London & Quadrant

Source: Construction Digital

Date :20/04/2007 00:00:00

London & Quadrant: 70,000 affordable homes in in greater London area by 2012

Despite ever-increasing Government budgetary constraints, mammoth housing association London & Quadrant Group is poised to become one of the largest organisations of its kind in the country through acquisitions and cross-subsidizing schemes.

Set up in 1963 by a group of young professionals with the aim of providing quality housing for people in need and responding to the relentless growth in demand for affordable housing in the capital and its Boroughs, the London & Quadrant Group became the largest provider of social housing in London when the original Quadrant Housing Association merged with the London Housing Trust in 1973.

Since its modest beginnings, L&Q has grown to manage more than 50,000 homes, with a rate of almost 1,000 homes being built annually across London and the South East. More than 900 workers are employed in 30 locations by this jointly public and privately funded not-for-profit concern. Three new housing associations have merged with L&Q over the past two years.

“We provide housing for all sorts of people across London,” says Group Commercial Director Steve Walker, “and are also heavily engaged in a number of regeneration projects. We are currently managing an asset base of circa £5.4 billion assets and our turnover in 2006 reached £226 million. There was a surplus of £40 million that was all quickly reinvested in new housing and community regeneration. We are seeking to build 20,000 homes over the next five years and will spend between £150-200 million in maintenance and repairs to keep our homes up to a great standard.”

Streamlining Management

As well as being one of L&Q’s nine Directors, Steve Walker also runs Tower Homes, a sister organisation that offers people the chance to buy or rent homes throughout London and the South East at a low cost. Tower Homes was recently distinguished with a much sought after three-star rating from the Audit Commission, becoming only the second ever housing association to be the recipient of such an honour.

There are seven regional divisions under the London & Quadrant umbrella, London & Quadrant Supported Living, which provides homes for those with special or additional needs, and Quadrant Community Investment – set up in 2001 in order to channel investment into communities and assist neighbourhood management.

“Running such a complex and diverse organisation is anything but easy,” Mr Walker explains. “There is a voluntary board of 16 sitting above us and overlooking all aspects of our work. Below the board there are nine operating divisions supervised by a committee chaired by a member of the Governing Board.”

The Executive Group – led by Chief Executive Don Woods CBE – manages L&Q and strives to keep a sound financial state of affairs. “At present we are half way through a governance review aiming to streamline our management so that we can become more strategic and make a better use of our assets”, says Walker. “With new housing associations joining us every so often this is crucial for us. There are 15 committees with around 150 people involved in governing the work of each of our operating divisions. We actively encourage resident participation in the governance of L&Q.”

Improving Performance

London & Quadrant has deployed a number of imaginative and novel tactics in the recent past in order to install a culture of learning and continuous improvement across its 23 offices.

“We are constantly asking ourselves the key questions: how can we deliver value for money? How can we offer a better service to home owners and tenants? We scrutinise a number of key performance indicators and benchmark against others,” Walker explains. “We have built up a list of preferred partnering contractors in order to drive costs down as much as is practicable.”

“When it comes to customer service”, he continues, “we are finding that it is difficult to engage owners in an organisation like Tower Homes. This is why we devised an email panel system where 16 members of staff get requests from a wide cross-section of residents. This allows us to keep track of how residents perceive us and the service that we offer.”

Tower Homes has also spearheaded a new approach to dealing with complaints that has resulted in tangible improvements and improving standards of customer service.

“Bearing in mind that we receive more than 30,000 enquiries a year and that we are only in a position to help with around 1,200 of those, I believe it’s remarkable that we receive only 85 complaints annually and only about 20 of those refer specifically to our service. 95 percent are sorted out in stage one. They are all reviewed and carefully considered, 70 percent lead to service improvements and each and every one is circulated to staff.”