The Board presents its Strategic and Board reports on the affairs of Grand Union Housing Group Limited ("the Group") together with the financial statements and auditor's report for the year ended 31 March 2021.

The Group is comprised of

Our strategic commitments for now and the future

Going further together

On 1 July 2020 we launched our new corporate plan, Further together, which sets out Grand Union's aspirations and goals for the next three years and builds on the strong foundations we've already put in place.

This ambitious plan was created with input from colleagues, Board and importantly, our customers.

At its heart is the theme of trust - Further together is aimed at deserving and retaining the trust of our customers, our colleagues and our wider stakeholders.

To build this trust, we've based Further together on four clear commitments:

For today and tomorrow

We take our responsibilities seriously and our goal is to be a financially strong organisation, delivering on our social purpose and our environmental responsibilities. We build great homes where people can live great lives, and we use our influence for the benefit of our communities.

For our customers 

We serve our customers and their communities fairly and with integrity. Our goal is for customers to trust us to provide advice and support when they need it. We want them to know we're on their side.

For each other

We support our people in their service. Our goal is that people choose to come to Grand Union because they know they'll get the support they need to fulfil their potential and we're in it together.

For our partners

We're an honest and constructive partner. Our goal is for different organisations to choose to work with us because they trust us to share our expertise and help them to get things right.

We know that we have the power to change things for good. That's why we build more homes, stronger communities, better lives. Because what we do matters.

You can read more details about each of the commitments in Further together here.
 

Grand Union Housing Group delivery map

We are based in the heart of the Oxford to Cambridge Arc and have made a long-term commitment to building new affordable homes, where we can deliver efficient services and support our customers now and in the future, as shown in the map below.

COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic affected everyone involved with Grand Union. It's touched on every aspect of what we do, and we can be proud of how we've risen to the challenge, transforming our service delivery to meet the challenges of the pandemic and ensure that we were still there for our customers, colleagues and partners. We've really seen how each of us has been driven to do more. And we've definitely been in it together; working alongside members of our communities to make a real difference.

Everyone has spent more time at home and this crisis has demonstrated the importance of a home that is safe, secure, affordable and meets their changing needs.

Our response to the pandemic has reinforced the benefit of our transformation approach, by being adaptable to change we are navigating through this crisis and will emerge stronger than ever. This approach, led by Grand Union's leadership team and informed by customer insight, has enabled us to organise our colleagues, processes and technology to provide a more targeted and tailored service to customers. The pandemic shifted both our customer base and what was needed from us, by understanding this we have been able to adapt to meet these changing needs.

As we come out of the current difficult period and plan for the next three years, it's clear that we'll need our new skills and our organisational and financial strength. Using scenarios from Savills and Hargreaves, we have run pandemic stress tests on our business plan including a drop in sales, delayed development and increased costs and we have been able to demonstrate that our plan is robust to withstand these additional pressures. Through our Financial Inclusion team, we continue to support our customers through assistance with disability and benefits claims.

We operate in an area of planned economic growth, and we have a responsibility to help ensure that everyone in our communities benefits from the opportunities that brings. That means playing our part in tackling the housing crisis by building new homes at scale and at pace, and making as many as possible available at genuinely affordable rents. It means supporting our customers to achieve their potential through education and training, employment and getting involved in their communities. And it also means supporting the people who work for Grand Union.

Our values

Further together is underpinned by the values that shape our organisation's culture and guide everything that we do.

We're driven to do more. We empower staff to achieve more and help us evolve into a more efficient, flexible and ambitious organisation that has a positive impact on our customers and communities.

We're in it together. Our can-do attitude and collaborative approach help us achieve our goals and provide what our customers, colleagues and partners need from us.

We deliver on our promises. We're committed to making a difference to people's lives and by acting with integrity, being open-minded and taking ownership, we can be trusted to do what we say we will.

Our performance 

In the past five years, we have transformed the way we deliver our services and released financial strength to build more homes for the customers of the future.

However, we knew we could do more, which is why we set our four strategic commitments in Further together. 

In what has been a tough year for so many, we're proud to have already achieved so much against our strategic objectives and commitments. We have incurred additional costs to protect our customers and colleagues.

The last year has brought with it a number of significant challenges, and we have identified different ways of working throughout the COVID-19 crisis. We will learn from these experiences and look at alternative practices for our customers and business.

For today and tomorrow

Financial and operational performance analysis

We are financially strong, and any surplus made is reinvested in what we do, delivering more homes and support services for our customers.

Financial Viability

The Board governs the affairs of the Group, which is regulated by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). Following an in-depth assessment in 2019, the Group retained its highest level ratings from the RSH for both Financial Viability and Governance (G1/V1). The Group continues to be rated A3 (Stable) by Moody's.

During the year, the Group issued and sold £21m of bonds to an investor, generating proceeds of £30.3m. This funding was achieved at an exceptionally low rate of 2.18% with a repayment date in line with the original bond of 2043.

We also took the opportunity to issue a further £35m of retained bonds which we have the option to sell in the future, dependent upon future plans.

Governance

The recommendations from the governance review, which took place in early 2020, were fully implemented by October 2020. These mainly fell into two categories - structure and 'housekeeping'. The structure changes resulted in a reduction in the number of Committees, new Terms of Reference, and improved oversight for Board. The new governance structure was launched on 1 October 2020 and we were particularly pleased to recruit two customer members to join our new Customer Experience Committee. The two new members were the first to receive our new Member Handbook and to experience our revised members' induction process.

There were quite a few 'housekeeping' changes implemented which standardised the report and minute templates, tightened up on the management of papers and aligned Board and Committee meeting times. The development of the Delegations Framework has given us a comprehensive reference point, that brings together all of our key governance documents into one place.

Grand Union remains compliant with the NHF 2015 Code of Governance and the Governance and Financial Viability Standard from the Regulatory Framework, with a G1/V1 rating confirmed in November 2020 by the Regulator of Social Housing.

