Simone Russell Housing Solutions Ltd
A consultancy for today’s social and affordable housing sector, bringing a fresh, independent approach to help you improve your services.
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About
Simone Russell Housing Solutions is a fresh, independent consultancy, established to help registered providers of social and affordable housing deliver services which meet customer expectations and achieve regulatory compliance.
With a new consumer-focused regulatory framework about to be launched there has never been a better time to re-visit your services and understand how you are performing from the perspective of your tenants and to be able to provide assurance to your Board, elected Members, the Regulator and most importantly, your tenants. Bringing many years of experience of leading and delivering services within housing association, ALMO and local authority organisations, our number one passion is helping landlords provide customer focused services and safe, well-maintained homes and neighbourhoods.
We know that ‘the data’ does not always tell the real story about the experience of your tenants. Our sector is truly ‘in the spotlight’ and there has never been a more important time to get to grips with the reality ‘on the ground’. We bring a personal, tailored approach to all our work, which will fit with your organisation’s values.
We can help you better understand your customers’ ‘pain points’ and put workable actions in place to eliminate them. From whole-service re-designs, to ‘deep dives’ into specific functions, we will work with your management teams and employees to help you on the road to improvement. Our experience enables us to make a unique offer to local authorities and their arms length management organisations. We can help you ‘shore up’ your housing offer, to help you comply with the ever increasing legal and regulatory framework.
We take a ‘policy to practice’ approach to help you plan and deliver operational services and we can help your employees deliver better through engaging and enjoyable training sessions. We are connected with long-standing and well-known specialist consultancy organisations to provide additional capacity when and where it is needed. We operate an honest and fair pricing policy and will take the time to get to know exactly what you need and how we will help, before we begin our work with you.
With a new consumer-focused regulatory framework about to be launched there has never been a better time to re-visit your services and understand how you are performing from the perspective of your tenants and to be able to provide assurance to your Board, elected Members, the Regulator and most importantly, your tenants. Bringing many years of experience of leading and delivering services within housing association, ALMO and local authority organisations, our number one passion is helping landlords provide customer focused services and safe, well-maintained homes and neighbourhoods.
We know that ‘the data’ does not always tell the real story about the experience of your tenants. Our sector is truly ‘in the spotlight’ and there has never been a more important time to get to grips with the reality ‘on the ground’. We bring a personal, tailored approach to all our work, which will fit with your organisation’s values.
We can help you better understand your customers’ ‘pain points’ and put workable actions in place to eliminate them. From whole-service re-designs, to ‘deep dives’ into specific functions, we will work with your management teams and employees to help you on the road to improvement. Our experience enables us to make a unique offer to local authorities and their arms length management organisations. We can help you ‘shore up’ your housing offer, to help you comply with the ever increasing legal and regulatory framework.
We take a ‘policy to practice’ approach to help you plan and deliver operational services and we can help your employees deliver better through engaging and enjoyable training sessions. We are connected with long-standing and well-known specialist consultancy organisations to provide additional capacity when and where it is needed. We operate an honest and fair pricing policy and will take the time to get to know exactly what you need and how we will help, before we begin our work with you.
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Simone has lots of experience of housing, equalities and working with customers. She is very smart, hardworking and good fun. I believe Simone can help your organisation deliver the type of services which your customers would expect.
Kate Davies
Chief Executive / Notting Hill Genesis
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Based on our experience and comprehensive understanding of today’s housing sector, its risks and challenges, Simone Russell Housing Solutions have developed a service offer as a guide. However every project, whether large or small, will be tailor-made for your organisation.
Improve your services and be Regulation Ready
We can help you be compliant. We can produce a gap analysis of your services against the new regulatory standards, using our unique 360° ‘Reveal’ tool.
- Taking a methodical and ‘hands-on’ approach we will work with you to unpick your performance and assess this against the required standards
- We can work with your tenants to help identify how prepared you are for the introduction of the new tenant satisfaction measures, and support tenants in taking on their new role within the proposed regulatory framework
- With our flexible and responsive way of working, we can help you respond as soon new standards emerge
- We can work with you to produce deliverable action plans
‘Reveal’ service improvement tool
Your senior leaders and your Board need to understand what is ‘happening on the ground’ within your organisation. Reveal is a creative, independent approach to tell you how your organisation is performing and put you on the path to improvement.
- Reveal provides an independent view of your performance, operations and regulatory compliance
- Gains the perspective of all key stakeholders within your organisation
- Provides you with a full insight into your current position, enabling you to plan your way forward
- Gives your people a ‘safe place’ to share their views
- Can also include external stakeholders – the choice is yours
- Will become a key part of your assurance and risk management framework
- Will help you avoid unpleasant surprises down the line – or when the regulator calls!
Customer experience and complaints management
We can help you deliver a practical, relevant and inclusive customer service strategy.
We can provide you with support in developing an integrated customer service approach to your digital transformation projects, ensuring that access to services meets your customers’ needs and expectations, enabling you to bring a balance of local presence and a full digital offer, based on the needs of your customers.
