In Business for Neighbourhoods is one year old this week, but is it a happy birthday? Victoria Madine finds out what the sector’s rebranding campaign has achieved so far and what still needs to happen

In Business for Neighbourhoods, the National Housing Federation’s campaign to redefine the role of social housing in the UK, has its first birthday this week.

The federation says 240 registered social landlords running a total of 1.45 million homes have joined up. This means three-quarters of the country’s RSLs have adopted In Business’ core aims of addressing social housing’s stigma in the public’s mind, tackling misperceptions about what the sector does, encouraging it to work collectively rather than as individual organisations and securing RSLs’ influence over the sector’s future. But is it working?

NHF chief executive Jim Coulter is confident that In Business’ first year has laid the foundations for cultural change, but cautions that the strategy is still in its early days.

“It’s a long-term programme,” he says. “Already it represents three-quarters of the sector and that gives us the critical mass we need to make lasting change.”

When the NHF launched In Business, it published a paper called Action for Change that set out what the federation and its members would have to do in order for the programme to reap results.

It outlined an immediate action plan for three key areas where the federation would take the lead: neighbourhoods, customers and excellence. But it also set out a long-term programme of change for issues such as funding.

Action for Change said it would work with the government to evaluate the impact of housing benefit reforms and to ensure innovative housing associations receive funding for neighbourhood projects.

It also promised to examine models in countries such as the Netherlands, where affordable housing providers have “first option” on public sector land, and said the NHF would explore different ways of funding and new ways of managing risk to give social landlords maximum flexibility and independence.

On the right, we look at what has worked so far. But with only a year having passed, much of the strategy has yet to take effect.

Coulter says: “We are taking these principles forward and are in regular talks with the ODPM. By early 2005 we will have a set of proposals to put out to consultation.

“These are long-term goals but that was always going to be the case – In Business was never supposed to be a one-year wonder.”

Neighbourhoods

Creating neighbourhoods rather than simply homes is the core concept of the In Business strategy. This approach has been given impetus by the government’s neighbourhood renewal policies, which were launched in 2001 with the aim of rejuvenating Britain’s most deprived districts. “It helps to be travelling in the same direction as central government and makes our aim of working more closely with other public sector partners that bit easier,” Coulter says.

To help RSLs identify good practice, the federation promised to create a “learning bank” of housing associations that were successfully working to improve their neighbourhoods. It has now amassed a database of 650 landlords.

London-based Gallions Housing Association is in the bank for its neighbourhood strategy that involves a close working partnership with local police. Emma Broughton, marketing manager, says holding up examples of schemes that work is a good idea. “We’re happy to share what we’ve learned. In Business’ emphasis on collective action is very positive,” she says.

Another means of illuminating best practice, promised in Action for Change, has been the In Business for Neighbourhoods Awards, which are judged by tenants and residents. More than 300 entries have been received and an award ceremony will take place next Thursday during the federation’s annual conference.

The federation has also produced a neighbourhood management tool for housing associations putting together neighbourhood improvement programmes. It has been compiled in consultation with the Tenant Participation Advisory Service and its members to help associations engage local people.

Due to be distributed at next week’s conference as a CD-ROM, the guide is part of a larger toolkit devised by the federation and performance improvement body Housemark to help RSLs assess their strategic capacities and management structures. It covers nine areas including the future of supported housing, disabled tenants and leadership.

To back up the neighbourhood management tool, the federation intends to work with councils and other public sector agencies such as the police to develop seminars and training programmes that will help housing professionals to become, as the federation puts it, better neighbourhood players. The federation has yet to evolve a programme for this, however. Also still on the blocks is its “Pathfinders for partnership” scheme, under which housing associations and local authorities would make joint applications for beacon status. The federation claims it is “laying the groundwork”.

Antisocial behaviour

During the two-year consultation period before the launch of In Business, focus groups said antisocial behaviour was tenants’ biggest concern.

In response, over the past year the federation has been working with, and providing funding for, the Institute of Public Policy Research to investigate effective ways of tackling and preventing antisocial behaviour. The results of the research will be published in November.

Coulter says: “By working closely with organisations outside the sector we place our emphasis on looking out, not inwards. Our message is that collaboration brings mutual benefits.”

Participation

Hand in hand with the drive to improve neighbourhoods is the federation’s promise to “listen, respond and engage” customers. In essence, the In Business programme aims to increase customer choice and support, and prevent problems such as noise nuisance and graffiti.

The federation is drawing on its learning bank to highlight examples of good service. One is London-based Family Housing Association’s 500-strong customer panel. Set up in October last year, the panel was recruited to ensure it accurately represents the association’s 30,000 tenants.
Andy Brown, research and information manager at Family, says the new group has been a “huge” improvement on the previous panel of just 20 or so tenants.

He is keen to share the lessons with other associations. “It’s encouraging to be considered an example of best practice and the publicity In Business has given us means we’ve already had enquiries from other associations that are considering creating a similar panel,” he says.

The federation has started negotiating with government and regulators to develop ways of increasing customer choice so they can easily move between different forms of tenure.
Coulter says: “Framework changes take time to arrange.”

Quality

Continuing improvement in the performance of the NHF and its members is another crucial pillar of In Business. To pave the way for this, the federation promised a new model for measuring quality, rather than relying on the standard performance indicators. The hope is that this approach will reduce the frequency of inspections. This is at an early stage: the federation is still negotiating with the ODPM, the Housing Corporation (which launched its own pilot index of efficiency last month) and the Audit Commission to create this model. Essentially, it is arguing that the effectiveness of a service is as important as the cost, so any measure of efficiency must incorporate this value.

The In Business strategy for raising leadership standards in the sector is also still under development. Twice in the past year, the federation has run pilot two-day leadership courses involving 80 executives from the sector. As a result of the pilots, the federation has decided to run a modular training course that will cover personal and organisational development, business planning for neighbourhoods, working in partnership with stakeholders and community investment. It will be launched in the next few months.

Another initiative that the federation is working on with Housemark is the plan to create a system comparing services in similar associations, something like the benchmarking exercises used by councils. The federation and Housemark are evaluating how such a system could work.

Collective purchasing

The federation has made good its promise to create a strong collective purchasing scheme. Together with the Chartered Institute of Housing and Housemark, the federation launched a buying consortium called Procurement for Housing last April. Now with about 70 members managing 600,000 properties, the consortium represents a quarter of England’s housing market.

Source

Housing Today