HelpOurScheme makes use of 16 broad areas of risk to assess weaknesses and areas of vulnerability of a Community Scheme.

These are: Property Complexity, Management Complexity, Financial Control, Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Levies/Debtors, Operational, Regulatory and Legal and Governance and Oversight.

The extended areas of assessment include HR/People, IT/Technology, Fraud/Theft/Criminality, Strategy and Planning, Physical and Environmental, Socio Economic and Reputation risks.

While our HelpOurScheme tools and assessments will help you identify the key areas of vulnerability/ weakness/risk in your Community Scheme, it will not provide a simple, final solution.

It is vital that Trustees/ Directors/ Estate Management/ Office Bearers work with employees to address the identified areas of weakness/vulnerability/risk. The same applies to Professional Managers/Consultants/ Accountants and Managing Agents.

While the HelpOurScheme tool will give useful guidance on how to manage the areas of weakness, this will require a degree of commitment on the part of all stakeholders to ensure that policies, procedure and practices are adopted to fully resolve the issues. It is also critical to ensure that all parties have clearly defined roles and responsibilities.

An example of this could be financial discipline. While HelpOurScheme will identify the need for greater financial controls (e.g. budgeting and expenditure discipline) and give guidance on how to improve these controls, only the responsible trustee/ directors (and chair), estate management/staff and professional managers/accountants/ managing agents can actually ensure that suitable polices (e.g. around zero-based budgeting or management accounts) are implemented and continuously followed.

Absolutely. HelpOurScheme is a flexible tool.

Your membership can be cancelled at any time, subject to a one-month notice period.

It should be noted that on cancellation, future access to the system will be denied and specific documentation in the Repository removed.

Absolutely. This is a key feature of HelpOurScheme.

The repository is a key component to assist in ensuring continuity in the Community Scheme given that in the normal course, there is turnover of Trustees/Directors, Office Bearers, key Estate Management, Accountants and changes in Managing Agents, and forms a key record of the Community Scheme.

 The Repository member section can be used to upload and store documents in two specific ways.

• Community Specific – key documentation that should be retained, which will be prompted by the Tool are:

CSOS/CPIC registration documentation, budgets/levy related documentation, financial records, latest audited accounts, valuations and insurance records, fidelity cover, disciplinary issues and other key records of the specific Community Scheme, minutes of meetings/AGM’s/SGM’s, prevailing Conduct/House rules, minutes of meetings, key supporting documentation, details of owners/residents, 10 year maintenance plan, employee contracts and records, specific correspondence with owners (notices/warnings/levy advices/legal matters/complaints etc), collection issues, key contracts with service providers/contractors, warranties/guarantees, litigation documentation, legal correspondence, risk related documentation, background checks/disclosures by Trustees/Directors etc.

• General- here the Repository can be used for the storage/retention of current general documentation and templates/formats/forms used by the Community Scheme or where relevant, by Managing Agents themselves e.g. incident/fault/maintenance reporting templates, access control forms, visitor approval, pricing schedules, terms and conditions of service etc. The General Repository can also be used to store articles of specific general interest to Trustees/Directors and Estate Management e.g. regulatory changes and compliance requirements.
• Note – Sensitive documents around banking records, bank account details, access codes and signatories should not be stored so as to minimise the potential impact of hacking in these areas.

We will not only retain all your data submissions, such as all assessment results and outputs (for active members) but also the wide variety of documents uploaded to your repository.

HelpOurScheme essentially approaches Community Property Scheme management from a risk management perspective.

The approach is holistic, covering all the critical areas of property management and oversight and not just the typically addressed (focus) areas of financial management and compliance.

HelpOurScheme will not only help to identify areas of vulnerability and weakness but will present these findings in an easy to read Dashboard view feedback format along with extensive graphics AND will send targeted feedback of these together with guides on how to improve these areas, to the responsible parties designated to receive feedback and output.