We can provide you with support in developing an integrated customer service approach to your digital transformation projects, ensuring that access to services meets your customers’ needs and expectations, enabling you to bring a balance of local presence and a full digital offer, based on the needs of your customers.
Effective complaints handling
Complaints are a sure sign that tenants are not getting the service they expect and deserve. With active co-operation between the Regulator and Housing Ombudsman Service, the negative publicity affecting our sector and the additional costs and risks for landlords that this brings, now is the time to make sure your complaints policies and processes meet the recently published Complaints Code.
When it comes to managing complaints the Housing Ombudsman has made it clear that it’s not just about what you do, it’s about ‘how you do it’. We can help you bring about cultural change, from your Board to the operational teams who manage complaints. We can offer a full service in reviewing your complaints policy and processes, recommending changes and if you require, delivering a full change package, including training operational staff, managers and Board Members.
When it comes to managing complaints the Housing Ombudsman has made it clear that it’s not just about what you do, it’s about ‘how you do it’. We can help you bring about cultural change, from your Board to the operational teams who manage complaints. We can offer a full service in reviewing your complaints policy and processes, recommending changes and if you require, delivering a full change package, including training operational staff, managers and Board Members.
Service transformation and re-design
As organisations re-think their approach following the pandemic, we bring an outcome focused and collaborative approach to reviewing and re-designing your services. Senior leaders have confirmed to us that their main priority is to revisit and deliver the best core services, in particular repairs and maintenance. We can help with specific areas, from reviewing your staffing structures, to mapping your customer journeys, identifying and helping you design out ‘customer pain points’.
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Simone is passionate about the housing sector and for delivering tenant focused services. She has an open approach, great breadth of knowledge and sense of fairness. Simone brings a creative and energetic approach to everything she does and inspires others to get involved.
Aileen Evans
Chief Executive / Grand Union Housing Group / immediate Past President, Chartered Institute of Housing
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Resident engagement
We will work with your residents to help you understand how you can achieve compliance with the new tenant satisfaction measures. Our open and adaptable style will give your tenants a safe space to express their views on what steps your organisation needs to take to meet their expectations in terms of service delivery and engagement with customers.
Equality, diversity and inclusion
Customer focused service delivery
We can help you ensure that your services reflect your customer profile. We can deliver for your organisation a full equalities package, from a legally compliant equalities scheme, an easy to understand equality impact assessment process and practical delivery plans, all supported by training and ‘awareness-raising’ packages for everyone who needs to know.
Through our connections we can recommend customer segmentation options, moving away from traditional approaches to profiling and enabling you to make relevant decisions about the services you provide and how you deliver them.
Through our connections we can recommend customer segmentation options, moving away from traditional approaches to profiling and enabling you to make relevant decisions about the services you provide and how you deliver them.
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Simone’s passion for excellent housing services and commitment to equalities have been the motivation for her dedicated and thorough approach to understanding and improving service delivery. In the collaborative work that we have done together she has been a strong leader and advocate, highly organised and with a clear outcome in mind.
Claire Astbury
Head of Housing Strategy and Development / Luton Borough Council, formerly External Affairs Manager, National Housing Federation
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Interim management solutions
Talk to us about how can we can help with interim management – to give an independent approach to service modernisation, get you through a rough patch or to keep your services running smoothly during times of change. With our adaptable approach, we will be able to ‘hit the ground running’, build relationships and achieve buy-in from your teams. We can also provide an ‘in-tray’ support service to busy Directors and Chief Executives.
Training, awaydays and strategy sessions
We can bring an objective and well-informed approach to facilitating sessions for your employees, senior management teams and Board/elected Members.
Training we provide includes:
Training we provide includes:
- Introduction to social housing
- Our new housing environment – risks and opportunities
- Housing regulation – what to expect
- Equalities in action
- Safeguarding awareness
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Simone has a ‘hands on’ and open approach to collaborative working, delivering real outcomes. I have direct experience of working with Simone and she has a natural ability to bring people on board. Through her passion for housing and her excellent collaboration skills, Simone led a complex partnership to develop a clear sense of purpose and motivated others to deliver on agreed objectives.
Patsy Dell
Executive Director / Sustainable Growth, Hertfordshire County Council
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Helping local authorities deliver the great services which tenants expect
The new proactive regulatory arrangements will be a challenge for many local authorities and ALMOs.
We are perfectly placed to provide you with practical solutions for your housing services, enabling you to make your tenants happy and safe and be fully accountable to legal and regulatory bodies. With our extensive housing knowledge and ‘lived experience’ we can see council housing operations from an independent housing lens.
We can help you:
We can help you:
- Utilise your non-housing resources and expertise to add value and help deliver better outcomes for your social housing tenants - and vice-versa
- Develop a clear framework for measuring and reporting on your services and the quality of your homes, working within and around your existing governance arrangement and structures
- Deliver a real-time housing performance dashboard’ giving you a one-stop shop for ‘everything housing’
- Ensure you are ‘regulation ready’ - complying with and reporting against the new consumer standards and tenant satisfaction measures
The stages in the process will be:
- Identifying and mapping where all your landlord and related services are located within your corporate structure
- Carrying out a gap analysis against the new consumer standard framework
- Telling you where you are compliant or not and what you need to do to get there
- Creating a real-time performance management framework, giving you instant access to everything you need to know to demonstrate compliance and prepare you for the new pro-active regulatory framework
Service re-structure and transformation
We can help by giving you specialist support in:
- Delivering a more flexible approach to service delivery and improve the customer experience – crucial in our post-pandemic environment
- Restructuring specific services to provide a more efficient and highly performing housing offer
- Linking non-housing services to your landlord offer to help improve your tenants’ wellbeing and making sure they have access to key local services
Introducing ‘Reveal’ our unique service improvement tool.
