What we do
Aims and Objectives
OUR AIMS:
- Help meet local housing needs having particular regard to Worthing and the Coastal strip.
- Provide a best value, customer-focused service.
- Ensure the best possible environment is created in the neighbourhoods in which we work.
- Maintain our financial viability.
- Promote our standing and identity in the community.
- Develop staff to achieve the aims and objectives of the organisation.
OUR CORE OBJECTIVES:
- Meet the Company's financial targets.
- Achieve service outputs in the top 25% of best performing H.A.s.
- Continuously improve our efficiency.
- Promote "Housing Plus" initiatives in our activities.
- Develop partnerships and working with other organisations to provide housing and related services.
- Be one of the top 200 Housing Associations in size ( Over 5,000 properties owned or in management ).
- Be active in the Worthing, Adur and Arun areas.
- Continuously develop our staff and existing services.
Annual Report
Services and Standards
Clients Charter
Worthing Homes is now a Charter Client organisation which means that we provide a high quality repairs and maintenance service.
This is based on long term partnerships with contractors and our own small workforce primarily for working on empty homes. We have performed consistently well for all aspects of our repairs services.
We also have an efficient out-of-hours emergency repairs service operating 365 days a year. We have developed several partnering contracts with local contractors to continually improve out service delivery.
We offer a customer-focused, reflective improvement scheme, with nearly 2,000 improvements completed since transfer. We have a further three-year programme in place to complete more than 550 bathrooms and over 600 kitchen installations. We provide an information pack to all customers and have high levels of good feedback. The scheme has been submitted to the Housing Forum - see Continuous Improvements below.
We are also working with Guildcare, providing them with professional surveying services.
Concise Contract
As part of Worthing Homes' commitment to continuous improvement we have developed our innovative Concise Contract (880k pdf file), which became our second demonstration project with Constructing Excellence in October 2005. The contract is designed to replace the complicated 128 page JCT Design & Build contract with a simple to use four page plain English contract. John Griffiths Project Management Services One of develop partners states that "you can legislate for all possibilities, but in the end it's down to basic trust. I'm comfortable with the Concise Contract because it goes well with creating a sense of partnership".
Continuous improvement
Worthing Homes is committed to continuous improvement. We are involved in several innovative partnering initiatives and in March 2004,
we became a Constructing Excellence Demonstration Project (87k pdf file) for our cost reflective improvement programme.
Constructing Excellence has established itself as the only cross sector organisation covering all aspects of housing construction: private, public, and social sectors and their supply chains. It provides a member network of innovators who share knowledge and experience through its demonstrations portfolio and its ad hoc working groups.
Its main objective is to bring about radical change in housing construction, building on the Rethinking Construction agenda and the Strategic Forum's targets in order to work towards achieving the government targets for Decent Homes, new homes in growth areas, and the regeration of areas of low housing demand in the North, set out in ODPM's 'Sustainable Communities building for the future' 2003.
In order to highlight the benefits and barriers involved in current housing construction issues, the Housing Forum liaises with
government and industry leaders in commissioning in-house and external projects. These issues have included labour and skills shortages,
modern methods of construction, regeneration and sustainability, as well as promoting increased use of partnering and training on long
term strategic projects.
InBusiness for Neighbourhoods
iN is a national alliance of housing associations within the National Housing Federation.The commitments that members
of iN have made are:
We are in business for neighbourhoods.
We put our energy into creating places where people want to live.
We invest in a range of services as well as homes.
We are independent social businesses working with local people and partner organisations to deliver results.
Investors In People
Worthing Homes has been awarded the Investors in People standard again. The company first achieved the award in 2005 and over the past 3 years has continued to progress excellent working practices that encourage the development and involvement of all staff.
An external Investors in People assessor undertook the 3 year review during March 2008. He interviewed approximately a third of the staff, selecting individuals from across all areas of the business and taking into account a mix of roles and length of service.
Worthing Homes promotes training and learning opportunities for all its staff and encourages staff to progress and develop themselves and their skills throughout their employment at the company.
'STATUS' Survey 2007
The results are in and 95% of our of tenants consider Worthing Homes to be a good landlord, 91% feel well informed and 89% find staff helpful.
The National Housing Federation, who carried out the survey for us said that
"The high levels of satisfaction, some of the highest recorded in recent surveys are demonstrated in the key findings..."
Thank you to everyone who took part, your views are very important to us.
Read the Full survey results (519k) or the Executive summary (pdf 100k)
"Worthing Homes top performing landlord". That was the conclusion of the National Housing Federation in their report following our tenant satisfaction postal survey (called "STATUS") late last year. As they said in their report; "In the judgement of its own tenants, Worthing Homes is providing a top ranking service".
This is an outstanding performance by any measure and places Worthing Homes amongst the top performing social landlords both regionally and nationally. In particular, the association's tenants were much more likely than tenants elsewhere to be satisfied with the value for money provided by the rent, the repairs service they received, with the participation opportunities available to them and with the contact they had with staff.
Two Ticks
Worthing Homes has achieved the Two Ticks Award. The two ticks symbol is given by Job Centre Plus to employers who have agreed to meet 5 key commitments regarding recruitment, employment, retention and career development of people with disability. These 5 commitments are:
Commitment 1: To interview all applicants with a disability who meet the minimum criteria for a job vacancy and consider them on their abilities.
Commitment 2: To ensure there is a mechanism in place to discuss, at any time, but at least once a year, with disabled employees what can be done to make sure they can develop and use their abilities, e.g. Appraisals.
Commitment 3: To make every effort when employees become disabled to make sure they stay in employment.
Commitment 4: To take action to ensure that all employees develop the appropriate level of disability awareness needed to make our commitments.
Commitment 5: Each year, to review the five commitments and what has been achieved, to plan ways to improve on them and let the employees and employment service know about progress and future plans.
You will see the symbol on all our advertisements for jobs, letter headed paper as well as on our internet sites. The use of this symbol is one of the visible ways that we highlight our commitment to disabled people.
Our commitment to disabled people is an on-going process, which we are constantly reviewing, and involves all our employees.