Business Improvement & Customer Focus

Six Town Housing

Balanced Scorecard

November 2012

BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT & CUSTOMER FOCUS

BALANCED SCORECARD

SUMMARY
Equality & Diversity

Barriers to customers - joint working on a clear approach to sharing vulnerability information across our systems. Teams to think about what kind of reports will show us which of our customers are not using our services and reasons why and feedback so we can put joint approach in place.
Info to customers - HIA have attended Operatives briefing as a way to publicise their services through day to day contact with customers. Neighbourhoods have also attended and launched eyes wide open approach to feeding back to the organisation, the group have asked to see some figures on how the service is being used and the kind of incidents reported.
EIA's - new EIA forms and guidance has been put on intranet. Link shared with Business Manager and request for timetable when policies and strategies are due to be reviewed so assessments can be booked in with EDAG meetings. No responses received from Business Managers regarding planned reviews so programme to be developed based on known strategy review dates.
Intranet and Webpages - pages have been updated with most recent information and links to other relevant sites. Copies of action plan will be updated after each EDAG meeting. Agreed to include information about EDAG in What’s Occurring regularly.
Involving customers with protected characteristics/working with partners - agreed to share mapping information of all agencies and voluntary groups where customers can access support, from BMBC's Insight mapping software. This can be put in a format to assist staff in signposting and for customers to self refer.
Promoting equality and challenging discrimination- ASB are now recording into Flare protected characteristics, so they can be reported on in future. Also need to encourage staff to adopt zero tolerance approach, some training has already been delivered but needs to progress into a clear policy.
Equality training - one member of EDAG attended 'Valuing Diversity' training and fed back key messages. Suggested bite sized training could be delivered across the business to remind colleagues about respecting differences and appropriate behaviours. Will be trialling e-learning module covering E&D from BMBC.
EDAG format - members started to consider effectiveness of the group and its current format. Members agreed with value of having opportunity to discuss E&D matters in current forum but agreed to work on questionnaire for members and non-members, so can think about alternative model or any more effective ways of working across the organisation. Needs a higher level sponsor within STH.

Progress with Business Improvement

Rents Service Review - outline arrears processes have been produced and detailed procedures started, working with a few members of the Rents Team on a regular basis. Work ongoing with Allpay to implement App (new payment method). Data analysed on rents/arrears/credit profiling.
Adaptations Register - input adaptations info from Total Repairs into Libra Client so report now shows we have information for 362 properties (107 Adapted {includes Red Bank}, 209 Accessible, 46 Unsuitable). Drafted Direct Lets Process for adapted properties - shared with Ahmed Ajmi, Linda Morley and Adaptations & Housing Group, but further detailed work required and links in with New Allocations Policy (implementation date now stated as April 2013). Working on proposals for 'Moving on support scheme' to assist people moving home, been well received so far and ACS looking at resource opportunities to develop further.
Contact Centre/R&M improvement project - preparing report looking back at progress on recommendations, to be submitted to R&M in January.
Housing Management System business case - initial meetings commencing to discuss next steps and produce an overall project plan - we are the last users of Simdell in the country
Customer profiling - team currently working on proposals for improving tenant profiling information/customer satisfaction, action plan to follow.
Voids - patch analysis based on turnover and cost of repairs updated to enable re-allocation of patches to staff, also looking at detailed stock profiling information across the neighbourhoods.
Grounds maintenance - process mapped workflow with S&I and suggested improvements to process to increase use. Looking at developing a ‘ticketing system’ for tenants to notify issues, but this will have web-development costs
Gas Spotlight - report completed now awaiting response from Director of Assets on taking recommendations forward, as part of this optimum boiler replacement times analysed and provided to R&M
Community Stars Event - team members worked well together to ensure delivery of this successful event.
Welfare Benefit Reform Group – working on comms and tenant profiling. Comms will progress but tenant profiling will stall unless census exercise undertaken.
Tenancy Check Visits – working with Neighbourhoods to ensure tenant profiling and satisfaction info captured efficiently.

Communications

Community Star Awards
Pre event – Collation and completion of “What have we done this year?” display board
Collation and completion of nomination presentation for TV
Creation of Community Stars nomination flyer
Facilitator for judging panel
Photography at the event
Neighbourhood news from Six
Collected, created, wrote and edited content and pictures for News from Six in time for end of December deadline (Approximately 75 articles/ 6000 approx words total)
Other press
Community Allotment opening – Toon Crescent – Press release/Web article/ Social Media
Photographs and large press release for Chapelfield – one year on – Press release/Web article/Booklet/Social Media
New boilers – Press release collated and written – awaiting sign off
Community Stars - Press release/separate web site article/What’s Occurring article and Facebook articles/pics/vids
Red Bank – First tenant (last day of Oct) – Press release/photos/web article/social media
HIA
Advert creation and organised for advertising on mobility scooter, Bury town Centre
Started work on tweaking comms approach to maximise effectiveness
Intranet
Collected and created/input all team page information for majority of STH teams (excluding neighbourhoods – HIA waiting to go live)
Created staff charity page
Created EWO page
Created Staff groups page
Various development works
Internet
Created Credit Union information and web pages
Created survey monkey survey for Credit Union pages
Various development works/updates