Environmentally responsible (as a business and as landlord)

Over the last 12 months we have conducted a benchmarking exercise to provide us with a baseline. Scope two and scope three emissions for 2020/21 are atypical due to COVID-19 restrictions which resulted in a decrease in energy usage, as people worked from home and undertook less business mileage. Fleet transport emissions have increased which reflects changes in our operations. Scope three business mileage does not include the mileage for home to office; this is deducted from our reporting as part of the expense claims.

Our Environmental Sustainability Strategy includes targets for reducing our environmental footprint which are reflected in both our Asset Management Strategy and our New Business and Development Strategy.

We have adopted the Sustainability Reporting Standard for Social Housing; the aim of which is to provide a voluntary reporting framework for housing providers to report on their sustainability performance in a transparent, consistent and comparable way. Participating housing associations will report against the standard on an annual basis and we are working across the organisation to plan and prepare for our first return in advance of the October 2021 deadline. The standard covers 48 criteria including affordability, fire safety and carbon emissions monitoring.

Building more new homes

During the COVID-19 pandemic we have managed sites working in a COVID-compliant manner and following government requirements. We have continued to build and market new homes and grow our future line, whilst following government guidance.

We completed 111 new homes and have been able to build a very strong pipeline of future affordable new homes. We have an identified pipeline of over 1,200 new homes, with over 90% of these being affordable homes. We have seen strong interest in shared ownership new homes generating over £4.8m of sales receipt and continuing to reserve homes off plan across our operational area. We successfully completed the sale of our first market sale scheme in Oakley, Bedfordshire. These 10 homes were sold at prices above our income assumptions and importantly, enabled us to deliver additional affordable housing on the same site.

The Group continues to have access to Affordable Housing Grant, through Homes England, as head of a consortium of three other local housing associations which has enabled the significant development programme to continue. This year we have secured flexible grant payments on several schemes, which meant up to 90% of grant was paid at site acquisition.

During 2021/22 we are on course to deliver more new homes with a strong pipeline to follow in subsequent years. Our New Business and Development Strategy places greater emphasis on land led opportunities, relationships with local authorities, creating our road map to net zero carbon homes and delivery by partnerships.

Success story: shared ownership

Jonathan and Nichola Houghton had been renting for many years, trying their best to save to buy a house of their own. Through Grand Union's shared ownership scheme, they were able to do just that - ensuring the couple and their two children, Isla, eight, and Harry, four, and beloved dog Bruno, have the space they need to enjoy family life.

Jonathan, 39, said: "We moved into our brand-new home in Cranfield in June 2020, and have never looked back. Nichola and I were both born and bred in Cranfield so it's great that our kids are growing up in the same area.

"The estate is lovely and our house picturesque. It looks like a pretty, English countryside cottage - a two up, two down classic property with beautiful features.

"Nichola and I had been renting since we moved in together in our early twenties. We'd been saving for ages and looking at buying a property, but it always seemed like a distant dream.

"What's more, at the age of 25, I was diagnosed with Lupus. It's a condition which affects me everywhere, from my joints and muscles, to my blood and organs. I've been in and out of hospital with complications including ulcerated colitis and even suffered a small stroke during my twenties. Because of this, I was unable to continue work running a cleaning company and as a salesman, meaning it was even harder for Nichola and I to save money."

It was in the beginning of February 2020 that the couple first heard about the Cranfield shared ownership development. They'd been renting a garage from Grand Union and when they saw the opportunity advertised in a newsletter, they immediately put their names down.

"We were blown away by the proposed building plans and knew a local builder involved in the project - we had no idea a shared ownership home could look so beautiful. To our surprise, our offer was accepted, and we couldn't wait for the property to be finished.

"Sadly, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the building work had to be put on hold. Nevertheless, Grand Union's New Homes Officer Andrea Fisher was always on hand to help and we even had a sneaky peak of the development during lockdown, through safety glass and at a safe distance of course.

"The pandemic made moving house even more stressful than it usually is - not least because I was shielding due to my long-term health conditions. Andrea made it so much easier and even helped advise us when our mortgage offer was pulled out last minute and we had to liaise with a new bank. Everyone at Grand Union was really helpful and understanding.

"Once we moved in, we were so happy. It's wonderful to live in the village we'd called home for most of our lives, on a lovely estate. The house is much bigger than our last place, and it makes all the difference.

"Harry no longer sleeps in a cupboard-sized room that could simply fit a single bed, a bookcase and very little else. His room is three times bigger and Isla's room is larger too. Downstairs, we've got so much more space and can't wait to replace our furniture in the near future. Everything seems so much smaller now we're in a bigger house!

"Nichola's also excited to do some interior decorating after we've been here for some time. It already looks fantastic and contemporary, but she always likes to put her own stamp on things and let her creative juices flow. She runs a beauty salon, which she's owned for more than a decade, so she's very artistic.

"Going forward, we plan to buy more shares so eventually we own 100% of the property - which is known as staircasing. Due to my ill health, it's a relief to know we have somewhere secure to live; when we were renting, we were never sure about what was coming round the corner and feared we may have to move out at the drop of a hat. Now, the security we feel is invaluable and we can begin to plan ahead.

"The kids have thoroughly enjoyed the garden during lockdown and the summer holidays; we installed a trampoline, built in the ground, which brings them so much joy. Our beloved chocolate Labrador Bruno also approves of the bigger garden!

"We're enormously grateful for Grand Union's support. Without the shared ownership scheme, and guidance from staff members, it would have been very hard for us to get on the property ladder. The house has made such a difference to our lives and we're looking forward to a happy future here."

Using our voice for good

This year we delivered our new Corporate Communication Strategy, which sets out how we'll use our voice to support change for good.

We've used our voice to promote the things we stand for, including supporting the NHF's Homes at the Heart campaign throughout the summer of 2020, and responding to two of the Government's planning consultations such as Fire and Building Safety, First Homes and Planning White Papers. We have also responded to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Housing and Employment Enquiry and the APPG Housing Market and Delivery consultation.

Since the launch of the Social Housing White Paper in November 2020, we have been working to understand the principles and how it will impact Grand Union and our customers, and we have a project group tasked with its implementation.

