Making Every Contact Count (MECC)

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Making Every Contact Count (MECC) is an approach to behaviour change that utilises the day to day interactions that people, organisations and communities have with others to encourage positive choices to improve our overall health. Many long-term diseases are closely linked to known behavioural risk factors that are attributable to tobacco, alcohol, being overweight or physical inactive that can ultimately lead to poor mental health.

MECC is a whole person approach considering an individual’s circumstances such as their finances, employment status, social support and housing. The smallest of changes can make the biggest difference when it comes to positive physical and mental wellbeing. MECC can take a matter of minutes, help people respond to opportunities to discuss health and relay brief messages.

It follows a simple process revolving around the 3A model including:

  • Ask – taking notice of others, listening and engaging during opportunistic chats
  • Assist – providing useful and motivational health information
  • Act – signposting to local support services

Across the country there are opportunities for organisations to get involved with MECC and more specifically in the North the following contacts can support you to implement MECC. If you are interested in MECC please visit each regional signposting website or contact the MECC lead for that region to support your next steps:

North East and North Cumbria

There will be some slight differences across the country, but for those within the North East and North Cumbria there is a free Train the Trainer model that exists that organisations can access to upskill their staff to deliver the Core MECC training in house providing their frontline staff with the knowledge, confidence and skills to support tenants, colleagues and other services with wider health issues.

“I was apprehensive before the training, but I feel I know more now as it links into other areas with my work. The link to people’s everyday life is brilliant!”

“The message is so consistent, and that even though the interventions are brief, they are meaningful”

“It was very thought provoking as it made me think about how often I actually have MECC conversations with tenants, colleagues, friends, family and even my neighbours”

MECC Gateway website: www.meccgateway.co.uk/nenc

Contact: craig.robson@northumbria-healthcare.nhs.uk

Lancashire and South Cumbria

MECC Link website: www.mecclink.co.uk/lancashire-and-south-cumbria/

Contact: athompson-spears@activelancashire.org.uk

Yorkshire and Humber

MECC Link website: www.mecclink.co.uk/yorkshire-humber/

Contact: Chris.Sharp@dhsc.gov.uk

Cheshire and Merseyside

MECC Link website: https://mecc-moments.co.uk/

Contact: stephenpeters@wirral.gov.uk

Rent Caps – What are the Potential Impacts?

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Richard Houghton Director Valuation Advisory – Affordable Housing JLL (richard.houghton@eu.jll.com)

After a long period of guessing and surmising what may unfold, the government finally provided some insight on their directive for rental policy, outlining three options for a social housing rent cap next year. It is certainly not the most welcome news for those pulling together business plans, but at least there is some visibility on what 2023 may hold. The juggling act of meeting operational requirements, high levels of service dependency and the continual pressure to invest in existing stock whilst delivering new developments presents a significant challenge on all fronts.

Over the next few weeks, the government is consulting with the sector on capping social rent rises at either 3%, 5% or 7%. Whilst this intervention aims to protect residents from the current storm of soaring inflation, conversely it removes some of the limited protection available to Registered Providers to counteract the rising service delivery costs. The rent settlement agreed in 2017 reinstated a period of rental growth stability following a period of rent cuts, allowing annual rental increases at a maximum of the consumer price index plus 1%, but with inflation sitting at 10% plus, this could potentially result in 11% rises on current rents.

With the cost of living crisis arguably felt most acutely by our social housing tenants, a delicate balancing act is required to address affordability, but at what cost?

The initial cap suggested by the government would come into effect from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024, but the consultation also seeks views on whether to set a limit for 2024-25. The consultation will close on 12 October 2022. Following the consultation, we understand firm direction will be announced later in the year, hopefully providing some time for landlords to factor this into their business plans for April 2023.

Here at JLL (Jones Lang LaSalle), we have been modelling shadow appraisals for some of our existing RP clients to assist with financial planning and stress testing to help inform their boardroom discussions.

