effectiveness economy efficiency · value for money statement. our group-wide corporate plan...

GreenSquare Group Limited

Great homes and servicesStrong and vibrant communities

Economy

Effectiveness

Efficiency

Value for Money Statement2017/18

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Value for money statement

Our group-wide Corporate Plan outlines our overall purpose, how we plan to deliver our strategic objectives and our approach to achieving value for money (VFM) in delivering these. This report looks back at how we have done against the 2017/18 plan and provides an overview of the priorities we have identified for our 2018/19 plan.

Our purpose:

We are passionate about great places to live

At GreenSquare we make a difference.

We increase the opportunities for people to thrive by giving them access to great homes and services to match. This supports the creation of strong and vibrant communities.

We make a difference to people’s lives – and this is something we want to continue doing, for more people, every day.

Our strategic objectives:

Valuing our customersOur homes will be at a quality that we can be proud of, with services to match. When someone is looking for a great place to live, we want them to think about GreenSquare first. We will have a good understanding of all our customers so that we can deliver what they need in a way that suits them.

Meeting housing and related needsOur customers will include those looking for their first home right through to those who need a home that meets their support needs. We aim to protect the valuable social housing we have.

We will use our particular skills and resources to help provide support services to help people improve their lives.

Growth with a purposeWe will increase the number of new good-quality homes for affordable rent, purchase and shared ownership.

Every penny countsBy maximising opportunities, working smarter and increasing efficiency across the Group, we will have more resources to create more great places where people want to live.

Able to stand on our own We will develop our commercial activities to make a profit to support our growth and add financial strength to the group. We will carry out commercial activity to support our social purpose, never as an end in itself.

A great teamWe will continue to develop a culture that encourages people to meet their potential and deliver excellent customer service.

Our priorities 2017/18 We identified the following priorities for our 2017/18 business plan:

• Improving our customer’s experience • Achieving better VFM with a particular focus on digital transformation and procurement• Increased delivery of new homes (social and affordable rent, shared ownership and outright sale)• Raise new income from existing operations to support our wider business objectives• Improve staff engagement and build the right culture to act as the foundation for ongoing transformation

GREENSQUARE GROUP LIMITED

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Maintaining a strategic focus on value for money

Our business planning cycle and performance management approach ensures that we maintain a strategic focus on value for money.

Access to a range of benchmarking data and other metrics allows us to see:

• how performance in key areas of the business compares with others (are we good?); • what it costs to deliver our services relative to others (are we expensive?); and • what are our cost drivers (why our costs are what they are).

We use this information to make informed decisions about what we need to do differently as part of the business planning process. In other words, we actively look at the information and identify what changes we need to make – for example do we have the right model for delivering ‘x’ service, do we have the right structure? This information is used to set our targets for the group-wide Business Plan and operational metrics to measure progress. Performance is then monitored and challenged via our collaborative management teams, who have specific focus on key business areas, our Leadership Team and our Board.

During the year we participated in the pilot of the Sector Scorecard, the information from which has been used to inform the development of targets for our 2018/19 Business Plan.

Our VFM approach is embedded in our Business Plan For example, our strategic objectives have the following VFM specific goals and related measures/targets:

Every penny counts• Focus on working smarter and increasing efficiency through the transformation of our processes, structures, systems and technology.• Improve our approach to procurement to enable us to ‘buy better’.• Minimise the level of lost income through voids, arrears, and bad debts.

Growth with a purpose• Increase the number of high quality homes available to meet the housing needs of customers.• Strategically manage our assets (regeneration and strategic disposals) to maximise our ability to increase the number of good quality affordable homes.

The group-wide business plan also included a number of key projects/activities to drive VFM:• Review of sustainability of commercial activities to ensure we maximise the returns on our investments to support the delivery of our plans.• Grow GreenSquare Homes – generate £5m profit by 2020 and through the housing associations within the Group, to develop an additional 2000 retained homes by 2025.• Digital transformation of the customer experience – ability for customers to access services online at their convenience including booking repairs and checking rent statements. Greater efficiency and provision of customer information in the delivery of our responsive repairs service resulting in better customer experience.

