Northwards Housing has abandoned spreadsheets and paper plans for its performance management processes and replaced them with a system from Covalent. After the introduction of the new system, Northwards Housing received an Excellent Three Star rating from the Audit Commission in November 2008.
Steve Finegan, head of business improvement, Northwards Housing, said, “As well as giving us greater accountability and transparency, having all our service improvement actions, performance indicators and risks in one easily accessible location is efficient, convenient and saves us time. The days of paper improvement plans are well and truly gone.”
Having just received a Good Two Star rating from the Audit Commission, South Essex Homes, Covalent’s first ALMO customer, has secured almost £58 million of additional funding to improve Southend-on-Sea Borough Council’s 6800 houses as part of its Decent Homes programme.
John Chanin, business analysis manager, South Essex Homes, said, “We previously managed our performance using Excel spreadsheets. When senior managers asked the performance team for monthly reports on our key indicators, we decided to invest in a corporate performance management system from Covalent. This has streamlined the way in which we record and manage corporate performance. Using Covalent, we now have a well-developed set of indicators, which are updated and viewed in real time. We also use it to chart trends and performance against target, and snapshots help to make information meaningful and show at a glance which actions, PIs and risks need most attention.”
As the Covalent system is web-based, it is available to staff wherever they have internet access. This was extended further during South Essex Homes’ recent inspection when the auditors were given remote guest access to the system, letting them examine the ALMO’s performance management methodology and see the evidence to back the organisation’s assessment of its own performance.
Other new Covalent customers include Black Country Housing Group, South Liverpool Housing and North Lincolnshire Homes, all of which will use the system for performance indicators, actions, corporate risks, self assessments, inspection management and complaints.
