YHN Delivery Plan 2012-13 - Your Homes Newcastle

treating everyone fairly and withrespect, and this is a natural part of theway we work.Our Equality Policy and Equality &Diversity Strategy outline our vision,aims, priorities and targets. OurCommunity Cohesion Strategy setsout the direction for addressingCommunity Cohesion until March2014. All services across YHN have aresponsibility for contributing towardsachieving our Equality and Diversityand Community Cohesion priorities.Service managers must ensure that allrelevant equality and diversity targetsare cascaded into their own teamtargets and into individual one to onesand appraisals. This helps to ensurethat equality and diversity ismainstreamed across the organisationand not the sole responsibility of oneteam.Mainstreaming of equality and diversityis further strengthened by our activitiessuch as ‘Diversity Week’, whichallowed staff to take part in learningacross a wide variety of equality anddiversity issues that could be put intopractice in the workplace. Progress onequality and diversity issues isreported directly to our Board, andwhere it is necessary to scrutinise orchallenge information separate Boardworkshops are held.Our Strategic Independent AdvisoryGroup has a key role at Your HomesNewcastle. Members of the groupprovide an independent voice to helpYHN in appraising our approach toequality and diversity, especially at astrategic level on all new andsignificantly changed policies,procedures, housing services andfunctions.Risk managementWe have a Risk Management Strategyin place that sets out:Our commitment to implementingan effective risk managementframework;Our approach to risk managementand how, as an organisation, weintend to embed risk management;Clear roles and responsibilities inthe process of risk management;andClear monitoring procedures for ourstrategic risk register.Risks identified at a strategic level arecurrently monitored by YHN AuditCommittee. The strategic risk registeris reviewed annually by Boardmembers, YHN Management Teamand Audit Committee.Information and CommunicationTechnology (ICT)The mission of our ICT service is toprovide secure, reliable and efficientICT systems and services that supportproductivity and excellent customerservice, and to get the right informationto the right people in the right way.Our programme to update out of dateand stand-alone ICT systems willcontinue next year, ensuring that theICT system underpinning the new YHNEnquiry Centre provides a full andconsistent view of our customers andprocedures. New software to supportour management of anti-socialbehaviourand the new online housingapplication system are also part of thisprogramme.We will continue work to network thecity’s tower blocks, allowing us to bringCCTV images back to the EnquiryCentre, and to deliver services more17