REG - Beyond Housing Ltd - Annual Financial Report

Alpha Services and Holdings SAAnnouncement

27/09/2023 13:15

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RNS Number : 8579N  Beyond Housing Ltd  27 September 2023

Co-operative and Community Benefit Society registration number: RS007814
Regulator of Social Housing registration number: LH4401

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beyond Housing Limited

Report and financial statements for the year ended

31 March 2023

 

 Contents                                                                 Page
 Officers and professional advisers                                       1

 Strategic report                                                         2

 Statement of the board's responsibilities for the report and financial   32
 statements

 Independent auditor's report                                             34

 Group statement of comprehensive income                                  42

 Association statement of comprehensive income                            43

 Group statement of financial position                                    44

 Association statement of financial position                              45

 Group statement of cash flows                                            46

 Group statement of changes in reserves                                   47

 Association statement of changes in reserves                             48

 Notes to the financial statements                                        49

 

 Board members
 J D Hayward (Chair)
 P A Baren (Senior Independent Director)  Retired - 23 September 2022
 K Abson
 R Du Rose (Chief Executive)
 H J Flack                                Appointed 19 May 2022
 S D Hardwick                             Retired - 23 September 2022
 S E Nattress                             Appointed 19 May 2022
 C Owston                                 Appointed 23 September 2022
 G Taylor (Senior Independent Director)
 J P Williams
 S D Williams
 F Yeomans
 Executive leadership team
 R Du Rose (Chief Executive)
 K Hanlon (Chief Finance Officer)
 S Rawson (Chief Operating Officer)

 

 

Company Secretary

L Peacock

 

 

Registered office

Brook House

4 Gladstone Road Scarborough North Yorkshire YO12 7BH

 

 

 

 

 Auditor                                             Principal Solicitors         Principal Bankers
 BDO LLP                                             Devonshire's Solicitors LLP  Natwest Bank Plc 1 Trinity Gardens

 Chartered Accountants 3 Hardman Street Manchester   30 Finsbury Circus London    2(nd) Floor, Broadchare Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 2HF

 M3 3AT                                              EC2M 7DT

 

The board presents its annual report and audited consolidated financial
statements for Beyond Housing for the year ended 31 March 2023.

 

The consolidated financial statements include the results of Beyond Housing
Ltd, for the year ended

31 March 2023. They also include the results of its subsidiary companies
Beyond Housing Developments Limited and Viola Homes Limited.

 

Principal activity

 

The group's principal activity is the provision and management of housing and
associated services to

people in housing need.

 

Group structure

 

On 31 March 2023 Beyond Housing (the 'group') comprised the following
entities:

 

·    Beyond Housing Limited (BHL).

·    Beyond Housing Developments Limited (BHDL).

·    Viola Homes Limited (VHL) (formerly Beyond Housing Sales Limited
(BHSL), name change 20 March 2023).

 

Beyond Housing, the parent is a:

 

·    Community Benefit Society (CBS) registered under the Co-operative and
Community Benefit Societies Act (2014), is regulated by the Financial Conduct
Authority (FCA).

·    Registered and regulated by the Regulator for Social Housing (RSH).

BHDL and VHL are both limited companies and are wholly owned subsidiaries of
Beyond Housing. Within this report and the financial statements, the
consolidated financial position is referred to as

'group' and the parent entity financial position is referred to as
'association'.

 

An introduction from the Chair of the Board

 

I am pleased to introduce the 2022/23 annual report and accounts, which
highlight another challenging year with many successes for Beyond Housing
against the economic backdrop, inflationary pressures, cost of living
challenges and regulatory requirements. The year also focused on better
understanding the quality of our homes, particularly homes that are
susceptible to mould and damp.

Overall business performance for the year end 31 March 2023 resulted in an
increased group turnover to £91.4m (£76.5m 2022) and a higher surplus before
tax of £7.8m (£2.5m 2022). We strengthened our balance sheet with overall
reserves increasing to £157.7m (£118.4m 2022). The operating surplus
declined to £14.9m (£17.2m 2022), due to nutrient neutrality regulation and
planning delays impacting the development of new homes and revenues.
Inflationary pressures significantly increased overall costs across the
business, and we had a number of one-off costs; including the £2.7m
impairment cost to demolish Beyond Housing's only high-rise block (Spencerbeck
House) and a rent refunds provision of circa £700k.

Beyond Housing maintained the regulatory V1 financial viability grading and
its annual credit rating

assessment from Moody's as A2 but with a move to the status of unstable.

Supporting customers has and always will remain the key priority, especially
given the cost-of-living crisis. Once again, we supported customers with
Universal Credit and other benefit claims helping them to protect their income
and pay their rent. Beyond Housing collected 99.6% of rents and helped
customers claim £1.9m of additional benefits. Employment and training was a
key focus, and we were extremely proud to support new apprentices.

Despite the challenging building environment, we completed 210 homes and made
a start on 48 homes working towards our overall goal to meet circa 2,750 homes
by 2030/31. Of the 210 homes, 141 were affordable rent, 17 shared-ownership, 2
rent to buy, and 50 were for outright sale. A Homes England grant of £7.2m
was received during the year.

We made significant progress with the £16m project to regenerate Church Lane
(Redcar) which will complete in the 2023/24. We continued to support
homelessness initiatives in both regions, providing 12 homes in Redcar and 8
homes in Scarborough for rough sleepers.

We invested £19.9m in 58,000 planned and routine repairs, and a further
£6.9m in major repairs. Our capital works programme delivered 268 window
replacements, 273 new doors, 26 replacement heating systems, 464 energy
components, and 766 new/replaced 'A' rated boiler installations. In addition,
we worked with Tees Valley Combined Authority and other providers to achieve a
successful

£3.2m bid for second wave decarbonisation funding.

