Vision: "Our vision is for healthy, engaged and vibrant communities in which people enjoy opportunities to thrive."

Background

Housing Plus is a leading regional community housing provider, offering low cost community and affordable housing for individuals and families on low to moderate incomes, as well as housing for people living with a disability. It also manages crisis and transitional housing for people experiencing homelessness, and women and children affected by domestic and family violence.

For over 30 years, Housing Plus has provided outstanding services in Central West and Western regions of NSW. Through purposeful accommodation, integrated support services and promoting social justice, Housing Plus promotes healthy, engaged and vibrant communities giving individuals the opportunity to thrive.

Challenge

Housing Plus contacted Conscious Governance to conduct an External Governance & Operations Review. This included a desktop review of Board documents, an on-site desk audit of governance processes, electronic stakeholder survey, one-on-one interviews with Board members and the eventual collation and analysis of evaluation results.

After moving into a larger marketplace with greater competition, Housing Plus wanted to ensure it could absorb continued, rapid growth without compromising service quality or its financial health.

The Governance Evaluation included a review of the Housing Plus Board’s strategic processes, Board structure, constitution, Board and stakeholder communication, Board compliance responsibilities and strategic operational issues that directly affect organizational governance.

Impact

Following the Governance Review, Conscious Governance helped identify areas for improvement that would better enable Housing Plus to scale its operation as well as improving Board processes and decision making.

The individual director interviews conducted as part of the review were an opportunity for each Board member to give feedback and receive feedback on their individual contribution. It was also successful in helping each Board member understand ways they may add even more value to the Board’s discussion.

Housing Plus could provide evidence that it met and exceeded guidelines from the National Regulatory System for Community Housing Directorate.