Good Morning judge

If you do the BlueSky/Twitter/X thing, follow me at @HousingITguy or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

A very well timed post for the tail end of 2024 and the start for the new year. Always a milestone for taking stock and setting yourself and your organisations in some cases, for some new resolutions. 2025 is your blank sheet of paper.

As anyone who reads my posts here will know, I work with a wide range of organisations of all sizes. As any of those I am sure would tell you, I do my best to help with my experience or point them to other means of carefully referencing product choices before they are made or finding other help from my contacts. I have been told at times that my optimism and confidence in getting problems solved can be legendary. Indeed if you believe you are beaten before you start, your hope is lost!

Last year I worked with a few organisations coming out of downgrades or regulator judgements. The common theme of all of these were that they were all great teams of people, exceptional CEOs, looking to improve processes, solutions, systems and in some cases needing to take up a new direction. A downgrade should be a temporary wake up call, with issues that can generally be addressed. No regulator judgement will generally tell anyone they needs to change a housing or assets system, but will point to making moves to get better control of data, improve service (such as repairs, maintenance) or governance. Systems and/or the way staff operate them however are usually the root of many troubles.

Apart from helping folk in the sector, I also assist many residents, tenants, leaseholders and factored owners, where I can. Some I can see get a raw deal with something as fundamental as their home. (Yes, home, not a ‘unit’ or an ‘asset’). Often it’s the same culprits I am afraid. I seriously have wondered if some CEO’s might be better paid based on their ratings not their PR.

I have sometimes been asked how I can remain positive working with social housing landlords and councils, when some residents experience can often be just of failing ones? My answer is that I think I see better landlords, as whoever I work with is looking to sort out their systems, not bury their faults and pretend all is fine. I never seem to get the call from any of those usual suspects. I am unsure if they would agree with some of my approaches, once I had had the audacity to hold a mirror up to them!

So anyway, what judgement's have the regulator been up to, just up to Christmas?

Well the RSH has been busier this year than most and it looks like more in depth assessments (deep dive IDAs) are coming thick and fast in 2025. Here’s over fifty from December alone - from Accent Group to the YMCA St Pauls Group. Checkout the G1’s & V1’s and also a few downgrades too.

These inspections can be regarded as quick exams and for sure I have heard of more than a few RSLs ‘boning up’ to show a clean set of heels for the inspectors arrival. In the past I have also experienced this at times in the wake of implementing a new system, during very common data cleansing exercises. While the impetus and priority of these exercises are commendable, like a pet not only being for Christmas, it should be a continual practice. In fact its better becoming the organisation culture. Its often been a serious point of discussion in my projects, how do we embed this respect for data and processes going forward after go-live?

Well, I have quite a few interesting projects on-going into 2025 and this last point is a feature of pretty much most of them. It might surely be a good call for a post later into the year!

Worried about an in depth inspection from the RSH coming up?

Get in touch, for a chat soon over coffee & Hobnobs ☕

       Related Post: Have you got ICT projects taking so long, they are more like ghost ships lost in the fog?

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ *** Join the discussion with Claire & Aiden *** _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

I would be pleased to connect with you on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy Message me with any issues or queries, you would like to be explored in this blog. We generally receive a couple of suggestions each month.

10cc Good Morning Judge.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009


Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Could we help you or your organisation? Our contact details are here , get in touch we will be pleased to chat about your problems and help with your organisation issues.

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What's the Measure of a Man?

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

Just about at the closing of 2022, it feels a little for Social Housing, like the closing of 2017. Back then there was fevered preparation and anticipation of GDPR rolling in the following May. The anticipation now is more around the new TSM’s. These are the new Tenant Satisfaction Measures following a consultation earlier in 2022.

From 1st April 2023, all SocialHousing providers will need to start collecting data for tenant satisfaction measures on areas such as repairs, safety checks and complaints. Will the April 1st deadline make fools of many housing providers or will it all be ok? After all, most providers already would be expected to collate satisfaction feedback on initial proposed themes of repair, building safety and complaint handling. Goodness knows that many, particularly bigger ones in the sector need to be taking satisfaction seriously and acting on it constantly.

TSMs will be used alongside other tools to further scrutinise landlords, interactions (like repairs, gas servicing, compliance and dealing with ASB & complaints) with all their residents. Rather than a rod to beat landlords, I believe it may at last give an opportunity for all, particularly larger ones, to learn from issues. 

