Quarterly Report October 2010 - December 2010
Chief Executive
Harj Singh
WITH SPENDING cuts aand tax rises beginning to bbite, it is clear that like most bbusinesses, Aldwyck will bbe impacted by the harsh eeconomic conditions. Welfare reform, changes h investment fframework, the reduction to the in mortgage lending and regulatory changes will mean that we must all adapt to our new surroundings. The Board and the Executive have started discussions around developing a corporate
strategy that builds on the good reputation that Aldwyck has among our stakeholders, and begins to take advantage of the opportunities within this new business climate. During the next quarter, I will be giving staff the opportunity to put across their ideas and feed into our corporate strategy in a series of roundtable discussions. It becomes imperative that Aldwyck continues to ensure it helps the most vulnerable people in society and provide the best possible service to our customers.
Housing and Customer Services
Carol Hall
T THE MAJOR activity this qquarter saw the transfer of tthe care services to Turning Point on December 1. We P ssaid goodbye to around 150 colleagues who we tthank for their contribution to Aldwyck and wish them the best for the future. As a result we have reorganised our remaining services, creating a new Older Persons Service which will be headed up by Linda Robson. The other remaining scheme, Arthur Street, comes under the control of the Supported Housing team. Our voids project which we were running through the quarter has now come to an end and the results have been very promising. We are currently running a consultation as to whether we make the changes permanent and move back to a central voids function. Overall we have not yet met our target in this area but the trend is strongly in the right direction, reaching an average of 23.5 days to clear a void at the end of the period in comparison to
32 in the previous quarter. Likewise our efforts to concentrate on arrears are beginning to bear fruit. Although we remain over our target, Aldwyck West have now reached their mark and in the East, work is being undertaken that is driving us in the right direction. A lot of my personal time this quarter has been taken up digesting and analysing what the changes announced by the government in the Comprehensive Spending Review mean for us. Obviously there remain a lot of unanswered questions as to how it will all work in practice but we remain committed to providing customers the best possible service during this transitional time. On the staff side we said goodbye for now to Head of Housing for Aldwyck West Georgina Parkinson, who gave birth to baby Florence shortly after Christmas. Stewart Smart who has previously been with us on a temporary basis in the East has taken on Georgina’s role in the interim.
Development and New Business
Richard Broomfield
WE ARE on target to pproduce around 318 homes ffor the financial year having m managed 245 up to the end of December. o Maintaining our activity in tthe face of the economic i d has h bbeen a good effort and we were able wind during the quarter to launch four new phases, which will add a further 54 homes, at the Biddenham Vale site near Bedford after securing extra grant from the Homes and Communities Agency. During the quarter we completed Jeremiah Smith House in Marsh Farm (formerly known as Wauluds House), providing 24 one and twobedroom flats as part of the area’s regeneration
project. This scheme has been widely recognised for the innovative way we have utilised local labour and given training opportunities to local students, an approach we will be seeking to replicate in the future. During the quarter we also took handover of further new homes at Biddenham Vale and South Leighton Buzzard. We had some good news when the application to turn our site in Kestrel Way, Luton into a village green was turned down, which means that building can start before March. But we were very disappointed that our planning appeal at Little Bushey Lane in Bushey was dismissed. Having worked on this development for five years, we are now reviewing the way forward. Lea Valley Homes pushed through nine more completions during the quarter. A further 5 families were ‘rescued’, taking our total to 34 during the two years the Mortgage Rescue scheme has been in operation.
