Cunninghame Housing Association – Review and Restructure of Finance and Corporate Services

Cunninghame Housing Association (CHA) formerly registered with the Registrar of Friendly Societies in 1984 known as Three Towns Housing Association. The organisation’s birth reflects the ethos of community-based housing movements prevalent at the time in the West of Scotland.  Community based associations have traditionally been the offspring of involvement by dedicated community activists and District Councils. Cunninghame Housing Association (then The Three Towns Housing Association) is no exception.

DTP was commissioned by CHA to undertake a review of the Finance & Corporate Services department.  The review would consider the effectiveness of the current structure with the department and it would review the number of functions which sat within it.  The commission was expected to inform the department’s future structure and its associated recruitment/staffing needs. 

Objective

DTP was commissioned by CHA to undertake a review of the Finance & Corporate Services department.  The review would consider the effectiveness of the current structure with the department and it would review the number of functions which sat within it.  The commission was expected to inform the department’s future structure and its associated recruitment/staffing needs. 

Specifically, DTP was asked to deliver:

• An overview of the functions which presently sit within the Finance & Corporate Services department.
• Discussions where required with specific departmental staff about their roles.
• Appropriateness of ICT staff structure to address business critical ICT issues across the Group.
• Appropriateness of Finance staff structure in being able to support and allow financial deadlines and workload to be met across the Group.
• Consider if HR should continue to be part of Finance & Corporate Services.
• Consider alternative structure arrangements which will ensure that the key functions and work areas within the department are adequately resourced and managed.
• Consider the impact on the EMT of options being presented.

Our approach

We approach the review in stages, as shown below:

Start-up

We held a start-up meeting to agree key contacts, information requirements (and sources) and key stakeholders with whom we would need to engage.  A timeline for reporting was also agreed.

Desk-top analysis / structured interviews

We conducted a desk-top analysis of a range of relevant information, including:

• Role profiles, job descriptions
• Qualifications
• Outputs, including reports (for example, HR reports, Admin reports, management accounts and reports for these, treasury reporting, performance benchmarking reports, GDPR reporting and reporting relating to Internal and External Audit)
• Outline details of relevant systems in use and how they interact with other systems

DTP held a number of structured interviews with key people, including department team members (service providers), service users and other important stakeholders. 

Analysis, review and reporting

We pooled our findings from the analysis and the interviews and we prepared our draft report, which was discussed with the Chief Executive and an Executive Director.   Our final report was presented and discussed with board members and our proposed recommendations were accepted.

What we achieved

On completion of our review, CHA concluded that the proposals and the recommendations should be progressed as part of a targeted action plan.