Hexagon is a member of HouseMark, a national benchmarking company. Together with other Housing Associations we supply performance information and costs to HouseMark on an annual basis.
HouseMark have developed a benchmarking dashboard. This allows us to easily see how we are performing, in terms of value for money, against a range of services.
Click here to view the HouseMark Dashboard.
Before reading the information at the HouseMark page there are a few things that are worth explaining.
The Dashboard
The initial screen gives a Value for Money summary, plus a series of links to more detailed areas of service delivery. It is generally easy to navigate, but a few options are worth noting.
The screen allows the user to view the data either as a grid or in a list; the latter makes comments more easily visible where they have been added.
The ‘compare with’ option allows users to compare different groups; the ‘peer group’ is selected by the landlord – for Hexagon, this is housing associations in London with fewer than 7500 homes.
For each of the service options, there are two aspects:
– The + gives a breakdown of the data in the VFM chart.
– The → gives access to a service dashboard.
A Few Terms and Phrases
HouseMark tends to use quite a lot of jargon and abbreviations, so we have provided the list below to help you understand the terms they use.
| Term | Meaning |
| CPP | Cost Per Property |
| Direct employee costs | In the main, staff wages, pensions, national insurance, car allowances. |
| Direct non-pay costs | Other costs that relate to providing the service. For example, for rent collection and arrears this would include: • Bank and other charges for rent payments. • External benefits advice that Hexagon ‘buys in’. • Legal costs. |
| LowerQ | Lower Quartile – the lower 25% of housing organisations |
| Median | The mid-point in a set of data. |
| Overhead costs | Costs relating to offices, senior staff, etc. |
| Rank | Where a housing organisation is placed in the sample (where 1 is the best). |
| Sample size | The number of housing organisations for which there is data. |
| UpperQ | Upper Quartile – the top 25% of housing organisations |
