ALMO’s future written in the stars

Serious questions have been raised over Decent Homes funding for ALMOs yet to achieve two star status from the Audit Commission. Sutton Housing Partnership (SHP) is one such organisation but far from retreating into the shadows it is fighting for its rightful inheritance

The Round 6 ALMO, which has a stock of just under 8,000 properties, went live in April 2006 and was assessed as providing a one-star service with promising prospects for improvement after an Audit Commission inspection the following year.

Having taken on board the inspectors’ recommendations and worked hard to continually improve its services SHP had been confident of achieving two stars in its inspection in October and unlocking muchneeded cash to allow its Decent Homes programme to go ahead.

But the uncertainty over future funding has left the ALMO’s planned improvement works hanging in the balance.

“We have been allocated £112.5 million on the programme and that work will just not get done without the Decent Homes allocation. That amount is way beyond what the council could even consider spending on housing and dwarfs any previous inverstment,” explains chief executive Andrew Taylor.

He continued: “The immediate impact is the £28 million that we were going to get for the first two years has been deferred and the programme we have been consulting residents on is now in doubt. Also with an election in the offing there is no indication that a different Government would support a Decent Homes programme.”

Sutton Housing Partnership tenants have joined forces with local public figures to campaign against the cuts, as Taylor explains: “There is very strong work being done by residents, the council and MPs and Sutton has got a high profile in terms of raising this issue outside of its boundaries.”

In fact the Federation of Tenants’ and Residents’ Associations has been the focus of activity for many previous campaigns. “They have been to Downing Street to present petitions in the past and have met the previous housing minister,” says Taylor. “They have also invited the TSA to present to their residents’ meetings and to give their views on the draft TSA Standards so they are involved in the things that matter for residents. They know where to make their voices heard and are well co-ordinated.”

Taylor believes that resident involvement is one of the strengths of the ALMO model in general. “The ALMO movement is in itself a strong movement in that all ALMOs are focused on listening to their customers and delivering good and excellent services,” he says. “And we are the same, but I think probably where we would say we are stronger is the fact that we work with residents towards national outcomes, which are quite difficult to achieve.

“There are not many ALMOs where residents feel empowered to have a presence on the national stage when it comes to things like Decent Homes and housing subsidy discussions which reflects a strong ALMO resident partnership. Equally we have a good relationship with Sutton Council so when there is a big issue the ALMO, council and residents are usually working together to produce an outcome.”

While there has always been an ethos of tenant involvement at Sutton Housing Partnership, there has been a shift in focus since the last Audit Commission inspection, from merely consulting with residents to putting them at the heart of operations.

“The whole of what we do now is about involving residents,” says Taylor. “So whether we are developing a strategy or reviewing a service or just making a change to a service, it is either instigated by a resident or residents are involved at very early stages.”

As with many an organisation Sutton Housing Partnership’s approach to customer involvement had previously been very traditional focusing mainly around an annual residents’ conference but after working closely with tenants the ALMO changed its approach and swapped the conference for a series of smaller, more localised community events.

“Our whole approach to customer involvement was very traditional in terms of supporting a very small number of residents’ associations,” says Taylor. “We have identified that this doesn’t necessarily reflect well in terms of value for money and doesn’t always engage with our full range of residents as it tends to involve a fairly narrow range of people.”

Taylor explained that in the past a conference may have attracted about 120 residents but the recent St Helier Festival was attended by over 2,000 people allowing the ALMO to engage with, for example, whole families who would not have attended a conference. It also allowed it to bring a number of partners and other agencies together to engage with tenants about wider community concerns and priorities.

Many of the issues are not just about our residents they are about community cohesion in a wider area, facilities for families that we need to influence but don’t necessarily provide ourselves.”

It is with that wider picture in mind that Sutton Housing Partnership has gone out into its communities to find out exactly what improvements people want to see. A Sutton Housing Partnership camper van was used at the St Helier Festival giving residents the opportunity to record video diaries, saying what they think about the area.

“What we learnt from using the camper van approach were the issues affecting residents we could address like repairs and quality of neighbourhoods but also the wider issues around more general antisocial behaviour, facilities for young people, public transport and wider community facilities.”

This new localised approach to involvement has also changed the way that the organisation deals with issues affecting its local communities and it has set up local plans to respond to these.

“We would normally see all of our estates and neighbourhoods as a whole and address issues across the borough,” says Taylor. “But what we have done and are moving increasingly towards is having local conversations with individual neighbourhoods and on the basis of those conversations and all the information that we get at events such as the St Helier Festival we have set up local action plans reflecting issues and priorities in particular areas or estates. So we are being much more local in terms of identifying and addressing issues with them.”

“Another change has been that we have been listening in the past and have been doing things but we haven’t been communicating with residents to let them know what we have done, or equally where we have been unable to do something,” says Taylor. “Our approach now is about closing that loop so residents know that it is worth them raising issues because they can make a difference.”

For example residents of Clarence Road Sheltered Housing were frustrated that they were unable to use their communal garden unless the weather was dry so Sutton Housing Partnership stepped in and provided an all-weather pathway. “This involved doing something that met tenant need and allowed them to fully use the facilities that they had,” says Taylor.

