Our ambition: to be recognised as the best governed organisations in Wales

We want to be the best governed sector in Wales and are calling on you to strive for the highest standards of governance in your organisation.

Good governance is more than a set of rules and processes - good governance is good business too. Good governance is now seen as a pre-condition for meeting the challenges of poverty, sustainable development and social cohesion.

Good governance means having balanced and diverse boards which can lead your organisation and simultaneously control risk. However, effective governance is about more than the board. It is fundamentally about culture and a way of working that, if managed well, constantly evaluated, regulated and then used as a platform for innovation, equates with service excellence.

To support you to become the best governed organisations in Wales, CHC is strengthening our governance offer to you.

To support our members, CHC is:

• Launching a sector Code of Governance. CHC’s Code is designed to assist members to develop governance structures which facilitate behaviour change aimed at service improvement for tenants. It sets out the standards and practices that boards and their members must adhere to.
• Unveiling our new Come on Board site which is aimed at attracting exceptional candidates to board member vacancies in the housing sector in Wales. We know that some of our members have struggled to recruit board members with the skills and experience they need to provide strategic direction and manage risk effectively. Subsequently, some members have not achieved the board renewal requirements that are considered to be good practice and others have had vacancies for longer than desired. There is also a Stay on Board section for existing board members whose term is coming to an end or has ended to ensure that this experience is kept within the sector. 

Come on Board and the Code of Governance are crucial elements in helping to achieve our ambition of being recognised as the best governed organisations in Wales.

The link to the Come on board site is www.comeonboardwales.co.uk

The Code of Governance can be found on CHC’s website: http://chcymru.org.uk/en/board-members/code-of-governance/


Amanda Oliver
Head of Policy and Research

Ein huchelgais: cael ein cydnabod fel y sefydliadau gyda'r llywodraethiant gorau yng Nghymru

Rydym eisiau bod y sector gyda'r llywodraethiant gorau yng Nghymru ac rydym yn galw arnoch i anelu am y safon uchaf o lywodraethiant yn eich sefydliad.

Mae llywodraethiant da yn fwy na set o reolau a phrosesau - mae llywodraethiant da yn fusnes da hefyd. Caiff llywodraethiant da yn awr ei weld fel rhag-amod ar gyfer ateb heriau tlodi, datblygu cynaliadwy a chydlyniaeth gymdeithasol.

Mae llywodraethiant da yn golygu cael byrddau cytbwys ac amrywiol a all arwain eich sefydliad a rheoli risg ar yr un pryd. Fodd bynnag, mae llywodraethiant effeithlon yn ymwneud â mwy na'r bwrdd yn unig. Mae'n sylfaenol am ddiwylliant a ffordd o weithio sydd, os caiff ei reoli'n dda, ei werthuso'n gyson, ei reoleiddio ac wedyn ei ddefnyddio fel llwyfan ar gyfer arloesedd, yn gyfwerth â rhagoriaeth gwasanaeth.

I'ch cefnogi i ddod y sefydliadau a lywodraethir orau yng Nghymru, mae CHC yn cryfhau ein cynnig llywodraethiant i chi.

I gefnogi ein haelodau, mae CHC yn:

• Lansio Cod Llywodraethiant. Cynlluniwyd Cod CHC i gynorthwyo aelodau i ddatblygu strwythurau llywodraethiant sy'n hwyluso newid ymddygiad sydd â'r nod o wella gwasanaeth ar gyfer tenantiaid. Mae'n gosod y safonau ac arferion y mae'n rhaid i fyrddau a'u haelodau gydymffurfio â nhw. 
• Dadlennu ein safle Dewch ar y Bwrdd sydd â'r nod o ddenu ymgeiswyr eithriadol i leoedd gwag ar gyfer aelodau bwrdd yn y sector tai yng Nghymru. Gwyddom fod rhai o'n haelodau wedi ei chael yn anodd recriwtio aelodau bwrdd gyda'r sgiliau a'r profiad sydd eu hangen i roi cyfeiriad strategol a rheoli risg yn effeithlon. Fel canlyniad nid yw rhai aelodau wedi sicrhau y gofynion adnewyddu bwrdd a ystyrir yn arfer da a bu gan eraill leoedd gwag am fwy o amser nag a ddymunid. Mae adran Aros ar y Bwrdd ar gyfer aelodau bwrdd presennol y mae eu tymor ar fin dod i ben neu sydd a ddaeth i ben eisoes i sicrhau y cedwir y profiad yma o fewn y sector. 

Mae Dewch ar y Bwrdd a'r Cod Llywodraethiant yn elfennau hollbwysig wrth helpu i gyflawni ein huchelgais o gael ein cydnabod fel y sefydliadau gyda'r llywodraethiant gorau yng Nghymru.

Y ddolen i wefan Dewch ar y Bwrdd yw www.comeonboardwales.co.uk

Mae'r Cod Llywodraethiant ar gael ar wefan CHC: http://chcymru.org.uk/cy/board-members/code-of-governance/


Amanda Oliver
Pennaeth Polisi ac Ymchwil

A call for action!

