Annual Report 2006/07
last updated
04/07/2008 10:27:10
Our Values
Openness
We are committed to openness, accountability and integrity in all our business activities.
Respect
We respect diversity and each other and we help our colleagues to deliver their best.
Trust
Our relationships with each other, with tenants and with our partners are built on trust.
Dedicated
Collectively we are dedicated to providing real homes in balanced Highland communities.
Innovative
We have a track record of delivering innovative developments throughout the Highlands.
Sustainability
We deliver long term housing solutions which contribute to community sustainability.
Quality
We strive to deliver a quality service, to build quality homes and to provide best value.
Affordable
We provide a range of housing to ensure that it is affordable to a wide range of people.
Chairperson’s report
Albyn Housing Society continues to expand its commitment to the provision of affordable housing in the Highlands. In 2006/07 we built 168 new homes, spending over £26 million – up from around £20 million in 2005/06. There was also substantial expenditure of £966,000 on new kitchens and heating systems for many of our tenants in Easter Ross. This investment was made possible through a mix of Communities Scotland Housing Association grant, the Highland Council Community Ownership Programme and loans from the Royal Bank of Scotland. In addition, our second year of Homestake Highland Properties, run in association with Cairn Housing Association, was one of continuing success. The marketing and sale of around 100 houses and flats has proved the ongoing need for low-cost homes in Inverness and the surrounding area.
The Highland Council has been a key partner in our work but funding that came through the Community Ownership Programme has come to a halt as a result of the tenants' ‘no’ vote. Now, with a new administration in place, we will have to see what impacts there are over the next few years on Council tenants, housing association tenants and the many waiting list applicants.
In other partnerships, we have begun to see the benefits of the work of the Highland Housing Alliance. More joint opportunities are anticipated over the next few years. We have also helped develop a Common Housing Register for the Highlands, with one member of staff seconded to the project since mid-2005.
Our revised delivery plan for SHQS was submitted to Communities Scotland in 2006 together with our plans to address energy efficiency and fuel poverty issues. We have already demonstrated our commitment to environmental issues through our biomass district heating scheme in Aviemore which supplies heat and hot water to 130 homes. A similar project linked to the local distillery in Wick supplies 40 homes.
The Care Commission’s second inspection of our Support Services team in Inverness and Nairn was very positive, and the few recommendations for service improvement have been quickly implemented. Other community activities included support for the Pulteney Peoples Project in Wick; South Lodge Residents Association in Invergordon; a faith based community group in the Merkinch area of Inverness; support to the community wardens in Wick, Invergordon and Inverness; Handyperson services in Ross-shire and Sutherland; independent advocacy services across the Highlands; Highland-wide interpretation and translation services; and engagement work with several communities across the Highlands.
Our finances continue to be well managed and as a result of excellent work by Housing Management staff, void losses fell to 1.6%. We have seen similar progress in arrears control since the year end.
I believe I have painted a very positive picture of what we are doing and how we are going about it but it is also important to know what our customers think of us. This year’s satisfaction survey revealed that 94% are satisfied with Albyn as their landlord; 92% think we provide good quality services; and 89% think that their neighbourhood is a good place to live. It seems we must be doing some things well but we won’t rest on our laurels. There will be changes in our governance to ensure the Committee of Management is up to scratch for the job of running an organisation which impacts on the lives of thousands of Highlanders. Similarly, our management team will undertake training to accredit their management skills.
Finally, I would like to express my thanks to my fellow Committee members, our dedicated and hard-working staff, our partners including Communities Scotland’s Highland and Island office, The Highland Council, The Highland Housing Alliance, The Small Communities Housing Trust, the Highland Housing and Community Care Trust, the many different communities with whom we work across the Highlands and our many suppliers, consultants and contractors.
Jim Oag, Chairman, Albyn Housing Society Ltd
Chief Executive’s report
During November 2007 Albyn Housing Society held a very successful first Tenants Conference. Bringing together several dozen tenants to discuss issues of real interest such as repairs, rent setting and anti-social behaviour, we now plan to repeat the conference as soon as we have detailed proposals in place to enable more effective tenant involvement.
Our involvement in the development of a Common Housing Register for the Highlands offers the tantalising prospect of a common allocations policy too, which will be a first for the region.
