One of the most compelling stories from our 2020 Social Impact Report comes from the pandemic lockdown period in spring 2020. We knew our clients were facing circumstances they had never seen before, they were unsure how to respond and did not know what others were doing. Our Covid-19 response service helped 12 housing association clients tap into all our Covid-19 technical advice, ask all the questions they wanted and understand how peer organisations were responding. This had a direct impact on the lives of 400,000 people as their landlords devised safe ways of providing their services in an emergency lockdown.  

We enabled the housing associations to act with confidence in a time of uncertainty through weekly calls, almost daily updates on new regulations and the security of knowing they were not going to get an unexpected bill from us at the end of the process. Representing one of the 12 housing associations involved, Heather Ashton says about the ACS service:

"The ACS Covid-19 response service was fantastic and really valuable. It was helpful to see the questions others were asking and the challenges other people were facing. It gave me the opportunity to share them with the executive team and board. It helped us check whether we’d thought of everything."

The experience has led us to pilot further new ways of supporting our clients and becoming the trusted advisor that so many organisations need at the current time.