1. No category

Briefing Paper 22
How to deliver more
effective and efficient
housing management
Foster Evans EVH
The Housing Management and Efficiencies Learning Network
This paper was commissioned by the Scottish Centre for Regeneration and Chartered Institute of
Housing Scotland Housing Management and Efficiencies (HME) Learning Network, which aims to
support members by helping to:
•
Identify good practice and innovation
•
Evidence what does and doesn’t work
•
Highlight the value of sharing practice and innovation
•
Provide informal opportunities to communicate through round table discussions and web-based
networks
•
Identify the barriers to improved efficiencies
•
Identify effective performance management techniques
•
Showcase case studies
•
Facilitate study visits.
This report forms part of a suite of documents produced by the HME Learning Network which
evidence good practice. These are available to download1 . A key aim of the HME Learning
Network is to support positive change in practice and this paper is intended to do just that by
offering comprehensive examples of what has worked for others.
EVH
EVH is an organisation that provides support to a large number of social employers in Scotland to
enhance the positive impact they make on their communities and in Scotland as a whole. One of
the ways we do this is by engaging with Scottish Government to promote ideas and actions that
have the potential to make our communities sustainable, attractive and successful.
It is our opinion that efficiency will be best served by identifying how organisations develop a
culture which not only embraces continuous improvement but which prioritises the customer and
long-term sustainability of the stock and the services. Quality and efficiency must go hand in hand
to deliver the change we need for both customers and communities.
The report follows on from Briefing 152 which explained the reasons why the Housing Management
and Efficiencies Learning Network was needed and concentrates on the following areas:
•
Partnerships and collaborative working
•
Joint procurement
•
Using technology to deliver services
•
Monitoring performance
•
Performance management
•
Self-evaluation
•
Benchmarking
•
Peer review
•
Involving stakeholders and customers in performance improvement
1
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/BuiltEnvironment/regeneration/pir/learningnetworks/HousingManagement/Publications
2
Why do we need to deliver more effective and efficient housing management?”
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/BuiltEnvironment/regeneration/pir/learningnetworks/HousingManagement/Publications/Briefingpaper15housingpd
f
2
•
Using data and systems to improve performance and efficiency.
As ever, though, it is not the report itself that will make the difference. It will be what individuals and
organisations do with it – turning it into action – that will make the difference for people and
communities.
We would like to thank the Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum (Jim Harvey) and Turner &
Townsend for use of some of their material presented at the EVH seminar “Cutting Costs, not
Corners” in July 2009.
3
CONTENTS
Page
1.
Executive Summary
5
2.
Introduction
6
3.
What is efficiency?
7
4.
Who is driving efficiency?
13
5.
A quality approach to efficiency
15
6.
Joint procurement
17
7.
Performance management and monitoring
20
8.
Employee engagement
22
9.
Attendance management
25
10.
Benchmarking and peer review
26
11.
Involving stakeholders and customers in performance improvement
28
12.
Using data and systems to improve performance and efficiency
32
13.
Partnerships and collaborative working
35
14.
Using technology to deliver services efficiently
38
15.
Conclusion
39
Appendices
Appendix 1 – Useful Links
41
Appendix 2 – Case Studies
42
4
1. Executive Summary
This briefing paper sets out how organisations working in housing management in Scotland can
identify and make efficiency improvements. It highlights some quick wins along with outlining the
key stages required to embed continuous improvement in an organisation and its culture.
Pressure on public finances is not new but the pressure has never been so intense. Social
housing has not escaped this pressure, and must continually seek opportunities to strive to do
more with less.
This report identifies the following guidelines:
•
The primary drivers of efficiency within any business should be the customers (tenants,
services users, clients or their representatives)
•
Quality is an essential element of the efficiency agenda. How we assess that has been
different for different landlords
•
The best and most successful organisations generally have highly engaged employees.
Adopting an approach which encourages their engagement can offer results to any
organisation and should be an essential element of any improvement strategy
•
There are existing frameworks social landlords can use currently to buy goods and services
at pre-negotiated rates. They could save money immediately for most landlords
•
Active, informed performance management is a vital ingredient for success and
improvement
•
Attendance management has a part to play in any performance improvement or efficiency
•
Benchmarking can also be about attaining exceptional performance
•
Shared services can mean different things to different people. It is more than just
centralisation or consolidation of similar activities into one location, and it is not just about
back office functions.
We provide many examples of social landlords engaging in innovative and successful efficiency
strategies and joint working. There are 17 case studies demonstrating these activities in Appendix
2. The report also provides signposts to various resources and organisations.
Most importantly, where people have started to work together within and across organisations to
deliver improved and efficient services, they have been able to achieve real results, sometimes in
ways they did not envisage. This report challenges all social landlords to reflect on what they are
doing and what more they can do.
5
2. Introduction
Efficiency was defined in the public sector as “Making the best use of resources available for the
provision of public services”3.
On 17 June 2010 John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance wrote the following to everyone in
the Scottish Public Sector:
“The people of Scotland, who depend on the public services we provide, expect us to act with
absolute prudence in the way we plan and spend public money, and to ensure that everything we
do can stand scrutiny in terms of economy and efficiency.”
Against this background, we must all act to protect public services by giving top priority to making
changes that will save money, including:
•
Scrutinising the way we provide services to the public and asking ourselves where changes
can improve outcomes for citizens at a reduced cost – for example, through better use of
technology or through emphasis on early intervention to reduce the need for late, high cost
crisis action
•
Looking critically at staffing and vacancies to ensure that our workforce in the public sector
is the most flexible, efficient and effective possible
•
Looking hard at administrative/back office functions and identifying how to share or
amalgamate these or otherwise reduce their cost
•
Appraising the way we procure goods and services to ensure that we all adopt good
practice and take advantage of our buying power
•
Reviewing rigorously the costs of running our organisations – travel, hospitality,
accommodation – and cutting these back
•
Avoiding new commitments to spending money that may simply not be there in future
years.
This briefing paper sets out how organisations working in housing management in Scotland can
identify and make efficiency improvements, particularly in how you buy or tender for products, work
or services. It highlights some quick wins along with outlining the key stages required to embed
continuous improvement in your organisation and its culture.
3
Sir Peter Gershon CBE, Releasing resources to the front line: Independent Review of Public Sector
Efficiency, July 2004
6
3 What is efficiency?
For clarity and to provide a backdrop for the remainder of the report, it is useful to summarise what
is meant by efficiency.
An efficiency gain is an improvement in productivity and can be achieved through:
•
Reducing the costs to you while providing the same level of service to your tenants (“less
for the same”)
•
Providing a better service or quality for the same price (“more for the same”)
•
Providing a better service or quality but cheaper (“more for less”)
•
Providing a significantly better service for customers even if it is a bit more expensive
(“much more for a little more”).
It should be remembered that a service cut is not an efficiency gain and efficiency is not about cuts
in budget, quality or services. However, utilising limited resources on what matters will help us
maintain services in a period of austerity.
Why should you undertake an efficiency review?
Over the next few years, we know that public sector spending will be reduced very significantly.
This will have an impact on all social landlords.
So, the sector must demonstrate that what it is doing is as efficient as possible to make best use of
the limited resources, while still ensuring quality is maintained in service provision. An efficiency
review can also allow you to divert any saved money to front line service provision and could also
improve the quality of service but without any savings.
We should also take account of lessons elsewhere4 which warn against too much emphasis on
quick wins, particularly in terms of procurement. The conclusions of the ‘Integrating Quality and
Efficiency’ report for the then Housing Corporation was that there was a genuine need to take a
more strategic approach to efficiency if we are to achieve the demanding targets that will be set for
the sector. But importantly, it argued that we need to ensure we do not lose sight of quality: As we
will see later, harnessing front line staff and local tenants can be a real way of achieving improved
service and savings.
How difficult is it to become more efficient?
It is not very difficult to become more efficient. What is challenging is putting in the time and effort
on top of day-to-day operations. It can also be a daunting prospect with perceived legal constraints
and, sometimes, a lack of skilled staff acting as barriers. This is something that can be particularly
true in small organisations.
Lessons from related sectors5 have emphasised that to become more efficient you need to ensure
that you:
•
Adopt a co-ordinated approach and set out what you aim to achieve and how you will go
about it
•
Look at the constraints – have you the resources to support the initiative?
•
Have an efficiency champion who has overall responsibility for implementing, monitoring
and reporting
4
CIH/Housemark/Housing Corporation Report on “Integrating Quality and Efficiency”
www.cih.org/policy/QualityEfficiency.pdf
5
Housing with support and the efficiency agenda: a toolkit. Tribal August 2007
7
•
Raise awareness throughout your organisation as staff throughout the organisation need to
be involved
•
Develop action plans and set targets
•
Monitor progress, report and review and maybe even celebrate!
Mentis Management Consultants6 who work primarily in the Public Sector (including projects for
some English housing associations) have drawn together lessons from the last 17 years in a short
leaflet which summarises the lessons they have learned in two diagrams.
One way of reviewing the opportunities in your own organisation would be to use staff workshops
to look at the Mentis diagrams below in figure 1 and discuss what opportunities there are in your
own organisation and then prioritise the opportunities using the second diagram.
Figure 1
6
http://www.mentis.co.uk/
8
Figure 2 shows some of the guiding principles that they have identified are key to success.
Figure 2
Whether you carry out this exercise or not, you can still use Tribal’s toolkit5 in Table 1. This
provides a framework for the initial decisions for any landlord developing a strategy to deliver more
efficiency.
9
Table 1
Efficiency Strategy Checklist
Heading
Content
Introduction
Why the organisation is
adopting this strategy
Yes/No
Key Objectives
A summary of the
organisation’s main aims
in adopting this strategy
Yes/No
Efficiency
performance to
date (optional)
An overall assessment of
what the organisation has
done to date in order to
run efficiently, how
successful this has been
and the challenges that
remain
Yes/No
Constraints
Any constraints in terms of
ethics or resources the
organisation has taken
into account in drawing up
this strategy
Yes/No
Each activity area
a) Baseline statement
b) Efficiencies to be
sought through planned
actions
c) SMART efficiency
targets
d) Timescales
e) Responsibilities
f) Decision-making body
(where relevant)
g) Monitoring and
reporting arrangements
Yes/No
Overall
responsibility
The people with overall
responsibility – at both
executive and governance
levels – for ensuring the
strategy is followed and its
objectives are met
Yes/No
Strategy review
arrangements
The process and
timescales for monitoring
and reviewing this strategy
Yes/No
10
Is this in
place?
Action Points/Notes
Housing management efficiency
Over the course of the following chapters, this briefing paper will consider a variety of tools, issues
and processes and provide illustrative case studies from Scotland and beyond. The chapters will
particularly look at:
•
The role of a quality approach and efficiency
•
The potential benefits of joint procurement
•
Performance management’s role in delivering efficiency and the need to monitor
performance
•
The untapped potential of engaging with employees
•
The resources released by managing attendance
•
The benefits of involving stakeholders and customers
•
What can be delivered through benchmarking and peer review
•
Using data and systems to improve performance and efficiency
•
Partnerships and collaborative working’s potential in this arena
•
Finally, using technology to deliver services7.
Some of these will overlap and some of the case studies will illustrate more than one aspect. We
are able to demonstrate that there is a considerable library of good practice from what is already
happening in Scotland and this also illustrates the considerable potential for more. The good
practice demonstrated here can be built on by housing organisations and also suggests that the
Housing Management and Efficiencies Learning Network can show that housing management is
one sector which has already embraced many of the tools available.
More importantly, landlords should look at how they develop their culture and management to
deliver the best first time, every time. So before we move on to look at how you are managing just
now, compare yourself against a high performance organisation.
Food for thought: are you trying to achieve high performance and efficiency in your
organisation?
It is an obvious statement that the level of performance dictates which organisations are successful
and which eventually perish. In the highly competitive global markets, there are two elements that
help organisations outperform their competitors and stay in the game: invention and high quality of
product/customer service. Both should be understood as processes rather than events, and be
embedded in the organisational culture.
So how does your organisation fare when compared with this high performance checklist?
1. Is a high level of performance constantly at the organisation’s heart and does it appear on
agendas of the board, management and teams?
2. Is it spoken about, encouraged and rewarded at all levels with managers who lead by
example and live and breathe the organisational values themselves and inspire staff?
3. Is communication about your overall performance frequent and given to everyone?
7
This will be covered in more detail in a further scoping report commissioned by the Housing Management
and Efficiencies Learning Network ‘The use of new technology in housing management efficiencies’
11
Edinburgh Building Services had transformational change when management were
outsourced in 2003/4. A simple checklist for weekly team meetings ensured that
staff knew every week how they were performing as a team, as a department and
as an organisation.
4. Do you celebrate and reward success for excellent performance and have strategies in
place to tackle underperformance? Is every individual able to trace how his/her efforts
contribute to the overall performance so they feel good about themselves if they have done
well; and uncomfortable and pressured to improve if they haven’t?
5. Does every individual strive for improvement, and are they encouraged to strive for
improvement and bring their ideas forward? Do people feel comfortable that managers will
take their ideas for high performance seriously?
6. Do employees excel in customer service by being:
•
Empowered to make decisions?
•
Comfortable speaking to their line managers about how their work or their team’s
work is organised?
•
Confident in saying what helps and what hinders and what frustrates them and the
customers?
•
Aware of what the competitors are doing more of/better/differently?
7. Is your high performance culture nurtured and understood to be something that must not be
neglected, even briefly, as it will affect morale and productivity almost immediately?
8. Do you observe your environment and change in response to it?
Outside circumstances constantly change, including customers’ expectations,
competitors’ activities, the technologies available, and political and economic
frameworks. Successful organisations are always on the watch for these, and react
very quickly by reviewing whether they offer good value to their customers and
ensuring the processes, by which the results are delivered, are efficient.
9. Are you quick to change anything that hinders achieving best business results and does
everyone follow in this attitude? It means that the individual employees’ jobs are constantly
changing but this becomes part of the culture.
10. Are you aware and don’t mind that this means hard work from everyone, including board
members and staff?
Can you answer “yes” to all 10 questions? It is hard work but many of the scenarios which follow
are only examples of organisations that follow these principles. If you wish to be a successful
housing department, housing association, co-operative or provider you must always be looking for
signals for change and react quickly by reviewing whether you offer good value to your customers
and whether the processes, by which the results are delivered, are efficient. Embracing this culture
is highly rewarding, meaning great results for the organisation and a high level of engagement and
satisfaction for all individuals involved in it.
Loreburn Housing Association in Dumfries and Galloway provide a strong story of
developing the organisation and their people in the case study in Appendix 2(K). Their
Chief Executive, Ahsan Khan, believes that “Having a focused, fired-up, and capably
led workforce is one of the best things any organisation can do for its performance. Get
this organisation culture right and performance management will take care of itself.”
12
4. Who is driving efficiency?
The primary drivers of efficiency within any business should be the customers (tenants, services
users, clients or their representatives) who should benefit from savings when money can be
diverted into improving the quality of service or product.
