Crown Simmons (RS) Annual Report 2013

N E W D I R E C T I O N S a n n u a l r e p o r t 2 0 1 3

1

NEW DIRECTIONS Chair’s Introduction ENGAGING DEVELOPING INVESTING DELIVERING

Iris Muriel Simmons MBE, 1921 – 2013.

It is with great sadness that we must regrettably announce the passing of our founder and Life President, Iris Simmons MBE. The philanthropist and former Mayor of Elmbridge passed away in the early hours of Saturday 10 August 2013 at the age of 92.

“Iris, like her late husband Roger, made a monumental contribution to the achievements of this housing association. Even in her later years, Iris always took a very close personal interest in the on-going work of the association and especially in the welfare of residents.”

Paul Yates Chief Executive

2

This year sees the culmination of our five-year development plan, where we have utilised our existing housing assets to provide 37 more high quality homes in Thames Ditton, Guildford and Egham, with a fourth scheme of 16 homes in Byfleet completing later this year.

The impact of welfare reform, which came into effect recently, has been felt by some of our tenants and our support will continue to be required when Universal Credit is introduced later this year.

I took over as chair in November 2012, when we welcomed three new Board members: Penny Taylor, Anil Majevadia and Helen Edwards. I look forward to their contribution over the coming years. Following a structured succession plan, three long serving Board members, including two former chairs, retired at this year’s AGM. Trevor D’Cruz, Bernard Payne and Chelliah Krishnamoorthy have between them given over forty years dedicated service to Rosemary Simmons and I would like to thank them for their commitment to our cause.

We wish to remain independent and financially viable, retaining our charitable purpose but with a commercial approach. As such, a new Growth Strategy has been agreed that will focus on providing more management services and establishing partnerships to deliver in years to come.

Alistair Court-Smith Chairman

NEW DIRECTIONS Chief Executive’s Introduction This has been my first full year as chief executive and one that has been very busy as ENGAGING well as exciting. We are proud to be providing new homes in Surrey for local people and have DEVELOPING highlighted some of our new residents’ stories in this report.

INVESTING

Our thanks go out to our partners, the Homes & Communities Agency and Elmbridge and Runnymede Borough Councils, who have provided funding to help us create these fantastic new homes, and the skills and expertise of our partners in the Wayfarer development consortium.

DELIVERING

Residents have become more involved in service delivery this year. I look forward to our newly formed Residents Panel going from strength to strength and long-standing relationships with our residents associations thriving this year. Results of our resident survey showed that overall we provide a good service but we are aware that there is still room for improvement. The creation of a new Customer Services department to deliver all front line housing services will ensure a more co-ordinated approach.

We are heading in a new direction, one that will ensure that we continue to prosper as an independent local housing association.

Despite public spending cuts hitting the sector hard, we are looking at new ways of growing and delivering more new homes and better services over the coming years.

Finally, I would like to thank our staff who have responded well to a busy year and to a changing environment and for their commitment in continuing to provide a high quality and personal service to our residents.

NEW DIRECTIONS

CONTENTS

ENGAGING

DEVELOPING NEW DIRECTIONS NEW DIRECTIONS Imber Cross INVESTING Paynter Court NEW DIRECTIONS Coopers Mews

Pages 4-5 Pages 6-7 Pages 8-9

DELIVERING ENGAGING ENGAGING Making a Difference DEVELOPING ENGAGING DEVELOPING

Pages 10-11

DEVELOPING INVESTING INVESTING

Growth and Value for Money DELIVERING INVESTING

DELIVERING

Pages 12-13

DELIVERING Finance and Performance

Pages 14-15

Paul Yates Chief Executive

3

ENGAGING DEVELOPING INVESTING

Imber Cross, Thames Ditton DELIVERING After consultation with the residents, twelve stunning new homes have replaced the six old bungalows at Imber Cross in Thames Ditton.

