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Ruth Cooke is chief executive of GreenSquareAccord
Our regulatory downgrade has been an opportunity to get things right
Accepting our new reality and revising the ambitions we set when we merged has not been easy, says Ruth Cooke
I recall the excitement I felt when we completed our merger and created GreenSquareAccord in April 2021. Then, just as we were about to start delivering our ambitious plans, we discovered something extremely troubling.
Despite our merger planning and due diligence, it became clear that there were fundamental safety issues with some of our homes, including out-of-date fire risk assessments, and electrical, gas and asbestos tests. What followed was a call to the regulator to self-report and a subsequent downgrade from G1 to G2 in late 2021.
I said after our downgrade that we had chosen to see it as a test and not a threat. That said, accepting our new reality and revising the ambitions we set when we merged has not been easy. We had to push back many of the merger promises we set out and shift our focus and resource to resolving the safety issues we had discovered.
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At that time, I felt a profound sense that we had let colleagues and customers down. The vision we had sold had suddenly changed and many of the service improvements and investments we said were our priority had to make way to ensure we could fulfil our most basic requirement: making sure customers were safe in their homes.
Two years on, as the regulator upgrades us back to G1 and after a huge collective effort by colleagues at GSA to resolve these issues, I have a different perspective.
If our merger hadn’t happened, we would never have found the widespread issues with some of our homes or dealt with the systemic problems that had allowed them to lay hidden for so long.
“If our merger hadn’t happened, we would never have found the widespread issues with some of our homes or dealt with the systemic problems that had allowed them to lay hidden for so long”
Thousands of our customers are now safer, and we have had the opportunity to make fundamental changes to the fabric of our organisation to make sure nothing like this can happen again. We’ve also been able to refresh our corporate strategy to reflect the significant external challenges that have hit the sector in the past two years. That strategy is built around our core purpose as a social landlord and will see us substantially increase the investment in our existing homes.
So, although our merger didn’t happen in the way we thought, and although we would rather not have had the safety issues we discovered, I am now certain that the merger has had a positive impact and that we are much better placed to move forward and become a great social landlord.
For us, the goal was never just about getting back to G1; it’s been about making the fundamental changes we needed to and recognising that if we did this, we would regain our rating as a result.
What have we learned? Many things, but two stand out. The first is the importance of accepting when something has gone wrong and using it as a force for change. A crucial part of our ability to respond effectively was in accepting our new reality, adjusting quickly and communicating clearly as we set about resolving the issues.
Another lesson that stands out is the importance of being willing to scrutinise data and the governance and process you have in place to manage it.
We commissioned a 100% stock condition survey after discovering the safety issues and in this sense the crisis has had a hugely positive impact. We now have an up-to-date picture of our homes, which has informed a £250m five-year investment plan.
“Thousands of our customers are now safer, and we have had the opportunity to make fundamental changes to the fabric of our organisation to make sure nothing like this can happen again”
At the time of merger our data didn’t highlight the safety issues we subsequently found and showed us that we had 100% compliance with the Decent Homes Standard. As we surveyed our homes in detail, we identified issues we weren’t aware of, and which needed to be addressed. A huge positive from the stock condition survey has been the much-improved knowledge of our properties, letting us target our investment work much more appropriately.
Things can seem like they are working perfectly but our experience shows that a lack of proper scrutiny and governance can have very serious consequences. We’ve had to ask ourselves difficult questions, scrutinise assumptions and challenge the status quo.
Our colleagues have risen to the challenge, in an enormous collective effort. While there is still work to do, we can now look ahead with confidence. We recognise that our journey to improve our homes and our services is far from over, but this is a moment to celebrate a significant step forward. Our revised business strategy has provided a revised roadmap for the future which will help us to navigate external challenges and the regrade to G1 shows us that we are on the right path.
Crises happen, but they can be a force for a good.
Ruth Cooke, chief executive, GreenSquareAccord