Increasingly, social housing is likely to be facing other pressures to improve efficiency. The
sources of this pressure include:
•
Regulation (Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR), Care Commission, OSCR) and the general
pressure on Public Sector spending
•
Scottish Government’s recognition that efficiencies, improved procurement and cost
reduction all go hand in hand, and in the current climate, efforts to achieve efficiencies will
have to be proven to secure Government funding
•
Additional investment necessary to achieve improving standards such as energy efficiency,
health and safety requirements, climate change proposals and the Scottish Housing Quality
Standard
•
The 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) included in excess of 30% cuts in many
departments over three to four years which will require improving how things are done and
purchased and ensuring that the assets we own or manage are fully utilised
•
Funders/bankers are more likely to lend to an organisation which can prove that its
investment (or potential investment) is committed to achieving as much as possible with
every pound
•
In the current political and media climate (e.g. MPs/BBC expenses), the waste of public
money is newsworthy, and any critical stories in national or local media would have a
significant negative effect on reputation.
In listing some of the drivers for efficiency, we should not lose sight of the fact that it is good
business to have a culture which is open, flexible, delivers for the customer (now and in the future)
and seeks continuous improvement.
The Scottish Housing Regulator wrote in 2009 in its publication “Shaping up for improvement”8
that the service areas that matter most to tenants are:
8
•
Good quality accommodation
•
Speedy day-to-day repairs done right first time
•
Antisocial behaviour and nuisance neighbours dealt with
•
To feel safe and secure
•
Modernisation work to improve their homes
•
Good customer care and to be treated with respect
•
Affordable and transparent rents
SHR Social Landlords in Scotland: Shaping up for improvement (Published 22/07/2009)
http://www.scottishhousingregulator.gov.uk/stellent/groups/public/documents/webpages/shr_reportsmainpag
e.hcsp#TopOfPage
13
•
To be listened to and have their priorities met
•
Redress when things go wrong.
The findings show what is important and where the emphasis should be put in work plans,
innovation and expenditure.
In relation to housing management costs, the regulator also commented, “we know that social
landlords are not always good at managing costs or introducing greater business discipline into
housing service delivery. A number of landlords do not demonstrate that they are focused on value
for money, cost control or securing efficiencies. The onus must be on social landlords to
understand their cost drivers better and put measures in place to cut costs and deliver better value
in the round because the current trends are not sustainable in the longer term”8.
In the current and future political and economic environment, organisations will need to carry out
an efficiency review to try to identify where they can release resources to improve services or to
protect those activities which can make significant positive impact in the lives of local residents and
the success of their communities.
14
5. A quality approach to efficiency
Efficiency will be achieved when organisations develop a culture which not only embraces
continuous improvement but which prioritises the customer and secures long-term sustainability of
the stock and their services.
Quality is an essential element of the efficiency agenda. How we assess that has been different for
different landlords. Many have been unwilling to embrace overly bureaucratic approaches which
frustrated their wish to be flexible and responsive. Others have fully embraced these approaches
and used them to drive towards what they wished to achieve.
The Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) has encouraged landlords to improve their own selfassessment and a number of landlords have then moved on to looking at existing external reviews,
such as Investors in People9 and the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM)10.
This has led to increased involvement in peer review and benchmarking groups.
EFQM is the most widely used Business Excellence Framework in Europe, with over 30,000
businesses using the ‘Excellence Model’ to improve performance and increase their bottom-line.
Quality Scotland is the National Partner Organisation for delivering and promoting EFQM in
Scotland. They worked with a group of 15 housing associations in Scotland, with Scottish Centre
for Regeneration support, to adapt the EFQM model to Housing Associations in Scotland. HAME
was the product that developed out of this work and is one way to assess your organisation and
challenge its performance.
Excellence in the EFQM model means challenging the status quo and creating change by using
learning to develop innovation and improvement opportunities. The housing associations which
were involved embraced continuous learning, both from their own activities and performance and
from that of others.
The main features of the HAME Guide Housing Association Model for Excellence/EFQM11 are:
•
Rigorous benchmarking is carried out both internally and externally
•
Knowledge is captured and shared in order to maximise learning across the organisation
•
There is an openness to accept and use ideas from all stakeholders
•
Encouragement to look beyond today and today's capabilities.
The HAME model was used by Knowes Housing Association in Faifley, Clydebank for a number of
years and proved very effective. However, in order to revitalise their approach to quality they
changed their focus to achieving the Government’s Award for Customer Service Excellence. A
case study in Appendix 2(I) explains their journey.
Many local authorities have become involved in the ‘Public Service Improvement Framework’
which is a self-assessment framework to encourage organisations to conduct a comprehensive
review of their own activities and results. It promotes a holistic approach to continuous
improvement by incorporating a number of established organisational improvement tools including
the EFQM Excellence Model but also:
9
•
The Investors in People Standard
•
The New Customer Service Excellence Standard (formerly Charter Mark Standard)
http://www.iipscotland.co.uk
10
http://www.qualityscotland.co.uk
11
http://www.qualityscotland.co.uk/public-service-improvement-framework.asp
15
•
Best Value principles.
A good example of its use can be seen in Aberdeenshire Council. A case study of this is in
Appendix 2(A).
All staff are engaged in their concept of continuous improvement through applying the ‘Plan Do
Check Act’ methodology to their processes for service delivery, whether internal or external. The
Framework tool is easily accessible on the Council intranet. It is used as a guide and information
resource to the four stages in the continuous improvement cycle. There is also a form which can
be used as a prompt through the four stages:
•
PLAN - before embarking on any activity we need to know our objectives. This section
shows the high level direction and goals set out at both a corporate and service level. The
objectives of what you are planning should be in line with these
•
DO - having set the objectives we need to achieve them. This section shows the structure
and standards that support the implementation of plan
•
CHECK - progress has to be monitored and evaluated to determine if the plan is taking us
where we want to go or if corrective action needs to be taken
•
ACT - assess what has been achieved, what has worked well and identify, scope for and
act on further improvement.
Douglas Edwardson, of Aberdeenshire Council, stressed the importance of making it real in your
own organisation when he said: “If only continuous improvement could be bought off the shelf, but
sadly that is not the case. You have to go through your own process that suits your organisation to
embed the culture.” This goes back to where we started, with the emphasis on developing the right
culture if you want real change.
16
6. Joint procurement
In England, it has been claimed that about one third of potential efficiency savings could be
achieved by just improving how the housing sector buys or tenders goods and services.
In ‘Better Buys’12 , the Audit Commission and Housing Corporation calculated potential average
savings of £40 per housing unit for social landlords from procurement alone. If this could be
achieved across all Scottish Housing Associations, then according to Turner & Townsend13,
efficiency savings totaling over £10 million could be diverted to the provision of better quality
housing or services for tenants.
The savings mentioned above were achieved through targeting ‘quick wins’. These are shown in
the bottom half of Figure 3.
Figure 3
Ease of
achieving
Responsive Repairs
Gas Servicing
Difficult
Cyclical painting
Window Cleaning
Kitchens
Grounds Maintenance
Vehicles
Central Heating
Utilities
Telecoms
Easy
Consultants
Stationery
Low
Agency Staff
High
Potential
efficiency
gains
Procurement Efficiency Matrix
In 2008/9, facilitated by EVH and with the support of Turner & Townsend, four West of Scotland
Housing Associations undertook a joint efficiency initiative. The study highlighted a number of
simple quick wins, such as:
•
Electronic billing from utilities and transferring payments to direct debits saving, in some
cases, 5% of billed amount
•
Setting printers to print on both sides of paper as default
•
Consolidating telephone bills into one single bill – potential time and cash saving
•
Making use of existing public sector procurement frameworks such as Catalist, Scotland
Excel, OCG, National Housing Federation, and Procurement Scotland.
12
Better Buys, Improving housing association procurement practice, Audit Commission/Housing Corporation
February 2008
13
Unpublished case study by Turner & Townsend of West of Scotland cluster of housing associations
17
After the quick wins had been addressed, the study suggested some longer-term efficiency
savings:
•
Joining Procurement for Housing14 to achieve savings on bought items and allow single
billing
•
Undertaking joint training with neighbouring Registered Social Landlords (RSLs)
•
Issuing tenders electronically
•
Using frameworks for consultants, contractors and agency staff
•
Investigating the sharing of specialist resources with neighbouring associations.
Overall, the RSLs in the initiative managed to achieve annual efficiency savings of between 2%
and 5% of revenue, predominantly from improved procurement. This saving could be delivered by
most other landlords. It was also interesting to identify the savings that were possible due to the
collaborative nature of the review. Some of those identified included:
•
Shared services – one housing association was dissatisfied with stair cleaning and another
was looking to establish its own stair cleaning company
•
Mutual risk management – one housing association needed occasional IT expertise whilst
another needed occasional meeting space in case a business continuity event occurred
•
Benchmarking of common procurement (e.g. utilities, consultants, commodities) to
compare costs
•
Solution sharing – one housing association had previously implemented a solution to a
problem that another housing association was currently facing.
The Scottish Government and EVH, in conjunction with Scottish Federation of Housing
Associations (SFHA), are looking at the potential to improve participation and choice in joint
procurement across the whole social landlord sector in Scotland.
However, there are existing frameworks social landlords can use currently to buy goods and
services at pre-negotiated rates. This saves money immediately and avoids having to go through
the European tendering process (OJEU), saving time and effort. Scotland Excel15 has been able to
provide considerable savings to River Clyde Homes in Inverclyde with their plumbing contracts.
Details are given in the case study at Appendix 2(N).
In addition, Procurement Scotland16 is completely free to all local authorities, charities, voluntary
bodies and Registered Social Landlords in Scotland. Once you enter into a participation agreement
with a supplier, you access significantly reduced prices for office supplies, equipment, software
and utilities.
Another option is Procurement for Housing who, after a joining fee, provide access to a wide range
of services (business services, energy, ICT, materials and financial services) at discounted rates.
However, it does require you to set up a central billing scheme. They have some members in
Scotland and are seeking to gain more members (plus it is free to HouseMark members).
14
http://www.procurementforhousing.co.uk/home
15
Scotland Excel is the purchasing body for primarily local authorities in Scotland http://www.scotlandexcel.org.uk/
16
Procurement Scotland was launched in March 2008 to develop and implement procurement strategies for
national commodities on behalf of all Scottish public bodies www.procurement.scotland.gov.uk
18
On a smaller scale, there is a case study in Appendix 2(H) from Hillcrest Housing Association who
led a development in Tayside with two neighbouring associations to deliver efficiencies in
landscape contracts over a large number of sites. You can also see similar work in the FLAIR
Group and South East Glasgow Group of Associations, which are highlighted at Appendix 2(E) and
2(P) as case studies.
19
7. Performance management and monitoring
A lot of emphasis is put on how well we manage performance and whether that, on its own, can be
a significant element of any strategy to deliver efficiencies. Some organisations choose to avoid or
exclude it from efficiency strategies because, though they know it will deliver, they also know that
cultivating a culture of high performance is not easy, nor a one-off exercise. It takes time, skill and
enthusiasm, but the rewards are there and can be seen in ‘what gets measured gets done’ and will
deliver both continuous business improvement and quality customer service.
Typically, the term performance management is only associated with managing underperformance
and hence has a negative connotation. But this is only one aspect of performance management. It
is essentially day-to-day people management, distributing human resource and monitoring the
progress towards achieving planned goals.
Managing performance is a fluid process that happens every day between staff and line managers
and also at certain periodic events like appraisals/performance reviews, rewarding performance
and managing underperformance.
Performance management is therefore not a distinct process but rather joins in elements of various
processes and concepts such as goals, tasks and competencies. Managing organisational and
individual performance must also be linked. Too often, organisations will spend a lot of time and
resources managing individual performance, yet neglect to put in place any strategy to measure
organisational performance.
Trust Housing Association work in 23 of Scotland’s 32 local authority areas, with 100 different
developments managed from three offices. Developing a performance management framework
wasn’t easy and tying the strategic level to the front line was complicated. However, they have
introduced a system that hopes to achieve that objective and from the early assessment they have
seen benefits.
“Whilst we have no doubt that the introduction of this system will bring a range of benefits,
including enhanced performance and time-saving efficiencies, we are not kidding ourselves that
these will be easily achieved. The system will support us to become more efficient, better planners
and enhanced performers, however, it wont do this for us.”
“We have already seen improvements in terms of planning through the system – allocation of work
is simplified and inter-departmental working has been enhanced.” Fintan Smith, Trust Housing
Association - from the case study in Appendix 2(Q).
The case study in Appendix 2(L) shows the remarkable turnaround from 2003 by North Ayrshire
Council since they adopted a performance management framework. Some of the key
improvements are shown in Table 2.
20
Table 2
Targets
Then (2002/2003)
Now (2009/2010)
Void rent loss
1.7%
0.3%
Void properties let in over four
weeks
44.6%
The average
houses was
48 days
only
5.2%
with
77.8% being let in
less than two weeks
13 days
Current tenant arrears as a
percentage of net rent
14.9%
4.05%
Percentage of current tenants
owing more than 13 weeks rent,
excluding those owing less than
£250
9.2%
2.41%
The number
presentations
1,798 (very
high)
1,066
time
of
to
re-let
homeless
The Director of Housing, Olga Clayton says:
“We want to deliver the best services we can. A sound performance management framework helps
us to show to what extent we are achieving our objectives and targets. If you cannot see success
you cannot learn from it. Equally, if you cannot recognise failure you cannot correct it.”
This was echoed by the Scottish Housing Regulator in the publication “Shaping up for
Improvement”8 which emphasised that active, informed performance management is a vital
ingredient for success and improvement. It highlighted the following features as key elements of a
best performance management system to be used by social landlords:
•
Sound systems providing accurate and reliable information (including robust methods of
finding out what their customers want and doing something about what customers tell
them)
•
Honest self-assessment
•
Benchmarking with better organisations and against better processes
•
Good reporting to people who can challenge and make decisions
•
Action plans
•
Performance indicators
•
Clear links to corporate processes
•
Good training and development for staff.
This has elements of a good checklist for organisations who wish to review their own systems.
However, it will only be useful where the focus of organisational culture is to achieve high
performance and individual performance is linked to that of the organisation.
There are two other ingredients that can help which are linked to high performing organisations:
employee engagement and attendance management. These will be looked at in the following
chapters.
21
8. Employee engagement
HouseMark and Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) were concerned that efficiencies strategies in
England failed to embrace quality and looked for quick wins. Engaging well with employees is
probably an even bigger challenge, but a strategy to do so which is genuine will deliver real
efficiencies and high performance. For example, research by Ipsos Mori17 found that:
“Staff in councils rated as ‘excellent’ had much better results than those in weak or poor councils
when asked about factors such as being informed and consulted, having confidence in senior
managers and understanding the overall objectives of their organisation; they were also twice as
likely to be advocates for their organisation than staff in weak or poor councils.”
This can be illustrated in our day-to-day lives as consumers:
•
Why do similar companies in the same market have such different attitudes? In the best
companies, staff are willing to offer their best every day and are honest and hardworking,
whilst in others, people do the bare minimum and abuse the system given any opportunity
•
Equally, why in some places, can you sense a friendly and enthusiastic atmosphere as you
walk in whilst in others it’s uncomfortable and un-inviting?
In the best businesses, people keep bringing new ideas for improvements and embrace any
change that could help the organisation, whilst in others, there is endless resistance to any change
as everyone is closely guarding their own interests. These employers need hardly any rules as
peer pressure teaches people the ropes, whilst in others there is a procedure for everything and
sanctions applied regularly. Informal peer induction can result in keen and switched on individuals
staying with the organisation.
In the better businesses, employees offer a high level of engagement whilst in others they don’t.
