Appointment Brief Board Member - May 2022 Reference: NADAUC - Saxton Bampfylde
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Appointment Brief Board Member May 2022 Reference: NADAUC
Clarion Housing Group, Appointment of Board Member |2
A welcome from Clarion
Group Chair, David Avery
Thank you for being interested in Clarion; we are the UK’s largest housing association, a major
developer, and a forward-looking business for social purpose.
We believe having a home to call your own is fundamental
“We’re all driven by a shared to being able to access the right opportunities in life. That
purpose at Clarion; we want to is why our purpose is to make a difference and our mission
ensure that everyone has the is to provide good quality, affordable homes and
neighbourhoods for those who need them. We’re all driven
opportunity to build a better by a shared purpose at Clarion; we want to ensure that
future.” everyone has the opportunity to build a better future.
With 125,000 properties nationwide, more than 350,000
people count on us to provide a high-quality service. We are proud to have been given the highest
possible regulatory ratings at the start of this year by the Regulator for Social Housing, and we are
exceeding our targets on customer satisfaction levels, whilst continuing to invest focus and resource
into this critical area.
Clarion has a key role to play in working with government and a wide range of partners to address the
ongoing housing crisis. This year, we completed 2,276 new homes, of which 86% were for affordable
tenures. This represents an increase of 7% over the last 12 months and shows how quickly we are
scaling up as a developer, whilst remaining focused on building homes that meet the needs of people
on low and middle incomes.
My colleagues and I feel incredibly proud of the work we do beyond bricks and mortar, in particular
through Clarion Futures, our charitable foundation, which continues to make interventions that
transform lives, supporting 3,717 people into work during 2021/22, helping thousands to access
advice on how to manage their finances and delivering youth engagement projects all over the
country.
So, we are in good shape and ready to grow, do better and do more, even with the backdrop of Brexit,
political uncertainty and Covid-19. We have an exciting roadmap to 2040 taking shape, and it has
never been more important for us to have a high-calibre, values-driven board in place to provide
effective oversight of our work and help drive us forward.
For this Non-Executive Director role, we are keen to speak to
“It is important that we are
people who will add value to our board and enjoy and enhance reflective of the communities
our values-driven culture. We would welcome expressions of we serve, and we recognise
interest from people with a range of experience and perspectives
to bring. In light of the current regulatory shifts towards more
that a diverse group will be
consumer focus, we are now particularly looking for candidates better equipped to think
who can bring understanding of consumer regulation, or differently, and spot
experience in a customer-facing role in a regulated setting.
opportunities and challenges
We hope you will enjoy learning more about Clarion in the
on the horizon.”
document that follows and that you will consider joining us.
CLARION HOUSING GROUP | BOARD MEMBER
Clarion Housing Group, Appointment of Board Member |3
Celebrating differences;
our commitment to diversity
We are an inclusive organisation that recognises and celebrates the importance and value of
diversity.
All our managers are given training in unconscious bias as part of our commitment to
ensuring equality of opportunity for all.
We have several staff networks that represent different groups, from disabled people to
Black, Asian and ethnic minority communities, and LGBT+, and we have rolled out
unconscious bias training to all our staff. This will complement the training all staff already
receive on diversity and inclusion.
Women make up 50.2% of our workforce; and 21.4% of our staff are from Black, Asian and
Minority Ethnic backgrounds.
Diversity and inclusion is part of our DNA. It extends beyond our staff and the residents we
look after. When we choose companies to work with, their commitment to equality and
diversity is one of our key criteria in the selection process.
When it comes to gender equality, we are leading from the top – with our Group Executive
Team equally split between men and women.
Our staff are all paid at least the Living Wage and our median gender pay gap is 5.22%. This
is far lower than the UK average of 15.5% and people doing the same work are rewarded
and compensated equally irrespective of their gender.
Our diversity makes us who we are – and more creative, more innovative and more able to
deliver effectively for our residents as a result.
CLARION HOUSING GROUP | BOARD MEMBER
Clarion Housing Group, Appointment of Board Member |4
Who we are, what we do and where
we operate
Clarion Housing is the largest housing association in the country, owning and
managing 125,000 homes across 170 local authorities.
Clarion Housing Group is the largest social
landlord in the country, with a heritage dating
back over 100 years.
As the largest housing association in the
country, we provide good quality and
affordable homes for people priced out of the
property market.
Over 350,000 people call a Clarion home,
their home. As part of Clarion Housing Group,
we work alongside Clarion Futures, our charitable foundation, which aims to invest £150m to
deliver support services to thousands of people within our communities.
Placing a premium on sustainability is part of being a responsible business. In November 2019,
we became the first housing association in the UK to adopt the Certified Sustainable Housing
Label - with social and environmental criteria linked to the UN’s global goals for sustainable
development. We are a founding member of the ESG Social Housing Working Group and we
have released our first Sustainable Development Roadmap – outlining our route to all new homes
being net zero carbon compatible by 2025.
