The need for effective but affordable HR support for smaller charities has been well publicised. What has remained elusive is how this need can realistically be met. Now a new model of provision Beyond A Helpline - has been tried, tested and shown to deliver transformational results.

A successful two-year pilot, delivered by Broadways Real People HR team and substantially funded by the London Housing Foundation (LHF), has been completed with thirteen homelessness agencies, 77% of which achieved positive outcomes according to an independent evaluator, Triangle Consulting.

Triangle Consulting found that, by the end of the Beyond A Helpline pilot, agencies had dramatically changed their attitude to HR and had more professional, consistent and safer ways of working.

Helen Giles, HR Director of Broadways Real People and a key driver of the Beyond A Helpline initiative, said, Charities must get better HR support in order to build a more professional sector. Agencies involved in the pilot now have the tools and structures to address difficulties with staff and to recruit, train and develop the right people. If we can inspire enough agencies to get involved, the Beyond A Helpline model has the potential to transform the sector into a diverse group of professional, well run and effective agencies, with minimal risk of tribunals.

Alex Botha, Deputy Chief Executive of Homeless Link, one of the agencies involved in the pilot, said, There has been a vast change at Homeless Link as a result of our participation in Beyond A Helpline. We now have an HR budget for the first time, our ways of working are more professional and our line managers feel confident and supported in managing our most important resource, our staff. Homeless Link has committed to working with Broadways Real People moving forward.

This announcement is extremely timely for the sector. A recent report by UK Workforce Hub on Third Sector Skills found that strategic management and people management were the two areas where management skills gaps were considered the greatest and a report by ACEVO found that ineffective HR had caused the number of employment tribunals in the third sector to soar way above those in the public and private sector. The Beyond A Helpline model is absolutely relevant to these issues. It is a model that can be adopted by other membership bodies and capacity building funders to raise the strength of people management and reduce risks for the smaller charities with which they work.

Building on the success of the Beyond A Helpline pilot, Broadway - a leading homelessness agency in London- has developed and expanded its Real People HR consultancy, an innovative social enterprise designed to improve the people management capacity of the third sector by offering strategic human resource management and support.

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. About Beyond a Helpline

In 2004, the London Housing Foundation set up an Action Learning set for heads of small homelessness agencies in London. One of the issues that these agencies shared was their need for consistent, high quality, affordable HR support.

The Foundation responded by establishing a pilot scheme to provide high-quality HR support to small agencies tackling homelessness in London - Beyond a Helpline.
The homelessness agency Broadway, which has an award winning HR department, was selected to deliver the programme on behalf of the Foundation following a competitive process. Beyond a Helpline was launched in April 2006 and was simultaneously evaluated by Triangle Consulting.

Thirteen small homelessness agencies received support under the scheme, including coaching, policy and procedural templates available from a members-only area of a website, telephone and online support, HR surgeries, training, audits and more.

For more information, contact Helen Giles on Helen.giles@broadwaylondon.org

2. About Triangle Consulting

Triangle Consulting helps organisations demonstrate and learn from their achievements.
As outcomes experts, they pride themselves on being able to measure the unmeasurable and enable value-driven organisations to count what really counts.

For more information please visit www.triangleconsulting.co.uk

For a copy of the evaluation report, please visit: http://www.lhf.org.uk/IMPACTProgramme/IMPACTthroughStrategyandBestPractice/BeyondaHelplineEvaluationReport

3. About London Housing Foundation

The London Housing Foundation is a charitable company limited by guarantee. It has extensive experience of housing, homelessness, grant-making and related issues.

For more information, please visit: www.lhf.org.uk

4. About Homeless Link

Homeless Link is the national membership organisation for frontline homelessness agencies in England. Our mission is to be a catalyst that will help to bring an end to homelessness. Our two goals are:
o To raise standards in the services that support homeless people and tackle homelessness
o To influence the development of policy, strategy and investment at all levels of government.
www.homeless.org.uk
www.endhomelessness.org.uk

5. Other research reports on HR practices in the sector

§ ACEVO: http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2008/06/16/46323/third-sector-appeals-for-charity-to-begin-at-home-with-hr-help.html
§ UK Workforce Hub: Third Sector Skills Research 2008 http://www.ukworkforcehub.org.uk/DisplayPage.asp?pageid=12689

Further information
If you would like more information or if you would like to arrange an interview with Helen Giles from Real People, Triangle Consulting on the evaluation report or Homeless Link on the implementation of the pilot, please contact:
Gill Perkins, Head of Communications at Homeless Link on 020 7960 3025 or 07881 921476 or Michelle Doust on 020 7960 3027
gill.perkins@homelesslink.org.uk
Homeless Link
First Floor
10-13 Rushworth Street
London
SE1 0RB