Measuring the impact of Covid-19 on the sector

1 May 2020 

Sovereign has joined HACT, the housing sector innovation agency, and  a number of other organisations, in endorsing a set of nine impact measurements that the Centre for Excellence in Community Investment is asking social housing organisations to collect during the Covid-19 crisis.

“HAs have done a phenomenal amount of work in their roles in supporting residents and communities where they work over the last six weeks, and we want to understand and measure the impact they’ve had,” said Andrew van Doorn, Chief Executive, HACT. “As the sector leader for social impact in housing, we have identified nine measures that will help us to evidence the impact of the social housing sector during the Covid-19 crisis.

“These measures have been developed by the Centre for Excellence in Community Investment, workingin partnership with a coalition of social housing organisations across the UK. We are asking social housing organisations to share these measures with us, so that we can aggregate the full scale of the work of social housing across the UK. Within organisations, these measures will also demonstrate the invaluable work of community investment teams to internal colleagues and Board members.”

The impact measures have been endorsed by:

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

Tristan Carlyon, Head of Research and Analysis at the National Housing Federation, said: "Housing associations have worked incredibly hard over these past weeks, ensuring that residents and communities have all the support they need during this crisis. This work by The Centre for Excellence in Community Investment will help us to capture and quantify this work, showing exactly how much our sector does to support those who need it most."

Hayley Macnamara, Policy Manager, Community Housing Cymru, said: “Housing associations have demonstrated their role as community anchor institutions during COVID-19 and have stepped up to respond to the challenges that have emerged. We recognise that this is an uncertain time so we have put in place measures and support to maintain essential services and provide support to tenants and the wider community. We are pleased to support the Centre of Excellence in Community Investment measures and we will be using the results as part of our #WithYou campaign to illustrate how our members have served communities throughout the pandemic.”

Ben Collins, CEO, NIFHA, said: “NIFHA supports the collection of information relating to community investment work, undertaken by our housing associations, which in this currently difficult environment is critical, and demonstrates how the social housing sector has stepped up to these challenges.”

Jenny Osbourne, Chief Executive, tpas, said: “It’s so important that as a sector we work together to track and understand how we have all responded to the Covid crisis in our communities. These impact measures will be a great help for that.”

Karen Browne, Senior Policy Advisor, NHC, “Social landlords have always been more than housing providers and at this time of emergency it is important to measure the critical response to the COVID-19 pandemic to help to monitor and continue to support residents and staff. It is important to direct support where it is most needed and this evidence will make the case for sustained support in the longer term.”

Rachel Honey-Jones, Head of Community Regeneration, Newydd HA, said: “These measures will ensure that we are telling the incredibly important work housing associations are carrying out across the UK in these unpresented times in a clear and easy to understand format for the wider general public. We are thrilled to be a key partner of the Centre and wholeheartedly endorse this excellent piece of work.”

Sarah Willis, Head of Strategic Partnerships & National Delivery. MTVH, said: “This simple impact tool will enable us to work collaboratively as a sector to progress our thinking and inform our collective support for communities.”

We understand that social housing organisations are under extreme pressure at the moment, and as a consequence, we are asking that they report back these nine measures to us on a monthly basis. The first set of reporting will be for two months – March and April – but this will change to a monthly basis thereafter.

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 Opens in new window. 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.

We are asking organisations to send their completed forms to us two weeks after the end of the reporting month. For March and April, we are asking organisations to send their figures to us by 15 May 2020. We will aggregate the results and send them back out to everyone who has completed the survey the following week. We are asking organisations to only complete the measures that are relevant to them.


First published by the HACT Centre for Excellence in Community Investment