Our Mission
“Clarion Housing Group provides good quality,
affordable homes and neighbourhoods to people
failed by the market.”
For more information, visit our website: clarionhg.com
CLARION HOUSING GROUP | BOARD MEMBER
Clarion Housing Group, Appointment of Board Member |5
A social landlord
First and foremost, at its heart, Clarion Housing Group is a social landlord – we mix public and private
money to provide affordable homes, overwhelmingly for people who can’t meet their housing needs
on the open market.
We are a good landlord and providing great, compassionate customer service matters to us. We also
manage and maintain our homes to a high standard and invest in improving and renewing them.
Building homes
There are more than 119,000 properties in our portfolio and our network of homes is growing all the
time. We currently build more than 2,000 homes a year, the majority of which are affordable housing,
and have more than 20,000 new properties in the pipeline.
We are constantly looking to enhance our housing stock and invested £95 million on improvements to
our existing homes in 2020/21. In addition, we are tripling our annual investment in home energy
efficiency from £2m to £6m over the next five years.
In addition to affordable homes, we will build some homes for outright sale. These will be delivered
and marketed through our private development company, Latimer, with all proceeds invested back
into the Group’s social purpose activities.
Developing futures
We also invest in our communities and are delivering one of the country's largest social investment
programmes through our charitable foundation, Clarion Futures, which will invest £150 million over 10
years to improve the lives of our residents and the communities where they live. Clarion Futures does
a range of work including supporting residents into work and training and helping them manage their
finances. Our work enables others to get online and improve their neighbourhoods and helps young
people to get a better start in life.
Clarion Futures will:
• Support 4,000 people into work and training.
• Provide 250 high-quality apprenticeships a year.
• Give 3,000 residents free debt advice.
• Assist 15,000 young people a year to make a better start in life.
We'll work in partnership with residents and the wider community on ‘Transforming lives and
communities’.
In addition, one of our key objectives, and crucial to achieving and delivering on our ambitions, is
maintaining our strong financial position.
We want to be an employer of choice too and believe that the key to our success is our people.
CLARION HOUSING GROUP | BOARD MEMBER
Clarion Housing Group, Appointment of Board Member |6 Our homes are spread nationally across over 170 local authorities, but the majority of our homes are in London, the South East and East of England. CLARION HOUSING GROUP | BOARD MEMBER
Clarion Housing Group, Appointment of Board Member |7
Our Financial Strength
Clarion Housing Group’s scale and financial strength delivers a number of benefits:
• Resilience to risk - we are able to manage adverse trading conditions and absorb
market shocks.
• Efficiency - we can realise economies of scale, building on our successful track
record.
• Influence - our scale affords us the ability to influence government policy for the
benefit of our customers, our business and the sector as a whole.
Our business plan has strong growth ambitions, which will be managed through a prudent
framework for planning and decision making, provided through a set of agreed “Financial
Golden Rules”. These are designed to recognise business risks and govern our operating
margins, net debt/turnover, sales as a percentage of turnover and social housing interest
cover.
The business plan is also regularly stress-tested, both on single variant scenarios as well as
more intense ‘multi-variant’ scenarios.
Clarion Housing Group seeks to maintain diversification in its funding sources with the
majority of new funding coming from the capital markets as well as bilateral loans from banks
and building societies. The Group is committed to maintaining a strong investment grade
rating. It is currently rated by Moody’s as A3 with a stable outlook and by Standard & Poor’s
as A-.
Maintaining a strong financial position
enables us to continue building the vital
homes the country needs and investing in
better futures for our residents and their
communities.
CLARION HOUSING GROUP | BOARD MEMBER
Clarion Housing Group, Appointment of Board Member |8 The Clarion Group Structure The Group Board is responsible for the effective governance of the Group and has ten Non Executive Board Members (there is currently one vacant post) and two Executive Directors. The group bring a broad range of skills, experience and knowledge to their roles, including expertise in finance, business and public administration. The Group has a single housing association, Clarion Housing, that owns all of the Group’s social housing assets and delivers all services to residents. The Board considers that simple structures provide better and more effective decision making. It has three key business streams: the landlord, Clarion Housing; the development company, Latimer Developments Limited; and the charitable foundation, Clarion Futures. The Board continues to facilitate resident involvement in the decision-making structures of the Group. It allows residents to engage at different levels, from the very local through to regional and national decision- making forums. There are four resident members of the housing association board. The Board values resident input and has actively encouraged resident scrutiny and accountability measures which have added value to the business. All residents have the opportunity to be involved in ways that are accessible and which meet their needs. The key responsibilities of the Group Board are to lead, control and monitor the overall performance of the Group. The Group Board approves the budgets and business plans of its subsidiary companies and retains control through the ability to appoint and remove subsidiary board members. The Group delegates specific responsibilities to Group Committees under approved terms of reference. CLARION HOUSING GROUP | BOARD MEMBER
Clarion Housing Group, Appointment of Board Member |9 CLARION HOUSING GROUP | BOARD MEMBER
Clarion Housing Group, Appointment of Board Member | 10
The role
Group Board Members work together and with the Executive Team to set the Group’s
direction and strategy, scrutinise its implementation, and ensure Clarion maintains the
highest standards of governance in accordance with the regulatory framework set by the
Regulator of Social Housing. Collectively, the Board is responsible for ensuring that the
Executive Team enables the Group to achieve its aims in a way that is compatible with the
business plan, mission statement, values and vision.
