1. Social Accounting 2013/14
Elaine Sams
Quality and Performance Manager

2. About our social accounts
Summary of our 2013/14 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities
Evidence the difference made by this investment
Makes us transparent to customers, the board, regulator and investors.
We made sure we clearly set out the value of our investment and what this returned – the difference it made.

3. CSR at City West
Investments we don’t have to make but we do because it’s socially responsible
Not usually housing functions – e.g. repairs, ASB, rent collection
It is usually non housing functions
Prince’s Trust Army Day
Litter Legacy Day
After non housing functions refer to examples.
We asked managers at the beginning of the year what they would like to include. We started with 9 but as the year progressed more and more activities were delivered for us to include.
Love Fruit & Veg Volunteers

4. Social accounts content – Get Involved Find Time (GIFT)
16 activities
7 themes
young persons
neighbourhood
healthy eating
financial inclusion
employability
Get Involved Find Time (GIFT)
green
We did no start with themes, we started with activities which over time naturally fell into 7 themes. We set a social account up for the 16 activities within these themes. We did read other accounts, we wanted to focus more on individual activities and how they contributed to corporate objectives rather than have our CSR activities reported under the corporate objectives themes, which we often saw in other accounts.
Lead staff delivered the activities, and business support staff worked with them to ensure there was appropriate evaluation and reporting. We did not use any external resources (eg consultants). Built CSR into project management. If a new project had CSR we flagged it on Covalent – performance management app and then the business support staff contacted the officer delivering the CSR activity to set up the social account.
We wrote our own accounts. Took 1.5 officers 6 weeks, including data collection and analysis and would be much quicker this year.

5. Measuring the impact Standard format for each social account
Why we invested
What we invested
– inputs
What this delivered
– outputs
The difference this made
– outcomes
Evaluation methods:
Case studies
Participant surveys
Quotes
Photos
HACT Wellbeing Calculator
Energy efficiency calculators
Customer representatives visited estates to interview customers
Each officer delivering the activity was asked to focus on these four questions. The collection form for the answers for each activity was only 2 pages long. Where the activity was delivered by an external organisation we included evaluation as a condition of investment.
In one area, we were introducing interventions to involve our customers more e.g. community hub, local services – many of whom did not engage with us due to long standing organised crime on the estate. In this example we got our customer reps to go and meet with the customers who took part, since they were more likely to talk to other customers rather than staff through formal processes – The Valley.
We did consider impact – what would have happened anyway. For example we excluded the difference made to customers who would have got a friend or relative to carry out DIY if the Handy Van service had not been available. HACT wellbeing calculator includes a ‘deadweight’ adjustment to reflect this.
We recognised and named checked partner contributions.

6. Example – Change your Choices
This week long hard-hitting course works with 10 to 16 year olds to highlight the consequences of ASB and hate crime on perpetrators and
their victims. It also helps participants gain confidence to make the right decisions, deal with peer pressure and look at their future in a positive way.
We identified participants by asking for referrals from schools, the Police, Social Services, youth offending teams and our neighbourhood officers.
Participants did not need to be living in one of our homes to qualify for the course and we did not have any ASB cases involving the participants.
We delivered workshops to one cohort of nine young people from Little Hulton. These included a prison visit to discuss life behind bars with
inmates, a trip to a homeless hostel to understand the realities of being homeless, a day at Agecroft Fire Station to understand the dangers of hoax
calls and a session with a City West customer who described their own experience of ASB.
Sylvia Lancaster, the mother of Sophie Lancaster who was murdered as a result of hate crime, also took time to talk to the young people. This
session focused on stamping out prejudice, hatred and intolerance. Sylvia is pictured (below) with participants and the session is included in our film of
Change your Choices.
The participants gained most knowledge and understanding of prejudice and found the session with Sylvia Lancaster most interesting. All
participants aspired to having a “good” job with most identifying specific careers.
Conclusion: Cost £5,417, which is £601 per person.
Agency involvement fell by £7,826 = saving
Other outcomes are:
Better behaviour
Better role models
Higher aspirations

7. Audit Panel Our social accounts were audited on 6th August 2014
Now certified and on our website
For information - Panel was
Liz Allen, Social Auditor / Chair, Social Audit Network
Jenny Chapman, Head of Performance, Alternative Futures Group
Rebecca Bryant, Head of Crime and Disorder, Manchester City Council
James Williams, Community Investment Manager, Symphony Housing Group
Michelle Allott, Group Director of Finance, Together Housing Group
Simon Robinson (observer), Assistant Director, Great Places Housing Group
Positive feedback from the Social Auditor who introduced the social accounts as ‘excellent’ and compared them to a standard usually found for the second rather than first year of accounting, following experience. Also innovative because had individual social accounts and have a balance sheet at the end of each account.

8. Contact us on bigpledge@citywest.org.uk
Thank you - Questions
Contact us on