The Housemark Dashboard · The data in the Dashboard can be used in a variety of ways. Firstly it...

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User Manual

A1 Housing Performance Dashboard

Introduction 2

The Housemark Dashboard 2

Finding the Dashboard 3

The Dashboard 4

Using the Dashboard • View Mode • List Mode

5 6 8

Activity area details 9

Activity area Dashboard • Cost • Relative cost • Resourcing • Performance

12 13 14 15 16

Using Benchmarking 17

Contact Details 18

Appendix 1 – Using Quartiles 19

Appendix 2 – Other Sources of Information 21

Contents

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This User Manual provides a guide to the new A1 Housing Performance Information Dashboard and how to use it to analyse A1 Housing’s performance and compare it to other housing organisations across the country.

The A1 Housing dashboard is put together by HouseMark and provides at-a-glance comparative information on costs and performance benchmarked with other housing providers.

The data in the dashboard is supplied on an annual basis as part of the ‘core benchmarking submission’ and is independently validated by HouseMark, to provide assurance to the A1 Housing Board, Senior Management and tenants on its quality and accuracy.

Over 400 landlords participate in HouseMark benchmarking, tending to submit data between June and November each year. Benchmark information shows for the most recent year of validated data. No data in the dashboard is more than two years old.

Core benchmarking enables social housing providers to make an informed, value for money assessment of their operations across the broad range of their business activities. This assessment covers:

• cost

• staffing

• performance

• enables cross-sector comparisons which are just not possible from publicly available data

• overall management costs

• relative costs of managing different activities

• staffing levels devoted to managing different activities

• balance between housing management pay and overheads

• levels of costs and resources with actual performance

Introduction

The Housemark Dashboard

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The A1 Dashboard is freely available on the A1 Housing website as part of A1’s commitment to providing accessible and open information to all.

The Dashboard is found on the Company Performance page of the About Us tab on the website.

Finding the Dashboard

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The Dashboard shows A1’s actual and relative performance and costs across 8 key activity areas:

1. Responsive repairs and voids

2. Rent arrears and collection

3. Anti social behaviour

4. Major works and cyclical maintenance

5. Lettings

6. Tenancy management

7. Resident involvement

8. Estate Services

The front page provides a summary of each key activity area and access to the detailed information on each area’s cost and performance.

The Dashboard

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The toolbar allows users to configure the Dashboard to their own preferences.

“Compare With”

The purpose of benchmarking is to compare A1 with other organisations on cost and performance data. Because Housemark collects the same data from all organisations and makes sure this is calculated consistently this ensures that valid comparisons are possible.

The Dashboard allows A1 to compare against 3 different groups by clicking on the “Compare With” drop down button.

• My peer group is a collection of similar organisations in type and size to A1. This is the default group for comparison.

• My area looks at all organisations in the East Midlands area

• Whole of the UK includes all organisations which are part of the Housemark Benchmarking club including London Boroughs, ALMOs and Housing associations.

A1’s relative performance varies with the group with which it is compared and the details of each organisation in the comparison list can be seen in the View Organisations option.

View mode in: Chart or List view

The organisations with which A1 are compared

Choose the group to compare with A1

Print the Page

Using the Dashboard

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View Mode

The View Mode normally displays the main summary data in a chart grid but alternatively it can be seen as a list of each key activity area.

The Chart view summarises each activity area into a 4 part grid based on cost and performance. Each area is compared to other organisations to show relatively how much the service costs to run and the quality of the service it produces.

This chart provides a clear overview of the 8 activity areas, compares their current position and provides the starting point for a more detailed analysis.

A1 aims to achieve excellent service outcomes and an activity area achieving this at low cost would fall in the bottom right quadrant.

An expensive and low performing activity would fall in the top left quadrant.

This summary is the starting point for a comprehensive understanding of each area.

For example, the current Decent Homes programme will show as high cost and lower performance but this reflects the fact that we are still spending money improving the stock whereas other organisations have completed their programmes.

To see the detailed information on each activity click on either the activity area number in the grid or on the area name in the list.

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Comparing A1 with different groups of organisations can change the relative position of each A1 activity in the quadrants even though actual performance is unchanged.

A1’s Peer Group

The East Midlands Area

All Organisations

5

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List Mode

The List Mode shows each activity area individually with the summary costs, performance and comments.

Summary position of cost and performance in the comparative grid. Overall cost per property in providing the service compared to other organisations. Explanatory Comments

The Performance score is a statistical calculation which shows overall relative performance based on the key activity area indicators. Housemark are currently reviewing how this is calculated and displayed to make it easier to use.

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The cost and performance details for each activity area have their own individual dashboard.

