Value for money
To ensure we know our efforts are making a difference, we set ourselves stretching targets and benchmark our performance against our peers, establishing our direction of travel and highlighting areas for improvement.
Thirteen is committed to providing a value for money service, delivering our vision and maximising the social impact of our resources and investment. It’s important because we want to make sure we can invest in more homes, invest in our existing homes and create quality services for residents, customers and other stakeholders. VFM is expressed as a ‘value chain’ of economy, effectiveness and efficiency and is about obtaining the maximum benefit over time with the available resources.
Annual business planning functions, supported by our ideation, projects and programme management team, consider how every project we want to undertake in the coming year will contribute to the VFM agenda. By really understanding why we want to do things, we can better identify the opportunities we have to save money, improve processes and outcomes, and maximise the value of the work we do.
Our Value for Money framework underpins the strategic aims and focuses our KPI’s on achieving VFM across the three strategic priorities, with clear and measurable targets. The framework is built around the three principles of economy, efficiency, and effectiveness as set out in the Value for Money Standard and makes sure that we ‘spend less, spend well and spend wisely’. This means that we consider how we can reduce costs and input and still achieve the same results or better and consider how we can improve quality and outcomes by increasing what we put in.
Our project management framework, and business case approach, sets out governance arrangements to ensure we maintain oversight of progress against project aims. Programme boards aligned to each strategic priority monitor progress monthly, with particular attention to VFM objectives, and report highlights to service directors, the leadership team and the Board.
The Board owns and drives the framework, and performance against VFM measures is reviewed at every Board meeting. However, the remit for delivery is spread across the group, with collective responsibility at all levels, from the executive team and service directors to operational team leaders. Performance against these measures is monitored closely, ensuring Thirteen’s approach to VFM is embedded in the way we work.
‘Ideation and Innovation’ weeks have been introduced within Thirteen putting innovation side by side with VFM at the heart of everything we do. These events provide colleagues with the skills, space and mindset to think differently about challenges and the freedom to solve problems when they see them and help us create a culture where continuous service improvement is everyone’s responsibility, and all ideas are welcome. 28
