Treasury Management Conference, 8 October 2014 Tim Taylor, Director Acuity Research & Practice

SPBM 120 smaller housing providers (< 1,000 homes) 53,000 homes 8 English regions Regional & specialist groups HouseMark partnership NHF Smaller Associations National Group

Partnerships & collaboration 91% - Working with other providers will improve performance 64% - With anyone 51% - With smaller providers 7% - With larger providers

Collaborating 82% - Would buy services from other providers 80% - Would deliver services to / on behalf of other providers 87% - Would benefit from peer networking

Collective commissioning 87% - Training 46% - Back office services 37% - Customer services

New homes 84% - Part of mission / 48% - Critical 31% - Independently / 36% - In partnership 22% - Aspire to 11% - Not developing

Needs 64% - Access to grant / funding 63% - Networking & experience 61% - Advice & expertise 44% - Professional services 35% - Learning & development

In Small Supply Development capacity The Iceni model Active asset management & stock rationalisation VFM & return on assets Governance, risk & cost sharing vehicles

Development capacity “The [72] associations in this study could sustain future organic growth at a rate of about 5 per cent a year”. “There is potential to deliver circa 5,500 homes over the next ten years”.

Barriers Land availability Access to Social Housing Grant Loan availability Board risk appetite Lack of skills, experience and confidence

Fanciful solutions Major merger activity among smaller associations given the time and effort that would be required A major centrally determined drive for smaller associations’ capacity to be transferred to larger associations

Replicable solutions? Joint venture company Three ‘larger smalls’ shareholders 250 homes p.a. (200 pipeline) £1m gift aid since 2005 (£250k 2014) Risk reduction without identity loss Seat at the table rather than crumbs beneath

Appetite? “The issue I would stress is the capability for an "Iceni" to deliver cost effectively for small associations the wide range of tenures and products now necessary in the market place - be it open market sale, PRS, shared ownership, affordable rent or rent to buy whilst still enabling them to retain control and not subsume their culture and ethos into partnerships with large HAs”.

Butterflies? Aggregate risk Impact of welfare reform Stress testing Active asset management Board skills Clarity of vision and aspiration

The way we do things around here “Take on board fully the cultural differences between large and small… It's not just about bigger outfits thinking smaller, it's about an entirely different way of working”.

Is it worth it? Smaller providers need to ask themselves why it might be of any interest to larger providers to work with them. Given the latent capacity involved, they need to do more of the running than perhaps they recognise. In other areas of business, it’s much more of a two-way street.