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as a PDF.

a home building house
renting care giving
job creating problem
solving neighbourhood
supporting family
protecting
boiler fixing
garage letting tree
planting profit reinvesting
game changing social
enterprise
Come and explore
www.curo-group.co.uk
2
We believe
that everyone
should have the
opportunity
to live well, learn
well, do well.
Together this
is what we make
possible.
THIS IS WHAT WE MAKE
P SSIB
Renowned Customer
Service Culture
Great Properties
and Places
Ethical Care and
Support Services
Happy, Safe, Popular,
Neighbourhoods
Page 4
Page 10
Page 16
Page 24
2
LE
Help for People
Needing Work
Lobbying for Positive
Social Change
Working
at Curo
What Can We
Do Together?
Page 30
Page 36
Page 42
Page 48
3
4
Renowned Customer Service Culture
“It’s been so nice
to talk to someone
who understands
our really difficult
situation – someone
who listens and
wants to help”
5
A problem shared is a problem halved
Excellent customer service is
our top priority here at Curo.
We want to do all we can to
help our customers – people
like Jane and David who found
themselves unexpectedly hit
by the changes to benefits
brought in by the government.
6
Jane and David have lived in
their three-bedroom Curo home
for 18 years, raising their three
children – David used to work in
aircraft maintenance and Jane
as a GP’s receptionist, despite
having a long-term illness.
Two years ago Jane’s condition
became critical and David was
forced to quit work to become
a full-time carer.
The arrival of the so-called
‘bedroom tax’ pushed things to
the limit. The changes meant
David and Jane now had to pay
for having ‘spare’ bedrooms
under new government rules, or
face moving out despite having
had thousands of pounds spent
adapting their home for Jane.
“We’re the last people to ask for
help and we’ve never had any
problems managing debts,”
said David. “But lately we’ve
found that the money just
doesn’t stretch”.
Our welfare reform team got in
touch and helped David and
Jane to get things back on track,
applying for extra support
and connecting them with the
many sources of help available.
“It’s been so nice to talk to
someone who understands
our really difficult situation –
someone who listens and
wants to help,” says Jane.
7
We have made customer service a
top priority, and we’re working towards
becoming the kind of organisation
where every customer gets the best
experience possible.
We handle over half a million calls
a year. We have a single contact centre
with the skills and expertise to resolve
a wide range of enquiries first-time,
however customers get in touch –
whether by phone, letter, email,
in person, online or using social media.
Overall customer satisfaction is 72%,
but we’re always listening to customers’
suggestions so we can continue to improve.
Our Customer Insight programme
surveys one in five customers, asking for
feedback about our services and finding
out what’s important to them.
We recently changed our opening times
to be more convenient, upgraded our
customer reception areas and put in
place more frontline colleagues across
our neighbourhoods.
8
e have more than 300 customers
W
directly involved in helping us to improve
our services – and doing it in ways that
suit them, from sitting on our service
improvement panels to acting as
Local Voices where they live.
When things go wrong, we do our best to
put things right first time, with over 90%
of complaints resolved at the first stage.
We have a strong and independent
scrutiny panel which carries out in-depth
reviews to see how we can do things better.
500,000 calls handled every year
9
10
Great Properties and Places
“It’s a lovely
area and the
neighbours
are all great”
11
Making a house a home
We’re proud of our homes and
we want our customers to love
living in them and the spaces
around them. We own and
manage 12,000 homes across
the West of England. Sounds
a lot, but there is an acute
shortage of affordable housing
in the area and we’re doing
all we can to provide more,
building developments like
Perry Close in Westfield.
Meet Sharon who moved into
one of the new homes at Perry
Close. Where there were once
unused and neglected garages,
we’ve created 27 homes of all
shapes and sizes. Sharon says
she and her two daughters love
their new three-bedroom house.
“We were on the waiting list for
a bigger place for eight years,
then we got the chance to move
to Perry Close,” says Sharon who
works nearby at a conference
centre. “It’s a beautiful new
house, a lovely area and the
neighbours are all great.
