Star performance
One Vision Housing formed in 2006 following a stock transfer from Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council. Chief executive Roy Williams and chairman Darren Hardy are confident that its successful Decent Homes programme and commitment to putting tenants first will help to fulfil OVH’s mission to be the landlord of choice in Sefton
In the past year, it has picked up various accreditations including the ISO standard for Health and Safety and the Customer Service Excellence award, as well as recently becoming one of only 21 housing associations in the country to be awarded the TPAS Excellence Standard for resident involvement.
“These accreditations are, we think, particularly important and a good indication of where we are going as an organisation and the progress that we have made,” says Williams.
OVH’s Decent Homes programme will finish in October, two months ahead of the Government target; a far cry from 2006 when 66 per cent of its stock was non-decent.
“We have delivered a £200 million programme on time and within budget and we think that is a significant achievement,” says Hardy. “Decent Homes was a challenge because only 10 per cent of the stock had been surveyed at the point of transfer. After we transferred we realised that that the survey didn’t necessarily reflect the amount of work that we needed to carry out.”
It was recognised that efficiency savings would have to be made to provide the necessary funds and OVH has since delivered nearly £19 million, driving down costs through negotiating better deals with contractors and reducing management costs and re-investing those savings into the service.
“We have 13 high-rise blocks. Originally we thought that we would have to demolish seven of them but tenants said that if possible they would like to retain them so we looked at a different model and put together a programme through the efficiency savings. Not only have we retained the blocks but we are also building an additional 150 units around them using OVH’s own resources and without any grant,” explains Williams.
Efficiency savings have enabled OVH to put an additional £1.5 million into disabled aids and adaptations, reducing the backlog it inherited from the council and all requests for disabled adaptations are now completed within 28 days.
It has also put an extra £600,000 into its supported housing schemes to improve the quality of life for tenants, as well as creating a worklessness officer post co-funded with Sefton Community and Voluntary Services, a healthy initiatives post co-funded with Sefton PCT and three PCSOs who are working with Merseyside Police on OVH estates.
But while making savings has been a priority, OVH has been careful to ensure they are not made at the expense of services. In fact tenant satisfaction levels have risen significantly.
Decent Homes and efficiencies have not been the only areas of focus for OVH over the years. There has also been a significant culture change with a focus on the customer and putting tenants at the centre of the organisation.
The last 12 months has also seen a move towards a co-regulatory approach. “We have set our stall out early in terms of co-regulation,” says Hardy. “We are involving tenants right across the board increasingly inviting them to become involved in the services that they receive and tell us what they think – in other words, how we can improve them and what they expect for the money that they are paying us.”
There are a number of ways for tenants to have their say including Service Review Groups where tenants are given the chance to influence how OVH operates across all areas of the business. “We are trying to create as many opportunities as possible for tenants to engage with us and there are a range of opportunities allowing tenants to feed back to us both directly and indirectly,” says Williams. “We think we are different from other organisations in the sense that we have got both a formal and informal approach to intelligence gathering, this feedback is reviewed on a monthly basis, discussed with our managers in performance meetings and used to inform our future strategic priorities.”
Williams recognises that tenant involvement is an evolving process and new ways to reach out to customers are continually being explored. “We are constantly talking to tenants about ways in which they might want to get involved, recognising that different groups of tenants might want to interact with us in different ways,” he explains.
Part of this process has included reaching out to Sefton’s young people and finding out about their aspirations. OVH recently held its first youth engagement meeting which threw up a few surprises in terms of the young people’s priorities.
“Young people have said to us that they are interested in the services that we provide and they increasingly want to get involved and understand housing. They are also keen to talk to our contractors about the quality of work on our estates,” says Williams. “They have pride in the areas that they live in, so it is important we are talking to them, and not just their parents.”
Many of the youngsters also expressed an interest in gaining work experience both with OVH and its contractors.
“Young people are our potential tenants of the future and we need to understand what they expect in the areas in which they live, and what they expect from us as a social landlord. When we open our doors we become part of the communities that we serve and it is important that we are engaging with people who live on those estates,” says Williams.
OVH is currently carrying out a youth engagement survey and working with the council, voluntary agencies, schools, youth groups, tenants and young people themselves to gather the information.
“We need to take a sincere approach and think we can do that best by having young people engage with other young people. We are trying not to take a ‘we know best approach’ because clearly we don’t know best and we are genuine about wanting to understand what the issues are for young people.”
OVH also does its bit to support existing groups and projects through its Community Chest fund. Any community groups, not just those involving OVH tenants, can bid for cash and recent donations include co-funding a mini-bus for The Brunswick Youth Centre in Sefton and sponsoring trips for young people to the Houses of Parliament.
Ideally, OVH want to be in a position where they can ensure all tenants can access the necessary support and guidance in order to be economically aware and financially stable. Hardy is aware of the added responsibility.
“All of us as social landlords have an added duty to create opportunities for our customers. It is important that we look at contributing to tackling unemployment and providing training and learning opportunities for our tenants.”
OVH could be facing its first Audit Commission inspection in September and whilst he acknowledges that there is still work to be done, Williams is confident that OVH can compete with the very best and more established providers in the sector.
He says: “We had a mock inspection in December 2009 and got two stars with excellent prospects for improvement. We are not where we want to be yet and we know that there are improvements to be made but we have moved on considerably since December and think that if we can address some of those areas then potentially we could get three stars and excellent prospects and that is what we are aiming for.” So apart from three star status what else does Williams think OVH’s future will bring?
The new build development around its tower blocks has given the organisation food for thought, particularly with a view to providing Extra Care accommodation to cater for Sefton’s growing older population.
And as well as new build there are plans for the existing stock. “We want to make sure that we build on what we have done to date and make sure we continue providing services our tenants can be proud of – services that they feel offer them value for money and choice. “We want our tenants to say that they are glad that the transfer happened and that they recognise that OVH is an organisation that puts them first.”
