Recent articles suggest the housing sector may be heading back to a future of tougher rent collection and even bringing back rent collectors to deal with welfare reform and direct payments. We think organisations should think more strategically about income management. Increasing numbers of staff isn’t neccessarily going to increase effectiveness or collection rates.  While reintroducing the personal contact of old will be a good thing, smarter solutions and using technology will be just as important.

Value for Money isn't rocket science. But in some respects it has its roots in the stone age. Our successful ancestors certainly would have looked for a mixture of good cost, performance and quality from the stones and rocks they used. Those who didn't probably aren't in our DNA.

Secure your organisation's genetic legacy.
Book an on demand webinar or virtual tour of V3a
 

A call for the sector to use its ballast well and increase efficiency from within.
In this article, a version of which was first published in The Guardian in March 2013, Peter Hall says it’s time for the social housing sector to start delivering on its main purpose of building homes rather than bolstering its balance sheets.

There's never been a more compelling time to ensure your teams work together more effectively. These key habits of successful teams which we've worked on with various organisations are timeless. As effective now as they were decades ago and will be in decades to come.
Use them as a guide or live by them and you'll ensure you have highly effective teams who deliver corporate objectives, excel at customer service, and exceed performance targets.

In this article published in The Guardian in September 2011, Peter Hall suggested that DLO's offered marginally better value for money, but geographic factors were probably more significant, and Joint Ventures were  a potential best of both worlds approach worth pursuing.
Having spent time working with clients on improving the Vfm of repairs over the past 18 months, we still think this approach to measuring and improving Vfm is relevant.

With the 'bedroom tax' , online access to Universal Credit on the way, and the rise of social media there is a compelling business case to deliver more online, modern services.
But can I.T. help deliver better value for money?
This article was originally published in November 2011. Our anlysis suggested higher spend didn't neccessarily improve value for money and gave some top tips on how to ensure Vfm from IT.
Have those changed ...?