a culture defined by its trust and inclusivity. We will actively engage our colleagues in understanding and translating our business plan into goals and objectives which will optimise our opportunities to deliver a strong and sustainable future for us all.
We have commenced work on reviewing our values, working closely with employees from across the organisation to ensure we capture the essence of a Six Town Housing we will all be proud to work for. Our detailed approach will be captured in our Organisational Development Strategy which will ensure that we do things in a way which gives our colleagues the greatest understanding of, ability to influence and own the changes we face.
Managing risks
Effective risk management is at the heart of our business and has an important part to play in delivering our purpose. We have well established risk management processes and control frameworks in place to guide how we work, behave and make decisions.
Our Board is responsible for setting our strategic direction, ensuring probity and protecting our long term viability. They also make key business decisions and our response to the risks that we face. This includes defining the type and level of risk we are prepared to take. This provides clarity to colleagues and key stakeholders on the way we do business; enabling informed decision making and empowerment, along with a clear framework for considering risk and capacity when formulating strategic and tactical business decisions.
We will continue to identify emerging risks, as environmental changes happen, stress test potential impacts and take appropriate action to mitigate them.
Our financial framework
We are a financially strong and responsible business funded primarily through an annual management fee from the Council with additional income generated from our portfolio of owned/leased properties, delivery of capital works to the Council’s housing stock and the provision of maintenance services to other public and private organisations.
The annual budget is one of our key business documents and is set to ensure that we meet all of our statutory and management agreement obligations whilst developing our services in a manner which is both meaningful and valued by our customers, furthers achievement of our Strategic Objectives and makes best use of the resources available to us.
We have an established financial reporting and scrutiny framework with monthly internal Business Review Meetings, monthly management account updates to all Board members, trend analysis and financial assurance updates quarterly to our Audit, Standards, Risk and Performance Committee and a Financial Assurance Summary considered at each Board meeting.
The pursuit of value for money is crucial to the delivery of our vision and objectives. To this end, we have a Value for Money Strategy which is refreshed annually, along with an Annual Value for Money plan and scorecard. A suite of performance indicators is also in place to monitor and track performance in key areas, including efficiencies secured. Our approach will be strengthened in the coming year through our membership of HouseMark, which will allow us to benchmark our performance against similar organisations and set targets for future efficiencies in areas where our cost performance is not as we would wish.
We are establishing a framework for delivering and monitoring social value through all levels of the business. Many of our services provide a social value benefit to the wider community/economy and may save money for the Council and other public sector partners; on occasion this could mean that some of our services are comparatively more expensive to deliver when compared to our peers.
We will continue to explore opportunities to deliver services on behalf of the Council where they complement pre-existing functions, support wider Council objectives and generate saving for the public purse.
Building on business development and growth is a key aspect of our future plans to add further resilience to the organisation and consolidate our financial viability. We will continuously review our core services, develop additional and complimentary offers to the Council and grow our commercial services. To maximise our growth and income generation potential, we will build on our robust financial management framework by ensuring we have the skills and capacity to deliver:
- A Medium Term Financial Strategy for 2021/22 – 2023/24 which will bring together all known factors affecting our financial position and sustainability, identify key risks and uncertainties and provide a basis for decision making balancing the financial implications of objectives and policies against constraints in resources.
- Regular financial reviews of projects to ensure that the expected benefits are being delivered and returns are being maximised.
- A commercial project appraisal process, using agreed targets and hurdles for different types of growth and income generating opportunities.
Supporting Bury 2030
Our approach at a glance
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People |
Place |
Ideas |
Infrastructure |
Business |
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Carbon neutral |
Fuel poverty |
Carbon neutral plan |
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Green places
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Carbon neutral business |
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Digital first |
Everything Digital Plan Customer App
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Economically strong |
Steps to Success Employment & Apprenticeships
Anti-Poverty/Money Matters
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Affordable housing |
STH Inclusive Growth Strategy |
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Healthy communities |
Healthy, Safe & Decent Homes
Retirement Living offer
Social value
Tenancy Sustainment
Adaptation service
Social prescribing
Mediation services
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Places to be Proud of – link Housing White Paper
Capacity building in our communities
Health and safety compliance
Integrated service delivery in place
Early help and prevention
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Strengthened tenant engagement and governance |
Housing Strategy
Capital programme
Environmental health partnership
Neighbourhoods Direct
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Inclusion |
Inclusion strategy
Care leavers’ offer
Supporting Homelessness Prevention |
Tenant Engagement Framework
Tenant training programme |
Tenant scrutiny arrangements
OD Strategy |
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