Engagement is not something that you can require as a person specification; it is something that
people have to offer. Although it is the individual choice of every employee, it tends to be that in
some places the majority of people are highly engaged with the business, whilst in others this is far
from the case.
Jonathan Austin of Best Companies18 said:
“The way employers treat employees has a direct effect on how employees treat customers.
Customers, or service users, vote with their feet depending on the quality of the interaction they
experience with any given organisation. Quality customer and employee interactions are, over the
long run, the lifeblood of any business. These quality interactions ensure brand loyalty, advocacy
and can give an organisation a competitive edge, which if rooted in their ‘culture’ can be hard if not
impossible to replicate”.
Both Clyde Valley Housing Association and Loreburn Housing Association have used their Best
Companies assessment to see whether they are engaging and motivating their people. This is
17
Gallup, 2003, cited in Melcrum (2005), Employee Engagement: How to Build A High Performance
Workforce
18
Best Companies Accreditation is focuses on Workplace Engagement as an integral component of an
organisation’s success and growth http://www.bestcompanies.co.uk//AccreditationAbout.aspx
22
tested by surveying the employees in an organisation and comparing them against a number of
criteria. The focus is employee engagement.
Some key statistics on engagement from the MacLeod Report:
•
Engaged employees in the UK take an average of 2.69 sick days per year; the disengaged
take 6.19. The Confederation of Business Industry19 (CBI) reports that sickness absence
costs the UK economy £13.4 billion a year
•
70% of engaged employees indicate they have a good understanding of how to meet
customer needs; only 17% of non-engaged employees say the same
•
Engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave the organisation than the disengaged
•
The cost of high turnover among disengaged employees is significant; some estimates put
the cost of replacing each employee at equal to annual salary
•
Engaged employees advocate their company or organisation – 67% against only 3% of the
disengaged. 78% would recommend their company’s products of services, against 13% of
the disengaged (Gallup 2003)
•
Public sector employees are less likely to be advocates for their organisation than private
sector staff.
The best and most successful organisations generally have a high level of highly engaged
employees. Adopting such an approach to managing staff can offer similar results to any
organisation and should be an essential element of any efficiency or performance improvement
strategy.
The MacLeod Report20 made a large number of suggestions to UK Government for increasing
support for employee engagement among employers. It suggests that tailoring these suggestions
to suit the specific needs of a sector in a collaborative way is a good way to take them forward.
West of Scotland Housing Association (case study in Appendix 2(R)) engaged with their customer
service staff when they set up a new central team in new offices in Glasgow. Geraldine Connolly,
who led the process, said the lesson they learned was to:
“Ensure you take account of the challenges … and try as far as possible to keep staff on board by
including them in working groups looking at designing and implementing”
Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) has embraced the systems thinking approach promoted by
Vanguard consultants, who have adopted Toyota Systems21 thinking to the service sector.
Vanguard argues against traditional Key Performance Indicators and embraces customer feedback
and front line staff’s experience to identify real efficiency. GHA set up a project in 2008 to look at
all their customer-facing processes to identify improvements. Their success is illustrated in the
case study in Appendix 2(G). They have now found that this has worked and say: “When doing
process redesign, it’s vital that the process is looked at from end-to-end, involving staff at every
stage in the process. This is the best way to identify inefficiencies and ways to improve.”
19
Confederation of British Industry
http://www.cbi.org.uk/ndbs/staticpages.nsf/staticpages/Aboutcbi/index.html?OpenDocument
20
“Engaging for Success: enhancing performance through employee engagement” published by BIRR in
2009 http://www.bis.gov.uk/policies/employment-matters/strategies/employee-engagement
21
http://www.systemsthinking.co.uk/0-1.asp
23
The Macleod Report highlighted a successful example of employee engagement in the housing
and voluntary sector by Broadway Homelessness and Support. Broadway is a small charity
providing a range of services and support to homeless people and employs 180 people in London.
Competition for service contracts and talent is fierce in the social care sector, and so they have
invested in their employment offer and HR practices to attract the highest quality people who are
looking for engagement at work, and given them the freedom to deliver quality services.
Broadway gathered data from its staff survey and benchmarked it against 13 other homelessness
charities. They scored highest in 9 out of the 11 categories and achieved the highest
organisational score for engagement. They have also been listed in the Sunday Times 100 Best
Small Companies for the last three years.
Broadway places a lot of emphasis on only recruiting people who are willing to be engaged, and
has developed recruitment processes that identify those people. Employees are offered
challenging work and the autonomy and flexibility to improve the services they deliver. Broadway
has flexible working practices and staff are trusted to manage their time effectively. However, it
also ensures that all staff understand the organisation’s values and standards, and that they have
clarity on what is expected of them. Staff are given the information they need to do their jobs well,
and 80% agree that they have plenty of ways to feed their views up the organisation.
The result is a quality service that is rated highly by clients, and a reputation as an employer of
choice. 81% of clients said they were fully satisfied with Broadway’s services in 2008 and demand
for jobs continues to be considerably higher than for other charities.
Loreburn Housing Association have embraced a similar approach to flexible working to Broadway
and this is highlighted in their case study in Appendix 2(K).
24
9. Attendance management
“Staff have to be “happy, healthy and here” (i.e. at work) in order to deliver efficiency gains and first
rate services. That is the best way to position our organisations to better deliver core functions.”
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, Ministerial Task Force on Health, Safety and Productivity, December
200422
Having staff at work and contributing will have an immediate impact on performance. In any public
sector performance improvement or efficiency programme, there is mention of absentee levels.
Historically, housing associations have had much higher levels of attendance than the public
sector, but it is still one of the biggest areas for enquiries to EVH’s helpline for employers and
senior managers. The costs of absence to the UK economy have been estimated as £13 billion
and 175 million days lost per annum. If we add in the indirect costs, the total is estimated at £27
billion23 .
As a result, EVH has worked with social landlords to help provide them with practical strategies to
tackle problems stemming from absence and growing managerial skills so that individual
employees can be helped back to work, as well as encouraging good attendance. Principles of any
policy should recognise that:
•
Good attendance is an implied term of every contract of employment, and employers have
a right to require it from staff, just as much as good performance and conduct
•
Whilst we recognise that in many situations employers could help their staff improve and
maintain good attendance, we also encourage managers to challenge unsatisfactory
attendance
•
Unchallenged absence is not a sign of a sympathetic employer. It has an adverse effect on
other staff members who need to work harder to carry the weight for their absent
colleagues, and ultimately badly affects the bottom line, be it profit or customer service
•
Failing to deal with the problem means not setting clear standards for employees to follow.
There is plenty of evidence that shows that it has been possible for organisations to improve
productivity and become even more efficient through maximising staff attendance. It has the added
benefit that it lifts the mood and spirit of the organisation as a significant by-product24.
An example of a successful approach to attendance management is given on the Government
website, Business Link. They have a case study from Rochdale Boroughwide Housing who, by
taking a proactive approach, almost halved absence levels and contributed to a healthier and more
motivated workforce25.
22
A number of resources were developed including ‘ON HEALTH, SAFETY AND PRODUCTIVITY’: ‘THE
WELL MANAGED ORGANISATION ‘GUIDELINES FOR BOARDS’ HSE, DWP, Work Foundation and
Cabinet Office 2006 and Diagnostic tools available at www.hse.gov.uk/services/pdfs/diagnostictools.pdf
23
From the European Working Conditions Observatory
http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/ewco/studies/tn0911039s/tn0911039s_7.htm
24
EVH “Guide to Attendance Management” covers all this in much more detail
25
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1081611292&type=CASE+STUDIES
25
10. Benchmarking and peer review
Benchmarking as a process is straightforward; collect data, compare data, analyse findings,
identify areas for improvement, make improvements and then start all over again. You can
benchmark a service and an organisation internally and, whilst there are some external measures
available which show how you compare with theoretical or industry wide standards, most often we
are talking about external benchmarking with other organisations.
The Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) has strived to provide relevant information to landlords
which allows them to assess their comparative performance. Landlords have worked with
consultants and in groups to develop their own benchmarking information. All of this is encouraged
and seen as a foundation for identifying opportunities for improvement and learning from good or
exemplary practice elsewhere.
SHR statistics26 offer the most comprehensive source of a number of important performance
indicators. For example, they offer a basis to compare performance in:
•
Rent loss as a percentage of income
•
Time taken to re-let homes within specific time bandings
•
Rent arrears
•
Housing management operating costs.
It also collates information on other areas of housing management where information would be
less concrete, such as neighbour complaints and estate management.
The G8 group of housing associations in Scotland is a good example of a benchmarking club as
they are all of roughly comparable size, have involved similar stock and growth (through stock
transfer to some degree) and in one member have the available resources within their
headquarters to analyse their performance across a number of areas of activity. They have built on
developing these comparisons to review other areas in common, look at joint working across
functions and in running joint events. Similarly, the FLAIR group of housing associations in
Renfrewshire have been working together for over 10 years and have included benchmarking as
one of their joint activities
Other benchmarking options include:
•
The Scottish Housing Best Value Network (SHBVN) which grew from working with one
consultancy group and has now developed into a very participative practitioner network
offering peer review and benchmarking
•
HouseMark, which is jointly owned by CIH and the National Housing Federation, has
developed robust benchmarking that is now the subject of a pilot in Scotland involving
housing associations and local authorities. In the UK as a whole they have 870 subscribers.
In the private sector, it has been claimed27 that the only reason to benchmark is because you
recognise that somewhere, somehow you are not as efficient or as capable of satisfying your
26
Scottish Housing Regulator’s statistics can be found at
http://www.scottishhousingregulator.gov.uk/stellent/groups/public/documents/webpages/shr_statistics.hcsp
27
www.training-management.info/PDF/benchmarking-training.pdf
26
customers as your competition. In delivering housing management services, it can help to identify,
in an imperfect market, where there is good performance or practice.
Although benchmarking is a measurement process and does generate comparative performance
measures, it is not limited to that and can also be about attaining exceptional performance. Where
it is used properly, it can encourage and develop high performance and should involve:
•
Understanding strategic gaps
•
Co-operation
•
Hard work
•
A willingness to question
•
Where necessary, to challenge fundamental sacred cows.
HouseMark has been able to demonstrate that many of its members have significantly improved
performance through benchmarking.28
28
http://www.housemark.co.uk/hm.nsf/all/Benchmarking?opendocument
27
11. Involving stakeholders and customers in
performance improvement
There are a number of different ways of involving stakeholders and customers in performance
improvement. Well-known options range from sounding boards, such as formal tenant groups and
focus groups, through to informal discussions. Tenant inspection models are another option and
there is some potential in the innovative use of new technology by tenants’ inspectors.
The following methods of consultation with service users have been adopted by many landlords in
Scotland:
•
Questionnaires
•
Suggestion boxes
•
One-to-one and group discussions
•
Brainstorming
•
Mystery shopping, spot checks and quality audits
•
Formal representation.
The received wisdom is that resident involvement can be difficult to achieve, so it should only be
used where it is relevant and likely to lead to better outcomes29. However, the communitycontrolled housing associations in Scotland have tapped into local involvement as an inherent part
of their organisation. Many utilise all or some of these techniques to ensure they are delivering the
best they can.
Like every other aspect of business, communications must be good and target building capacity
and nurturing good and effective working relationships which will lead to benefits in the future.
Tenant Led Inspection (TLI) is becoming more prevalent in the housing sector, sometimes using
tenants from other landlords or from tenant representative bodies. For example, Edinburgh
Tenants Federation (ETF) now works with Edinburgh City Council and Dunedin Canmore Housing
Associations to inspect their services. See case study at Appendix 2(D). They carried out an
inspection of the range of ways for reporting repairs and were encouraged to:
•
Compare the effectiveness of each option
•
Make recommendations where improvements are required
•
Identify tenants’ preferred methods of repairs reporting.
They have now moved on to look at two other aspects of the Council’s services with the
experience gained in previous inspections making it easier each time.
The tenant inspectors made 20 recommendations that the Council considered and responded to
with an Action Plan. Since the inspection, six-monthly and then annual review meetings have taken
place with ETF to monitor and evaluate progress. The Council made several improvements
through the inspection, particularly to local office reporting arrangements. Staff and tenants
developed a better understanding of each other’s concerns. In particular, the tenant inspectors
grasped the complexities of delivering effective repairs reporting across a large organisation, while
29
This is in reference to specific efficiency initiatives and does not refer to a landlord’s ongoing commitment
to tenant participation or working with registered tenant organisations
28
the Council received confirmation of what was working well and recommendations for further
improvements.
The lessons they learned through the process are informative:
•
A commitment to openness is required
•
They acquired a shared understanding of approach (the agreed framework and guidelines
they developed were indispensable)
•
A Code of Conduct is important for tenant inspectors to ensure understanding of data
protection and issues around confidentiality
•
Ensure outputs feed into related customer research initiatives. These inspections provide
information from a customer perspective
•
Considerable voluntary effort was involved in the inspections with intensive support
provided to tenant inspectors by ETF staff
•
Having members of staff designated in both the Council and Housing Association to coordinate inspection from the landlord’s end was essential.
The detailed work carried out to progress the pilot TLI has made later inspections much easier to
carry out. A second inspection, into the management of empty homes, is now complete and a third
inspection, this time into the refurbishment of kitchens and bathrooms is under discussion.
Pinnacle PSG30 is a private contractor who provides in-sourced management and also competes to
deliver housing services in England. They have utilised resident compacts to deliver improved
services in London. In one case, they have set up a website to improve communications in a multi
tenure estate (www.churchillgardenslive.co.uk).
Pinnacle and their partners, CityWest Homes, jointly prepare annual action plans in consultation
with residents, known as the Residents’ Community Compact. This acts as a contract with the
residents, setting out targets with specific times by which they are to be met. This is linked to a
percentage of Pinnacle’s fee, so if the targets are not met, they don’t get paid.
Residents agree their priorities for improvement with the estate manager each year. If they are
satisfied with the improvement, it can be taken out of the compact and replaced with another issue
that needs attention.
Another approach is ‘systems thinking’ which is used by Glasgow Housing Association and West
Lothian Council in Scotland. It emphasises the need to regularly analyse customer demand to
identify process improvements that enhance the customer experience. For example, what are the
questions customers most often ask and could we put something into the process that addresses
this rather than wait until they contact us? This has delivered significant improvements in customer
satisfaction for them.
NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, has been promoting “coproduction”31 which appears to build on some of the lessons from systems thinking. The underlying
principle of co-production is that people's needs are better met when they are involved in equal
and reciprocal relationships with professionals and others, working together to get things done.
30
http://www.pinnacle-psg.com/Services/housing/housing-neighbourhood-management.php
31
‘Right here, right now: taking co-production into the mainstream’ NESTA and NEF 2010
http://www.nesta.org.uk/assets/events/right_here_right_now_taking_co-production_into_the_mainstream
29
Philip Colligan, Executive Director of NESTA says:
'”Co-production is about organising services with people rather than doing services to them. It is a
simple idea whose time has come. Our work with front line practitioners has given us valuable
insights into how co-production can tackle the root causes of people's problems and make a
genuine difference over the long term”.
They also feel that this approach has the potential to deliver efficiency more effectively than Public
Sector Reform has in the past. Some of this thinking is described as “counter intuitive” whereas
some see it as the natural development from their current approach to delivering relevant, popular
and quality services.
NESTA are also promoting a further development on co-production in a report that looks at the
‘Radical Efficiency’32 approach, which claims to be about innovation that delivers better outcomes
for much lower costs.