Other
4 x Internal Newsletters
Various editing/checking of ad hoc flyers (Community Development)
Credit Union flyer created
Wrote report for Welfare Reform comms strategy – amends to be completed early Dec
Colleague of the year – promotion and pictures
STVS e-mail
Planned for December (at present)
Sign off and send Boiler article
Further works on intranet (can now create pages within pages so a lot of transferring/new pages to be created).
4 x Neighbourhood news
Complete News from Six process (design/amends/edits and organise printing/delivery process)
Focus on HIA advertising
Meeting with Wulvern Adaptations Team to explore comms
Welfare Reform – tenant sign up form
Write up award nominations for external awards (CIH NFA)
Other works include ad hoc PR (gleaned from boar reports etc) Ad hoc internet/intranet

ICT

Developments in ICT
Attended the Allocations planning meeting and agreed a plan for moving forward with the planned changes. Also arranged a follow on meeting to discuss future ICT developments and system integration with attendees.
Work continuing on the Tenancy Profiling project to identify pre-existing and required fields along with the technical requirements for populating those fields.
Thin clients have been purchased and are being configured for the proposed public internet access points in reception.
Work ongoing on the replacement Housing Management System.
We are exploring options and trialling solutions with regards to mobile device management.
We are working with Ainsworth and Parkinson to identify ways to improve the ICT Ticketing system.
Issues around use of systems
Issues have been raised regarding the ability to link the Simdell Housing System to other systems; these are being investigated on a case by case basis to identify where improvement is possible.
Performance against budget
We have designed a solution for public internet access within reception that keeps costs to a minimum whilst providing the access our customers need. All the required hardware has now been purchased.
We have received pricing for improvement to the ICT Ticketing system to allow reporting on common issues and identification of potential training needs.

Customer Impact

Complaints
Overall
Some business areas are struggling with some areas of complaints management.
Assets appear not to follow procedures which resulted in a failed complaint recently. Training has been offered to the business manager and team.
Repairs – quality of response letters are poor – training has been offered.
Good performance results where staff members attend CQAG and follow the agreed procedures. Poor performance reflects teams/individuals who have not received (by not accepting) training/guidance. It would be helpful if complaints were not delegated to staff by Business Managers until the have received training from the BICF team.
Stage 1
During October and November, 16 new complaints were logged which is the same as for the whole of the 3rd quarter period Oct-Dec 2011.
This will therefore result in a quarterly increase for this period.
Note – there were 7 complaints logged in the last week in November
However, we remain on track to receive fewer logged complaints than last year (123)
Stage 2
None received in November
Stage 3
3697 – Harvey – Neighbourhoods – ASB/Parking issues – being dealt with by Director of Neighbourhoods
Compliments
91 year to date (much higher than complaints received). 155 received for the total of 2011/12
Majority of compliments refer to responsive repairs, particular reference to HIA
Engagement & Co-Regulation
Community Stars Event
This has to be the highlight of November with nearly 170 attending the event. The organisation of it was excellent.
Feedback from customers, partners and staff was extremely positive. Touring the borough is seen as positive. A learning report is in place for next year.
Customer Review Group for Home
Customer Review Group for Home held its first AGM. Following Executive wishes, a tenant, Helena Donegan, was elected as chair.
Some representatives attended November Six Town Housing Board meeting to introduce Customer Gas Spotlight Review and recommendations to members.
Customer Review Group for Neighbourhoods
Customer Review Group for Neighbourhoods & Tenant Involvement met. Director attendance and his report at this meeting is very welcomed by members.
We are working on a report to focus on continued development of both Customer Review Groups and widening participation.
Tenant Profiling
Work has started on a project plan to undertake a Tenant Profile census planned for early 2013.
Survey Monkey
The use of Survey Monkey as a means of collecting customer satisfaction feedback has now been extended to Neighbourhoods ASB and Tenancy Sustainment.
However, we have become aware of survey results being changed and disregarded within R&M and this has been highlighted to the Director of Assets
Key Actions/Priorities
Tenant Profiling / census exercise
Spotlight Action Plan
Development Plan to take Customer Review Groups forward
Involvement list/map
Circle Tenant Scrutiny Exercise, customer and staff interviews
Mystery Shopping Timetable

