Christopher House 663-675 Princes Road Dartford Kent DA2 6EF

Telephone: 01474 369830Fax: 01322 278276 Email: general@gcha.org.uk

Operating & Financial Review 2015/16

Contents

Chair’s Report 4

Value for Money Statement 5

Chief Executive’s Report 6

Our Performance 7

Service Standards 8-9

Income & Expenditure Account 10

Balance Sheet 11

Board Members 12

Staff Structure 13

Elizabeth Court Refurbishment 14-15

GCHA manages over 650 homes in Gravesham, Dartford & Maidstone.

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wEvery year, the Board reviews both our long and short term plans for GCHA, to ensure that the association remains financially viable while providing quality homes for a range of tenants in the Gravesend and Dartford area. This year we have needed to assess our forward plans in light of the increasing cost of new build homes along side rising demand for housing, while retaining our determination to provide quality maintenance for existing homes. Prospective and on-going tenants should expect a high standard from our staff both in handling applications for a new tenancy and enquiries around repairs and maintenance. With this in mind, the board regularly monitors tenant satisfaction feedback and ensures that lessons are learned in the event of any concerns. We value tenants’ comments as we review the quality and cost-effectiveness of the work carried out by our contractors, in order to aim for the highest standards and ensure we provide value for money.

Planning for the effects of Government legislation continues to be a significant focus of the board’s activity as our staff help tenants to manage the outcome of the reductions in welfare benefits. The 1% decrease in rents over the coming 4 years for social and affordable housing will provide some welcome relief to tenants who struggle, however the board has needed to revise future plans in the light of lower income being available for future projects.

We completed a review of our governance arrangements during the year and now Board members bring a range of skills to work for the benefit of GCHA and its tenants, and we continue to compare our own effectiveness in comparison with other housing associations of a similar size. We hope to recruit new members in the coming year to ensure continuity as longer standing members retire and to ensure essential skills are not lost.

Rev Canon Ruth Oates - Chair

Chair’s ReportGCHA’s board is committed to delivering the association’s objectives in the most cost effective and efficient way possible and works in line with its key objectives as stated above.

Return on assets (ROA)This is an indicator of how profitable a company is relative to its total assets. ROA gives an idea as to how efficient management is at using its assets to generate earnings. In 2015-16, under the new Financial Reporting Standard 102 accounting practices, GCHA’s return on assets, excluding pension scheme revaluations, was 3.2%, compared to 3.7% in 2014-15, however this was after an additional £330k was invested in non-capitalisable estate improvements. Without these works, the return on assets would have stood at 4.2%, highlighting achieved efficiency improvements.

Efficiency savingsLast year we said we would make further savings of £109k by re-tendering all the maintenance work as Guaranteed Maximum Price contracts. We broadened the number of contractors to increase competition and send out tenders to 5 contractors.

We exceeded our target, saving £144k, which was the difference between the normal contractor’s tender price and the lowest tender, BrenWards. We also targeted further staff cost savings of £35k following the introduction of a new CRM I.T. system. The implementation was delayed until January 2015 because the testing took longer than anticipated, however we exceeded this target, saving £40k. We delayed employing any additional staff during the year, instead we reviewed all our working practices, using the new I.T. to streamline processes and improve efficiencies. This has paid dividends because existing staff have been able to take on new roles without the ‘level of tenant satisfaction with GCHA as a landlord’ falling. In fact this has risen from 97% in 2015 to 98% in 2016.

We have therefore collectively achieved £184,000 of savings, exceeding our target by £40,000.

Value for Money Statement

Tenant satisfaction with contractor Performance Returned

Contractor Make Appointment? 98% 383 out of 619 (62%)

Was Appointment Kept 97%

Courteous & Respectful 100%

Site Left Clean And Tidy 99%

Satisfied With Work 98%

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The association continues to develop new homes and this year saw the start on site of 12 new one and two bedroom flats in Burch Road, Gravesend. Plans to demolish our office site in Northfleet to provide new offices and flats were refused planning permission so we had to re-think our approach to this aspect of asset management. Instead we opted to refurbish and rent the office whilst applying for planning permission to demolish and rebuild another of our sites on London Road to provide new flats and a ground floor office. This will not be finished until 2017 so in the interim GCHA moved to rented offices in Dartford where we will stay until the new building in Northfleet is complete.

Our ability to develop new homes is becoming increasingly difficult in an ever rising property market. However, whilst this market makes developing new homes more difficult it also has the effect of increasing demand for our properties, in particular social and affordable rents. Applicants are drawn from the Choice Based Lettings system operated by local authorities all over Kent.

In Gravesham we have an average of 67 applicants for every empty property and 36 in Dartford an increase of 59% and 140% respectively against the number of applicants the previous year.