As its first ‘condition’ for those wishing to develop radical efficiency, it states that: “making a true
partnership with users is the best choice for everyone”. So working with residents is now not just
about good practice but potentially, in their view, part of the solution to our current economic
difficulties. The four parts of Radical Efficiency are summarised in Figure 3.
Figure 3
At a more basic level, social landlords who are transparent about their performance and their costs
to local residents will build better, more open and honest relations with customers, as well as more
understanding when it is necessary to change services as resources may come under pressure.
32
‘Radical Efficiency: different, better, lower cost public services’ NESTA 2010
http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/reports/assets/features/radical_efficiency
30
12. Using data and systems to improve performance
and efficiency
The basic need of any efficiency approach is to develop a base line. Where are we now and where
do we want to get to? However, that assumes that all the necessary information is available or
readily to hand. It is not unusual to hear that an organisation may record certain information but
can’t access it in a format which aids the management of the issue or department, or that two
systems “won’t talk to each other”.
So a fundamental requirement for making any progress is establishing how fit for purpose your
systems are. For example, can you say you have:
•
A reliable accounting system?
•
A well thought out accounting structure?
•
Realistic budgets?
•
Timely monitoring against budgets?
•
Prompt investigation of variances from budget?
•
Regular re-forecasting?
Are you receiving adequate reports on the business critical areas of:
•
Housing management and maintenance?
•
New development?
•
Community regeneration and community development?
•
Supporting people and other business streams?
•
Customer involvement and satisfaction?
•
Treasury management?
•
Use of resources (including commodity procurement)?33
A common way of developing performance indicators is based around ’the three Es’ – economy,
efficiency and effectiveness. The foundations are:
•
Cost – the money spent to acquire the resources
•
Input – the resources used (staff, material and premises) to provide a service
•
Output – the service provided, e.g. in terms of tasks completed
•
Outcome – the actual impact and values of the service as delivered.
The service must also be appropriate to all potential users, so a further check to be included can
be E for Equity.
33
www.cih.org/policy/EfficiencyGuidance.pdf
31
Once the results of the measurement are available, it is always recommended that staff are
involved in the analysis of the data and what is really behind it.
Clydesdale Housing Association in South Lanarkshire is an organisation which has used data to
drive through its performance improvements. Joe Gorman, Chief Executive, explained:
“We designed a straightforward performance management framework based on top level Key
Performance Indicators (KPI), the use of more front line statistics and of course regular review and
evaluation discussions with staff and Committee about how we are performing. We had a look at
peer group KPI statistics and used this, and discussions with the relevant staff, to set ambitious
performance targets for the period ahead.
This all worked – performance in repairs and housing management are among the best not only in
our peer group but nationally. We are now in the very early stages of reviewing our performance
management framework again – staff have been asked to consider the good and bad aspects
about the current system (resources required to collect data, time taken to discuss/review
performance, are we measuring the things that matter, etc).”
Clydesdale Housing Association is a relatively small association that operates across rural South
Lanarkshire. They have been able to use such data to not only deliver better performance but
challenge for best in class.
However, others are less keen on this approach. Glasgow Housing Association has expressed
caution regarding the use of KPIs. Their concern is that they can drive behaviours which are not
customer-focussed as opposed to their systems thinking which is “finding out what matters to
customers and translating their findings into operational activity.34”. This can be difficult for many
managers to understand because it is considered counter intuitive. However, many staff in small
organisations consider it easy because their proximity to the customer and the decision makers is
so close.
A neighbouring organisation to Clydesdale, namely Clyde Valley Housing Association, which
operates across the whole of Lanarkshire, took the opportunity presented when moving to purpose
built offices to review their systems and embed a new culture. More detail of Clyde Valley’s case
study is in Appendix 2(B). Their change in systems was primarily to go ’paperless’ when they were
moving to new offices. However, they also managed to develop new, more effective ways of
working, real cost savings, and reduced use of paper and energy. Nareen Owens at Clyde Valley
said:
“Ensure that you have a dedicated team representing the whole organisation to help lead for each
function. Have a staged introduction to allow buy-in from staff, as well as to assist with learning.”
In terms of financial benefits, the changes made by Clyde Valley through their new system
approach can be seen in Table 4 on the following page.
34
From Vanguard’s website http://www.systemsthinking.co.uk/home.asp
32
Table 4
Description
Cost per Annum (£)
Space
£11,180
Lost Documents
£2,451
Staff Filing Costs
£9,460
Cost of Processing Purchase Invoices
£27,270
Printing and Copying Costs
£20,600
Savings
£70,961
Clyde Valley also recovered enough office space to house seven workstations in addition to
reclaiming 80 hours per month of officers’ time. This equated to 958 hours per annum that the
housing team could spend on other tasks.
A similar task was carried out by Edinburgh Building Services when they moved their building
workers to using hand-held Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). Significant planning was required
and the close involvement of their partner, BT. In what was a very complicated change, they
managed to deliver greater than expected savings and a real improvement in services. You can
read their case study in Appendix 2(C).
Similarly, Scottish Borders Housing Association (Appendix 2(O)) changed to a hand-held system
without the same level of resources, but with similar efficiency and service gains35.
One example of changing systems to improve performance is the setting up of a customer service
centre. Link Group, Glasgow Housing Association and Dumfries and Galloway Housing
Partnership have all successfully done this in the last few years.
Perth & Kinross Council’s case study (Appendix 2(M)) is one example of investigating the data and
trying to find a solution to an apparently intractable problem. They have a chronic shortage of
affordable housing in all parts of their district. Their Housing Needs Demand Assessment in 2009
demonstrated a net shortage of approximately 500 units of affordable housing each year for the
next ten years, plus a shortage of approximately 200 units of temporary accommodation. In
addition, there was an increasing mismatch between the stock available for letting and the
requirements of those most in housing need.
They now have in place a multi-tier strategy which is working with private sector and housing
associations and involves the council setting up a new letting agency. It is a good example of
balancing the opportunities provided by innovation against the likely risk to deliver improved
services for homeless families
35
Clyde Valley, Edinburgh Building Services, Scottish Borders Housing Association and West of Scotland
are all in Appendix 2 case studies
33
13. Partnerships and collaborative working
There is a great deal of scepticism regarding partnership working which can mean, in practice,
anything from running training courses together to merging all back office functions across a group
of local authorities.
The Scottish Centre for Regeneration’s own Learning Point 29 on Collaborative Gain36 offered a
different way to assess the usefulness of joint working. There are many examples available due to
the emphasis that Government has given to it over the last 10 to 15 years. It is therefore worth
identifying why it has worked where it has and look to these examples for how we can work better
with colleagues in similar or neighbouring organisations.
This particular report has already highlighted the efficiency exercise by four Glasgow-based
housing associations, and the joint tendering for landscape works in Tayside. The case studies in
Appendix 2 also evidence the work of the Renfrewshire Group of housing associations also known
as FLAIR. But there are also smaller scale examples such as Bridges Housing (a consultancy),
which combines two organisations in one staff team and more recently R3, a new maintenance
company in East Lothian, working with two other adjacent Registered Social Landlords (RSLs).
South East Glasgow group of housing associations also came together to investigate the potential
for joint working. The case study in Appendix 2(P) looks at their employability project which has
delivered real results and demonstrated that utilising housing offices was more effective for
engaging with people than high street shops.
But partnerships and collaborative working is not just about housing associations. The
Improvement Service37 considers there to be great potential for councils to share services:
“’Shared services’ is considered to be a key enabler of public service reform, helping organisations
to gain economies of scale and skills. However, shared services can mean different things to
different people. It is more than just centralisation or consolidation of similar activities into one
location, and it is not just about back office functions.”
CIPFA38 suggest and provide examples of help and support needed across the whole lifecycle of a
collaborative project, which includes advice, information and tools to help. Their “Sharing the Gain”
project has provided many resources which can be accessed online and cover everything from
leadership to self-assessment materials.
There are three main ways that housing associations can work in partnership with each other.
These are alliances, mergers and group structures. The aim of working in partnership is usually to
reduce costs, to improve services, or to do things together that each housing association would be
unable to do by itself.
36
http://www.communitiesscotland.gov.uk/stellent/groups/public/documents/webpages/cs_006298.hcsp
37
http://www.improvementservice.org.uk/component/option,com_is_blank/Itemid,1107/
38
CIPFA provide many relevant publications. There are resources at
http://www.cipfa.org.uk/sharingthegain/resources.cfm
34
Partnerships can help achieve better services, lower costs etc, but this will only happen if the
’partners’ involved are:
•
Honest and realistic about their strengths and weaknesses
•
Explicit about the benefits they aim to achieve and about how they will measure these (for
example, in relation to efficiency gains and/or improved services for tenants)
•
Methodical in testing what a partnership will deliver (for example, based on their aims for
the future, their business plans, the impact any changes will have on tenants and clear
measurement of efficiency gains).
At the outset, there are some big questions that housing associations should think about in
deciding whether to explore partnerships in earnest:
•
Could partnerships help to achieve more for tenants and their community?
•
Can we fully meet our own aims and tenants’ expectations in future, with the resources we
have? What might prevent us doing this?
•
What does our business plan say about our future viability and efficiency as a completely
independent housing association?
•
Do we want to be a mainly landlord organisation in the future? Or do we also want to have
a major role in wider issues like community regeneration and development?
•
Would we be prepared to give up some of our independence, if we were satisfied that this
would achieve better results for tenants and our community?
•
Are we willing to look at the case for partnerships in detail?
•
How will we do this? And within what sort of timescale?
However, for most, the example of the collaborative working of FLAIR described in some detail in
Appendix 2(E) is very common, with other examples in the Highlands, Lanarkshire, Forth Valley
and Inverclyde.
The case study in Appendix 2(F) shows how five housing associations and co-operatives and the
Citizens Advice Bureau have worked together on one specific initiative in North Lanarkshire led by
Forgewood Housing Co-operative in Motherwell. The Tenant Led Inspection project in Edinburgh
was also as a result of collaboration; between the council and a housing association, Dunedin
Canmore.
Perth & Kinross Council have developed innovative ways to resolve their lack of affordable housing
and as a result have developed a collaborative first in Scotland. In April 2010, they agreed a new
‘Scheme of Allocation’ which is the policy framework by which they let their houses. Perthshire
Housing Association and Hillcrest Housing Association have also adopted that scheme. In effect,
this means that Perth & Kinross Council is the first local authority in Scotland to have secured
100% allocation rights to the majority of social housing in the district.
It is striking, looking at the examples in the case studies, how the opportunity to investigate joint
working throws up other opportunities and benefits that were never envisaged at the outset.
35
This isn’t by chance however, as it is not easy to achieve these collaborative gains. An English
organisation that, as its mission, sets out to create partnerships is bassac39. Their mission is to
harness the power of working collectively. Through forming and leading partnerships, they allow
their members to release the power of community voices to achieve social justice in their
neighbourhoods. From this work they have identified success factors for collaborative working
which include:
•
Clearly defined and shared aims
•
Clear leadership to drive and ensure participation
•
Mutual trust and understanding (absolutely critical)
•
Often being supported by a formal agreement defining roles, responsibilities and decision
making, with ownership at the highest level (boards and committees not just Senior
Officers)
•
Good communications
•
Sufficient time and resources (no arbitrary deadlines).
Lessons from elsewhere in the UK
The experiences in Wales and, more recently, Northern Ireland40 of consortia of housing
associations may offer some fresh perspectives on partnership working. In both cases there was
an element of government direction.
The Welsh experience started in 2004 and was reviewed in 2007 by HouseMark Cymru and
Community Housing Cymru41 . It suggests a number of ways that such consortia could achieve
their full potential. Scottish organisations could learn from their experiences and also their
conclusions; that sharing information and knowledge on what works and achieves benefit and what
does not is hugely valuable. They also suggested that each of the consortia should consider:
•
Adopting systems that ensure consortia members maximise the use of collective
procurement agreements and deals
•
The appointment of a dedicated resource to manage their collaborative procurement
process on an ongoing basis
•
Separating the procurement of labour and materials in order to maximise value for money
in procurement terms
•
Standardisation of specifications, in respect of building materials and other supplies.
The need for appropriate training and skills transfer is also highlighted. None of these findings are
a surprise but where is this happening in Scotland just now?
The Northern Irish experience is much more recent but would be worth keeping an eye on too.
The case study in Appendix 2(J) on the London City East Partnership shows how three private
sector companies came together to win a PFI project and worked closely with local residents.
39
bassac began life in 1920, and later changed to the British Association of Settlements and Social Action
Centres (bassac) in 1978. It is now known simply as bassac. They have tools and templates developed for
the third sector in England on their website www.bassac.org.uk/collaborative
40
There are four consortia of housing associations in Northern Ireland. An example is Abacus
http://www.abacus-housing.org.uk/
41
http://www.chcymru.org.uk/news/6714.html
36
14. Using technology to deliver services efficiently
Using technology to deliver services efficiently will be the subject of a future report. However,
elsewhere in this report we have already referred to the following:
•
Trust Housing Association setting up a new performance management framework
•
Edinburgh Building Services and Scottish Borders Housing Association delivering popular
and more efficient repairs and maintenance services
•
A new Customer Services Team centrally located in Glasgow by West of Scotland Housing
Association
•
A move to a new office in Motherwell by Clyde Valley Housing Association which involved
some culture change to deliver efficiencies.
In every case, the change was either facilitated by a hardware or software choice or it helped and
supported the changes they sought to introduce. The Edinburgh case study explains, in detail, the
level of planning and buy-in that they had for the whole process. It also demonstrated that after all
the effort, the planned gains were not just delivered but exceeded.
They also very usefully recorded what they learned throughout the project. A ‘Lessons Learned
Log’ was compiled and a number of improvements to the future approach to similar projects were
recommended. These included:
•
Communication – the timing of information distribution and ensuring all stakeholders are
fully informed is very important
•
Devices - comprehensive research of product and reliability is required before selection
•
Project management – it is important to meet the different drivers within the project team
and have a clearer team understanding of slippage and dependencies
•
People - heavy demands were placed on key individuals at critical stages and adequate
resource planning is essential when the project is being considered. Careful team selection
and their commitment are essential to ensure a successful outcome
•
Service transition and user acceptance are also issues that require detailed planning and
resources.
The IT report that will explore this whole topic will look closely at the success factors for those
introducing new IT. Equally importantly, it will consider the common mistakes and pitfalls, not just
in housing management but in the process of introducing or changing hardware or software in IT.
37
15. Conclusion
So what happens now?
The first task is to make someone responsible for efficiency, determine what your strategy will be
and then start to gather bright ideas from everyone. Consider using a self-help toolkit and/or
external support.
What about working with neighbouring organisations to see if they are doing the same? They might
be interested in joining in and some form of collaboration could follow. This could range from one
extreme (e.g. occasional informal benchmarking) through to the other (e.g. shared services). There
are plenty of local forums or existing benchmarking groups which could offer such opportunities.
Efficiency has become more important because there will be much less public money than in
previous years. However, social housing is about using every pound to provide a service to local
people, communities or service users. We all know that we have the potential to improve services
for current and future residents, communities or service users, but we need to know where to start.
Jim Harvey, Director of Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations in a
presentation to the EVH Seminar “Cutting Costs, not Corners”, summarised all the various
processes and opportunities in Figure 5 below:
Figure 5
If we are serious, not just about efficiency but delivering quality and relevant services, we need to
know:
38
•
Which services create the most value and have we asked all our people their opinion
(customers, staff, councillors/board and the communities we work in)?