The girls are very happy here –
they have the space they need
and life is so much easier.
Less stress and no arguing!”
12
Making sure our homes are
shipshape keeps us busy.
We know we don’t always get
it right first time, but we aim
to give all our customers the
kind of service Sharon describes:
“If there’s ever a problem,
as soon as I ring they’ll send
someone round and get it
sorted straight away.”
If there’s ever
a problem, as
soon as I ring
they’ll send
someone round
and get it sorted
straight away
13
We are part of the solution to the housing
crisis. Our region needs major investment in
homes to tackle a serious lack of affordable
housing and bring down the costs of renting
and buying a home. By 2017 we will be
building 500 new homes a year for the
region. We have the means to make this
a reality, having recently secured £75m
to fund our development programme.
Our investment in homes goes beyond
bricks and mortar: research shows that
every £1 spent on housing puts £3 into
the wider economy.
We recently purchased the 19-hectare
former MoD site at Foxhill, a rare and
fantastic opportunity to bring much-needed
homes to Bath. Our development will
create around 700 new homes and invest in
the wider Foxhill area through one of the
biggest regeneration schemes Bath
has seen for years.
We’re providing all the affordable homes at
the Bath Riverside regeneration scheme, with
100 already built and many more underway.
14
In the face of reduced funding for
house-building, we’ve recognised the need
to be bold, to be responsive and to diversify.
We are willing to take risks and try new
approaches. For example we’re exploring
holiday lets or serviced apartments for
homes that no longer work as social
housing. We’re using new commercial
initiatives like this to generate money to
reinvest into our core social purpose.
Always looking to innovate, we have
helped Bath Building Society launch
a new mortgage for people looking to
buy a Curo home through our Shared
Ownership scheme.
As a lead sponsor of the Bath & Bristol
presence at the MIPIM property convention
we are helping to put the Bath and Bristol city
region on the international map.
We’re continually investing in our homes
– carrying out regular repairs and last year
putting £14m into planned improvements
including upgrading kitchens, bathrooms
and wiring to around 1,400 homes.
By 2017
we will be
building
500 new
homes
each year
15
16
Ethical Care and Support Services
“Being able
to visit the
supermarket
every week has
changed my life”
17
Helping people to live independently
We can all face challenging
times in our lives – times
when a little bit of support
can make all the difference.
Nobody wants to be reliant
on others. At Curo we want
every customer to have
a sense of independence
however challenging their
circumstances.
18
Take Heather Elms for instance:
at 83 years old, she is still as
keen as ever to do her weekly
shop and that’s where we come
in. With the help of a Curo Clean
& Shop support worker, Heather
continues to visit her local
supermarket every Wednesday
so she can select her fresh
fruit, favourite foods and,
most importantly, say hello
to some friendly faces.
For Heather the thought of
being able to choose what
she eats is key to her sense
of self-worth and to us that’s
something priceless. “It has
changed my life,” says Heather.
At Curo we want every
customer to have a sense
of independence
however challenging
their circumstances
19
We support over 2,500 people every year
with high-quality, sensitive and personalised
services. Our helping hand extends to older
people, homeless individuals and families,
people with mental health needs, vulnerable
young people, teenage parents and care leavers.
We are leading a new rural dementia
challenge project, supporting people
and families affected by memory loss.
We’re always looking for innovative ways
to help older or disabled people stay
independent like our Clean & Shop service
(see page 18). We’ve also opened six fully
furnished ‘step-down’ apartments for use
by people moving out of hospital who aren’t
quite ready to move back home.
We estimate that our care and support
services are saving the public purse
around £9 million a year through what is
termed our ‘social return’ on investment.
Our Bath Foyer is recognised for its
innovative approach to health and wellbeing
with the young people we support.
