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

Wednesday, 8 February 2023

It’s a fixer-upper...

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

We are all aware of one or two in our neighborhoods I am sure, yes the ‘Fixer-Upper’. Generally a property (or anything else like an ICT system) bought on the cheap purchased with full knowledge that a lot of work, substantial additional time and cash investment would be needed.

That’s all very well with buyers going into that situation with eyes wide open, however what of new renters moving in to a let, then discovering its more a ‘Fixer-Upper’ than a property hitting the landlords ‘Letting standard’ ?

Classic issues in a Fixer-Upper are often damp, roofing and window issues, what might be more commonly referred to in social housing, as Capital Works. Small patches of damp are often caused by plumbing or roofing/draining issues. Typically tenants may report these issue instances via self-service or a call into an RSL contact service centre.

As we know, Westminster Housing & Communities dept, quite rightly are all over this issue at the moment, as can be seen by the initial report findings.

Top level observations were:

• Landlords relied more heavily on reactive approaches to identifying problems than proactively looking for evidence of damp and mould through surveys of their homes
• had less data or refreshed their data less frequently
• had weaker evidence about their assurance, oversight and understanding of the condition of homes

So how can landlords better use existing or newer Housing Management System solutions, to tackle the above directly?

Well, firstly an emphasis on how complaints and responsive repair requests are diagnosed and progressed. Where damp and mould issues come in as complaints, they should also be logged as a repair request. This is the envelope that can generally encompass pre-inspections, remedy work, post-inspection and follow-up surveys etc. Scripting (the likes of Keyfax, RepairFinder, ActiveHousing etc), can be enhanced around damp and mould, in order to capture additional information. This might include more precise locations in the property for example. IE not just ‘Rear Bedroom’, but in addition precise place(s), eg ‘ceiling next to back wall’, ‘To left of single glazed window’ etc.

Also, capturing extent and images if we can, is important. Tenants should be asked in plain language to determine what size the area is, if they are unable to measure. EG ‘a patch the size of a hand, full length of a wall’ etc.

Where pre-inspections are necessary, these can be specially prioritised and kept within the computer recorded Request. It is likely that an initial inspection will result in work on roof, guttering, plumbing, or other ‘Wet Trades’. I have worked with clients in some of the wettest parts of the UK (yes, wetter even than Manchester!) and generally I have experienced ‘Wet Trade’ operatives to be in short supply, particularly in colder/wetter months.

This can lead to work being deferred or perhaps parked until capital/planned programmes are due, later in the year. To safeguard the chance of the issue not being picked up by these later works, the Request should be kept open. Closing the request in this instance, has not solved the tenants issue, and artificially reports as a successful outcome at the RSL. This is a major danger, particularly if that programmed work on that block/scheme, never takes place or budget is reallocated.

Few asset stock condition surveys that I regularly see in use, actually ask questions specifically around damp & mold. These need to be incorporated if your asset management team have not already done so, in order to direct the surveyors right to it.

Where repeat Requests and customer contact occurs on damp/mould, these point to underlying resident issues not being solved. From the landlords viewpoint, this will no doubt cost more later in damage to the asset. From the tenant viewpoint, service is poor and their health could be placed in danger.

Data, having lots of it current and accurate around condition, is the key to closing out these issues properly and reporting coherently. You would expect by now, the sector was making good use of IOT to monitor properties and heating/ventilation efficiency. We still seem slow to put the Internet Of Things to much use unfortunately. This could be a source of great data. Perhaps a whole future blog there on pioneers doing significant rollouts in 2023.

Recent articles I have read cite ‘Tenant Life style’ as a sometime source of damp and mold issues. While lack of outdoor drying areas, heating/washing habits, occupier behaviours etc, can contribute to these issues, I doubt very much that religious practices and ablutions, rather than poor/expensive heating and noisy/insufficient ventilation, is to blame in many cases.

While we have improved central heating, insulated and double-glazed, we have reduced the amount of default ventilation in our homes too. Some additional communication can be really helpful as regards drying areas, opening windows etc, to tackle those aspects. Residents experiencing challenges in keeping homes sufficiently warm, may also benefit from advice via tenancy sustainment teams. For sure, we are all seeing increased fuel bills, with no early prospect of things normalizing soon. Noting that these types of discussions have taken place in our systems, will be helpful later in better targeting help, with potential reducing budgets.

