Value for money Resident Engagement
Scrutiny.net 12th February 2014
Yvonne Davies
Scrutiny & Empowerment Partners
yvonne@tenantadvisor.net
07867 974659
Value for Money – Resident and
Stakeholder engagement
• What is VFM?
• VFM Statements – Governance - what is
required from you
• Regulator recent comments and opinions
• What could a statement look like?
• How could customers get involved?
• Training and supporting customers to get
engaged in VFM
Training tenants in the 3 ‘E’s
Economy
 Price paid for what goes into providing a service
e.g. Salaries, buildings, computers, contracts,
supplies – anything else?
Efficiency
 A measure of productivity
 How much you get out in relation to what you
put in – do all activities deliver VFM?
Effectiveness
 The measure of the impact achieved
 Qualitative or quantitative or both
Outcomes
The optimum balance between the ‘E’s
 Relatively low costs
 High productivity
 Successful outcomes - examples might include:
•
Improved performance
•
Reduced costs
•
Increased customer satisfaction,
•
Reduced waste
•
Added value
Four ways of achieving value
Reduce inputs (level of resources) for the
same results
Reduce prices (cost of resources) for same
results
Improve results using the same resources
Increase inputs (resources) for proportionate
increase in results
VFM – links to key HCA messages
 Transparency and accountability
 May 2012 - accounting standards – extra guidance
 Honest self assessment
 Open to challenge
 Balance of listening to perspectives – your decision
 Consultation and submission by 30th Sept each year
(or 6 months after year end)
 It will be harder for 2014
Governance
The Board is responsible for co-regulation and the
delivery of the economic and consumer standards.
If VFM is deemed to be poor – its leads to a
downgrade in the Governance standard
Some things are important ingredients:
• Procurement and contract management?
• Partnerships and shared services?
• Business Processes?
• Good practice?
• Regulatory and legal requirements?
Regulatory activity
• April 2012
New value for money standard introduced which states
landlords must publish annual self-assessments
• 12 September 2013
Research by Baker Tilly reveals a third of landlords have not
considered value for money delivered by environmental works
• 30 September 2013
Deadline passes for value for money self-assessment
• 5 December 2013
The Homes and Communities Agency says it will downgrade
governance ratings of a number of landlords over selfassessments
• 10 January 2014
A survey of 66 landlords by Housemark finds 4 in 10
organisations have struggled to understand the new rules
• 27 January 2014
The HCA hints that providers failing to meet value for money
rules may be penalised when bidding for grant
Regulator judgements – what is
expected
G1 to G2 Downgrade
Capacity building
• Conversation
• Challenge
What is needed?
• Priorities on spending
• Look back and look forward
In what?
• Economic, Environment and Social outcomes
Regulator commentary
• HCA published its long-awaited bidding
prospectus for England, excluding London, for the
2015/18 programme. The HCA prospectus places
a heavy emphasis on value for money, with 49
mentions of the phrase in the 52-page document.
• The HCA refers to its regulatory arm’s plan to
downgrade around a dozen landlords on 12
February for inadequate value for money selfassessments
Where to find information
• There is a mention in the accounting
direction http://www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/sites/
default/files/ourwork/accounts_direction_sept_2012_full.pdf (see page 9).
• Regulating the Standards sets out a little more (see page
10, and 13 in
particular) http://www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/sites/
default/files/ourwork/regulating_the_standards_may_2012.pdf
• The content of the self-assessment is covered in the VfM
standard http://www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/sites/d
efault/files/our-work/regfwk-2012.pdf (see p 14).
Tenant perspective
• Are we getting the minimum regulatory
requirement?
• What is extra and do tenants know you do it?
• What about the private sector, what do they get?
• What is measured - is it for customers or
landlords?
• Time in meetings “v” outcomes
• How do we compare?
What might tenants be interested in?
• Getting things right first time
• Using performance information for action
• Benchmarking comparisons – like for like
• Reducing wasted processes
• Prevention and early intervention
Self assessment; peer review; internal audit
A role for tenants and stakeholders
• Role for internal audit and scrutiny group
• What about non involved customers?
• How do customers/stakeholders influence
services?
• What has been achieved?
• What has changed?
• How long did that take?
• How have tenants/stakeholders been involved
setting and managing budgets?
Questions for customers to ask
•
•
•
•
•
•
How is expenditure prioritised?
How is VFM planned?
How is VFM secured?
How is VFM delivered?
How is VFM tested?
Who is responsible for VFM and how do they
lead/champion VFM?
• What has been acheived? Who knows that?
Tenant pride in their contribution
• Cestria - allow local charities to apply for funding
• Eastlands homes – stopped paper for tenant groups – no buffets –
just biscuits unless its an all day event
• East Durham Homes – tenant led VFM service panel – quarterly –
projects in procurement and targets for efficiencies –n savings back
to front line activities
• Herefordshire Housing – officers Panel – with 2 tenants reps
• Liverpool Mutual Homes - review of VFM in service involvement –
2 tenants to join the panel
• Preston Community Gateway – brought estate management back
in house
• Salix Homes saved £250k on scrutiny to date, brought call centre
back in house and reduced the number of SIPs
• Knowsley Housing– saved the cost of cold calling on gas servicing
• Golden Gates– improved void turnaround times
Stakeholder Perspective
• Stakeholders can lose or gain due to your VFM
decisions
• Reduce apprehension by explaining the purpose of
their involvement
• Identify the relationship, then the type and degree of
impact
• Some impacts are small but the stakeholder group
could be big
• Usual format is a meeting – but….
Can you join your consultation of stakeholders with that
of tenants and make it interactive?
Social Return on Investment –
the Ripple effects
• Impact of ASB team
• Impact of Homelessness
team
• Education, Police, Fire,
local GPs, your
communities
• A & E Department, Social
Services
• Impact of supporting
people team
• NHS, Social Services,
families, other agencies
• Impact on you
• Budget Cost Centre >
funding
What does a statement look like?
Public statement
Regulator statement
- Could be different
Might put more or less on the website
What about Newsletter to tenants?
Contents of a statement
Introduction and background
General introduction
The need for VFM
Objectives of the programme
Regulatory requirements
Stakeholders Views
Programme monitoring, control and
communication
VFM Steering Group
Governance and VFM Responsibility
Overall programme approach and
deliverables
Overall approach to VFM
VFM Service Reviews
Understanding our costs
Performance Management and
demonstrating VFM
The role of technology
Procurement
Progress to date, 12 Month Outlook
– or longer?
Achievements in the last 12 months
Forward outlook at the next 12
months
VFM Programme Communication
What else on the statement?
Social Return
Social Return on Investment
Reinvestment of VFM Gains
Embedding VFM
Training and Education
VFM Cultural Assessments
Critical success factors
Review of VFM Statement –
when?
Which parts might
residents be interested
in?
More info
• Social_hearts_business_heads - NHF outlines a
comprehensive new approach to value for money
that goes beyond the narrow requirements of the
regulator to offer the sector an approach that will
help boards and senior managers run effective,
efficient and tightly focused social businesses.
• Smaller HAs: Does size matter – Place Changers
• How to guides on repairs and generally on VFM
from the CIH
Thank-you – Discussion
…so who is doing what on VFM?
yvonne@tenantadvisor.net
Tel: 07867 974659