We have a developed an innovative 360° tool so that you can get to grips with ‘the real picture’ of service performance on the ground. For more information on ‘Reveal’ click here.
We have a developed an innovative 360° tool so that you can get to grips with ‘the real picture’ of service performance on the ground. For more information on ‘Reveal’ click here.
ALMO options appraisal and re-integration
We offer an intelligent, methodical and sensitive approach to:
Options appraisal
We can carry out an options appraisal, to help you decide whether your landlord service is best suited to being delivered by your ALMO, back ‘in house’ or a hybrid model, such as shared services.
- Customer experience and service quality
- Value for money
- Shared back-office service options
Full integration package
We have developed a tried and tested full project solution for re-integrating your entire housing service back into your local authority.
Our package will guide you through every stage of the process, from initial resident consultation to managing legal and financial matters, contract novation, HR, communications, service integration, new post-integration governance arrangements and full ALMO re-integration and wind-up package.
Our package will guide you through every stage of the process, from initial resident consultation to managing legal and financial matters, contract novation, HR, communications, service integration, new post-integration governance arrangements and full ALMO re-integration and wind-up package.
Innovation in meeting housing needs
With our direct experience of housing development through a wholly-owned company we can:
- Help you make the business case for expanding your housing offer, tailored to your locality
- Propose creative options for setting up a delivery vehicle, including shareholder and management arrangements, full suite of operational policies and performance management systems
Member training
We can deliver informative and engaging training for your elected Members on ‘everything housing’.
Ideal for Members taking on a housing portfolio for the first time, following ALMO re-integration – or for any Members who want to be better equipped to deal with constituent enquiries.
Specialist areas include:
Specialist areas include:
- Introduction to social housing
- Our new housing environment – risks and opportunities
- Housing regulation – what to expect
- Equalities in action
- Safeguarding awareness
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I worked with Simone when I was on the Board of a council local housing company Simone was setting up. What struck me was Simone’s vision and how she was determined to ensure the company was set up efficiently but also effectively. Simone definitely had the vision about how customers could benefit from extra affordable housing and that vision and passion carried her colleagues and the Board with her. Simone was also very open to learning new ways of doing things and was happy to take advice that I could bring from the housing association sector. Simone has a strong combination of creativity and ability to achieve fantastic results!
Jo Savage
Chief Executive / Greatwell Homes
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Connections
Work with us
Working together to deliver more.
At Simone Russell Housing Solutions we recognise the value of connections. We bring a passion and skill for bringing people together to deliver better outcomes. And that includes our approach to consultancy work. With our wide networks we have been in discussions with potential partners about how we can develop a referral network to bring the best talent in help improve your services and solve your problems.
We are keen to hear from you if you wish to be associated with us and if you feel you can bring your specialism to the table. Please get in touch for an informal discussion – we look forward to hearing from you!
We are keen to hear from you if you wish to be associated with us and if you feel you can bring your specialism to the table. Please get in touch for an informal discussion – we look forward to hearing from you!
Our associates
We are pleased to announce that we will be working in association with:
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COLIN WILES CONSULTING
Colin Wiles has over 40 years’ experience in affordable housing, working for housing associations and local authorities. Since 2010 he has worked as a freelance consultant, providing service for dozens of clients. He specialises in governance, regulation and writing reports on housing topics. He has authored three reports for the Intergenerational Foundation on micro-homes, cladding and housing issues during the pandemic.
Colin Wiles has over 40 years’ experience in affordable housing, working for housing associations and local authorities. Since 2010 he has worked as a freelance consultant, providing service for dozens of clients. He specialises in governance, regulation and writing reports on housing topics. He has authored three reports for the Intergenerational Foundation on micro-homes, cladding and housing issues during the pandemic.
PAUL KINGSTON – Experienced Housing and Care specialist
Paul has 40 years experience gained in social housing, care and support, many years at Director level for a housing association. Paul has also been a non-Executive Director in the housing association sector, where he chaired the Services and Care and Support Committees, and held the role of vice-chair of the Board.
Paul is now undertaking consultancy projects and interim assignments. Paul’s most recent interim placement is the CEO role for a specialist housing association.
Paul has 40 years experience gained in social housing, care and support, many years at Director level for a housing association. Paul has also been a non-Executive Director in the housing association sector, where he chaired the Services and Care and Support Committees, and held the role of vice-chair of the Board.
Paul is now undertaking consultancy projects and interim assignments. Paul’s most recent interim placement is the CEO role for a specialist housing association.
Contact us
Contact us