• Digital transformation of the workplace – greater efficiency and automation of business processes, faster information flows, more informed decision making.• Complete our office accommodation review.


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Managing and monitoring our performance

Our ‘plan on a page’ (see next page) provides an at a glance overview of performance against all our business plan targets on a quarterly basis. This is supported by more detailed performance dashboards.

Our key performance indicators (KPIs) provide a focus on those areas deemed most important to our performance. For example, our aim to achieve an absolute reduction in management costs and still improve customer satisfaction is monitored here.

2016/17Actual

Outcome

Customer

Customer satisfaction with GreenSquare as their landlord (Rolling year to date)

Satisfaction with last contact

Customers satisfaction with quality of their home

Delivery

Total housing owned

Rent lost due to homes being vacant as a percentage of the annual rent roll

Financial

Management cost per total units

Operating margin (RP only)

Colleagues

Engagement index

Voluntary Turnover

2017/18Target

2017/18Actual

PerformanceImproved?

75.4%

88.87%

77.81%

11,685

1%

£1,053

29.0%

67%

12.80%

86%

90%

80%

11,867

<1%

£1,037

28.8%

75%

5-15%

75.3%

90%

72.9%

11,877

0.93%

£1,019

35.0%

77%

15.13%

Same

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

How have we done - our performance 2017/18

Our KPIs


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Our strategic objectives

Plan on a pageEach kite represents a strategic objective and each section within the kite a goal in our 2017/18 business plan.

The details of the performance against each of the objectives are provided on the following pages.

L A N D L O R D S AT I S FA C T I O N

L A S T C O N TA C T S AT I S FA C T I O N

% V O I D R E N T L O S S

O P E R AT I N G M A R G I N

M A N A G E M E N T C O S T P E R U N I T

Valuing our customers

Meeting housing and related needs

Able to stand on our own

A great team

Growth with a purpose

Every penny counts

Business plan performanceQuarter 4 2017-18

1

1a

1a

1

11

2

1b

2

1b

2

2

2

3a

3

3a

3

33b

2

3b

4a4b4

4

5

67

8

S h a r i n g s u c c e s s m e a s u re s


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Valuing our customersOur priority was to improve customer experience.

A key activity this year was to develop a new customer experience strategy working with the Institute of Customer Service. Our specific goals were:

1 Ensure customer satisfaction with the services we deliver.2 Understand our customers’ diversity to help inform the development of services.3 Ensure that our customers can contact us and get the help and information they need, taking into account those who may be vulnerable or less able to access our services.4 Ensure we listen to and act on feedback from our customers.5 Ensure that we resolve complaints effectively and use what we learn from them to improve our services.6 Working in conjunction with partner agencies, to tackle and prevent antisocial behaviour.7 Ensure timely and good quality repairs and grounds maintenance services.8 Maintain the customer satisfaction with quality of our homes.

Nichola and Pat, GreenSquare residents win Good Neighbour Award


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Our 2017/18 Business Plan recognised that there was a need to tackle the decline in Customer satisfaction. This decline has been driven by GreenSquare not dealing with the more complex repairs as quickly as our customers expect and the ease of communication with the organisation needing to be improved.

This is being addressed with a new customer experience strategy, that seeks to fully understand the customer offer, and thereby provides a series of measures to improve the service. The Board agreed to the strategy and the associated costs because of the payback in terms of improving the services that GreenSquare offers to its customers. It was acknowledged that the impact would not be immediate but there should be tangible returns on the investment over the subsequent year ending 31 March 2019.

There has been some immediate success in that the decline in overall satisfaction has been reversed.

85.00%

90.00%

80.00%

75.00%

70.00%

65.00%

60.00%

Satisfaction with GreenSquare as a landlord (RYTD)

Q115 16 17

Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Also, the customer satisfaction with the last contact with GreenSquare has been high for the majority of the year and ended year at target.

However, the real impact on customer satisfaction will be seen after the year end, from the digital transformation of the repairs service through the implementation of dynamic workforce scheduling. This was a significant investment of time and money through the year and went live on time, on budget and in line with the original specification in the first weekend in May 2018. Alongside that project was the development of the self-service customer portal which will also go live in 2018/19.