•
Which systems and working methods help or hinder and have we really enthused and
motivated everyone to not just identify improvements but deliver them?
•
Finally, where are the opportunities? And will that involve working with others or looking at
new ways of working?
This report intends to provide some ideas and information that will make answering these
questions easier.
To kick-start the process, the following questions are provided for your organisation to consider:
1. Do we have a strategy to make us more efficient?
2. Who is responsible for efficiency in our organisation?
3. Do we make use of existing national or sector wide deals such as Procurement Scotland?
4. Have we looked at working more closely with our neighbours to make some savings?
5. Do we regularly take the opportunity to ask all of our people what ideas they have to save
money, do things better and easier? Do you want to set a target and ask for ideas on how
to do it?
6. What will we do now that will make a difference for our customers, our business and our
future in the next year and those to come?
7. Do we have the right culture?
8. Do we engage with all our people and our customers?
9. Do we set out to be a high performance organisation?
10. If not, can we explain why we are not?
39
Appendix 1. Useful links
Scotland:
http://www.cih.org/your_location/scot/index.php
http://www.evh.org.uk
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/BuiltEnvironment/regeneration/pir/learningnetworks/HousingManagement
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Built-Environment/Housing
http://www.scottishhousingregulator.gov.uk/stellent/groups/public/documents/webpages/shr_home
page.hcsp
Rest of UK:
http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk
http://www.beacons.idea.gov.uk/beacons_redirect/holding-page.html
http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/welcome.do
http://www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/
http://www.ogc.gov.uk
http://www.housingcorp.gov.uk
http://www.rcoe.gov.uk
External support:
http://www.turnerandtownsend.com/FullStoryWithTouts.aspx?m=168
http://www.ncahousing.org.uk
http://smallcreativeideas.blogspot.com/
http://www.housemark.co.uk/hm.nsf/Home?ReadForm
Self-help toolkits:
http://www.nao.org.uk/nao/efficiency/toolkit/modules/achievement/index.htm
http://www.housingcorp.gov.uk/upload/doc/Efficiency_Toolkit.doc
Existing framework suppliers:
http://www.scotland-excel.org.uk/about/about.asp
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/Procurement/npcoe
http://www.procurementforhousing.co.uk/home
http://www.buyingsolutions.gov.uk/index.html?slis_checked=1
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/Procurement/npcoe
40
Appendix 2. Case Studies
A) Aberdeenshire Council
Continuous Improvement Framework and EFQM
B) Clyde Valley Housing Association
Electronic files and culture change
C) Edinburgh Building Services
Introduction of PDAs
D) Edinburgh Council
Tenant Led Inspection
E) FLAIR
Partnership working, benchmarking and joint procurement
F) Forgewood Housing Co-operative
Partnership working and use of data
G) Glasgow Housing Association (GHA)
Application of Vanguard systems thinking
H) Hillcrest Housing Association
Joint procurement
I)
Knowes Housing Association
Customer Service Excellence Award
J) London City East Partnership
Resident involvement and service improvement
K) Loreburn Housing Association
Employee engagement and accreditation
L) North Ayrshire Council
Performance Management Framework
M) Perth & Kinross Council
Innovation and joint working
N) River Clyde Homes
Using national procurement framework Scotland Excel
O) Scottish Borders Housing Association
Introducing mobile working/work scheduling software
P) SE Glasgow area group of housing associations
Joint working on employability project
Q) Trust Housing Association
Effective performance management initiative
R) West of Scotland Housing Association
Creating a new Customer Services Team
41
Appendix 2(A)
Case Study:
Continuous Improvement Framework and EFQM
Organisation:
Aberdeenshire Council
Aberdeenshire Council is a predominately rural area in the North East of Scotland.
Traditionally, it has been economically dependent on fishing, farming and forestry. The
emergence of the oil and gas industry over the last 35 years has broadened Aberdeenshire’s
economic base, leading to rapid population growth. The Aberdeenshire Council area surrounds
the Aberdeen City Council area and although they can work together, they are two separate
local authorities.
Unemployment in Aberdeenshire is currently 1%
Population 236,260; Area 62,892m; six area offices; 180 Schools; five Service Directors;
12,942 Council Houses; Aberdeenshire Council employs 14,000 people
Details
The Continuous Improvement Framework was developed from the outcomes of four working
groups (Performance Improvement Framework, Leadership and Communication, Involvement
of Service Users and Quality Assurance) set up to address areas for improvement from the
2007 Housing and Social Work EFQM Event. They needed to address these areas for
improvement from their self-assessment to be able to attain their vision and stop erosion of
current standards through lack of continuous improvement activity.
The Continuous Improvement Framework sets out to support all staff in continuous
improvement and is illustrated by an interactive portal to information designed around the ‘Plan
Do Check Act’ thinking that makes sense of the complexity of Housing and Social Work in the
context of continually striving to improve services. It provides a route map to information,
examples of good practice and is a framework to guide any improvement work.
All staff engage in the concept of continuous improvement through applying the ‘Plan Do
Check Act’ methodology to their processes for service delivery whether internal or external. A
form is used as a prompt through the four stages:
•
•
•
•
PLAN - before embarking on any activity we need to know our objectives. This section
shows the high level direction and goals set out at both a corporate and service level.
The objectives of what you are planning should be in line with these
DO - having set the objectives we need to achieve them. This section shows the
structure and standards that support the implementation of plan
CHECK - progress has to be monitored and evaluated to determine if the plan is taking
us where we want to go or if corrective action needs to be taken
ACT - assess what has been achieved, what has worked well and to identify, scope for
and act on further improvement.
Results
The Continuous Improvement Framework does not stand alone. It is one of a series of
improvement tools this organisation developed in its quest for embedding a culture of
continuous improvement. The unplanned benefits of the Framework are the visibility of gaps
and areas for improvement within the service and its usability as an evidence reference tool for
EFQM self-assessment.
42
Following its recent launch to all staff, the Continuous Improvement Framework has been
received well, with staff experiencing far fewer frustrations and using less time trying to track
down information.
The tangible success of the Framework will be evaluated by staff questionnaire within the first
year of implementation and will look at:
•
Use of the Continuous Improvement Framework by staff
•
Positive feedback that it has helped to inform planning
•
Feedback that it has reduced the time taken to locate information
•
Increased understanding of continuous improvement through guidance and training.
Lessons learned
Continuous improvement is a mindset and requires a culture change which cannot be achieved
by one method or one person. Leadership, commitment and support are essential. From the
outset of their pursuit of continuous improvement, the emphasis for Aberdeenshire Council was
on people engagement and empowerment to encourage employees to make decisions within
the scope of the organisation’s vision.
43
Appendix 2(B)
Case Study:
Paper-based to electronic files and culture change
Organisation:
Clyde Valley Housing Association
Clyde Valley Housing Association (CVHA) is a Registered Scottish Charity and Registered
Social Landlord. They have over 2,700 homes in Lanarkshire, and also provide a factoring
service for around 2,900 owner-occupiers. They currently have 61 members of staff, recently
achieved 1 Star Status with the Best Companies Accreditation Scheme and also won
Lanarkshire Employer of the Year at the Lanarkshire Business Awards in 2009.
In April 2009, CVHA moved into new purpose built headquarters. The move was not only about
changing the office but also changing the way CVHA worked. In order to bring about significant
changes in the culture of CVHA, it was vital to underpin their desire to work smarter by
introducing technology solutions to allow people to work differently and improve services for the
customers.
Details
In preparation for their move, they introduced Documotive’s ‘Document Solution’. Traditionally,
CVHA generated and stored a huge amount of paper. Moving from using paper-based to
electronic files has brought significant benefits.
This project involved a number of challenges that had to be met to ensure its success. This
required a great deal of planning, with the support of the entire workforce, including:
•
Sourcing and researching the best solution for their needs and demands
•
Getting buy-in and a sense of ownership for all staff members
•
Ensuring existing service levels were maintained and ultimately improved
•
Providing appropriate training for all staff members
•
Developing systems that complied with governing body regulations
•
Managing communications, expectations and activities of their internal and external
customers
•
Integration with existing systems
•
Getting people to let go of their ‘comfort blanket’ paper files.
The project plan involved:
44
•
Establishing a project team
•
Managers being given a presentation of Electronic Document Management System
(EDMS), including demonstration with supplier Documotive
•
Development of a project plan outlining key phases, activities, dates and responsibilities
•
Design of departmental databases, including files access, security, user roles and file
structure
•
Agreeing indexing criteria, system functionality and responsibilities
•
Replacing PC with Wyse thin clients and Citrix XenApp
•
Review of performance and project progression.
The system was phased in to ensure a smooth transition to new working practices:
•
EDMS was installed and the departmental databases imported
•
Offsite scanning carried out successfully
•
Training was carried out in house
•
Scanned documentation was uploaded into the Documotive system
•
Testing by a selected working group to ensure that the system was functioning as
required
•
Smooth integration of new system with move to new office in April 2009.
Results
Approximately one million legacy documents were scanned and uploaded into the system and
their staff now capture inbound documents and update the system in a fraction of the time it
took to manage the paper. They are producing less paper as inbound/outbound electronic
documents can be captured automatically, removing the need to print copies. Not only have
they freed up space that would traditionally be used to store cabinets, they have also created a
much more pleasant working environment that is uncluttered by mountains of paper.
This culture change has also delivered other results:
42
•
Space - the introduction of the EDMS allows all documents to be stored electronically
removing the need for cabinets, archiving and off-site storage. Users access
information directly from their workstation, increasing efficiency by removing the need
for users to access files from cabinets or other sources
•
Printing/Copying - each paper-based document is captured and linked to a file and/or
process so that it is available to multiple users, thus removing the need for paper
copies. Documents can be easily emailed and transferred, further reducing printing
•
Departmental printers have also been removed and replaced with one multi-functional
device per floor. This encourages staff to question whether a document should be
printed, scanned or emailed
•
Environmental impact - the move to Wyse thin clients42 has reduced the amount of
power being consumed by each PC by approx 94%
•
Customer service - the Documotive solution has full integration with their existing
systems, resulting in improved customer service by providing a one-stop shop for
tenants, as information is available from a centralised system
•
Remote access and security - as documentation is now stored electronically, officers
who traditionally printed off documents prior to visiting tenants can now access the
Housing Management system and EDMS over secure, encrypted internet access.
http://www.wyse.com/products/hardware/thinclients/index.asp
45
In terms of the financial benefits of the change, these were:
Description
Cost per Annum (£)
Space
£11,180
Lost Documents
£2,451
Staff Filing Costs
£9,460
Cost of Processing Purchase Invoices
£27,270
Printing and Copying Costs
£20,600
Savings
£70,961
CVHA could recover enough office space to house seven workstations in addition to reclaiming
a massive 80 hours per month of officers’ time. This equates to 958 hours per annum that the
housing team could be spending on other tasks.
Lessons learned
“Ensure that you have a dedicated team representing the whole organisation to help lead for
each function. Have a staged introduction to allow buy-in from staff, as well as to assist with
learning. Ensure that you also have robust electronic systems and security to cope with and
maintain switchover.”
Nareen Owens
46
Appendix 2(C)
Case Study:
A mobile repair system allowing operatives to use hand-held
personal digital assistants (PDAs)
Organisation:
Edinburgh Building Services (EBS)
Edinburgh Building Services (EBS) is the in-house repairs and maintenance service within the
Services for Communities Department of the City of Edinburgh Council (CEC). EBS maintains
approximately 21,000 housing properties on behalf of CEC, carries out around 100,000
responsive repairs per year and employs 210 tradespeople. EBS operates from its depot on
the west side of the city at Murrayburn Road.
Details
In 2006 EBS introduced Opti-Time software which is designed to dynamically schedule repair
jobs. The Opti-Time system automatically matched customer demand (appointments) to
operative skills set, location and availability in order to ensure efficient deployment of resources
and successful service delivery to customers. However, the full dynamic potential of the system
could not be exploited as the service still relied on paper processes.
As a result:
•
The operatives had to travel to the Murrayburn depot once/twice per day for paperwork
resulting in non-productive travel time
•
The scheduling system could not react or re-plan work based on daily variations such
as increase in emergency demand, cancellation, operative absence etc. This could
result in either non-productive downtime or the need for subcontractors
•
Paperwork has to be manually processed
•
The job scheduling system had to build in 1.5 days lead time for appointments to
facilitate paper processes.
The solution was to introduce a mobile system allowing operatives to use PDAs (Personal
Digital Assistants) to facilitate real-time allocation and updating of repairs appointments/job
information. Initial research indicated that the Council would derive maximum benefit from
implementing an enterprise mobile solution that could be scaled up to meet the requirements of
other departments, rather than a bespoke local solution.
A cross-section of staff from the Council who work with their ICT Partners, British Telecom
(BT), prepared a requirement document and began the process of identifying and selecting
suppliers. Ultimately, they selected the iClient application, part of the Motile architecture from
Kirona, a specialist provider of intelligent mobile solutions.
Importantly, the project team ensured that they engaged with other relevant stakeholders in the
Council including Trade Unions, the Contact Centre, Edinburgh Tenants Federation (ETF) and
relevant teams in the Housing Management Division. The team used various communication
channels to ensure all stakeholders were kept up to date, including team and management
meetings, presentations, emails and in-house publications.
Given the dramatic change involved in moving from paper to IT systems, it was essential that
training requirements were properly scoped and addressed. This was especially important as
the majority of operatives were not particularly IT literate. The team ensured that a combination
47
of classroom training, on the job coaching, quick look guides and office-based support was
available to the operatives.
The success of the project is due in no small part to the successful partnership working and
commitment of all the staff involved. Equally, the project was considered a high priority not only
within the department but also in the wider Council. As a result, the project had the full backing
and support of the senior management team.
Results
Overall improvements
The system has brought benefits for staff, managers and customers. Primarily, it has resulted
in a reduction in overheads, increased productivity, increased efficiency, improved staff morale
and ultimately improved customer service delivery.
The introduction of the mobile repairs system allows the planners to use the Opti-Time system
to react to the various situations that arise throughout the day (e.g. if a job takes less or more
time than planned or the customer is not home). As a result, the system is constantly
reassessing the appropriateness of the appointment (job) allocation based on real-time
information it is receiving from the operatives’ PDAs. Ultimately, this results in the systems
constantly ensuring that the most cost-effective and efficient resource is assigned to the job
whilst ensuring that the service target is met.
Measurable successes
The project has been live for over seven months, including a three-month pilot phase. Already,
there have been significant benefits, both financial and non-financial.
Financial
•
The Business Case identified a potential saving of four administrative staff and a 5%
saving on subcontractor costs.
•
In reality, the project has achieved a saving of five administrative staff and a 25%
saving on subcontractor costs, as of March 2010 (five months since go live in
November 2009). This is a cashable saving exceeding £250,000.
Service
•
Overall customer satisfaction – 91% (based on customer survey)
•
Initial repair appointment within five days – 94%
•
AM and PM appointments on time – 97%
•
Emergency on time (complete within four hours) – 92%
•
Urgent repairs on time (complete within one day) – 96%
The above figures form part of the organisation’s Key Performance Indicators, known as the
‘Tenants First Targets’ and are regularly published at their Neighbourhood Offices as well as
discussed internally and with groups such as the ETF.