20
We run 144 emergency and longer-term
supported accommodation units for
homeless people, vulnerable young people
and care leavers, offering not just a place
to live, but training and support to be able
to move on to a permanent home and a
brighter future.
Our Independent Living Service, which
helps people to carry on independently in
their own homes, has supported 623 people
so far and picked up three awards in its first
year, including the accolade of outright
UK winner in the National Housing
Federation’s awards scheme.
Our services for young people and
people with mental health support needs
are making a real difference to lives, with
87% of customers saying they have achieved
more choice and control over their lives.
We also help young people through
services like the Time to Talk mediation
service which works with families to prevent
youth homelessness, and a scheme
supporting teenage parents.
We support over
2,500 people
every year across
the West of England
21
Our mission:
To make a
positive and
profound
contribution
to the
neighbourhoods
we work in –
inspiring and
empowering
people to
succeed in life.
22
23
24
Happy, Safe, Popular Neighbourhoods
“Doing our
projects means
we are giving
something back to
our community –
it feels great”
Neighbour-hoodie Emily
25
Bringing neighbours together
We all want to live in a great
neighbourhood. At Curo, we
do all we can to make that
possible. A home is about
more than bricks and mortar –
it’s about our neighbours,
our surroundings and how
we feel about where we live.
26
Bringing neighbours together
is what the Chandler Rangers
are all about. Part of our
Neighbour-hoodies scheme,
the Rangers are an amazing
group of children – the youngest
just four years old – who got
together to show that young
people can be a positive force
in their neighbourhood.
They hold meetings to decide
on jobs and have organised
litter-picks, created a community
garden and held 1940s-themed
get-togethers with the older
people in the street. Emily,
a Neighbour-hoodie from
The Chandler Rangers, told us:
“We want to make things better
where we live for all of us. We
want to get on with the older
people and we want them to
like us and for us to like them.
Doing our projects means we
are giving something back to
our community – it feels great.”
We want
to make
things better
where we
live, for
all of us
27
We’ve completed 71 neighbourhood
projects over the last year and our grants
programme has provided £11,500 to
help 31 community groups. By supporting
neighbourhood groups, who know their
areas better than anyone, we can help
the local experts make a lasting difference.
We hold around 115 walkabouts across
our neighbourhoods every year so that
customers can show us what they’d like
to be improved.
We help people like 21-year-old Adam
Bidgood, a former resident of one of our
emergency shelters, who runs a community
football team for people who have had
a troubled past. With a little support and
some financial help from Curo, Adam
and his team have a great future.
Another great initiative we’ve supported
is the Chandler Rangers, a group of
4-11 year-olds who work with their retired
neighbours to carry out good deeds
in their neighbourhood in Weston,
Bath – read their story on page 26.
28
We also help local people get together
through all kinds of neighbourhood
events and community actions like our
Perry Close summer BBQ, a fantastic family
community day at Tintagel Close and Love
My Neighbourhood events in north Bristol.
We’ve also been working with a local
community payback team to tackle jobs
in Foxhill… we’re even trying a bit of
guerrilla gardening!
We have had huge interest in a new
theatre-based training programme we’ve
designed with Southside Family Centre
to help frontline colleagues at Curo, and
other organisations like the police and
local authorities, spot the warning signs
of domestic abuse and know where to
go for help.
e are challenging stereotypes of young
W
people in hoodies with our newly launched
Neighbour-hoodies scheme, supporting
groups of young people w
ho want to make
a difference in their neighbourhood – people
like the Keynsham Time Out Task Force youth
group who tackle odd jobs where they live.
We’ve completed 71
neighbourhood projects
in the last year
29
30
Help for People Needing Work
“Now I’m in a
stable and secure
environment I feel a
lot better about myself.
The things I’ve
achieved here are
tremendous”
31
Turning young lives around
At Curo we know that finding
work that pays the bills can be
tough. It’s not always easy to
know where to turn for help –
especially if life’s dealt you a
few blows. That’s where Alan
(pictured) found himself a few
years ago. Alan had a troubled
start to life, leaving home when
he was still at school. Alan
found a home and a friend
at Curo’s Pathways project.