After fairly extensive consultation the basic five themes have expanded now into 22 new measures, around five main themes, repairs, building safety, effective complaint-handling, respectful and helpful tenant engagement, and responsible neighbourhood management. These will be drawn from tenant surveys and landlord data (such as for the Decent Homes Standard).

There is a key split between Landlords of up to 1,000 homes and 1,000 and over. The latter have to supply stats annually, where smaller landlords can spread responses over up to two years. Also, bigger providers are allowed to sample survey and extrapolate. Surveys can be fulfilled by post, by phone, face to face or online, to meet resident needs. Demographics of people surveyed, must be very similar to those housed.

Importantly, when they publish their tenant satisfaction measures results, landlords will also have to report how they carried out their tenant perception survey, including how many responses they had and any other issues that may affect the results. An atmosphere of openness is crucial.

All of the current background to the TSMs can be found on the Housing Regulators page here

 

A guide for tenants has also been created for the Regulator For Social Housing. In its 32pt font, I find the guide less of an ‘Easy Read’ and perhaps too ‘dumbed down’ personally. I accept it must have been done in good faith, well meaning to meet established standards to reach all tenants.

 

While I am all for cutting out the jargon, social housing tenants are not stupid in my experience and should never in my opinion be treated as such. Access the guide here

Here to help set the scene, are the raw TSMs :-

  Overall satisfaction

1. Overall satisfaction with the service provided by the landlord. Measured by: tenant perception survey

  Keeping properties in good repair

2. Satisfaction with repairs. Measured by: tenant perception survey
3. Satisfaction with time taken to complete most recent repair. Measured by: tenant perception survey
4. Satisfaction that the home is well-maintained. Measured by: tenant perception survey
5. Homes that do not meet the Decent Homes Standard. Measured by: landlords’ management information
6. Repairs completed within target timescale. Measured by: landlords’ management information

  Maintaining building safety

7. Satisfaction that the home is safe. Measured by: tenant perception survey

  Safety checks

8. Gas safety checks. Measured by: landlords’ management information
9. Fire safety checks. Measured by: landlords’ management information
10. Asbestos safety checks. Measured by: landlords’ management information
11. Water safety checks. Measured by: landlords’ management information
12. Lift safety checks. Measured by: landlords’ management information

  Respectful and helpful engagement

13. Satisfaction that the landlord listens to tenant views and acts upon them. Measured by: tenant perception survey
14. Satisfaction that the landlord keeps tenants informed about things that matter to them. Measured by: tenant perception survey
15. Agreement that the landlord treats tenants fairly and with respect. Measured by: tenant perception survey

  Effective handling of complaints

16. Satisfaction with the landlord’s approach to handling of complaints. Measured by: tenant perception survey
17. Complaints relative to the size of the landlord. Measured by: landlords’ management information
18. Complaints responded to within Complaint Handling Code timescales. Measured by: landlords’ management information

  Responsible neighbourhood management

19. Satisfaction that the landlord keeps communal areas clean and well-maintained. Measured by: tenant perception survey
20. Satisfaction that the landlord makes a positive contribution to neighbourhoods. Measured by: tenant perception survey
21. Satisfaction with the landlord’s approach to handling anti-social behaviour. Measured by: tenant perception survey
22. Anti-social behaviour cases relative to the size of the landlord. Measured by: landlords’ management information

IMHO, most providers with recent and well integrated Housing Management Solutions, should have little difficulty meeting the challenge of collating and managing this data. This presupposes ASB case  and Asset management, including Decent Homes reporting is already in place. Most package solutions allow the facility to issue satisfaction surveys, campaigns etc, either in bulk, randomly or on demand, sometimes utilising workflow. This may not be a module/features already in use, but could easily be purchased/implemented before April 2023.

In-built self-service features are very useful where satisfaction surveys can be quickly issued, responded to by existing self-service users. Landlords should check these are available, lobby suppliers for them, or make them available. Clearly good take-up is key for tenants who can and are willing to interact on-line. For those who can’t or wont, an omni-channel approach is essential.

