Assignment Front Sheet
Please attach this to the front of your assignment to form one document
| Your Name
| |
| Your tutor’s name | |
| Module name and code | Strategic and Business Planning for Housing Organisations |
| Course (please state)
| L5 DIPLOMA IN HOUSING |
| Date assignment sent to CIH
| 11/12/16 |
| First attempt or resubmission (please state) | |
| Word Count (please check the assignment brief for the permitted assignment length). Marks may be deducted if your assignment is over the word limit (please see the learner handbook for more information). | 2614 |
Please reflect on the assignment you are about to submit; then answer the questions below. This will help us to address your concerns and help you to improve your skills. We may use this information to help us improve our courses.
- Things I think I have done well in this assignment:
Challenge of word limit and content and included various sources. Included legislation and impacts this will bring to the organisation.
- Things I have struggled with in this assignment:
Social value – Although I understand social value, at present within a financial and time of making efficiencies if long term this can be maintained.
- Skills I would like to acquire/develop to improve my assignments:
Planning and content.
- Was the assignment brief clear? If not, why not?
It has given me direction and further understanding of housing organisations.
Please ensure that your work is clearly referenced as plagiarism is treated very seriously and can result in a reduction of the mark, a mark of zero, or, in extreme cases, exclusion from the course.
TUTOR FEEDBACK
To be completed by tutor and uploaded to Moodle.
| Student Name
| |
| Unit name
| SBPH |
| Course | L5 July 2016
|
TUTOR’S COMMENTS
| Overall comments your word count and Turnitin are both fine. You have clearly worked very hard with this assignment but I am sorry you have not yet met the learning outcomes. Read the comments in the text and my advice below before you resubmit
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| What you did well You have structured your work well. You have clearly carried out a lot of research into the topic. You’re referencing is largely accurate. We need to check the referencing after we have revised. |
| What you could improve The main problem with this work is that I didn’t fully understand what you were writing about and I am not sure that you did either. You used some very complex language and long sentences which were hard to follow. Keep the same structure, but simplify what you are writing. I am not sure whether you work for a housing association or for local authority, if the former get hold of the current business plan, and if the latter, go online and find a business plan if you can for a local housing association. Have a look what’s in it and how it is set out and that might help you to prepare your assignment. Keep it very simple, describe in plain English what the purpose of business plan is and, when, you are discussing the recent changes that might make a business plan out of date, focus on things such as changes to housing policy and to welfare reform. So you will be looking at the impact of the imposed rent reduction, what might happen with the extension of the right to buy, the impact of welfare reform including the application of benefit cuts. Explain what effect this might have on your organisation. You went right off course when you started to talk about imposed wage rises. I don’t think that this is factually accurate. Write in a simpler, more accessible way, bearing in mind your target audience might be board members who don’t have a detailed financial or business knowledge and will not understand some of the language that you have used. Go back to the brief and make sure that everything you write in each section is absolutely relevant and crucial to the topic. If there is something you don’t fully understand, don’t write it. Keep your explanations clear and simple. Talk specifically about the context of a housing association, rather than generally about a company. Make your work more focused.