We have always maintained that the UK Government’s welfare reform programme will have devastating consequences for communities in Wales.

It therefore came as no surprise when a recent Wales Audit Office report published evidence stating that welfare reform is having an adverse and disproportionate effect in Wales. The report found that a greater proportion of Welsh social housing tenants have had their housing benefit reduced than elsewhere in the UK, with 51% of tenants reporting an increase in personal debt. This was backed by evidence from social landlords showing a £5.3m increase in rent arrears in the first six months of the removal of the spare room subsidy and the introduction of the benefit cap.

For some Welsh social housing tenants, the welfare changes will have created a level of hardship and a spiral of social and economic deprivation that will be hard, if not impossible, to break.

This is easier to understand in the context of:

·                     higher (on average) unemployment than anywhere in the UK

·                     a heavy reliance on the public sector as an employer

·                     households paying 5% more for electricity than the rest of UK 

·                     higher rates of digital exclusion than other UK regions - 39% of social housing tenants have no access to PC 

·                     a five-fold increase in the use of foodbanks over the last 2 years – 29.7% by people who had experienced welfare benefit delays

·                     a £4.1m cut in specialist advice services, despite increasing need 

In 2013, the Welsh Affairs Select Committee also published evidence highlighting how the spare room subsidy had been a “policy failure” in the Welsh Valleys where, effectively, a social housing tenant moving to a smaller property in the private rented sector would cost the tax payer more money.  

  

So what are social landlords doing?

60% of Welsh social landlords have reported an increase in management costs as they refocus their resources to manage welfare changes. Most landlords are also prioritising tenants affected by the spare room subsidy to move, more tenant profiling, providing low level money advice and budgeting services, and investing significant amounts of money in awareness raising, and have programmes in place to help tenants back into work. A rise in rent arrears and the increased costs of managing welfare changes still means, however, that Welsh housing associations and local authorities are struggling to find effective and sustainable solutions to the challenges they face.

These challenges will be exacerbated by direct payments and the roll out of Universal Credit unless action is taken now. We need more control over welfare and the flexibility to provide: 

·                     choice to tenants about payment options 

·                     more investment in specialist services such as Your Benefit Are Changing - a service that demonstrates high levels of success in mitigating the worst effects of welfare reform

·                     local solutions tailored to local needs  

CHC and others have been highlighting the negative impact of welfare reform on Wales for some time and we will continue to make the call for a fairer welfare system for Wales to prevent further deprivation. Prevention is always better, and definitely more cost effective, than cure.

Amanda Oliver
Head of Policy and Research

You can read the CHC Group’s response to the report here, and you can read the report itself here

Is service integration the cure for an ailing NHS?

This year marks the 65^th anniversary of the NHS in Wales and, despite being a hallmark of ‘Great Britain’, it is possibly facing the most challenging time in its entire history. With increasing demand for services, higher expectations and pressure to cut spending, finances couldn’t be any tighter. Or could they?    

Unscheduled care, in particular, is under extreme pressure as more and more people present a t A and E and choose to bypass GP out of hours surgeries.  Hospitals are also struggling to meet existing targets and delayed transfers of care and waiting list times continue to rise.  

Reconfiguration is one solution that’s being offered; however, it’s not just secondary care which is under pressure.  Patients in Wales come into contact with the NHS some 20 million times each year, with 80% of contacts taking place outside of a hospital. On average, people visit their GP seven times a year and we expect this to rise rapidly as welfare reform impacts on wellbeing with more people suffering from depression.  

So, put simply, finances could be and are likely to get tighter!  The good news is that housing associations and Care & Repair agencies can help.  Housing associations and Care & Repair agencies already work closely with social care partners to deliver critical services that contribute to prevention and re-enablement. They are also key players in supporting better community health and staff can be a key contact for older people living alone.    

The Older Persons Commissioner is passionate about ‘Older people wanting to stay safe, healthy and secure’ and that the key requirement for those returning home form hospital is ‘food in the refrigerator, a warm home and continuity of care.’ Housing associations already fulfil this role and they can and want to do more.  

Some housing associations also have their own dementia and extra care homes and provide specialist care and support throughout Welsh communities.  Others employ staff in hospices to reduce pressure on A and E by providing support to homeless people who are often repeat presenters at A and E. Despite this work, the role of housing associations is barely recognised in the new Health, Social Care and Wellbeing bill.
 

As the NHS grapples with how best to simultaneously cut costs, meet demand and improve services, more Local Health Boards have been developing projects with housing associations to provide more integrated/holistic services focused on the needs of the individual. While this might not be a total cure, results so far show that it certainly drives improvement.

We will be celebrating some of these projects during Health & Housing week from 15-19 July and we’re inviting you to engage in this week. Tell us your story, either as a service provide or as a customer, about how integrated services across housing and health have helped you! 

Amanda Oliver
Head of Policy and Research, CHC