The document summarizes Baker Tilly's Back Office Benchmarking (BOB) program, which helps social housing organizations assess the value for money of their corporate services through benchmarking. The program collects data on back office costs from nearly 50 member organizations and identifies best practices. Members can analyze their performance, identify cost savings opportunities, and connect with peers. Case studies show members saving over £100,000 annually through participation in BOB.

1. Back Office Benchmarking (BOB)
Helping you meet the Value For Money Standard
Social Housing
Back Office Benchmarking Programme

2. 2
Social Housing
Back Office Benchmarking (BOB)
Helping you deliver value for money savings
Contents
Introduction ................................................ 3
Why back office and why benchmarking? ....... 4
Our approach ..............................................
5
Benefits to members .................................... 6
How we deliver the service ........................... 7
Bob is unique ............................................. 8
Case study ................................................. 9
In summary ............................................... 10
Contact us ................................................. 11
‘‘
BOB has allowed One Vision Housing to inform and shape our Value
for Money and Procurement Strategies and priorities in the last few
years. Membership of the club has also opened up our organisation
to an invaluable network of friends and colleagues, who support
and assist each other as we strive for continuing improvement.
‘‘
Gaynor Robinson
Operational Director, One Vision Housing

3. 3
Introduction
Three quarters of our members
estimate to have saved £100,000 in
the first year as a direct result of being
in the programme, with a significant
number expecting to make even larger
Baker Tilly’s Back Office Benchmarking savings in the future.
programme (BOB) has been designed
to help you assess the VfM of your BOB is a national database of all back
corporate services. office costs that housing associations
incur, supported by a regional network
BOB is committed to helping housing of facilitated discussion groups who
associations run their back offices more identify and share best practice. Since
cost effectively. launching seven years ago we now
have nearly 50 members, ranging from
‘‘
3,000 to 50,000 units.
‘‘
We have had our challenges in dealing with the economic
climate and the need to be more efficient. Benchmarking
with the help of Baker Tilly’s BOB programme has been at
the heart of our approach to value for money.
Steve Dungworth
Head of Management Services, Accent Group

4. 4
‘‘ This is the most focussed and
valuable benchmarking exercise
‘‘
I’ve been involved with.
Nick Horne
Group CEO, Arcadia Housing Group
Why back office
and why benchmarking?
Our benchmarking programme,
together with our private sector
experience, indicates that the social
• imited mechanisms exist for
L housing sector should be able to
reviewing operational effectiveness achieve a reduction in annual back
in respect of back office. This means office costs of around 20-25% by
that operational costs and processes the end of the three years. We have
Back office functions form a key part
get limited independent scrutiny estimated that the sector could save
of the corporate organisational
and review. around £600m from the estimated
framework of housing associations,
£3.2b current spend on back
but our work in the BOB programme • s a result of this lack of
A office services.
has revealed that: standardisation, simplification and
• ocial housing associations corporate
S sharing of back office operations
services are often fragmented, with the sector is paying a significant
most individual organisations having premium in delivering its corporate
their own back office operations and services.
IT systems. Whilst performance indicators give a
• here can be a lack of robust and
T pointer to the level of performance, it is
consistent management information benchmarking that can pinpoint areas
on back office operational spending, of good or poor performance, including
making it hard to identify whether comparing your performance to peer
functions are delivering VfM. organisations and learning from what
others have done.