Our Reach & Respond service continues to support 9,059 (c8,972 at 2022)
customers to live independently in their own homes using assistive technology
and a responder service. The service is accredited under the Telecare Services
Quality Standards Framework.

Following on from remote working during the pandemic, colleagues moved to
agile working during 2022/23 and now spend a combination of their time in the
office, at customer locations, or at home. The overall colleague engagement
survey analysis at the end of 2022/23 indicated that 74% of colleagues think
Beyond Housing is a good place to work.

 

We were pleased to receive The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents
(RoSPA) President's Award, which recognises that we have achieved their gold
standard for 10 consecutive years. In addition, we achieved accreditation from
the Institute of Customer Service for our customer service training.

We continually reviewed our key risks during 2022/23, given the economic and
cost of living pressures it was prudent to do so. The impact was both
immediate and longer term, and our business plans were constantly reviewed,
and stress tested to mitigate and control the increased risks.

We were disappointed to find a significant error in the way rents had been
previously set within our legacy organisations - dating back to 2010. We
self-referred this matter to the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) and
received a regulatory judgement that resulted in a down grade to our
governance grading to G2. We continue to work closely with the regulator to
prove that our current controls and processes are robust, and we have already
refunded most of the customers who were overcharged.

Plans for 2023/24 include further investment in our existing stock,
development of new homes and the completion of the Church Lane North
regeneration project in Redcar delivering 33 new homes. In Scarborough we also
expect completion of our 113 outright sale units at our Mill Meadows
development. In addition, our other priority is to improve overall customer
satisfaction using the new Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM's) as our key
indicators. We will further invest in and enhance our voids and repairs offer
for customers. ICT and technology change will continue to develop a better
'self-serve' offer that is beneficial to customers and more effective for the
business.

 

 

 

 

 

James D Hayward RD Chair

 

Overview of Beyond Housing and our 2020-2025 strategy

 

Beyond Housing is a registered Community Benefits Society (CBS), with a group
turnover of £91.4m. We own and manage 15,184 homes across nine local
authorities in the north-east/yorkshire, housing over 30,000 customers. The
current regulatory grading is G2/V1 from the Regulator Social Housing. We
employ over 700 colleagues and offer homes for rent and sale, including shared
ownership.

 

We also undertake a wide range of activities to improve the lives of our
customers, including our independent living services 'Reach and Respond' which
supports older and vulnerable people to live independently in their homes for
longer.

 

As a business we aim to deliver our purpose and mission. We launched a new
five-year strategy in April 2020 with clear objectives and ambitions for our
services, homes, place and people.

 

We are investing in good quality homes and services for people in housing need
and for the communities we work with. This year we have achieved a higher net
surplus before tax of £7.8m (£2.5m 2021/22), as 2021/22 included one off
refinancing costs of c£7.1m. We invested £42.7m in new homes and £39.2m
revenue spent in our existing properties (routine/planned maintenance and
major repairs).

 

Our five-year strategy

 

Our strategy is based on four strategic objectives:

 

·    Provide quality services to our customers - increase customer
satisfaction, grow our ILS business and have 55% of our customers registered
using our 'Me and My Home' digital services.

·    Build new homes and keep our existing home in good condition - build
circa 2,000 new homes (2020-25) revised to c2,750 by 2030/31, increase
customer satisfaction with the quality of our homes and repairs satisfaction
and improve the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) ratings for all our
properties to EPC C or better by 2030.

·    Invest in our communities/neighborhoods to create a great place to
live and work - offer the best information and advice to customers, be a
leading training provider and create neighborhoods our customers are proud of.

·    A great place to work for our people - achieve Investors in People
(IIP) accreditation, deliver an agile working environment, increase colleague
satisfaction and improve their health and wellbeing.

 

We intend to target year on year improvements in our business and services.
These include investing more in our homes, neighborhoods and communities
through high quality repairs and planned capital programs. We intend all
properties to be energy efficient by 2030 at EPC C or better. In 2022/23 our
operating margin declined due to higher inflation across all costs, rising
interest rates and these also impacted our higher Social Housing Costs Per
Unit (SHCPU). Our financial performance and VfM metrics are explained in more
detail later in this report. Our development program for new homes was
hindered by planning (nutrient neutrality, planning delays) and wider economic
constraints and units have been reprofiled into future years. Sales of new
homes on our Mill Meadows, Filey development performed strongly and the
regeneration of Church Lane, North Estate in Eston continued apace. We will
continue to invest in our digital infrastructure e.g., 'Me and My Home',
telephony and new Customer Resource Management (CRM) system.

 

In November 2022 we issued £40m of our retained bond through a forward
purchase agreement. This means the pricing (gilt rate) was fixed with the bond
recipient in November 2022, but the transaction completes November 2023 when
the security and legal documents complete and the cash value is received. Our
£250m bond was issued in May 2021, being £165m drawn on issuance and we now
have

£45m remaining as retained. Our credit rating from Moody's in 2022 was A2
(unstable) a change from A2 (stable) due to the wider housing sector per
downgrade to unstable as a result of more challenging economic environment.

 

Our operating margin will improve by 2030 in line with our business plan to
drive greater efficiency and cost saving to allow more investment in homes and
to address zero carbon challenges. We will continue to deliver our 2,000 new
homes under our current strategy (2020-25 revised to 2,750 by 2030/31)
providing affordable homes across our area of operation. We will also look at
those areas that may require future regeneration, higher zero carbon
investment and continue to build more homes.

 

 

 

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