Riverside and One Housing consulting on partnership proposals

It is only worth coming together if we can deliver real benefits for you, our customers. Put simply, we need to show that we can do more together than we can apart. We have put together a series of pledges or promises, which set out what we think we can achieve over the coming years. These are backed by a realistic financial plan.

Initially there will be limited impact to customer facing services resulting from this proposal and no change to rents, service charges or tenancy terms. As the partnership develops we will deliver better customer services, accelerated investment in our housing stock and improved tenancy sustainment services.

One aim for the new partnership will be to permanently give customers a stronger voice and more chances to engage with us – there will be a place for customers on our Group Board and our customer facing Committees, and a strengthened forum for customer engagement at Group level. Transparency and accountability are central to the partnership’s shared values.

We've agreed a consultation process and material with our Joint Customer Advisory Panel, who has independent support from TPAS.

• We will work with engaged customers to review local services and jointly develop a “Customer Offer” in the first year of the partnership – a set of common agreed standards shared between Riverside and One Housing which we will report against.
• From day one, we will give you more choice about where you live around the country, through access to internal transfers and mutual exchanges.
• We will not increase your rent as a direct result of creating the partnership and any future rent increases will be in line with Government guidelines.
• There will be no impact on your rights as a tenant or leaseholder.

• From the outset, we will provide improved opportunities for you to scrutinise and influence our services. We will agree the approach with engaged customers across both organisations, creating a strong ‘Customer Voice’ for the combined Group, as well as continuing to support existing local arrangements.
• We will ensure customers are able to influence decisions where it matters – both locally and nationally. Customers will have places on our Boards and customer facing committees, reflecting the current position.

• We will invest over £900m to repair and improve your homes over the next five years. As part of this we have set aside over £200m in our financial plan to meet the cost of fire safety improvements for One Housing’s high buildings. We will continue to seek Government funding to help offset these costs, lobbying to minimise any potential hardship for leaseholders.
• We have also earmarked £250m to improve the energy efficiency of your homes, as part of our journey towards helping the UK achieve its national net zero carbon goals by 2050, more than doubling the investment in our separate plans. This means we will be able to start tackling this issue more quickly, supporting you to reduce the use of fuel in your home.
• We will build around 1,300 new homes each year designed to meet the diverse needs of our communities; overall, the majority will be affordable homes for local people. This represents a 40% increase in the number we could deliver alone, helping to tackle the national housing crisis.
• Where we have made specific commitments to customers as part of ongoing regeneration schemes, we will make sure these are delivered.

• We will improve our existing services, working together to ensure they meet the needs of our local partners and, where possible, can be sustained into the future.
• We will work with partners such as local authorities to develop new services, so that we can reach more people in need of our support, with a particular emphasis on older people, those who are homeless, and people facing mental health challenges.

• We will invest an additional £2.5m each year to help build communities, by supporting initiatives which help people into work, manage their money as well as funding other local projects.
• This investment will be prioritised by a Charitable Foundation with customers on its board.

• We will be transparent in the delivery of these pledges by providing an annual progress update to customers, sharing it more widely in our Annual Report to Customers.

We have made it clear to our teams that their main focus must remain on improving homes, services and communities in line with existing plans. A small team is working on the partnership, but for the majority of colleagues it is very much ‘business as usual’.

We are deliberately planning the partnership in two stages, with One Housing joining Riverside as a subsidiary at first, where very little will change in our approach to delivering services. This will give us time to plan and engage with customers on the next step, which is full integration where we will look at the way we deliver locally and how we organise our support services, getting the full benefits of our scale and resources.

We will make sure this does not happen. At first there will be no changes to local service delivery – other than improvements we had already planned – and we will focus on giving customers a greater opportunity to influence. In time we will look at the way we deliver services, especially in those areas where both organisations own homes. Customers will be involved in deciding how local services are run in the long-term.

In fact the opposite is true. We have put together a long term financial plan for the combined Group which shows how strong we would be. This includes the money needed to deliver the pledges set out in this booklet. We have also tested our plan to look at the impact of things that could throw us off course – such as increasing costs, or a major economic crash. This shows just how robust our plans are.

The whole point of the partnership is to create an organisation that will work nationally, with a balance of homes and services across the country and offices in both London and Liverpool. The Board’s job will be to ensure that our plans and investment benefit all of our communities, with more effective customer involvement providing greater accountability for the decisions we make.

The Panel will be chaired by two independent representatives from our customer groups:

• Vic Andrews - The Riverside Group Vic has been a Riverside Group customer for eight years and an involved customer since 2015. He is currently the Chair of the Riverside Customer Voice Executive (RCVE) and has a background in the Public Road Transport Industry with more than 40 years’ experience representing others.
• Matthew Waterfall - One Housing Matthew is resident from Forest Gate, Newham in East London. He has been a One Housing resident for the past four years and chairs his local tenants and residents association. Matthew works as a trade union official within the education sector.

The representatives are listed below:

Riverside: Vic Andrews (co-chair), OIwyn Lintott, Margi Kelly, Rich Nichols, Paula Simpson, Bryan Chiyama

One Housing: Matthew Waterfall (co-chair), Julian Watkins, Paul Sammut, Glen Garrett, Maryla Abraham, Andrew Rosewarne

All are customers and represent a variety of tenure types. Further details are on our websites.

The Panel are contactable via together@riverside.org,uk or together@onehousing.co.uk

All queries raised by customers via these inboxes are shared with the panel representatives.

If you wish to speak to/correspond with an individual member of the panel directly in another form, you can contact the Independent Tenant Advisor at TPAS on their freephone number: 0800 731 1619 or you can email them on: tpasadvisor@tpas.org.uk.

The opportunity to become part of the Panel was offered to Riverside Customer Voice members via the Riverside Customer Voice Executive soon after the partnership proposal was announced as well as the One Housing Group Engaged customers. The Panel members are accountable to the respective customer and resident voice groups and, by extension, to customers.