It is an immense pleasure to report another successful year for the Clyde Valley Group and also to have the opportunity to provide a digital overview of the past 12 months. This has been another successful year for us, which has culminated in us moving into our new premises at 50 Scott Street, Motherwell.

This has been a major achievement for the Group and our headquarters, which were opened officially by the Minister for Housing and Communities, Alex Neil, now accommodate all 63 Clyde Valley staff members, bringing three previous sites in Motherwell, Hamilton and Coatbridge into one.

As promised, the new premises will improve customer services by offering tenants more privacy when they meet our staff and by providing better access and facilities for clients with special needs. The new HQ will also reduce the association’s carbon footprint by cutting staff travel between offices. We are delighted to be moving in to our new ‘home’ in this year as Scotland celebrates Homecoming. Our focus, however, remains clearly on providing good quality affordable homes and continuously improving our service to customers throughout Lanarkshire.

We hope the report gives an indication of how we are seeking to improve both on the quality of our housing and the range of other services we provide to customers. As well as providing a financial overview of the Association itself, this report outlines Clyde Valley’s performance in relation to its core business activities, including the provision of affordable rented housing and associated repairs and technical services.

As you read on I hope you agree that we are continuing to deliver on our commitment to tenants and communities throughout Lanarkshire.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of our tenants and owners for their participation and valuable contributions over the year. To our strategic partners at North Lanarkshire & South Lanarkshire Councils’, and to the Scottish Government, not to mention a wide variety of other contractors, agencies and community groups with whom we have worked throughout the year - thank you for your continued support in helping us achieve our aims.

I cannot end this report without special thanks firstly to the Associations Board of Management, for volunteering their time, support and enthusiasm over the year, and secondly to the staff at the Association, whose professionalism and dedication will ensure that the Association continues to deliver the highest quality services possible. Given the current political and financial climate, the next few years will be particularly challenging for the social housing sector as a whole, however, with good committed people working with you, it makes meeting any challenges that more achievable.

In closing I urge you to read on and let us have your views, on what has been a challenging, exciting and busy year for Clyde Valley Housing Association.

Tom Barclay
Chief Executive

The Chief Executive’s Team have the really important job of helping everyone else in the Association to do their jobs. They also make sure everything is organised for all of the staff and that everything is up to date.

It is also up to the Team to make sure that everyone who telephones or visits the office get the help that they need as well as answers to their questions. It was a really busy year for the Team and they welcomed almost 4000 people into our office and took 13,500 telephone calls from customers looking for some help.

Over the year the Team were involved in lots of interesting things.

In August 2008, the Clyde Valley Group hosted its Charity Golf Tournament, “The Clyde Valley Cup”, at Easter Moffat Golf Club in Airdrie.

We are pleased to announce that the winners of the tournament were the Ewing Sommerville Partnership, with Gillian Lavety of Wates Living Space picking up the Nearest to the Pin prize, and Hay and Andersons Iain Wilson winning the Prize for the Longest Drive.

In addition those who attended contributed towards the event, with a great total donation of £2,500 being made to Clyde Valleys chosen charity Habitat for Humanity.

In 1976 Habitat for Humanity was founded with the sole aim of tackling poverty housing on a global scale. Thirty years later they are working in 92 countries around the world and have built 225,000 homes in partnership with people in need of simple, decent housing. Habitat for Humanity's new HopeBuilders campaign is a way of working together to nail poverty housing brick by brick. It's about doing something in your own community that will have a life-changing effect in a community somewhere else around the world. The Clyde Valley Group stepped up to the challenge to become a HopeBuilder by raising just £1235 to build hope by building a family a home.

We are delighted to have been able to raise twice this amount of £2,500, allowing us to contribute to the building of 2 new, much needed, family homes.

We are delighted to advise that the Association achieved the Charter Mark Accreditation during the year.

The Charter Mark scheme is a tool designed to help organisations focus on, and improve, their customer service and delivery to users.  The six criteria, shown below, make up the Charter Mark standard.  By addressing the elements shown against each criterion, Clyde Valley focused on its customers, and committed to the ongoing aim to constantly improve and give value for money. 

By reaching the standard the Clyde Valley Group show that we put our customers first and go the extra mile.

• Criterion 1:  Set standards and perform well.
• Criterion 2:  Actively engage with your customers, partners and staff.
• Criterion 3:  Be fair and accessible to everyone and promote choice.
• Criterion 4:  Continuously develop and improve.
• Criterion 5:  Use your resources effectively and imaginatively.
• Criterion 6:  Contribute to improving opportunities and quality of life in the communities you serve.

Charter Mark has now changed from being an award held for three years, to a service standard that is continuously monitored and is seen more as a business improvement tool.  Charter Mark is the quality tool of choice for customer service improvement.
 
The Charter Mark is awarded only after a rigorous assessment by accredited assessors.  The initial process involved a written submission document which reflected the quality of service the Group provides.  The assessor then determined the issues that needed to be individually explored during a visit to our offices.
 
The second stage required the assessor to visit Clyde Valley to witness and assess the services being delivered; to check any areas that were unclear in the written submission; and to collect any further evidence.
 
A panel of independent judges considered the recommendations made by the assessor and a final decision was made.
 
We are very pleased that our efforts in providing the best possible service have been recognised by the award of Charter Mark and congratulations must be passed onto our Board, Staff and Customers.

Every year the Team look at the backgrounds and types or people that work with us, live with us or ask to go on our housing waiting list. This table shows you all of this information.

Clyde Valley Housing Association is a part of a Group, with other Housing Associations called the G8 Benchmarking Group. The Group meet every 3 months to talk about how they are meeting their targets, and to share ideas on how to do provide and improve services for the future.

Clyde Valley Housing Association, is in the Group with Almond, Berwickshire, Fife, Glen Oaks, Irvine, Sanctuary Scotland and Thenew Housing Associations.

We have given you the table below to show how well Clyde Valley is performing in some areas, against the G8 Group average performance figures.