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General assessment criteria:
| Pass criteria met? Please use a tick (ü). | Pass | Any criteria which have not been met? Please use a cross (X). | Refer | |
| 1. | Addressed all the assignment tasks and has therefore achieved all the learning outcomes. | x | Not addressed all the assignment tasks. | |
| ü | 2. | Communicated meaning reasonably clearly and in the required format. | The work is unclear and unreadable, and has not been presented in the required format. | |
| 3. | Used mainly accurate grammar, spelling and punctuation. | x | The work contains a high percentage of spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors. We need to revisit at the end. | |
| ü | 4. | Produced work which mostly demonstrates logical organisation and coherence. | The work is not logically organised and lacks coherence. | |
| ü | 5. | Referred to a range of appropriate sources in the text and used them to effectively support discussion; made an attempt to provide in-text citations and to list sources using the Harvard method. | No evidence of wider reading. Where appropriate sources have been referred to, they have not been used to effectively support discussion. No attempt has been made to provide in-text citations or to list sources using the Harvard method. We need to look at this. | |
| 6. | Demonstrated a reasonably sound factual and/or conceptual knowledge base and used appropriate terminology. | x | Presence of factual or conceptual inaccuracies or misinterpretations. Incorrect terminology. I will look at this amend for you to review? | |
| ü | 7. | Demonstrated a fair understanding of key theories and/or best practice, which are appropriately applied within the assignment task. | Poor or inadequate understanding of key theories and/or best practice. Need to bring more in. | |
| ü | 8. | Made an attempt to use recognised techniques of analysis (e.g. compare/contrast; evaluation; differentiation; interpretation) from which appropriate critical insights are drawn. | Poor or inadequate attempt to use recognised techniques of analysis. Sorry I am weak on this I will have ago and let you put into correct English language. | |
| 9. | Constructed sound conclusions which are clearly derived from evidence and/or theory and/or best practice and/or literature. | x | Conclusions or statements are not clearly derived from evidence and/or theory and/or best practice. Conclusions do not follow logically from previous statements or propositions. We need to revisit. |
Grade awarded (first attempt)
| Pass | ||
| Refer | x |
Grade awarded (first resubmission):
| Pass | |
| Refer |
Grade awarded (second and final resubmission):
| Pass | |
| Refer |
TUTOR’S NAME: DATE 14.12.16
Strategic and Business Planning for Housing Organisations
Introduction
Housing Organisations (HO) are business-oriented and adapting to a more commercial approach to specialise in housing tenants in need of homes (Mullins et al., 2012) and considering other commercial ventures. HO have explored different roles to provide services to support the community and increase the portfolio to support their business plan (BP). The organisation needs to focus on providing a well maintained standard of housing, clean estates, managed with equitable resources and collecting rental income whilst listening to tenants creating peaceful neighbourhoods, and most importantly, offering new homes and understanding what matters to our tenants creating our objectives.
Traditional roles of HO focused on offering rental services to the community, but the recent change in development and technology have seen a change in service provision where they are now focused on improving the the cost of living and, ensuring the current technology, solutions suit the community. Lawson et al., (2014) records that HO have shown interest in providing social amenities within a community apart from their major role of being a business venture. (Can we use this to support this discussion and minimise length) An additional role of current HO includes the provision of adequate health care within a community. Mullins, et al., (2012) shows that HO work in partnership ensuring poverty level decreases within a specific region thus, broadening the role of the organisations beyond the
The Role and Purpose of a Business Plan
BP are a set of guidance, legislation, strategies to support the organisation to have a smooth running of their activities, improve future revenue and capital funding and consists of objectives that support towards achieving the business plan
BP is useful in the context of financial benefits. Financial institutions would depend on the information drafted in BP to decide whether the business would receive financial benefit (Navarro 2015). A successful business plan with enough explanation of every step would attract investors willing to be part of the business. The BP acts as a forecast of what the company would make regarding revenues thus, making it a tool for financial
Developing a Business Plan
BP support an organisation to achieve their goals as speculated and planned. However, the process of developing a BP would differ from one organisation to another. A BP for a housing company would start with an explanation of the purpose and the role of the business. Moreover, the HO BP would consist of the projected housing properties aimed at providing homes to the given community (Barringer 2012). The plan would incorporate a draft planned at describing the vision, mission, and challenges that would face the organisation. For instance, HO have a problem with facing a shortage of funds when it comes to rental income through Universal Credit (
Developing a BP from a scheduled platform would mean taking the plan from one level to another. The vision of the company should define an appropriate way of focusing on the important strategies that aim at developing the company. Similarly, the company officials should consider strategic planning that would see the implementation of the BP in an efficient
Implementing and Monitoring of a Business Plan
The best way to succeed in business is the utilisation of the strategies prescribed in a BP. Chang (2016) depicts that a BP offers the stages of monitoring the progress and development of the business. The first stage in monitoring is regular reporting of the steps speculated in the BP. The HO management would be required to state the development of their progress. Similarly, constant checking is another stage that would help adequate monitoring of the BP module. Furthermore, the officials should check the validity of the expected benefits laid down on the BP.