Our systems can help landlords tackle damp and mould issues from a number of angles. Better the Ukhousing sector starts getting a grip on these issues, way before the regulator, ambulance chasers or God forbid, the coroner comes calling. As ever, remember even the best processes, technology and solutions, requires a good organisation culture too, driven best from the very top.

If we at Acutance Consulting can help your organisation with data issues,

please just get in touch, for a friendly chat over some lemon drizzle Cake & a brew ☕😋.

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

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

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.

Its a fixer upper – Yard Act.
(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 Genero,Civica Saffron,Clearview,Clik,Cloud Dialogs,CloudDialogs,Coactiva,Codeman,Comino,Commontime,Community Reward Services,Company,Competitive Dialogue process,Component Accounting,Consilium,Consolidation, Consultancy,Consultant,Consultants,Contact Manager,Context,Contractor Systems,CorVu,Cost Reductions,Covalent,Crystal Reports,Customer Relationship Management,Cx, DRS,Deeplake,Designer Software,Development Systems,Director,Document,Documotive,Docuware,Dynamic AI,DynamicAI,Dynamics 365,D365,Dynamics365, ECMK,EDM,EDRMS,ERP,ESRI,Elmhurst,Enghouse Interactive,England,English,EnterpriseBI,Estatecraft,Etive,Exhibition,Exponential-e, Facebook,Factorwise,Field Service management,Finance,Financial Systems,Financials,Footprint,Forms,Freezes,Fusion, Gas Tag,G-Cloud,GCloud,GDPR,GGP,GIS,GasTag,Genero,GeoSolveIT,Getting best from,GoTonySmith,Grasp,Grip,Group Apex, HFI (Housing Financials interface),HG,HRA,Hardware,Hitachi Systems,Hitex,HomeMaster,Hometeam,HouSys,House,Housemark,Housemark survey,Housing,Housing Contact,Housing Group,Housing Insight,Housing Management,Housing Management Consultant,Housing Partners,Housing Portfolio Management System,Hub Asset Management,Homeswapper,Housing jigsaw, Housing Support Pro,HousingIT,HousingSupportPro,HyperOptic, IMS,IT,IT Budget,IT Training,ITIL,Impact Response,In,In4,In4Systems Promaster,InfoBoss,InHouse,InMotion,InMotion2015,InMotion2016,InfoBoss,Infoflow,Information,Information Technology,Information@Work components,Informix,Innovation, Informetis,Inphase,Inside Housing,Insight,Internet Portal,Internetalia,Invu,Ireland,Irish,itLab, Keyfax,Keylogic,Keypera,Keystone,Kirona,Kypera,Keynamics, Landlord,Ledgers,Linkedin,Liquid,Locality,Localz, M3,MAVIS,MD,MDM,MI,MIS,MIS-AMS,MISCS,MRI,MS Dynamics,MRI,MS Dynamics CRM2011,Microsoft365,microsoft 365,MWL,Management,Management Server,Manifest,Measuring,Mebus,More IQ,MoreIQ,Microsoft Dynamics 365,Microsoft dynamics GP 2013,Miracle,MobileIron,Mobysoft,Monopoly board images and 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, Salesforce,Salesforce.Org,SAP,SASSHA,SDM,SHBVN,SM,SOTI,SP,SQL,SQL Open Housing,SQL Reporting,SQL Server,Saffron,Safron,Saturn,Scenario,Scotland,Scots,Scottish,Scout,Sequoa,Serengeti,Serros,Server,Service,Services,Servitor,Sharepoint,Sim,SimPro, Simdel,Simdell,Slash and Burn,Social Housing ICT,Social Housing Software Applications,Social Media,Software,Software solutions,Spotlight Service,Spotlightservice,Star rating,Stores and Stock,Strategic,SunAccounts,Sunguard,Surveys,Streetwise, Swordfish,Sx3,Symatrix Human,System alignment,Systems,Systemwise, T-Files,TEAMS,TED,TFiles,TP Tracker,TSG,Tagish Casework,Tagra,Task,TAIM,Technologies (India) PVT Limited,Telecetera,Template,Terminal Services,That,Three Star,Tilt,TiltAffinity,Today,Tony Smith,Tony Smith That Housing IT Guy,TonySmith that housing IT,TonySmithHou,TonySmithHousing, ,TonySmithHousingITguy,Total,Total Mobile,Totalmobile,Trace,Tribal,Twitter, U2,UC,UK,UK Housing,Ukhousing,UniClass Enterprise,Unidata,United Kingdom,Universal,Universalcredit,Universe,Unrest, Valueworks,Van Stock,Vantage,Vantage Sentinel,Version,Virtualisation,Visualmetrics,Voice,Voice and data,Voluntas, Wales,Welsh,Wheatley,Windows Server,Workflow and,Work Hub,Works Connect, XML,Xen App,XenApp,Xmbrace, ...
. . . . . . . . . . . .

