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Value for Money Review

Value for Money Review

Looking back over the last 12 months Here are a few of our VFM savings from across the Trust…

Property Services savings• We re-negotiated a six year lease agreement for our vehicle depot saving £72K.• Cost of the Void (empty homes) Repairs was £200k lower than budget through improved costs control and changes in procedure. • Grants were used to fund or part fund some of our work. We successfully bid for £334k of Energy Company Obligation (ECO) grants to fund external wall insulation to 182 homes in Wharton Gardens, Crook Lane and Danefields. £6k was also received towards the costs of installing solar thermal hot water in 6 properties in Byley, which were not on the main gas network. • Free training on Asbestos Awareness with Zurich as part of the corporate insurance negotiations. 100 staff over 3 days during 5 half day training sessions saving £4K.• Installation of electric fires as secondary form of heating by Trust electricians rather than contractors saving £3K.

Support team savings (ICT, HR, Communications, Legal, Finance)• Changes in processes and suppliers to reduce ICT support and maintenance costs by £100K• Four free training sessions for members of the legal team resulting in savings of £2.8K.• Checking of staff motor vehicle documents to be done in house rather than using an external company. Saving £3.6K. • VAT Strategic Review – can now advise suppliers to apply a zero rate of VAT on certain printing and advertising services. Able to go back 4 years and recover VAT already paid making a saving of £28K.• Use of Tenant Inspectors to complete Customer Surveys via telephone interviews as opposed to staff. 720 hours of volunteer survey time @ £15/hour (average staff cost) saving £10K.

Housing & Community Services Savings• We transferred our ‘Careline’ service telephone handling to Peaks and Plains Housing Trust saving approximately £300K.• The Trust will receive a Class B Exemption on void properties i.e. no council tax payments to be made for first 6 months on property becoming void making a saving of £40K.• Princes Trust carried out redecoration at the Community Bungalow in Greenfields Park at no cost to the Trust. Raised funds for material through fundraising event saving £2K.

Our plans for 2014-15 We will continue to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and economy of the services we provide. We have set targets to save £250k on procurement (purchasing) on Planned maintenance expenditure, to improve relet times for voids and to continue to improve arrears levels.

Please note K denotes thousand pounds.

95% of our income is from rents and service charges therefore achieving Value for Money is vital.

Remember if you’d like us to

post this strategy review to

you FREEPOST call us on

01606 813 351 or email

alexandra.myhill@wvht.co.uk.

Or pop into one of our offices

and pick up a copy.

MONEY

£300,000

£72,000

£8.1Million

£6.3Million£7.8

Million

£4.3Million

£3.7Million

£2.1Million

£0.3Million

Loan interest payments

Housing managementcosts

Improvementsworks

MaintenanceWorks

Other overheads

New build homes

Other capitol purchases

There are many more value for money savings we have made during 2013-14, and overall these savings have been calculated at £1.3Million which we are able to put towards customer priorities inline with our strategies.

What we spent in 2013/14

Social Value Our work goes much further than providing homes and services for our customers. We want to improve the quality of life for customers as well as improving the Neighbourhood within which your homes are located. A team was set-up during the year to help get our customers a job, see Customers into Work strategy for further details. Our Money Matters and Support & Wellbeing teams generated £1.3m of income gains for our customers.