Between March and October 2020, UK social housing organisations representing 42% of the sector provided almost £1,900,000 in financial assistance, provided over 215,000 residents with advice and guidance, and made just under one million welfare calls.

“As we reach the end of the year, the commitment and dedication of the sector continues,” said Andrew van Doorn, Chief Executive, HACT. “If we aggregate these figures, it would indicate that the sector has provided over £4.5 million in financial assistance, made over 2.3 million welfare calls and provided over half a million residents with advice and guidance sessions, and over 350,000 food interventions since the Covid-19 pandemic began.”

“The sector, together, continues to deliver on its social purpose, creating huge impact for people and their communities,” he added. “We are proud to be playing a pioneering role in evidencing, measuring and promoting the social impact of the social housing sector.”

This month’s release of impact measures is broken into two sections: the first features four cumulative measures from March to October. The second are the first set of responses to our broadened set of impact measures that include more detail about the advice provided to residents, the numbers of residents on Universal Credit and in arrears, as well as the numbers of residents supported into employment, training and volunteering.

“The social value of supporting 1,285 residents into either employment, training and volunteering is over £3 million in just one month,” Andrew van Doorn continued.

The impact measures were developed by HACT and the Centre for Excellence in Community Investment, working in partnership with a coalition of social housing organisations across the UK. They have recently been included in our A Sector Together report, an anthology of stories, statistics and viewpoints that capture how social housing organisations responded to the Covid-19 pandemic across the UK.

Organisations can submit their measures to the Centre for Excellence in Community Investment using an Excel spreadsheet that is available from the Centre web site. Information contained within these documents will be stored securely and will not be shared with third parties. We will only be collating this information and will not use any of the information on a case by case or benchmarking basis.

Read our updated guidance notes on how to submit your organisation’s impact measures.

Editor’s notes

The nine measures we are asking social housing organisations to collect and share are:

• Number of welfare calls to residents in the past month
• Number of residents on Universal Credit
• Financial support provided to residents
• Number of food interventions made in the past month
• Number of residents supported with advice and guidance, around money and debt, welfare advice, digital, employment and training, and mental wellbeing
• Total number of residents at risk of arrears
• Number of residents suppored into employment and training
• Number of young people supported
• Number of residents who feel in control

Figures relate to independent social housing organisations and do not include local authority owned and managed homes.

The impact measures were originally endorsed by:

• NHF
• Placeshapers
• SFHA
• Tpas
• NIFHA
• Community Housing Cymru
• Communities that work
• Northern Housing Consortium
• Clarion
• L&Q
• • Sovereign
• Peabody
• Orbit
• MTVH
• Newydd HA
• Longhurst
• Irwell Valley Homes