Firstly, clicking on either the activity area button or the list item will open up a summary screen which shows the same information which is contained in the List View.

Activity Area Details

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The activity area summary details are summarised in two columns for cost and performance.

Cost per Property

Actual. This shows the overall cost to A1 of providing the service per property

• In the example for repair costs A1’s actual annual cost per property of responsive repairs and void works is £397.

• The report also shows the Quartile information for the selected comparison groups. (For more about Quartiles please see Appendix 1).

• The Upper Quartile cost is £583 which shows that the cost of A1 providing its service is well within the top 25% of comparable organisations.

It can be seen that A1’s performance is even better when compared to different groups of organisations.

For the Area group the Upper Quartile is £630 and for All Organisations £648

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Performance Score

The calculation of the Performance score is a statistical average which aims to show relative results across all the performance indicators in the activity area.

A1’s relative position on each performance indicator is calculated in relation to the other organisations, these are then weighted and averaged to produce a score out of 100. The higher the score the better the performance.

In this case A1 has a score of 54 which is between the Median and Upper Quartile.

Because this is an average score the individual performance scores need to be analysed further, for example is the score consistent across all indicators or excellent in some areas but poorer in another?

As with the Cost indicators the Performance score will also vary by the comparison group used.

Housemark are currently looking at how the performance score can be shown in a simpler and more understandable way.

Further Detail

Clicking on the “View Dashboard” button opens up the detailed dashboard for the activity area so that the underlying cost and performance factors can be analysed individually.

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The Activity Area Dashboard shows a detailed analysis of the relative cost and performance for the key factors that Housemark use to understand how an organisation provides each service area.

Further detail on each chart is also available by clicking on the “i” button.

For example Cost.

Activity Area Dashboard

i

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Cost

The Cost chart breaks down the average cost per property (CPP) of the service into 3 cost areas:

• Direct Employee Costs. These are the costs of directly employing the workforce which delivers the repairs service

• Direct non-pay costs. This includes materials and vehicles used to deliver repairs • Overheads. These costs are those which apply to A1 Housing as a whole and

attributed to each service area and include premises and general support services such as finance and IT.

Of the £397 spent per property in 2010/11 £130 was on staff pay, £214 on direct other costs and £54 on overheads. The middle organisation with which A1 compares spent an average of £658 per property in 2010/11.

These costs are broken down further in the relative cost comparisons shown below.

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Relative Costs

The Relative cost chart compares the costs against other organisations for the latest year (currently 2010/11) and shows the

• Upper Quartile, • Median and • Lower Quartile position.

It also shows the Rank of A1 relative to the rest of the group. For example it is 8th out of 21 for Direct Employee costs and 3rd for Overhead costs. The “speedometer” provides a quick visual representation of performance.

Compared to Peer Group

Compared to All Organisations

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Resourcing

Resourcing looks at the relative amount of resources used in providing the service based on:

• The average pay cost per direct employee in the activity area.

• The average number of employees per 100 properties.

In both cases A1 can be compared to other organisations using the Quartile analysis.

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Performance

The performance indicators vary according to the activity area and have been picked by Housemark as those which have the most significant impact on overall performance. For Repairs these are:

Clicking on the button again opens up more detail on the specific performance indicator showing actual performance, upper and lower quartiles and Median and the Rank of A1 within the specific sample which is being compared.

For example for Repairs completed A1 has the 5th best completion rate out of the 21 organisations with which it is compared.

i

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Scrutiny of VFM and service delivery The benchmarking data in the Dashboard allows the comparison of A1’s performance with peer organisations within the social housing sector. The data in the Dashboard can be used in a variety of ways. Firstly it provides a quick summary of A1’s performance and costs across the main services which are provided to tenants, for example average time to complete repairs and tenant satisfaction. The average cost of providing the service can also be seen. Secondly this data can be compared. Internally the cost of providing one service and tenant satisfaction with it can be checked against another service. Comparisons can also be made externally against other groups nationally (including different types of housing providers), regionally or those organisations which are similar to A1 in terms of size and type. However when making comparisons the benchmarking data should be seen as a starting point for getting a deeper understanding of the true situation. For example:

• The repairs service is provided in different ways even by similar organisations. In some cases all work is done by an internal workforce and in others the work is contracted out to private sector companies. The split between these will affect the costs which are taken into account in the benchmarking, the average cost per property and the relative balance between the different types of costs. The overall average cost of service provision therefore requires further analysis to ensure that like is compared with like.