Another event that was organised to create greater tenant consultation was a BME event, which came about after research to establish if Sutton Housing Partnership’s services were truly accessible to all of its customers.

“For example, we found that when it came to rent collection, arrears and satisfaction on day-to-day repairs, there were certain ethnic groups that weren’t quite as satisfied or weren’t quite as engaged as others,” says Taylor. “We tried to work with these groups to understand the issues. It became clear that certain ethnic groups had a greater expectation from our repairs service, in many cases were looking for a Decent Homes-style replacement which as a one-star ALMO we can’t provide at the moment. As a result we are now we able to better manage expectations which will impact on satisfaction.

“The BME event identified that some members of BME communities are not being quite as willing to accept help or access support services,” says Taylor. “We wanted to discuss the issues and work through how we could address them and what came out of that was more joint work with some of the other BME support groups, so rather than reinvent things we are working with groups within those communities.” The ALMO is also working with other agencies on a range of community events and initiatives including working with young people and tackling worklessness.

Taylor said that young people were often seen as “problems rather than residents in their own right” but Sutton Housing Partnership is keen to engage the area’s youth in consultations about estate regeneration schemes.

It has also been using its HR team to offer services such as helping people with CV writing and job applications to improve their employment prospects and giving debt and financial advice and introducing a credit union to the area by extending the existing credit union in Croydon. “It is enabling tenants to have access to relatively cheap, small amounts of credit because like many areas the door-todoor credit lenders demand very high rates of interest,” says Taylor. “It is giving them an alternative but the scheme is also predicated around teaching people to save. It is not just about giving people credit it is helping people to develop a more sustainable way of managing their money.” SHP already employs a debt adviser, providing surgeries at times and places chosen by residents. It has now expanded the debt advisor’s hours and focused her on particular areas where residents have said
they would like more targeted services. It also works with the CAB to offer a fast referral service for those with more complex debt problems.

Tenant involvement is not the only area that has undergone an overhaul since the last inspection and Sutton Housing Partnership is constantly striving to improve its services. There is now more of a focus on customer care and staff training and it is developing a more strategic approach to services.

It has made changes to leadership at board and executive management team level, which has gone hand in hand with the clearer focus on customers. The stronger strategic direction is underpinned by robust performance management and inclusive and thorough service reviews have been carried out on customer access, repairs, estate management, sheltered housing and leasehold services.

This has resulted in a rise in overall satisfaction to 72.5 per cent and has seen void turnaround times reduce from 28 to 25 days. The ALMO has achieved compliance with the code of practice for racial equality in housing and 77 per cent of BME tenants are now satisfied with the overall service.

Its mission to deliver excellent customer-focused and cost effective housing services to all residents is reflected in the ALMO’s everyday operations but as it operates in a very diverse area of south west London meeting everyone’s needs is no easy task as Taylor explains: “The most Southern part of the borough is seen as a leafy suburb and the northern part urban London, so we have got a very diverse mix of outcomes.

“Much of the south of Sutton is affluent commuter belt but in the north where a lot of the social housing is, there are people living in poor housing as we wait for Decent Homes investment. There is a big difference in levels of educational achievement, life expectancy, earnings capacity and family breakdown.”

Sutton Housing Partnership’s housing stock includes about 600 sheltered units in 27 schemes and the organisation has also been working to improve its services in this area. “We have invested and planned strategically for the service, not only to meet the needs of current older people but future needs as well,” says Taylor. “It is about being able to accommodate people wanting to be more independent rather than telling them what they will get and also meeting those needs in their own home.”

The ALMO has achieved Code of Practice for Sheltered Housing accreditation and 95 per cent of residents are satisfied with the quality of their home while 92 per cent are satisfied with the support service. It has also set up a Sheltered Housing Forum comprising tenants from all schemes, which Taylor says has had a “demonstrable impact” on services.

While embarking on a major investment programme is not possible without the allocation of Decent Homes funding, Sutton Housing Partnership has refused to be held back and is continuing to work with contract partners to carry out repairs, maintenance and improvement works to its stock.

One such project has involved the replacement of substandard bathroom extensions in homes in the north of the borough. When the properties were built the bath was in the kitchen and the toilet was in the area now containing the water tank. Pod style extensions were added in the 1960s to create a separate bathroom. These bathrooms are now in poor condition and well below modern standards.

The initial approach of the Council was to replace the pods with brick built extensions, costing in the region of £30,000 each and taking several weeks to build. With over 800 properties requiring works and the very high unit cost, SHP and its contractors explored a number of alternatives. Residents were critical to this process and it now has an innovative pod solution that meets residents needs, at a much lower costs, installed in a fraction of the time. It partners with Target Structural to supply and install pods and foundations and Apollo Group will be acting as main contractor from the Cyntra Group Framework.

Sutton Housing Partnership has clearly been working hard in preparation for its inspection and whether funding is forthcoming or not it will continue to do its best for its tenants. In the meantime all it can do is keep reaching for the stars in the hope that the sky doesn’t come crashing down.