b"CHP financial statements 2020/2021At our heart we are a people stock to ensure we continue to provide good qualityOur partnership with Legal and General Affordable Homes business, transforming lives homes. Despite the restrictions of COVID-19, we spent(LGAH) progressed well this year, resulting in us taking more money on improvements than the previous year. on the management of our 100th home from them. The We also refreshed our Asset Management Strategy andcollaboration we have with LGAH is echoed in our close introduced an Environmental Sustainability Strategy. Theseworking with other development partners, most notably drive a better understanding of asset condition and help usChelmsford City Council, as we continue to collaborate ensure all our homes will meet an EPC rating of C or aboveon making a lasting impact on our communities. This has by 2030. resulted in access to free land from the Council enabling us During the unavoidable slowdown in construction causedto provide more homes for social rent.by the pandemic, many of our development sites wereAs we continued to invest in our ACE programme, whilst closed, meaning we delivered 181 new homes against ourmaintaining our growth aspirations, our S&P Global rating 365 target. However, we are set to make up the shortfallwas revised down to an 'A-' during the year. Despite this, in the coming year and achieve our target over the threewe were delighted to have successfully tapped our bond years of the Corporate Strategy, adding to our existingfor a further 50m in March 2021. This ensures that our 10,762 homes. business plan remains fully funded and enables us to meet Instead of reducing the numbers of new homes we build,our ambitious development and delivery goals.the Board has agreed to set up a carbon Net Zero fundOur financial results for the year were strong, with our to set aside the means to meet these new, importantturnover increasing by 2.3% and our operating surplus obligations. The aim is to allocate 4m per annum fromrising to 21.4m from last years 16.1m. During the year three sources: commercial lettings of our office spaces; thewe took the opportunity to also simplify our treasury sale of the unsold equity in our shared ownership homesportfolio to ensure it remains fit for our future, and after to trusted partners; and the retention of some of thethe accounting treatment of these our overall surplus for Chair and Chief Executive review proceeds from our market sales in Myriad Homes. the year rose to 13.5m from last years deficit of 8.1m.With customers at the heart of our business, we areWe also delivered well on value for money, despite delighted to have achieved an increase in customerthe pandemic, achieving savings of 505,000 - an This was an unprecedented year and, in common withWe supported them with advice on how to access benefitssatisfaction. Our Net Promoter Score (NPS) for the yearincrease on last year. We introduced a new Value many other organisations, we faced the unexpectedand by agreeing alternative payment plans. We helpedwas +53 (up from +51 in the previous year) which is anfor Money Strategy and established a new set challenge of supporting customers and employees during more than 150 customers claim an extra 695,000 inexcellent result. Customer satisfaction with services isof bespoke measures with targets for 2021/2022, in a global pandemic.benefits, as well as signposting a range of other supportalso high with a result of 4.7 out of 5 (against our target ofaddition to the regulatory metrics. such as emergency food supplies. 4.5). With the publication of the Housing OmbudsmansIn the period between the end of the year and the The impact of this has been significant and widespread,complaint handling code, we were pleased to see that not least because it added further pressure to affordableWe took equal care with employees and did not makeour approach met these standards. This puts us in a greatpublishing of this report, we had an in-depth assessment housing demand. Whilst our work has always beenanyone redundant due to the pandemic. Rather,position to understand and respond to our customersfrom the Regulator for Social Housing. We are delighted important, the pandemic reminded us how central a homewe provided an annual general pay increase, extended ourneeds. From next year, we also intend that members of ourto have retained our G1 rating, with a clean bill of health. is to peoples safety and wellbeing and how little it takesrange of wellbeing support and innovated our employeeCustomer Review Panel will provide additional support andWe are also content with our V2 rating which reflects our for many of our customers to move from being financiallycommunications. We ensured everyone was kept well- advocacy to customers within our complaints process.ambitious targets to help develop new homes and meet stable to struggling. It reinforced how critical our role ininformed and provided a variety of frequent opportunitieshousing need across Essex.building and supporting communities will continue to beto maintain and build connections with colleagues andThat has been helped further with the introduction of ourAs we look forward, we want to thank everyone who has into the future. the Leadership Team. We also introduced an employeenew Customer Engagement Strategy this year. We have sethelped us keep our customers safe and to help find people reward and recognition programme so that successes areup a range of groups and forums that enable our customersa place to call home. The coming year will undoubtedly We are pleased to say that we met these challenges wellcelebrated and shared. All at a time when isolation wasto engage with us directly on terms and at times to suit whilst prioritising keeping each other and our customerscommon and physical interaction was not possible. them. We started recruitment for a new scrutiny group, ourbring more challenges, but we are confident we have the safe. We took the decision very early on not to takecustomer Review Panel, and look forward to their input.pieces in place to rise to them together and continue to advantage of the government furlough scheme but to keepWe grew our customer and stakeholder communications,We also produced a new Community Investment Strategy,meet our social purpose.all our employees on full pay throughout. updated frequently during the year, to make sure they tooto set out how we will build on our established services Everyone who was already set up to work from home wereknew how our services were affected and how we couldproviding support and training to the people who live in doing so within 48 hours. And we quickly put additionalhelp them. This generated positive feedback and helped toour homes and their neighbours.technology in place so that within two weeks all employeesdeepen key relationships and partnerships. We made great progress in the year on the implementation could work remotely. When the restrictions meant theyOur governance continued to be strong as the Boardof our ACE programmeAchieving Customer Excellence. could not perform their usual roles, we redeployedpivoted to meeting weekly during the early stages of theThe programme is focussed on delivering a better customer employees to other areas of the business including anpandemic and via video conferencing throughout the year.experience and clearer career progression for employees, initiative that made over 3,500 telephone calls to ourThis meant that we continued to deliver vital services whilst reducing overall operational costs. It includes more vulnerable customers. This provided practical help toand to make great progress in the second year of our service delivery, structural and cultural change. At the end make sure our customers had access to the basics such asCorporate Strategy.of the year we are halfway through introducing our new food, electricity, and medicines. In the early months of theAs well as achieving against the existing five objectivesTarget Operating Model with new supporting technology, pandemic, the team were overrun with requests for help.we evolved the strategy to add a sixth - to provide wellimproved data and a cultural shift. This transformation One consequence of the pandemic was that more of ourmaintained, safe and sustainable homes. This was to givehas already started to give us a stronger presence in local customers found themselves at risk of falling into arrears.a clearer focus on the importance of investing in existingcommunities, enable more customers to self-serve, and allow us to resolve to queries quicker. This puts us in a good position for the year to come.6 7"