Joined up thinking and integrated systems these days can also be well achieved using an umbrella CRM, such as Microsoft Dynamics D365, Netcall, Salesforce or others. In particular, these CRMs often have features easy to implement or enable, at additional minimal cost. One example is the Microsoft Customer Voice (MSCV), in Microsoft Dynamics 365, essentially Forms Pro with some Go-Faster stripes. This approach keeps garnering satisfaction data within the ‘curtilage’ of existing integration, so everything can be managed together.

Applications that have capabilities to ‘bolt into’ existing integrated solutions and databases, would be my next consideration. There is great automation out there from the likes of Voicescape and others, which can allow use of Cloud data received and tie up with core contact and asset repairs data.

Last on my recommendations are totally isolated solutions that have just cropped up to solve this particular new social housing requirement. This always happens, it did with ASB, complaints and Decent Homes before, although you should expect anything these days to be all in the Cloud. Two things to consider on this, are integration prospects and how flexible the solution was based on its original source.

For integration, don’t get wrapped up in the ‘deer park rutting’ of struggling to integrate. Make integration part of the sale, or a guarantee to integrate with a contract penalty. That often seperates the men from the boys, or the women from the girls. Secondly, ensure if any new solution is already in use (& it might not be!) and live, compare carefully that site with yours. Consider the practicalities and the gaps between what you need and what’s available. There is also safety in numbers, remember its less painful to come in later, after pioneers have worked hard and frustratingly, with all the arrows in their backs!

As with any systems or applications, be sure to ask the right questions and not be comprehensively fooled. If in doubt, ask someone, a Critical Friend or similar, to ask those questions confidently on your behalf.

Happy New Year, lets hope for a better one, and get yourself prepared for those TSM’s
 

If we at Acutance Consulting can help your organisation with customer service solutions, 

please just get in touch, for a friendly chat over a brew & a macaroon ☕😋.

       Related Post: Why does SocialHousing fail so bad with repairs? 

Catch the blog monthly archive at https://soundcloud.com/housingitguy/

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I would be pleased to connect with you on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy Message me with any issues or queries, you would like to be explored in this blog. We generally receive a couple of suggestions each month.

DeWolff - What's the Measure of a Man.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009


Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Could we help you or your organisation? Our contact details are here , get in touch we will be pleased to chat about your problems and help with your organisation issues.

File Under: #HomesForBritain,#HousingDAY,#InternetOfTenants,#Shout,#UKHousing, 07854655009, 1st Touch,1stTouch,360,365Agile,3squared,4Js, ACL,ALMO,AMS,AX,Aareon,Abritas,Academy,Accuserv,Accuserve,Active Housing,ActiveH,ActiveHousing,Acutence,Advanced,Affinity,Agile,Agile365,AirWatch,Alfresco,Alignment,Allpay,Amazon Web Services,Anite,Apex,App,ArchHouse,Archouse,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Associates,Aurora,Average IT Costs,AWI SX Integration Toolkit,AWS, BI,BO,BPR,BancTec,BigChange,Blockwise,BluTek,Bluebox,Blueprint,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Planning,Business Process Review,Business social networking, CACI,Capita One Housing,CBL,CCS IT Keystone CCSIT,CEDRM,CHICS,CHR,CIH,CMS,COA,CORE,CPL,CRM,CRM2013,CRS,CTI,CTX,Cadcorp,Capita,CapitaOne,Capita One,Capital Management,Cashflow,Castle,Castleton,Castleton Technology,Cedar Open Accounts,Cerrus,Change,Charges,Chartered Institute Of Housing,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics, Citrix,Civica,Civica CTX,Civica Cx,Civica 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pictures,Montal,Mr Void,MriEngage,MrVoid,MoreIQ NDL,NINTEX,NINTEX workflow,NPS,NPS ASSIST,NPS Housing,NPS Job Manager Mobile,NROSH,Natural,Neighbourhoods and Communities,Nintexworkflow,Northgate,Northgate Codeman,Northgate Public Services,Notice, OA,OGC Buying Solutions,OJEU Limits,ORS,Ohms,OmFax,Omniledger,One,OneAdvanced,OneServe,Open source,OpenContractor,OpenHousing,Opti-time,Options,Optitime,Oracle,Orchard,Outsource and outsourcing,OutSystems, PIMMS,PIMSS Data,PM,PRINCE2,Paloma,Pamwin,PanConnect,People Value,Peoplevalue,PfH,Pick,PlanForm,Planned maintenance,Plenfific,Plus,Portfolio Management System,PowerObjects,Pro,Pro-Points,Prodo,Progress,Promaster,Propoints,Proval,Providers,Pyramid, QL,QuantSpark,Qube,QLX,Qlikview,QueryView,Queryview reporting,Quiss, RM865,ROCC,RPs,RSL,Rave,ReAct,Reality,RedkiteCRM,Red Olive,Registered,Registered Social,Rent Increase,RentSense,RentSenseLite,Repairfinder,Reporting,Reports,RobotAutomation,Rocket, 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This Towns Data’s Not Big Enough For The Both Of Us

