Client: JEPHSON HOMES HOUSING ASSOCIATION

Project: Charter Mark re-application

Background: Jephson is a registered social landlord owning around 7,000 homes throughout England.

Objective: Having helped Jephson to achieve the Government's Charter Mark award in 1997, Word Association was commissioned again in January 2000 to complete the re-application.

Description: Jephson was required to submit a 12-page document showing how its systems and procedures met the Charter Mark criteria for qualities such as openness, customer involvement and innovation.

Our role: Word Association prepared the text for the application, closely following Charter Mark guidelines, and worked with Jephson to produce an indexed file of more than 80 documents to be used as supporting evidence.

The challenge: At the time, Jephson was undergoing major restructuring and was concerned that any temporary disruption to services should not detract from the quality of the application.  It was also important to stress the aspects of customer service that had developed over the previous three years, underlining the theme of continuing improvement.

Feedback: Jephson's research and information manager, Joanne Tilley, said: "Word Association saved us hours of work and put together a polished application which was easy to follow and which we were very happy to submit."  The application proved successful, enabling Jephson to retain the Charter Mark.