Business continuity planning

In our last update on 26 March, we outlined Liberty’s position in relation to keeping our staff, clients and customers protected from coronavirus whilst we continue to deliver vitally important services that keep people safe in their homes.

These measures are still in place and are working well. And following publication of landlord advice from the Health and Safety Executive on 7 April can confirm that the approach Liberty has been taking to gas service and maintenance is already in line with this latest advice. We can also confirm that our approach to all other services is also still aligned to the most current government advice.

Keeping our business strong

We have now put in place robust measures as part of our business continuity plan which will help ensure Liberty remains a strong and viable business into the future.

The measures we have implemented so far are:

• We are making use of the Government’s job retention scheme, and are using this this to furlough some members of staff where the work they were doing has been paused due to the coronavirus outbreak, to ensure that our ability to deliver services remains in line with client and customer demand.
• We have chosen to pull back on discretionary spend to keep more money in the business. This means that we are pulling back on sponsorship and hospitality, but we will still be attending events such as Housing 2020 in Manchester, and Total Housing 2020 in Brighton, both scheduled for September – we hope to see you there.

These measures support our already strong financial position where for the financial year to March 2020, we generated a profit, have a strong balance sheet, and have access to additional liquidity to work through the current shutdown and beyond.

We are also taking this time to review our operating model, and hope the changes we have been making to remain strong and competitive at this time will lead to positive lasting change for the business, our colleagues, clients and customers.

Thank you to all our clients, suppliers and partners for their support during these difficult times.