We are proud to be part of the new Highland-wide interpretation and translation service established by a partnership of like-minded organisations. This new, thriving business will aim to meet the needs of what is now an increasingly diverse Highland community.
During the financial year 2006/07, we held an opening ceremony for two new houses built at Armadale – an excellent example of the contribution just a few new homes can make to the future wellbeing of a small rural community. We have also played a wider role in supporting small local projects by buying new tables and chairs for a new community centre in Merkinch, Inverness and a new kitchen for Milton of Kildary’s primary school community wing.
As well as building for our customers, we have been building for our own needs this year with a new office in Inverness at MacLennan Crescent and a much improved and expanded head office in Invergordon underway. A second mural, depicting the natural history of the Cromarty Firth, was painted on the Invergordon office as an addition to Invergordon Off the Wall’s Heritage Mural Trail and we hope it will help attract more visitors to the town.
Albyn staff have received training across a wide range of issues during the year raising the standard of our publications through the use of plain English and the development of new policy standards for our Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transsexual (LGBT) customers.
As well as all the hard work, we’ve had some fun too with staff raising money for other charities throughout the year. We were successful in winning a number of trophies as 'Pirates of the Caribbean' in the Invergordon RNLI Raft Race and danced the afternoon away at our very own ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ fundraiser for Highland Homeless Trust.
From a Development perspective, 2006/07 was the busiest and most productive year since the Society was founded in 1973. Our priority is to meet housing need in a way that sustains communities through regeneration activities.
I would like to express my thanks to the Committee of Management and to our Chairman, Jim Oag, in particular for their hard work during the year. Moreover, I want to thank all of our staff who continue to make Albyn the success it is - the key provider of housing and support services in the Highlands.
Calum MacAulay, Chief Executive, Albyn Housing Society Ltd
Corporate Services
Improving services to tenants
The principal activity of Albyn Housing Society is the development, management and maintenance of housing in the Highlands of Scotland for people in housing need. Tenant involvement and participation forms a major part of our aims and objectives. By providing useful information to new tenants, supporting residents groups, and improving the accessibility of our website, we aim to increase tenant participation in Albyn’s activities. We also operate an active Tenant Participation Implementation Group involving staff from all service areas.
The findings of a commissioned review of our tenant and community participation strategy were discussed at our very first Tenants Conference in October 2006. As a follow-on from this, we are now consulting further with registered tenant organisations and individual tenants. The results of these consultations will feed into the review of our overall tenant participation strategy during 2007/08.
Our commitment to continuous professional development
As part of our commitment to continuous improvement, we are commissioning a consultation into the corporate governance structure of Albyn Housing Society. This will examine the selection, recruitment, training and monitoring of Committee Members. This process has been undertaken with both staff and committee involvement. Albyn has also developed a Job Evaluation Scheme which will be fully implemented over during 2007/08. Training, on a Society wide basis, was provided in the areas of customer care and diversity including the pilot training on Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transsexual (LBGT) issues. This training also provided valuable input for our new LGBT Housing Standards for Social Housing Providers.
New and improved – building and refurbishment of Albyn’s offices
The refurbishment of much-needed additional office space at our Invergordon premises was completed and partially funded through a grant from HIE. Vital to our support services and to customers based in Inverness, the building of our offices in MacLennan Crescent was also completed in April 2007.
Property Maintenance Services
Strengthening procedures for monitoring and reporting
Following a review of our operations in 2005/06, an action plan was developed during 2006/07 to improve monitoring and reporting procedures. Progress has already been made in response to recommendations in the review including increasing the number of staff in our department to meet the needs of a growing number of tenants and creating procedures to ensure that all gas systems in our properties are serviced annually. Work is also being undertaken to establish a void standard which will be the standard at which we would expect to rent a property and then have it returned to us when a tenant leaves.
Revised delivery plan to meet SHQS targets
Albyn submitted its revised delivery plan for meeting the Scottish Housing Quality Standard (SHQS) to Communities Scotland in June 2006. The SHQS is issued by the Scottish Executive and requires all affordable housing to reach a prescribed quality by 2015. Currently, most of our properties meet the standard although a significant number fail to reach the standard for energy efficiency. Considerable work is being undertaken to identify the remedial works required and accurately cost them.
