Business Plan
Arcon Housing Association was set up in 1972 with the aim of providing high quality housing to those in housing need in the Greater Manchester area. The Association is an exempt charity and is registered with the Registry of Friendly Societies and the Housing Corporation. It is controlled by voluntary Board members and the day to day activities are carried out by 24 full and part time staff.
The Group owns and manages about 1,000 properties. The majority of properties were built or refurbished in the late 70s and early 80s with recent development activity being mainly directed towards specialist housing schemes and market rent and shared ownership properties.
The Group recognizes that in order to stay a dynamic organization it needs to develop and with this in mind it has appointed a Business Development Consultant who has extensive experience of developing affordable housing in the north west. Board and staff are encouraged to actively seek new development opportunities and the Group is also in the process of formalizing with 6 other Housing Associations the establishment of the Northern Lights Group which through the Accent Group has received partnering status under the Housing Corporation’s National Affordable Housing Programme.
The Group also recognizes that its future success is dependant on its continuing ability to provide a property management service of the highest quality. Because of its size the Group is able to make sure that staff work closely together and that Board members and policy makers are not remote from those putting those policies into action. The aim is to make sure that Arcon’s tenants receive a personal and human service for which staff are individually responsible.
The Association is committed to increasing the influence tenants have over the management and decision making processes. A new shareholding and tenant associate shareholding membership policy was agreed recently and this sets out how tenants can participate more fully both as tenants and ordinary shareholding members. Terms of reference for the Tenant Committee are also reviewed regularly and members of the Tenant Committee are members of the Board and the Association’s Housing Management Committee and several tenants have become shareholding members of the Association.
The revision to the shareholding and tenant associate shareholding membership policy was part of a wider governance review that was carried out by the Board in order to ensure the continued effective governance of the Association. The Committee structure was amended to incorporate a steering group so that there was closer liaison between key Board members and the senior management team as well as setting up a development sub committee so as to respond more efficiently to the appraising of new development opportunities. The Association is continuously looking to recruit new Committee members so as to broaden the skills and experience base on which it can draw.
The Association’s quality management system is registered under the ISO 9001:2000 standard and this, together with its Best Value programme of work, has helped to ensure that the service provided by Arcon not only continues to be consistently sensitive to the needs and requirements of tenants but is also continuously improved. The Association has recently incorporated into this structure reviews based on the Audit Commission’s Key Lines of Enquiry and also carries out Value for Money reviews as part of its commitment to the efficiency agenda.
The Association’s annual rent plan shows rent increases slightly over the rate of inflation through to 2012. The budgets for 2007/8 and the last 7 years have been set so as to maximize the major repair programme within rental income whilst meeting financial covenants.
The Association was inspected in by the Housing Corporation in 2002 and they found the service provided by Arcon to be generally good and capable of continuous improvement. The Housing Corporation’s assessment of Arcon gave positive assessments or “green lights” for the viable, properly governed and properly managed sections. The Association has also been assessed as a low risk Association for Housing Corporation regulation purposes.
The Association is continuing to liaise closely with local authorities and other housing associations especially in the areas of racial equality, asset management and ways of combating neighbour nuisance and promoting the respect agenda.
The Association is confident in its continuing financial strength and because the majority of its properties were built before 1990, its gearing ratio is well below the sector average. The Association has an undrawn facility of £0.6m with the Bradford & Bingley and Arcon Developments Ltd has £0.75m undrawn facility with Lloyds TSB. It is planned that these monies will be utilized in the forthcoming year to fund its development programme.
The Association has also recently changed its asset management strategy and is now more actively managing its stock of properties. The strategy recognizes the need, in consultation with Local Authorities, to sell some of its properties in order to not only finance its development and major repair programmes but also to promote mixed tenure in certain areas and meet tenant aspirations.
The asset management strategy also addresses the need to continuously update the Association’s stock condition survey and this exercise will be finished in 2007 and will allow the Group to make a more detailed and accurate projection of future repairing liabilities and provide reassurance of the Association’s capacity to meet the Decent Homes standard.
In 2006 the Association finished setting up a group structure whereby the market rent properties owned by the Association were transferred to its unregistered subsidiary Arcon Developments Ltd. After this the Association adopted charitable rules and obtained exempt charity status. The relationship between the Association and Arcon Developments Ltd is set out in an intra-group agreement. The new structure will not only allow the Group to keep more of the surpluses it generates for inward investment but also will allow the Group to take part in projects that may have more commercial goals than allowed by charitable rules.