For our customers

Delivering on our promises

Our customers know that they can rely on us to deliver. We're always clear about our promises.

In order to earn and retain our customers' trust, we have been working hard to create a truly customer-centric culture where all customers are treated fairly and with integrity. Our new customer service standards and customer offer, launched in 2020, set out what our customers can expect from us and provide clear standards for our colleagues to work to. We monitor how well we are delivering these standards through our customer feedback platform, Rant & Rave. On the occasions when we fall short, our Resolutions team acts quickly to recover service failure, avoiding the need for customers to have to make a complaint.

The achievements of the Customer 2020 transformation programme meant that we were able to quickly adapt, continue delivering services and meet new customer demands during recent challenging times. We set up a new Payment Support team in just four days to meet growing customer demand to discuss rent payment problems. We already have the tools and the technology to work remotely, so when we went into lockdown we were able to switch overnight to operating a remote customer contact team. This meant that we were able to keep dealing with customer enquiries without any disruption to service.  

Hearing the customer voice through behavioural insight

Behavioural insight (BI) is an approach to policy making that combines insights from psychology, cognitive science, and social science.

Our BI project, which has been running since 2019, aims to help us to:

·        target and tailor interventions with customers

·        make best use of our staffing resources

·        increase rental income whilst reducing the cost of collection

·        reduce tenancy failure, legal action and evictions

·        create better customer experiences

·        increase digital service adoption.

By making relatively subtle policy shifts, we can encourage our customers to make decisions that are in their interest, as well as the organisation's interest.

The project included interviews with different customer groups, carried out by an independent behavioral insight consultancy. This valuable insight and in-depth research undertaken during the project has given us much better understanding of what factors increase or decrease the risk of tenancy issues. We have learnt how we can influence customer decisions, thereby reducing operating costs and improving our relationship with our customers.

We are currently redesigning our income and repairs services to incorporate the learning from this project. Colleagues from around the business have attended a programme of training sessions on how to use BI to have more productive conversations with customers and tailor communications to get better outcomes.

New software, called Mobysoft, is helping us to focus customer interventions on those most at risk of escalating rent arrears. This will release capacity in the team and allow them to take on debt recovery work previously carried out by other teams.

We expect to make significant efficiency savings of £3.4m over the next five years as a result of this project.

Shaping the business around the customer experience

In the last year, we've undertaken an ambitious reorganisation of our operational teams to align our structure to our organisational goals, introducing some important new roles. Great customer experience is shaped as much by the quality of the home and neighbourhoods as it is by the services that we provide, so we've created a single point of ownership for each area for our new Property Managers. Our Customer Partners are deployed to support customers and communities that need extra help. They own the customer experience and coordinate activity from our internal specialist teams.

We've created a new Service Improvement team, responsible for the delivery of service innovation and continuous improvement initiatives across customer facing teams. Their role is to identify and deliver service improvement activity across the business using Lean service improvement methodologies, customer feedback and behavioural insight. The team has completed service reviews across a number of key customer touchpoints including rent arrears recovery and the repairs service. This work is enabling us to deliver targeted and tailored customer interventions, improving outcomes for customers.

Mindful of our goal to achieve an 80% channel shift, we have continued to develop our customer communication channels and digital services. Webchat has been expanded with the introduction of chatbots to enable us to offer this service at any time of the day or night. Our new customer portal was launched in March 2021 after involving customers in the testing phase.

Online viewings and sign ups have been a huge benefit to our customers during a very testing year, enabling us to continue to provide much needed homes safely throughout the pandemic. We also launched our online repairs service in November, which enables customers to report repairs and book their appointments 24/7.

Success Story: Involving customers in designing digital services

In 2020, we began developing our digital offer (via the customer portal) to enable customers to report and book repair appointments. We engaged Tpas, England's leading tenant engagement experts, to undertake customer testing and provide comprehensive user experience, prior to rolling it out more widely.

We specifically wanted customer views on:

•        speed

•        appearance

•        ease of use/utilisation

•        minimising follow up calls.

We recruited 15 customers who agreed to participate in testing the system, of which 10 subsequently took part. Despite the drop-out rate, findings were consistent, suggesting that opportunities and lessons from this exercise were largely comprehensive.

Testers ranked themselves out of 10 in terms of how 'technologically savvy' they believed they were. This made sure we tested a good range of experience and abilities.

Similarly, testers were split into segments, based on behavioural insight. We also tested access via different devices to determine whether the experience varied dependent upon how the user accessed the system.

Each user was observed conducting a series of test scenarios, designed based upon their individual circumstances.

As each user undertook their scenarios, they were asked to give feedback on their experience, which was recorded on customer journey maps. Similarly, as users progressed through the repair reporting steps, their relative experience (positive, neutral, and negative) was also logged, alongside the reason for this.

At the end of the testing, users were asked to score the speed, appearance, ease of use and understanding of next steps. They were then provided with an opportunity to state what they particularly liked about the system, if there was anything they would like to see improved and if they had any further comments.

All testers, irrespective of how digitally confident they were, stated that they would use this system. All participants grew in confidence after their first attempt - even if they struggled initially - and by the time they were logging their third repair, they quickly and easily navigated the system.

As a result of the customer testing, recommendations for improvement were built into the design of the service before it was launched in November 2020. A growing number of customers are now using this service, with 20% of repairs now reported digitally, and the figure is increasing.

Customer engagement and influence

During the last year we have working with Tpas to review our customer engagement and influence arrangements. The key objective was to design a framework that enables our customers to be involved in helping us to reassess services and deliver cost-effective solutions that bring real and lasting change to communities. Building on the great work we had already done to build the customer voice into our Lean service improvement programme, we set out to create a platform for constructive conversations with our customers that is transparent and based on respect and trust to drive our business forward.

This project involved working with the Board and a large group of customers, to co-create a structure that creates opportunities for customers to formally hold us to account on service provision, as well as being able to influence services by giving feedback on experiences at an individual level. The project recommendations will be presented to Board for approval during the summer.