95%

100%

90%

85%

80%

75%

70%

Satisfaction with last contact

Mar

17

Apr

17

May

17

Jun

17

Jul 1

7

Aug

17

Sep

17

Nov

17

Dec

17

Jan

18

Feb

18

Mar

18

Oct

17


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The ease in which customers can contact GreenSquare is a key driver for overall satisfaction. Consequently additional resources have been put in the customer contact centre to improve this aspect of our service. Next year this will be further enhanced through the introduction of the ability of our customers to access services digitally, again delivering improvements in the service offered and thereby driving up satisfaction levels.

Finally, for this strategic area, there has been a decline over the year in relation to satisfaction with quality of home (goal 8). This links with both the repairs service and wider approach to strategic assets/maintenance. This is identified as a priority in the 2018/19 plan, together with the significant regeneration plans of the older pre-reinforced concrete properties such as we are seeing in the Culverhay in Cricklade (see Growth with a Purpose on page 21).

Meeting housing and related needs

We achieved all our targets in this area

1 Protecting number of homes for social rentThe first goal achieved is around maintaining those homes let on a social rent, which the Board sees as a valuable resource within GreenSquare. The performance shows that we have protected the number more than the target of 9,565, as originally set in April 2015. These social rented homes create a significant social dividend, a key value for money outcome of achieving this goal.

2 Minimise failure of tenanciesIn light of the changes brought in under Welfare Reform, and the potential for an increase in the number of failed tenancies and associated impact on our customers, we set ourselves a target to ensure we took steps to mitigate the impact. We are pleased to have met our target of ensuring failed tenancies do not exceed 0.5% of our overall tenancies

Our goals:

1 Protect the number of homes available for social rent.

2 Minimise failure of GreenSquare tenancies.

3 Provide good quality support services (existing contracts).

Case study Our in-house tenancy sustainment officer worked with Ms B who suffers from depression, anxiety and various physical health problems. She had rent arrears after migrating over to Universal Credit (UC) and we were close to taking court action.

We struggled to engage with Ms B initially, but we persisted and explained how we could help her sustain her tenancy. We discovered mountains of unopened post that was stacked in her hallway and how, as she had no money to pay for these, she had gone without food and utilities.

We discovered her UC had been calculated wrongly and liaising with the Department for Work and Pensions were able to get this backdated and full housing costs were awarded. In addition, working with the CAB, an application for Personal Independence Payment was applied for, as well as obtaining a grant to cover the cost of utilities and broadband. We also delivered several food parcels during this interim period.

Ms B’s rent account is now clear and she responds to letters and telephone calls. She has told us she now feels in control of her life, as well as her tenancy.


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3 Provide good quality support servicesLast year we supported over 9,400 people, many of whom had multiple support needs. We exceeded our target of 85% with 93% reporting positive support outcomes.

Case study We helped M with the multiple needs of domestic abuse, finance, and gaining a more suitable home.

M was living with her husband and 18 year old daughter in a joint tenancy. She was subject to abuse from her husband, who controlled her finances. She wanted to separate but rent arrears were preventing the transfer of tenancy to her sole name. We supported M with a referral to Gloucestershire Domestic Abuse Support Service (GDASS) and a Helping Hands application to clear the rent arrears. With the arrears cleared, the tenancy was transferred to her sole name and her husband moved out. We supported her with charity applications to purchase a washing machine, bed and clothes, to claim Employment and Support Allowance and Personal Independence Payment (PIP), and discretionary housing payments towards the rent shortfall. She is now actively bidding on choice based lettings to move to smaller accommodation.

Street naming at Culverhay, Cricklade


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Our goals:

1 Increase the number of high quality homes available to meet the housing needs of customers. a) Affordable homes b) Outright sale 2 Strategically manage our assets (regeneration and strategic disposals) to maximise our ability to increase number of good quality affordable homes.

Growth with a purpose

1 Increase the number of homes available to meet the housing needs of customersWe met our target and delivered 241 new affordable rented and shared ownership homes during the course of 2017/18. This means we can meet more people’s housing needs across our area and improve their lives.

