The National Housing
Federation (NHF) is a social housing body within the UK that works with Housing
Associations to anticipate and understand the emerging and critical issues
affecting the housing sector.
Member Housing Associations
provide low-cost housing for just over six million people within the UK. Their
social purpose is to provide affordable, quality housing so that people can
enjoy their homes. One of the NHF’s remits is anticipating, identifying, and
understanding the critical housing sector issues.
The NHF plays a leading role
in shaping the UK’s national housing policy at the UK Government level,
enabling Housing Associations to deliver their social purpose by representing
the views of the UK housing sector, understanding and engaging in the creation
of housing policy, and building an understanding of housing associations to
increase their public support.
Acting as a conduit for
communication and collaboration with stakeholders across the social housing
sector, the NHF defines and promotes the shared values and vision of the
housing sector to support member Housing Associations through collaboration to
develop and share insight and analysis of the sector.
The NHF publishes a Code of
Conduct that sets out the governance standards for housing associations that
are members of the NHF for Housing Association staff, board members and
specific residents who are involved with the running of a Housing Association
that sets out guidance across four key areas:
- Acting in the Housing Associations’
and residents’ best interest.
- Operating with integrity.
- Conducting themselves
professionally.
- Protection of people and the
environment.
Most Housing Associations
within the UK adopt the NHF Code of Conduct, the main elements of which are to
achieve and improve prominent levels of governance that are based on the
following:
- Deliver a Housing Association’s
aims, objectives, and values effectively and sustainably.
- Provide strategic leadership
aligned with the Housing Association’s objectives and values.
- Reflecting a Housing Association’s
integrity, ethics, and values in everything it does.
- Ensure that decision-making, risk,
and control processes are informed, rigorous and timely.
- Working as an effective Board team
to make critical and informed decisions.
- Having a transparent, practical,
and agreed-on approach to support equality, diversity, and inclusion.
- Having organisational openness and
accountability.
A Housing Association Code of Governance aims to maximise stakeholder and staff engagement and increase the public confidence that the Housing Association Board are serving the needs of stakeholders across all organisational areas, focusing their approach across four core principles:
- Accountability: Housing Associations must account
for and explain their actions and decisions. They are obligated to
mitigate the risks involved by building trust and maintaining confidence
through formal corporate reporting processes, robust risk management, and
internal control systems.
- Transparency: A Housing Association must
operate with openness and integrity by disclosing accurate and timely
information regarding its financial, social, and political position to
housing sector bodies, staff, and customers. To practice good corporate
transparency, the association must also utilise routine internal/external
audits and truthful, unbiased annual reporting.
- Fairness: Housing Association internal and
external stakeholders must be considered and treated equally, regardless
of their relationship with the Housing Association. A Housing Association
Board must strive to build a diverse and engaged organisation through
succession planning and an incentivised compensation policy that considers
the interests of all parties to practice an understanding of fairness.
- Responsibility: Executive Directors must act
ethically to protect the best interests of all parties affected by a
Housing Association. Good corporate responsibility involves taking a
top-down approach to ensuring ethical conduct and engaging long-term
stakeholders on issues and concerns affecting the Association’s strategic
value creation.
One of the aims of
governance is to avoid potential conflicts of interest, examples of which may
include:
- Relational involving family members
or friends.
- Financial gifts or inducements from
suppliers
- Confidential dissemination of
information
Conflicts of interest may
occur when a party gains an advantage over another due to their involvement or
knowledge of a given set of circumstances or having access to resources,
opportunities, or privileged information. The impacts of conflicts of interest
can be reduced or mitigated using the following:
- The imposition of Housing
Association Ethical Standards.
- Ensuring stakeholders are educated
about potential conflicts of interest and are encouraged to divulge them.
- Reduce the risks of conflicts of
interest through Housing Association rules, regulations, policies, and
processes.
- Avoid conflicts of interest by
stakeholders’ direct involvement in activities.
Organisational transparency
is an honest, two-way openness between stakeholders. In contrast,
accountability exists between stakeholders where a stakeholder has an
expectation of the other, who is obliged to undertake an action on behalf of an
organisation to the countenance of other parties.
An executive team exercises
direction and control of an organisation. It directs the management team,
resources, and assets of the organisation to meet the expectations of other
internal or external stakeholders, but the Executive Team gains no financial
advantage.
A Housing Association Board
has the responsibility to develop and improve organisational transparency and
accountability to steer the organisation’s direction with increased control
using:
- Operational and budgetary formal
reporting
- Setting organisational Key
Performance Indicators with associated feedback
- Monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, and
annual Board Meetings
- Annual Board Reporting
- Regulatory financial reporting and
the filing of annual accounts at Companies House
- Disclosure of any related
organisational transactions
- Disclosing Board Member
remuneration and benefits
The more open and
accountable a Housing Association is to its stakeholders' legitimate
requirements, the less likely it is to fail to meet its aims, goals, and
objectives. This is critical in areas of public interest, such as social
housing assets built with public funding.
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