When modelling the different rent caps, the assumed level of inflation and its projected impact on net income is fundamental to the outcomes and, to this end, we have adopted Citibank’s recent prediction of 18% UK inflation in early 2023, which we would hope models a very worst-case scenario. Despite some variances depending upon the age of stock, investment programmes and rent levels, our initial projections across mixed tenure social housing stock have generally returned similar results regardless of location. These results are summarised as follows:

 

Indicative Projected EUV-SH Values 1 April 2023

Assumed management cost increase 10%

Assumed repair and maintenance cost inflation: 18%

 Impact on valuations compared with previous April 22 reporting.

 

3% Rent Cap 5% Rent Cap 7% Rent Cap
EUV-SH Apr 23 EUV-SH Apr 23 EUV-SH Apr 23
-6.5 – 7.5% -3.0 -3.5% 0.5 – 1.00%

Whilst we appreciate that such a high level of inflation combined with a rent cap would have a material impact on business plans, based on this analysis, we would suggest that on valuations at least, a rent settlement of between 6.5% and 7% may well mitigate the effect of a potentially high inflation figure of around 18%.

Although we at least have some details to start considering, as ever, there appear to be more questions than answers. However, the JLL team are keen to share views and provide assistance as the sector works through the impact of the rent caps and prepares its response to the consultation, so please do get in touch if you would like to discuss this further.

 

Bolton’s new system linking housing applicants to providers of support

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Bolton Council is the latest local authority to put Locata’s Housing Related Support (HRS) module at the heart of its management of housing support applications.

The system will go live this Friday and will help officers manage a pathway of referrals into accommodation with support or floating support.

Bolton’s new HRS module assists the officer as they manage the applicant through to a provider who will give them the service they need.

It also monitors the applicant’s progress, recording the outcomes of all steps and stages, automatically providing full reporting and other management information direct to the officer.

HRS has an inbuilt “provider” database including details of the services each provide. There is also a custom login portal for third party providers of housing related support services, allowing local authority partners to accept new clients into their services and report on progress.

The system massively reduces the amount of manual information needed to be entered by officers as data is exported between modules with just one click of a button.

The information required by support providers is very similar to that already gathered as part of the homelessness service, so Locata has ensured that the workflows of the HRS module are aligned with that of our homelessness module, HPA2.

This not only makes the transition between products seamless, but officers already using HPA2 require little training on how to use HRS as it has been built on the same system platform.

Locata has also recently released a new feature which enables officers to export fields and questions between modules. This means that when clients are exported from one module to another the information matches in all the relevant fields.

To find out more about our HRS module and HPA2 please email us at enquiries@locata.org.uk

Tough times and trade-offs – Campbell Tickell guest blog

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3%, 5%, 7%, or as you were at CPI +1% – which could mean 12% rent increases for English social housing in 2023. Which is it to be?

Government insists it is an open consultation – but has made its position clear, that it is minded to implement a 5% cap on social housing rents. This would involve scrapping the final two years of the current CPI +1% settlement, and the cap is likely to run for two years. When the cap was last scrapped, in 2015, we were just two years into a 10 year settlement, when government opted to require a 1% per annum cash reduction for four years (which equated to around CPI -3%). So we’ve seen this before.

The difference this time is that the anticipated reduction is not about pursuing a more generalised policy of austerity in public spending, and keeping benefit bills down. This time it’s about recognising the disastrous effects on social housing residents of this year’s colossal hike in costs of living, in particular the effect on fuel bills. Bluntly, people need help.

The question is, what is the wider cost of that help, and are there unintended consequences? Who is to pay in order to keep rents relatively more affordable?

I discussed the position the other day with a senior executive of a substantial housing provider. The organisation had been modelling the potential effect of a 5% cap. They had established this would lead to a reduction of between a quarter and a third in their annual surplus.

Does this matter? Can’t housing providers wear it? For George Osborne’s 2015 four-year rent reduction, it was understood the Department had been consulting and modelling two options: a 1% per annum rent cut in cash terms, and a 2% cut. The conclusion of this was that housing providers could just about weather 1%, but if it went to 2%, that would kill new development stone dead.