After

Completed in June, the 2 x three-bedroom and 10 x two-bedroom apartments all offer en-suite bathrooms and outdoor space, set in landscaped grounds in an attractive residential location, close to local shops and main line station. All twelve homes are let on social rents, which are based at around 40% of current market rents for the area.

Three of our residents, who lived in the old bungalows, have now moved back into their new homes, which have been adapted to be more suitable for them and easier to live in. Additional bespoke elements have been installed in every ground floor apartment, according to each resident’s individual needs.

4

Quick Facts Rosemary Simmons in partnership with Elmbridge Borough Council

Scheme: 12 apartments for social rent Cost: £2.3m (£300,000 funding provided by Elmbridge

Borough Council)

Architects: Haynes Phillips Contractor: W Stirland Ltd

The Sewell Family

Future-proofed independence The Sewell family had been looking to exchange their beloved house in Surbiton after the progression of their son’s Muscular Dystrophy meant that he was no longer able to climb the stairs. It is a condition that leads to an increasing level of disability, so it was vital that the family found somewhere that could be adapted to Harry’s needs as he gets older.

Before

Rosemary Simmons offered them a three-bedroom ground floor apartment at Imber Cross. It could not have been more suitable; offering them the space and accessibility that Harry needs, while allowing them to remain in the same area, near their friends and school.

Harry’s mum, Clare, said: “The home is perfect for when Harry’s condition progresses, including a wetroom that he can use without having to rely on our help, and even down to having remote controlled windows and electric doors that he will be able to open and close himself.” She has been overjoyed by the service she has received from Rosemary Simmons, “I am so, so grateful. I just think everyone at Rosemary Simmons are lovely; I think they’re amazing.

They are definitely the nicest housing association I’ve ever dealt with.”

Design features: • Code for Sustainable Homes (CfSH) Level 4 • Air Source Heat Pumps absorb heat from the outside air to use in homes • Solar Thermal Heating from roof panels supplies hot water • Mechanical Ventilation Systems with Heat Recovery uses warm air from bathrooms and kitchens to heat fresh air to other rooms • Highly Insulated External Fabric ensure air tightness levels reduce CO2 emissions and energy costs

5

ENGAGING DEVELOPING INVESTING

DELIVERING Court, Guildford Paynter Paynter Court offers 17 spacious new homes that have replaced an unpopular scheme, made up mainly from bedsits, which were all in need of refurbishment and modernisation.

In their place, we have now delivered 14 x one-bed apartments and 3 x three-bed houses. All of these were available for general needs through the local choice based lettings scheme, apart from one three bed house that had been earmarked to be adapted for a specific family’s needs and incorporates a lift for a wheelchair user.

The homes were completed in June and are all let on affordable rents, which are less than 80% of open market rent in the area.

After

Quick Facts Rosemary Simmons in partnership with Guildford Borough Council

Scheme: 17 homes for affordable rent Cost: £2.9m (£391,000 funding provided by the Homes

& Communities Agency)

Architects: Haynes Phillips Contractor: Austins

6

Mrs Myrna Brown

Family reunion

Before

Mrs Myrna Brown, had been living in a privately rented mobile home for eleven years before Rosemary Simmons gave her the opportunity to move into a large new home with park views, across the road from her family.

After three years of unsuccessfully bidding for more suitable homes, Myrna noticed the development being built across the road from her granddaughter’s house and immediately put in a speculative bid on one of the apartments.

She was bowled over when Rosemary Simmons contacted her to ask her if she would like to come and view one of the new ground floor apartments at Paynter Court. Myrna was delighted with the size of the rooms, allowing her to easily manoeuvre herself around using her wheeled frame. “When they offered me the flat, I thought it was just perfect.” Myrna says, “The icing on the cake! I love the amount of thought that has gone into the homes; putting the electric sockets a little bit up the wall rather than at the skirting boards, so I can plug things in easier, or the fact that it came decorated so I could start living here straight away without having to get lots of bits.”

Living across the road from her granddaughter and three great-grandchildren, and nearer daughter, Sharon, has brought the family so much closer together emotionally as well as geographically. Great-granddaughter, Ellie, gives ‘Nanny Myrna’ a wave on her way to nursery every morning and she always pops in to visit on the way home.

