‘We’ve built a whole new team’: how Welsh landlord Trivallis addressed its governance issues

That absence meant its senior team did not have the necessary management capacity. The Welsh regulator was also concerned that Trivallis had not provided the necessary assurances to support its current regulatory status.

Since then, the 12,000-home landlord has appointed Nick Beckett as chair and Lisa Pinney joined as executive director of resources in May 2023.

Mr Forbes continues: “I think prior to the review, and in part due to the ways of working that had come out of the pandemic, things were no longer working as well, which lead to some frustration from the board.”

He spoke to Inside Housing over Teams from Trivallis’ office after its return to compliant status in October last year, following an 18-month review by the Welsh regulator.

On the pink wall behind him is a white board with four words in a list: homes, communities, tenant satisfaction and finance. The notes under each were not completely readable, but it is a sign the landlord under Mr Forbes’ tenure has been refocusing its priorities.

He explains how the Welsh regulator’s intervention included three plans on finance, leadership and governance – with a process he described as “supportive and challenging”.

He says: “With the governance arrangements, we basically started from scratch, restructured how we did things, alongside recruiting a new team.

“Our finances were actually in a pretty good position to be honest, but we did a zero-based budget last year, which helped us start from scratch and rebuild the budget going forward.”

This type of budget means justifying and approving all expenses for each accounting period, rather than basing it on an organisation’s past spending.

Moving on from this position, Mr Forbes describes how the landlord has been looking to make better use of its assets going forward and looking at a number of different proposals with funders.

On the leadership side of things, he says: “The biggest challenge was around communication and building the new team, which I think now are doing some fantastic work.

“We’ve got the right people who are all pulling together and on the same page, so we can focus on our residents and delivery plans.”

This new approach was hopefully going to “ramp up” the landlord’s development plans and what was previously more of a “risk averse approach”. For the association, this means delivering around 100 homes a year.

Towards the end of 2023, Trivallis set out a new approach to preventing mould and damp in its properties. The landlord said it created a damp and mould team to “ensure the right resource and expertise is available to help those that need it the most”.

At the same time, a pilot initiative will see “fix it kits” made available for those unable to afford more expensive treatments and materials to tackle early signs of damp and mould.

Mr Forbes says: “It’s such a complex challenge, alongside stock conditions, you have people who can’t afford heating, so now we have a good process in place for issues to be reported and dealt with.

“The government has set efficient targets to meet, where the funding is falling short in some cases, we’re looking at ways to create savings for residents, it’s a whole programme of work that overlaps and is going to be keeping us right up until 2030 and beyond.

“But it comes back to the issue of compliance in that I feel like we have the confidence and the process and team in place to meet these challenges affecting us and everyone else in the sector.”