SEN

On 22 October and 4 November we held our workshop: 'making allocations work'.

The workshop was based around our newly developed allocations toolkit and received extremely positive feedback from all who attended.

Led by our allocations specialist Wendy Murphy, the workshop enabled delegates to undertake a full allocations policy review and also how to carry out rigorous Equality Impact Assessments (EqIAs) of allocations policies and procedures.

Available exclusively to SEN members, our NEW Allocations Toolkit can now be downloaded here.

SENs enabling affordable housing online toolkit is available free of charge and exclusively to SEN members.

Our enabling affordable housing online toolkit began life in 2008. The aim was to develop an online tool that could be used as a reliable source of information that local authorities could access to successfully develop and manage the enabling process so that need and aspirations could be met both now and in the future.

A willing 'volunteer' developed a paper based toolkit for SEN, and we then asked SEN members to test it out. Seven local authorities completed the toolkit and then met to discuss their experience. We updated the content and revised the structure in response to this feedback, and then developed an entirely new website bringing together an online toolkit with additional information that the pilots felt would be helpful.

The content of the enabling website has been developed with input from local authorities and individuals from the Homes and Communities Agency, housing associations, and from regeneration professionals. We are very grateful for their contribution and hope that you will make your own.

You can access the toolkit by clicking on the link at the side of this page. If you are asked to enter a username and password, please use the details you used to log in to this website.

SEPTEMBER 2010:
Our partnerships theme continued with our event in Manchester on 20 October.

Sessions included:
* Partnerships past and present with case studies of successful partnership approaches
* Current expectations and the challenges ahead: government thinking and the sector's view
* Local Enterprise Partnerships and the implications for housing
* Governance arrangements and the localism agenda
* Measuring success and demonstrating efficiency and value for money.

The event was chaired by mClive Thomasson of SEN's Advisory Group and speakers included Kerry Schofield, Mott MacDonald (adviser to Local Government Improvement and Development on Local Enterprise Partnerships); Adrian Moran, Strategy Manager,
Homes and Communities Agency; Wendy Murphy, HQN Associate and Stephen Tracey, Head of Housing and Neighbourhoods, St Helens Council.

------------------------------------------------
MAY 2010:
We held two workshops in London and York to consider why strategic partnerships in housing needed to change. The workshops covered:

- The reasons why partnerships need to change and what change might look like - this will cover issues such as reducing resources, strengthening local democracy, the Homes and Communities Agency's single conversation, the introduction of cross-domain co-regulation by the Tenant Services Authority, and changes in related sectors such as health and social care
- Approaches to reviewing partnerships and establishing new or revised arrangements - this will also be in the context of national initiatives, eg, Total Place and regulatory expectations
- The tools you need in place to support partnership working
- What impact a change in government might have on partnership working.

The workshops were attended by 25 different organisations who shared their thoughts and best practices on partnership working as well as some great input from colleagues at Bristol City Council and Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council who facilitated a workshop and showed how successful partnership working can be.

All the input from the two workshops will be followed by a SEN guide to partnerships, building on input from all members and from HQN's work with others, for example, Bristol City Council and this will be made available to members soon.

The presentations from the day are available by clicking on the relevant links (these can be opened by clicking on 'read only') to the left.

Tools for success workshop held recently at the Improvement Development Agency strategic housing events.

Effective partnerships are critical - you have to use techniques and tools that everyone can engage with.

Decisions have to be properly informed - you need to have robust approach to this.

Increased public accountability calls for greater transparency - you will need to show that you're self-aware and that you're taking action to improve.

Strategic thinking is an acquired skill but one that has to be continuously developed - there are a vast number of tools available.

Please feel free to use the documents and exercises attached in-house with your staff. We know they work and they:

- Encourage partner involvement
- Place housing in the wider context of sustainable communities
- Focus on the future and on delivering results
- Are designed to make you think.

One exercise for each area of the strategic approach:

- Vision and direction - PESTLE
- Capacity - Delivery chain
- Outcomes - Outcomes based accountability.

SEN has been raising the awareness of the need for a better understanding of the value for money of all forms of housing activity over the last few years. Workshops held in 2006 concluded that it is very difficult for value to be assessed unless there are relevant measures of success in place. Despite relatively few such measures, SEN began to develop a benchmarking framework that could be populated with financial information and existing performance indicators. This framework was first used in work with Birmingham City Council as part of an assessment of private sector housing services.

In 2007, Cambridgeshire authorities approached SEN for support to begin the process of understanding value for money, beginning with benchmarking. The existing framework was developed in the course of this work and through subsequent projects with another 24 local authorities. This work has moved the understanding of the authorities forward, with real outputs in terms of shared services and efficiencies.

In 2009, SEN decided that the framework should be accessible to all local authorities, as part of the ‘armoury' of self-assessment tools that should inform service improvements and efficiencies. As benchmarking alone cannot lead to improvements in value for money, it was felt that the framework should initially be available to SEN members only, with additional support being provided in other areas, for example, to develop more and more useful measures of success and an online system. We held a workshop in February 2010 to act as the starting point for this. Details can be found by downloading the files on this page.

It should be noted that the framework and supporting tools are currently the property of HQN Ltd. Reproduction or other use of the materials, in whole or in part, by non-SEN members requires prior written consent. As subscription fees from SEN members will pay for the future development of tools, support to members to complete these and the means for benchmarking, the use of these tools by non-SEN member organisations is also not advised on the basis that SEN's capacity to provide member services will be affected.

Please download the files on the left of this page to see our recent progress and for details on how to progress with the use of our VfM tool.