Our existing homes

The condition of our homes is continually reviewed, with the results determining a long-term repair and component replacement programme.
 

Key highlights of 2020/21 spend and works:

Keeping homes safe 

We consider that the successful management of all health and safety activity is essential to the delivery of our business and are committed to providing a safe environment within which our customers can live without concern.

We deliver a comprehensive property compliance programme comprising the following areas:

1.   Fire safety

2.   Legionella management

3.   Asbestos management

4.   Gas safety

5.   Electrical safety

6.   Lift management

In terms of governance, each month we track several key health and safety performance indicators relating to our core compliance activities, covering work undertaken both by our colleagues and contractors. Through our existing control framework, we have identified further improvements in our reporting of the key compliance areas. Asbestos reporting previously stated the overall percentage of properties with an asbestos survey and made no distinction between our statutory and policy related obligations. This has been changed and we now report to Board the compliance against the non-domestic properties, where we have the statutory duty, including the communal areas of blocks of flats.

The wellbeing of our colleagues and customers is overseen by the Health & Safety Group, which meets four times per year, with reports going from this group to the Audit & Risk Committee. We also report to the Board, through the Audit & Risk Committee, annually on all health and safety related activities; the compliance areas are also subject to an independent annual audit.

Challenging stigma, celebrating diversity

Everyone has a right to feel that they belong in their workplace and their community. That's why we recently published our new Belonging Strategy, which covers equality, diversity and inclusion at Grand Union. We're really proud of the strategy because it has been developed with input from Board, senior staff and our colleague Belonging group who champion diversity here. The overall aim of the strategy is to look at how we achieve a sense of belonging for all our colleagues and Board members, and a sense of fairness and inclusion for our customers.

We want to celebrate diversity and challenge stigma, speaking up when we see others being treated badly. We want everyone to understand and appreciate how diversity makes us stronger and that we can learn and benefit from each other's different backgrounds and experiences. Alongside the strategy is an action plan which will enable us to deliver the Belonging Strategy and implementation of this is already underway.

We have a Single Equality Statement which goes beyond the legal requirements and is reviewed annually. We will also identify an operational diversity lead to take forward a customer inclusion action plan, with an initial focus on reviewing our data and obtaining data that helps us better understand our customer mix and inform the design of services. Our Board drives forward all of our work on diversity and inclusion, monitoring progress through regular reporting and with representation on the colleague Belonging group.

We use our colleague intranet to celebrate diversity and educate one another. Colleagues and Board members have written blogs and articles giving insight into the different cultural celebrations of their faiths including Ramadan, Passover, Holi and Vaisakhi. We've also had articles and blogs covering other diverse subjects ranging from Black History Month and Martin Luther King Day to LGBTQ+ History Month and World Down Syndrome Day.

Some colleagues have shared their incredibly personal and powerful stories of how they've been affected by racism and homophobia in their personal and professional lives to encourage understanding, growing knowledge, acceptance and support across the organisation.

Support where it's needed

Our customers turn to us when they need support, and we make sure they get the advice or practical support they need. Our Independent Living Strategy and our Community Investment Strategy clarify our approach.

Grand Union provides a range of services to support its customers through the ongoing complexities of welfare reform changes which have impacted them. These include direct support and advice, which has contributed to the continued low level of customer rent arrears within the Group.

Success stories: Welfare Benefits

1) Tina Sullivan joined Grand Union's Financial Wellbeing team just over two years ago and when Miss C was referred to the Financial Wellbeing team she was one of Tina's first referrals. Maybe this is not something to boast about, but we think it demonstrates that with some cases you have to be in it for the long haul. It also shows that some cases take longer than others to resolve in full.

Miss C lives in supported living and receives enhanced personal Independence Payment (PIP). Inexplicably, she was also placed in the work-related activity group as part of her Employment and Support Allowance award, which suggests that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) could expect her able to do some form of work-related activity. An open and shut case for reassessment into the support group.

What Tina hadn't expected was the long period of waiting for a home visit assessment by the provider for the DWP. Eighteen months, two formal complaints and two lockdowns later, the DWP reviewed her case and placed her into the support group.

Although this may not have been a huge financial win - she gained an extra £9.65 per week - her award now fairly reflects her needs and all we need to do now is find out when the DWP will finally pay her the arrears.

2) In June 2020, during lockdown, the Welfare Benefits team received a referral from Tenancy Support to contact Mrs G who was originally homeless. She had just been allocated one of our properties and needed help setting up all relevant benefits - the Tenancy Support team was helping her out with white goods for her property and making sure that she had everything needed to start her new life in her new home.

The Welfare Benefits team called the customer within 48 hours of receiving the claim explained about Housing Benefit and Council Tax reduction, but luckily she already knew about this and had submitted her claim.

The team identified that her only source of income was a state pension which was below the normal state pension amount. Straight away they identified that they could claim Pension Credit for her to ensure that her income would be topped up to that recognised by the Government as the minimum pension amount, which is £175.20 per week.

They called the customer again in July and submitted her claim for Pension Credit, which was awarded at £21.00 per week - not a massive amount but she was grateful, saying it would make such a difference to her.

The more the team spoke to Mrs G, the more they realised that she had additional challenges in her life due to some medical issues. They submitted a claim for Attendance Allowance which was awarded at a rate of £59.70 per week. As a result of this, Mrs G's Pension Credit also increased as she was eligible for a Severe Disability Premium of £65.85 per week, which was on top of the £21.00 already awarded. All in all, she was significantly better off per week thanks to the team's help and support.

Inclusive, supporting wellbeing

We understand our customers and their different needs, and we use technology intelligently. Our Wellbeing Strategy makes it clear that, when there are obstacles to overcome, we make sure we're always part of the solution and never part of the problem. We provide bespoke housing and support solutions for a diverse range of customers. We work collaboratively with local authorities, National Health Service England, clinical commissioning groups, charities and family carers. Our aim is to provide a seamless service for all of our customers.

