Annual Report 2016–17

1 Introduction Contents Five key priorities shape the way the Group works. We use these to stay focused on the essentials of the business, and apply them in communities and with customers and staff, every day.

Growth with Embracing future challenges in partnership Purpose – 04 Over the last year, the sector has once again faced significant challenges along with a changing political landscape. Community Impact – 08 ForViva has faced up to the reality that we must be flexible and embrace change as an opportunity to improve lives by investing into communities. Service Excellence – 16 This annual report shows how, working in partnership, we’re finding flexible ways to move forward with schemes and projects that will make a difference to lives and futures. Homes – 22 Andy Zuntz, Chair

Viability – 26

Look out for the following icons:

Action Week Working together for improved lives Creating resourceful communities and enabling people to reach their potential remains at the heart of everything we do. SOCIAL VALUE This year, through delivering the Community Impact Strategy (CIS), we have focused on understanding the issues we want to address and what we want to achieve. I’m pleased to Social Value say this work is driving the delivery of real outcomes across community impact themes: Health; Safe Communities; Education and Employment; and Neighbourhood. I hope this annual report provides a flavour of how we’re working together to provide opportunities for residents to create positive outcomes in their communities.

Tim Doyle, Group Chief Executive Reference Material

3 Growth with Purpose Highlights

We’re an ambitious organisation and want to do more. We seize opportunities that increase our viability as an organisation which in turn enables us to reinvest in communities. We want to work collaboratively to deliver outcomes with those who share our vision. 5,500 Growth homes added to our housing Group structure management service • We were awarded the contract to manage 5,500 homes in Ellesmere Port and Neston, on behalf of Cheshire West and Chester Council. The contract has provided growth in our housing management, as well as repairs and maintenance services and began on 1st July 2017, under the name ForHousing. • We expanded the ForLiving offer to include market rent and outright sale. £12.4m investment plans announced for a new ForHousing scheme in Knowsley

Villages Housing ForLiving Association

City West Housing Trust ForViva ForWorks 98 ForViva Group Structure 2016/17 apartments converted to market rent

5 Growth

Investment

Villages Housing Association ForWorks

• We announced plans to invest £12.4m • ForWorks continues to attract new in a new dementia friendly facility, business and secured contracts to including 64 extra care homes and deliver services for Manchester City 26 bungalows – six of which are Council, Symphony Housing Group, Shared Ownership. Plus: Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, • We have purchased 14 existing Ribble Valley Homes and Empower properties at Marled Hey for Housing. market rent. • ForWorks has also been appointed to • We have started planning for Barley frameworks at Knowsley Council, Mow – a 14 unit Affordable Rent Bolton at Home, and the Provision of scheme. Environmental Services framework at the Business Growth Hub.

ForLiving Business development “I found it excellent, fast, smooth and professional. I had been dealing Working in partnership with other agencies and cannot • We became a partner of Manchester Athena to deliver compare.” • Following refurbishment, we converted 98 Motiv8 – a three year employment and health programme Charter House apartments to market rent A ForLiving customer, for the Greater Manchester region, helping people with in Eccles. Charter House complex needs to move closer to training and employment opportunities. This initiative was set up with £9.7m of funding from the Big Lottery Fund and European Social Fund’s Building Better Opportunities programme. • We have built on the training and support services we deliver for young people by being appointed to City Council’s new framework, which provides an alternative to the classroom for 14-16 years olds.

7 Community Impact Highlights

Creating resourceful communities is at the heart of everything we do. Together we enable communities to contribute towards vibrant and safe neighbourhoods and improve their health, £ education and employment. £127,421 investment secured from grants we Health applied for, to deliver 30 community impact Lifestyle and fitness projects now and in • Customers continue to benefit from food planning the future and cooking classes through the Eat It Fresh project, with 39 customers taking part across 24 classes in Swinton and The Valley neighbourhoods.