Summary
48
The City of Edinburgh Council believes this project has demonstrated not only significant
service improvement, including improved customer experience, increased productivity and
reduced operating costs, but also represents a significant cultural change within the
organisation.
The project has empowered front line staff to make better use of their time and skills to ensure
excellent customer service and efficient service delivery. Equally, it has provided managers
with accurate management information resulting in improved work-force planning, performance
and a focus on continuous service improvement.
Primarily, the project has exceeded their expectations both in terms of its financial and nonfinancial benefits. It has resulted in benefits from an organisational, employee and most
importantly customer perspective.
Lessons learned
This complex project was not without its challenges and obstacles to successful
implementation. A ‘Lessons Learned Log’ was compiled over the duration of the project and a
number of improvements to the future approach to similar projects were recommended. These
included:
•
Communication - timing of information distribution and ensuring all stakeholders are
fully informed
•
Devices - comprehensive research of product and reliability before selection
•
Project management - meeting the different drivers within the project team and a
clearer team understanding of slippage and dependencies
•
People - heavy demands were placed on key individuals at critical stages and adequate
resource planning is essential when the project is being considered. Careful team
selection and their commitment are essential to ensure a successful outcome
•
Service transition and user acceptance are also issues that require detailed planning
and resources.
49
Appendix 2(D)
Case Study:
Tenant Led Inspection (TLI) of repairs reporting
Organisation:
City of Edinburgh Council (CEC)
At November 2009, the City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) owned 20,139 houses. Based on the
Scottish Household Survey (2008), only 16% of properties in Edinburgh are local authority or
other social landlord rented stock, compared to the national figure of 25%. Demand for social
housing is very high. Based on the House Condition Survey (2006), housing in Edinburgh
consists mainly of traditional tenemental flatted dwellings (66%). The remainder of stock
consists of a mix of multi-storey, low rise, terraced, semi and detached homes built to
accommodate the city’s population growth. Also, many of the later housing estates were built in
the mid-20th century to replace unsuitable housing in the Old Town.
Details
The first pilot inspection of CEC housing services was carried out by Edinburgh Tenants
Federation (ETF). This was carried out to inspect the range of ways of reporting repairs, to
determine and compare the effectiveness of each, to make recommendations where
improvements are required and to identify tenants’ preferred methods of repairs reporting.
A proposal for a Tenant Led Inspection (TLI) on repairs reporting, in parallel with Dunedin
Canmore Housing Association (DCHA), was agreed in November 2007. Both landlords shared
in the development and agreement of a framework and set of ground rules, which guided the
inspections. The final preparations for the pilot tenant led inspections were completed in May
2008 with the fieldwork being carried out during June 2008. A range of methods were used to
assess the repair reporting processes of CEC and Dunedin Canmore Housing Association,
including observation, mystery shopping, interviews and telephone surveys.
ETF developed a detailed training programme for tenants who volunteered to become tenant
inspectors and both landlords contributed to the sessions. All the inspectors signed a code of
conduct, including respecting confidentiality, before the inspections commenced. Costs were
minimal with the tenant inspectors seeking out of pocket expenses only.
Results
In terms of the Council inspection, ETF submitted a draft inspection report at the beginning of
September 2008, which the Council then commented on before a final report was circulated at
the end of that month. The tenant inspectors made 20 recommendations that the Council
considered and responded to with an Action Plan. Since the inspection, six-monthly and then
annual review meetings have taken place with ETF to monitor and evaluate progress. The
Council made several improvements as a result of the inspection, particularly to local office
reporting arrangements. Staff and tenants developed a better understanding of each other’s
concerns; in particular, the tenant inspectors grasped the complexities of delivering effective
repairs reporting across a large organisation, while the Council received confirmation of what
was working well and recommendations for further improvements.
Lessons learned
According to Edinburgh City Council, anyone entering into a similar process should have:
50
•
Commitment to openness
•
Shared understanding of approach (the agreed framework and guidelines were
indispensable)
•
Code of Conduct; important for tenant inspectors to ensure understanding of data
protection and issues around confidentiality
•
Outputs that feed into related customer research initiatives; TLIs provide information
from a customer perspective
•
Considerable voluntary effort involved in the tenant inspectors and intensive support
provided to them from the tenant federation staff
•
Members of staff designated in the landlord to co-ordinate inspection from the landlord’s
end
•
Initial detailed work carried out to progress the pilot since it makes later inspections
much easier to carry out.
51
Appendix 2(E)
Case Study:
Partnership working, benchmarking, collaboration and joint
procurement
Organisation:
FLAIR
FLAIR is a federation of local housing associations in Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire and
is a formally constituted group with membership across six locally based, locally controlled
housing associations which have worked together for approximately 12 years. FLAIR
represents around 10,000 tenants and residents within the two local authority areas. The stock
base ranges from traditional tenement rehabilitation, through to delivery of new build
programmes, and successful stock transfers. It includes general needs housing, special
supported projects, sheltered and very sheltered housing, wheelchair and amenity housing,
etc.
FLAIR partners are Barrhead, Bridgewater, Ferguslie Park, Linstone, Paisley South and
Williamsburgh Housing Associations
Details
FLAIR is committed to partnership working and this has led to:
•
Sharing of good practice
•
Regular benchmarking of performance
•
Offers of assistance, from policy advice through to sharing services (for example
development agency services, housing support services)
•
Promotion of local training for staff and committee members
•
Sharing workload through wider role activity with individual associations taking a
leading role and also sharing wider role posts, for example welfare rights, supported
employment and tenancy sustainment
•
Economic benefits through joint procurement for maintenance services including gas
servicing, painting work and landscaping
•
Joint procurement for other services, for example resident satisfaction surveys.
Results
They have delivered a wide range of projects for community benefit, a successful and ongoing
training programme and their first annual report in 2009, whilst in June 2010 they held their first
FLAIR conference. They can also demonstrate savings on planned maintenance and cyclical
programmes.
Lessons learned
There is an ongoing commitment across FLAIR. In the difficult economic times ahead, the
grouping will continue to benefit tenants and residents with joint work and sharing of expertise
at staff and committee levels.
52
Appendix 2(F)
Case Study:
Working partnership between RSLs and other partners using
data
Organisation: Forgewood Housing Co-operative (FHC)
Forgewood Housing Co-operative (FHC) is a community-based RSL operating solely in the
New Forgewood area of Motherwell and was set up in 1994 following a stock transfer from
Motherwell District Council. It has completed rehabilitation programmes to flats as well as
building 76 new build homes for rent and shared ownership. The Co-op has six staff members
and shares staffing services with Garrion People’s Housing Co-op, based in Gowkthrapple,
Wishaw.
Details
The fuel user empowerment project came about through a partnership between Motherwell &
Wishaw Citizens Advice Bureau, Abronhill Housing Association, Cairn Housing Association,
Cumbernauld Housing Partnership, Forgewood Housing Co-operative, Garrion People’s
Housing Co-operative and Wishaw and District Housing Association, supported by funding
from the Lintel Trust, the Abbey Trust, Scottish and Southern Energy and Citizens Advice
Scotland.
The fuel user empowerment project was launched after a joint fuel poverty survey was carried
out by the Co-op, the four other partner RSLs in the North Lanarkshire area and Citizens
Advice Bureau (CAB) in winter 2008. It identified the need for a proactive comprehensive
advice service for residents. The project was launched in April 2009.
Results
Client financial gains were excellent across all RSLs, mainly due to the extensive uptake and
commitment from all involved in the referral process. CAB advisors visited clients at
homes/RSL offices or any suitable base. Minimum waiting times for appointments delivered a
very unique and successful project. The partners applied unsuccessfully for Big Lottery grant
but subsequently all agreed to continue the project in principle. As a result, wider role funding
has been granted, guaranteeing two full time CAB advisors and one assistant for 15 months to
the end of March 2011. As well as delivering high client financial gains, rent arrears levels have
been reduced for the Co-op.
Lessons learned
Forgewood has found that there is the need:
•
To engage with partners
•
For good communication and relationships with partners and key advisory services i.e.
CAB
•
For demonstrable commitment towards the goal
•
To identify various avenues of funding. This project was part self-funded, part CAB, and
part Lintel and Abbey Trust, but primarily used wider role funding
•
For good knowledge and training to be provided to staff during the project.
53
Forgewood has learned that the service, although unique, is becoming an essential element of
provision with RSLs and residents relying on it for the future. They are now looking at ways of
continuing it after March 2011 and are committed to taking the service forward.
“It also shows that the project is an excellent example of what community-based organisations
can do when they work together for the benefits of their communities.” John Mulholland,
Forgewood
54
Appendix 2(G)
Case Study:
Working in partnership with Vanguard and using systems
thinking methodology to review customer experience of GHA
Organisation:
Glasgow Housing Association (GHA)
GHA was formed in 2003 and manages 58,000 homes in neighbourhoods across Glasgow,
including over 20,000 units of multi-storey stock. They manage through a network of 50 Local
Housing Organisations, overseen by over 500 resident volunteers on local committees and
delivered by 2,000 staff. Since transfer in 2003, there has been over £1 billion of investment in
housing stock, including 36,000 new kitchens and bathrooms and new central heating installed
in 45,000 properties. They are also working in partnership with Glasgow City Council on a
number of large-scale regeneration projects and are on target to have completed almost 150
new houses in 2010/11.
Details
The aim was to improve customers’ experience of services, improve efficiency by reducing
end-to-end times and improve business performance43. The new processes were rolled out
across all front line offices between late 2008 and May 2009, with all front line managers key to
embedding the new processes. Innovations included:
•
Moving away from managing through traditional KPIs and targets – which can drive
behaviours which are not customer focussed – to new end-to-end measures and
continuous improvement
•
Introducing regular performance meetings in every local office in a similar format –
using Visual Measure Boards – that encourage staff to innovate and use local
experiments to improve performance
•
Regularly analysing customer demand, using this to identify process improvements that
improve the customer experience i.e. what are the questions customers most often ask
and could they put something into the process that addresses this rather than wait until
they make contact.
Results
The new approach has helped to transform performance. Both GHA’s business performance
and customer satisfaction levels are the highest they have ever been.
•
Sitting tenant arrears has reduced from £10.4 million in 2007 to £6.8 million by June
2009 (a total reduction of £3.6 million)
•
Average days to let have improved from 56 days in 2007 to 19 days by June 2009
(improving lost rents by £1.38 million cumulative for the year from 2007/8 results to
2009/10 results with 2010/11 results up to June £246,000 better than the same period
in the previous year)
43
For clarity, in every case Vanguard has found the end-to-end time to effect repairs to be a long time sometimes with average times as high as 100 days - and showing high amounts of variation. Measuring the
customers’ view of end-to-end repair time can be used to understand the work and, moreover, track
improvement. The measure tracks achievement of purpose from the customers’ point of view. It also tells
you the amount of variation in your system, inviting people to ask why - what accounts for variation?
55
•
Customer satisfaction in the 2009/10 survey was 80%, up from 73% in the 2006/07
survey
•
GHA was awarded organisation-wide Customer Service Excellence in 2009, Investors
in People in 2010 and Recognised for Excellence by Quality Scotland in 2010.
Lessons learned
Key learning for GHA is that:
56
•
Setting targets can drive the wrong behaviours. It is much better to focus on continuous
improvement and getting the best possible result from the system
•
Performance measures should be focused around the customer experience. If you
concentrate on these, then your traditional KPIs should improve faster
•
Involving staff and local managers is key to making a change process work, particularly
if the change leads to greater empowerment for staff on an ongoing basis
•
When doing process redesign, it’s vital that the process is looked at from end-to-end,
involving staff at every stage in the process. This is the best way to identify
inefficiencies and ways to improve.
Appendix 2(H)
Case Study:
Joint procurement initiative
Organisation:
Hillcrest Housing Association
Hillcrest Housing Association is one of Scotland’s oldest housing associations and was
founded in 1967. The Association is part of the Hillcrest Group of Companies. It has 5,583
properties (all tenures), plus commercial properties, shops and garages and a staffing
complement of 184. They operate in Dundee, Angus, Perthshire, Edinburgh and Fife.
Details
They have been involved in a joint landscape maintenance contract with neighbouring
organisations, Servite and Abertay, on a total of 302 sites. Hillcrest have 209 sites with
landscaping, Abertay have 29 and Servite have 64. The joint contract with Hillcrest and Servite
started in April 2010, and Abertay will join from 2011.
Hillcrest and Abertay have explored collaborative working in a number of areas. Local
knowledge had brought them together – from the sort of informal contacts that develop
between RSLs located in the same area over time. They were all aware that they had similar:
•
Landscaping contracts
•
Consultants engaged on the contracts
•
Contract specifications
•
Areas covered (e.g. Tayside and Fife).
They were also aware that they already used the same landscape consultant as contract
administrator and their clerk of works, and that savings could be made.
Hillcrest’s five-year contract came to an end in March 2010. Servite had more informal
arrangements but wanted to put these on the same footing as Hillcrest and Abertay, with full
site plans and a measured contract.
Results
The consultant fees for all three partners are now down to the level of the lowest individual one
before. Savings of almost 25% have been made on most of the rates for individual items in the
Bill of Quantities.
Lessons learned
•
Joint procurement can bring savings
•
Some compromise is needed amongst the partners to do things in a different way
•
Performance specification and contract management has to be the same across the
partners
•
There needs to be a lead person from one of the RSLs to drive it through
57
Appendix 2(I)
Case Study:
Customer Service Excellence Award – the Government
Standard44
Organisation:
Knowes Housing Association
Knowes Housing Association was formed in 1998 as result of stock transfer from Scottish
Homes. It currently owns 1,010 properties, employs 24 staff and is based in the Faifley area of
Clydebank, Dunbartonshire.
Details
The Association was assessed in January 2010 and following the assessment was awarded
the Customer Service Excellence standard. This independently evaluated award looks at all
areas of customer service and includes interviews with customers and other organisations they
work with.
Results
The process of preparing for the assessment was a useful exercise and resulted in them
implementing an improvement plan which ultimately helped them to improve the service
provided to customers. During the self-assessment, they improved some of the information
they provide to tenants and owner-occupiers in relation to maintenance contracts. They also
made some improvements to the format of customer satisfaction surveys and now have a
standard template for all surveys.
Following the actual assessment and as a result of the feedback, they introduced standards for
replying to correspondence and answering the phones; these are monitored and reported on.
They also now gather statistics on how customers contact them, and also endeavour through
surveys to ensure their customers feel they have been treated fairly.
Lessons learned
Knowes was an active member of the HAMES group, which adapted the EFQM model to
housing associations. The decision to go for this award was driven by a desire to refresh the
way they look at both promoting excellence and motivating staff to achieve higher standards.
So even after improvements have been made, it is important to think about how you maintain
them. By trying a new approach every now and then it can stop things getting stale and
continue improving.
44
http://www.cse.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/homeCSE.do
58
Appendix 2(J)
Case Study:
Bring the properties up to the decent homes standard with
design service improvements involving resident’s panel
Organisation:
London City East Partnership
In June 2005, Newham Council awarded Regenter London City East Partnership a 30-year
Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract to provide the management and refurbishment of
around 1,250 homes in Canning Town, East London.
The consortium is made up of Regenter (a joint venture between Pinnacle Regeneration Group
and John Laing Social Infrastructure) who provide the funding and act as the principal liaison
with the council, Pinnacle PSG who provide the housing management and estate services and
Equipe who carried out the refurbishment and provide ongoing repairs and maintenance.