This is the problem we face now. The RP sector may be generating several billion pounds of surplus a year. But that doesn’t make it money that is freely available. The surpluses are needed to fund major repairs and reinvestment programmes, and to enable new housing development. For some organisations, their loan covenants – critical to funding new-build schemes – require that they generate surpluses above certain levels on a continuing basis.

Carry through a 5% rent cap for two years, and what can we expect to see? A number of outcomes can be identified:

  • Planned maintenance programmes will be lengthened, and major works will be delayed;
  • Decarbonisation works will be put on hold – and we should remember it has been estimated that it will cost £104bn to achieve net zero across UK social housing by 2050 (if even that deadline is soon enough);
  • New development will fall significantly – and bear in mind that RPs typically provide one-fifth of new supply each year – at a time when homelessness, including street homelessness, is rising;
  • The picture will be especially stark for councils, which lack the reserves that RPs have to draw upon;
  • Many small RPs, especially supported housing providers, will be in danger of becoming unviable – while the number of larger RPs able to bale them out will diminish, leading to a risk of some RPs going bust.

This is not to argue that social housing residents, who are likely to face enormous problems getting by – the stark choice of ‘heat or eat’ – should be expected to wear 12% rent increases next year. It does mean government should look seriously at what funding can be made available to social landlords, to enable them to continue providing good quality homes and support, and develop the new homes the country needs

Campbell Tickell hosts a WhatsApp group of over 220 housing CEOs from across the UK and Ireland. The platform has been alive in recent weeks with contributions from senior leaders – facing that 5% cap – gravely concerned about their ability to access the funds to ensure their homes are safe and fireproof, continue to advance decarbonisation, continue to build to meet housing demand, and indeed continue to keep their organisations viable.

If government is serious about the health, safety and quality of the homes in which social housing residents live, the need to continue towards net zero and eradicate fuel poverty, and the need to develop new homes to meet demand and address homelessness, it has to act.

Different approaches are possible. It could be about grant support to enable social landlords to keep rents low while meeting their safety and new supply expectations – after all, the savings in benefits to the Treasury of lower rents would be considerably more than the combined savings to tenants. It could be via a ‘catch-up’ mechanism, allowing higher rent rises over a five or even 10 year period following the initial two year limitation. And indeed, as Paradigm Housing CEO Matthew Bailes has argued, it could make better sense to fund support via a windfall tax on energy companies than by what is in effect a tax on non-profit social landlords.

Most immediately for the housing sector, responses to the Department’s consultation are needed by Wednesday 12 October. The more informed the responses about the effects on individual organisations, the better.

Greg Campbell is a Partner at Campbell Tickell.

greg.campbell@campbelltickell.com

A 5 Point Plan to a ‘No Regrets’ Net Zero Retrofit Strategy – Sava guest blog

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Developing a Net Zero retrofit strategy without regret.

All straightforward in the world of sound-byte isn’t it. ‘No Regrets’, ‘Fabric First’, ‘Worst First’ and so on.

Then we have the reality of taking a critical view of our housing stock, often with a limited dataset and out-of-date information which is held in multiple locations with duplication and cloning thrown into the mix.

The social housing sector are committed to the notion of hitting a minimum EPC band C by 2030 and then to achieve Net Zero by 2050. This in itself can make a ‘No Regrets’ approach a difficult proposition because the measurement of an EPC band and of carbon impact are fundamentally different.

We need to think about the band C target as a milestone to be reached by 2030 as a part of the longer-term journey towards Net Zero. This will change the way we plan our improvement strategy.

In simple terms, design our retrofit improvement planning for Net Zero and work backwards. This gives us the visibility of where we want our homes to be and what they will look like and will better inform the decisions we make today around improvements.

An example might be that if we were designing a Net Zero home and looking to insulate the loft, we may decide upon installing 450mm of loft insulation, whereas if we were planning to get a property to an EPC band C we might be recommending 250mm of loft insulation. If we know that we will eventually need 450mm, then installing that measure prior to 2030 not only supports our band C targets but also saves future duplication of time, effort, and money further down the line.

