Trust launches plans for future

Published by Laura Beckett for Halton Housing Trust in Housing and also in Communities, Environment

Halton Housing Trust launched a fundamental shift in direction and focus this week, outlining four new priorities as part of its focus upon ‘Improving People’s Lives.’  The changes are being put into place to ensure it is well positioned to respond to the challenges and opportunities ahead.

Coinciding with the launch of their Annual Report video at the Trust’s Annual General Meeting, Chief Executive Nick Atkin explained how the Trust would fight to stay strong in a rapidly changing economic climate.

Nick said:  “We aim to prepare the organisation and our customers for the forthcoming welfare reform ‘financial tsunami’ as well as continuing to build high quality affordable new homes.”

Protecting current income is at the forefront of the new approach, underpinned by a drive to reduce costs and drive efficiency. The Trust will also focus its resources and services upon those who really need it, through delivering tailored services to meet individual customer needs.

Many commentators expect to see grants to build new homes drastically reduce or completely disappear after 2015; therefore the importance of generating new income is critical.  In response the Trust will widen its business model to include commercial activities and subsidiaries, aimed at generating new income streams.

Nick said: “Halton Housing Trust’s main purpose and focus will be increasingly concentrated upon ‘Improving People’s Lives’.  This is what we are all about and what we need to do more of in future.  However, this will also result in a shift away from offering the same levels of services to all customers to a more differentiated and targeted approach.”

“We recognise that for some people this new direction of travel will be unsettling and not everyone will agree with how this may apply to them.  However the world has fundamentally changed and as such this requires us to change how we think and behave.”

“Our Direction will radically reform the way in which we work as a business, resulting in us offering different services to different people according to need.  It will also see us applying the choices and responsibility test we have outlined in the video.”

Replacing a more traditional and often lengthy corporate plan, the two minute “Our Direction” video can be found on YouTube via the following link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf6qsO7kezM

It can also be viewed in text format on the Trust’s website at http://www.haltonhousing.co.uk/index.html

Our annual report video, “Your Halton” outlines the Trust’s key achievements over the last year. From the building of new schemes to our valuable work with Halton Haven Hospice, the video can be viewed on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/48936775