Putting in place our agenda for change - HRA Asset Management Plan
Our new Asset Management Plan is deliberately focused on the short to medium-term. This reflects the high pace of change within the social housing sector and the need to remain ‘agile’ - responding quickly to changes in national standards and our tenant’s needs.
The Plan sets out how we will work towards delivering our vision “To be a high-performing landlord, providing good quality homes and services that support thriving places and communities”.
Over the next three years we will continuously review and refine our vision and key priorities as we deliver our objectives and embed the 'building blocks' of a stronger, more strategic approach to asset management.
Our assessment of the risks illustrates the importance of delivering a ‘step change’ in how we go about facing ‘head-on’ the set of key requirements for strategic asset management. We need to deliver the changes needed under the umbrella of excellent governance arrangements so we meet the needs and expectations of tenants, meet our ambitions as a Council, and meet the requirements of the Regulator for Social Housing.
Our headline actions
- Ensuring every voice matters
- Establishing the right governance arrangements for effective decision making
- Providing good quality homes that are fit for the future
- Working towards a net zero carbon future
- Supporting thriving places and communities
- Delivering an efficient and well-run service
1. Ensuring every voice matters
We need to listen, then act on what people say.
- We need to actively listen to and learn from our communities and partners.
- We need to provide opportunities for genuine involvement and input when making decisions, developing policies, and designing services.
- We need to communicate in an open, honest and respectful way, listening and learning from tenants’ feedback and complaints to help ensure services are delivered in a tenant-focused way.
- We need to coordinate our consultation and engagement to ensure tenants’ views help shape and influence the services we provide.
2. Establishing the right governance arrangements for effective decision making.
We need to improve our governance, using quality data to make well-informed decisions.
- We need to strengthen our governance of our HRA asset management work, by having a clear strategic vision and set of delivery actions that have the buy-in of those responsible for measuring and monitoring their implementation.
- We need to improve the quality of our data, using it to provide ‘business intelligence’ to help design, deliver our services and develop our future plans.
- We need to develop a robust understanding of the condition and performance of our homes and invest wisely to ensure all homes are sustainable in the long-term.
3. Providing great homes that are fit for the future.
We need to meet current standards and future expectations.
- We need to ensure sufficient resources are in place to keep homes safe, in good condition, and to meet current tenants’ needs and all required standards.
- We need to provide our tenants with assurance that we are investing sufficiently to ensure homes meet all safety, legal and regulatory compliance standards.
- We need to deliver a great repair service, and need to tackle damp, mould and disrepair issues that may arise quickly.
- We need to look to the future when investing in and making decisions about our homes and ensure the quality of our homes improves over time.
- We need to invest wisely to ensure homes remain ‘desirable’ and reflect the ‘things that matter’ to tenants.
4. Working towards a net zero carbon future
We need to deliver the commitments set out in the Council’s Net Zero Carbon Action Plan.
- We need to recognise that the journey towards decarbonising the Council’s stock represents a significant challenge.
- We need to ensure all our homes meet Energy Performance Band (EPC) C by 2030.
- We need to plan for meeting the Council’s ambition for Oxford to be ‘net zero carbon’ city by 2040.
- We need to move quickly to meet these targets and ambitions to help prevent the stark effects of climate change from getting much worse, both locally and globally.
- We need to think carefully about how we invest in retrofit measures, so resources are spent wisely, ensuring a ‘no regrets’ approach to investment.
5. Supporting thriving places and communities
We need to work with residents and partners to create thriving places where people want to live, work and play.
- We need to recognise that health and other inequalities in Oxford are focussed on our estates, and within some property schemes.
- We need to nurture strong, inclusive communities by helping drive stronger shared collaboration between Council services and other stakeholders to deliver a range of asset focussed initiatives.
- We need to provide well-managed and well-maintained estates, with good quality green space, external and internal communal areas.
- We need to see our areas thrive through improved health, wellbeing, skills and employment opportunities and equal access for everyone.
6. Delivering an efficient and well-run service
We need to make best use of our resources.
- We need to develop a high-performing team focussed on driving continuous improvement, supported by efficient and effective systems and performance management.
- We need to employ the principles of good procurement and contact management at all stages to deliver better quality services at a lower cost.
- We need to recognise that we cannot deliver all the services that local people need alone, so we need to work effectively in partnership across the Council and with our contractor partners.
Delivering our Asset Management Plan
Strong Governance is central to a successful well-led property and asset function and needs to underpin the delivery of our Asset Management Plan. We need to build on our operational forums that discuss asset management to establish a more strategic platform where all asset activity and asset decisions are made. It is essential that our decision making is enabled within a practical, regularly scheduled meeting structure. Better governance and data will lead to better decisions being made for asset management. For example, better long-term planning for our assets can lead to repair costs being mitigated while also avoiding tenants being negatively impacted due to homes being in a state of disrepair.
We will therefore strengthen our governance arrangements by establishing an HRA Asset Management Plan Delivery Group. The role of the AMP Delivery Group will be to ensure that the HRA property function is ‘doing things right’ and delivering the Asset Management Plan. The work of the AMP Delivery Group will help support leadership and excellence in decision-making, which will be crucial in delivering each of our headline actions. Importantly, it will also help us be more accountable to tenants on our performance in delivering our asset management work.
