Executive Steering Group
Monday 27th January 1.30-3.30pm
St. Michaels Centre, Abergavenny
Apologies
Marc FuryRichard Essex
Paul Roberts / Newport City Homes
CREW/RSCW
Newydd / Andrew Dakin
Dave Adamson
Nigel Draper / CREW
CREW
V2C
Present
Tom Broadhead / Melin / Sioned Hughes / CHCDewi Llwyd / Tai Eryri / Steve Cranston / United Welsh
Kath Deakin / Monmouthshire HA / Nicole Barnes / NPT Homes
Bronwen Lloyd / Charter Housing / Barbara Castle / Bron Afon
Hayley MacNamara
Jane Roberts-Waite / CHC/CREW
Caerphilly CC / Anthony Herne
Shelagh Iles / Building Enterprise
Rhondda Housing
Chair: Steve Cranston
Welcome and Apologies
Steve welcomed all attendees and gave apologies for Marc, Andrew, Richard, Dave, Paul and Nigel. Steve also welcomed Jane from Caerphilly County Council to her first steering group meeting.
Discussion- Regeneration within business processes and applying across organisation
The group discussed the challenges faced by themselves and their organisation in applying regeneration within business processes. The challenges and some suggested examples of overcoming these are summarised below.
Challenge: Ensuring that regeneration runs throughout the organisation. Anything that is not considered as a core service is difficult to justify.
Ways to overcome: Shelagh mentioned that she is noticing how regeneration is now creeping into other budgets as there is not enough for a single budget to focus on regeneration. Instead it is being delivered through all other budgets. Others mentioned that management were obligated to incorporate social benefit into all work. Caerphilly Council have made considerable progress in forming links between housing and regeneration departments. Tai Eryri have a separate company to delivery regeneration which has allowed them to risk-take and deliver innovative projects. United Welsh see their staff as a key asset in ensuring that regeneration runs throughout the organisation and have therefore undertaken a staff audit to identify the skills and interests held by staff which are then used for a time banking programme.
Challenge: Incorporating social impact into all procurement contracts.
Ways to overcome: NPT Homes have seen the benefit of the regeneration team physically sitting next to the asset management team and assisting with including social clauses in all contracts. Caerphilly Council are using ‘commitment contract’ as opposed to ‘procurement contracts’ as a way to grow the local supply chain. Bron Afon employ their own workforce and can therefore ensure that social outcomes are delivered.
Challenge: Should we decide on contract based on price or value?
Ways to overcome: All agreed that value should be decided over price however this can be difficult to implement in practice.
Challenge: Engaging with neighbourhood teams and supporting them to think differently and improve outcomes
Ways to overcome: In MHA the regeneration team is considered as a support service to other teams and have run value for money sessions for staff to embed across the organisation.
Challenge: Implementing regeneration as a corporate led policy/strategy
Ways to overcome: Caerphilly Council have aligned policy with tackling poverty, Communities First and Families First priorities. They have invested into regeneration as a capital grant and have seen that regeneration has become a priority following the outcome of the stock transfer ballot. Signing up to the Sustainable Development charter could be a way to demonstrate need across an organisation.
Challenge: Maintaining a relationship with the local authority/authorities. It was recognised as being especially difficult for RSLs that operate in more than one authority area. All local authorities have the same goal with regard to regeneration, but approach it very differently. Sometimes housing is not high up on the regeneration agenda in a local authority.
Ways to overcome: Assist work with local authorities by keeping the work plan aligned with their objectives.
Challenge: Working in partnership and delivering social outcomes.
Ways to overcome: There has been success in this area through the green agenda through programs including Arbed, CERT/CESP, ECO where all partners are driven to achieve carbon savings and a reduction in fuel poverty.
Challenge: Identifying regeneration priorities
Ways to overcome: Respond to outcomes of tenant participation survey
Challenge: Delivering people regeneration
Ways to overcome: Bron Afon encourage tenants to become volunteers and are looking to support young people with becoming trainee labourers.
