tonysmiththathousingitguy @HousingITguy

Some thoughts on IT and UK SocialHousing from a unique perspective of over 27+ years working with over 140 RSL's, Councils and social landlord groups in the UK, Ireland & Australia. (c) No reproduction without prior/express permission Available for independent housing RSL implementation, procurement of HMS, Repairs, CRM, EDM, DLO, Financial, Scheduling systems, critical friend etc. In Scotland I work with the folks at Arneil Johnston Check us out on Soundcloud /housingitguy

Tuesday, 15 March 2022

Cyber Insekt

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

Between my last blogpost I published and now, Europe as we know is now at war. Not a ‘Cold War’ like in my youth in the 80’s, but a very ‘Hot’ one as Russia have invaded Ukraine. My hopes and prayers, as I am sure yours do, go to my friends of Ukraine origins in the North West and the poor people of the country, for a speedy resolution.

Over the last decade or so, we have been told that UK conventional forces (apart from Trident nukes), can be reduced and new wars are more likely to be fought in cyberspace. Well, Ukraine hasn’t quite played out like that, despite the Russian GRU having its own ‘Fancy Bear/APT28’ team, dedicated to hack for the soviet government. There has been few recent high profile reports of cyber attacks on Ukraine internet infrastructure etc in the last few weeks, matching the shells/missiles dropping in. By all accounts, over the last five years, since Crimea and Donbas invasions, there has been a lot of probing Ukraine cyber infrastructure, by its neighbour to the east.

Recent sanctions appear to be causing the Russian people problems already, despite not really having an effect on Putin. While the latter is unlikely to unleash his weapons on The West and NATO anytime soon, it is not so far fetched that Russia could be unleashing cyber attacks which could be easily denied instead. Some historic examples, such as the NotPetra Malware Attacks accidently spilled over into other countries and hacks affected commercial companies to the tune of $10b, including Cadbury, Maersk shipping and Merck pharma.

Add to that the LBH - London Borough of Hackney in autumn 2020, who lost all key systems, including their Socialhousing HMS forever. Behind many of those spill overs, appeared to be buggy code and light cybersecurity. We can only wish that UAT drastically improves for future ransomware. Commercial organisations, housing providers, councils & UK / Irish public bodies need to plan for “when”, rather than “if” cyberattacks will be coming for them. There is absolutely no room for complacency.

Its likely more intense Russian cyber aggression can be expected, so all business in The West, should move to a policy of heightened alert and as the US Cyber & Infrastructure Security Agency might term it, “Shields Up”. Our organisations specifically may not be the target, but we may easily become collateral damage.

So, I would say its time to take particular stock of your security and cyber awareness, including interconnectivity, infrastructure and your human staff firewall. Is your penetration testing and that of your Cloud based applications, up to date and are recommendations being followed up to eliminate/drastically reduce risks?

Many actions are very easy to carry out with some loose security, unnecessarily spare open server ports etc. Bringing a website down, supporting a DOS (denial of service) attack, stealing customer or other personal details. IE everything from low level harassment to serious disruption.

This should be a time for all organisations to take stock of their cybersecurity as we are in heightened times. Keep on top of the main touchpoint areas in the office or when staff are working from home :-

Have regular backups of all your key systems and data. Keep copies securely in the Cloud/off-site and check periodically that they can be recovered.
Apply any new security patches for your operating system, web browser and all other software on your devices to keep them secure.
Install and regularly update anti-virus and anti-malware software across all your devices. regularly test they are operating as expected
Use strong complex passwords and change them regularly. Also, where possible use two-factor authentication for added security.
Promote use of different passwords for different websites/services or consider using a reputable password management tool.
Encrypt any sensitive data and do not send passwords or other sensitive data via email unencrypted.
To protect against phishing or ransomware be cautious of clicking on links sent to you/staff within emails, social media websites/apps or unfamiliar websites.
Use a firewall and check that your internet router/firewall has the latest firmware installed.
If you operate Wi-Fi networks, make sure it has encryption (eg WPA2) and regularly change the Wi-Fi password.
Use a VPN (a virtual private network) if you are accessing your systems over public Wi-Fi or an insecure network.
For remote meetings using Teams, Zoom, Google Meet etc, make it mandatory to have participant cameras on, so any strange bots or unknown attendees do not use more ‘manual methods’ to compromise systems in the future.

Be aware and staff safe, in what is becoming an ever more dangerous world, in Ukraine and also potentially in a digital way, much closer to home.

