Business Plan. Introduction and Context

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1 Business Plan Introduction and Context Freebridge is now eleven yeas old and has delivered its tenant promises set out in the Transfer Document Tenants' homes meet the Decent Homes requirements, as a minimum and there have been significant improvements in service delivery, particularly customer satisfaction. The Board have re-affirmed our Values, Vision and Mission; however we now have the opportunity to refine and improve our strategic plans to give greater clarity. We are approaching this new Business Plan at a time when there is uncertainty in both national and local policy. Fundamentally the Government's key objectives for the sector are to build more multitenure homes and to improve organisational efficiency. These efficiencies and better use of our assets should be used to support our strategic goals. The Housing Regulator's focus will be to ensure that these Government priorities are delivered, which it will do through the setting of standards, developing sector wide performance information and testing social housing providers competence through in-depth inspection. We will be expected to prove that we have considered all options to achieve these objectives. At a local level housing demand continues to outstrip supply across all tenures. Planning policy promotes sustainable growth, particularly within King's Lynn. The Council has become a facilitator for housing for sale. More recent developments include the creation of a housing company to provide some elements of social housing to help tackle homelessness. It is part of Freebridge's aspiration to invest in community leadership. Many different people and services contribute to the wellbeing of local communities. As a community housing provider, empowering people to feel involved and close working with partner organisations will help us prioritise our services. Our leadership role is to provide choice and opportunity to help people to be the best they can be, working with individuals and other organisations to develop a vision for the area, for example through bringing people together through neighbourhood planning. These actions will help communities to identify and deal with problems in the most effective way. Freebridge is a value driven organisation. The following Values describe how the organisation does business and underpin everything Freebridge does. While these considerations focus on the external housing environment we have our own aspirations to meet the needs of current and future tenants and to ensure that Freebridge is sustainable as a strong independent organisation. 1

2 Our Long Term Vision - Supporting a Better West Norfolk The primary role of Freebridge is to provide and manage social housing. However we strongly believe what is needed, in an area of low aspiration and poor health outputs, is to have a much wider role than a 'bricks and mortar' landlord. Housing is our core, but it is only one aspect of a sustainable tenancy and a good quality of life for our tenants. We cannot tackle these social issues on our own, we have a role in working in partnership with other agencies to improve social value. Our Mission - Developing Homes & Creating Opportunities for People Within West Norfolk Our Mission contributes to our long term Vision and focusses our priorities. "Developing Homes" describes the purpose of maintaining our properties at a standard above Decent Homes that meets tenants' aspirations and protects our assets. It also signifies our commitment to build and acquire property to meet a range of housing needs. The second part of our Mission is "Creating Opportunities for People", we recognise that 'people' are at the centre of what we do, both our tenants and our employees. We believe we have a role in helping people to be the best they can be by facilitating choice. The final part of the Mission describes the geographical area we work in. West Norfolk is our primary focus as the area encompasses the communities we service. There will be occasions when we operate outside the Borough area but we will consider carefully the reasons why we want to do this and how it supports our overall purpose. It is more in line with our Vision and Mission that we seek to grow and influence housing and social improvement for the communities within West Norfolk. Strategic Goals We have identified three strategic goals to bring further clarity to these statements and explain what they mean in practical terms. 1. More and diverse homes to meet the needs of a wider group of people We know that there is a shortage of social housing, the quality of private and rented accommodation varies considerably and that many people find it difficult to access owner occupation. By diversifying into a wider range of tenures Freebridge will be meeting housing need and we will become relevant to a wider group of people. Some of these activities could be used to cross subsidise the provision of social housing, replacing the reduction in Government grant and the reduction in financial plan capacity to fund new homes as a result of limiting rent increases. While there are inherent risks in some of these activities, diversification could help us to manage risk generally. 2