Implementation of the BP to the organisation would mean the officials practicing the speculated monitoring stages. instance, the officials should have frequent meetings with their subordinates to discuss the development of the company. The managers should as well provide clear definition of their projected procedures of meeting organisational goals (Daniel 2016). Therefore, the company should have at least three to four general meetings to discuss the issues affecting their business. Quarterly meeting would help the business realise the flow of operation as well as updating some changed policies. Appropriate data management should be followed otherwise their operations would not meet their expectations.
A successful BP should have a table of information that describes the progress of events. One event should follow another in the way of ensuring every task is catered for in the context of the company’s performance. For instance, the BP should incorporate the role of officials in allocating work to the employees in an effort of reaching their goals as well as completion of their targeted tasks (Power and Hahn 2015). Therefore, an efficient BP would be followed by a strict strategy that would ensure full implementation of the information found and a comprehensive monitoring.
Changes in Government Policy regarding Housing Organisations
The recent government has interfered with the housing business in protecting the interests of tenants. new policies focus on minimising the costs of housing and improving the living standards. For instance, the government accredited an increase of salary with up to 1% to persons working in the government housing businesses (Schwartz ). The idea would help the employees, but the long term effect would see the expenses of the company hiking if the revenue would be constant. Similarly, the government intervened on rent issues advising social housing are to reduce the costs of renting with a decrease of 1% hence; making it hard for the department to make the estimated profits (Schwartz ). Alcock (2014) indicates how the housing department had speculated a budget of a certain amount that would rise after a financial year but the government policies would halt the projected revenues. Therefore, the HO may not generate the predicted income and after the returns have gone back to the norm.
The government has initiated a that brought changes in benefits sector. People entitled to different benefits would see a change in their benefit entitlement where they would be required to pay for their services. Therefore, the HO would see a fall in revenues generated from rents as many people may not afford to pay due to Welfare Reforms introduced by the Coalition Government.
Changes to Regulatory Framework
The company has aimed at changing the regulatory framework on the issue of value for money as they prioritise on maximising profits. The BP would reduce cases of rent arrears that would slow their operations. Similarly, tenants would be asked to cater for repairs hence; reducing the expenses incurred in repair and development. The company would aim at reducing procurement costs by involving the Eastern Procurement (Beuren, et al., 2013). The framework requires the company to reduce rents, but that would weigh down the strategies for repairing, development, and servicing the rental homes. Therefore, the company intends to reduce costs of maintenance and repairs hence; maximising their profits. Similarly, the company would remove the ‘pay to stay’ strategy and enhance the purchasing of homes at a discounting rate (Teck-kong 2012). Therefore, the BP would recommend strategies that would help the economy reach their .
Response to Government Changes (Political Economic Social Technology (PEST))
The HO would focus in analysing the external factors that would affect the business. The analysis would help identifying the PEST attributes contributing to the business negatively. Therefore, the organisation would handle the government’s requirement to raise salary by installing technology development that would reduce labour. , the issue of reducing rent by 1% would mean that, the organisation would remove some of their services to the tenant to accommodate the reduced rent percentage. Therefore, the organisation would have a balanced economic value that would sustain the business. The HO should respond to the issue of UC with caution because many people may not be eligible to the usual income related benefits. Therefore, the organisation would intervene with the government to ensure the level of unemployment would not fall increasing the risks of rent .
Protecting Service Users
The government are trying to protect the interests of the tenants. However, imposing policies might affect the housing businesses. Therefore, the organisation is supposed to come up with strategies that would not affect their economic strength in the housing business. For example, should they decide to remove some third party communal services such as providing water and electricity to the . Similar services should be left to tenants’ accountability. Some housing companies provide free internet and employment training at the expense of the company. Imposing charges to similar services would reduce the cost of expenditure paving way to a standardised and controlled budget even after a decrease in rent by 1%.