• The Lifestyle Coach worked with 55 customers to enable them to achieve their goals and make healthy lifestyle changes, such as giving up smoking and exercising to get fit. • We improved welfare for elderly customers living alone in winter, by contacting them ahead of severe weather to identify if any support was needed. We made a difference to elderly and • In Stockbridge Village, customers’ wellbeing improved following a four week wellbeing isolated customers’ management course. 16 customers took part welfare during winter in the course.

READ Neil’s Eat It Fresh case study £32,664 was raised by ForViva staff for charity fundraising

Eat it Fresh project

9 Health

Lifestyle and fitness continued Preventing loneliness and isolation

• Customers, who would otherwise be • Customers continue to benefit from the “I’m interacting with people on at home, benefited from socialising Eccles Sequence Dance Group classes, after a more regular basis which has during monthly Snack and Chat lunches City West secured funding which allowed helped my mental health issues in , part funded by City West. the group to continue running. Parkour (free running) sessions reduced and I feel much more positive. It’s anti-social behaviour (ASB) in Clifton Green, changed both Jack’s and my lives “Coming here makes me move, “We look forward to it every week, encouraging young people to take up physical for the better.” gives me a reason to get dressed, it gets members out of the house exercise. This also attracted 50 hours of and keeping fit and active. Our diversionary activity. Jonny, father of Parkour a reason to get up and break the participant, Jack cycle of staying at home.” eldest member is 99 years old.” Cathy, customer, Cadishead Joyce, volunteer, Eccles

• Customers experiencing problems with • Customers trained in digital skills at Tea Young people in Salford were inspired memory loss and mental agility socialised and and Tech courses, with participants able to to discover new sports, through ten improved their wellbeing during monthly purchase a device at a low cost. Sportivate sessions held during the Music For Memories sessions in Salford. summer holidays. Customers’ diets and fitness levels have improved in Westwood and Alder Park, through cooking classes and sports activities during the summer holidays. City West Action Week We deliver four Action Weeks per year, one for each of the CIS themes to target or showcase interventions. Within Health, customers improved their lifestyles with advice given to quit smoking, lose weight and increase fitness, alongside provision of bowel cancer screenings, flu jabs and exercise sessions.

READ Jack’s full Parkour case study

11 Education and Employment

£2.19

Migrant communities in Salford are 23 young people who were not in education, overcoming barriers to access services employment or training completed The Prince’s through the Translate project, which runs Trust Team Programme, with 18 (78%) going on English classes. into work and three going into education.

£3.12 £1.33

• The Don’t Keep It Under Your Hat business • Pupils from schools in Salford who find it support programme, enabled customers to difficult to engage in mainstream education develop their business ideas and work for are getting a two year introduction to themselves. 24 businesses were started possible careers in construction through this year, compared to 16 in 2015-16 and our weekly School Links programme. 10 in 2014-15.

£3.36 £7.59

Lee, customer and Fresh Living participant • Three apprentices have moved into new • 17 customers gained full or part time homes that they helped build, through employment after gaining qualifications a unique apprenticeship initiative called through the Generation Westwood Fresh Living. employability programme.

“I am more confident and more “The programme gave me the advanced than I ever thought confidence and skills I needed City West Action Week I would ever be.” to take the jump of retraining 67 customers gained Lee, customer and Fresh Living and having a career.” employability skills to get apprentice Linda, customer and Generation “job ready” through City West’s Action Week for Education and Westwood participant Employment, after working to identify the barriers they faced getting back into work • Weekly work and job clubs at Stockbridge Village and Fitton Hill have provided training or education. on setting up an email address, using Universal Jobmatch and CV and application writing for 84 customers, with 24 going on to secure jobs and 33 securing job interviews. 13 Neighbourhood Safe Communities

• Awareness of hate crime increased in Salford, following 16 workshops delivered in partnership with Castle Community Association.

• 221 young people took part in youth club activities to enable them to reach their potential.

