STOCKPORT HOMES’ MONEY MANAGEMENT WINNING FORMULA

Stockport Homes has won the ‘Championing Financial Inclusion’ award at this year’s National Federation of ALMOs (NFA) awards for helping customers manage their money. The winners were announced at a ceremony at the Midland Hotel, Manchester on Tuesday 9 July. 

Now in their seventh year, the awards celebrate the innovative and inspiring projects which are helping ALMOs to lead the way in the housing sector. 

Stockport Homes won the award for its innovative approach to financial inclusion, with highlights including:

• generating extra money from collecting water charges, which was used to support people to access private rented accommodation, manage their first tenancy, reduce their energy bills, deal with debt and access additional benefits;
• developing a Welfare Reform Strategy to ensure customers were prepared for the changes to benefits, which included visiting 1,404 customers affected by under-occupation. Customers were provided with help with budgeting, downsizing, swapping homes, getting a job, creating a joint tenancy and taking in a lodger.
• promoting the option of paying rent by Direct Debit, including supporting the Big Break Campaign run by BACS UK. This resulted in the number of customers paying by Direct Debit increasing from 32% to 41%, with 567 customers switching to Direct Debit as part of the Big Break Campaign;
• developing a partnership with the Co-operative Bank, to help support customers to access banking;
• employing additional staff to provide money advice, helping to secure £20,000 of benefits for our customers, reducing water charges by £14,000 and reducing energy charges by £5,000;
• developing a range of employment schemes helping 59 people gain employment and generating over 2,000 hours of volunteering in the last year alone; and
• producing a programme of projects to improve digital inclusion, which includes working with a local social enterprise to deliver IT training to customers and recruiting Digital Inclusion Champions to train other customers. 

Roger Philips, Chair of Stockport Homes’ Board said:

“By winning this award we have shown our dedication to delivering projects to support the most excluded and vulnerable customers to manage their money in difficult economic times. Congratulations to all the staff who have worked hard to successfully deliver these projects.”

Source: 24 Dash