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK
or LinkedIn here uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/

Wow, another month when I wished I had £50 in my pension for anyone using a phrase. This months seemed to be ‘Big Data’.

I read 3 pages in Housing Tetchnology magazine about it and had countless people ask me about it this last month. It’s the next cloud computing, I tell you. Before your IT team/director/Chief Boffiin persuades you to part with budget, read this.

Lots of talk about housing organisations pooling resources for shared insights and data-led innovation. This is the new nirvana (Kurt Cobain turn in your grave mate), or is it? Much talk of big data, but what of big information? A subtle difference, but a very big one. I even noticed HACT jumping on the bandwagon. Now I have nothing against housing providers sharing data to generate insights. The practicalities are something else.
 
How many times have you generated graphs from data and presented them at a meeting and had a manager say, “What’s caused that peak in demand/satisfaction/dissatisfaction”? You have distilled the data from (big) transactional data, you are just the messenger. Shouldn’t that manager know? Otherwise why pay he/she their humungous salary? Big information comes from understanding big data.

Suppliers out there are sniffing an opportunity, it’s the same old data, buy our solutions for a different reason. Yesterdays data warehouse is today’s big data solution. A bit like hosting became cloud. Are these solutions really tapping into your ‘unstructured’ and ‘multi-structured’ data, like the kind under aspires of your housing management system?

Insights are the target outcomes. That might be why only over 40’s are on your tenant participation panels or 70% of your ASB cases are logged by the under 40’s. A switched on staff member can tell you why, or £75K of software solution can have a go at providing a result for you.

I had some direct experience of big data last year, when I did some work for a very successful NW England based retailer. One that you may well have purchased from, though one of its web guises, without even pondering who owns it. I had a raw big data feed every season 800MB in zipped size to summarise into a big information insight. The insight was 12 pages long, while the raw data needed a newly purchased 8 core i7 processor to crunch it, this way and that.

Most people who know me remember my time some years at Littlewoods and I had to dig out my knowledge of SKUs and such to make sense of 11 retailer ranges of products. It was a while I grant you, but in the dusty grey matter, it was in there somewhere. The only time in my life I was knee deep in female underwear and outerwear, but I learnt a lot about how different how everyone’s data is. Even in the retail world, everyone’s products, colours, sizes, styles are so different. Why can a bra be a 36-C, 36C, 36Med, 36 Medium, 36 Med-C? Can’t you folks call it the same thing? It’s not a lot to ask, is it?

Now in UK housing we do have some standardisation don’t we? We have some standard returns in England, Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland. In all of these places we have city, urban and rural areas. Why we cannot have a unified set of returns has baffled me since the mid 90’s when I got involved in housing. We have more similarities than differences. Celebrate those brothers and sisters.

Still, nowhere as standard as we can take data from any RSL, ALMO or housing group and aggregate it together. Housing Management Suppliers despair when people talk about ‘standard reports’. Even HouseMark ones are not easily aggregated together. Getting back to my retail experience, comparison and cross-referencing was most of the job, and not an exact science at that.

A chat and sharing an excellent pork pie (with brown sauce) this week with a super lady, who I must really see more often, revealed some aspects of data, big and small that many organisations grapple with. Within organisations, the concept of where big data & summarised data (if I may term it that) is often so badly understood.

I have seen organisations where in the nominal ledger/chart of accounts, there is virtually a cost centre for each asset. As can be guessed I generally ask “Why are you doing that you muppet?”. It could be ignorance or mis-understanding. Big data in this context belongs in the feeder systems, not in the financial ledgers. Dawn (I must name her as she insisted I should), described one enquiry she had had from an insurance team, asking for more detail from ledgers. Quite rightly the analogy she used was that if the finance system held the cost of someone’s total shopping, the insurance application would contain the shopping list of items that was purchased.