Getting hold of the data to inform our decision making.

This is all much easier to plan if we have a quality assured data profile of our whole stock – which, in reality, most housing providers don’t currently hold. The best investment over the next 12 months and beyond is on data acquisition.

There are multiple sources from which we could source a sufficient dataset to return an energy rating and carbon score.

Whether housing providers conduct this work internally with data analysts or work with organisations who provide this expertise, it is time well spent to end up with 100% of stock providing an energy rating. This will allow us to ask questions of that dataset, such as ‘What does a retrofit plan look like for each of these homes and how much will it cost?’

This starts to build confidence in not only what our homes will need to look like but also informs our skills needs internally. If for instance, it looks like we are going to have 3,000 air source heat pumps installed across specific stock over the next 20 years, where are the engineering skills to support this? Do frontline staff need to have appreciation training on some of these technologies, ought we be starting to inform tenants on the future of housing and how heat pumps work? It’s all hugely valuable insight for how we map out the future shape of our organisations.

We are then able to do financial cross checking, such as what would the financial impact be over the next 20 years if I don’t even consider low temperature, low carbon technology for at least the next 10 years? Is this an achievable strategy? Once you start asking these questions of your energy analytics software and internal expertise you can then work towards a Net Zero improvement plan that you can stand by.

Even where we are applying for funding from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund and have specific heat demand targets to meet and particular property types to target, it still shouldn’t stop us making sure that we are considering a ‘No Regrets’ approach before we submit the bid. Knowing what we want the property to eventually look like will assist in a stronger bid application and will stand the property in better stead for its next phase of improvement.

A 5 Point Plan to a No Regrets Net Zero Retrofit Strategy

If you are yet to embark on the Net Zero journey, the 5-point-plan below is a good place to start:

  1. A dataset for 100% of your stock that returns an energy rating. It’s a tough job but it’s an essential investment. Whether this is an internal project, or you work with a specialist organisation like Sava, it should be the first piece of work you undertake.
  1. A single version of the truth. If you use an asset management system, work to integrate your newly cleansed dataset into your asset database. It means that every time you make any property improvement in the future, it will inform your energy data and will recalculate your energy rating accordingly.
  1. Net Zero is our target, band C is just part of the journey. Build an improvement strategy that visualises the future of your stock and work back towards an incremental improvement plan that is costed out, achievable and avoids the ‘regrets’ of duplicated effort.
  1. Invest in specialist analytics software. Invest in a powerful calculation engine that runs your improvement planning software and helps map out and inform your retrofit journey – such as Sava Intelligent Energy.
  1. Knowledge is power. Low carbon technology is inevitable. Speak to manufacturers, attend training sessions, consider having some of your team attend retrofit co-ordinator training. Start to think about how you help educate tenants. They will need to understand this new technology to ensure they do not fear it.

Here at Sava, we provide free technical webinars specifically designed to improve your knowledge of energy analysis and maximise the value you get from your property data. You can view our upcoming webinars here: https://sava.co.uk/software/technical-webinars/.

Please feel free to get in touch with us at technology@sava.co.uk to find out how we can help you to develop your Net Zero retrofit strategy through our software and consultancy solutions.

NHC Unlocking Success Bursary Scheme awards 15 tenants

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The Unlocking Success Bursary Scheme, funded through the Northern Housing Consortium Charitable Trust, awards bursaries of £500 to help tenants develop learning and skills to support future employment. Since its launch in 2019, the scheme has awarded 73 bursaries to 43 member organisations. To hear some of the success stories from past successful applications, see here. The 2022 edition of the scheme launched in April with the application deadline in July, and we received 24 strong applications for this round. From these submissions, a further 15 tenants, from 6 of our members, have been awarded the bursary after successful applications.

We received a range of great applications, with various support requests to help tenants with future employment by increasing their access to learning and skills development. Below are some examples of the support the bursary fund will provide to successful tenants.