Business Plan Outline
Executive Summary
- The purpose of the Company is to provide housing services to the tenants and its environment (Ball, 2013).
- The HO has decided to help tenants have a peaceful and affordable life in the sector of living.
- The HO offers services to all tenants regardless of their income.
- The financial purpose and objective of the organisation are to sustain their business as well as generate enough revenues that would help the communities within their borough.
Legislative Framework
- The Housing Act to a self-financing strategy that aimed at retaining the revenues generated from rents. The revenues are kept to reduce housing debt of £58 Millions (Ball, 2013).
- The Housing and Planning Act all the landlords to reform their tenancy policies that would meet strategic housing strategies.
- The Act asks the housing department to meet regulatory standards that would demonstrate different communication methods with their tenants and the authority.
- The regulators require landlords to involve tenants in empowerment as well as improving service delivery. Similarly, the Act provides a framework where tenants are commissioned in repairs as a way of enhancing cost sharing in the business (Beuren, et al., 2013).
- The welfare reform changes, reduces working age tenants benefit entitlement and roll out of UC in Great Yarmouth is increasing rent .
- The regulatory pledges the company to provide affordable homes to the tenants in the strategy of “Right to buy discounts” where the company is asked to build a new home after every sale of a discounted home.
- The BP aims at reducing the rent with a 1% at every year in the subsequent four years aiming at providing affordable rates to the tenants (Teck-kong 2012).
Products and Services
- The BP focuses on providing housing services to the tenants, and the main services include offering houses to the consumers (Beuren, et al., 2013).
- The business is structured to offer other social amenities to the customers. For instance, offering cleaning services to the community.
- The BP does not cover naming other services beyond their expertise but helps the readers in understanding the different roles of an organisation in a community.
Target Market
- The BP aims at reconnecting the current tenants and new tenants that would understand the role of HO and the benefits behind it.
- The company helps in understanding the role of a government regarding finance through policies aimed at protecting the welfare of the tenants.
- The target market includes the concentrated urban area with a flow of employment that would help the community to pay for rents.
Implementation Strategy
- The BP aims at pressing the officials in convenient ways of implementing the written document.
- The organisation should press the importance of following protocol in implementing the BP. Therefore, monitoring stages should be followed promptly.
- The leaders are asked to update the BP with the changes in the policies of the government.
Company Management
- The management comprises of the Organisational Officials ranking from the Chief Executive Office, followed by Director who is followed by the Group Manager. The office has a financial department who are also included in decision-making (Gainullina, et al., 2016).
- The office has subordinate managers, clerks, housing representatives, and community engagement support.
Financial Overview
- The company aims at getting financial help from bank loans, shares, bonds, and government funding (Clatworthy and Peel 2016).
- The government helps the organisation since it regulates most practices through policies and legislation. For instance, imposing policies inhibiting the increase of rents that would affect the tenants.
- A similar strategy was imposed into the organisation that saw the community benefiting from a 30 years plan of mortgaged houses (Clatworthy and Peel 2016). The deal was sealed in an effort of helping the low-income individuals afford houses without a high return loan rates.
- The company has targeted a minimum increase of rent revenues that has increased from 2012 with a rate of 2.6% per annum Making an increase of profits from £20 million to £30 million within the length from 2012-2042 government policies being .
Threats of Government Policies
The government has developed new policies aiming at protecting the interests of the tenants but still would affect the business of housing. For instance, Hays (2012) protests that the rate of reducing the rent by 1% per every year would make the HO make losses within the subsequent years. Similarly, the role of government in interfering with the rules of mortgage that has zero percentage of interests would halt the activities of a HO bearing in mind that, people would go for the strategy leaving the payment of rents to just a few.