We also built 23 homes for outright sale during the year which was also on target.

12000

11800

11600

11400

11200

11000

Number of homes

Mar

15

Jun

15

Sep

15

Dec

15

Mar

16

Jun1

6

Sep

16

Mar

Jun

17

Sep

17

Dec

17

Mar

18

Dec

16

Case study Mrs A was living in a two-bed house with her husband and four children. They moved to a new GreenSquare home and contacted us to describe how this had changed their lives. As well as the health of the whole family improving, school grades improved and her youngest children who struggled to sleep, began to sleep through the night. Mrs A’s agoraphobia also improved to the point where she could come off medication and achieve her goal of picking her children up from school.


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2 Strategically manage our assets (regeneration and strategic disposals) to maximise our ability to increase number of good quality affordable homes

As part of our strategic asset management strategy, we seek to dispose of homes which have low demand and/or high maintenance liabilities. The volumes are dependent of what becomes empty for sale. Our disposals target was 64 homes – we disposed of 69.

That said, we have been busy during 2017/18 with a number of regeneration schemes across our areas, which have provided more new homes and helped address the issues we have with post war non-standard house types that would otherwise have required significant investment to maintain them.

Case study In December 2017, we completed phase one of our Culverhay regeneration in Cricklade. Work began in May 2017 with the demolition of four houses, which have now been replaced with five bungalows and a further three new houses.

We recognise the need to maintain a focus on our approach to strategic asset management in order to optimise our ability to increase number of good quality affordable homes. We also recognise that this drives satisfaction with the quality of home – one of our KPIs. We have just created a new post, Assistant Director Assets, to continue to drive this piece of work forward in 2018/19.

Our goals:

1 Focus on working smarter and increasing efficiency through the transformation of our processes, structures, systems and technology a) Reduce management costs b) Increase Operating margin

2 Improve our approach to procurement to enable us to ‘buy better’

3 Minimise the level of lost income through voids, arrears, and bad debts

Every penny counts

1 Working smarter and increasing efficiencyWe have exceeded our targets in both our management cost per unit metric and operating margin. These are both key indicators of increased efficiency and value for money.

This has been achieved through a general focus on achieving better value for money across the organisation and through specific projects to achieve greater efficiency, economy and effectiveness.


12

£0

£200

£400

£600

£800

£1,000

£1,200

£1,400

£1,600

Group Management Cost per Unit

Q115 16 17

Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Group Management Cost per Unit Target

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

RP only Operating Margin

Q115 16 17

Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Group Operating Margin Target


13

Looking to the future, GreenSquare will drive further efficiencies through its digital transformation.

We started the year setting out our vision for the digital transformation of the organisation. During the year we have rolled out Office 365 across the organisation and implemented a new scheduling system as part of our transformation agenda. This transformation is helping us to improve our efficiency through more automation and the ability to work remotely and collaboratively.


14

2 Improve our approach to procurement to enable us to ‘buy better’We met our target to save £250K per annum through the transformation of our approach to procurement across the Group.

Case study Outsourcing its supply of materials, GreenSquare opened a new dedicated stores facility in Calne, Wiltshire, in partnership with builders’ merchants Buildbase.

GreenSquare’s Procurement Transformation Lead, Charles Hyde, said: “With this new depot, and thanks to this partnership, our teams will spend less time travelling to get materials, and will therefore be able to offer a faster, and more cost efficient repairs and maintenance service to our customers across Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire.”

GreenSquare has plans to convert its current onsite stores area, located at its head office at Methuen Park in Chippenham, into additional office space, while the stores yard will become car parking.

Charles added: “By having a larger office space at Methuen Park, we will be able to vacate our leased office in Swindon, and invest the rental savings in providing services for our customers, and building much needed new homes.”

3 Minimise the level of lost income through voids, arrears, and bad debts

The target is this areas was made up of four areas:

• Rent lost due to homes being vacant as a percentage of the annual rent roll. • Rent arrears as a percentage of rent we are owed.• Rent arrears for former tenants as % of rent due. • Leaseholder arrears.