Finally, HelpOurScheme will assist by ensuring that ALL stakeholders, e.g. trustees or directors, estate management, staff or auditors/accountants/professional managers/ managing agents (to name a few) are clear about who is responsible (accountable) for addressing these vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

You can make use of the HelpOurScheme tool as you see fit:

• The TellUsMore Assessment area must be completed as a minimum. Thereafter completion of the General assessments is at the prerogative of the user. The General assessments can be completed as and when required. However maximum benefit and feedback will be achieved by completing all the General assessments and reviewing these on a regular/annual basis.
• Repository functionality for the Community Scheme is again at the discretion of the user, but we would recommend that for continuity this become a key management routine.
• For educational use within the Community Scheme, notably for the education of existing and new Trustees/Directors/Estate Management and Office bearers in respect of risk awareness, risk management, governance and compliance
• As a management support tool and as an educational and learning tool for employees of Professional property managers (Accountants/Consultants/Advisors/Managing Agents) directly involved in the management of the respective Community Scheme

You must however remember that the HelpOurScheme tool deliberately considers a wide range of risk areas and not examining all may expose you to risks that remain unseen but could manifest in future problems, if not fully examined and attended to. The dashboard will only produce and reflect results of all areas of weakness/vulnerabilities after completion of the Tell Us More assessment. The completion of the General Assessment of all the risk areas will however produce the full extent of feedback and vulnerability to risk. PDF Guides, graphics and tables will only be produced after completion of Tell Us More assessment.

Certain additional output such as further Feedback, Framework and the Heat Map will only be produced after completion of all the General Assessments.

Completion of the General Assessments along with regular review of all areas of assessment, will enhance the assessment of the respective risk categories, provide more accurate scoring and expand the identification of areas requiring mitigation and focus.

The HelpOurScheme offers a single user membership to both self-managed and professionally managed properties. The tool is ideally suited to self-managed schemes (Trustees and/or Directors) or large schemes managed where the executive office bearers/estate management wish to evaluate their scheme.

The tool can also be used by professional management i.e. Consultants/Advisors/Third parties/Accountants or Managing Agents to assist with the management of a specific Community Scheme.

Where a managing agent wishes to manage a number of community property schemes under their oversight and management, these need to be loaded individually. (The CommPropRisk (CPR) tool can best be utilised, as this tool enables a portfolio of properties to be managed, aligned with the Portfolio management structure within the Managing Agent.)

Your dashboard will not display any feedback until you have completed the ‘Tell us More’ assessment.

Once complete, your Dashboard will populate scores and provide initial critical feedback on each risk area for viewing and action.

While our HelpOurScheme tools and assessments will help you identify the key areas of vulnerability/ weakness/risk in your Community Scheme, it will not provide a simple, final solution.

It is vital that Trustees/ Directors/ Estate Management/ Office Bearers work with employees to address the identified areas of weakness/vulnerability/risk. The same applies to Professional Managers/Consultants/ Accountants and Managing Agents.

While the HelpOurScheme tool will give useful guidance on how to manage the areas of weakness, this will require a degree of commitment on the part of all stakeholders to ensure that policies, procedure and practices are adopted to fully resolve the issues. It is also critical to ensure that all parties have clearly defined roles and responsibilities.

An example of this could be financial discipline. While HelpOurScheme will identify the need for greater financial controls (e.g. budgeting and expenditure discipline) and give guidance on how to improve these controls, only the responsible trustee/ directors (and chair), estate management/staff and professional managers/accountants/ managing agents can actually ensure that suitable polices (e.g. around zero-based budgeting or management accounts) are implemented and continuously followed.

Absolutely. HelpOurScheme is a flexible tool.

Your membership can be cancelled at any time, subject to a one-month notice period.

It should be noted that on cancellation, future access to the system will be denied and specific documentation in the Repository removed.

The HelpOurScheme offers a single user membership to both self-managed and professionally managed properties. The tool is ideally suited to self-managed schemes (Trustees and/or Directors) or large schemes managed where the executive office bearers/estate management wish to evaluate their scheme.

The tool can also be used by professional management i.e. Consultants/Advisors/Third parties/Accountants or Managing Agents to assist with the management of a specific Community Scheme.

Where a managing agent wishes to manage a number of community property schemes under their oversight and management, these need to be loaded individually. (The CommPropRisk (CPR) tool can best be utilised, as this tool enables a portfolio of properties to be managed, aligned with the Portfolio management structure within the Managing Agent.)

Absolutely. This is a key feature of HelpOurScheme.

