KINGDOM HOUSING GROUP€¦ · outcomes over the period 2016/17 – 2020/21. ... To improve services...

KINGDOM HOUSING GROUP

SUMMARY CORPORATE PLAN

2016 – 2021

“More than a Home”

Kingdom Housing Group Summary Corporate Plan – 2016-2021

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The Kingdom Group currently consists of Kingdom Housing Association (KHA) and its’ wholly owned subsidiary, Kingdom Initiatives Limited (KIL). During the year we will also be developing the business plan for a new Support & Care subsidiary. We provide quality affordable housing, support and care and a range of complementary activities across East Central Scotland. Our mission is to provide ‘More than a Home’. The Governing Board Members and Senior Management Teams reviewed the Corporate Plan and Strategies to:-

Provide a focus on our purpose and outcomes, for our stakeholders;

Promote our objectives and plans;

Demonstrate our business planning processes and financial viability;

Provide more detail on our organisational strategies;

Highlight our priorities for 2016/17;

Identify areas for improvement and business development over the period of the plan.

Our Mission is to provide:-

More than a home. Our Vision is to be:-

A leading provider and developer of quality affordable housing in Scotland;

A provider of excellent customer service;

Recognised as an innovative and excellent landlord and service provider;

A socially responsible organisation;

Well governed;

Financially secure;

An employer of choice; and

A valued partner. Our Values are:-

Fairness;

Innovation;

Sustainability;

Delivering value for money;

Collaborative working;

Recognising the contribution and diversity of our customers, stakeholders and workforce; and

Treating people with respect.


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Our Strategic Objectives are to:-

Provide as many new quality affordable homes as possible;

Be an excellent and supportive landlord;

Provide excellent and sustainable Support & Care services;

Be financially secure;

Be innovative;

Be an employer of choice;

Protect and enhance the reputation of the Group;

Provide added value through Community Initiatives.

Our Customers & Stakeholders Kingdom is a diverse organisation with different customers. Our core customers are our tenants and others who access our services. Our main customers and stakeholders are summarised below:-

Tenants and Residents;

Users of Support & Care services;

Service Users families;

Clients and customers who receive support from our projects / services;

Unemployed people;

Applicants for housing;

Residents in our areas of operation;

Home owners;

Organisations we lease properties to;

Scottish Government;

Local Authorities;

Councillors, MSPs and MPs;

General public. We carry out customer profiling and stakeholder mapping exercises in order to better understand the characteristics of our customers; this should allow us to tailor our services to suit their needs. Customer Expectations Our customers want excellent services and the following summarises the expectations we aim to meet and provide:-

Good quality services which are efficient and effective;

Consistency of support, approach and advice;

Quality, affordable housing;


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A safe place to live;

Reliability;

To be treated with respect;

Support with rent arrears and welfare reform;

Response within a reasonable time;

Good communication;

Good use of rent and services income;

Value for money;

Provision of good and clear information;

Knowledgeable staff who understand customers needs;

To be able to access our services easily;

To feel staff are approachable. In 2016 we carried out a review of our management structure and when our Director of Resources retired in June 2016 we introduced a revised structure as shown in the diagram below.

Bo

ard

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Man

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Ch

ief

Exe

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Director of Corporate Support Services

Director of Housing & Care

Acting Director of Development

Head of HR

Acting Director of Asset Management

Acting Property Maintenance Manager

Acting Technical Services Manager

Land & Planning Manager

Acting Development Manager

Finance Manager

Head of ICT

Support & Care Area Managers

Head of Housing

A further review of the structure will take place in March 2017.


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Each year the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) publishes Regulation Plans for all Registered Social Landlords (RSLs). Our 2016 Regulation Plan confirms that Kingdom will remain as having medium engagement with the SHR. The plan also identifies Kingdom as being one of the Housing Associations of systematic importance within the sector, due to our size, turnover and debt levels. Kingdom Initiatives Ltd (KIL) delivers on Kingdom’s aims and contributes and compliments the Groups strategic objectives. KIL is not a charitable organisation; therefore it can undertake projects and trading activities which KHA is unable to progress. The Business Plan for KIL is included as part of the Kingdom Group Corporate Plan. KIL will continue to manage Kingdom’s Mid Market Rent (MMR) developments and some housing projects are being directly developed by KIL, during 2016. KIL’s current activities are summarised below:-

Ownership and management of rented stock;

Management and maintenance of leased Mid Market Rented (MMR) stock;

Development of housing for MMR and sale.

