Covalent finalists include;

Large Housing Association of the Year
Helena Partnerships
Liverpool Mutual Homes
Parkway Green Housing Trust

Arms Length Management Organisation of the Year
CityWest Homes

Specialist Housing Provider of the Year
Aspire Housing

Strategic Local Authority of the Year
Elmbridge Borough Council

Partnership of the Year
Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council

Most Efficient Landlord of the Year
One Vision Housing
Plus Dane Group

Sustainable Landlord of the Year
Monmouthshire Housing

Business Transformation of the Year
Parkway Green Housing Trust

Innovation of the Year
London Borough of Haringey

Development of the Year – Large Schemes
Black Country Housing Association

Covalent wishes all of the finalists the very best of luck in their categories. Winners will be announced at a ceremony to be held on 27 June at Hilton Hotel, Park Lane, London.

To learn more about Covalent for Social Housing providers, click here

Southend-on-Sea Borough Council are named
winner of the landmark title of ‘Council of the Year 2012′ at the prestigious Local Government Chronicle Awards.

Judges said: “The winning Council has shown sustained progress over a number of years, passing clear milestones. It has gone beyond basic service provision, adding significant value and demonstrating visible impact for the community.”

Chief Executive of Southend, Rob Tinlin said: “Strong performance management has been  an essential part of the council’s improvement journey, and Covalent has played an increasingly important role supporting that progression over the last 4 to 5 years.”

Southend-on-Sea Council join the list of Covalent customers who have achieved Council of the Year awards, previous winners include West Lothian, Wychavon and Tunbridge Wells Councils.

For more information on Covalent for Councils, please click here

This year the Covalent team wanted to go the
extra mile for Sport Relief 2012 –
fundraising to help people living
unimaginably tough lives both at home in
the UK and across the world’s poorest countries. On Friday 13th April, the Covalent Team competed in a charity football match and have so far raised a very respectable £223 for Sport Relief.

There is still time to sponsor them at:
https://my.sportrelief.com/sponsor/covsoft 

THE RESULT:

Covalent 4 - 5 “The Others”

MATCH REPORT:

This year’s game involving Covalent and The Others was an agonisingly close affair. The first half saw the Covalent side bossing possession and creating some good chances which they were able to capitalise on. If it wasn’t for the fine form and heroics of The Others goalkeeper, Henning Totz, Covalent might’ve been out of sight but at half time the score was 2-1.

The second half was a much more lively affair which saw some great football and many more chances. Covalent were pegged back to 2-2 but two quickfire goals gave them a 4-2 lead which included a hat trick for target man Peter McHugh. At this point Covalent looked comfortable, however The Others clawed their way back into the game, equalising via a Southgate goal which dribbled in agonisingly off the far post. At 4-4 the game was in the balance and became very open, with opportunities falling to both sides before the ball fell to Roberts in space on the edge of the Covalent box. Roberts made the most of the opportunity and a sweetly struck left footed half volley which screamed past keeper Jones and into the net. Covalent were left with little time to recover from this devastating blow and weren’t able to strike back in the remaining seconds.

Covalent Software is pleased to announce that, with the purchase of their Corporate Performance Management solution, NHS North Lincs has become their latest NHS customer.  What makes this particular deal so interesting is that it completes the Humber Cluster -
with North East Lincs CTP, NHS East Riding & NHS Hull all now using Covalent Software.

Jill Burdall, Performance Manager at NHS East Riding stated “Being on the same system, with shared definitions and reporting formats including Geographical Performance Reporting, makes everything so much easier. Covalent is so easy to use, the reports are excellent and the ability to share data and actions across the network is really beneficial, especially as the Cluster moves towards its new role of supporting the CCGs”

Covalent places great emphasis on the quality of its customer service and levels of customer satisfaction. Despite the now sizeable customer base, we continue to deliver the same very high quality of service and personal customer attention as when we went live with our first customer in 2003.

Covalent consistently provides the highest level of customer service with 98% of customers stating they would recommend usage of Covalent to a peer organisation, over the last five annual customer surveys.

For more information on Covalent for NHS organisations, please click here

Q1 2012 has seen the most successful quarter
ever for Covalent Software, with the addition
of 11 new customers from across the Public Sector.

Within the Council market 5 new UK councils have selected Covalent as their corporate performance and risk management provider, taking the total number to 110 organisations and further cementing Covalent’s position as the clear market leader for local government. A number of these customers dropped a competitor system in favour of Covalent. North of the border, Covalent was the successful bidder in a procurement process for Aberdeenshire Council, bringing total Scottish Council numbers to 21 – increasing market share in that segment to over 65%. In addition, Covalent have signed their 4th US council customer for corporate performance management, one of 62 members of the Florida Benchmarking club who currently utilise Covalent as a state wide benchmarking solution.

Q1 has also seen an increased uptake from the NHS with a trio of new organisations joining the customer base, Covalent now have customers across all parts of the NHS including Acute Trusts, Mental Health, Clusters, Ambulance Trusts, Community Health, Provider and Commissioner Services.

Covalent have also added 2 new social housing customers, bringing the total number of housing users to 55 directly contracted organisations and a further 40 subsidiary users.

In addition, despite the extensive public sector spending cuts, Covalent has achieved their best quarter ever for sales of additional products and services to the existing customer base. A record number of individual user licences and site wide licences have been purchased; a large number of customers have also invested in the new Audit Management and Dashboards applications released by Covalent in early 2012.

