In our latest blog series, we chat to Rebecca Lynch, Project Change Manager at Bield, whose strategic leadership drives innovative approaches to supporting elderly tenants.

Rebecca shares insights into her role in transforming Bield's project management, recent successes like the Allocations Policy Review, and the ambitious initiatives shaping the future of independent living for older people.

Q: Can you give a brief introduction to yourself, your role and the team you work with?

A: I'm Rebecca Lynch and I'm Project Change Manager at Bield. Myself and Lynne Walker (Project Coordinator) make up Bield's Business Planning Team. Our team's main purpose is to drive forward the delivery of Bield's Strategy by programme managing and providing project support to the delivery of Strategy Projects.

There are many ways we do this, for example:

• We support the development and manage the delivery of Bield's Strategy Delivery Plan. The Strategy Delivery Plan details what we need to achieve in the year to deliver on the goals within our five-year Strategy.
• We manage, and are responsible for, the quarterly Strategy Programme Board Meetings. Here, all the Project Leads and Project Sponsors responsible for delivering Strategy Projects meet to provide assurance about project delivery, address interdependent work and discuss developing risks and issues within projects.
• We coordinate communications about the delivery of our Strategy internally and externally.
• We also continually develop Bield's Project and Change Management Guidance. This guidance is available on our staff intranet and sets out how we deliver projects at Bield, including advice and templates that can be applied to any improvement or project, from big strategic projects to small procedural changes.

In addition to working with Strategy Projects, we are also available to everyone at Bield who may need a bit of project support. We often get involved with other pieces of work that could benefit from structure and a project style approach e.g. Policy updates, improvements to ways of working and digital initiatives.

Q: What sets Bield apart in terms of other housing associations?

A: The core purpose of Bield is housing and supporting elderly tenants, which sets us apart from most other Housing Associations. As a result of this, our tenants have different wants and needs. Our focus is on empowering our tenants to live independently in their own homes for as long as possible and ensuring that, throughout their time with us, the homes and services we offer can adapt to meet their changing needs as they get older.

Q: What has been happening within your team recently? Can you highlight any positive successes?

A: One of the great things about working in the Business Planning Team is that we are involved in many different projects and improvements across Bield. We work really closely with many teams and individuals and share in positive successes, as well as addressing challenges and setbacks.

A recent project that I supported was the Allocations Policy Review. From April 2023 to April 2024, the Allocations Review Project updated Bield's Allocations Policy, integrated the process into our Cx housing system and included re-registering over 1,500 applicants. One of the short term goals of the project was to return to pre-covid levels of void loss (2.73%) and improve further than this in the long term. The new Allocations Policy and Process went live April this year, in July void loss was 2.56% and August was 2.43%. The benefits of the new policy go beyond the reduction in void loss, for example, the allocation of our new properties at Charleston was much simpler than this would have been on the old system. This was a great achievement from the team, and everyone who worked so hard to implement the new policy.

Q: The housing sector can have many challenges. Can you discuss any recent hurdles and how you have overcome them?

A: Bield's Corporate Strategy, and the other strategies that underpin this, e.g. the People Strategy and Strategic Asset Management (SAM) Strategy, set out the critical external challenges and opportunities facing us as a Housing Association. Our Delivery Plan and the work we do within the Strategy Programme Board and on Strategy Projects strives to seize these opportunities and mitigate any threats. Instead of recapping these wider challenges facing the sector I think it would be good to explore two of the main challenges our teams and projects at Bield face internally:

• Balancing assurance with bureaucracy: it is very important to ensure that we are providing our Executive Management Team and Board with assurance that the Delivery Plan and Strategy Projects are progressing on time and to a high quality. However, there is a balance between assurance and bureaucracy (reports, plans, paperwork and meetings) that we did not get right at the start of delivering our Strategy. At the start of this year, we switched the Strategy Programme Board meeting from being separate monthly meetings to one quarterly meeting for everyone to attend together. This reduced the administration and bureaucracy around the meeting and opened up the discussions to focus on actions that interlink between different projects. We continue to explore ways to reduce reporting and admin, so we can focus on delivering change, next year we will be looking at how Power BI might help us with this.
• Capacity of teams to deliver projects: everyone at Bield works really hard to provide the best service that we can and there are so many opportunities and ideas that we have for how we continually improve and deliver value to our tenants. It is challenging therefore, for people and teams who are working on multiple projects, to deliver these in addition to their day to day roles. The focus must be on prioritisation of projects. For example, last year we focused on the Allocations Policy Review and paused our Void Working Group, which has just recently restarted again this year.

Q: What are the future plans for your team? Are there any new projects or initiatives you hope to roll out or start on the horizon?

A: Some exciting projects we are supporting within the Strategy Programme Boards are:

• Working with staff at select developments to pilot Bield's new Independent Living model. This model was created last year, in partnership with tenants. The model centres around adopting a holistic personalised approach to independent living, connecting tenants with their wider community, and includes a range of offerings such as annual tenant visits and enhanced use of technology to support independent living in personalised ways.
• Finalising Bield's Design Principles for New Build and Remodelling. These principles will give direction for new build and retrofit projects and ensure that they are designed to align with what our current and future tenants want and need. In addition, the Design Guide will align with our Independent Living Model and futureproof our homes for the changing needs of tenants in coming years.
• Undertaking a review of Bield's Rent Policy, to examine how Bield calculates and separates rental and service charges. Bield, like other housing associations across the sector, are facing increased scrutiny from Local Authorities regarding rental charges and Housing Benefit eligibility. This review aims to address these concerns and ensure that our rents are fair and proportionate for tenants, protecting their benefits.

In addition, between now and March we will be supporting the development of Bield's next Strategy Delivery Plan. This will set out the priorities for the next financial year (April 2025 - March 2026), to ensure we continue to deliver the goals set out in our Strategy to 2028. Within this work we are identifying the actions we need to take to continue to deliver high-quality services, as well as those to bring our Strategy and priorities to life in the coming months.

Stay tuned to hear more about the other teams working behind the scenes every day to support our tenants and team.