5. 5
• dentity and focus on better outcomes
i
for corporate service users;
• eflect best practice - thereby aiding
r
innovation and effectiveness;
Clearly, having been benchmarking • se indicators that are simple and
u
corporate services for the past 7 easy to measure and predefined;
Our Approach years, we already have a set of key
indicators for the major back office • he indicators we have developed
t
functions, ie Finance, HR, ICT, are not meant to cover all aspects
In our experience it is important when estates, procurement, legal and of performance but instead have
benchmarking a function review that marketing and communications. been chosen for their capacity to
key aspects of effectiveness as well motivate changes in behaviour
as efficiency are reviewed. In addition The benefits of using these indicators and support improvement;
to an efficiency dimension, we have enable us to:
developed three separate facets of • omplement any existing
c
• rovide our clients with a small
p performance management
effectiveness that we measured: number of high level indicators frameworks and benchmarking
1. Impact: in terms of how the capturing those aspects of initiatives, and also provide the
output of the function contributes performance that are vital for the facility to benchmarking with other
to or influences corporate effective management of the service public/private sector bodies.
performance as a whole. by senior managers;
2. atisfaction of users and
S
senior managers: looking at
how the function is regarded by Rating based on Extent to which
the perception of organisation has
staff who use these services and those receiving adopted the best
management
also by the senior management the service
practices
who commission them.
Modernising
Internal User
3. odernisation: to consider
M organising
Satisfaction
the extent to which a function and innovation
has adopted management practices
regarded as being innovative and
forward looking. Ecomomy and Impact on
efficiency organisational
of major performance
processes and outcomes
Organisational
Cost and metric heavily
productivity influenced by
indicators service
Effectiveness KPIs
Efficiency KPIs

6. 6
Benefits to members
As a member you can use the BOB programme to:
• nalyse the full range of back office
A • ssess whether your back office
A • oin one of the regional facilitated
J
services, including finance, HR ICT delivers true value for money BOB Performance Improvement
and 6 other functions Groups (held a minimum five times
• rove to Regulators that you
P a year in each region), giving you
• nderstand how your organisation
U are taking the new VfM standard the opportunity to network with
performs year-on-year seriously like-minded peers and discuss the
• ake accurate comparisons with
M • iscover opportunities for back
D results generated by participating
peers office monies to be redistributed organisations.
to more tenant facing activities
• elp you Board identify how cost
H
effective your back office is

7. 7
How we deliver the service
Membership is open to all social housing organisations via an annual subscription. This fee covers documentation, online
database access, data collection, telephone helpline, reports and a place at regular regional group meetings.
Members of the programme have defined the benchmarking criteria with the main costs being grouped initially into staff
cost and operational costs and then into 12 areas including legal costs, IT costs, insurance, training and utilities and rates.
Your data is inputted via our bespoke secure website accessible only to members. After being validated both online and by
one of our specialist Baker Tilly consultants, it is added to the overall database. Members are then able to use the online
reporting tool to compare their performance.
Normalised back office cost
1.1
Staff Cost
1.0
Operational Cost
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
£/Unit
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0

8. 8
‘‘ When discussing performance levels without a fact-based
benchmark, you are just having a debate of ideas. Baker
Tilly’s information provides the insight needed to identify
your biggest opportunities and move with speed and
alignment to solve them.
‘‘
Gary Moreton
BOB is unique Partner and Chairman, Baker Tilly Social Housing Group
Our service is different than other In relation to data input because we Feedback from a recent survey
Benchmarking service providers have a set of fixed definitions and the of our members showed that:
in this sector because it: data input is online most of the effort
required be members is to ensure they • 2% of housing associations join
7
• as an internet database that allows
H have the correct financial and practice BOB in order to compare their
easy input and access - 24/7 data within their own organisations. practices with peer organisations
• Is real time and so up to date Most of our members tell us that their • 1% use BOB to network with
6
current management reports provide other housing associations
• ata input is phased over an
D them with the majority of the data
agreed period required, but some information needs • acilitated joint discussions
F
to be collated outside of the finance with competitors were with what
• as an online reporting tool giving
H members liked most about BOB
dept who normally take the lead role.
ready access to information
Group members agree to respect the
• as facilitated meetings where
H
confidentiality of information and all
members can interrogate the results
members agree to the principal of
and discuss them with their peers
complete transparency of information
supported by Baker Tilly efficiency
amongst the whole of the membership.
specialists
Current profile of members
The current profile of member based on units and turnover is as follows
% By Units % By Turnover
40% 40%
35% 35%
30% 30%
25% 25%
20% 20%
15% 15%
10% 10%
5% 5%
0% 0%
0–4999 5000–9999 10000–19999 20000+ 0-£19m £20m-£49m £50m-£99m £100m+
As you can see we have a healthy spread of members across the spectrum of both units and turnover and our membership
mirrors the complexity, type and spread of business interests across the sector.

