Value for money
Value for money is a high priority for One Vision Housing.
Through the collaboration and innovation of our people, from colleagues to customers, we have developed a robust strategic plan to achieve value for money and excellence in the services we offer across the following objectives:
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1. Maximising our social value
We will:
- Use the HACT Social value calculator to, where possible, establish the social value of our activities
- Work with HACT to certify our social value assessments
- Improve the amount of activities we can calculate social value against by better recording our outcomes
- Record social value generated from procurement activity
- Proactively work with the third sector to have effective referral services with our key partners to improve outcomes for our customers
- Encourage employment and enterprise opportunities through our externally awarded contracts
- Commit to supporting community projects through grants and volunteering placements
- Use customer intelligence information and customer scrutiny to determine business priorities and improve our services
- Collate a value for money tracker of cashable and non-cashable savings to demonstrate our effectiveness
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2. Best use of our assets and resources
We will:
- Use a ‘whole life’ approach to how we manage and use our assets including how we:
- Procure products
- Deliver services
- Use local labour via self-delivery
- Employ, train and retain people and apprentices
- Use zero based budgeting
- Use customer insight and intelligence to understand what our customers want
- Conduct a systematic analysis of the longer term performance and return on investment of our housing assets through stock sustainability analysis and stock condition appraisals
- Use asset management software to facilitate robust asset management planning and scenario analysis
- Seek recognition for excellence, with awards and accreditations
- Continue to review funding and the impact of unutilised borrowing facilities
- Actively seek funding where feasible, including sustainability funding such as ERDF & ECO funding
- Benchmark our services against others to understand our strengths and areas for improvement and align our resources accordingly
- Train our people to have value for money at the heart of their decision making through:
- Onboarding/induction
- Leadership and management skills training
- 360 degree appraisals
- Budget and costs management training
- Project management training
- Use a ‘whole life’ approach to how we manage and use our assets including how we:
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3. Collaboration through self-delivery
We will:
- Listen to our colleagues and customers and using this to improve our processes and customer experience
- Gain recognition for excellence in the sector
- Attract new registered providers to The Sovini Group
- Review our supply chain and procurement plan to highlight opportunities to bring service contracts in-house (delivered either by One Vision Housing directly or through The Sovini Group entities) to reduce costs and improve performance
- Work closely with our statutory partners (local authorities, the police and health providers) to deliver positive outcomes in our neighbourhoods and communities
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4. Regulatory compliance and customer involvement
We will:
- Comply fully with the Consumer and Economic Standards, with a strong focus on the Value for Money Standard (2018)
- Retain our Governance 1 (G1) and increase our Viability 2 (V2) rating back to Viability 1 rating from the Regulator (RSH)
- Complete and publish our value for money self-assessments and share it with stakeholders
- Measure, compare and report our performance against the value for money metrics
- Continue to have a strong effective and committed Board structure, with members who are focused on strategic objectives and risk management
- Undertake annual Board member appraisals to continue to retain a strong and effective Board
- Review customer empowerment and engagement arrangements to ensure the ‘Customer Voice’ influences both strategic and operational decisions. Facilitating customer review and scrutiny to appraise performance and deliver customer priorities
- Use the Risk and Audit Committee to monitor risk and tenant scrutiny recommendations, along with value for money outcomes and assurance in meeting the regulatory standards
- Undergo both internal and external audit in relation to our annual value for money self-assessments and our approach
- Provide six monthly updates to Board and RAC to proactively monitor the delivery of the value for money strategy objectives
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5. Maximising opportunities through procurement
We will:
- Measure, track and report in line with the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 to demonstrate our outcomes through externally tendered contracts
- Annually reviewing the Financial Regulations to make sure our processes are compliant in terms of procurement limits, requirements and expectations
- Use robust and transparent procurement processes
- Regularly reviewing our suppliers and their pricing strategies
- Monitor our contracts register for criticality (risk, volume, duration), and social and environmental impact (locality, size, ethics, carbon footprint)
- Publicise our ethical and environmental standards and embed them within our procurement processes
- Identify opportunities for self-delivery vehicles of products and services
- Involve customers and partners in all our procurement projects
- Promote customer scrutiny of our services to ensure quality
- Complete service reviews when required, as highlighted by audits and customer feedback
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6. Excellent performance and customer satisfaction
We will:
- Continue to use our performance management software to track actions, performance indicators, value for money metrics and risks in team, management and Board meetings
- Use a range of benchmarking services to monitor how we perform and compare against our peers with a clear focus on understanding of our costs and performance with a view to achieving top quartile performance
- Maximise customer satisfaction measured through the RSH’s published Tenants Satisfaction Measures from April 2023
- Deliver excellent complaints management and ensure compliance with the Housing Ombudsman Complaints Code
- Use the Customer Voice to scrutinise performance in service delivery and influence decision making
- Deploy specialist colleagues to transform our processes strategically and operationally (automating and streamlining) to generate additional financial capacity and other efficiency savings
- Implement business transformation through our IT Strategy that will support our colleagues and improve our digital offer to customers
Our achievements
Since 2006, we have saved £142 million through efficiencies.
In 2022/23, we...
earned £532 thousand through our Investment Policy and saved £8.2 million in efficiencies, including £700 thousand in procurement.
How we report on value for money
Every year we produce a self-assessment and statutory accounts that detail our approach to value for money, achievements and future plans.