All Group Board members are also expected to serve on at least one committee or
subsidiary board –
Key responsibilities:
All Board Members work together and with the Executive to;
• Determine the Group’s vision and values and its long-term strategic direction and
objectives;
• Develop and scrutinise the Group’s business plans including long term financial
projections;
• Contribute to the ongoing review of corporate governance arrangements to ensure
they are fit for purpose;
• Review the effectiveness of the Group’s systems for risk management and internal
control;
• Ensure that effective systems are in place for the management and control of the
organisation’s performance and that of its subsidiaries;
• Develop the framework for investment governance across the Group, and;
• Ensure resident views are heard and that customer needs are a priority for the
business.
CLARION HOUSING GROUP | BOARD MEMBERClarion Housing Group, Appointment of Board Member | 11
Person specification
This appointment
The Social Housing sector in England is regulated by the RSH. The focus of regulation for
many years has been on organisational performance, but this is about to change, with
legislation currently proceeding through parliament which will give the regulator a more
direct role in assessing the performance of landlords’ services.
Clarion, as the largest landlord in the sector, has been preparing for this change, working
alongside our residents to ensure that we are able to meet the expectations of the shift to
consumer-based regulation. We are looking for a new Board Member who has:
• Personal experience of consumer regulation; OR
• Experience in a regulated industry ideally in a customer facing role; OR
• Previous non-executive experience of complying with externally set regulatory
standards.
We are particularly interested in candidates equipped to reflect the diverse communities we
serve. We are currently underrepresented in gender, race and disability, and we welcome
expressions of interest from people with a range of backgrounds and perspectives.
Core competencies - all Board Members
We look for the following qualities in all our board colleagues;
• A natural instinct to work as part of a team, with respect and tolerance for others;
• Enthusiasm and a determination to commit the time necessary to prepare for and
attend board and committee meetings, AGMs, training sessions and away days;
• A high degree of integrity and a commitment to acting in the best interests of the
Group and not in the interests of any individual or constituency;
• An ability to communicate effectively with a wide range of people and audiences;
• An ability to assimilate quickly and interpret varied information from different sources;
• An analytical approach and an inclination to reason logically and objectively; and
• An ability to collaborate and develop effective working relationships with fellow board
members and executives.
CLARION HOUSING GROUP | BOARD MEMBERClarion Housing Group, Appointment of Board Member | 12
Terms of appointment
• All Group Board members are appointed on a 3-year term, which is renewable for a
further term of 3 years. Thereafter, Board Members may be renewed for up to 3
further one-year terms. Board Members may serve for a maximum of 9 years.
• There are 6 Group Board meetings a year, and one strategy away day.
• Most meetings take place at Clarion’s headquarters at 6, More London Place near
London Bridge.
• The total expected time commitment for a Group Board Member also serving on a
committee or subsidiary board is around 2-3 days a month.
• Board members are paid £18,000 per annum.
How to apply
Saxton Bampfylde Ltd is acting as an employment agency advisor to Clarion Housing Group
on this appointment.
Candidates should apply for this role through our website at www.saxbam.com/appointments
using code NADAUC
Click on the ‘apply’ button and follow the instructions to upload a CV and cover letter, and
complete the online equal opportunities monitoring* form.
The closing date for applications is midday Wednesday 1st June.
Preliminary interviews with Saxton Bampfylde will take place during the week of the 13th
June, informal meetings with Clarion will take place during the week of the 27th June, with
final formal panel interviews taking place during the week of 4th July.
* The equal opportunities monitoring online form will not be shared with anyone involved in
assessing your application. Please complete as part of the application process.
CLARION HOUSING GROUP | BOARD MEMBERClarion Housing Group
Level 6
LONDON
6 More London Place 9 Savoy Street
Tooley Street London WC2E 7EG
London
EDINBURGH
SE1 2DA
46 Melville Street
Edinburgh EH3 7HF
saxbam.com
Partners in Panorama - Search around the world
panoramasearch.comYou can also read
