After a fantastic three days exhibiting at this year’s Social Housing Exhibtion, we would like to share with you some of the interesting points highlighted at the conference.
What has the NHF conference 2011 told us?
Well there has been a fair share of doom and gloom from the economists about the nation’s deficit and debt challenges. Even Robert Peston’s humourous approach can’t hide the challenges ahead. But interestingly Japan, which is the case study for western countries for sustained low growth, is now a productive economy. So we must take the challenge ahead.
There is no more money and in deeper there is much less money than before – Carl Emmerson’s analysis from the Institute of Fiscal Studies has shown that social housing has taken the brunt of the early cuts with 67% gone from government budgets.
Phillip Blond has some innovative ideas and he is right when he says that we need new solutions that both support the most vulnerable but don’t create the handout dependency culture.
So how do organisations pay for all of this if debt pricing is going to be under threat and new development funding squeezed?
We we have to deliver more for less – easy to say but more difficult to do. Our experience of working with hundreds of private sector organisations is that you need a two pronged approach
First, you need to get the context and culture for improvement – we need to identify what matters most and ensure that all parts of the organisation are working effectively to that aim. That is where the Investors in Excellence Standard really focuses organisations and provides a structure for analysing where we need to improve as well as that important recognition and accreditation.
Secondly (or sometimes firstly!) we have got to get stuck into our processes and delivery systems. Established thinking on waste and inefficiency will highlight that 20-40% of organisational costs are wasted as a result of inefficiency and more importantly not fully understanding the concept of customer value.
Having just completed over 40 lean service reviews across over a dozen housing and back office processes within housing providers there are clear savings to be made and many which can be obtained quickly. Our lean programmes are delivering a minimum of 1:10 return on investment.
Our case study of the voids work we completed at Orbit Heart of England on their voids work has led to over £0.5m in direct cash savings and improved productivity. What was the secret of the programme well it was engaging their frontline teams in understanding what the customer wanted and really analysing the root causes of problems.
If we do nothing, nothing will change. IiE is passionate about making the housing sector the platform to drive improved communities – we just need to find a way to do it without a government cheque.
Get in contact with julian.beaney@investorsinexcellence.com or follow on twitter @JulianBeaney to see how we can help you seize the challenge.