In addition to continuation of the current activities, the following identifies potential business development opportunities for the future:-

Development of Private Sector Rented projects;

Development of special interest housing projects, e.g. Co Housing and Self Build;

Provision of Repairs and Maintenance services to others (Sharing Owners and Owner Occupiers);

Provision of Repairs and Maintenance services to other Housing Associations;

Provision of project management, void management, lettings and factoring services;

Development of new Social Enterprises. Our Development Strategy identifies our plans to develop additional new homes in the future. Benchmark subsidy levels and Resources Planning Allocations have recently increased for development projects. We have submitted projects as part of the Strategic Housing Investment Plans (SHIP), to achieve our targets. There remains uncertainty associated with future subsidy for affordable housing; therefore our plans do not extend beyond year 5. We are however committed to making a

significant contribution to the provisions of more affordable housing, across a range of tenures, within our geographic areas of operation.


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Our key development priorities are to:-

Deliver quality projects on time, within cost, to agreed standards;

Identify and implement a pipeline of future projects and acquire sites for land banking;

Optimise / maximise available funding sources;

Streamline processes;

Identify a viable high profile showcase project;

Maintain existing partnerships and establish new collaborative relationships;

Deliver community benefits;

Provide project management and consultancy services. The table below provides a summary of our potential site start and tenure unit number outcomes over the period 2016/17 – 2020/21. The numbers represent potential unit starts; however various potential starts may be not achieved, for numerous reasons.

Potential Site Starts

Year Tenure (Number of New Homes) Total

Social Rented Mid Market Rented and Other Tenures

2016/17 262 32 294

2017/18 143 77 220

2018/19 190 30 220

2019/20 195 25 220

2020/21 203 17 220

Total 993 181 1174

% 84.5% 15.5%

In addition to the above we will develop projects that were programmed to start in late 2015/16 and develop or project manage further new homes over the period of the plan, for

our partners. We will continue to meet the needs for alternative affordable housing tenures, including MMR and this is reflected in our Intermediate Rented Properties Strategy. Our Land Banking Strategy lets us plan for the future through identifying and purchasing sites which contribute to our strategic objectives and provides business development opportunities in the future.

Our Asset Management Strategy shows how we plan to ensure our property assets are well managed and maintained. The table overleaf summarises the status of our housing stock, in respect of the Scottish Housing Quality Standards (SHQS).


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As at the end of March 2016:

SHQS Status No. Properties

Fully Compliant (Passing) 3091

Exempt 134

Abatements 215*

Failures 0

TOTAL 3440

*One property is in abeyance in two separate SHQS categories. We have assessed the likely impact of the new Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing (EESSH) and plans will be further developed during 2016. We estimate 93.5% of our stock complies with the new standard. We will ensure full compliance before 2020. During 2013/14 we expanded our in-house maintenance operations through undertaking the

kitchen replacement programme. This provided cost efficiencies and allowed improved tenant participation in the process. The programme will continue in the future and other potential areas for expansion of the in-house operations will be considered during 2016. We have introduced new mobile working systems for our maintenance teams and are starting to see the benefits, through improved response time performance and enhanced customer services. In early 2016 we will have implemented our new asset management module and this will improve our future planned maintenance programming and Property Services systems.

In keeping with our mission ‘More than a Home’, our Wider Role and Community Benefits activities provides additional benefits for the communities we serve, including, our capacity building projects for tenants, the Fife Works employability service and the Fife Care & Repair and Small Repairs Service. We have been enhancing the advice and assistance services we provide to our customers and during 2016 we will continue to develop our existing services, this will include the implementation of a new customer contact team arrangement, the appointment of an Energy Advisor and through a partnership project with CARF and Macmillan, we will be providing specialist support, advice and assistance services to tenants suffering from cancer and other long term illnesses. Our Housing Services Strategy sets out our main housing services objectives including housing management and customer services. It also sets out our approach to new and emerging legislation including welfare reforms, the Scottish Social Housing Charter and factoring.