“It’s changed all our lives for the better, not just mum.” Sharon exclaimed, “When Karen at Rosemary Simmons told us that mum had got the apartment, I could have kissed her!”

Design features: • Code for Sustainable Homes Level 4 • Hot water supplied by Solar Thermal Heating and High Efficiency Gas Boilers • Energy generating Photovoltaic Panels reduce bills • Mechanical Ventilation Systems with Heat Recovery uses warm air from bathrooms and kitchens to heat fresh air to other rooms • Structural Insulated Panel System (SIPS) construction ensure no draughts

7

ENGAGING DEVELOPING INVESTING

Coopers Mews, Egham DELIVERING This impressive development has been intelligently designed to maximise the footprint of an empty bungalow with a large garden that used to stand on the site. In place of that, we have built eight much needed apartments, all with parking, close to Egham town centre and all local amenities. Completed in May, the 3 x one-bed flats and 5 x two-bed flats were all available for general needs and were let on affordable rents at less than 80% of market rents in the area.

The new apartments, set in a distinctive and stylish building, just minutes away from the shops and direct train line into London Waterloo, were all let within days of becoming available.

After

Quick Facts Rosemary Simmons in partnership with Runnymede Borough Council

Scheme: 8 apartments for affordable rent Cost: £1.75m (£150,000 funding provided by Runnymede

Borough Council, £184,000 from the Homes & Communities Agency).

Architects: Saville Jones.

8

Ben, Kirsty and Callum

New home, new hope Getting the keys to their new Rosemary Simmons home ended many months of uncertainty for Ben Pizzey and Kirsty Williams after the birth of their son, Callum.

Before

The young family were forced to move into temporary accommodation, after they had outgrown Kirsty’s parents’ house. After five months of living in two small rooms and sharing a bathroom, they were ready to take any accommodation that was offered to them and accepted the flat in Coopers Mews on the spot without even viewing the apartment.

When they did see their new home, they were amazed.

Kirsty confesses, “We just thought that there must have been a mistake, that there was no way that we were moving in here. It was perfect, like you see in the property shows on TV! We just couldn’t have wanted anything better, especially how close it is to everything.”

Contractor: Sunninghill Ltd. Design features: • Code for Sustainable Homes Level 4 • Photovoltaic Panels generate electricity, reducing energy bills • Mechanical Ventilation Systems with Heat Recovery uses warm air from bathrooms and kitchens to heat fresh air to other rooms • Low energy lighting and high levels of insulation reduce energy costs

The two-bedroom apartment boasts bright airy living space with plenty of room for Callum to play. The couple don’t think that it is any coincidence that Callum started walking within two weeks of moving in.

Ben, an unemployed mechanic, who left his home and job in Croydon to be with his new family, now feels more optimistic about finding work. “Having our own home is a huge weight off my mind.” He says, “It gives us a solid base and means I can now concentrate on finding a job without having to worry about where we’re going to be living next month. We’re like a proper family now.”

9

ENGAGING DEVELOPING Tenant Involvement and INVESTING Empowerment Our new Resident Involvement Strategy DELIVERING ensures residents have even more opportunities to share their views and influence decision making.

Demonstrating that we understand and respond to their diverse needs, we launched a Residents Panel in April with members drawn from across the association. The new panel is already busy looking at key areas of the association’s performance, such as repairs and maintenance, and has an important role to play in helping us to further improve service delivery.

In September we held our first ever association-wide event for all residents. ‘Your Voice’ was a resident focus evening aimed at bringing residents together from across Surrey and beyond to meet and chat. It featured guest speakers, lots of audience participation and hopefully inspired some more residents to ‘get involved’.

The Patel family, Paynter Court t party

Homes

Imber Cross residents organised a stree to get to know each other

We are committed to making sure that our homes are of a high standard, and that we provide a good, cost effective repairs service.