Dean is a tenant from Gateshead Council and will be using the bursary to support his travel costs to University and placements while he completes a course in PGCE Secondary Computer Science, to help work with children with special educational needs. Another tenant from Gateshead Council, Holly, will use to the bursary to pay for books, stationary and travel costs as she embarks on an A-Level Law course at Gateshead College.

Katy, a tenant from Livin, will be using the money to fund a NCFE CACHE Diploma/Certificate Level 3 in Supporting Teaching and Learning. Katy wants to get this qualification in order to become a teaching assistant, something she wants to do after being made redundant. Other successful applicants with Livin include Deanne, who wanted the money to fund the purchase of a laptop which will in turn help her with online training to gain her Maths GCSE and start an IT course. This will hopefully allow her to get a part-time job as she is a single parent bringing up three children of school age. Karl will use the money to buy his own tools so he can become self-employed within the welding industry, as companies he has worked for in the past cannot guarantee full time work.

Daniel, another Livin tenant, said “the grant will help me as I have always had an interest in photography and I have never had the confidence to pursue my dreams until now with the support of Livin. I would complete a course through Bishop Auckland College and purchase a camera for this course”.

Habinteg tenant Francesca intends to use funds received from the bursary to pay toward costs related to her degree including books, stationery, travel and course fees. As a dedicated student nurse, she is unable to work in the holidays to subsidise herself as she will be on unpaid placements doing twelve hour shifts.

Ella, an Eden Housing Association tenant, applied for the bursary to part-fund the next part of their counselling course which they have already saved some of the fees for. Ella detailed why the fund is so important, having found herself unable to return to her previous career due to ill-health, “I struggled with grieving for my former life and accepting my new circumstances. Counselling was a transformative process for me in helping me to overcome these difficulties and I am now passionate about wanting to help others who have found themselves in similar situations. I desperately wish to return to work but it is incredibly difficult for me to find a workplace which offers me the flexibility that I need due to my health. A career in counselling permits me to control my own workload and to work in a way which fits my needs, whilst also allowing me to fulfil my dream of supporting others… It would not only transform my life but also allow me to have a similar impact on others through my work.”

Finally, South Lakes Housing tenant Jennifer explained, “I wish to do a course in British sign language as at present there is no one with this qualification in my workplace. I pride myself in making sure that education is accessible to everyone and commination is vital for this to happen, not only with the children but also any parents of carers as well. In addition I would like to take minibus lessons in order to be able to drive a minibus. My work place is very small and our trips can cost quite a lot per child as the transport is the biggest cost factor. If I had my minibus licence, then we would be able to cut down the cost of education trips and offer more trips at a lower cost.”

Congratulations to this year’s 15 successful applicants! Look out for updates on the next round of the bursary in 2023, further information on the scheme is available on our website.

NHC will be hosting a celebratory and fundraising lunch on Friday 2nd December at Ramside Hall where we will be recognising this year’s successful applicants and looking forward to supporting future tenant applicants.  Please contact Lynda.Redshaw@northern-consortium.org.uk for further information or to book a table. Alternatively you could donate directly via our JustGiving site to support a future tenant.

 

Common Purpose – leadership development

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Common Purpose is a global leadership organisation devoted to developing leaders who can cross boundaries, both at work and in society. A not-for-profit organisation founded in the North of England over years ago, we deliver face-to-face and online leadership programmes for multiple generations of leaders: from young leaders to senior leaders in organisations and society, in over 200 cities across the world.

Our programmes equip leaders at all levels to be more inclusive and to create impact beyond their leadership mandate – we focus leadership of not just team, but system and place. We run a range of open programmes and organisational solutions.

Our USP is our convening power – whether that be the diverse groups on our open programmes or the range of external speakers we use to present diverse perspectives on the big leadership challenges facing organisations and places.

 Recent examples of our work include:

Blended open programmes for emerging and senior leaders from across a diverse range of organisations in the North – running over 2-3 months and bringing together circa 50 leaders in each group with over 60 external contributors in spring this year

  • Organisational solutions for teams or whole organisations – helping to develop leadership capabilities or nudge culture change. Our recent programme for emerging leaders from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds in Newcastle University won the CIPD regional diversity award.