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The introduction of welfare reforms and the move towards Universal Credit increases the risks and challenges for all housing providers and we have introduced various measures to reduce the risks and address the challenges. The most recent Annual Return on the Charter (ARC) was submitted to the SHR on 31 May 2016. From this, a Landlord Report will be produced by the Regulator, which will hopefully demonstrate that we continue to

perform well in all areas of our business. Our large scale satisfaction survey was carried out in 2013/14 and satisfaction levels were reassessed in early 2016 through the use of an interim survey to ensure we return current results as part of the Annual Return on the Charter. We have reviewed the feedback and are implementing an action plan to target areas for business improvement and service delivery. A Tenant Participation Officer is now in post and has made significant progress in increasing opportunities for participation, including the development of an Estates Assessment Tool and conducting Estates Walkabouts. The main focus for the coming year will be the further development of tenant scrutiny and the formation of a Tenant Forum. The main Housing Services priorities for next year have been identified as follows:-

To enhance services to customers through the creation of a Customer Contact Team;

To further develop tenant participation and scrutiny processes;

To support tenants with and manage the impact of Universal Credit, maximising rental income for the organisation;

To implement the new tenancy sustainment post to assist more tenants to stay successfully in their homes;

To improve services to Mid Market Rent and Factoring customers through the implementation of a dedicated

team;

To further develop our understanding of value for money, including assessing the affordability of rents;

To ensure good services are maintained from contractors to enhance Kingdom developments.


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Our Support & Care Services Strategy sets out our ethos, aims and objectives. At the same time it highlights the continued financial challenges we face and the efforts we are making to maintain the service on a sustainable footing, and to develop services in new and emerging areas of work. During 2015/16 we carried out a Strategic Options Appraisal related to our Support & Care Services and the

outcome of the appraisal, was the approval by the Board to deliver our Support & Care services through an alternative delivery model. A separate business plan has been produced and the aim is to establish a new Kingdom subsidiary company to deliver the services in the future. During 2016 we will be further developing the business plan, with a target implementation date of April 2017, for the launch of the new organisation. The key objective of this strategy is to develop a delivery model that will improve viability and ensure future long term sustainability of our Support & Care Services. Through our Human Resources (HR) Strategy we demonstrate how we aim to be a good employer and how we hope to deliver on our strategic objective of being an employer of choice. We recognise that it is our people that determine how well we deliver services to our customers and how we perform as an organisation. We have developed our ‘People Plan’ and during 2016 we will start to implement reviews and actions identified in the plan. We will also be implementing our Trainee Programme, with recruitment of new trainee posts across the organisation. Our Information Technology Strategy focuses on continuous improvement and aims to provide an excellent technological environment which strengthens our ability to deliver

strategic objectives through effective and efficient processes, maximising the delivery of excellent services to our customers. The strategy includes a commitment to continue our success of mobile working and to review our technical infrastructure and increase the use of cloud solutions to deliver effective ICT services. Focusing on business improvement we will ensure the effective

utilisation of existing software and introduce new systems that will improve customer experience and business benefit; this includes the implementation of customer portal and text solutions in the current financial year. These strategies will be underpinned by our commitment to being a good employer and continuing to invest in both our people and our information and communications systems.


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Our Financial Plans forecast how we intend to fund our activities, ensure that we meet our lenders financial covenants, recognise affordability and deliver value for money. We have identified our future borrowing requirements that will allow us to deliver our planned development programme. Cost inflation has been assumed at 2% and we have identified the key risks which could impact on the plan.

The plan has been reviewed to recognise:-

Economic assumptions;

Growth in development of new housing;

Pressure on subsidy levels;

Support & Care funding pressures;

Basis for inflationary assumptions;

Pension Scheme changes and past service deficit;

Alternative funding sources. Our planning assumptions have been tested using sensitivity analysis and contingency plans have been identified to deal with unacceptable risk areas. We have developed key performance indicators, to help us to continue to improve our services and we will report our performance to our Tenants and Customers, to meet the requirements of the Social Housing Charter. The plan recognises the increased risk environment in which we operate and we have further developed our Risk Management Policy and procedures to protect our plans for the future. All the strategies within the Corporate Plan demonstrate a link to our strategic objectives. This is a summary of our current plan and a full copy of our Corporate Plan and our various strategies, are available on request. If you have any specific questions or would like additional information on the work of

the Kingdom Group please contact Bill Banks, Chief Executive, [email protected].

KINGDOM HOUSING GROUP€¦ · outcomes over the period 2016/17 – 2020/21. ... To improve services...

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