Joining hands for a cultural revolution

There’s a refreshing change in the air for tenants in Lewisham who recently joined together to create Phoenix Community Housing Association. Having taken control of their own affairs one might say the air smells of freedom. So contractor Inspace is rising to the challenge of literally working in the bosses’ home.

Certainly, that’s the impression one gets from talking to Pat Fordham, chair of the board, who is herself a tenant. She said: “Usually, you are told what you can have or what you can do, but now you’re asked what would you like? Our tenants have never been asked what they would like before.”

So, the move away from the council has been a liberating experience, but it also entails a far more daunting challenge - because Phoenix is not a classic housing association. The organisation is a ‘community gateway’, one of only a handful of such entities throughout the country and the first to be established in London. Pioneered in Preston, this malleable model puts tenants in the driving seat; going beyond simple consultation it allows them to shape the organisation from the bottom up.

“It’s been a long road to get to where we are today,” Fordham said. “There are many people, some not with us today, who have been involved right from the start - eight and a half years ago. It all started with a trip to a Birmingham [TPAS] conference where we learned that we could take the community gateway model and mould it into something workable for our own community. And here we are today - with our destiny in our own hands. I’m still pinching myself that it has finally happened!”

Phoenix went live in December last year, the tenants having constructed the model, convinced the “great and the good” that they could pull it off - and finally won the ballot that allowed stock transfer to go ahead. While the wider tenant population pondered their own future relationship with Lewisham Council, in the southern part of the borough the residents of the 5,500 tenanted properties and 800 leasehold homes in the Bankfoot, Bellingham and John Henry neighbourhoods opted to go it alone and rise in the new guise of Phoenix.

For Inspace, this provided quite a challenge since it had to ensure its systems and its people were in place in a very short space of time. Effectively it had some five weeks from securing the five-year contract to the launch of operations. Naturally, the organisation was expected to hit the ground running.

“It was a short mobilisation,” said John Ball, Phoenix’s repairs and maintenance manager. “To their credit, Inspace has done the best they could in that time and it’s gone better than what was expected for the mobilisation. It’s still evolving, there’s a few teething problems we’re working on, but that’s all part of the partnership. We talk on a daily basis and we’re meeting the challenges we face day-to-day to give the tenants the services they want. As I keep saying ‘every long journey starts with a few small steps’.”

That journey is scarcely 14 weeks old; so new, one might say the paint has barely dried on the Inspace vans’ livery. Despite its £12 million price tag, Phoenix is a small operation for the company, but still a crucial one. Eyes remain focused on Phoenix - more so than its other operational districts in Richmond, the City of London, and Hammersmith & Fulham - because not only is it working in new territory it is working with a brand new animal. This is as much a showcase for the community gateway model as it is for Inspace.

The process has been a profound culture shift for all concerned. The residents are in the driving seat, gaining input into decision-making and being asked what they want, rather than given a standard ‘this is what you’re getting’ service. For Inspace, the company finds itself working in an environment that gives them a greater feel for the work; one where more information is garnered first hand from the tenants, rather than ‘number crunched’ and sanitised by the conventional process of consultation, feedback forms and KPI formulation.

“It’s early days yet,” said Simon Roberts, Inspace’s general manager on the Phoenix contract, “and the tenants I have met are keen. This is their baby and they want to ensure it works. From an Inspace perspective it’s just unique to be talking to a tenant face to face who is looking for a product, so it’s different in that way. The

information is first hand and immediate.”

From an operational basis, the work differs very little from its conventional housing association work; the striking difference comes at the oversight and managerial stage, with tenants having a direct input into strategic planning meetings. That’s a shift for all concerned.

No doubt, the greatest cultural shift has been experienced by the former Lewisham staff - housing as well as trade operatives - who TUPEd over to Inspace. Sometimes, it takes a little bit more than a change of uniform and a new employer to ‘change heads’. This cultural transformation was one of the anticipated ‘teething troubles’ expected of the new partnership once it went live.

“It is a culture change,” Simon added. “Some of them have worked for Lewisham for 40 years so that change doesn’t happen overnight. There are individuals and there are individuals. There are those that instantly took it on board and changed instantly while there are some others who’ll take a little bit longer - but they’re getting there.”

For those that need a little longer to replace the ‘Lewisham head’ with an ‘Inspace head’ - somewhat institutionalised by the old ways, as Fordham put it - their new employer and colleagues are on hand to aid their transformation. “A bit of extra mentoring, a bit of extra coaching,” as Simon added, together with toolbox talks and meetings with the tenants are helping them through.

That’s surely the essence of a partnership and given the nature of Phoenix it’s rather more than a two-way affair between the RSL and Inspace, but a threesome incorporating the tenants - all talking and thrashing out concerns to achieve the desired outcomes set by the residents themselves. It isn’t so much about eradicating problems - the world doesn’t work that way - but to team up to resolve any problems when they occur, or strive to look ahead and second guess any problems that might crop up in future - and then seek to head them off. Properly organised, many heads are better than one.

“It’s all about the tenants, isn’t it?” Simon said. “None of us would be here without them, so it’s obviously about bringing them to the fore. Phoenix isn’t a commercial entity as such, although Inspace is a commercial company and does want to make money at the end of the day. If we help it grow with the tenants, we understand more about what the tenants need, that puts us in a better position. We’re in it together. It’s a proper partnership. It’s Phoenix and Inspace joining hands and moving forward.”

Now there speaks the attitude that won the tenants their Phoenix and Inspace the contract - the only way is up.