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.

The Fall – Cyber Insekt.
(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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Sunday, 27 February 2022

Clear Horizon

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

It’s been described as “one of the greatest injustices in British legal history”. It led to the wrongful convictions of huge numbers of British submaster-people.

The technological horror story started when the UK Post Office installed Fujitsu’s Horizon accounting system in its branches in 1999. Not unlike new software, it was said to be full of bugs. One major flaw caused it to falsely to report shortfalls running sometimes into thousands of pounds. Rules were that managers of the system at each post office needed to compensate for imbalances, before they can start the following days transactions.

The key bug apparently was around lack of designed in resilience, when transmitting batch details via the internet. Slow speeds were common in the early noughties, as well as some lack of resilience. Where batches intermittently failed, they were re-submitted, doubling the amount in the reconciliation. With hindsight, a schoolboy programming error, that could be easily mitigated by better acknowledgement routines.

736 sub-postmasters were prosecuted unlawfully. A terrible miscarriage of justice. More on that here - https://news.sky.com/story/horizon-it-scandal-former-subpostmistress-contemplated-suicide-after-being-accused-of-stealing-by-post-office-12545482

So, what can we learn from the Horizon scandal, to help with our procurements and implementations? Well, quite a lot!

1-   Know your risks to start with – No supplier will ever outline risk, its always for the buyer to determine. If your appetite for risk is low, look for established/proven product, avoid the blue sky

2-   Have a fair contract in place for both parties. Do not just sign up to your suppliers template contract without digesting and possibly challenging it

3-   Have a thorough test plan for UAT and execute it – if you have not got sufficient expertise in your organisation to support this, buy it in.

4-   Volume testing is key, to replicate real world conditions.

5-   Any new development utilising connectivity, needs to be tested to death with slow, unreliable or intermittent web links.

6-   Invoke contract clauses to satisfactorily rectify issues, before even considering go-live

7-   Ensure resilience is built in. Warnings when limits are exceeded (allocated disk/web space etc) well before failure, diagnostics for all services designed in, particularly for reconciliations and audit

8-   Avoid the exercise becoming a ‘Poker Game’. Just because you have chucked in x million pounds, it doesn’t mean that you need to keep wasting time/money, rather than considering to ‘fold’.

9-   Don’t feel forced to go-live too early, or just go live with one little module, to tick a ‘met the deadline’ box.

10-   Trust your users more when they report issues. As we know, systems do exactly how they have been programmed, often erroneously. All systems have vulnerabilities, bugs and quirks. Admit to them and improve the system with suppliers to remove issues and reduce user generated waste.

I’ll put my cards on the table. I help plenty of organisations big and small, to procure the right solutions compliantly, but I also help many that have already become unstuck. Generally, its one or more of the issues above, that has made the situation way worse. Learning from our mistakes is a hard route, easier to have some good Critical friend on board to help OR learn from others who have made mistakes.

Do let me know your feelings via DM or comments 😉

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

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

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

Thursday, 17 February 2022

I Owe You One

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

A few months ago I focused in this blog, on how good solutions can help better manage repairs delivery. Spookily enough on Twitter, LinkedIn and other places, discussions on why a good proportion of RSLs, have continued to rage. Worthy of much credit is @KwajoHousing – go check him out!

Getting more repairs right first time leads to higher resident satisfaction and better control of what we spend.

In this post I am looking to tackle the other side of the coin. How efficiently socialhousing providers manage effective getting in of the cash that supports all that great asset management and addressing repair issues. Typically everyone monitors percentage of GAD (Gross Annual Debit) collected, but how can systems contribute or not to that blanket figure?

Traditional logic going back to the 1970’s is that arrears are generally chased using an arrears ladder. This is by size and comparison with period charges, rather than based on aged debt, like in most financial situations. If I had £50 for every time I have explained that to finance leaning non-housing staff, I would have probably retired by now and running a successful pedalo business on the Costa Brava by now.

All housing systems tend to come with an arrears and service charge capability, although strangely, not all social housing landlords tend to implement in their core system. Clearly this is the first place to start, even if over time this doesn’t work perhaps long term for the organisation.

Arrears procedures do evolve in time and one major problem is often chunkiness of systems to get a change done, or your supplier looking to charge an arm or a leg to modify. I have come across a few HMS solutions which look flexible when demonstrated, although in practice anything slightly less vanilla, ends up in some bespoke developed SQL SP’s (Stored Procedures). So clearly, not an easy matter to tweak going ahead. With hindsight, the key to having flexibility here is contractually agree that if your supplier creates this bespoke fix, some maintenance charge is paid and they maintain/modify it going forward.