We met our targets in all but former tenant rent arears hence amber overall. We expect this measure to improve with the appointment of a new former tenant collection agency in 2018/19.

The area out of the four which has the greatest financial impact for the organisation is that of the overall rent lost due to homes being vacant, as well as the wider impact of those homes being unavailable for people to live in. We met our target in this area throughout the year:

1.0%

1.2%

08%

06%

0.4%

0.2%

0%

Void rent loss (all features)

Q4 17 Q1 17 Q2 17 Q3 17 Q4 18

Void rent loss (all tenures)


15

Our goals:

1 Generate profit from GreenSquare Homes (build and sales programme)

2 Generate profit from GS Energy Services Ltd (Gas installation/ servicing subsidiary)

3 Generate profit from Green Square GS Estates Ltd (Public open spaces)

4 Generate profit from first tranche shared ownership sales

Able to stand on our own

1 Generate profit in GreenSquare Homes A key part of our Business Plan is that GreenSquare Homes has a goal to generate £5m profit in 5 years. This year it achieved £746K before exceptional items and tax, which was better than budgeted.

2 Generate profit in GS Energy Services LtdPerformance of GS Energy has been under review through 2017/18. Remedial action has been taken to improve profitability including relocating the company to reduce overheads. The remedial action will continue into 2018/19.

3 Generate profit in GreenSquare EstatesGreenSquare Estates made a trading loss this year, however, following a review of the business, which is now complete, there is a positive outlook for future years.

4 Generate profit from first tranche shared ownership salesWe also exceeded our target for operating surplus from first tranche sales of shared ownership properties. Our budgeted surplus was £796K with an actual performance of £1.41m

In March 2018 GreenSquare Group Limited (GreenSquare) was assigned an ‘A minus, stable outlook’ long-term issuer credit rating by Standard and Poor’s (S&P) Global Ratings.

S & P’s assessment report says that “GreenSquare’s high quality asset base in the dynamic South of England, its low industry risk, and very strong liquidity position all buoy its credit profile.”

This credit rating will support our ability to stand on our own through funding to support both our commercial and charitable objectives.


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Our goals:

1 For colleagues to see GreenSquare as a great place to work and are engaged in what we are trying to achieve.

2 To build a culture where people feel empowered and constantly strive to improve our performance, particularly in relation to providing great customer service.

3 Ensure colleagues have the right skills and capabilities to do their jobs and develop to meet their potential: 3a) Meeting leadership expectations; 3b) Adequate training to do role.

4 To have a diverse team so that we can shape and influence the delivery of fair and accessible services: 4a) Black, Asian & Minority Ethnicities (BAME) are a representative demographic; 4b) Colleagues with a disability are a representative demographic.

A great team 1 Staff engagementWe are very pleased to have seen a marked increase in staff engagement as it feeds through to customer satisfaction. At the end of the year we exceeded our target for staff engagement. This will be an ongoing focus into 2018/19 with more challenging targets to meet.

74%

76%

72%

70%

68%

66%

64%

78%

Staff Engagement Index

2016 Q1 2017 Q2 Q3 Q4


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2 CultureHaving started the work on transforming our culture a year or so ago, we are pleased to have seen a significant improvement over the last 12 months. We are now meeting our target in three of the four areas we measure but we fell short in terms of staff perceptions around ‘Boo to bureaucracy – keep it simple’. This is a focus for us to improve in 2018/19.

3 Skills and capabilitiesWe met our targets in this area. Colleagues report that our leaders and managers meet our leadership expectations. This is key to driving the culture shift to deliver our plans. This is an ongoing focus and we have a more challenging target for 2018/19.

Our Learning and Development (L&D) colleagues launched our new leadership development programme, which is taking place over the next 18 months to ensure all our managers are equipped to deliver our Corporate Plan objectives.

4 Diversity and inclusionWe have not met our target in this area although there has been an improvement in relation to the proportion of colleagues with a disability where we now have a workforce that reflects the wider demographic. We are working to continue to improve the ethnic diversity of our workforce to be equally representative.