Processes are continually being pushed downstream these days too. Quite rightly, the days of the typing pool are pretty much behind us. Another area that Dawn mentioned to me was that e-biz ordering and requisitioning, obviously filter down to the orderers, who often ask, isn’t this a finance function? Here again, big(ger) data belongs with the people ordering it, not the finance team. After all, do you get your bank to do your shopping, or do you buy the individual items and your bank bills you the tab? Dawn dear, where have you been all my life?

As a person who loves ‘One version of the truth’ and data to back up decisions and show trends, I fear a housing rush into ‘Big Data’ may take us into a cul-de-sac. Much investment may be made, but often the expertise of housing practitioners on the ground, might well provide better insight than some of our projects to mine ‘Big Data’. I am passionate about UK social housing, I cannot hide that. Building communities, using our assets better, supporting our neighbourhoods, big data, another avenue, but not a silver bullet. Discuss.

You can link with me on LinkedIn here - uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/ It would be great to connect !

Read on to: Drones for housing. Really? well yes actually... 

Sparks - This Towns Datas Not Big Enough For The Both Of US.


(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

PS As usual, if there are subjects you might like me to tackle on this blog, please get in touch and let me know!

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Little Fluffy Clouds

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK

Never a week goes by without someone, generally a user or department manager asking me about ‘cloud computing’. How are other housing associations and groups getting on with this and should all their computer systems be in ‘the cloud’. It always makes me frown a bit, I must admit. Having said that if I had £50 for each of those queries, I would have a useful top up to my pension fund!

The hype and advertising collateral has done a great job of confusing users and making many rash promises that in many cases are simplistic at best. “Put all your applications in the cloud and have them work together seamlessly, access them everywhere on any device, yadda, yadda, yadda...”.  In many cases suppliers are offering what used to be the dull and boringly named ‘hosting’. IE move your data to their servers to host, offsite, rather than in your IT department or data centre. Depending on the application, this might not even make it more accessible on more types of devices; smartphones, tablets, ipads etc, without more expense.

Please however, don’t get the idea that I am anti-cloud, I am certainly not. Many applications (or ‘apps’ as the you’t would have it) work and belong in the cloud. Webmail, Spotify, Evernote all spring to mind. In the housing world, applications like TPTracker and EBS React are often delivered using a similar model, with no software required to be installed on PC’s, laptops or other devices. Integrated links with Housing Management Systems (HMS) can pose challenges, but are not insurmountable. Some HMS systems or part of them can be accessed via browsers, this is more a delivery method than use of the ‘cloud’ however. A true cloud app does not require local software to be installed. Microsoft’s Office365 breaks this rule where used in large business situations. For interfaces with the traditional HMS applications, fat client installs will almost certainly be needed.

Using cloud storage and services does provide scalability. Peaks in requirement can be easily managed, you just rent a bit more of the service, bandwidth or space. The lack of big upfront costs attract many smaller organisations. Rather than spend £30K on a little server area, a similar amount can be paid on more of a pay as you go model, over fixed term contracts, monthly. Strong SLA’s and guarantee of service are essential. Sometimes a ‘private cloud’ can be the best option, for larger organisations, particularly where vast quantities of data are being managed or generated. Costs based on data volumes or bandwidth can often be expensive. One other factor can be your bandwidth availability to the outside world. If you are on the edge of a town or conurbation, an upgrade to your local node might be a pre-requisite. If you cannot, it may derail your plans.

How fast applications run will certainly be affected by cloud hosting. While I don’t mind waiting 10 seconds to complete my Amazon or Ticketmaster purchase, you probably would not like your staff waiting around too long to update a rent account or a repair request. Use of a private cloud might be more controllable however.

The last elephant in the room is can you rely on your sensitive resident data being stored in the cloud, maybe not in the UK or even Europe. All those NI, HB numbers, DD sort codes and accounts, birth dates etc. Extremely useful if hacked. For me I would be reluctant to put sensitive customer data in the cloud or an application that provides competitive advantage. It’s a tough call and if you feel you want to, needs a reliable partner with some tight contracts!

Read on to: Why you need to name your projects well

Chillout to this.


(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk

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