• Pupils in Westwood and Alder Park learned the 25 community groups across Fitton Hill and impact of ASB after taking part in a ten week WATCH Stockbridge Village worked with Villages to personal development programme. a youth club case improve the look of their neighbourhoods, • Fire safety was improved at high rise study video to find winning accolades at the Royal Horticultural out more City West Action Week blocks following regular safety checks Society’s North West in Bloom Awards. 820 Community Payback hours by Villages and Merseyside Fire Service through to make improvements to local areas the Adopt a Block scheme. • Gala Days at Fitton Hill and Stockbridge were delivered by offenders as part DOWNLOAD Village brought communities together of restorative justice. This improved • The annual Spooktacular community event, which the Community with more than 1,500 people attending the appearance of neighbourhoods we part fund, diverted young people away from ASB. Impact Accounts and socialising with one another. to find out more through painting and removal of • ASB reduced across flytipping and gardening. • 22 National Citizenship Scheme ForViva neighbourhoods, participants learned new skills and with 1,209 ASB cases resolved or referred for gained confidence through supporting • Neighbourhoods became more 94% 91% community events. resourceful through development of legal action across the new community volunteers. A total of Group (out of 1,288). City West Villages • Neighbourhood Promises are 93 new volunteers dedicated 8,712 hours how we work in partnership with to their communities during the year. communities and partners on improvements to local areas. VIEW • Flytipping was reduced following THIS PAGE Performance on these is HERE delivery of recycling awareness packs reported on our website. to customers.

City West Action Week Neighbourhood sustainability 85 garden condition visits in Amblecote found 92% of gardens ‘good’ or ‘satisfactory’. Of the 8% considered ‘poor’, a breach of tenancy letter was City West’s neighbourhood sustainability is measured using a range of indicators, including issued. At the same time, we held activity workshops with 104 young people average tenancy length, tenancy turnover, number of ASB cases successfully resolved and who were looking to try new things, including sports, arts and crafts and basic percentage of customers claiming full housing benefit. construction skills. In 2016-17 the following neighbourhood sustainability ratings were achieved:

13 18 1

gold silver bronze neighbourhoods neighbourhoods neighbourhoods

15 Service Excellence Highlights

We do things well but always aim higher. We work innovatively and in partnership with communities and partners to improve and develop outstanding, multi-channel, value for money services that meet the needs of customers. 99% of service standards Accreditations met • City West and Villages achieved compliance against Customer Service Excellence, a nationally recognised standard, with ‘compliance plus’ status achieved in six business areas.

• We received a silver accreditation for the Sustainable Homes Index For Tomorrow (SHIFT) Environmental and Sustainability assessment, and Villages maintained ISO 14001 environmental management accreditation. 4,776 • City West’s Income Management service retained the Housing households with Quality Network Accreditation: Income Management. access to our online • The ASB service also retained its HouseMark accreditation self service portal based on the Sector-owned Standard: ‘Respect ASB Charter ForHousing’. ‘My Account’ – increasing from 2,083 in 2015-16 Service standards

99.2% of service standards were delivered and agreed with customers, with performance reported quarterly on the City West and Villages websites.

The service standards have been reviewed for 2017-18, with input from over 200 customers. Customers opted to reduce the 197 standards to seven, to ensure focus on 53,584 areas they consider particularly important. digital contacts READ handled by our Independent Living Service Centre, Service Decommissioning project case study 3.5 times more than last year

17 Digital training Customer Customer programmes involvement recommendations

Involved customers scrutinised how we deal with our ASB procedures and customer complaints.

Positive feedback Recommendations for improvement ASB Customers approved of our triage Customers thought we could improve Customers continue to access training Customers can get involved in different system to assess initial complaints and on our appeals process for case programmes to gain or improve their ways to influence how services are carry out risk assessments. closures, information to customers online skills in a range of areas. These delivered. and case monitoring. include; managing tenancies online, finding Customer Customers appreciated our easy to Customers recommended we look local services and social activities, saving • This year a review of ACORN – our complaints follow process, staff knowledge of at how repairs complaints are dealt money through using comparison websites customer involvement structure complaints handling and logging of with, logging a complaint online and and online shopping, and keeping in – included the set up of a new customer suggestions. keeping customers up to date. contact with friends and family. Customer Congress who are 406 customers took part in training monitoring and challenging the delivered by our staff DigiChampions performance of services across and our partners. the Group. Customer feedback and our responses are published quarterly in the VIEW ON VIEW ON form of ‘You Said, We Did’ examples online, on the City West and CITY WEST VILLAGES • Customer feedback helped shape Villages websites. WEBSITE WEBSITE key services, including the review Customer scrutiny of service standards and call handling.