Success stories: Supported living

Harry, 21, moved into one of our supported living schemes in Downhead Park, Milton Keynes, in September last year, having previously lived with his parents. He's one of 11 young men who live in this particular scheme that Grand Union has been managing since July 2019.

Harry loves having his own place, he said: "My home is very important to me because it's actually made me closer to my parents. When I lived with them we argued sometimes, but since living on my own we get on so much better. I enjoy having days out with them and also having time by myself.

"I think my flat is really nice and it makes me feel safe and secure. I call it my homepad.

"I can phone for repairs by myself and talk to people if I have a problem. It's made me more independent."

Marcus Olozulu is the Independent Living Officer for the scheme. He said: "When Harry first moved to his new home, he would have bad panic attacks; once he was rushed to hospital as it was so bad. Anxiety can be a big issue with people with autism.

"He soon learnt to cope and knowing he had me on the end of the phone in the week, if he needed me, also helped. Meeting with him when he was anxious has improved things, plus at night-time, there's a concierge present.

"Harry was quite timid to begin with, but he's definitely come a long way since living there. I'm really proud of him.

"He keeps his flat very clean and tidy and does his own laundry and washing up as well."

Marcus visits the scheme two or three times a week to support residents with their benefits, especially Housing Benefit, and to follow up on any repair issues. Along with a fellow colleague, he'll get stuck in to assembling their furniture too!

"I give advice on various things like ways to save money, maintaining good mental health, health and safety in their home, healthy eating and any tenancy rules. Recently, I had to get pest control out to treat a wasp nest as Harry is allergic to wasp stings.

"I also support the residents emotionally and will mediate between them sometimes when issues crop up. Often I'll signpost them to other agencies so that they can fill their time but with lockdown this has been difficult."

Harry is proud to work for a hospital radio in Milton Keynes once a week, a role he loves. He joined a community centre, but this has been on hold due to the COVID-19 situation.

"Harry's a big fan of 80s music and particularly loves Bob Marley, as you can see from his t-shirt. He has his own DJ music deck which he thoroughly enjoys."

Harry added: "I've made new friends since living here, I can watch what I want on TV and I can play my music a bit louder than when I lived at my parents!"

A Sector first - Launching our safe space

In March 2021 we launched our online Safe Space, to help tackle domestic abuse. We are the first housing association in the UK to provide this, so we should be rightly proud of ourselves.

Through an untraceable link on our website, by clicking the Safe Spaces logo, Grand Union customers and the wider public will be able to access information on helplines and specialist support services. Online Safe Spaces aim to increase the opportunities for victims of domestic abuse to safely access support while carrying out daily online tasks.

We have been working in partnership with the charity Hestia, which supports individuals in crisis, on this project. The Safe Space launch coincided with the charity's #NoMore campaign - something we are actively promoting, alongside the charity's Bright Sky app which supports domestic abuse survivors.

Sadly, the scale of domestic violence across the UK has only increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Office for National Statistics, domestic abuse rose by 10% in 2020 compared to the previous year. Now more than ever, every housing provider has a duty to do all it can to prevent people suffering from violence and emotional abuse in their homes.

Grand Union is committed to tackling domestic abuse and we run three local domestic abuse refuges, with a fourth due for completion next year. These refuges provide survivors with the skills to return to the community, empowering individuals and making them feel safe at home. Our unique personalised alarm support service, Life24, can also be used for those fleeing from domestic violence.

Everyone deserves a safe and secure place to call home and, with the launch of our online Safe Space, we are doing our bit to tackle domestic abuse.

For each other

Trust and respect

GUS, our intranet, allows colleagues to give shout-outs to each other and #teamwork and #together are the most used for these, highlighting how important everyone sees working together is to our success. There have also been numerous examples of secondments from one team to another, supporting each other when resources have been negatively impacted.

During the year we signed up to Harry's Pledge, a commitment to support carers in the workplace. We identified carers through a questionnaire and asked if they were getting the support they needed, acting on it if that was not the case. We have also created a carers page on our intranet with useful links to carer related support organisations.

We recognised that a number of colleagues' families will have been impacted by the pandemic, some having their income reduced and others affected by job losses. So, during the year we introduced the Centre for Financial Education (Cfed) to help support colleagues with their finances. This has been well received with some saying that the education they received has been life-changing. Once lockdown has been fully eased, Cfed will attend our office to bring their knowledge and education to more of our colleagues who could benefit from it.

Attendance during lockdown has improved greatly with average days lost to sickness absence reducing from over 10 days to under seven days per person. This has been helped by the majority of colleagues being able to work from home during the pandemic. With the changes to our agile framework, colleagues will continue to work from home for the majority of the time, which we hope will help to sustain the reduced levels of sickness absence.

Celebrating our diverse workforce

We will work to ensure Grand Union is an employer of choice, attracts diverse colleagues who embrace our values and want to grow, achieve their full potential and stay within the Group. We want everyone to feel like they belong and our new Belonging Strategy, which has been created with the Board and a colleague diversity group, is helping us to make changes, including positive action where appropriate, to ensure that we, as an organisation, are representative of the customers and communities that we serve.

We have carried out some work to close the data gaps so that reporting can be more accurate and this year we have used the NHF data tool to compare our diversity data with the communities that we serve. This data was sourced from the ONS Annual Population Survey. The next census is due in 2021, with the results coming out in 2022. The tool will be updated with this data once it is available.

Whilst we are proud that we have a 50:50 gender split at the senior levels, that we have a high representation of those from the LGBTQ+ community, and that PGM representation is also currently higher than our communities when compared with the NHF data, there is still more work to do. We need to improve the data for those with disabilities, increase the number of younger people we are recruiting and do further work on ethnic diversity. We are working closely with the Housing Diversity Network, Board and colleagues to define clear actions against which we can be accountable. We will continue to work hard to ensure equality and diversity representation across all levels of the organisation including the Board.

Grand Union fully complies with its obligations on gender pay gap reporting. You can find our report on our website at: www.guhg.co.uk/gender-pay-gap-report/. We produced an ethnicity pay gap report last year, which shows no ethnicity pay gap. We will continue to report on this annually.