As we aim to help as wide a range of people as possible and we are adding to our investment portfolio to provide market rent properties for those who are not registered with local authorities for affordable housing. Unlike most private landlords we do not apply administration fees or ask for a large deposit when letting these properties and this keeps demand at a steady level. We also offer 5 year assured shorthold tenancies which provide a far higher level of security for tenants than that on offer in the open market.

We aim to be the ‘biggest small’ landlord in Gravesham so building and acquiring new homes is essential to our business strategy and we will continue to drive efficiencies to fulfil this objective.

Veronica MabeyManaging Director

Our aim is to provide a first class housing management and maintenance service to all our tenants. GCHA belongs to the Skills and Projects Benchmarking (SPBM) group where we measure our performance in key service delivery areas and compare this to other similar sized organisations.

We are pleased to report that GCHA’s performance is in the top percentile but despite that we do recognise that we can still improve our services.

Our Performance

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Managing Director’s Report

GCHA PERFORMANCE DATA2015 2016

BenchmarkMedian

2016

Number of days a property is empty (void days) 11 10 23.5

Rent arrears -GCHA figure includes housing benefit whilst the benchmarking figure excludes this 2.82% 3.34% 3.47%

In general, how satisfied are you with GCHA as a landlord? 97% 98% 89%

Rent collected 99.4% 100% 99.81%

How satisfied are you with the repairs and maintenance service? 89% 87% 85%

How satisfied or dissatisfied are you that your rent provides value for money? 96% 95% 85%

How satisfied or dissatisfied are you that your service charge provides value for money? 94% 89% 77.3%

How satisfied or dissatisfied are you that GCHA listens to your views and acts on them? 90% 88% 69%

Operating costs as % of turnover 56.8% 65% 78.3%

Number of days lost as staff sickness 3.70% 1.5% 3.8%

Access & diversity We say we will:Provide fair access to our services and treat you with respect. A: 97% of all tenants were satisfied with GCHA as landlord and thought that GCHA treated them fairly.

Make reasonable adjustments for our customers and stakeholders with disabilities to ensure our services are fair and accessible. A: We undertook three disabled adaptations in response to tenant’s needs to ensure they could remain in their existing home.

Provide translation and interpretation services for essential information on request. A: We did not receive any requests from tenants or applicants for translation or interpretation this year.

Antisocial behaviourWe say that whenever you report antisocial behaviour (ASB), we will contact you to offer you an interview in accordance with the severity of the ASB within the following guidelines:Category A – high priority – offer an interview within 1 working day. A: We did not receive any cases of Category A ASB.

Category B – medium priority offer an interview within 5 working days. A: We received 8 cases of Category B ASB and met the required timescale in all instances.

Category C – lower priority - offer you an interview within 10 working days. A: We received 4 cases of Category C ASB and met the required timescale in all instances.

ComplaintsWe say we will:Write to you within 3 working days of receiving your formal complaint with our plan to investigate it.

Give you a comprehensive answer to your complaint at the first stage within 10 working days and if we are not able to meet this deadline because we need further information, we will write to you and advise you of a date when you can expect a full response. A: We received 8 complaints in 2015/16, 5 of which were upheld. In all cases we responded and resolved the complaints within 10 days.

Moving inBefore you move into your new home, we say we will:Make sure the property meets all health and safety requirements, and is fit for purpose.

Provide you with a welcome pack which will include a Tenants Handbook and a copy of the property inventory with photographs.

Explain in detail your new tenancy agreement and rights and responsibilities as a GCHA tenant.

Provide you with a gas safety certificate and the latest electrical certificate and EPC.

After you move into your home, we will contact you within 10 days to complete a satisfaction survey. A: Our performance against these targets is measured by surveying each new tenant. This year we only managed to contact 83% of our new tenants but of those that we did contact 99% were happy with the condition of their new home and the letting service they received.8 9

Service StandardsLast year we said we would set and publish service standards and we posted these out to all tenants. We also said that we would report back to tenants on our performance against these standards.

Estates servicesWe say we will:Keep the shared areas of buildings and grounds where you live clean, tidy and safe.

Keep communal gardens well maintained. A: 94% of tenants who responded to our survey were satisfied with the standard of the buildings and grounds.

Carry out estate inspections on a quarterly basis. A: We met this target in full and on two sites we do this with tenants.

CommunicationWe will:Return all phone calls within one working day. A: Unfortunately we were not able to monitor this in a meaningful way but will be able to report in next year’s report.

Acknowledge written (including email) correspondence within 3 working days and answer all written correspondence within 10 working days. A: Unfortunately we were not able to monitor this in a meaningful way but will be able to report on this to you next year. However, 86% of tenants who responded to our annual survey said they were satisfied with the response they received when they contacted GCHA.

Promote and continually develop ways you can access our services online. A: We reviewed the content of our web-site and decided that it was not fit for purpose. We are having a new site developed which we will put in place next year.