Covalent are pleased to welcome aboard another new housing client, Two Rivers Housing.

Two Rivers Housing was formed as a shadow company in 2001 and took over the ownership and management of the Forest of Dean District councils housing stock of 3577 homes, following a successful housing stock transfer in March 2003. The company’s mission is ‘to provide quality affordable homes to meet community needs’ and since transfer we have developed a further 409 new homes within Gloucestershire South Herefordshire and Stroud. Two Rivers have a current development pipeline of around 330 new homes over the next 3 years.

Speaking on behalf of Two Rivers Housing, Director of Customer Services, Jon Coe said,

“Two Rivers have developed a corporate performance management system (PMS) incorporating elements such as KPI’s, a risk map , processes, projects and staff appraisals. However we were looking for an IT based system that would link all of these aspects of our PMS together , and ensure connectivity back to our mission , vision , and values.  

Having reviewed several alternative systems we believe that Covalent offers the functionality and flexibility to provide a fully integrated PMS that we now consider is essential for managing the company.”

Two Rivers will be using Covalent to manage both their corporate and employee performance management. To support the organisation in their roll-out of the system, Covalent will also be providing consultancy services to help the organisation develop their performance management framework, including defining the performance information required, key processes and the roles of individuals.

Click here to learn more about Covalent for Social Housing providers.

Pennaf Housing Group, Broxbourne Housing Association (BHA),
Northwards Housing and City West Housing Trust have been named in the top 100 not-for-profit organisations in the country according to the Sunday Times.

The Sunday Times Best Companies list, which looks at every aspect of the workplace, have named Broxbourne Housing in 10th place, Pennaf in 29th, Northwards in 74th and City West at 86th in the list of best companies to work for in the UK.

John Giesen, Chief Executive of BHA said: “We are always looking for new ways to make sure our organisation is the best it can be. Best Companies has been an invaluable tool to help us do this, finding out independently how we are doing and how we compare against other similar organisations. Using the feedback from last year’s entry, we have grown BHA from a two star to a three star organisation and to hear we feature in the top 10 best not-for-profit organisations in the country is absolutely fantastic.”

Being a best company is about excelling in every area throughout the workplace and an organisation’s commitment to its most important assets – its workforce. To become recognised as a best company, organisations must demonstrate high levels of employee engagement based on a staff survey designed to measure employee engagement across eight factors: Leadership, Wellbeing, My Manager, My Team, My Company, Personal Growth, Giving Something Back, Fair Deal.

Click Here to learn more about Covalent for Social Housing Providers

Covalent is pleased to welcome aboard their 19th housing provider
in the north west of England, Willow Park Housing Trust.

Willow Park is a registered social landlord, owning and managing nearly 8000 homes in Wythenshawe, south Manchester. The Trust was established in 1999 to transform housing conditions in the area and support the regeneration of this dynamic and rapidly
changing part of Manchester.  To date Willow Park has invested over £220m in improving homes and the environment, developing new homes and open spaces and providing new community facilities.

Speaking on behalf of the trust, Christine Billington, Head of IT, has said;

 ”We  already had a comprehensive management reporting system but wanted something to help us manage our portfolio of Action Plans and which we could use as a platform to drive performance improvement and service excellence. We therefore needed a modular system at a reasonable initial cost that we could grow over time.

We chose Covalent since it’s easy to use and feature rich. We also based its selection on the positive feedback we received from other Covalent customers both about the product and the Covalent support services. “   

Covalents Action Planning module consolidates in one place all corporate and departmental action plans, service improvement programmes, and development/regeneration projects and progress tracks them with powerful milestone management.

Click here to learn more about Covalent for Social Housing providers.

Roy Williams, chief executive of the 11,500-home association said: ‘To be named as the best company to work for in the UK is an exceptional achievement.

‘The accolade is even more special because it’s an achievement based on the results of staff feedback. To make the Sunday Times top 100 list is a massive feat in itself. To be number one is nothing short of extraordinary.’

The list ranks Britain’s best companies to work for by staff satisfaction survey results which focus on factors such as health and wellbeing, leadership and career progression.

Covalent Software are proud to have been working with One Vision Housing since July 2008, providing Corporate Performance and Risk management software and support.

Click Here to read the Case Study of One Vision’s journey with Covalent.

Cottsway Housing Association was formed for the specific purpose of receiving the transfer of West Oxfordshire District Council’s housing stock in March 2001. Cottsway are now the largest registered housing provider operating within the West Oxfordshire District, managing over 3,600 homes.

Cottsway selected Covalent to improve management of KPIs, Action Planning and Risk Management across the association. It will also be using Covalent’s integration module to retrieve data from the housing management system, and to automatically populate that data in Covalent. Moving forward, Cottsway will also be implementing Covalent’s Employee Performance Management product to align their staffing appraisal process with corporate strategy and objectives.

Speaking on Cottsway’s decision to adopt Covalent, Deputy CEO & Finance Director, David Barnett said,

“We had been looking for a performance management system for some time to help us in taking the organisation forward – overhauling our reporting processes, strengthening control over performance and making sure that the golden thread is firmly embedded throughout the organisation. Covalent met all our needs. Comprehensive and easy to use.

The timing is perfect for us as we are about to launch an updated Corporate Plan and a new management structure. We look forward to working with Covalent to ensure this is all delivered effectively and with the minimum of fuss. It all promises to be both exciting and challenging, and I am sure Covalent will be a huge asset for us.”

For more information on Covalent for RSLs & ALMOs, please click here