Customer - BICF Team

Traffic Light Icon / Code & Short Name / July 2012 / August 2012 / September 2012 / Current Value / Current Target / Latest Note
Value / Value / Value
/ NI160 Local authority tenants’ satisfaction with landlord services / STAR Survey cancelled. We will investigate other means of satisfaction collection.
/ Cserve Percentage complaints handled within policy / 100% / 80% / 100% / 100% / 100% / 9 complaints received in November - 4 of which completed (all within policy) and 5 remain open. We received 6 complaints since 23rd November which explains why, at the time of writing, 5 were still open.
/ HMPI 50 Average time taken to respond to initial complaints (days) / 4.11 / 10.2 / 6.63 / 6.63 / 9 / improvement from last month
/ Cserve Cum Percentage complaints handled within policy / 100% / 97.9% / 98.1% / 98.3% / 100% / As observed last month, the one failure in September means the year-to-date figure will now never reach its 100% target for the rest of the year. However the 100% performance in October has dragged the figure back up from 98.1% to 98.3%
/ HMPI 50 Cum Average time taken to respond to initial complaints (days) / 6.38 / 8.02 / 8.09 / 8.09 / 9 / Year to date has increased due to complaint handled 12 days for August complaint, identified this month
/ LI115 Number of customer meetings, events and/or surveys (per year) / 7 / 15 / 25 / 15 / 9 / 3 Customer Review ordinary/special meetings, 4 Neighbourhood Matter meetings, Community Stars Event, Board mtg, Stars event survey, Money Matters Survey, Gas Assets, repairs, servicing survey, web feedback survey
/ LI116 Customer Attendances to STH events per year / 50 / 97 / 246 / 270 / 54 / Community Stars 170, Walkabouts 20, CRG meetings 18 , Neighbourhood Matters 40, Coffee morning 14, Spotlight 6, board 9, walkabouts
/ LI117 Complete Business Area Spotlight Survey per year / 0 / 1 / 0 / Gas Spotlight presented to board
/ LI118 General Tenants Survey - 25% response / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / STAR Survey cancelled
/ LI119 Customers receiving Board awareness training / 0 / 0 / 8 / 0
/ LI120 Number of new customers signed up to be involved per year / 12 / 43 / 16 / 0 / 4 / Overall increase is good. 148 signed up YTD
/ LI121 Number of new customers joining Customer Review Groups per year / 1 / 1 / 0 / 0 / 0 / There is a development plan in place to develop the group and membership of it in 2013
/ LI122 Learning from complaints/feedback - develop customer suggestions per year / 0 / 0 / 4 / 1 / 0 / learning from Community Starts event produced
/ LI123 Increase number of visitors to STH Website / 20.38% / 26.67% / 35.42% / 52.4% / 10%
/ LI124 Number of Facebook 'Likes' / 16 / 13 / 12 / 9 / 4
/ LI125 Twitter 'followers' / 464 / 530 / 573 / 610 / 304

Financial - BICF Team

Account / Original Budget / Current Budget / Actual / Projected Outturn / Variance
Total SB23500 - Business Improvement & Customer Focus / 124,400 / 124,400 / 71,280 / 104,412 / (19,988)
Total SB24500 - Communication & Marketing / 39,800 / 60,800 / 62,273 / 95,873 / 35,073
Total SB25000 - Performance Governance & Quality Team / 209,500 / 209,500 / 126,641 / 193,909 / (15,591)
Total SB25500 - Involvement Regulation & Improvement Team / 85,200 / 85,200 / 31,032 / 80,961 / (4,239)
Total SB26000 - ICT / 374,700 / 374,700 / 281,541 / 371,848 / (3,052)
Grand Total / 833,600 / 837,600 / 572,767 / 847,003 / (7,797)

Currently 68% spend vs 66% year. Projecting a small underspend but this is dependent on a number of plans going forward

Process - BICF

Traffic Light Icon / Code & Short Name / Current Value / Current Target / Latest Note
/ HMPI60a Percentage of tenants on whom the landlord has diversity information : Age / 96% / 97% / This is collected as new tenants come over to us and their information is carried over from their application - this will increase at 800 approx per year unless an additional exercise in collecting this information is undertaken.
/ HMPI60b Percentage of tenants on whom the landlord has diversity information : Gender / 26% / 50% / The definition of gender has changed - we used to collect this as 'sex' but now collect it as 'gender' in order to also pick up transgender and intersex customers. We collect this as new customers complete application forms so this should increase by 800approx per year unless some additional measures are put in place to increase collection rates in existing customers.
/ HMPI60c Percentage of tenants on whom the landlord has diversity information : Ethnicity / 87.9% / 97% / This is collected as new tenants come over to us and their information is carried over from their application - this will increase at 800 approx per year unless an additional exercise in collecting this information is undertaken. No obvious reason as to why this has dropped this quarter, may be a difference in how calculated from end of year will re-look at figures and amend if needed.
/ HMPI60d Percentage of tenants on whom the landlord has diversity information : Disability / 52.6% / 70% / This is collected as new tenants come over to us and their information is carried over from their application - this will increase at 800 approx per year unless an additional exercise in collecting this information is undertaken.
/ HMPI60e Percentage of tenants on whom the landlord has diversity information : Sexuality / 25.7% / 50% / This is collected as new tenants come over to us and their information is carried over from their application - this will increase at 800 approx per year unless an additional exercise in collecting this information is undertaken.
/ HMPI60f Percentage of tenants on whom the landlord has diversity information : Religion or belief / 75.9% / 83% / This is collected as new tenants come over to us and their information is carried over from their application - this will increase at 800 approx per year unless an additional exercise in collecting this information is undertaken.
/ LI057 Services changed as a result of customer profiling / N/A

