The Community Housing Council of SA believes that delivering the highest standards of governance are essential for trust in organisations. Supporting well-governed organisations to deliver stronger performance and safeguards in the interests of their stakeholders, including employees and the community.
The success of the community housing section – and the people our members house and support – relies on a strong and sought-after voice that shapes the policy and governance environment for Community/Social/Affordable housing in South Australia – the one-stop-shop for members, government, regulators and the community. In every facet of organisational development and project and service delivery, the people of South Australia seeking housing assistance and support deserve and need a system that is working at its best, and providers are reaching their potential.
Our approach to leadership will continue to bolster and be supported by long-standing relationships with key stakeholders and our members’ significant expertise and experience, which informs our policy and advocacy positions.
Through our leadership, our members contribute to a modernised and sustainable policy development system, which supports government, and regulators deliver better and sustainably reflective policy and an improved corporate governance environment. We intend to now broaden this involvement to include the input of universities, industry groups, policy specialists and other partners within the development, finance and social service sectors.
As part of our policy development process we: ensure member representation and liaison with relevant regulatory and standard setting bodies, develop and maintain working partnerships with key national and international stakeholder groups, research and analyse current and emerging governance issues and advocate our policy positions with governments and regulators.
CHCSA through consultation with its members have priorities its focus areas for work with Government, through and for members:
This would require collaboration between the CHCSA, CHPs at all Tier Levels and SAHA
- Establish a social housing sector strategy working group with key stakeholders including CHPs, SAHA and potentially other peaks (e.g. UDIA)
- Ongoing agenda could be around addressing ways to build the partnership, co-design solutions, and agree future activities to work together
- Establish an ongoing engagement plan aligned with the partnership principles.
This would require collaboration between the CHCSA, CHPs at all Tier Levels, in consultation with SAHA
- Engage across the sector and with partner agencies, customers and other departments on developing an outcomes framework for social housing (broadly) aligned to the homelessness outcomes framework
- Based on findings, co-design a series of key outcomes that should drive the performance of the sector
- Test and iterate the desired outcomes and consider the processes by which these outcomes will be reported and measured, in a timely and transparent manner.
This would require collaboration between CHCSA and CHPs at all Tier Levels
- CHCSA could consult with key CHP representatives and lead a series of iterative workshops to establish the future state vision for the sector
- Actions to adopt and embed the vision would need to be considered
- Customer engagement or lived experience contributions could be included
- A communications plan would need to be developed and delivered
This would require collaboration between the CHCSA, CHPs at all Tier Levels and SAHA
- Undertake a review of the asset and design standards that currently relate to community housing development
- Develop an understanding of any overlap or gaps, with a view to creating a proposition to government to streamline the approach
- Engage with SAHA as required around this proposition to ensure concerns / opportunities are understood and responded to.
This would require collaboration between the CHCSA, CHPs at all Tier Levels and SAHA
- Aligned to the new partnership approach, start to unpack the ways in which government and the sector can work together to achieve the reforms outlined in the Strategy and Strategic Plan
- A similar approach to the current homelessness sector reform could be considered, to identify novel and/or
- innovative responses.
This would require extensive engagement between CHCSA as an informed representative of CHPs and Government (SAHA, Department of Treasury and Finance)
- Agreement from all stakeholders that there is a case to be made to review and revise the current Master Agreement with a focus on effective portfolio management linked to outcomes, and the Fixed Payment arrangement.
- CHCSA to lead and work with Government on the development of an approach to revising the agreement that achieves objectives for both Government and the sector.
CHCSA is looking forward to 2021 and working with its members and the SA Housing Authority and all other industry stakeholders on all matters housing. CHCSA is confident that the work it has conducted this year has strengthen its stakeholder relationships.