32
“When I moved to Pathways
I wasn’t doing anything
constructive with my time,”
recalls Alan.
“Now I’m in a stable and secure
environment I feel a lot better
about myself. The things I’ve
achieved here are tremendous.
I’ve started at City of Bath
College, studying catering
and hospitality, and am really
enjoying it. Curo has changed
things for me for the better.
I know what I want to achieve
in life and, thanks to the help
I’ve received, I know how to
meet my goals.”
I know what I want to achieve
in life and, thanks to the
help I’ve received, I know
how to meet my goals
33
We’ve teamed up with City of Bath
College to provide Enterprise Stations
where budding entrepreneurs can get
support, training and space to develop
their own ideas into businesses.
We’re working with other partners like
Clean Slate social enterprise which creates
and supports paid work for people who
have been looking for a job for a while.
Over the past year 96% of the
young people leaving our supported
accommodation found work or
entered training and education.
Our new housing gets people back
into work too; research suggests that
every new home built creates 1.5 jobs
in construction and up to four times
that number in the wider supply chain.
Our procurement strategy helps Curo to
source suppliers in ways that generate local
employment and training – over half of
all our suppliers are in the West of England.
34
As well as developing our own
apprenticeship programme we make it a
condition that partners who are delivering
our major housing developments provide
apprenticeships and skills opportunities
for local people.
With the massive changes to the benefits
system affecting many of our customers,
we have run a successful support
campaign – shortlisted for a Bristol Business
Award – which includes helping people
find work so that they are not affected
by a new cap on benefits.
of the young people leaving
our supported accommodation
found work or entered training
and education
35
36
Lobbying for Positive Social Change
“We are
working to
challenge the
stereotypes
associated
with social
housing”
37
Expertise to lobby for changes
We think it’s important that
we raise our voice and use our
expertise to lobby for changes
that will improve things for
our customers today and
tomorrow.
The housing crisis is one
problem that won’t go away
without organisations like
Curo playing a big part. We feel
strongly that more needs to
be done to provide affordable
homes here in the West of
England. We have the capacity
and the will to build more
homes, but we need decisionmakers and local people to
say ‘yes’ to homes to help
make this possible.
We’re concerned about
how changes to the welfare
system are affecting people
like David and Jane whose
story is on page 6.
38
We have been sharing our
knowledge by speaking at
conferences, talking to local
papers and radio, and holding
briefings for other organisations
in a position to help people
struggling with these changes.
We can’t change the world,
but when we see real
opportunities to use our
position, our expertise and
our resources to get the
message across, we believe
that’s what we should do.
In the news...
Housing association
adopts proactive
approach to navigate
benefit reforms
CURO OFFERS
ADVICE
FOR THOSE
AFFECTED
BY BENEFIT
CHANGES
Curo’s radical new
scheme that fits care
and support around
resident needs
Helping
housing
workers
spot the
signs of
abuse
Lobby
group
formed to
research
welfare
reform
CURO BACKS NHF
‘YES TO HOMES’ CAMPAIGN
Curo’s action
call over B&NES
house prices
39
We’re backing a major campaign from
the National Housing Federation to
encourage decision-makers and local
people to recognise that saying ‘yes to
homes’ is essential if we are to provide
affordable homes for local families.
We’ve written a number of think-pieces
and blogs on topics like housing affordability
and the need for businesses like Curo to
diversify and become more commercial.
Several of these have been published
through the Guardian’s Housing Network.
Regionally, we are represented on over
40 different panels, boards and groups,
including playing an important part in the
Local Enterprise Partnership and being
members of the West of England Housing
Delivery Panel and the Bristol Housing
Partnership.
We meet ministers and other
key regional and national politicians
and decision-makers representing our
customers’ interests at every level.
