Places for People and Visualmetrics have collaborated to create Neighbourhub, a five-stage process intended to improve housing management performance, increase profitability and strengthen neighbourhood sustainability.
By defining, analysing, and measuring neighbourhood performance using interactive dashboards, the goals of Neighbourhub are to reduce property turnover, arrears, void losses and repair costs at the same time as improving tenant satisfaction and boosting profitability.
Neighbourhub’s five-stage process in summary:
- Define: break your stock into defined neighbourhoods; these are then aligned with your existing structures and data management systems.
- In-year dashboard monitoring and review: neighbourhood performance is monitored against financial and management data such as turnover, arrears, void losses and repair costs.
- Annual assessment: this is a three-year comparison that quickly identifies trends or anomalies. Neighbourhoods are assessed against KPIs, including surplus per property, turnover, repair cost per property and future investment needs.
- Neighbourhood planning: this is used to identify and address the key issues facing ‘Amber’ neighbourhoods, so they are sustainable and viable in the long-term.
- Option appraisal: with a basis in facts and performance data, option appraisals often challenge conventional thinking and assumptions. It considers the options for ‘Red’ neighbourhoods, such as rationalisation, disposal or investment and provides a comparable financial analysis of each option.
Professor Ian Cole and Dr Stephen Green from Sheffield Hallam University said, “The Neighbourhood Planning approach links analysis, prognosis and intervention in an innovative manner and is a sector-leading initiative.”