The company has been asked to increase the salary of the employees of which the company does not add more income generating activities. The expenditure would rise beyond the revenues generated leading to a negative financial statement. However, the government has imposed changes that would gradually affect the housing business (Liba and Harding 2015). The government has changed the payment system by removed the fees payable to services rendered to the tenants.
Conclusion
The role of HO is the provision of rental services, repairs, clean environment, and community development. A BP is a statement that aims at providing a platform that a business would follow in an effort of meeting their goals. Therefore, the discussed business plan aims at forecasting on the possibilities of the company in the subsequent 20 years of service. The government has a way of imposing policies and regulations that strictly discourages private organisations from exploiting a community. HO have managed to provide adequate services to the people as well as providing revenues to the government. Therefore, the BP is the key strategy that would help every business in implementing effective procedures in a company.
Acronyms
BP – Business Plan
HO – Housing Organisation
PEST – Political, Economic, Social, and Technology
UC – Universal Credit
Bibliography
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Andrews, R., Boyne, G.A., Law, J. and Walker, R.M., 2012. Strategy Implementation, Content and Performance. In Strategic Management and Public Service Performance (pp. 86-107). London: Palgrave Macmillan, UK.
Ball, M., 2013. Housing policy and economic power: the political economy of owner occupation. London: Routledge.
Barringer, B., 2012. Entrepreneurship: Successfully Launching New Ventures, (2012). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall.
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Blank, S., 2013. Why the lean start-up changes everything. Harvard business review, 91(5), pp.63-72.
Chang, J.F., 2016. Business process management systems: strategy and implementation. CRC Press.
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Financial institutions would depend on the information drafted in BP to decide whether the business would receive financial support or benefit?? (Navarro 2015). A successful business plan would attract investors willing to be part of the business. The BP acts as a forecast of what the company would make regarding revenues thus, making it a tool for financial forecast. Assessed by analysis through PESTEL?
With managers and officials lead from the information to manage and monitor the progress. The LA would have a set of policies to ensure smooth running and a flow of techniques securing the goal of the organisation in an effort of ensuring a steady flow of revenues as well as the incorporation of the role of the business in a community (Navarro 2015). I think we can reduce work content here overall.
Info from BP, too much info but may help us relate to ours and reconsider content if needed. 2. Strategic & Legislative Framework
2.1 The Localism Act 2011
The Localism Act brought about some of biggest changes to social housing in decades.
2.1.1 Self Financing
The move to Self Financing for the Council’s housing stock happened smoothly, with the Council now keeping all of the money raised in rents in exchange for taking on a share – £58.383m – of the Country’s housing debt.
2.1.2 Tenure Reform
The introduction of Flexible Tenancies means that social landlords, including Councils no longer only have to grant secure tenancies for life.
Following consultation, the Council has set out a Tenancy Strategy, as required by the Act, which covers all Social Housing tenancies in the Borough and asks Registered Providers to set their Tenancy Policies to meet the key strategic priorities for housing (see 2.4) without specifying the types of Tenancies that they ought to adopt.
The Community Housing Board has agreed to ……………
2.1.3 Reform of the Social Housing Regulatory Framework
This has so far had little impact on the Business Plan, though we will need to ensure that we continue to meet the regulatory standards and that we demonstrate this by using a variety of methods of communication with our tenants which allows them to hold us to account. We have been supporting
tenants to decide on how they would like to scrutinise the services provided by Great Yarmouth Community Housing.
BP support an organisation to achieve their goals as speculated and planned. Have we already said this?
explanation of the purpose and the role of the business. Have we already got this? Moreover, the LA BP would consist of the projected housing objectives aimed at providing homes to the given community (Barringer 2012). (I think we already have this but can we support elsewhere or leave here? (Being a LA we need to produce a 30 year business plan a review) The plan incorporates a draft planned at describing the vision, mission, and challenges that would face the organisation. For instance, HO have a problem with facing a shortage of funds when it comes to rental income with changes in legislation through Welfare Reform in benefit entitlement Universal Credit (UC).