Development Services
197 new homes across the Highlands
2006/07 proved another exceptional year for Albyn’s Development team with a total of £24,238,000 spent on delivering new, affordable homes in the Highlands. This represented an over-achievement on our development target by 14% and was a result of our ability to take up additional resources awarded by Communities Scotland. A total of 197 new homes were provided, principally in the form of new-build housing but including the conversion of existing property. There was significant activity arising out of Highland Council’s Affordable Housing Policy Section 75 agreements with private developers, where a minimum of 25% of homes in most new developments have to be delivered as affordable housing.
New housing projects completed during 2006/2007 included Station Court, Alness – a significant enhancement to the townscape of Alness providing high quality homes and flats for affordable rent and shared equity sale. All 28 properties benefit from solar heating systems. The development received grant support of £27,000 from the Highlands and Islands Community Energy Co.
2006 also saw the completion of two of the most challenging development projects in Albyn’s history, at Armadale and Lochinver. The site at Baddidaroch Road, Lochinver, was first considered 15 years ago but deemed too difficult to develop because of rocky outcrops. Since then, the lack of available housing sites in Lochinver compelled Development Services to re-appraise the site and a much reduced development was finally completed in October 2006. The project has been well received by tenants and funding organisations
Saving costs and the environment: new bio-mass heating project for 130 homes
October 2006 saw the handover of one of the largest bio-mass fuelled district heating projects in Scotland, in our Aviemore North development. The £1million project is designed to provide heating and hot water requirements for 130 houses using locally-produced bark and woodchips burnt by state-of-the-art Austrian woodchip boiler technology. The project delivers significant cost savings to Albyn tenants and shared equity owners, as well as preventing the emission of 700 tonnes of CO² per annum.
Sustainable by design: Aviemore North project
The Aviemore heating project also contributes significantly to the achievement of the highly sought-after EcoHomes ‘excellent’ rating. Albyn expects to gain this on completion of the 200 house Aviemore North development with its partner organisation, Robertsons. With a completion date set for 2008/09, the project will showcase the best of sustainable design, specification and layout and is regarded as a leading example of good practice in the field. It is featured as a case study of good practice in Communities Scotland’s Sustainable Design Guide.
Albyn acquires major development site in Alness
2006/07 saw the acquisition of an equally important major development site at Dalmore, Alness. The Alness site offers an opportunity for the development of 200 plus new homes with even more ambitious renewable solutions and the possibility of integrating affordable and private housing with the creation of excellent, community access open space.
Shared equity opportunities through Highland Homestake
2006/7 also saw the take-off of Homestake, our popular shared equity purchase opportunity. A total of 99 Homestake sales were completed during the year.
Housing and Community Services
Restructuring for better service provision
New team structures led by Team Leaders and introduced during 2006/07, have now settled in and are working well. During the year we carried out a comprehensive review of our housing support service, to ensure we are providing services as efficiently as possible. As a result of the review, changes have been made in the way we deal with some of our management costs and overheads. Changes have also been made to the structure of the team to allow for more flexibility in responding to clients’ needs while maintaining core stability. Housing support staff joined a broader group within Housing and Community Services to provide a range of services to our most vulnerable clients, including supported tenants and housing applicants.
New Craigs Hospital Reprovisioning Programme
In February we assisted a number of people with severe learning disabilities in moving out of long term hospital care into seven highly specialised supported homes as part of the New Craigs Hospital Reprovisioning programme. Tenants now have their own homes and tenancies, often for the very first time, and are adjusting to living as members of a mixed community.
Monitoring and managing voids and arrears performance
Additional management resources were introduced at the start of 2006/07 to allow us to monitor and manage our voids and arrears performance more effectively. Albyn continues to work on reducing the period of time taken to re-let or let new properties. In 2006, rent collection methods were reviewed and internal auditors, Tenon, were commissioned to undertake an analysis of our policies and procedures with regard to debt owing from former tenants. The review showed that overall our collection performance at 94.8% is good and our outstanding net arrears at the year end represents 4.8% of the total rent roll.
Other important initiatives undertaken this year include: Newstart Highland, a project aimed at helping new tenants gain skills in decorating and maintaining their homes; a Rent Deposit Guarantee Scheme in partnership with the Highland Housing and Community Care Trust on behalf of Highland Council; and the development and implementation of a Common Housing Register partnership and associated procedures.
Support Services
Support Services team find a home
In June 2007 the Support Services team moved to our new purpose built offices at MacLennan Crescent, a vital part of the Merkinch regeneration project in Inverness.