Technical Services
Gary Goggins T THE CONTINUED iintegration of Connect’s bbusiness systems into A Aldwyck has been the main bbusiness of the quarter. The new DLO module w which controls and tracks our repairs was introduced during the quarter and the additional mobile working software will be added shortly. The disruption this has caused has meant we have had to take a step backwards in order to go forwards. When added to the poor weather in December inevitably performance levels have dipped a little. Happily, customer satisfaction with repairs still remains above target which is a good effort from all those concerned. Before Christmas the decision was taken to bring Connect to our main office at Houghton Hall and gain planning consent to extend our
current car parking to accommodate the new arrivals. The Connect Board have also agreed the new corporate identity for the business which involves changing the current colour scheme away from the current red to the darker of the ‘Aldwyck blues’. The tender for new vehicles for Connect also went out in the last quarter. We are now entering the final phase of the project with completion expected by year end. As part of this year’s planned maintenance programme, we replaced 75 kitchens during the quarter and undertook 268 heating upgrades and a further 756 electrical upgrades. Activity will be stepped up before year end following the tendering in this quarter of our cyclical decorations programme which will concentrate on upgrading communal areas on our schemes, an area for improvement highighted by last year’s STATUS survey.
Finance
Louisa Clarke FINANCIAL performance ffor this quarter has been eencouraging, with above ttarget figures for both iincome and our surplus. Income is slightly ahead aat £33,847m for the year so far, mainly due to more accurate recalculations of our service charges and more rent being collected due to earlier than expected handover of some development schemes. Our surplus currently stands at £1,072m ahead of the target for this stage of the year by almost £500,000. This performance has been achieved by better sales figures by Lea Valley
than expected with an extra £276,000 generated for the year to date. In addition, by assuming full control of our maintenance subsidiary Connect, we have made substantial savings against the forecasted figures from our former management relationship with Connaught. Some of that saving had been achieved prior to Connaught’s administration following the renegotiation of our management agreement. This has been acclerated by the decision to take Connect in-house with savings achieved around the £500,000 mark. Despite this over performance, our yearend projections are in line with budget, with significant spend on cyclical decoration works taking place in the final quarter.
People and Performance
Peter Jeffery
THERE HAS been a ssignificant amount of activity within the People and w Performance department P during the quarter as we d cconcluded two major pprojects. Firstly, we completed the handover of the departing care services teams to Turning Point, assisting the outgoing staff and their new employers with establishing their new relationships. Secondly, we had to deal with the incoming transfer of Connect staff, providing them with ongoing HR support while bringing them into our systems. Not only have we had to take up any ongoing issues but we also have had to do a reassessment for issues such as CRB checks, and the training needs of Connect staff going forward. I personally would like to thank the HR team for their efforts in handling these two difficult issues. In October we launched the staff survey and
we have fed back to staff about the results. In general, the picture is optimistic and the Executive were particularly pleased with the response rates we achieved. Having introduced the intranet at the start of October we have continued to improve it over the past three months, adding new sections and utilising it as the major platform for internal communications. The Business Excellence team once again facilitated our re-inspection by QHS in December with the results of the visit encouraging. A final score is only calculated together with customer feedback and we should know our final result later this quarter. The staff conference was delivered at the end of October, with the overwhelming majority of the 253 attendees playing a full part in the day’s activities. Feedback via the message wall was again largely positive with staff appreciating the opportunity to come together and do some different.
Customer satisfaction with repairs:
Q3 91.18
Q2 97.25%
Target: 87%
Repairs completed within target:
Q3 78.7%
Q2 91.7%
Target: 95%
Number of homes owned:
Q3 9,244
Q2 9,217
N/A
Total Income:
Q3 £33,847m
Q2 £22,462,m
Q3 Target: £33,774m
Average days to re-let a property: Q3 23.8
Q2 32.1
Target: 18
Arrears as % of rent debit:
Q2 3.14%
Target: 2.68%
Q3 3.45%
If you have any comments on the contents or style of this Quarterly Report please contact Ben Kunicki by email
[email protected] or by telephone on 01582 869225
Aldwyck Housing Group 6 Houghton Hall Business Park Porz Avenue, Houghton Regis Bedfordshire LU5 5UZ t: 01582 869100 f: 01582 869200 e:
[email protected] www.aldwyck.co.uk