Earlier this year we began a major review of how we plan, procure and deliver maintenance services. With the help of residents, we intend to make sure that any improvements to these services will also help deliver even better customer service.

All of the new homes we’ve completed this year have focused on great design and maximising space. They have all been built to minimum Code for Sustainable Homes Level 4, to ensure residents use less energy and reduce their bills.

Paynter Court, original architect’s concept

10

Tenancy We are determined that residents are given a fair deal on rent and tenancy security.

Introducing five year fixed-term tenancies for most new customers offers security for residents, whilst allowing us the flexibility to make best use of our limited housing stock.

During 2013 we’ve reduced our average time to let vacancies to just 19 calendar days and introduced local lettings plans at all our new developments to help create balanced and thriving communities.

Mrs Spicer (centre), gardening competition winner, with Alistair Court-Smith and his wife, June

Neighbourhoods and Communities The Daniel family, Imber Cross

We’ve continued to work closely with other agencies to maintain our schemes and estates and support residents in their communities.

We’ve worked especially hard this year to assist residents affected by the welfare benefit reforms, especially the ‘bedroom tax’, to maximise their benefit entitlement and to downsize to smaller homes.

Our focus now is to make sure that residents are properly prepared and supported for the forthcoming arrival of Universal Credit, when their benefit will be paid directly to them, rather than to us.

11

DEVELOPING INVESTING DELIVERING

Growth Strategy 2013-2015 In order to grow successfully, we must have a clear understanding of: • why we want to grow • the strengths we have to support growth • what we might need to improve internally to be fit for growth Why should we grow?

There are many reasons why the Board and the Leadership Team feel we should grow the organisation. We believe the main reasons are to: protect the business, improve our financial position, increase our impact and influence, and to manage risk. We also need to consider growth to retain, excite and attract the best people to Rosemary Simmons.

Our strengths We consider that our proven experience in contract management and managing declining assets, coupled with good quality and attractive homes in desirable locations will support our growth.

We have a history as a trusted and dependable organisation and a reputation as a responsible provider with excellent customer experience and accessible staff.

Our options We have explored in detail a number of options for growth which have all been reviewed against our rationale for growth and the organisation’s strengths.

Our Growth Strategy will primarily focus on partnerships with others and providing management services to smaller local charitable organisations. We will continue to influence the development of new homes when the appropriate opportunities arise.

Castlemaine Court, Byfleet, under construction

12

Official opening of Coopers Mews, Egham

Value for Money We aim to deliver value for money to maximise our investment potential and ensure that we provide our customers with high quality homes and services.

In line with our charitable aims, the surplus generated from housing management activities is reinvested into projects and services that benefit our residents and communities.

Our Board has set targets for 2013/14 and our new Value for Money Strategy will concentrate on the following areas: • Ensuring better value for money from the repairs and maintenance service • Reviewing the performance of existing arrangements for building new homes and the procurement for future schemes • Reviewing the services we provide to tenants in sheltered housing in line with cuts in Supporting People funding • Developing discussions with two local charitable organisations to provide additional management services and to spread overheads by 2014 • Reviewing cleaning and gardening arrangements and leaseholder services

Alistair Court-Smith and Paul Yates visiting Castlemaine Court with the site manager

13

INVESTING DELIVERING

Finance and performance

Imber Cross, architect’s concept

Despite the economic environment and pressure on funding sources, Rosemary Simmons has had another successful year. We have been preparing well for the significant changes brought about through welfare reform, which affects a number of our tenants, and the association’s day to day activities remain well controlled.

As you will have seen earlier in this report, we have been busy developing new homes this year, with twelve impressive flats handed over at our Imber Cross development in Thames Ditton. We are also pleased to have completed our first Affordable Rent developments, with funding from the Homes & Communities Agency, in Egham and Guildford. Enabling funds were also received from Elmbridge and Runnymede Borough Councils and we look forward to building on this success in the coming year.