• There are currently 375 involved 2 14 8 14 customers. Scrutiny Scrutiny customers Villages City West groups (7 each for City West meetings held meetings held and Villages)

City West mystery shopping

Satisfactory customer Type of checks inspections (%) 7 Caretaking and cleaning Q1 Mystery High and low rise block inspections shoppers 99% Grounds maintenance inspections

Re-let standard inspections 437 Q2-4 Area Office visits 100% Checks Service Centre mystery shops made

Villages mystery shopping began in 2017-18. 19 Complaints and compliments Customer contact

We welcome all feedback and aim to respond as quickly as possible to complaints and compliments. Here’s a summary of this year’s feedback:

Complaints City West Villages Total complaints – 471 Total complaints – 121 174,478 53,584 1 Service Centre customer digital contacts handled by our 49 contacts, up 58% on last year Service Centre, 3.5 times more than last year Resolved through 27 Resolved through a two-stage formal a two-stage formal complaints process complaints process

Satisfaction with our customer experience service

421 Resolved by 94 Target ombudsman Resolved Resolved informally informally 93% Performance Complaints responded to within published Complaints responded to within published 95.6% timescales – 100% (50 out of 50) timescales – 92.6% (25 out of 27)

Reasons for complaints Net promoter score (2016-17) – Main six service areas: City West and Villages combined Measures the willingness of customers to recommend a company’s products 2.9% or services to others. Neighbourhood Income management Villages City West management 42 7.1% 17 Would not Would 12.2% recommend recommend Investment – 100 0 33.3 42.7 100 works 72 41.2% Responsive repairs 13.3% 244 lowest Score highest Score Gas services 79 23.3% Other service Average customer satisfaction with a transactional service areas 138 they recently accessed.

Compliments City West – 4.5/5 Villages – 4.6/5

We’ve received a total of 365 compliments for a range of services including repairs, customer relations and Independent Living services.

21 Homes Highlights

High quality, well maintained, sustainable homes are the basis for thriving communities. We continue to provide quality housing for all markets mindful of our social principles and, this year, continued to deliver on our 100% aim to build 1,290 new homes by 2019. The homes we develop, manage and ForViva properties maintain are guided by community impact and growth aims. with a Gas Servicing Certificate Building new homes Working in partnership with the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), we’re delivering new build projects across the North West.

• 228 new homes built – 186 Affordable Rent and 42 Shared Ownership • 56 extra care apartments built at Bourke Gardens, , offering excellent accommodation, plus 24 hour flexible care and support 100% • 12 Affordable Rent homes in delivered by of properties meet ForWorks, with 100% customer satisfaction results the Government’s Decent Homes • 28 family homes in Fylde delivered in partnership with ForHousing Standard • This takes our total number of Group owned homes to 17,670

“It’s hard to put into words how delighted we are with our new home. It’s a beautiful place for the kids to grow up.” Ruth, Shared Ownership Ruth Murphy, Shared customer and family 100% Ownership customer of emergency repairs completed on time

23 Home improvements and repairs Improving energy efficiency and reducing carbon footprints is resulting in lower energy bills for customers and more sustainable homes. £ £64.5m high-rise investment programme £8.6m investment works at five high-rise completed in Salford improving 915 blocks in Stockbridge Village, Knowsley, apartments through external insulation, new delivered over 18 months including a new windows, lift refurbishments, new kitchens and energy efficient biomass heating system, bathrooms, security doors and heating and upgraded CCTV and communal decoration ventilation systems. and lighting.

