Paragon Community Housing Group

From the start, Paragon Community Housing Group knew how to set itself tough challenges and this one was no exception. It is unusual for a new Group to achieve live operation of combined housing and finance systems within twelve months of formation, but even more unusual to achieve the live operation of combined systems before the Group effectively comes into being.

Paragon Community Housing Group was officially formed in April 2007 as a result of a partnership between Elmbridge Housing Trust(EHT) and Richmond upon Thames Churches Housing Trust (RuTCHT). The aims of the new organisation are to be a major provider of affordable housing in Surrey, Sussex and southwest London as well as increasing the financial strength of the Group by further business growth. The current housing stock stands at some 8,000 properties.

The business case for the partnership through Paragon Community Housing Group estimated that it could produce eventual savings of around £1.7million annually, with savings of £330,000 annually achievable through the shared use of information and communication systems.

The partnership was unusual in that EHT came from a Large Scale Voluntary Transfer (LSVT) in March 2000 and RuTCHT was a traditional housing association. It was important for the new body to be seen as a local community based organisation and, to meet this requirement, it has developed a wide range of services including community wardens, benefit advice and resettlement advice and support.

The timetable for the creation of the new Group was extremely tight. The decision to proceed with the partnership was taken by the Boards of both organisations in January 2006, and Paragon was to be fully operational by April 2007, with the Housing Corporation decision expected in November 2006.

In short, Paragon Community Housing Group had set itself a tough challenge to achieve Group structure, and to make sure it was well placed to achieve the savings that the Group structure promised and to start its IT development plan for the Group, as quickly as possible.

One of the issues facing the new organisation was the decision over which housing system to use as EHT used the Academy Housing product suite from Capita and RuTCHT used another supplier’s system.

John Wallace, now the Business Facilities Director at Paragon, had worked at EHT with Capita for some eleven years and has considerable experience in implementing Academy successfully in tight timescales over the past 15 years. On evaluation of both products, EHT used more of the functionality of Academy.

As a consequence it was decided, in January 2006, that the Academy Housing suite should be implemented across the Paragon group.

In considering a number of factors there was a clear business case for choosing Capita:

• Capita has an excellent track record in implementing on time and on budget
• The Academy system provides good access to the database, reporting tools and the availability of a data dictionary. These were particularly important considerations as EHT had been able to undertake more work in house for data conversions. This helped to minimise costs and retain the flexibility required to deliver an effective business system
• The product set is extremely flexible and suitable to Paragon’s requirements
• Using the functionality provided by the Academy Housing suite there was a confidence it could be done.

A key consideration was to undertake the integration of systems and the general advice was to decide as early as possible and implement combined systems as soon as practicable. Both Boards had a positive commitment to Group formation. Subject to Housing Corporation approval, and after consideration of some business factors, they decided to undertake the works at risk and to go live before Group formation.

As Academy provides the tools, much work could be done in-house and costs at risk identified. This ensured that investment at this stage would help achieve the paybacks required for Group to be successful very early in its formation. In addition, the development of new modules that would benefit both organisations could begin very quickly after Group formation.

The Board and Senior Management Team at Paragon had confirmed strong support for the project and chose Academy Housing in January 2006. The system’s functionality and deliverability were important factors in reaching this decision because of the tight timeline for implementation.

By the end of February 2006, the project had advanced so that data and processes were being considered and the data conversion specification process had commenced.

In March 2006, the specifications were largely completed and sample loads of properties, people and tenancies and rent charges were underway. Full loads were completed through August to November when training of RuTCHT staff was conducted along with the final data loads and preparations for live operation.

The training was undertaken in-house by a member of RuTCHT staff who had been seconded to the project, something that was particularly important as this considerably eased the transition process. Within the training, it was essential to explain to staff from RuTCHT where data had been converted into the Academy Housing system, and to relate it to the old system that had been in use at RuTCHT. This approach and the quality of training provided was a significant contribution to the success of the project.

Although every project has its challenges, the new system was fully operational by December 4th 2006, eleven months from the original decision to form the partnership. This was just over three months before the Group formed, and with the decision from the Housing Corporation hot off the press.

The project was completed with the implementation of the finance system, which commenced in January, 2007 and was operational by April 2007.

The project had been made even more challenging because of the need to allow for rent increases on EHT and RuTCHT properties, office moves and a housing inspection at EHT in March 2007 together with an upgrade of Academy to the latest version part way through the project for everyone involved successful implementation marked a very significant achievement.

Like every implementation, there had been a number of issues along the way, including staffing during a period of change and differences in work culture and experiences between the two organisations. However, John was confident that the project was always achievable based on his previous experiences and expectations of working with Capita.

As John says “With Academy Housing we knew we were working with good, robust, tried and tested products and that we could rely on very sound and helpful consultancy support and advice. Capita’s services were geared to what we wanted and needed to get the system live on time, and they were very flexible about this.”

“We were able to keep the team to the minimum required as, even though there were a lot of things going on, the tools that the Academy system makes available support this approach,” said John. “The reporting tool Academy Decision Support (ADS) was used extensively during data conversion to compare data from the old system with that converted to Academy. This made data validation achievable in very short timescales.”

John is keen to emphasise that he couldn’t have done this without a major team effort and particularly commends the hard work of staff at Richmond and Elmbridge and the quality of programming, consultancy and helpdesk support he had from Capita. Also the vision and the strong support of both Boards throughout set the scene for this implementation.

All in all he feels that the smooth transition to a Group structure was a triumph for positive attitudes, team work and a determination to succeed. On current projections the proposed annual savings of £1.7million should be reached within three years, and Paragon is already on target to achieve its first year savings.

“This was the quickest and smoothest implementation I have ever experienced and I particularly like the Academy Housing software for its simplicity of operation, its functionality and reports. I am particularly impressed by the Academy Decision Support reporting tool and the reporting capabilities it offers.”
Colin Watson, Housing Services Manager with RuTCHT

“When John came to us in January 2006, saying that we could be fully live by December 2006, I have to say we were very sceptical as our previous experience wasn’t supporting that view. However, I was extremely pleased that we could achieve this project on time and I still cannot believe that we did it. The decision to move to Capita and in advance of Group was clearly the right one, and we are much more positive about what can be achieved now than was possible before. My thanks go to everyone involved.”
Martyn Kingsford, Chair of Paragon and previously Chair of the RuTCHT Board