Challenge: Delivering place regeneration
Ways to overcome: NPT Homes have adopted an area by area approach to ensure that the needs and priorities of each area are addressed.
Challenge: Focussing on regeneration in development
Ways to overcome: Tai Eryri have utilised the support available from Rural Housing Enablers for those in rural areas. Others have ensured that the RSL delivered the community benefits instead of the developer as promises by the developer do not always materialise.
Challenge: Using strategies and ensuring that they are delivered
Ways to overcome: Important that the remit of delivering a strategy is held by one person/team.
Work for CHC: Improving focus on regeneration across an organisation. Potentially run a training program for staff on regeneration? Although some thought needs to be made on whom the audience would be.
Measuring outcomes and justifying benefits- Hayley will work with the sector and CREW to provide support to members on measuring outcomes, in line with the value wales toolkit.
Building Enterprise Update
Anthony provided an update on the progress of the Building Enterprise programme. A framework of 96 providers is now in place and they have all been visited by Anthony. So far Building Enterprise has received 30 expressions of interest from social enterprises/entrepreneurs and RSLs. Ten of these have been prioritised and the packages of support are now being developed for each.
European Projects
Sioned updated the group on the work that will be taken forward on the previous ‘journeys into work’ project. Coalfields Regeneration Trust run a successful programme called Family Employment Initiative which has been delivered in Britain and other European countries. WEFO have expressed interest in the project and CHC therefore see that becoming a lead partner with Coalfields will fit well with WEFO and sector priorities, and enable scale for the project across Wales. CHC will be arranging for a north wales and south wales event to discuss this project.
Sioned also explained that Shea Jones will be taking sabbatical leave between March and September this year and the work on an EU energy bid will be undertaken by his temporary replacement.
An email will be sent out to the sector to provide an update on the progress with both projects.
Vibrant and Viable Places
We are expecting to hear the outcome of stage 2 applicants at the end of January. (Since this meeting it has been announced that all stage 2 applicants will receive funding).
CREW and CHC work plan
Sioned and Hayley discussed the work plan with the group which can be viewed in the attachments.
Digital Inclusion Update
Hayley provided an update on the digital inclusion project which CHC have led on.
A digital inclusion task and finish group made of sector and Communities 2.0 representatives have been working with CHC since early last summer. The group has undertaken considerable research on the needs of the sector to deliver digital inclusion initiatives and assist tenants with getting online. In particular, the group has identified that affordability of internet access is a key barrier faced by tenants who are digitally excluded, which has proven difficult for any one RSL to tackle in isolation. We therefore researched how we as a sector could overcome this, looking at all the technical solutions that could be utilised to provide residents with more affordable broadband packages, compared to those currently available on the open market. We identified that there are a variety of solutions available through developing new community infrastructure which has been piloted by a small number of associations across the UK. The technical expertise available to design and support an RSL to develop these is not available and requires bespoke knowledge of telecoms and communication.
We therefore recommended in our report that a new project is needed which will provide support to RSLs and:
· Work with the RSL on developing their digital inclusion strategy
· Provide technical expertise to RSLs to design and implement affordable broadband schemes for tenants
· Use a framework of providers to leverage goods and services from ISPs, hardware orgs and digital inclusion orgs (e.g. Comms 2.0) to ensure a full digital inclusion service is provided.
· Broker on behalf of the RSL to drive down cost- making it more affordable to the tenant
· Advise on funding opportunities and provide grant support
The project would act as a one stop shop and impartial service for all things digital inclusion which will work with RSLs regardless of what stage they are at with their digital inclusion work. We are currently working on the business plan for this project which we are calling “Digital Solutions Wales”. At the Chief Executive Conference on February 5th we will present our findings and identify interest across the sector.
Next network event: Wednesday 30th April. Theme TBC. Vote for the theme here: http://t.co/xGr0biHxVJ
Next steering group meeting: Tuesday 6th May 13.30-15.30pm