How Ongo has performed financially this year

Recently Ongo has signed off on their financial reporting for the 2019/20 year, and it has been added here for you to take a look at.

What exactly is financial reporting? It covers all of our financial activity for the year, both as individual companies and the Group as a whole. It covers the financial year from April 2019 – March 2020, and tells us and others what’s happening in the business in relation to our financial performance. It is a group of detailed financial reports made up of numbers and narrative to explain the numbers.

This includes the financial performance of the business, our activity around improving and generating value for money, for the first time it has our environmental impact statement and the confirmation from our external auditors that they’re happy with our financial reporting. These statements include a report from Bob Walder, our Chair of the Board which talks about how we’ve performed this year.

The numbers within the financial statements are also audited by a qualified external company to be sure that we’re keeping the books right, reporting correctly and meeting all our obligations in terms of informing people about the businesses in the reports.

Why do we do financial reporting? It is such a crucial part of us successfully operating as a business, to be clear and open about how we’re doing financially. We must demonstrate how we comply with various statutory and regulatory requirements. This is really important from a governance point of view because the regulator for social housing uses the information within the accounts to assess the financial viability of our regulated business. These accounts are used as part of the process when being awarded a financial viability rating – which we’re V1 which is the highest possible rating.

We also have a duty to our tenants and customers to report on our financial performance to show that we’re being responsible with our spending, accountable and we’re following all the relevant regulations and guidelines.

How did we do? Our performance across the group was good this year. Ongo Homes did make a lower surplus compared to other years, but we can account for this due to items outside of our control and they’re accounting regulations we must do. This includes depreciation and having our commercial properties revalued which saw a decrease in value. This doesn’t have any impact however on our work and how we’re performing. We performed better than we anticipated in our budget and business plan, which is great news. Our commercial and communities businesses also improved their financial results this year which is amazing – and a massive well done to everyone in those teams for working so hard.

Ashley Harrison, said: “We’re really pleased to be able to report a very positive year of operations for all of our businesses, and that we have successfully concluded our financial reporting for 2019/20. Our companies have all performed well throughout the year.

“This maintains our strong financial position which means we can continue to deliver our Corporate Plan targets to be a great landlord, offer quality homes and create opportunities for local people.”