40
We work with the media locally and
nationally to raise awareness of the
big issues that matter to us and to our
customers – for example changes to
benefits, the need for more affordable
housing, domestic abuse – and to challenge
stereotypes asociated with social housing.
We’re members of the South West
Housing Association Influence and
Leadership Organisation (HAILO) which
has commissioned research from the
London School of Economics into the
impacts of welfare reform on our customers.
e
s
u
d
n
a
e
c
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r
o
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r
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W expe
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s
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t
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r
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o
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f
s
thing
today and tomorrow
41
42
Working at Curo
“At Curo, how
we do things is
as important as
what we do”
43
Working at Curo
A great environment for our colleagues
At Curo, how we do things
is as important as what we
do. Our values – to be caring,
respectful, open, fair and
trusting – really matter to
every one of Curo’s colleagues;
people like Shaun Church who
is a Neighbourhood Manager.
“I can relate to all our values;
it’s important to understand
and commit to them,” says
Shaun who has recently
won Curo’s Most Respected
Colleague award.
“I’m a bit of a touring social
one-stop shop,” is how Shaun
describes his varied job.
“I work with some brilliant
people – every day I’m with
colleagues who provide so
much inspiration that it’s
impossible not to feed off it.”
44
Giving colleagues the tools,
support and training they
need to deliver a great service
really matters here. We helped
Shaun study for a professional
qualification, as he explains:
“I was lucky enough to complete
my Chartered Institute of
Housing certificate and
got a great overview
and history of the
work we do in this
diverse sector.
“If you can bring
a passion for the
job, and have the
drive to make us
better at what
we do, you’ll
find the support
here to do it.”
Working at Curo
If you can bring
a passion for the
job, and have
the drive to
make us better at
what we do, you’ll
find the support
here to do it
45
Working at Curo
We’re a major employer in the region
with over 450 colleagues working in areas
as diverse as surveying, maintenance,
personal support, neighbourhood
management, youth work, community
development, marketing, IT, and finance
– and that’s just a flavour.
We have a great environment for our
colleagues: bright modern offices with
a fantastic social space, The Lab (our eclectic
learning space) and fresh open plan office
spaces that encourage team-work. Colleagues
are proud to show they’re part of Curo –
we provide bright work clothing which
colleagues wear with pride.
To help colleagues deliver our top priority,
excellent customer service, everyone at
Curo takes part in our Energise programme.
Energise helps us all understand how to
give the very best we can, how we can
“make possible” the things our customers
need and work together to do that.
We offer many learning and development
opportunities to colleagues at all levels –
like our Rising Stars and Inspirational
Leaders programmes, a mentoring scheme
and professional development programme.
46
Our values – to be caring, respectful, open,
fair and trusting – are part of everything
we do at Curo and our personal development
scheme measures not just what colleagues
do, but how they do it. There are regular
one-to-ones and reviews so that colleagues
can track how they are doing against
targets clearly showing how their contribution
helps Curo deliver its priorities.
e’re always looking for fresh ideas and
W
welcome people from outside our sector.
At the same time we believe in ‘grow-your own’,
investing in and promoting colleagues into
new roles whenever possible.
e work hard and play hard too. We have
W
a football team, a Curo choir, running club
and netball team. Colleagues get involved
with lots of charity activities every year –
from dressing up as John McEnroe,
to taking on the BBC at football and
donating to local food banks.
Working at Curo
Our values – caring, respectful,
open, fair and trusting – are part
of everything we do at Curo
47
What can we do together?
T 01225 366000
E enquiries@curo-group.co.uk
Scan the QR code
to watch our
‘This is Curo’ video.
48
GIVE US
A CALL
Curo
The Maltings
River Place
Lower Bristol Road
Bath BA2 1EP
T 01225 366000
E enquiries@curo-group.co.uk
facebook.com/curogroup
twitter.com/curo_group
If you would like this brochure in
large print, on audio tape or CD,
or if English is not your first
language and you need a
translation, we can arrange
this for you.

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