View publication - Chartered Institute of Housing

PART ONE: LEARNING TODAY
Since the start of the programme, LPoC has been kept under on-going review by CIH to
ensure it maintains its relevance in the light of changes in the operating environment.
The programme aims to have both the vision and flexibility to enable its adaption to the
skills required to meet newly emerging challenges.
How LPoC needs to evolve to cope with new challenges
LPoC needs to maintain its focus on both the transactional and transformational aspects
of what it takes to lead the design and delivery of excellent services. LPoC must achieve
positive outcomes with and for service-users.
Managers will need strong capabilities in key areas such as:
• Project management.
• Commercial acumen.
• Financial understanding.
• Preparation of service bids.
• Assessment of client needs.
• Service design.
• Monitoring and measuring outcomes and benchmarking.
Even more importantly they will need to demonstrate the ability to listen, reflect and
question their own preconceptions and assumptions to deal with the constantly
changing commercial environment and commissioner demands. Managers will need to
be able to assess their key strengths and be brave enough to drop older facets of their
services or ways of doing things that are no longer financially sustainable or relevant.
Understanding what it takes to source, build and maintain effective working partnerships
for contract delivery will be crucial. Managers will need to be able to build relationships
with both purchasers and potential delivery partners to offer services and service
approaches that are based on insight into and evidence of what their unique capabilities
are. At the same time they must be capable of innovation, offering new models and
solutions to tackle entrenched problems. They will need to keep ahead of new models of
client intervention to be able to offer creative tailored solutions for individuals with
varying needs rather than offering ‘one size fits all’ services based on traditional models.
They will need to be able to take a highly commercial approach to pricing services and to
managing financial risk.
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