We are proud to work with a number of NHC members across the North already including: Southway Homes, Gentoo Group, Leeds City Council, Blackpool Coastal Housing and Jigsaw Homes.

For more information on our range of programmes please visit our website www.commonpurpose.org

 

What’s coming up?

We’ll be starting our open programmes for both senior and emerging leaders in the next few weeks. There is still time to apply. For more information please see The Common Purpose Programme

  • We are bringing our next FREE leadership programme for younger leaders (aged 18-25) to Leeds in November. For more information please see our Leeds150 Legacy Programme

If you’d like to talk to someone in the team please email claire.bennett@commonpurpose.org

A new direction? – A look at who Liz Truss has appointed to her Cabinet

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With a new prime minister generally brings a new Cabinet and Liz Truss has decided on an extensive reshuffle as her government attempts to move away from the past leadership of Boris Johnson.

Truss has appointed former BEIS secretary Kwasi Kwarteng as the new Chancellor – Kwarteng delivered his mini-budget last week alongside the publication of ‘The Growth Plan 2022’. Read NHC’s on-the-day update summarising the details of the new Chancellor’s measures to tackle inflation, the cost of living and to stimulate growth.

Former Attorney General Suella Braverman has been appointed Home Secretary and Liz Truss has chosen James Cleverley to replace her as Foreign Secretary. Thérèse Coffey will undertake a new Cabinet role as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, as well as being appointed Deputy Prime Minister.

Simon Clarke, MP for Middlesborough South & East Cleveland, and former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, is the new Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. The Tees Valley MP wrote in The Express last week advocating for the new ‘Investment Zones’ announced in the Growth Plan – saying, “these new low tax, low regulation zones will not only deliver on the promises of Brexit, but on the defining mission of this Government: to grow our economy and level up the country”. Clarke is also a former Vice Chair of the APPG for Housing in the North of which the NHC acts as Secretariat.

Clarke has appointed Lee Rowley as housing minister – the MP for North Derbyshire replaces Marcus Jones who was in the role for 62 days and becomes the third housing minister in a year. Clarke has also appointed Dehenna Davison, MP for Bishop Auckland, as a junior minister for levelling up. Davison will be tasked with progressing the levelling up agenda – often seen as Boris Johnson’s flagship policy, and will be responsible for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund as well as the Levelling Up Fund. MP for Pendle Andrew Stephenson has also been appointed as a junior minister and Paul Scully MP has been re-appointed as a Minister of State (Minister for London).

Jacob Rees-Mogg is the new Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Rees-Mogg will be tasked with addressing the energy price crisis and alleviating the UK’s reliance on imports of foreign energy. Earlier in September, Liz Truss announced details of the ‘Energy Price Guarantee’ –  the package of support to help with the rising cost of energy bills. From 1st October, a new Energy Price Guarantee will replace the price cap and will mean a typical UK household will now pay an average of £2,500 a year on their energy bill for the next two years.

Graham Stuart, MP for Beverley and Holderness, has been appointed Minister of State for Climate. Jackie Doyle-Price and Nusrat Ghani have both been newly appointed as Ministers of State at BEIS and Lord Callanan has been reappointed as a junior minister.

Ben Wallace is one of the few MP’s to retain their role in Cabinet, continuing as Defence Secretary and leading the response to the war in Ukraine. Nadhim Zahawi, who replaced Rishi Sunak as Chancellor of the Exchequer for two months, will now be responsible for running the Cabinet Office as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Annie-Marie Trevelyan has been appointed Transport Secretary and Kit Malthouse will become Education Secretary.

Despite the far-reaching changes to the government under its new leadership, the NHC will continue to engage with the relevant stakeholders to ensure that the North is represented and we can continue to influence housing policy decisions in Westminster.

See the full list of ministerial appointments across government here.

If you wish to follow up on any of this with the NHC you can do so by contacting Josef Bews at josef.bews@northern-consortium.org.uk.