3 2. Empowering people to be the best they can be There is a sound business case to ensure that our tenants are economically active and healthy, as this provides social value and supports sustainable tenancies. Through our involvement in these activities we will be meeting a social need and we are well placed to influence other service providers in the area. While there is a clear external focus in this goal it equally applies to the people who work for Freebridge. We strongly believe in being a people focussed business. Our culture is inclusive and empowering, we pay attention to everyone's learning and personal development in order that we promote high levels of employee satisfaction and that we recruit and retain great people. 3. Delivering a high performing housing service Our provision of a high performing housing service is the foundation for all of our activities. We pride ourselves in using continuous improvement to ensure that we are efficient and effective in the delivery of our services and that we use customer feedback to drive high levels of customer satisfaction. The quality of service is important because our customers deserve it and it is our responsibility to ensure that Freebridge is fit for purpose. We will be judged on our performance and through the growth and development of our people we will be taken seriously by our stakeholders. This section of our plan sets out the long term strategic Vision, Mission and goals. During 2017 we will review our policy framework, refining and simplifying these documents in order that they help us understand what we do to support our long term aspirations In order to measure our progress against these strategic goals we have set a number of stretch targets. The Board have agreed fifteen projects which support the three strategic goals and combined deliver the Freebridge Vision and Mission. These are introduced later in this document. Together the delivery of the projects will shape the future direction of Freebridge and form the three year Business Plan to In the first year of the Plan the projects will be at an early stage of development and will therefore include analysis, reviews and option appraisals in order to inform Board decisions and later implementation. The Board will receive quarterly updates to ensure oversight and the Plan remains flexible to respond to new information and changes in the environment. The Board will monitor the delivery of the projects and operational performance on a quarterly basis. 3

4 In order to "deliver more and diverse homes to meet the needs of a wider group of people" Freebridge aims to review its existing housing stock and land-bank. Some properties will no longer be fit for purpose, have high values, or may be in an area of low demand. Through the selective sale or redevelopment of these properties Freebridge could both reduce maintenance costs and increase capacity to provide new homes to meet people s needs. When this is linked to a more sophisticated review of our maintenance investment programme we could release funds within our current borrowing to support growth. These activities, combined with the Financial Plan Capacity Review, will provide the Board with an in depth understanding of the overall capacity of Freebridge to grow and will help them make decisions about the need for further borrowing to deliver their ambition. Early discussions have taken place with the Borough Council in relation to the wider housing market. With the increase in the private rented sector standards vary considerably and costs to access accommodation can be high. In addition tenants have very little long term security. Freebridge could play a more active role in this market providing homes and services. The Business Plan will explore these opportunities though the Complete Home Offer project. Alongside this, Hillington Square remains the single largest investment scheme for Freebridge. Until it is completed it remains a risk for the organisation early in the Business Plan. Our aim is to develop a sustainable plan that will see the scheme completed in 2020 in line with the original vision of creating a place where people want to live. The existing Asset Management Strategy provides a more comprehensive explanation of how these activities are co-ordinated. Empowering People To Be Best They Can Be draws together a number of key strategies within the business. The HR Strategy provides the focus for the recruitment, retention and reward or our employees. It is only with high levels of employee satisfaction that we can deliver a quality service to our customers. There are strong links to our Customer Care Strategy, and the focus of our employee activities is our Times Top 100 Best Companies assessment and action plan. Empowerment starts with our employees but if we are to deliver our Vision and Mission we need to work with partner organisation to create opportunities for better social outcomes for our residents, including health, education and employment these are some of the main components of our PlaceShaping Strategy. We have demonstrated what a difference the provision of community space at the Providence Street Community Centre has made to the quality of people s lives. This is helping to develop our thinking about the social regeneration of the area. We have repositioned the management of the Providence Street Centre to create a PlaceShaping team that can work with residents to implement these principles in other areas. We have specifically identified North Lynn PlaceShaping as a project within the Business Plan. The existing provision of community activities from the Discovery Centre is failing and the Trustees have approached Freebridge to seek our assistance in securing its future. 4