A brief overview of our equality and diversity monitoring 2021

Gender

·    55.38% of colleagues are female

·    44.62% are male.

Grand Union's female to male ratio is over 4% higher than the population in the areas in which we operate.

This is a 5% shift on the number of male colleagues reported last year. This is mainly attributable to the in-house transfer of colleagues from Jeakins Weir in October 2020.

40% of Board members are female - an improvement on last year when only a third were female.

Ethnic origin

·    80.77% of colleagues identify as white

·    10.51% identify as People of the Global Majority

·    0.77% prefer not to say, leaving a 7.95% gap in data.

This compares to the population data which reports 7.3% of those in our operational area are from PGM groups. This suggests that the workforce, Leadership team and Board are fairly representative, based on this data.

The representation of PGM groups has reduced compared to last year when it was 11.4%. While work has been done to improve the diversity of those we recruit, this reduction may also be partly attributable to the transfer of Jeakins Weir colleagues who were not ethnically diverse.

Age

Our workforce has only half the representation of 16-24 year olds when compared to the population. The Leadership team and Board have no representation in this age group. However, whilst the Board has improved the age profile when compared to last year, the Leadership team does not have representation in the 25-34 age group either. 

The workforce is also under-represented in the 65+ group, but that is to be expected as the large majority of colleagues will have retired by 65. The Board is over-represented from 45 years and over when compared to the population.

We still have some work to do to improve the representation of younger colleagues in the workforce, Board and Leadership.

Sexual orientation

·    2.56% categorised themselves as gay or lesbian. This compares to 0.39% of the population.

·    1.28% categorised themselves as bisexual. This compares to 0.17% of the population.

No members of the Board or Leadership team have categorised themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual.

3.63% of the population categorised themselves as 'other' meaning that they did not consider themselves to fit into any of the categories.

Religion

·    38.21% of colleagues identify as Christian, which is similar to the percentages for the Leadership team and Board.

·    In total, 6.41% of colleagues are Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim or follow another religion. This compares to 3.9% of the population.

·    39.23% of colleagues have no religious beliefs.

The Leadership team and Board are less diverse in the area of religion.

The data gap has also improved on the reporting of religion, with only 12.05% now missing.

Disability

·    3.08% of the workforce categorise themselves as disabled compared to:

o  0% of the Leadership team

o  5.88% of Board (one member)

·    This compares to 19.42% of the population. 

This is an area that shows under-representation and the first step will be to consider how we improve the data, as we believe there are more colleagues with disabilities than those reported.

Positive and empowering

We believe colleagues are proud to work for Grand Union and we want our customers to feel this passion. Following the pandemic, our agile working framework has been reviewed to reflect the progress that has been made over the last year with colleagues working more flexibly and mainly from home. 

Supporting growth and wellbeing

In her position as President of the Chartered Institute of Housing, our CEO, Aileen Evans worked with MIND to create a mental health toolkit for housing associations, which was published in 2020. She was then honoured by InsideOut, a social enterprise looking to end the stigma of mental ill-health in the workplace, by featuring on their Leader board 2020 for championing mental ill-health issues in the workplace. 

Our Mental Health First Aiders (MHFAs), who include a Board member, have been busy during the pandemic, which has had an impact on many colleagues' mental health. Introducing MHFAs has been a real positive for Grand Union colleagues. 

Last year we introduced a new, online, check-in process which encompassed a wellbeing action plan, ensuring that at regular one to one meetings, managers are talking to their teams about their mental wellbeing. This, together with having career discussions as part of the process, has made the discussions much more personal. Having them online during the pandemic has really helped to improve compliance.

With the launch of the K2 Academy in January 2021, all colleagues' learning needs, including management and leadership development have been brought together in one place. We look forward to seeing the K2 Academy continue to build and thrive as more programmes, such as our Aspire and mentoring courses, are launched.

We have had our annual review with Investors in People (IIP) and continue with our accredited status. We will be putting a plan together to work towards and achieve IIP Silver during 2021/22.

For our partners

Understanding what matters

Being clear about our operating area and our purpose means that we can spend quality time understanding our partners' priorities and values, so we know how, together, we can deliver more, by being stronger than the sum of our parts.

Positive engagement

We're proactive as well as responsive in our stakeholder management. We bring our focus on solutions to every partnership.

We know that many of the projects are long term, such as the Greater London Council style estate within the town of Sandy in Central Bedfordshire. We have been part of a project to transform the infrastructure of this estate. The project board consists of Grand Union, Central Bedfordshire Council (CBC) Officers and Councillors, Town Councillors and, working with local residents, the aim is to improve the aesthetics of the area and provide additional parking.

This project also involved consultation with residents to demolish 39 garages nearing the end of their useful life and offering customers alternative nearby garages as needed. Planning permission has been sought to remove planters, create more parking, introduce new arboriculture, and generally create a more cohesive community.

Success Story: community engagement

At Bilberry Road, Clifton, we are starting to see a community thrive thanks to the multi-agency work to deal with antisocial behaviour (ASB), including drug related issues. Working with the key stakeholders' project group, the local community and young people, a plan was put in place to tackle issues from all angles following an ASB crime reduction report. A local lettings policy was introduced, and a community facility called "The Hub" was established on the estate for all partner agencies and the community to come together. Estate improvement works have been carried out and working with the police and CBC enforcement measures resulted in for closure orders. Feedback has been received from the community, parish council and partner agencies about the positive impact of this on the estate.

Transparent and accountable 

We share information to ensure transparency of our performance because we understand that being held to account makes us better.

We fully comply with the Housing Service Ombudsman Code and our self-assessment has been published on our website.

Our Customer Resolutions team meets regularly with service managers to review complaint trends and make sure recurring issues are identified and acted on. This has resulted in a number of changes, the details of which are also published on our website.

Our biggest customer touchpoint is repairs and the service area that attracts the most complaints. In the last year we have created a Service Improvement team, made up of accredited Lean practitioners, and we have an ambitious programme of Lean service reviews, including our repairs service.