Details
The successful contractors also chose to make significant and long-lasting improvements to a
community in an area close to Canary Wharf, the Olympic site in Stratford, and which benefited
from good transport links via both the Underground and the Docklands Light Railway.
Results
•
The decent homes programme in Canning Town was completed three months ahead of
schedule
•
As with the decent homes objective, all targets have been exceeded. Responsive
repairs are completed in an average of less than four days, with 99.4% being completed
at the first time of asking. Surveys show that 100% of tenants are satisfied both by the
time it takes to complete repairs and the quality of the work
•
Public Private Finance Award for Local Government PFI project of the year in both 2007
and 2009
•
Achieved an overall customer satisfaction rating (79%) higher than the average overall
satisfaction level achieved by any of the 32 London Boroughs during 2007 and 2008
•
One of their gardens won the TPAS (Tenant Participation Advisory Services) regional
housing excellence awards for green projects and initiatives.
Lessons learned
The involvement of residents is key to their success, including working closely with the locallyelected Canning Town and Custom House PFI Residents Panel.
They meet monthly to discuss issues affecting the estate and give a regular briefing with which
to design service improvements. Cleaning schedules, for example, were changed in some
parts of the estate after members identified areas where cleaning should be more frequent and
other parts where the need was not as great.
Making open spaces right for everyone was also important. Through the Pinnacle PSG
management challenge programme, a sensory and secret garden for the estate was created.
59
Appendix 2(K)
Case Study:
Employee engagement and accreditation
Organisation:
Loreburn Housing Association
Loreburn Housing Association, based in Dumfries and Galloway, was formed in 1982 and
manages 2,200 rented and 150 shared-ownership properties for all sections of the community.
They build high quality new homes, provide support services to vulnerable groups, and run the
region’s Care & Repair service. All Loreburn’s committee members live locally and are
passionate about improving life in Dumfries and Galloway.
Details
For over a decade, the Committee has supported the Chief Executive Officer in promoting
innovative employment policies to create unparalleled working conditions and giving their
employees the autonomy to get things done. All staff benefit from their progressive and
innovative Work Life Balance Strategy which shapes their approach to flexibility in the working
environment, learning and personal development, health and wellbeing and autonomy and
personal responsibility.
To measure the success of this approach, Loreburn decided to enter for the annual Best
Companies Accreditation/The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For. This national
accreditation scrutinises workplace engagement and sets a benchmark for other companies. It
is based on the most comprehensive survey of workplace opinion of its kind in Britain. This
survey is designed to examine the key components of a happy, engaged and successful
workplace. The scheme follows a “Michelin Star” system, where companies are awarded one,
two or three stars. Loreburn has long recognised that the only way it can continually improve
services to customers is by maximising employee engagement and the amount of discretionary
effort they put into their work. Numerous books and case studies backed up their approach.
They considered Best Companies to be one of the best independent resources to measure
how their employees felt about them every year. This is, in their opinion, by far their most
important Key Performance Indicator.
Results
2008 – two stars
2009 – two stars, placed 83rd in Sunday Times Best Small Companies to Work For List
2010 – two stars, placed 68th in Sunday Times Best Small Companies to Work For List
Loreburn’s Two Star status means its performance has been graded outstanding across the
areas key to creating a great workplace. It is the only Scottish housing association in the
Sunday Times List, or holding two stars. This has delivered the results hoped for.
In 2009, 97% of Loreburn’s tenants were happy with their overall services. Key performance
indicators (voids, arrears, etc) are in the upper quartiles in most areas, yet management and
maintenance costs are 25% lower than the peer group average.
In the most recent Care Commission report, Loreburn’s Support Service received an overall
score of one Grade 6 (excellent) and two Grade 5s (very good). The professionalism and
training of the workforce, overall management and leadership of the service were found to be
of a particularly high standard by the Inspector.
Attendance rates are consistently very high, and people are eager to learn. Over 40% of
Loreburn colleagues are now fully professionally qualified in their field (with over 45% qualified
60
to degree level or above), which is believed to be the highest percentage for a housing
organisation in Scotland.
Lessons learned
•
Put people (customers and employees) first!
•
Invest in quality training
•
Hire based on ability and attitude to fit the workplace culture – relegate the importance
of experience
•
Give people maximum flexibility in their work and working lives
•
Promote and support good physical, mental and emotional health
•
Abolish unnecessary bureaucracy
•
Get decision making as close to the customer as possible
•
Stop inventing reasons not to trust people
•
Make it fun!
61
Appendix 2(L)
Case Study:
Performance Management Framework
Organisation:
North Ayrshire Council
North Ayrshire Council is located on the west coast of Scotland and covers an area of 885
km2. The most densely populated settlements of Irvine, Kilwinning and Ardrossan, Saltcoats
and Stevenston are situated in and around the south coast. As of 31 March 2010, they had a
total housing stock of 13,404.
Housing Services employs 248 staff and has a ‘divisional’ operational structure. The service is
split into four divisions each led by a Divisional Manager/Principal Officer who in turn reports to
the Head of Service, and together form the Senior Management Team (SMT).
Two of the four divisions cover geographical areas and are responsible for delivering the core
housing management services to their tenants and the wider community. The Housing Service
stock is managed through nine local housing offices.
The other two ‘divisions’ or service areas are Antisocial Behaviour and Community Safety
Services and Homelessness and Strategic Services.
Details
Robust performance management is at the heart of their drive to secure continuous
improvement and deliver high quality services to customers.
Their Performance Management Framework is in place to ensure plans translate into actions. It
sets out how they will deliver good performance through high levels of service provision whilst
also providing value for money services to customers.
Historically, North Ayrshire Council was not a high performer in all areas of service delivery. It
was recognised that performance around voids, allocations, rent management and homeless
service provision was relatively poor.
For example, at the end of financial year 2002/03:
•
44.6% of all void properties were let in over four weeks
•
The average time to re-let houses was 48 days
•
Current tenant arrears as a percentage of net rent was 14.9%
•
The percentage of current tenants owing more than 13 weeks rent, excluding those
owing less than £250 was 9.2%
•
The number of homeless presentations was 1,798, well above the national average for
this size of authority.
Improvements had to be made and commitment was given at senior management level to
research good practice and make recommendations. This resulted in the development of their
Performance Management Framework. This is a framework of strategies, plans, indicators,
targets and service standards (at both national and local level) which enables the performance
of the housing service to be effectively and efficiently monitored.
62
Within the Housing Service, each Divisional Manager has strategic/service wide responsibility
for different areas of service provision. The development of these service areas is taken
forward by working groups chaired by the relevant Divisional Manager.
Why measure performance?
“We want to deliver the best services we can. A sound performance management framework
helps us to show to what extent we are achieving our objectives and targets. If you cannot see
success you cannot learn from it. Equally, if you cannot recognise failure you cannot correct it.”
Olga Clayton
They therefore consider it crucial that they have a performance monitoring framework in place
to provide them with a methodology that:
•
Ensures that customers get high quality value for money services
•
Gives clear direction on what they are trying to achieve via plans and strategies and
how they are going to do it
•
Develops a culture of ownership and accountability
•
Ensures that residents, service users and other interested parties have the opportunity
to be fully involved in the planning and delivery of the service
•
Allows systematic assessment of whether they are meeting the standards and targets
they have set
•
Ensures the most effective use of resources
•
Ensures that off-target performance is monitored, reviewed, evaluated and corrective/
improvement action taken as appropriate.
What is included within the Performance Management Framework?
The Housing Service Performance Management Framework (PMF) is a comprehensive, wideranging document that provides not only strategic direction but also very detailed procedural
information. Detailed below are examples of the areas covered within the framework:
•
Background on what a performance management framework is
•
Detail on all Housing Service plans and strategies and how they are linked
•
Consultation and customer feedback
•
Why they measure performance
•
Performance management and review
•
Who monitors the framework
•
How the data and information is collected
•
Performance reporting
•
How they deal with poor performance
•
Building on good performance
•
The public service improvement framework.
63
The PMF provides detail and guidance on performance monitoring arrangements across all
areas of service provision, including:
•
Development and strategy functions
•
Value for money
•
People management
•
Customer care
•
Tenant participation
•
Rents management
•
Voids and allocations
•
Estate management
•
Antisocial behaviour and community safety
•
Homelessness.
The PMF also clearly demonstrates the Housing Service links to the Single Outcome
Agreement (SOA), Council Plan and other corporate strategic documents. This is achieved, in
the main, via the development of the Service Plan, Service Standards and working group
action plans.
With regard to performance reporting, a range of methods is used to ensure that this is carried
out effectively. These include:
•
Performance against SPIs reported annually to Audit Scotland and the Scottish
Government
•
Performance reports are provided to Councillors every six months for scrutiny
•
Performance information is given in regular newsletters to tenants, in the Council’s
newspaper and is also published on the Council’s website
•
An annual performance report is produced and sent to all tenants
•
Performance information is displayed in area offices via TV information screens
•
A monthly performance indicator report is produced, circulated to staff and used to
inform performance meetings and one-to-ones.
How do they deal with poor performance?
The PMF allows trends to be monitored across all areas of service provision and helps senior
managers to identify problems in relation to performance and establish whether it is an ongoing
issue that requires to be addressed. A decline in performance may require re-alignment of
resources, additional investment, revised plans and delivery timescales or revision of
objectives and targets.
Results
Through the introduction of a Performance Management Framework and other management
actions, the performance within the Housing Service over the last seven years has significantly
64
improved. Some examples of this improvement came to light during external service
inspections.
In May 2008, the Scottish Housing Regulator rated their Performance Management Framework
as excellent and awarded North Ayrshire Council Housing Service:
•
An A grade for housing management
•
A B grade for the homelessness service.
They also continued excellent performance in Audit Scotland’s Performance Indicators. At the
end of the 2008/09 financial year, the Housing Service was ranked:
•
1st for rent loss due to void properties (for the third consecutive year they are ranked
1st with a void rent loss of 0.4%)
•
1st for average days to re-let houses that are low demand
•
2nd for average days to re-let houses that are not low demand.
Finally, when they compare current performance (for year ending March 2010) to the
information detailed above from 2002/03, the improvement in performance is clearly evident:
Targets
Then (2002/2003)
Now (2009/2010)
Void rent loss
1.7%
0.3%
Void properties let in over four
weeks
44.6%
The average
houses was
48 days
only
5.2%
with
77.8% being let in
less than 2 weeks
13 days
Current tenant arrears as a
percentage of net rent
14.9%
4.05%
Percentage of current tenants
owing more than 13 weeks rent,
excluding those owing less than
£250
9.2%
2.41%
The number
presentations
1,798 (very
high)
1,066
time
of
to
re-let
homeless
Lessons learned
•
Ensure a cross-service range of staff are involved in the development of the PMF and
target setting process
•
If developed and implemented effectively, the PMF will help to ensure a consistency of
approach to preparing strategies and plans
•
Ensure the terminology used in the PMF and associated documents is consistent
•
Integrate and embed PMF within team meeting and one-to-one process
65
66
•
Service outcomes/objectives should reflect relevant SOA outcomes and council
priorities. Where possible use PIs that are already in use, e.g. those in your SOA or
nationally monitored PIs
•
Be consistent in the formatting and structure of action plans and ensure there are clear
links to high-level strategic documents. If possible, the actions should be referenced to
SOA and Service Plans
•
For ease of reporting, be consistent in presenting your targets, e.g. if your SOA targets
are presented in percentage terms then use percentages in your service plans and
action plans.
Appendix 2(M)
Case Study:
Joint working, innovation and collaboration - increase the supply
of affordable housing and improve access to it by vulnerable
client groups
Organisation:
Perth & Kinross Council (PKC)
There are just over 9,000 units of social rented housing in Perth and Kinross, with the largest
landlord, the Council, having approx. 7,400 units. Homeless presentations number over 1,000
per annum with a projected significant increase in 2010. In addition, there are 5,000 applicants
registered on their waiting lists. Perth and Kinross is a large rural area and housing services
are delivered from six main centres, as well as operating from libraries in a further three small
settlements. In addition, a Housing Advice Centre in Perth delivers homeless services, and
access teams - both the private sector and social sector – work from there. The council
Housing Service is comprehensive – with an integrated repairs, maintenance and capital
programme team and direct links to a Revenues, Benefits and Welfare Rights team which is an
integral part of the Housing and Community Care directorate.
There is a chronic shortage of affordable housing in all parts of the district. The Housing Needs
Demand Assessment undertaken in 2009 demonstrates there will be a net shortage of
approximately 500 units of affordable housing each year for the next ten years, plus a shortage
of approximately 200 units of temporary accommodation. In addition, there is an increasing
mismatch between the stock which becomes available for letting and the requirements of those
most in housing need. This mismatch occurs in:
•
The size and type of housing which becomes available
•
The location of vacancies.
As turnover remains limited, it is frequently the case that what housing does become available
does not meet the needs of those most in housing need at that time. An important element of
the new Council allocation policy is to match applicants with the best “housing fit” at the time –
thereby making applicants aware that the Council will do the best it can whilst acknowledging
that it may not be able to meet all needs or aspirations.
Details
There was a high degree of distrust by both homeless customers of private landlords, and by
landlords of homeless customers. Perth & Kinross Council’s (PKC’s) success has been in
brokering the relationship between these two groups. They have achieved this through four key
service developments:
•
PKC lets
•
Rent Bond Guarantee Scheme
•
The housing options portal
•
Dedicated tenancy support officers in the Private Sector Access Team to ensure as far
as possible that tenants are able to sustain tenancies.
67
In terms of realising this potential and to address this gap in service provision, the Private
Sector Access Team was established in October 2009. The team provides a central, focused
platform for proactive engagement with the private sector to provide sustainable and affordable
housing opportunities for people in housing need. Building on the success of its first six
months, the team has a targeted remit to deliver positive housing outcomes for customers.
These include:
•
The facilitation of 120 tenancies during 2010/11
•
Ensuring that a target of 75% sustainability is exceeded
•
Focusing on early intervention to avoid the need for homelessness households to move
into B&B and hostel accommodation
•
Focusing on assisting more households to move out of B&B and hostel accommodation
•
Use the Rent Bond Guarantee Scheme to prevent homelessness in cases where
private sector tenants have low/moderate rent arrears
•
Use opportunities to assist homeless customers by securing introductory pre-discharge
tenancies and 12 month contractual periods, to ease the discharge of duty in terms of
the Homeless Persons (Provision of non-permanent accommodation) (Scotland) Driving
up standards in the private rented sector by encouraging accreditation and developing
acceptable standards.
On 26 April 2010 the new Scheme of Allocation, which is the policy framework within which
their houses are let, became operational. Perthshire Housing Association and Hillcrest Housing
Association have also adopted that scheme. In effect, this means that Perth & Kinross Council
is the first local authority in Scotland to have secured 100% allocation rights to the majority of
social housing in the district.
All properties are let according to the Council’s allocation policies, thereby ensuring access to
permanent accommodation for those in most acute housing need. The Council estimates that
this service development will increase the number of properties allocated by approximately 220
pa.
At the heart of the scheme of allocation is the Housing Options Service. This has five key
objectives:
•
To prevent homelessness
•
To increase the number of people sustaining tenancies
•
To develop a better customer understanding of the current housing situation
•
To assist people to make their own choices and to find their own solutions
•
To encourage independence rather than dependence.