5 We can only achieve these diversifications into new housing markets and social enterprise if we are 'providing a high performing housing service' to our tenants. We have identified a number of projects that will help make us more efficient and effective. A number of these projects underpin our Business Improvement Strategy. In particular the Operating Model Review and the Capita Best Use of Systems should help us free up employees time to focus on the things that make the biggest difference. We know that ensuring that our repairs service meets the needs of our tenants is a central part of any housing service, therefore we are taking an indepth review of Property Services. If we are to be able to make the best from any property disposals and commercial activities, and provide a clear focus for our social enterprise, we need to explore the best structure for Freebridge. We need to consider the wider legal and financial implications of our activities and we will be seeking external advice about how we should manage these activities. Any changes will impact on our governance arrangements; we will also need to respond to changes in legislation which will lead to deregulation and greater independence. Our response to these changes will have a direct impact on our governance structure and we have a specific focus in the Business Plan on improved governance. We are operating in rapidly changing external environment and we need to be able to respond to these changes in a way that promotes our Values. We know that Supporting People Funding is likely to be withdrawn from sheltered housing and will be redirected to elderly people on an individual needs basis. This has implications for the management of our schemes which we need to review carefully to ensure we take into consideration all perspectives. A number of these projects have financial implications, the Financial Plan Capacity Review is just one of them and empowering people is a review of our pension liabilities. The Board want to ensure that they have a full understanding of the future requirements to support pension responsibilities when they are taking long term financial decisions. Because of this we want to seek external support to review our position. This is an ambitions Business Plan that has been produced to both meet the future challenges facing Freebridge from the external environment and to deliver the Board s aspirations. The budget to support the Plan s implementation during 2017/18 has been developed alongside the preparation of the Business Plan and the longer term implications, as decisions are made by the Board will be reflected in the Financial Plan. Each project has been cross referenced with the risk map and matched to the risk appetite recently completed by the Board and Management Team. The risk map will be updated to reflect strategic changes to the business. The Board will keep oversight of the Plan both through the quarterly reporting of the implementation of projects and the monitoring of routine performance information. This will be linked with the wider sector performance metric to enable benchmarking and will accommodate the emerging measures to be reported to the Regulator. These activities 5

6 are reflected in the Value for Money Strategy which will both inform the Business Plan and influence its implementation. Targets by 2020 We have set some draft targets to provide us with clear ambition for the Business Plan. There are six stretch targets to aim for by The targets support one or more of our strategic goals. Satisfaction remains an important focus for Freebridge, and we strongly believe that the delivery of high tenant satisfaction is closely linked to employee satisfaction. We will continue to monitor employee satisfaction on a monthly basis and will use the Times Best Companies assessment to capture independent feedback and use this to develop our engagement improvement plans. Our aspiration is to be in the top 20 in the "Not For Profit" list as we know to achieve this our employee offer must be valued. Tenant satisfaction provides us with great feedback from our tenants about how our services meet their needs and how easy it is to do business with us. We use a number of ways to monitor this through the management of compliments and complaints, informal feedback and a refreshed monthly customer feedback survey, carried out by our First Contact Team. We have set a target of 90% satisfaction which will place us with some of our best competitors. High levels of satisfaction will help us in our ambition to become involved in wider housing markets. In order for Freebridge to meet the housing needs of people within West Norfolk we must grow. It is important that we ensure that we are providing the right number of homes, of the right type in the right area. This will require sound housing needs information. We have set a target of 6927 homes that reflects our current Financial Plan capacity. Through the development of our Business Plan our ambition is to increase this number in order that we are helping more people. The Business Plan explains our vision of Supporting a better West Norfolk. The quality of people's homes and neighbourhoods has a huge impact on the quality of people's lives. We have used the Measure, Evaluate and Learn Survey (MEL) that has been used by West Norfolk Partnership to test how people feel about the place they live in. We have set a target of 82% of people saying they have a good quality of life. The 'outputs' can only be achieved if we manage the business well and direct our funds to deliver great homes and services. We will use our operating margin and a measure of financial capacity to achieve this. These represent our local targets and they are supported by the development of an integrated performance management framework. We have also signed up to the wider sector score card which is piloting fifteen performance indicators. During 2018/19 the Housing Regulator will publish its own set of indicators from this pilot and we will need to reflect them in our framework when they become available. The Business Plan represents a new stage in the development of Freebridge. While in many respects it represents a continuation of existing strategies and priorities we will be engaged in new activities. The final aspect of the Business Plan projects is a new communication plan to help us explain our priorities and promote shared ownership of our ambition. 6

7 Business Plan Values Working Together Empowerment Integrity Customer Focus Enthusiasm Vision Supporting a Better West Norfolk Mission Developing Homes and Creating Opportunities for People Within West Norfolk Strategic Goals More and diverse homes to meet the needs of a wider group of people Delivering a high performing housing service Empowering people to be the best they can be Targets by % Top % 221m 865 Overall Tenant Satisfaction Times Top 100 Delivered by 85% employee satisfaction Homes Satisfaction with neighbourhood Stock Security Value Operating Profit Per Unit