• Performance indicators are generally a more reliable basis for cross comparison between sections and organisations. The data used and the method of calculation should all follow the Housemark methodology and definitions and are audited and checked to ensure comparisons are valid and meaningful. However even in these circumstances there can be comparability issues. For example tenant satisfaction is an important part of assessing service performance but this is based on the national Status survey results. A1’s Status survey is out of date and a new survey had to be deferred following national changes in the way in which these are conducted. (The replacement STAR survey will take place later this year). The last A1 Status survey reflects the position before the Decent Homes works got under way and satisfaction would be expected to have improved since then.

Thirdly therefore, and most importantly, the Dashboard data provides the basis for understanding a service area and the foundation for a more detailed analysis using other sources of information such as the latest A1 performance reports, examples of best practice from other organisations and national reports or specialist benchmarking analysis.

Using Benchmarking

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For further information on A1 Housing’s performance data, Housemark and the A1/Housemark dashboard please contact:

Rob King – Service Development and Performance Manager

Carlton Forest House

Hundred Acre Lane

Worksop

S81 0TS

Telephone: 01909 533736

Email: [email protected]

Contact

mailto:[email protected]

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Quartiles are commonly used to rank and compare groups.

Using Quartiles allows collections of organisations to be brought together so that their relative position can be seen together in a league table of performance. This helps show relative performance more clearly than a simple list of comparative results.

Example of a list of relative performance for different organisations – lower is better

The chart shown above provides a simple example of how quartiles can be used to show relative positions.

If we are interested in the performance of “p” it is clearly better than many but a simple chart does not easily show how well it performs in relation to the others in the sample.

Quartiles make this simpler to understand.

Firstly the organisations are ranked in order of performance, in this case if low is better then

this is from “k” scoring 10 to “u” scoring 44.

a 20b 28c 17d 18e 30f 29g 26h 21i 24j 40k 10l 12m 36n 32o 14p 14q 38r 15s 42t 35u 44

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u

Appendix 1 – Using Quartiles

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Secondly the group is split into quarters from the best to the worst (in this case there are 5 in each group). The best quarter is the “Upper Quartile” and the worst quarter the “Lower

Quartile”, the “Median” is the organisation, “g”, that fits in the middle of the list (but note that this is not the same as the average).

The ranking of organisations will depend on the indicators being used. For example if it is the cost of a service or the amount of rent arrears then lower is better. For the amount of efficiency savings or inward investments an organisation achieves then higher is better.

In this example it is assumed that a lower score is better.

It is now possible to compare the group more easily.

“k” has the best score of 10 and “r’s” score of 15 represents the minimum performance needed to qualify for the top 25%.

“p” scores 14 which is equal third and in the top 25%.

A score of 36 or below, eg for “m”, will put the organisation in the worst 25% with the

worst score overall being 44 for “u”.

k 10l 12o 14p 14r 15c 17d 18a 20h 21i 24g 26b 28f 29e 30n 32t 35m 36q 38j 40s 42u 44

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

k l o p r c d a h i g b f e n t m q j s u

UpperQuartile

2nd Quartile

Lower Quartile

3rd Quartile

Median

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A selection of other sources of information and news about social housing. Many of these have free website subscriptions and e-mail newsletters, twitter, facebook and RSS feeds. Copy and paste the link into your web browser to access the website

http://www.communities.gov.uk/housing/

The Department for Communities and Local Government is the government

department responsible for developing government housing policy in England.


The Homes and Communities Agency is the national housing and regeneration

agency for England, with a capital investment budget of nearly £7bn

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/index.htm The best way to get to government

services and information

http://www.info4local.gov.uk/

Quick and easy access to the information you need from central government

departments, agencies and public bodies.

http://www.almos.org.uk/

Briefings, information, advice and official guidance on all aspects of arms length

management organisations

http://www.housing.org.uk/ The voice of affordable housing in England

http://www.taroe.org/

The national organisation which unites tenants’ and residents’ groups from the regulated housing sector across England

http://www.hse.gov.uk/ HSE's job is to prevent people being killed,

injured or made ill by work.

http://www.housemark.co.uk/hm.nsf/Hom

e?ReadForm

HouseMark is the leading source of cost and performance data for social housing

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/social-housing

News and views on all housing matters

http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/home

The Inside Housing website provides the latest breaking news on everything in the

social housing world.

http://www.24dash.com/ The UK's most up-to-date Social Housing

and Local Government news website

Appendix 2 – Other Information Sources



http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/index.htm



http://www.housing.org.uk/default.aspx


http://www.hse.gov.uk/



http://www.24dash.com/


















































http://www.housing.org.uk/



http://www.housemark.co.uk/hm.nsf/Home?ReadForm

http://www.housemark.co.uk/hm.nsf/Home?ReadForm































































































































































The Housemark Dashboard · The data in the Dashboard can be used in a variety of ways. Firstly it...

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