Whitefriars Housing Group Limited

Whitefriars Housing Group Ltd* is a not-for-profit housing and regeneration organisation established in 2000, that owns and manages approximately 17,000 homes across Coventry.

The Group has committed £240 million to the repair and improvement of its housing stock, ensuring that the Government’s Decent Homes Standard is met five years ahead of schedule. Whitefriars was the only housing association specifically referenced in John Prescott’s 2003 Communities Plan.

Working in neighbourhoods, Whitefriars is committed to the national ‘iN business for neighbourhoods’ agenda and is a major player in the regeneration of Coventry and the provision of affordable housing.

However, Whitefriars is about more than bricks and mortar; it's about people and developing and renewing communities and neighbourhoods. Therefore, to expand what we do and go beyond the normal landlord role, we have developed and undertaken a range of initiatives and services to help improve people's lives, not only their homes.
These include a number of initiatives to support people with problems they may be experiencing, such as debt, unemployment, alcoholism, or crime. They also include programmes to train our own staff in new ways to improve how we help people and the services we provide to our diverse customer base. Whitefriars works in partnership with communities and other agencies to provide these services for local residents, with the aim of building sustainable communities. Visit our 'More than housing' page for more information.

The company is run by a voluntary board, which includes residents, Council nominees and independents drawn from the community. Whitefriars not only provides secure, good quality, well managed and affordable homes and neighbourhoods for the people of Coventry, it works with partners to use its expertise to provide regeneration solutions for other areas too. Visit our 'Investing in neighbourhoods' page for more information.

* Whitefriars Housing Group Ltd is a charitable industrial and provident society.

What we are trying to do

• Repair and improve homes to a high and secure standard over a six year period
• Involve communities to improve their living environment
• Increase employment and training opportunities for the people of Coventry
• Deal with unsustainable housing with a comprehensive demolition programme
• Charge acceptable and affordable rents to our residents
• Provide a high quality service that delivers value and continuous improvement.

Delivering value for money

Whitefriars has a value for money policy to help us ensure that we consider value for money as part of everything that we do. We have also implemented a new performance management system that tracks our performance against our business plan targets and/or best practice. This is used to ensure our performance on the key issues that affect the cost and quality of our services are actively managed to deliver value for money.

This work demonstrates our commitment to residents and to Coventry. We are determined to provide better homes and neighbourhoods for our residents and better housing for Coventry.

To this end, we are committed to the Government's national ‘iN business for neighbourhoods’ agenda to build sustainable communities that help improve people’s lives as well as their homes. See our 'More than housing page.

Our vision

Our corporate Vision is 'Leading the Way in Delivering Success'.

We aim to be leaders in our field and innovators in all aspects of our business, whilst at the same time ensuring that we are successful in delivering our core aims to our customers.

Core aims

We have 3 core aims for our organisation in order to provide and maintain quality customer service. These are to:

• Let Homes and Keep Them Let
• Provide Homes of a Decent Quality and Standard
• Develop and Maintain the Business.

Our values

To underpin everything we do, we have developed a set of Values which are focused on achieving high levels of customer service and meeting our customers’ needs. When dealing with customers, employees and partners we will work with the following organisational Values:

	Openness	We will be open in our dealings with others by listening and sharing relevant information and views
	Honesty	We will be truthful and behave with integrity
	Reliability	We will do what we say, when we say we will
	Respect	We will recognise and respond to people’s rights, interests and values
	Innovation	We will adapt to our environment, taking opportunities to improve through new approaches
	Empowerment	We will empower people by supporting them to develop and take responsibility for their environment
	Professionalism	We will behave in a businesslike manner with courtesy, integrity, skill and expertise to achieve the best interests of others and the business

Whitefriars Housing Group is committed to the national iN business for neighbourhoods agenda and is one of the leading organisations in the programme. Click here to find out more.