Welcome to Origin Group

Investing in homes, strengthening communities

Origin Group is a dynamic and diverse group providing high quality housing and support services across London and the home counties.

We own and manage more than 5,000 homes as:

Affordable general needs housing for rent
Housing with care and support for people with special needs
Shared ownership and key worker housing

Origin was created to provide strategic direction and service support the complementary skills of our members, providing:

Strategic direction to our housing and service provider-members
Support services for our members of finance, information and computer systems, human resources and communications
Vigorous development programme of 400 homes a year
A commercial portfolio and houses for sale to deliver value and funding for our communities

Meet the group

SPH Housing: provides quality, affordable rented homes and services for general social tenants, retirement and supported tenants, residents in care homes and service users. It now provides over 4,000 homes for tenants living in Kent, inner and outer London, and Hertfordshire, but also helps over 1,500 tenants and service users with support needs achieve greater independence.

SPH Housing has over 80 years experience and was a pioneering housing association, rising from the slums around St Pancras to help improve the housing and lives of the community.

Griffin Homes: provides shared ownership, low cost home ownership, key worker housing and leasehold management. Griffin was set up in 1974 to provide homes for London transport staff. It now offers a range of schemes to help people take the first step on the property ladder, and manages high quality housing for NHS medical staff across several sites.

Origin Properties: is a flexible development and property investment vehicle that contributes to our land-bank for future developments, and invests in housing for sale, market rent and commercial property as part of mixed use, social housing developments.

Origin Properties will help us deliver value for money in new developments and funding for community development.

SPH Friends: is an independent charity outside the group, that helps residents in hardship, and is one of several funding sources for community development.

Connected

Origin Group and fellow north west London and home counties housing associations Octavia and Shepherds Bush Housing Group formed the Connected partnership in 2005.

By working together it has been possible to begin a vigorous 1,000 homes a year development plan, benefit from economies of scale in procurement and administration, make efficiency gains and share each others best practices.

We have already successfully bid for development funding from the Housing Corporation and drawn up a 'framework agreement' of procedure, processes and approved partners - and have plenty more in the pipeline!

What makes Origin distinctive?

We are:

Committed to working in challenging, high density areas. This has been the case ever since the 1930s and our original Kent House development, 'built on stilts' to maximise space.
Committed to developing sustainable communities. Our vigorous community development programme engages over 100 young people a week.
Skilled in mixed tenure and mixed use development. The latest development to open is Parkway, right in the heart of Camden, which has social tenants, shared ownership residents and a commercial unit.
Pioneers in social housing and community development. In Camden for example we have been a major force of regeneration since the 1920s.
Targeting north London and Hertfordshire. Our presence in the north and west sub regions of London and home counties has been strengthened by our Connected partnership with Octavia and Shepherds Bush
We have asset strength for growth. Our turnover was over £26m in 2005/06.

History

Origin Group was only founded in 2004, but our members, SPH Housing and Griffin Homes, are charitable housing associations with over 100 years experience between them.

SPH Housing has over 80 years of experience, rising from the slums around St Pancras to help improve the housing and lives of the community. Our mission has not changed. For more details visit Camden Local Studies Centre in Camden Library, 32-38 Theobalds Rd, London WC1X 8PA. Or call tel: 020 7974 3569.

Griffin Homes was set up in 1974 to provide homes for London Transport staff and we have continued to manage high quality housing for key workers every since. We are also specialists for people who want to become home owners.

Values

Seeking and acting on the views of communities
Doing what we say with integrity and openness
Maximising economy, efficiency and effectiveness
Encouraging innovation and creativity
Promoting equality and diversity, and respect all individuals
Fostering partnerships
Investing in the future

Transparency

Origin Group is an open, transparent organisation. We consult regularly with our stakeholders and act upon constructive feedback received. We constantly monitor and review our services and measure our activities against pre-determined objectives, budgets and timeframes for delivery.

We have a rigorous risk assessment framework in place, have robust financial controls and are fully accountable to all our customers, our board, staff, partners and other valued stakeholders.

We have internal and external audits undertaken by independent auditors that are reported direct to our audit committee. We have a robust risk strategy in place and a risk mapping exercise is conducted every year.

Measurement

Origin Group is performing well, but we are a learning organisation that is never complacent. As a provider of social housing and care & support we are subject to ongoing regulatory scrutiny and benefit from the expert guidance of the Housing Corporation, the Audit Commission and local authority Supporting People inspectors to name three.

To meet and surpass their expectatioins and meet our own ambitious targets, we have established a rigorous performance monitoring system, called the Balanced Scorecard. This provides a snapshot of performance across all areas from rent arrears, customer satisfaction levels, to the number of new homes we are building.

Origin also measures itself against industry benchmarks, and the companies setting the highest standards in commercial services industries. Many staff participate in peer groups, where they meet counterparts in other housing organisations to discuss issus and best practice.

Registration

Origin Group is the trading name of Origin Housing Group Limited. Registered office: St Richards House, 110 Eversholt St, London NW1 1BS. Registered with the Housing Corporation, No. SL3596 and under the Industrial & Provident Societies Act 1965, No.24898R.