The repository is a key component to assist in ensuring continuity in the Community Scheme given that in the normal course, there is turnover of Trustees/Directors, Office Bearers, key Estate Management, Accountants and changes in Managing Agents, and forms a key record of the Community Scheme.

 The Repository member section can be used to upload and store documents in two specific ways.

• Community Specific – key documentation that should be retained, which will be prompted by the Tool are:

CSOS/CPIC registration documentation, budgets/levy related documentation, financial records, latest audited accounts, valuations and insurance records, fidelity cover, disciplinary issues and other key records of the specific Community Scheme, minutes of meetings/AGM’s/SGM’s, prevailing Conduct/House rules, minutes of meetings, key supporting documentation, details of owners/residents, 10 year maintenance plan, employee contracts and records, specific correspondence with owners (notices/warnings/levy advices/legal matters/complaints etc), collection issues, key contracts with service providers/contractors, warranties/guarantees, litigation documentation, legal correspondence, risk related documentation, background checks/disclosures by Trustees/Directors etc.

• General- here the Repository can be used for the storage/retention of current general documentation and templates/formats/forms used by the Community Scheme or where relevant, by Managing Agents themselves e.g. incident/fault/maintenance reporting templates, access control forms, visitor approval, pricing schedules, terms and conditions of service etc. The General Repository can also be used to store articles of specific general interest to Trustees/Directors and Estate Management e.g. regulatory changes and compliance requirements.
• Note – Sensitive documents around banking records, bank account details, access codes and signatories should not be stored so as to minimise the potential impact of hacking in these areas.

We will not only retain all your data submissions, such as all assessment results and outputs (for active members) but also the wide variety of documents uploaded to your repository.

You can make use of the HelpOurScheme tool as you see fit:

• The TellUsMore Assessment area must be completed as a minimum. Thereafter completion of the General assessments is at the prerogative of the user. The General assessments can be completed as and when required. However maximum benefit and feedback will be achieved by completing all the General assessments and reviewing these on a regular/annual basis.
• Repository functionality for the Community Scheme is again at the discretion of the user, but we would recommend that for continuity this become a key management routine.
• For educational use within the Community Scheme, notably for the education of existing and new Trustees/Directors/Estate Management and Office bearers in respect of risk awareness, risk management, governance and compliance
• As a management support tool and as an educational and learning tool for employees of Professional property managers (Accountants/Consultants/Advisors/Managing Agents) directly involved in the management of the respective Community Scheme

You must however remember that the HelpOurScheme tool deliberately considers a wide range of risk areas and not examining all may expose you to risks that remain unseen but could manifest in future problems, if not fully examined and attended to. The dashboard will only produce and reflect results of all areas of weakness/vulnerabilities after completion of the Tell Us More assessment. The completion of the General Assessment of all the risk areas will however produce the full extent of feedback and vulnerability to risk. PDF Guides, graphics and tables will only be produced after completion of Tell Us More assessment.

Certain additional output such as further Feedback, Framework and the Heat Map will only be produced after completion of all the General Assessments.

Completion of the General Assessments along with regular review of all areas of assessment, will enhance the assessment of the respective risk categories, provide more accurate scoring and expand the identification of areas requiring mitigation and focus.

Your dashboard will not display any feedback until you have completed the ‘Tell us More’ assessment.

Once complete, your Dashboard will populate scores and provide initial critical feedback on each risk area for viewing and action.

There are times where the trustees/ directors may want specific people to receive feedback or advice on certain areas e.g. Trustees/Directors with specific responsibility for areas, the Estate Management or specified parties like Accountants/designated Third Parties or the Managing Agent’s representative.

It is also possible that certain other trustees/directors with other areas of responsibility or the Chairperson may want to see the output. It can also be used to ensure broad continuity of exposure to other Trustees/Directors or designated third parties like accountants/auditors.

Providing this feedback to all relevant people will also ensure that everyone is formally advised of the areas requiring attention.

This feature not only helps to demonstrate the role played by the estate manager or professional manager/managing agent but helps to ensure that the right people take ownership of the respective risk areas.

Where you are using the HelpOurScheme tool to manage multiple individual properties, it enables a unique view and management of a Community Scheme to be undertaken.

