Value For Money
What is Value for Money (VFM)? And why is it important?
At LMH we understand the importance of using money wisely and minimising waste. We understand that it is your money we spend and we have a responsibility to you to use it carefully and efficiently.
Since we transferred from the Council we have achieved over £5 million in savings. These saving are the result of decisions we have taken to reduce costs and increase the quality of the services we provide to you. To learn more about how about how we have saved money, view our evidence log.
We also understand that we cannot stand still, achieving Value for Money is about always looking for ways to improve, by learning from others and to listening to you, our customers, as we exist to deliver the service that you want from the income that we receive.
What does VFM mean?
Getting Value for Money is part of all of our everyday lives. We make decisions about how to spend money, all the time. When money is tight it is even more important to make your money go further. We use the 3 E's as a simple guide to what VFM is all about.
ECONOMY
VFM is about money - How much something costs
EFFICIENCY
VFM is about processes - How well we use the money
EFFECTIVENESS
VFM is about satisfaction - Did we get what was expected
An example how Value for Money is achieved through a property repair would be:
Economy
What is put in - Labour and Materials
Efficiency
The Process - How the repair was carried out? How quickly? Right first time?
Effectiveness
The Results - Was the customer satisfied with the repair
LMH makes sure it gets Value for Money (VFM) by;
Comparing - We compare or benchmark our costs to similar organisations to make sure they are competitive.
Staff training - We make sure all staff understand and appreciate the importance of spending your money wisely.
Monitoring - We keep a check on how we are doing and publicise our findings.
Maximising our income - We look at areas where we can do this through improving performance. For example, when a home becomes empty we have developed ways to let the property to a new tenant more quickly, so our rental income is increased.
Using our buying power - We use the size of our organisation to increase our buying power to get lower prices.
Attracting investment - We actively explore ways to attract more investment For example, we received a grant to help fund the sheltered tenant cleaners from the Government.
What you can do to help us
- Contact us if you have any ideas which could save money
- Get involved – some of our tenants and leaseholders take part in focus groups
- Opt for a rent payment method which is less expensive for LMH to process.A direct debit payment is considerably cheaper than a payzone payment.If you wish to pay by direct debit please contact us for more details. If you pay your rent on time we do not have to contact you and this saves money.
Contact Us
If you want more information or if you do want to start paying your rent by direct debit call us on 0800 678 1894 (free from landline) OR 0300 123 2300 (local rate from mobile)
You can also find out more by reading our VFM Strategy