We have invested £12.3m invested in property improvements. Home We have also delivered £6.2m of 53,538 responsive repairs (City West £5.1m, Villages £1.1m). energy ratings

100 Very efficient CITY WEST VILLAGES VILLAGES CITY WEST 70.1 74.05 £6.2m 50

£2m £2m Not efficient 0

£1.5m £1.5m

£1m £1m INVESTMENT (£) INVESTMENT INVESTMENT (£) INVESTMENT Energy efficiency £0.5m £0.5m of homes The cost of refurbishing empty homes (void costs) fell – from £2.8m in 2015-16 406 282 £0m £0m to £2.2m this year. 1 2

Roofs Doors Doors Heating HeatingHeating • The average number of days to re-let properties is 14.2 days for City West Windows Kitchens Electrics Kitchens Electrics Bathrooms Bathrooms (against a target of 17 days) and 25.7 days for Villages (against a target of 30 days). 1. High-rise buildings • £40,000 was saved by City West and Villages customers following advice on 2. Any other building energy switching and Warm Homes Discount applications.

25 Viability Highlights

Our plans are built on strong foundations. We are a robust organisation with the financial capacity to deliver. This enables us to maximise commercial opportunities and ensure that profits are £ invested back into communities and the development of new homes. £120,281,000 Turnover

Value for money

Operational Savings We achieved the following operational efficiencies: £ £127,320,000 Reserves

£137,650 £104,000 £ savings delivered through savings delivered by £348,237,000 legal efficiencies procurement efficiencies Housing property assets

17,670 £29,000 £21,755 £6,230 Number of properties marketing efficiencies reduced costs for CCTV saved through Hate and out of hours ASB call Crime Awareness training handling service brought in house

27 Tenancy sustainability Governance The Tenants Extra Support Service (TESS) in Knowsley received £163,000 READ The ForViva Board sets the strategic direction 5 funding to operate for a further 12 months. TESS offers a vital and case study on how of the business and ensures the viability of Tenant Board members much needed service to tenants at risk of losing their home, with customers are group member organisations. across the Group those struggling with rent arrears, debt or ill health. We launched benefiting from TESS Each subsidiary has its own Board, a similar service in Salford in July for City West customers. which controls the strategic direction of individual businesses and ensures that objectives 9 5 are delivered. Independent Group member members Boards Number of tenancy Income for customers due to welfare sustainability cases 2016-17 benefits and utilities advice 54% Villages Female Board 366 cases £245,183 members

City West Income management 53 cases £33,328 Ensuring we collect rent promptly and reduce amounts owed helps to keep the business viable and ensure we can reinvest in communities.

Rent collected as a percentage of Current tenant arrears as a percentage rent charged: of rent debit, 2015-16 and 2016-17:

• We helped secure over £760,000 • Over 12,000 more direct debit CITY WEST 3.33% 6.77% in additional Housing Benefit and payments were made by customers 2016-17 100.26% Discretionary Housing Benefit for this year compared to last – an increase 3.48% 5.45% customers. of 5%. 2015-16 100.27% • 80 customers were able to mitigate • Between 2014-15 and 2016-17 VILLAGES 2015-16 2015-16 the reduction of last year’s Welfare evictions for rent arrears fell by 2016-17 99.69% Benefit Cap,following advice and 31% from 101 to 70. 2016-17 2016-17 2015-16 99.48% practical support. • Tenancy turnover has also reduced CITY WEST VILLAGES • During 2016-17 cash arrears owed by from 10.65% in 2014-15 to 8.11% in 2016-17 current tenants across the Group have – a difference of 363 tenancies a year. fallen by £98,880 over the year. Total rent arrears owed at the end of March 2017: £3.5m

£3.0m £2.5m £3,004,959 £2,906,079 £98,880 £2.0m less rent arrears in March 2017 £1.5m March 2016 March 2017 compared to £1.0m March 2016 £0.5m

£0m 29 Getting in touch

Your feedback is important to us. If you have any comments or suggestions on this Annual Report please get in touch with us.

forviva.co.uk [email protected] 0300 123 55 22

Large print, audio and braille formats can be requested by phone or email

0300 555 0215

31