Wythenshawe Community Housing Group
Board Governance
Wythenshawe Community Housing Group Ltd is a charitable community benefit society and is a not-for-profit provider of social housing and is registered with the Regulator of Social Housing as a social landlord.
WCHG has two subsidiary companies, Garden City Design & Build Limited, a development company, and Garden City Trading Limited, a non-charitable property company. Neither subsidiary is regulated by the Regulator of Social Housing.
The Group Board comprises Non-Executive board members and is responsible for managing the affairs of the Group.
GROUP BOARD
The Group Board comprises of Non-Executive Board members and is responsible for providing leadership to the organisation and setting company values to be delivered in the long term. This includes governance, the approval of new Group policies and strategies, and the approval of any refinancing of loans or major changes to the Group’s business plan.
There are four committees of the Board; Customer Experience Committee, Audit and Risk Committee, Remuneration and Governance Committee, and Development Committee.
The Board meets six times a year. Each committee meets between four and six times a year.
Nick Crofts, Chair of the Board/Group Remuneration and Governance Committee Member
Nick has more than eight years’ leadership experience in social housing, having held the positions of Deputy Chair of Cobalt Housing and Chair of Venture Housing, both based in the North West. He is also currently CEO of the Co-op Foundation - one of the region’s best-known charities - and has served as a city councillor in Liverpool for 10 years. Nick was appointed Chair of the Board on the 31 March 2022.
Tony Bell, Board Member/Chair of the Group Audit & Risk Committee
Tony is a qualified accountant with more than 20 years’ experience at board level in the further education sector, with roles including managing director, group commercial director, vice principal and director of finance.
Tony has close links with the local community borne from his voluntary role as deputy chair of an dual-location enterprise park in Manchester which provides work space and business support to 200 small and medium-sized enterprises.
Claire Flynn, Board Member/Customer Experience Committee Member
Clare has lived and worked in Wythenshawe most of her life. She has a particular interest in services for the elderly and disabled people and was a member of the Tenant Committee of Parkway Green before joining the WCHG board.
Michelle Gregg, Board Member/Chair of the Customer Experience Committee/Group Remuneration and Governance Committee Member
Michelle lives locally and has worked in the housing sector for more than 35 years. She started her career working in Housing Aid for Trafford Council and has held a number of executive director roles with North West based housing associations, primarily with a customer service focus.
Tahir Idris, Board Member/Group Remuneration and Governance Committee Member
Tahir commenced his career in housing in 1989 as a trainee and has held many senior roles since. He is experienced in transformational change management - both strategic and operational - with a strong focus on communities, tenants and residents. He has worked for a wide range of housing associations, from small, community-led associations to industry-leading providers, such as Places for People and Together Housing.
David Nuttall, Board Member/Customer Experience Committee Member/Development Committee Member
Dave has lived in Wythenshawe for 25 years and currently runs a local charity in the community. He has previously been a school governor, as well as being involved with local community groups. Dave strongly believes in equality for all people across the community.
Sarah Russell, Board Member/Chair of the Group Remuneration and Governance Committee/ Development Committee Member
Cllr Sarah Russell represents the Northenden Ward of Manchester City Council. Her interests include the development of Wythenshawe’s community, economy and the local environment. Sarah chairs the Manchester City Council’s Resources & Governance Scrutiny Committee, as well as the HR, and Ethical Procurement Sub Committees. She is also a solicitor, specialising in employment law.
Nigel Sedman, Board Member/Audit and Risk Committee Member/Development Committee Member
Nigel is a chartered quantity surveyor and is Director of Investment and Regeneration at Salford-based housing association ForViva Group. He has worked in social housing for over 20 years and is experienced in strategic asset management, procurement, repairs and maintenance, estate regeneration and the development of new housing. He is passionate about working with customers to improve neighbourhoods and services.
Sam Wilson, Board Member/Audit and Risk Committee Member/Development Committee Member
Sam works for the commercial property company Bruntwood, as Digital Solutions & Technology Director. Since 2000 he has been involved in creating and maintaining systems and processes that help people to look after buildings, and the companies working in those buildings. As well as being born in Wythenshawe Hospital and growing up nearby, Sam has a number of family ties to the area through schools and the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust. This has contributed to him wanting to be involved in the community.
Bishop David Walker, Board Member
The Bishop of Manchester, The Right Revd Dr David Walker, joined the WCHG board in April 2014 and became Chair in 2016, serving this position for six years. He has been a board member of various housing associations since 1988, and his passion for social housing, urban regeneration and the wellbeing of tenants has also seen him serve as a member of the National Housing Federation Board and Chair of HACT (Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust). He currently chairs the Manchester Homelessness Partnership Board. He enjoys the opportunity of serving the people of Wythenshawe through the vision of WCHG.