When designing arrears ladders, be sure to consider how automation can progress early stages, without the need for 100% of ‘recommendations’ to be accepted. Where exceptions are known, set a manual status (allowing extra time for a payment to come in, or a bereavement to be managed sensitively etc), instead.

HMS or other suppliers can come across as very unresponsive. RSL’s can clearly get quite hacked off by this understandably. No wonder that other avenues end up being considered.

What avenue is sitting on everyone’s desktop? Yes your friend and mine, Microsoft Excel. Scary but true. Do your staff export accounts and arrears cases to Excel and try to manage from there? Have some of your spreadsheet space cadets built some models and pivot tables, probably that few others actually understand?

It’s a well known fact that most people with Excel on their desktop, were never trained to any level of competency in it. Probably under 5% of Excel users are properly comfortable with formula’s, macros, VLOOKUP (don’t get me started on that one!), or even Pivot tables. Where staff manage arrears in this kind of manner, its often separated from the core system of record. On more than one occasion I have encountered spreadsheets that have been used for years with erroneous formulas and providing incorrect insights for ages.

Another top gotcha, is putting barriers in the way of residents, trying hard to pay their rent. To be clear, my belief is that most people in Social Housing prioritise paying their rent, as keeping a roof over your head is way up there with feeding your family and keeping them warm. When I was a child living with my parents in Council Housing (as was) on the edge of Manchester, that’s what my family prioritised in the mid-1970’s.

My old man was a skilled engineer, one industry already in decline in the 70’s. I recall when he was between jobs, rent was prioritised (fortnightly Gilbert Strip collector expected). Some months we ate a lot of egg & chips as that was all we could afford. Those principles certainly shape my attitude even today to money.

However, our residents no longer see a fortnightly rent collector. Are we providing lots of easy ways to help residents pay? If we offer Direct Debit, how many days can residents sign up for it to be deducted? Do we offer Allpay, or An Post (in the Republic Of Ireland), so residents can easily pay their rent in outlets located in their community?

More important these days, how do we buy Home Insurance, Car Tax and other bills? Well on-line. How easy can your residents pay online? Can they easily pay a period debit, outstanding balance or a bespoke amount? Also, more importantly how fast can they do that from your resident self-service portal? Have a look at your own self-service if it offers payments and count the number of clicks needed to initiate a payment. Is it really friction free?

What I mean in terms of really ‘friction free’, is how close your resident experience of paying rent, in terms of clicks, compared with Amazon. Today I made a repeat purchase on Amazon and it took me just three clicks, to part with £39.99 with Prime free delivery. If your self-service needs re-entry of much info every time, you are making it harder for residents to pay their rent. Challenge your HMS/self-service provider or payments provider, to cut down the number of clicks required.

On the subject of providing multiple MOPs (Methods Of Payments), always be aware of the underlying costs.

Remember too, that most housing systems have the concept of main and sub-accounts. This again is a very under-used (and misunderstood) facility in my experience. Consider how these features can be used, keeping alternative debts away from main rent (possible court action) and considering separate arrears tracking procedures for each. EG Rechargeable Repairs, Court Costs etc.

Lastly, ‘Predictive Analytics’. This alternative way to target resources, can point effort at accounts that need to be chased, and skip ones where its very likely that a clearance payment will be made, based on past behaviour. Until quite recently, in the UK its fair to say that Mobysoft had close to a virtual monopoly with Rentsense, although many others these days are looking to ‘steal their lunch’ with similar advertised productised offerings. (see MRI/Orchard and others).

At some point in the next few months, I must try and put together a more detail blogpost on Predictive Analytics, as the landscape has evolved somewhat in the last eighteen months or so.

Predictive arrears is an interesting intervention. Do be sure when considering these, introduce one change at a time and always look into utilising a ‘Control Group’. I am always surprised when I find a client using ‘Predictive Arrears’ that like it, who can rarely tell me that their arrears team, has actually shrunk.

A quick reader question – If you use Predictive Arrears Analysis, have you a smaller, larger or same size arrears team, after using it for 12 months or more? Do leave a comment. I would love to hear any real-world insights from your experiences

Do let me know your feelings via DM or comments 😉

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

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Shalamar - I Owe You One.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

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

Wednesday, 2 February 2022

Being for the benefit of Mr Kite

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

When we spend on ICT do our customers, tenants in social housing see the benefit? I was asked this just last week. So I pondered, what should your tenant, Mr Kite, in Flat b, 23 Railway Cuttings, be experiencing from you?