The repairs service review will analyse and address failure demand and ensure our processes enhance the customer experience. Customer feedback and complaint trends have been fed into the review. A key focus will be on improving our right first-time rates as this is the main cause of complaints and negative customer feedback. The project will run until the autumn of 2021 and will involve working with customers at key stages.

Our customer care training programme 'Doing the basics brilliantly' was designed using learning from customer feedback and complaints. This has been delivered to all customer facing colleagues in the Group. All new starters will attend this training within their first three months. Bitesize training modules are now being developed and topics will be informed by customer feedback and complaints. We are also rolling out practical problem-solving training across the business to ensure that colleagues understand the root cause of recurring problems and identify the right solutions.

Valuing our reputation

The aim of the Communications and Public Affairs Strategy is to help Grand Union to go further together, by using our voice for good, and enhancing and protecting our reputation.

In 2018 we ran a perception survey to make sure that our stakeholders understood us and that we understood them.

Since then, we've used the findings to build on those relationships and partnerships and have now started work on a follow up perception survey so we can make sure we're still on the right track.

We're also working to provide customers and stakeholders with proactive, transparent communications. Using a mix of customer and colleague engagement, we're progressing with an organisation-wide project to ensure all letters we produce are easy to understand and written in plain English. This has also included the introduction of a "how's our writing?" icon on all letters and emails, inviting customers to feed back and tell us what's working and what isn't.

Value for Money (VfM)

VfM is a key element of our Further together strategy. By being more efficient we can build great homes where people can live great lives and where we also provide an excellent service to our customers.

Being more efficient is delivering both economic and social value - high quality homes and services, and cash we can invest in building and doing more.

Highlights in 2020/21

During the year, our focus has been firmly on transformation, operational integration and investing in our people. The key savings are highlighted below.

Business Transformation

Our business transformation programme is based on detailed customer insight and by using innovative data science techniques we are making sure that our services are designed around the needs of our customers. The new ways of working, delivered as a key element of our office rationalisation, has been key to us successfully dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. The original annual savings forecast of £0.3m will be higher as a result of the significant shift we have seen in digital services, flexible working and reduced travel. This change has enabled us to go further, faster, and the closure of our three touchdown points will save us a further £65k annually, bringing total savings to £0.5m.

By investing in great technology to support transformation, we are making it simple for customers and colleagues to get things done and are building trust in us to deliver a great customer experience. There will be financial benefits, with net cost savings of £2.3m by year five, meaning we can do more to support current and future customers.

We have implemented our new operating model that delivers a more targeted and tailored service to customers and by aligning our operational structure we have saved around £0.25m annually in staffing costs that have enabled us to deliver some vital new work on environmental sustainability, domestic abuse and safeguarding, and building safety with no increase in operational expenditure.

New Business & Development Strategy

The strategy was reviewed as part of our new and ambitious corporate plan, Further together, and continues our drive to deliver much needed, genuinely affordable homes, to help solve the current housing emergency. By 2026 we aim to have delivered 2,160 homes for social benefit, a quarter of which will be at Social Rent. To support this programme, we will deliver 216 homes for market rent or sale. Our NHS and Social Care partnerships demonstrate the wider social value that great housing provides for the most vulnerable customers; together we have helped deliver NHS efficiencies and better outcomes through the 'Transforming Care' programme. Currently we do not have enough data to evaluate this, but are in the process of conducting surveys for our wellbeing and support service and will be able to report on this next year. 

Asset Management

The environmental emergency and Government's commitment to achieve net carbon zero by 2050 presents a challenge and opportunity for us. Our new Strategic Asset Management Strategy, supported by our innovative portfolio management plan, seeks to deliver net carbon zero by 2050 alongside delivering any future homes standard. We have rolled out a new strategic asset management system that will drive both our investment programme and support portfolio management decisions, identifying homes where realising the social capital of the asset presents opportunities to invest in new, sustainable, cost-effective homes. The strategy extends beyond our homes and is delivering new homes on garage sites and land owned by us and our partners, to not only regenerate communities and deliver more homes but also increase the overall value of the asset base.

Procurement

We have continued to amalgamate contracts where possible and are members of several procurement partnerships, ensuring competitive tenders are received in the most efficient way. Furthermore, Grand Union acts as contracting authorities on a number of frameworks including materials supply and utilities which achieves additional value. In the year, we have set up a centralised procurement team which will co-ordinate procurement across the business. During the next year they will produce a wave plan so that we can be more proactive in contract negotiation.

Transformation Projects

We have a Programme Overview Board which governs all transformation projects ensuring that projects are only approved once the business case prepared demonstrates value for money, whether economic or social.

Delivering digital solutions have been key projects this year and our new digital onboarding saves approximately £20k a year in office time and travel costs, as the sign up can now be completed by the customer through our new portal, freeing up the team focus on those customers that need more help from us. Our new online repairs booking system has been implemented, which saves officer time in the reporting and booking process. Since it was implemented in November 2020 this has saved us around £12k. We are aiming for a 40% shift to digital repairs reporting this year, which will produce savings of around £112k.  One of the other projects implemented this year was a complete review of our voids process. Using the Lean principles, we have implemented a new process which ensures that the time taken to have homes ready for new customers to move in will reduce. We are already seeing times fall by up to one third and, as we roll this out in 2021/22, expect to see savings exceed £76k annually.

Insourced recruitment service

Our Recruitment & Talent Manager continues to make a positive impact on modernising our application process and ensuring more first-time placements. We have managed to recruit 74 colleagues. The total number of applications has risen by 113% and a key factor is our active work on our employer brand. We have bought and own our Indeed page and there has been a high increase in presence and footfall on our career site. Our presence on LinkedIn increased to 1,500 followers in just one year and we now have 2,561 followers. This has led to a reduction in our recruitment costs which are estimated at over £30k.

We are working on our Employer Value Proposition and have carried out most of this work internally instead of using an external consultancy, saving £18k.