18

VFM indicators/sector scorecard analysisThe revised VFM regulatory standard came into effect from 1 April 2018. The following table outlines our performance against these new metrics. Full benchmarking data is not yet available, however, there is significant overlap with many of the sector scorecard metrics detailed above.

Outcome

Reinvestment %

New supply delivered % (Social Housing)

New supply delivered % (Non-social Housing)

Gearing

EBITDA MRI/interest cover

Headline social housing cost per unit

Operating margin (Social housing lettings)

Operating margin

ROCE

16/17Actual

3.9%

1.6%

0.3%

45%

188%

£3,565

35.4%

26.6%

3.5%

17/18Actual

6.9%

2.4%

0.1%

45%

175%

£3,495

38.9%

30.9%

3.7%

18/19Budget

9.0%

2.0%

0.1%

52%

134%

£3,846

35.8%

27.2%

2.9%

2016/17UQ

n/a

n/a

n/a

40%

273%

£2,910

43.2%

40.7%

5.5%

2016/17Median

n/a

n/a

n/a

53%

235%

£3,285

36.3%

35.5%

4.2%

2016/17LQ

n/a

n/a

n/a

62%

170%

£3,782

32.4%

27.8%

3.7%

GreenSquare* 16/17 Sector Scorecard benchmarking**

* New VFM 2018 definitions ie unit numbers now excluding leasehold units**Housemark Sector scorecard 2016/17 South East and South West Peer Group. Old VFM definitions.


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Headline social housing costs per unit – breakdown

Outcome

Management cost per unit

Service charge cost per unit

Maintenance cost per unit

Major repairs cost per unit

Other social cost per unit

16/17Actual

£1,161

£277

£1,030

£763

£334

17/18Actual

£1,099

£312

£1,018

£780

£287

18/19Budget

£944

£323

£1,303

£1,034

£243

2016/17UQ

£700

£233

£741

£566

£45

2016/17Median

£933

£291

£972

£755

£107

2016/17LQ

£1,109

£364

£1,179

£1,087

£320

GreenSquare* Sector Scorecard benchmarking**

* New VFM 2018 definitions ie unit numbers now excluding leasehold units**Housemark Sector scorecard 2016/17 South East and South West Peer Group. Old VFM definitions.

Analysis of the sector scorecard data indicates that GreenSquare has further work to do to drive value for money across the organisation, particularly in relation to our maintenance and repair costs which feeds through to other metrics including Headline Social Housing cost, EBITDA and ROCE.

However, it is noted that our performance has improved in some key areas notably a reduction in management costs. This was identified as a priority over the last few years. We have also seen a significant increase in reinvestment as well as a sustained increase in the delivery of new social housing units.

The analysis of this data has been used to inform our 2018/19 Business Plan.


20

Looking forward – 2018/19 PrioritiesOur overall strategic objectives remain unchanged in our 2018/19 Business Plan. The priorities identified for this year, informed by the benchmarking analysis, are:

- Continuing work to improve the customer experience. This includes a significant step change in our digital offering to our customers in the form of self service and the use of dynamic scheduling for our property services team.

- A focus on driving VFM across the organisation. This includes our ongoing digital transformation of both our customer offer and our internal working practices. We will also be undertaking a particular focus on our approach to both maintenance and strategic assets over the course of the year, so we better understand our assets to enable us to optimise our return on them and ensure that our approach to maintenance provides the best VFM.

- Increasing our delivery of new retained homes into the registered providers within the GreenSquare Group remains a core priority alongside looking at how we can optimise our ability to increase the number of good quality affordable homes through a combination of regeneration and disposals.

- Increasing our income from our commercial subsidiaries, particularly GreenSquare Homes, through outright sales and reviewing our wider non-social housing activities to ensure that these generate commensurate returns relative to risk and effort.

- Addressing the poor commercial performance in GS Energy, where the financial return is below that expected of such a commercial organisation.

- Improve the capability of the organisation to deliver the aspirations of the plan, which includes leadership and change capabilities, staff engagement and culture.

Northway Community Centre


GreenSquare Group LimitedA registered society with exempt charitable status no. 7418

Registered office: Methuen Park, Chippenham SN14 0GUgreensquaregroup.com

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