Care Commission inspection 2007
In November the Care Commission undertook a second inspection of the service and awarded Albyn a very favourable report. Recommendations made by the care commission with regard to staffing issues have now been adopted resulting in regular checks being made with Disclosure Scotland on existing staff and two temporary staff contracts being made permanent.
Rent Deposit Guarantee Scheme
The role of the Rent Deposit Guarantee Scheme is to help address the barriers individuals can face when they do not have the capital to secure a tenancy in the private sector. The scheme is already proving successful in alleviating problems of homelessness and extending the availability of rented accommodation in the Highlands. The scheme also benefits landlords by allowing them to let properties more quickly, gain assistance with processing housing benefit and accessing support and mediation if required for the duration of the tenancy.
Looking ahead
The long-term sustainability of Support Services depends on the success of tendering for services and on decisions made by Highland Council regarding contracts for services. In the immediate future, we hope to implement two Smart Recovery groups for tenants recovering from alcohol or substance addictions based on cognitive behaviour therapies and will be held at MacLennan Crescent.
Finance and IT Services
Investments in new kitchens and heating systems
Albyn made a surplus of £650,000 (2006 £840,000) during the year. The surplus was made after investment in new kitchens and heating systems for its properties in Easter Ross. The total expenditure in this area amounted to £966,000 (2006 - £876,000) which is written off in the year it is incurred, not capitalised. Despite this expenditure Albyn is in a strong financial position with £1,185,000 deposited as cash funds. We continue to operate a major repair investment programme, with further replacement kitchens planned and are also providing substantial funds over the next five years to meet our commitments under the Scottish Housing Quality Standards.
Financing development through Albyn Enterprises Limited
During the year we agreed the terms for loan facilities of £15m from our two main funders: a loan of £10m from the Dunfermline Building Society and a roll-over loan of £5m from the Royal Bank of Scotland. These loans are available to secure the development programme over the next two years. Our subsidiary, Albyn Enterprises Limited, was able to transfer £1,650,000 to Albyn Housing Society under the provisions of Gift Aid. The Committee of Management approved the strategy that Albyn should, if possible, use its own funds to support the development programme by providing funds for bridging finance during the building phase of the programme. During 2006/07, we established Highland Homestake as a tenure available under Low Cost Home Ownership (LCHO) options. This included using the bridging finance for this activity from our own resources, thus substantially reducing the risks associated with building and selling these properties.
Software upgrades and better information storage and retrieval
We have introduced a document management system for Housing Management, Allocations and Property Maintenance which has greatly improved the storage and retrieval of information. In addition, Albyn also completed an upgrade of its Housing and Community Services software during 2006/07. We plan to upgrade our finance software during 2007/08 to include document management for all basic finance information as well as extending document management techniques to Corporate and Development issues. Albyn is also reviewing its reporting methodology to standardise reporting cycles and ensure quick and accurate reporting of key performance indicators.
Committee of Management
The Committee of Management of Albyn Housing Society during the year to 31 March 2007 was as follows:
- Mr J W Oag - Chairperson
- Mrs I McLaughlan Vice-Chairperson
- Mr G Kelman Secretary
- Mr D Allan Resigned 30 January 2007
- Mrs M Cairney
- Miss C J Cameron Resigned 22 August 2006 Co-opt 26 September 2006
- Mrs J C Cameron
- Mr J A Convery
- Ms M Duncan
- Ms E A MacLean
- Mrs I M MacRae
- Mr W M Milne
- Mrs J Murray Appointed 22 August 2006 Resigned 30 January 2007
- Mr W A J Rodewald Resigned 22 August 2006
- Ms F Samson
Sub committee membership
- 1 – Audit Sub-Committee
- 2 – Staff Consultative Forum
- 3 – Disciplinary Hearings Sub - Committee
Key results from 2006/07 tenant survey:
- 96% of residents think we are good at keeping them informed
- 84% of residents think we are good at taking account of their views
- 94% of tenants are satisfied with the Society as their landlord
- 92% residents think the quality of services we provide is good
- 82% of tenants think their rent is good value for money
- 84% of tenants are satisfied with our repairs service
- 92% of residents are satisfied with the overall design of their home
- 89% of residents think their neighbourhood is a good place to live
contact us
t 01349 852978
Downloads