Learning and Development

During the last 12 months, the Learning and Development team has embraced the world of virtual delivery, supporting colleagues to learn and develop. Despite some disruption through the pandemic, colleagues attended 805 recorded learning interventions. The team opened the K2 Academy, our in-house centre of excellence, in January 2021, delivered 14 days of virtual training, covering subjects from new manager training through to mentoring and mental toughness, with a saving of £12k.

Many colleagues have engaged with the hundreds of free webinars that have been available, and further savings have been made on travel and hotel accommodation for external conferences and courses. In addition, IOSH working safely has been brought in-house and delivered virtually, with a cost saving of £6k over three days of delivery. The pandemic has seen a reduction in attendance at conferences and has resulted in a saving of £87k, minimising business expenditure for the year. Future training will be a blend of virtual and physical attendance and savings are expected to continue.

Our plans for 2021/22 are the continued delivery of new manager training and IOSH working safely. We will introduce the Institute of Customer Service first impressions training, an aspiring managers programme, and a leadership development programme, with a combined predicted saving of £69k. There will be more new money saving initiatives form the Learning and Development team during the year.

Electric car scheme

We have recently introduced a salary sacrifice car scheme for colleagues focused on electric and hybrid vehicles. The scheme will not only support our green agenda, but it will also provide NI savings of approximately £600 per year per car leased. Business mileage for electric cars from the scheme is paid at 4p per mile - providing a further saving from the 45p currently paid. Four cars have been ordered so far, one of which has already been delivered.

Mileage savings

During lockdown, we have minimised the need for colleagues to attend the office and visit customers, unless the situation is urgent or an emergency. This has greatly improved our carbon footprint by reducing the amount of business and commuter mileage. The savings in mileage costs were £136k against budget.

VfM metrics

The metrics below reflect the challenges of the environment we are operating in, given the impact of the pandemic and our continued investment transforming our customer services and investment in maintaining our homes.

*Our peer group consists of, bpha, Futures Housing Group, Settle, Stonewater, PA Housing, Longhurst Group, East Midlands Group, Greatwell Homes, Paradigm Housing and Nottingham Community Housing Association

Reinvestment remains strong at just under 6% and includes both new supply and investment in existing stock.

The provision of new supply of social stock reduced this year due to lower than anticipated development activity due to the pandemic. However, this will grow to in excess of 3% as the development programme grows to 2,160 units over the next five years. We continue to look at growth opportunities including strategic partnerships. There will also be future growth in the delivery of non-social housing as new tenure streams are developed, including market sale homes to complement the market rent portfolio already managed by the Group.

Our gearing ratio has increased over the past 12 months as cash resources have been utilised through increased costs in the general operating environment impacted by the pandemic, a development market that is increasingly competitive and increasing costs relating to more land led schemes and significant investment in transformation projects to deliver better customer service.

EBITDA MRI has increased year on year partly as a result of additional transformation costs, lower sales and higher maintenance costs. The EBITDA MRI is broadly in line with our plan and reflects the Group's appetite to remain financially strong.

We have financial golden rules which help safeguard the Group against external risk. These have been assessed as part of the Resilience plan included in the Risk Management Framework and for specific treasury considerations as part of the annual Treasury Management Policy review which requires appropriate levels of comfort to be maintained across a variety of measures including gearing and interest cover.

The Headline Social Housing Cost per unit has marginally decreased due to a reduction in planned repairs works as a result of the pandemic. The Group continues to invest in its transformation and during the year we have insourced our repairs team, which will reduce our overall cost per unit in the coming year.

The operating margin has been negatively affected for both social housing lettings and overall, as a result of the increased operating cost mainly from investment in transformation projects and increased costs relating to the pandemic.

During the year we issued and sold £21m of bonds to an investor, generating proceeds of £30.3m. This funding was achieved at an exceptionally low rate of 2.18% with a repayment date in line with the original bond of 2043.

We also took the opportunity to issue a further £35m of retained bonds (a future option to issue another loan) which we have the option to sell in the future, dependent upon future plans.

Sector scorecard
 

*Grand Union now monitors customer satisfaction through Rant & Rave

** Grand Union monitored customer satisfaction through the Institute of Customer Services

Customer satisfaction has fluctuated throughout this challenging year, peaking at 4.6 during the first lockdown, ending the year at the lowest point for 12 months. Net Promoter Score, however, has increased over the same period.

Service managers have responsibility for reviewing feedback from Rant & Rave to identify opportunities for service improvement and make sure service improvements are prioritised and acted on.

Our biggest customer touchpoint is the repairs service and, unsurprisingly, this is the service area that attracted the most negative feedback during the year. We are undertaking a comprehensive review of the repairs service to tackle recurring service issues, strip out unnecessary waste and ensure our processes are aligned to and enhance the customer experience. Learning from complaints and Rant & Rave is a key part of the review. A prime focus will be on improving our right first-time rates as this is the cause of many complaints and adverse customer feedback. The project will run until quarter 3 in 2021 and will involve working with customers at key stages of the project.

Our plans for further improvement

As for many in the sector the pandemic has resulted in this being a challenging year which has been felt across the organisation and reflected in our published metrics. Next year's targets represent a bumper year for development and the commencement of efficiency savings from investment in business transformation. We have some key projects planned for next year which support our value for money strategy.

The target operating model restructure and IRT insourcing, which were implemented during the year, will be embedded and the savings realised.

Over the next five years we are investing just over £3.5m with a total forecast saving of £9.5m. The biggest area of investment comes from systems transformation, and it is anticipated a large proportion of this will come from the development of a new CRM system using Microsoft Dynamics and Power Apps. The new CRM system, along with the enhancement of supporting systems plus Lean process reviews, will enable us to deliver service delivery savings using behavioural insights.

During 2021/22 we will be introducing pension salary sacrifice which will result in significant NI savings of around £50k per annum. Colleagues in the scheme will also save - on average £210 per year.

Our new Sustainability Strategy and Strategic Asset Management Strategy were approved in the year and this will support our work in maximising our social value.

The current pandemic situation we are facing has challenged us to do things differently and we will be working on a new VfM strategy and targets next year, incorporating all of the lessons learnt during this time.