Seek feedback on key services from tenants and publicise the responses. A: We surveyed tenants on our services and had a 32% response rate. We use the results of this survey to focus on service improvements.

Rent & service chargesWe say we will:Send you a rent statement every year and tell you about the different ways you can pay. We will not increase your rent more than once per year.

Send you a schedule for your new rent including a summary of the costs for services relevant to you (if these are applicable). A: All out rent increase letters were sent out on time and we sent every tenant a rent and service charge statement in April.

RepairsWe will:Let you know if your request qualifies for a repair to be completed and provide you with an order number. The contractor will contact you direct and offer you a range of appointment dates and times.

Carry out emergency repairs within 24 hours. These are repairs that are deemed necessary to avoid the risk of injury to people, or damage to buildings and property.

Complete all routine repairs within 42 days. A: We undertook 1,909 repairs in 2015/16. We do not have data on 699 of these repair orders but of the remaining 1,210, 8% were out of time.

Test your gas boiler and any fixed fire and smoke alarms every year. A: 100% of gas boilers and fixed smoke alarms were inspected and certified.

Give you choice of options on new kitchen and bathroom installations. A: We replaced 9 kitchens, 16 bathrooms and 6 boilers. We also undertook 47 electrical upgrades.

Statement of Financial PositionStatement of Comprehensive Income

There were no acquisitions and no discontinued operations for the year.

Assets and liabilities 2016 2015

Property, plant and equipment Housing Properties at depreciated cost £28,583,616 £27,360,195

Other property, plant and equipment £130,696 £380,460

£28,714,312 £27,740,655

Investments

Market rented properties £3,662,358 £2,957,639

£32,376,670 £30,698,294

Current assets

Debtors £228,239 £200,708

Cash and cash equivalent £2,999,342 £485,372

£3,227,581 £686,080

Creditors: Amounts falling due within one year (£1,137,095) (£872,134)

Net current assets / liabilities £2,090,486 (£186,054)

Total assets less current liabilities £34,467,156 £30,512,240

Creditors: amounts falling due after more than one year (£25,347,763) (£22,496,605)

Net assets £9,119,393 £8,015,635

Capital and reserves

Called up share capital £11 £11

Revenue reserve £9,119,382 £8,015,624

£9,119,393 £8,015,635

The financial statements were approved by the Board and authorised for issue on 28th September 2016.

Assets

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2016 2015

Turnover £3,491,649 £3,331,287

Operating expenditure (£2,109,163) (£1,710,149)

Operating surplus before pension remeasurement £1,382,486 £1,621,138

Pension remeasurement - amendments to the contribution schedule (£164,300) -

Operating surplus £1,218,186 £1,621,138

Interest receivable £3,348 £1,202

Interest payable and financing costs (£554,186) (£492,125)

Increase in value of investment property £436,410 £243,494

Surplus and total comprehensive income for the year £1,103,758 £1,373,709

2016

£35,604,251

Capital and reserves £9,119,393

Turnover

Surplus

£3,491,649

£1,103,758

2015

Turnover

Surplus

£3,331,287

£1,373,709

£4,000,000£0

£4,000,000£0

£4,000,000£0

£4,000,000£0

£40,000,000£0

£20,000,000£0

GCHA Board Members

Registered with the HCA: LH 0870Registered Co-operative and Community Benefit Society No: 16849R

Staff Structure

Managing DirectorVeronica Mabey

Finance DirectorAidan Cox

PA to Managing Director

Keely Henderson P/T

Management Accountant

Harry Lart

Finance AssistantLisa Doyle

P/T

Operations Director Steve Fox

Customer Services Manager

Kav Toor

Customer Services Manager

Felicity Dunall

Housing Assistant

Alan McGrory13

Rev.Canon Ruth OatesChair

Appointed in 2005

Paul HancockVice Chair

Appointed in 2008

Valerie AshendenAppointed in 2007

Emma CookAppointed in 2009

Anne BurkeAppointed in 2010

Surinjeet SinghAppointed in 2012

Ronak KantariaAppointed in 2014

Chris HartTenant Board Member

Appointed in 2014

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ElIzABETH COuRT

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GCHA are committed to reinvesting in and improving our current properties and over the last year we have completed many upgrades. These include new bathrooms / kitchens in individual properties, new front and back doors, replacing windows and re-decoration to communal areas.

The biggest improvements have been seen at Elizabeth Court, Gravesend following a consultation with tenants. The main concern was that the site and in particular the stairwells were open to the public and the communal areas were subject to frequent trespass and anti-social behaviour. The previous tired looking 1970’s built block benefitted from having new roofing and insulation, a resurfaced car park, a door entry system and railings securing the site. The pictures below show these enhancements. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the tenants of Elizabeth Court for their patience whilst these works have been ongoing.

Before

Before

After

After