Have developed draft plans for increasing tenant profiling information which need to be discussed by Business Managers before coming to Exec.

People - BICF Team
Traffic Light Icon / Code & Short Name / July 2012 / August 2012 / September 2012 / Current Value / Current Target / Latest Note
Value / Value / Value
/ BICF1 Staff Sickness - BICF (Days) / 7.47 / 7.91 / 9.69 / 11.49 / 4.8 / 1 member of staff on long term sickness. Low levels of short term sickness across team

Large proportion of sickness absence for BI&CF is from the Contact Centre – which is now part of R&M but sickness falls under BI&CF. Exec Support are currently recorded against EMT.
BI&CF’s target is more challenging than the organisational target – 7.2 v 9.0

High Level Business Plan Exception Report - BICF
Status Icon / Code & Title / Progress Bar / Due Date / Latest Note
/ C1202.01 Develop mystery shopping capability in-house / / 30-Nov-2012 / Due to other demands this has not progressed. Pick up in new year
/ C1202.02 Develop Neighbourhood Estates Satisfaction Framework / / 30-Sep-2012 / Estate Standard has been rolled out and will be subject to 1st mystery shop
/ C1202.07.01 Headline general satisfaction survey results / / 30-Nov-2012 / Proposals for alternative satisfaction collection measures being developed.
/ C1203.01 Develop Customer Access Framework / / 30-Jun-2012 / Currently with DoBM for review
/ C1204.04 Embrace new ways of communicating with tenants / / 30-Sep-2012 / Video and texting are remaining areas
/ C1205.02.04 Identify fields currently collected to use for profiling e.g. DOB including making use of any previous research / / 30-Sep-2012 / Will now fit in to reviewed customer profiling project to be delivered by end of financial year
/ C1205.02.05 Check quality; quantity of customer profile data held on Total Repairs / / 30-Sep-2012 / Response from Contact Centre and Business Support is that there are no robust processes in place to ensure profiling data is updated across both these systems.
/ C1205.02.07 Check quality; quantity of customer profile data held on ASB Database / / 30-Sep-2012 / Will arrange to meet with ASB Team to review info they are collecting and reporting arrangements at end of quarter as insufficient info in system to date
/ C1205.02.08 Identify fields currently collected to use for profiling e.g. DOB including making use of any previous research / / 30-Sep-2012 / Flair has now been introduced - Simon to undergo training and advise on what is being recorded on the new system and how we can report on it
/ C1205.02.09 Arrange data collection based on gap analysis of profiling data quality checks / / 30-Sep-2012 / This approach will fit in with amended customer census project to be undertaken - action plan being put together to manage this process. Once mass census done this financial year a 'mop up' will be carried out next year to target missing data
/ C1205.04 Ensure we have effective systems in place to capture data / / 30-Sep-2012 / Being considered as part of tenancy check review, looking at variety of ways to capture and check this data across different service areas - lead being taken by Neighbourhoods.
/ D1201 Deliver the Marketing Strategy / / 30-Sep-2012 / No BMs have requested marketing skills for staff to date
/ D1207 Explore the business case for the introduction of an Integrated IT Management System / / 30-Jun-2012 / Work underway. Meeting with Jayne to cover previous work involving Iain planned for early November. Visiting HiTex in November and plan to use that to open communication with solution providers and other housing organisations. Planned meeting with Aareon for November.
/ D1208 Further develop & Implement Controls Assurance & Risk Management Frameworks / / 31-Mar-2013 / Needs a review and some work to put processes on intranet. No info forthcoming from BuMs
Audit Action Plan Progress (Full) - BICF Team
Status Icon / Code / Action / Assigned To / Due Date / Progress Bar / Latest Note
/ IAPropAll1202 / Introduce a system to update all property records on Libra. / Gill Hamblett; Brett Nelson / 30-Nov-2012 / / Business Improvement team is introducing a procedure & checklist for all STH officers to complete to continually update and improve the property information.
STH believe that it would be beneficial for applicants to see adverts of properties with photos, but this is a Council owned function and STH are unable to influence this.
Key Projects High Level Delivery Plan for BICF BIB