Bear in mind I encounter lots of tenant/leaseholder issues via DM’s on Twitter. These are very revealing and in many occasions reveal good/less good systems, other times maybe just sloppy culture/management.

For sure, many organisations get hung up on the tech, when its outcomes in the customer experience, that we would better be focused on, as that leads to better service and far better use of our finance & other resources.

After some rumination, here’s ten metrics I would suggest are a good yardstick of how good your ICT is performing for residents in 2022. This list might well identify some of the gaps in your ICT or areas that might well need a revisit.

Nothing below I would feel is particularly ‘blue sky’, in my opinion, as all of this has been easily possible when managed well, for the last 2-5 years. We are not talking self-driving repair vans here, or jet-pack equipped emergency plumbers. If you have implemented any of those, I would be very interested. Also, feel free to DM me if you score a full ten out of ten on this rough set of varied measures!

Just for a bit of fun, try asking these three groups and see if answers collaborate. Your ICT manager, your ream managers, lastly your tenant panel. I guarantee, you will most likely see some variance 😉

1-Do they might see tablets not notepads (or maybe notepads resting on tablets?). Even customers in mobile signal not-spots, so cleverer than pure reliance on the doorstep, of proper apps, not just dumb browser delivered applications.

2-Are they seeing repairs diagnosed and completed effectively, within target, when they can be in, to let them smoothly take place?

3-Are they seeing IOT (Internet Of Things) in their homes, helping to protect them and our assets?

4-Are we offering self-service which gives them a few clicks access to Gas Safety certificates and FRAs, as well as providing fast access to over 80% of the possible (high footfall), services needed from their landlord?

5-Do tenants see more of a well informed/data supported housing officer or scheme based staff, as our tech has freed them from repetitive admin that has been intelligently automated

6-Are residents that need more of our attention, getting it and is it better targeted?

7-Are we learning more about our residents, turning data into information and that into useful insights, to drive up satisfaction levels, service and efficient management, within available budgets

8-Do we have more streamlined processes, minimised hand offs/hand overs, much improved integrations, or hardly any and more consolidated systems, that residents notice are smoother for them, than maybe five or more years ago?

9-Well trained, supported and equipped staff, with our technology guiding them, but capable of using their own experience and judgment to solve customer issues creatively. EG instead of being forced to wade through 12 ASB steps, when at step 4, a good staff member can satisfy complainant with the right intervention and a bunch of flowers.

10-When we report, are we focused on planning ahead and minimising exceptions, or just obsessed with looking at last month or last quarters data snapshot, for our legislative or peer KPIs?
Are our reporting mechanisms capable of allowing us to see our organisation, from the viewpoint of tenants and customers, in their shoes

Do let me know your feelings via DM or comments 😉

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

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The Beatles - Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

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

Friday, 21 January 2022

On The Waterfront

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

I remember a time when social housing people would pay good money, to visit Halton Housing Trust, to catch a glimpse of the digital future. You were best advised to pack a few sarnies, a snack, liquid refreshment and an energy bar, as catering was not generally laid on for the entry ticket price.

I never did the trip personally, but met many who had.

Reactions differed, its fair to say. Did you or one of your colleagues visit?

Some of my contacts and clients, thought they had seen the future and worked to set off and implement it, others were horrified with such a fundamentalist approach to digital first or no customer service at all. Its fair to say, those sessions generated lots of discussions and were fabulous in that respect. SocialHousing had been in its traditional mould for the most part and needed a shaking up.

Barriers to digital first thinking I encountered, included (almost comically), “Well our tenants are mostly old and won’t go for it”, to asset and repair managers telling me, “Well we can’t trust them to be logging their own repairs, they will be ordering whole kitchens & bathrooms”. No word of a lie.

Well, the world didn’t go to pot when some decent self-service was offered and all ages, took advantage, to various degrees. At HHT famously, hard to crack tenants were equipped with tablets, creatively funded, which was great. All fabulous ideas that reordered workloads to enable Universal Credit rollout to be managed.

Lets not forget that Halton and the borough I live in, Warrington adjacent, were the initial guinea pigs for the ill thought out opening UC rollout. Drastic situations called for radical solutions. Many poor folk relying on Universal credit at that time, waiting up to nine months, to receive any payments at all. Truly unacceptable. So from me maximum credit for taking a bold, alternative approach.

