Our Corporate Strategy

Our Corporate Strategy sets our ambitions and shapes what we'll do as an organisation for 2025-2030. It builds on what we've achieved over the last three years with our previous Corporate Strategy for 2022-2025 and reflects changing external challenges and customer priorities. We’ve increased the length of our strategy to five years recognising that we’re here to make a difference to customers throughout a lifetime in their homes.

Our purpose

Why we’re here

Our purpose is to make a difference to people’s lives by providing safe and well-maintained homes.

To achieve our purpose, we’ve identified three main goals. We’ve developed these goals, the actions to take, and the results we need to deliver based on customer, employee, and stakeholder feedback, as well as the changing external landscape we’re operating in. 

What we want to achieve

Goal one: Invest in safe and well-maintained homes

Customers told us that the most important part of our strategy is investing in safe and well-maintained homes. Homes play a significant role in our lives and are fundamental to health, wellbeing, and happiness. We feel that everyone deserves to have a home that keeps them feeling safe, secure, and protected. We’re also focussed on long-term local priorities, such as an ageing population and the need for more homes.  

Our priorities to meet goal one

  • Keep improving and enhancing the performance of our repairs and maintenance service.
  • Improve energy efficiency and environmental sustainability in homes and communities.
  • Prioritise the safety and wellbeing of customers in homes and communities.
  • Develop and invest in homes to help address housing demand and make sure the homes we provide are ready to meet future needs. 

Four key actions we’ll achieve in year one

  • Embed improvements to our repairs service.
  • Deliver the initial priorities from across the four strands of our Environmental Sustainability Strategy.
  • Adapt our policies, processes, and services in response to any new compliance, safety requirements or feedback to help keep customers safe.
  • Review our current older person accommodation, and plan improvements.

When carrying out these actions, we’ll engage customers in the work we do in their homes, designing homes and services around the needs of individuals.

Goal two: Deliver great customer service

We know how important great service is to customers. To do this, we need to build good relationships and earn trust. The key is to listen carefully, understand customer needs, and communicate clearly.

Our priorities to meet goal two

  • Make sure our services prioritise customer needs.
  • Listen to what customers say matters to them, understand their feedback, and use this to provide the services they want.
  • Communicate with customers clearly, simply, promptly, and respectfully.
  • Provide a wide range of opportunities for customers to get involved with us.

Four key actions we’ll achieve in year one

  • Adapt processes to make sure we consider and respond to the diverse needs of individual customers by default.
  • Review the tenancy and financial support we provide to make sure we reach as many customers as possible based on their needs.
  • Develop and evolve improvements in our anti-social behaviour service.
  • Incorporate our Community Voices engagement groups into our governance structure.

When carrying out these actions, we’ll treat customers fairly and respectfully. We’ll ask for their views and feedback on our service to learn and improve. 

Goal three: Be an ethical, sustainable, and well-managed organisation

To achieve our other priorities, we need to be a well-managed organisation. This means making sure employees are equipped to do their jobs with training, materials, and systems in place to work effectively and efficiently. As a not-for-profit organisation, we must spend money wisely and focus on improving our impact. We must also understand our customers and homes to provide services effectively and think about the future by being a sustainable organisation.

Our priorities to meet goal three

  • Promote a culture where employees can reach their full potential.
  • Use data insights about customers and homes to drive decisions.
  • Ensure financial stability and maximise value for money.
  • Make sure we have the right processes and technology to enable our team to work effectively and efficiently.
  • Meet our environmental, social, and governance (ESG) commitments, recognising our role as a responsible organisation.

Four key actions we’ll achieve in year one

  • Enhance our learning and development programme to embed a customer-centric and collaborative culture.
  • Use insights from data and feedback to prioritise process improvements and projects for customers, homes, and employees.
  • Explore new complementary commercial opportunities and partnerships that will grow our income and deliver new homes.
  • Work with our contractors to enhance our combined contribution to social value. 

When carrying out these actions, we will be a leader in forming partnerships that deliver a bigger impact for customers and communities.

How we do things

Supporting the delivery of our goals

Our plans are ambitious, but we think we can achieve them because of the values that shape how we work and our ongoing efforts to improve.

We’re an organisation that wants to help people make the most of their lives. Everything we do is guided and driven by our values of being bold, caring, determined and open-minded. These values are fundamental to how we work, whatever role we do.

We’re committed to becoming a more sustainable organisation. Our goal is to improve the energy efficiency of the homes we provide, reduce their carbon footprint, and deliver lasting benefits to customers, communities, and future generations. Each year, we share updates on the progress we’re making in environmental, social, and governance initiatives. 

We’re dedicated to fostering equity, diversity, and inclusion within our organisation and the communities we serve. We believe every voice is important, and everyone should have the opportunity to thrive.

We’re committed to keeping our promises and following through on our commitments. We understand the importance of earning customer trust.

The shortage of affordable homes, welfare challenges, and high cost of living customers face mean we must make sure every pound we spend is used in the best way possible. This is our approach to providing value for money and helps us to make sure we get as much social value as we can from our resources and assets.

Corporate Strategy summary