Results
To-date, over 1,000 interviews have been scheduled up to December 2010. Those applicants
who are potentially most at risk of becoming homeless have been targeted i.e. those in tied
tenancies and those living ‘care of’. Six hundred customers have registered with the Private
Sector Access Team since February 2010 and over 200 have secured tenancies either through
the Rent Bond Guarantee Scheme or through PKC lets. A full evaluation of the impact on
housing outcomes is scheduled for October 2010.
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Lessons learned
•
You don’t need to set up a trading account to run a social lettings agency – the council
is operating under its power of ‘well being’
•
Beware, the Housing Options Service can be a runaway train if you don’t rein it in –
options interviews and personal housing plans are proving to be incredibly popular.
Staff have to be clear that it’s a toolkit not an end in itself
•
Don’t give up. The private sector is here to stay. Use it and use your relationship with
landlords to drive up standards with best practice documentation, legal advice for
landlords, accommodation and information on repair standards
•
Grow your own business – can your repairs service take on the challenge of the private
sector/can your ASB teams work seamlessly with homeless teams etc
•
Cultural change – is your organisation up for it?
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Appendix 2(N)
Case Study:
Supply and delivery of plumbing materials through Scotland
Excel
Organisation:
River Clyde Homes
River Clyde Homes (RCH) in Inverclyde is just two years old and has around 6,500 houses
with a staff of 260. It was created through a tenant-led stock transfer from Inverclyde Council.
Details
They have been purchasing plumbing materials through the contract set up by Scotland
Excel16 for the period 1 April 2008 to 31 March 2011. Within the contract, there is the facility to
extend it until 31 March 2012.
Results
With additional landlords becoming involved, suppliers were keen to pick up additional
business. This was reflected in the very competitive pricing of the contract. By using Scotland
Excel contracts, RCH believe that they have achieved cost savings, improved supplier
relationships and secured procurement time savings by not requiring to issue and evaluate
their own tenders for significant sums.
Lessons learned
The contract is set up as a framework agreement but it may be more beneficial to both
authority and supplier to award the contract in lots, as it is broken down in this manner. This
may be reflected in the rates as there is an estimated level of business for each item within the
particular lots which cannot be guaranteed through the framework agreement.
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Appendix 2(O)
Case Study:
Mobile working and work scheduling software
Organisation:
Scottish Borders Housing Association
Scottish Borders Housing Association was established in March 2003 through a stock transfer
from the Council to the new RSL. They currently have stock of 5,874 homes across the
Scottish Borders and employ 203 people; this includes an in-house Maintenance Division of 98
operatives. They deal with 600 voids a year and 25,000 repairs.
Details
They introduced Opti-Time software and mobile working for response repairs with a field trial in
December 2005, followed by full roll-out in January 2006. They piloted Project Planner from
November 2008 to schedule multi-trade voids works. For both areas, this meant a complete
operational change. No more job tickets, a home start for operatives and the use of technology
to record the progress of jobs and to provide visibility of that. It also allowed service
improvements, such as the effective introduction of repairs appointments for customers.
Results
The main results have been:
•
Real-time information on what is happening – greater accountability to customer on
progress of works, formal recording of jobs at all stages
•
Improved work planning and more efficient deployment of operatives across the area
•
The ability to monitor productivity and individual performance
•
Estimated 30% increase in income from other works – improved productivity, reduced
paperwork and downtime and, most importantly, increased benefit of the VAT savings
from in-house planned works
•
Tenant satisfaction with repairs up from 78% in 2006 to 95% in 2010
•
Non-emergency repairs on time increased from 85% to 98%, with improvements across
the board on appointments kept
•
Void turnaround beats target times
•
A more efficient in-house service that has increased its capacity to take on additional
work and reduce overheads
•
Reduced administration.
The change has also provided confidence in technology, with mobile working experience and a
platform they can further develop for other aspects of the service, such as:
•
Improved/automated materials provision and use recording
•
Automation of work coming into the system from inspections
•
Repairs reporting direct from tenants via internet, telephone or messaging.
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Lessons learned
72
•
Keep up to speed with what other users are doing
•
Review practices
•
Be prepared for the cultural change, alongside the technical change
•
Ensure consistent practices and knowledge of the technology
•
Overhaul business processes to optimise them for the new systems and allow the
technology to operate as effectively as possible in order to maximise benefits.
Appendix 2(P)
Case Study:
Employability project and joint working/collaboration
Organisation:
SE Glasgow area group of housing associations
SE Glasgow area housing associations comprise Cathcart, Govanhill, New Gorbals, South
Side and Thistle Housing Associations. The South East area group of housing associations
have been meeting together since September 2007. Meetings of the Chairpersons and
Directors take place on a quarterly basis with working meetings of staff groups scheduled in
between times. The agenda agreed at the outset was to explore the following issues:
•
Planned maintenance
•
Responsive and void repairs
•
Joint procurement/Purchasing
•
Raising private finance
•
Representation (CPP + CHCP)
•
Joint committee training
•
Sharing information and good practice
•
Sharing staff resources for new services/things each housing association may not be
able to sustain individually, especially wider role
•
Tenant communication, information, feedback systems
•
Sharing corporate/back office services (finance, IT, development/support personnel)
•
Joint lobbying and influencing
•
Benchmarking
•
Shared policy and service development/review.
Details
The proposal sought to deploy three dedicated employability advisors to develop an
engagement programme that improves the employment prospects of tenants and households
in the areas serviced by each of the RSLs.
The employment advisors are employed by GESERA (Glasgow South East Area Regeneration
Agency). The project has been funded by Scottish Government Wider Role.
The proposal:
•
Acts as a bridging service providing a single point of contact for each housing
association to refer tenants, clients and customers seeking employability support
•
Links housing and employability staff in a single approach with employability staff
deployed in each of the housing associations on an agreed frequency
•
Provides a clearing house for referral contacts to employability organisations, such as
the Local Regeneration Agency, Jobcentre Plus etc
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•
Improves engagement with tenants, clients and customers around the issues of benefit
dependency and moving into work
•
Improves the engagement of black and minority ethnic (BME) tenants, clients and
customers of the Housing Associations with an onward referral into employability
services
•
Develops intensive client engagement measures focused on key locations identified by
statistical evidence and known barriers to participation
•
Provides a route into broader employability services in the South East of Glasgow
•
Monitors and reports on performance against indicators agreed by the partners.
The proposal involves the deployment of staff in each of the RSLs on a frequency that allows
for individual sessions to be offered to tenants and clients of the RSLs in a way that ensures a
unique and customer-centred approach to discussing and progressing employment options.
The specific objectives include:
•
Increasing engagement activity with tenants and clients of the RSLs specific to
improving their employment prospects
•
Improving connections between housing professionals and employability services and
enhancing the services offered to tenants
•
Improving economic activity in households in each of the RSL areas
•
Improving household income in the South East of Glasgow
•
Increasing the number of BME community residents engaged in discussion about their
employment options.
Results
Employment advisors have been based at all housing association offices, leading to far greater
success in reaching people through front line staff, such as housing officers.
So far the following activity has taken place:
•
Engagement
323
•
Positive activity
228
•
Work preparation
142
•
Education/Training/Voluntary work
39
•
Into work
28
Lessons learned
74
•
Joint application between housing associations was received positively by funders
•
GESERA reaching more people than by using premises in shopping areas
•
Project accommodation costs reduced significantly using this approach
•
Sustainability of partnership approaches has to be considered from the outset
•
Shared accommodation between services providers supports needs of tenants and
residents
•
‘Town Hall Projects‘ with a single point of access are more efficient and more
accessible for service users
•
Sharing of knowledge and good practice, particularly in the areas of governance,
reaching into communities and developing local capacity
•
It strengthens the basis of partnership working between organisations
•
Excellent evidence of changes in working practices for front line staff being tackled at
an organisational policy level. This has had a major bearing on what staff have
assumed they can and cannot do
•
Clearer understanding across each organisation of the impact of housing costs as a
barrier to employment. The importance of this is evidenced by recent changes in the
Scottish Government directorate which now includes Employment and Poverty
•
The ability, organisationally, to provide progressively universal services i.e. housing
needs are met universally with employability support targeted at those who are less
able to consider or take up work.
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Appendix 2(Q)
Case Study:
Effective performance management initiative
Organisation:
Trust Housing Association Ltd
Trust Housing Association Ltd was established in 1973. Their values still follow the philosophy
of service excellence and value for money. They currently provide homes to over 2,400 people
throughout Scotland and employ over 500 full and part time office and development based staff
working throughout 23 separate local authority areas in Scotland, in over 100 developments
from the Highlands and Islands all the way down to the Borders.
A not-for-profit housing association, they manage housing and services through three offices in
Edinburgh, Glasgow and Arran.
They offer a range of rented accommodation including sheltered housing, very sheltered
housing, supported housing, and housing with care. They also provide some shared ownership
opportunities, for older people, families and others in housing need.
Details
In 2008 they began the search for a system that would help them to address their development
needs in terms of effective performance management. As a result, they found a number of
systems that provided solutions not only to this, but also to a whole range of other strategy
planning issues.
In 2009 they began implementation of their chosen system. This system has changed the way
they work in a number of areas. Firstly, they were able to centralise all strategic planning
elements in one place, providing one point of access and update. Secondly, they can break
down all of their strategic level objectives and goals into deliverable packages of work. This
provides clarity in terms of a strategic cascade, or ‘golden thread’, from top to bottom but also
provides a standardised method of translating strategy into operational activity. Thirdly, the
system allows performance monitoring and progress at all levels, using a simple but effective
traffic light system. This allows managed performance by exception which, in turn, allows better
marshalling and direction of resources.
The system allows them to link all of their activity together. For example, they are able to detail
risk information at both strategic and operational levels and then monitor the effect of the
actions taken. They can also measure and monitor performance indicators at strategic and
operational levels and link these to activities taking place to address or improve performance.
Process of selecting software system to support initiative
Trust looked at three systems – Performancesoft, Covalent and Clearview. The first, they felt,
was a very powerful system but one that is built very much for private sector, profit-driven
organisations. The second, an excellent system, used by many local authorities. The third was
very similar to the second and offers much the same functionality. However, Clearview was
built by a housing association and is only marketed to other housing associations.
Trust decided to go with the Clearview system because it was tailored to their sector. Clearview
consultancy staff also come from a housing background and, as such, understand the
challenges that Trust face.
Results
The implementation of the system has brought clarity and focus to internal planning processes.
It provides ‘real-time’ information on performance and progress against strategy rather than the
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static picture that tends to be provided by a written strategy. This new approach reports at
multiple levels within the organisation as appropriate. At one end of the spectrum, the
information can be used to report to the board, while at the other it can be used as a tool at
work plan meetings.
Lessons learned
When implementing new approaches or a system such as this, it is important not to
underestimate the resource and commitment required for seeing it through. Taking a long-term
view is important to ensure that implementation is planned and sustainable, as well as being
realistic about the challenges you face.
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Appendix 2(R)
Case Study:
Creating a new Customer Services Team (CST)
Organisation:
West of Scotland HA
West of Scotland HA (WSHA) manages around 3,000 properties over a wide geographical
area. They are managed by four area teams:
•
Cowlairs covering Glasgow North and West
•
Camlachie covering Camlachie and Glasgow East
•
Hamilton covering North and South Lanarkshire
•
Kilmarnock covering the three Ayrshire councils.
A total of 80 staff work within Housing Services, Property and Development Services and
Corporate and Finance Services.
The four area teams have generic Housing Officers and provide estate management,
allocations and arrears services for designated areas.
Processing applications for housing and invoicing are done centrally.
Details
Housing Services is being restructured during 2010. A new office is scheduled to open in
October and, to coincide with this, the area teams will be reorganised. This will be Phase 2 of
the restructure. Ayrshire and Glasgow North will be managed from Cowlairs, Lanarkshire and
Glasgow East will be managed from the new Head Office in Camlachie.
Phase 1 of the restructure took place in September 2009. This created the Customer Services
Team (CST). Prior to that date, tenants contacted their local area team with all enquiries. The
CST now deals with all calls coming into the housing association for all services.
The CST now provides consistency for customers and a single point of contact for them. This
eases the burden on area teams and allows them to concentrate on a more targeted and
planned service with staff able to spend more time on estates.
All of the CST staff were existing housing assistants and therefore had a good basic knowledge
of housing and WSHA policies and procedures.
Results
The main challenges were:
78
•
Getting staff involved in the design and implementation of the new CST and allaying
fears of a “call centre” culture
•
Ensuring that the right telephone tariff is in place – one that is equitable and not overly
burdensome on tenants – as well as the correct telephone hardware to allow calls to be
diverted, monitored and interrogated, etc
•
Streamlining policies and procedures to reflect the new structure and agree division of
tasks between the CST and the area teams
•
Ensuring that the software allowed the CST to communicate with the area teams and
make arrangements and pass on information
•
Identifying training needs for the CST and providing the relevant training to allow them
to do the job and to answer as many calls as possible in the first instance
•
Ensuring tenants were consulted to take on board their views when designing the new
CST service, as well as ensuring a report back to them on progress
•
Ensuring customers were kept informed throughout the process through newsletters,
mailshots, fridge magnets, etc
•
Listening to CST staff and meeting their needs e.g. field trips round the stock, a quiet
room away from the telephones, ensuring they did not feel isolated or excluded from the
rest of the housing association
•
Keeping staff morale as high as possible through the period of change.
West of Scotland HA believe they have met these challenges. Statistics show that the vast
majority of calls are answered at the first point of contact and through regular one-to-one
supervision, staff advise that they are satisfied with and enjoy their job.
The new centralised CST allows WSHA to monitor the volume and nature of calls coming into
the Association, which informs the planning process. It is also easier for customers to contact
WSHA using a single low cost number. Satisfaction Surveys show that they are happy with the
new service.
Lessons learned
If you can involve staff from these early stages, including the learning from others who had
introduced similar changes, you can improve understanding and not just acceptance but
commitment to the change.
Equally, meticulous planning is essential in both developing and carrying out a change
programme. Learning from others should take place before you start the planning and the
change programme.
“Ensure you take account of the challenges outlined and try as far as possible to keep staff on
board by including them in working groups looking at designing and implementing each stage
of the process.” Geraldine Connolly
79
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Scottish Centre for Regeneration
This document is published by the Scottish Centre for Regeneration, which is part of the Scottish
Government. We support our public, private and voluntary sector delivery partners to become more
effective at:
• regenerating communities and tackling poverty
• developing more successful town centres and local high streets
• creating and managing mixed and sustainable communities
• making housing more energy efficient
• managing housing more efficiently and effectively
We do this through:
coordinating learning networks which bring people together to identify the challenges they face
and to support them to tackle these through events, networking and capacity building
programmes
• identifying and sharing innovation and practice through publishing documents detailing examples
of projects and programmes and highlighting lessons learned
• developing partnerships with key players in the housing and regeneration sector to ensure that
our activities meet their needs and support their work
Scottish Centre for Regeneration, Scottish Government, Highlander House, 58 Waterloo Street,
Glasgow, G2 7DA Tel: 0141 271 3736
•
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.partnersinregeneration.com
© Crown copyright 2010
Illustrations by Andrew Baker
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The views expressed in learning points are those of participants at various events and are not necessarily shared
by their employers, the Scottish Centre for Regeneration (SCR) or the Scottish Government. December 2010