However, perhaps for most organisations, the realisation is that omni-channel, a pick & mix on offer for residents, actually is an ideal solution, if its available. After all, some of us love the caramel pennies, although others like a mix in different situations. Sometimes its got to be a green foil wrapped triangle when the occasion calls.

I engage with many residents on Twitter and they have strong opinions on the mix offered of how they can contact their housing provider. Also how that is followed up, issues resolved and closed out. Its fair to say that its often after remote service failure, sometimes after self-serving, ‘Customer Service’ then kicks in. Repairs being a common theme, as ITV have highlighted.

If it can be supported and resourced, that ‘Customer Service’ element is of value to be there, at all times if needed. It was interesting last year before Christmas, that HHT opened a new customer and visitor reception area, at the Waterfront, Runcorn. More info here - https://www.haltonhousing.co.uk/about-us/news/new-waterfront-point-reception-opens-its-doors-customers-and-visitors

Of course much has changed in the management team at Halton, with some very good additions from the previous Torus Housing Group structure. Some great people I have had the pleasure to work with previously on serious transformation projects and taken a very hybrid and inclusive view of the customer service being offered.

I personally think that its good that Halton has moved closer to an omnichannel approach to customer service. It’s perhaps vindicated some of those doubters, who made those pilgrimages to Runcorn. Maybe a mix of channels to provide different strokes for different folks, was the best strategy after all…

What goes around comes around. Those 80's leg-warmers or 70's penny-round collars may well come back sometime soon!

Do let me know your feelings via DM or comments 😉

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

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

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

Tuesday, 4 January 2022

Dirty Sheets

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

I was on a virtual call recently with an organisation, just live on a new comprehensive integrated housing solution.

It was a project that I worked together with them after procurement as a Critical Friend. It had been a great project, although one that had to be elongated, due to Covid, extreme weather/flooding and some other challenges. The ALMO and a combination of very capable project managers, took all of this in their stride, bringing everything in to time and budget.

I have worked on lots of procurements and a good number I work with during the implementation, to ensure we get the most from the supplier and the project is delivered to expectations set earlier. I know other consultants who help procure and stop there. I am always sensitive to answering the question, “Could I bring this in for that budget and pretty much to that suggested timescale”? This is clearly not a concern for many others. A lot of my clients become my long term friends and its important to me to see the organisation get the solution they procured and the absolute best chance for residents to feel the benefits of it.

So, we have a nice shiny system, however there is an elephant in the room, in tabular form.

Yes my friends, I am talking about spreadsheets, these days its Excel (which has conclusively clobbered Lotus-1-2-3, Visicalc and SuperCalc on the whole). Now don’t get me wrong, I am not Spreadsheet-ist. I like them, but only used for the things that they are best at. Spreadsheets are NOT good at being a database. Excel is NOT a database!

The challenge for this organisation (like many others), is to discover out where spreadsheets are actively in use, then seek out why staff are updating them. It’s a given I guess that all organisations will have multiple copies of historic spreadsheets, that are static and if identified can be easily made read-only or archived automatically.

Asking users to ‘fess-up’ to updating and maintaining spreadsheets, can lead to limited engagement. Users may often hang on to updating spreadsheets, as they perceive it as ‘part of their job’. If eliminated, would that eliminate their job? Probably not, they would most likely do an alternative task, adding more value or being more fulfilling to them.

The windows or SharePoint file system can be used to identify active spreadsheets. Connection tools in Crystal Reports, Qlik and other tools, allow access to spreadsheet properties, creator/amend user etc, which can be the entry point to what spreadsheets are actively in use, week to week, month to month.

In my experience, a lot of the use of spreadsheets is historic. They were completed because a certain manager/director wanted them maintained, or the old system didn’t store that data. In some cases, they are maintained because managers did not ‘trust’ the primary system of record.

Once identified, ICT or business analyst staff need to work out what value is added from the spreadsheet. Also if any data recorded in spreadsheets now belongs in the new solution and put a plan together to move the data to the primary system of record. The change required will modify processes and staff jobs, hopefully cutting out waste and gravitating towards more of a single source of the truth from the new primary system of record.

The attitude towards spreadsheets and their proliferation needs to be bullish. Failure to do so will get in the way of using any new system well and a bullet that needs to be bit!

Related Post: So Serco and the NHS are not safe to use Excel like a database now?

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David Byrne - Gasoline And Dirty Sheets.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

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