INDEPENDENT BOARD MEMBERS
Steve Aggett, Audit and Risk Committee Member
Steve is a qualified accountant and is Executive Director of Finance for The Calico Group; a group of companies that covers housing, construction and maintenance, domestic abuse services, and drug and alcohol recovery services, as well as many other enterprises relating to skills, education, care and support. Steve has over 30 years’ experience working in finance across audit, advisory and assurance as well as operational and strategic finance and treasury.
Joanne Peters, Audit and Risk Committee Member
Joanne is a chartered accountant and has over 20 years’ experience working with public sector organisations. She is passionate about supporting improvements across the public sector in the management of business and commercial activity, to maximise available resources, focussing on communities.
Claire Doyle, Development Committee Member
Claire is a director of Perito Property Ltd, a chartered surveying practice which provides services to the housing sector in relation to development and asset management. She has worked in the housing sector for over 25 years, providing support for housing association and local authority clients. Claire’s key areas of expertise are property development, asset management and regeneration.
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE COMMITTEE
The role of the Customer Experience Committee is to oversee customer services and monitor performance, as well as ensuring effective customer engagement and involvement.
Michelle Gregg, Board Member and Chair of the Customer Experience Committee
Janet Papworth, Vice Chair of the Customer Experience Committee
Janet has lived in Wythenshawe all her life. She has been volunteering for the last 15 years; she worked at Willow Park and was involved in setting up the group of Tenant Inspectors. She joined the WCHG Tenant Committee when it began in 2013, becoming Chair in 2015. As well as being involved with various tenant panels in WCHG, Janet is also part of the Ombudsman Tenants’ Group which works with tenants across the country.
Clare Flynn, Board Member and Customer Experience Committee Member
David Nuttall, Board Member and Customer Experience Committee Member
Antony Monaghan
Anthony has lived in Wythenshawe for 29 years. He is currently employed as a care worker but has worked in various positions including customer service and community roles. He has been volunteering on various WCHG panels for the last eight months.
Branda Stirling
Branda has lived in Wythenshawe since 1999. She started volunteering for Willow Park in 2010 and was involved in establishing the Scrutiny Panel. Branda became part of the WCHG Tenant Committee in 2013 and is part of the Service Review Group.
Emma Bone
Emma has lived in Wythenshawe for 15 years and has been involved in supporting Baguley Tenants’ and Residents’ Association for the past three years. She works for Manchester City Council as Customer Service Operations Manager.
Stacey Garrity
Stacey has lived in Wythenshawe all her life. She works as a voluntary patient representative for children’s charity Immunodeficiency UK.
GROUP AUDIT AND RISK COMMITTEE
The Group Audit and Risk Committee has the responsibility of overseeing the Group’s audit functions, including financial statements and annual reports, gaining assurance on governance and assessing and overseeing the risk management function. In addition, this committee is responsible for dealing with information, communication and technology issues.
Tony Bell (Chair)
Sam Wilson
Nigel Sedman
Joanne Peters
Steve Aggett
GROUP REMUNERATION AND GOVERNANCE COMMITTEE
The role of the Group Remuneration and Governance Committee is to review the skills and effectiveness of all Board Members, as well as ensuring the Group’s compliance with the constitutions, policies, regulatory and/or statutory requirements, and principles of good governance, in addition to human resources functions.
Sarah Russell
Michelle Gregg
Tahir Idris
Bishop David Walker
DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
The role of the Development Committee is to oversee the development of new-build properties; identifying new business areas and sales activities of the Group.
Nigel Sedman
Sam Wilson
Claire Doyle
David Nuttall
Sarah Russell
BOARD AND COMMITTEE RECRUITMENT 2021/22
During 2021/22 WCHG has recruited for the Chair of the Board and members of the Customer Experience Committee. All vacancies were advertised and resulted in the recruitment of Nick Crofts as Board Chair, and the appointment of Janet Papworth, Anthony Monaghan, Branda Stirling, Emma Bone and Stacey Garrity to the Customer Experience Committee.
Board diversity, skills and experience
WCHG’s Board and Committee Member Succession Policy states that:
“The Board will seek to reflect the communities it serves within its composition in terms of ethnicity and has a target of 20% ethnic minority representation. It also seeks to have a reasonable gender balance and its target is to be between 60:40 and 50:50.
“The Policy provides that the preferred skills, knowledge and experience of the whole Board should include individual(s) with direct lived experience of (or particular insight into) the communities served by WCHG.
“The Board currently meets the target for BAME representation, but is below the target for gender balance. The Board currently has members who have direct lived experience of Wythenshawe communities.”
We maintain a register for Board and Committee Member declarations of interest. This register is publicly available for inspection, by contacting Christine.little@wchg.org.uk or the Company Secretary.
A skills audit is undertaken annually as part of the Board and Committee Member appraisal process. The skills review for 2021/22 confirmed that the board was sufficiently skilled to provide for effective governance of WCHG.