9. 9
‘‘ A large proportion of organisations cutting costs may not
wish to contemplate structural cost cutting strategies.
Although restructuring and outsourcing can cause
disruption to an organisation it can make a company
more flexible and responsive to sector change.
‘‘
Case study - Peter Lunio
Associate Director
Baker Tilly Social Housing Group
how to save £1m
One of our clients - a 12,000 unit As a result of joining BOB, the
traditional housing association - joined organisation derived the following
our BOB programme in 2006 after benefits:
identifying that:
• hey used the BOB data and
T
• heir own benchmarking indicated
T established a 5 point action plan
lower than average financial which enabled them to deliver back
performance office savings of £1.2m over 4 years
• here was a perception that central
T • avings have facilitated
S
and back office services seemed improvements to tenant satisfaction
resource intensive and relatively through the creation of dedicated
expensive Nuisance Prevention, Leasehold
Management, Sheltered Housing,
• ther benchmarking was focussed
O
on operational costs and structures • re-BOB, the organisation aspired
P
to make changes. Using BOB,
• t required a more detailed look at
I they set challenging but achievable
back office structures and processes, targets, and have an insight into the
rather than simply costs changes to processes and systems
needed to really deliver change.

10. 10
In summary
Launched in 2005, Baker Tilly’s Back • Dedicated website and database • Learning from ‘good practice’
Office Benchmarking Programme
(BOB) offers a unique service currently • Phased data input • avings in time and cost, as
S
delivered to over 45 Social Housing the effort of defining and collecting
• onfidential comparisons with a wide
C benchmarks is spread over all
organisations. We continue to have range of similar organisations as well
high levels of customer satisfaction club members
as with comparators chosen by the
and high re-join rates. The strengths member • dedicated team of Benchmarking
A
that make Baker Tilly’s BOB groups professionals ensures a successful
so successful are: • etailed analysis showing not just
D outcome is delivered for every
how members compare in terms member.
• A large and proactive membership of headline cost benchmarks, but
• A strong focus on improvement also some of the reasons why their
performance differs from others
• onsistency through common and
C We look forward to you joining.
robust definitions • xchanges of experience between
E
members e.g. IT systems
• areful validation of data supplied
C
by members • he opportunity to learn from other
T
organisations successes and failures

11. 11
Contact us
If you are interested in joining the BOB Gary Moreton
programme please contact: Gary is an Audit partner with extensive experience in
the social housing sector. He also heads Baker Tilly’s
Social Housing Group and co runs the BOB groups
both nationally and in the Midlands.
T: 0121 214 3100
E: gary.moreton@bakertilly.co.uk
Peter Lunio
Peter heads our Social Housing Consultancy Practice
and has worked extensively in the sector for the past
four years delivering VfM projects for his clients.
Peter also leads Baker Tilly’s BOB programme.
Keith Ward
T: 0117 945 2000 Keith is an Audit Director and has been involved
E: peter.lunio@bakertilly.co.uk in the social housing sector for over 20 years,
with significant experience in the public sector.
Keith co runs the Northern BOB group.
T: 0161 830 4000
E: keith.ward@bakertilly.co.uk
Darren Mee
Darren is a Senior Consultant and the operational
head of BOB. He has a vast range of experience in
management reporting and lean systems thinking.
T: 0121 214 3100
E: darren.mee@bakertilly.co.uk

12. www.bakertilly.co.uk/bob
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© 2012 Baker Tilly UK Group LLP, all rights reserved. 03.12
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