While it may appear like a lot of effort, capturing this information will help you later as you manage these properties, but importantly when you give feedback to the trustees or directors, as the reports are clearly identified as their output.

For extensive portfolio management by Managing Agents, use of the CommPropRisk (CPR) toll offering should be made.

Community property schemes are typically complex operations with small issues having the potential to cause significant risk and additional complexity.

While the Tell Us More assessment will provide a critical overview and feddback, the HelpOurScheme tool needs to ideally fully assess your broader environment to provide a far-reaching appraisal of the risks and areas of weakness facing the Community Scheme.

In short, the two foundational assessments (Tell Us More and General Assessment) ensure that we are considering ALL areas and gaining adequate insight into the various risk and areas of weakness in the Community Scheme.

The Dashboard will provide the latest risk scores per risk category for each property at any point in time. Where scores to critical areas in the Tell Us More and General Assessment are below the pre-determined risk parameters set by HelpOurScheme, by clicking on the View Feedback link for the respective risk area, the specific areas of vulnerability/weakness with the risk area score will be displayed. By selecting View all Feedback, the details of all vulnerabilities and weknesses for all risk areas will be displayed. The Dashboard will also display the “priority” of the respective risk areas, ranging from Lowest Priority to Top Priority. The overall assessment score will be displayed after completion of the Tell Us More assessment and will be updated as Detailed Assessments are completed/are retaken.

The RTL benchmark set, or the default option used by the Community Scheme, can be used as a base for ease of measurement/comparison with actual scores obtained for the assessments.

The status of assessments will also be displayed along with dates last assessed. The Dashboard will also be the key point of navigation for use of the TellUsMore tool functionality i.e. View of feedback, Re-Assessment of risk areas, Output views (graphics/table display/thermometer/heat map), Framework, Repository and Members Tools.

The HelpOurScheme risk Framework chassis will be automatically populated in respect of the Risk category type and the specific identified risk/event/areas of vulnerability/weakness for each property. The user will need to complete all the other fields in the framework and prioritise actions accordingly. The Framework is accessed from the Dashboard.

Graphics – A histogram of the latest risk scores per category for the property will be displayed along with the date of last assessment and the RTL (Risk Threshold Level) set or selected for benchmarking/comparison. By saving/downloading earlier graphics, it is also possible to compare individual risks graphically over previous assessment periods to enable comparison.

Tables – A comparative table of latest risk scores and previous scores per property is accessible, enabling comparison to highlight areas of improvement or deterioration.

Thermometer – a snapshot view of the risk areas and latest risk area categorisation per property e.g. priority risks, average risks and low priority risks, will be displayed here, indicating the evaluated risk status relative to the RTL (Risk Threshold Level) set.

Heat Map – a Heat Map per property will only be produced after completion of the Tell Us More and added to as the General Assessments are completed. The principal purpose of this document will be to highlight those key areas/elements requiring specific accountability/responsibility of Trustees/Directors/Estate Management, and in the case of Professionally Managed Schemes, Consultants/Third Parties/Accountants or Managing Agents, to ensure that things are not falling through the cracks and are receiving the focus and responsibility needed.

Identified areas of particular weakness/vulnerability for each risk category for each property can be viewed via the Dashboard – View Feedback. A consolidated view is also possible from the View Feedback screen. In addition to the Feedback view, results will be sent by e-mail to the registered names linked to the provision of output for that particular property. At the same time PDF Guides on how best to mitigate these risk areas and specific aspects relative to that risk area, will also be mailed to the registered names linked to the provision of output for the property.

The outputs from HelpOurScheme tool are extensive. These include a dashboard, e-mail feedback, the provision of guides, a risk framework, graphics, tables, risk thermometer and heat map along with a collection of management templates for use. They can all be printed out or saved as Pdf’s and ideally stored/saved in the respective Repository directory for the Community Scheme in question. These outputs can then be used at AGM’s/SGM’s, meetings of Trustees/Directors/Estate Management or at other appropriate times e.g. meetings with Managing Agents/Professional Managers, compliance review, insurance review, contract and maintenance reviews. The completion of all assessments and regular review of assessments will result in enhanced more accurate scoring and increased identification of risks, areas of weakness and aspects requiring focus.