A London housing association has become the first major ‘social landlord’ to produce a social report.
The London and Quadrant (L&Q) group, which provides homes for
70,000 people across London and the south-east of England, has
published the report as part of a new initiative designed to encourage
other large housing associations to follow suit.
A project
group of four associations backed by the Housing Corporation, which
regulates social landlords, was set up in 1998 to work on social
auditing. L&Q is the first to publish, but reports are expected by
early summer from the three other participants – Penwith housing
association in Cornwall, Liverpool Housing Trust and Presentation
housing association in south London.
The £160,000 cost of the exercise has been funded jointly by the Housing Corporation and the associations involved.
‘The idea has been to work with four very different social landlords to
see what they came up with, and then to use the lessons to help other
social landlords carry out social audits,’ said Ian Birchmore, audit
and consultancy manager at Penwith Housing Audit Services, a subsidiary
of Penwith.
An ‘implementation guide’ designed to help
other social landlords publish social reports will be brought out by
the project later this year and will be backed up by regional seminars.
Although housing associations once relied on central
government grants, they are now funded mainly by money raised from
financial institutions and are run as businesses. L&Q says
associations ‘have often thought that simply providing homes for people
in housing need has meant that they are socially responsible.’ It
argues they must now adopt business-like attitudes to social auditing.
In the 42-page report, verified by KPMG and approved by the Plain
Language Commission, L&Q devotes sections to its relations with
seven stakeholder groups, including tenants, staff, its 400 suppliers
and private sources of capital such as banks.
The report
was drawn up by a six-person social audit panel which included a tenant
representative. It says seven out of ten L&Q tenants are satisfied
with their homes. But it pledges to examine the reasons for a staff
turnover rate of 20 per cent. L&Q will also try to increase the
number of ethnic minority representatives on its board.
KPMG’s verification statement says the report should have been more
accessible to tenants and that more social performance indicators would
be needed in any future social audit.
Andrew Muir, policy
and planning manager at L&Q, said the association was unlikely to
publish social reports on a regular basis, but would link its new
social auditing skills to government requirements on associations to
carry out ‘best value’ reviews of their services.
The
UK-based National Centre for Business & Ecology (NCBE) has been
commissioned to undertake a social audit for Watford district council.
The NCBE, a non profit partnership between The Co-operative Bank and
the four universities of Manchester, will use AA1000, the Institute of
Social and Ethical Accountability’s standard for social audit, as the
basis for the audit. A panel of stakeholders has been convened to
oversee the exercise.