Where the money comes from Rent Service charges Leasehold service charges Interest receivable and similar income Other income Surplus/(deficit) on sale of properties

2012/13 £ 1,648,458 203,238 318,704 16,828

2011/12 £ 1,564,987 216,281 304,395 13,445

62,939 2,250,167

80,874 2,179,982

154,262

182,029

2,404,429

2,362,011

Where the money goes Service charges Leasehold service charges Routine maintenance Major/planned repairs Depreciation of properties Housing Management Development services Interest payable and similar charges Others Surplus/(deficit) for the year

14

2012/13 £ 202,805 318,704 200,531 97,171 317,458 542,825 9,592 424,085

2011/12 £ 217,832 306,374 229,862 88,937 245,156 486,717 7,882 465,078

53,184 2,166,355

49,435 2,097,273

238,074

264,738

2012 £ 16,661,003

1,229,397 4,166,631 -885,797 4,510,231 23,845,121

1,225,740 2,049,972 -409,196 2,866,516 19,527,519

Key Performance Indicators Year ended 31 March

Rosemary Target Simmons 2012/13 2012/13

Rent & service charge income

12,605,169

8,525,641

26 11,239,926 23,845,121

26 11,001,852 19,527,519

A young resident demonstrates the quality of his performance at Imber Cross

1.72% 0.17% 0.40%

2.75% 0.50% 1.00%

✔ ✔ ✔

Percentage of homes with valid gas 100% safety certificate (where required) 95% Percentage of all repairs carried out in target timescales Letting empty homes

100%

✔

98%

✘

Current rent arrears Former tenant arrears Current leasehold service charge arrears Repairs service

Number of homes re-let Average void re-let time (calendar days) Customer service

16 no target set 19 days 25 days ✔

Letters acknowledged within 2 days 100% 90% Letters receiving full reply within 7 days Customer complaints

100% 95%

10 Number of complaints received Number upheld or partially upheld 7 0 Number referred to the Housing Ombudsman Service Anti social behaviour

no target set no target set no target set

Number of ASB cases investigated Tenant satisfaction

11

no target set

Percentage of tenants satisfied with the overall service Percentage of tenants satisfied with the overall quality of their home Percentage of tenants satisfied with the value for money for their rent Percentage of tenants satisfied with repairs and maintenance service Percentage of tenants satisfied that Rosemary Simmons listens to their views and acts upon them

86%

87%

❙

Total assets less current liabilities Capital and reserves Creditors falling due after more than one year Non equity share capital Revenue reserves

2013 £ 19,334,890

91%

86%

✔

81%

84%

❙

Balance sheet Year ended 31 March Housing properties net of grant Other fixed assets Short term investments Net current assets

78%

85%

✘

68%

71%

✘

✔ ✘

15

Board

Leadership Team

Alistair Court-Smith (Chairman) C Eng, MICE, FAPM

Paul Yates Chief Executive BA (Hons), CIHCM

Stephen Cooper LLB, Solicitor (non practising), MCIArb, FRSA

Nick Coverdale Customer Services Director BA (Hons)

Trevor D’Cruz FCA

Shaun Cooper Finance & Resources Director FCMA

Jenny Edwards MBE, RSCN, SRN, NNEB, Diploma in Theology & Church Ministry

Ian Lines Property Director (resigned 5th July 2013)

Chelliah Krishnamoorthy BSc (Eng), MSc, MICE, MCIWEM, C Eng, FIE (Sri Lanka) Bernard Payne FRICS, Chartered Surveyor Ingrid Saffin Solicitor Jane Worsley BA (Econ), CIHCM Christopher Clarke B. Com (Hons) CA Nick Williams MRICS Helen Edwards (Co-optee appointed November 2012) Anil Majevadia (Co-optee appointed November 2012) Penny Taylor (Co-optee appointed November 2012)

Designed by marketing-impact.co.uk

Rosemary Simmons Staff

Rosemary Simmons Memorial Housing Association Rosemary House, Portsmouth Road Esher, Surrey KT10 9AA

01372 461 440 www.rsmha.org.uk

16