Robust BP would focus on realising their priorities as a way of knowing what strategies to use in the accomplishment of important decisions. However, the goals of the company should include a scheduled budget that would determine the survival of the organisation (Vu 2013). The BP revises the responsibilities of every member that would help meeting of the company’s expectation. Can we include partnership working to reduce financial loss to tenants and supporting tenants to sustain tenancies with improved cost of living? DIAL in GY is evidence if needed. This supports us in meeting our objectives. Through strategies and regular reviews and innovative ideas will support the LA in meeting its objectives.
Developing a BP from a scheduled platform would mean taking the plan from one level to another. The vision of the company should define an appropriate way of focusing on the important strategies that aim at developing the company. Similarly, the company officials should consider strategic planning that would see the implementation of the BP in an efficient manner. Moore and Neef (2012) suggest the business draft offers clear and precise instructions on the strategy focusing on the development of the company.
- Great Yarmouth Community Housing’s Purpose
Great Yarmouth Community Housing has defined it purpose as:
To help our tenants enjoy their homes
What Matters to Tenants
By listening to our tenants we have developed an understanding of what matters to them which we have set as our objectives:
- Understanding our needs as tenants and shaping services to meet them
- Keeping our homes in good repair by sending out the right tradesman at a time that is convenient for us
- Ensuring that our homes are improved where necessary with up to date components that are efficient and help to reduce fuel bills
- Making properties suitable for new tenants and adapting them to our needs if we experience difficulties managing in them
- Maintaining and improving our estates and communal areas and making them clean, pleasant and safe places in which to live
- Helping us to pay our rent and giving advice when we have financial difficulties
- Helping us to deal with issues of nuisance and anti-social behaviour
- Arranging for the right support to be given if we have difficulty maintaining our homes or tenancies including helping us to move when we need to
- Giving us clear advice about our rights as tenants
- Involving us in decision making and being open and transparent so that we can hold you to account
In our draft BP –does this help, if we are not sure remove it or change the content.
2.1.4 Tenant Involvement and Empowerment
As well as giving tenants a strengthened role in the co-regulation of landlords and scrutinising performance, new Standards set by the Regulator place further duties on landlords to support tenant involvement and empowerment and to offer a wide range of opportunities to influence and be involved in policies and strategic priorities, service standards and agreeing local offers for service delivery and recommending improvements.
The Regulator has set a standard relating to involvement in repairs and maintenance services, including commissioning and undertaking a range of repair tasks, as agreed with landlords and the sharing in savings made.
It is the latter which may have greatest impact on the Business Plan and we will need to ensure that any benefits gained by introducing a “Tenants Cashback” scheme do not get outweighed by the costs of its administration.
? 2.1.4 Tenant Involvement and Empowerment
As well as giving tenants a strengthened role in the co-regulation of landlords and scrutinising performance, new Standards set by the Regulator place further duties on landlords to support tenant involvement and empowerment and to offer a wide range of opportunities to influence and be involved in policies and strategic priorities, service standards and agreeing local offers for service delivery and recommending improvements.
The Regulator has set a standard relating to involvement in repairs and maintenance services, including commissioning and undertaking a range of repair tasks, as agreed with landlords and the sharing in savings made.
It is the latter which may have greatest impact on the Business Plan and we will need to ensure that any benefits gained by introducing a “Tenants Cashback” scheme do not get outweighed by the costs of its administration.
RIGHT TO BUY SALES
The 2012 Spending Review announced that the pooling of Right to Buy receipts would continue. In the light of the decision, the February policy document said that a forecast of Right to Buy sales would be built into the valuation to compensate local authorities for the lost income from these properties.
A national forecast of Right to Buy sales has been developed, based on an extrapolation of current Right to Buy volumes. This will be disaggregated between regions based on the proportion of national Right to Buy sales in the region over the last three years. It will then be distributed in proportion to the stock levels of local authorities within the region. This is estimated to be worth £862m on current data.