Thursday, 26 January 2023

Friction

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

Just the other week, I was asked, “Why do you think our project to install a COTS (commercial off the shelf solution), went wrong, over-ran and needed a budget increase of nearly £2m to complete”?

Its a too common tale and an interesting question and also one that I had limited scope to comment on, as I was not aware of the project in question, nor was involved in my current remit with the organisation. For sure, software implementations go wrong, friction occurs and this post will try to cover some of the key gotchas, around COTS projects.

Firstly, is a COTS solution for you?

Maybe it isn’t and you should be building something from scratch, particularly if you are seeking a particularly unique solution to a unique problem. Most problems are not unique and if you have peer organisations, successfully using commercial solutions, that should really be the first avenue to investigate. Why re-invent the wheel if you can see a number of solutions to compare and contrast and find the one that gives a good fit.

Choosing a good COTs solution is a bit like finding your life partner (and who is 100% happy with theirs?). All other halves have some irritating features, but no-doubt if you are still together, a great majority of things work out between you pretty well. Don’t throw the idea of a COT solution out because others have had issues. It can sometimes be difficult to get to the bottom of issues as organisations and managers rarely are comfortable sharing their failures. In practice, much can always be learned looking closer into what went wrong, ready for the next up-coming projects.

Many projects fail pretty early on, with the initial specification of what’s needing to be achieved and what’s needed from the COTS solution. A too high level or no spec at all is not recommended and always is likely to lead to receiving an initial bargain supplier quote. If your needs are vague, so will be pricing.

On the other side of the fence, back in the day as a supplier, I have often looked at an initial requirement and honestly determined it as easily done for £200k. I was generally carefully to detail exactly, what was included, which would generally flush out multiple missed additional requirements. Not all supplier sales folk would or do. My experience of many years doing implementations taught me that sales need to go better, otherwise the poor implementation consultants ultimately pick up the gaps later. That £200k could quite easily increase by a factor of ten, depending what was missed.

Costs should always be assessed and compared over the full contracted project life, typically five, maybe ten or more years these days. It’s a level playing field then for all.

Factor in all database licences, Cloud instances (you know, Live, Train, Test etc), additional software (MDM managers and security solutions) or hardware (tablets, laptops, workstations etc), from the very start.

Contracts are important and far too many projects I have reviewed, started with a poorly constructed one, or something I can recognise as a suppliers original, with little or no clarifications / alterations. In the instance of one client I worked with, a 108 page supplier contract had just been signed / countersigned at the bottom, committing that organisation to a five year minimum cost of over £700k, even if no solution was ever implemented or goes live. I was told the ICT director had ‘just signed it’, as it looked quite large and complicated. It was not balanced in favour of a more even relationship between client & supplier, even though the proposed product was just freshly released.

Which brings me on to another key area. Are we contracting to established and proven product? Does the solution exist at all, or is it just a ‘wire frame’ or cosmetic prototype? Are there any other live users, utilising it in the manner we expect to? If not, expect high risk, of to be perhaps footing the bill later, to make the solution work or finish it for your needs.

Risk is the third factor in what I would call the ‘holy trinity’ of procurement, together with well specified requirements and accurate cost. If your organisation has a relaxed attitude to risk, IE cost could be three times or more expensive or take 3-5 times longer than expected, a more relaxed approach could be taken. If like most Local Authorities, Councils or squeezed Social Housing providers, there is a pretty fixed budget and its absolutely needed live in x months, due diligence needs to fierce. Contract penalties need to be writ’ large.

So lets imagine we have our preferred supplier, suitable product and tight contract. There is plenty that can go wrong over an 18 month project. Client or supplier could resource it badly, both need to get that right, with my preference finding ways to get the A-Team involved. Quality and experienced staff, support better outcomes, go-lives and future system/process transformation.

Extended implementations are more costly and delay realisation of expected benefits.

While all projects can be expected to encounter some change control, that strong spec mentioned earlier, helps control what comes up and what’s valid. Where good contract and specifications have been available, over the last decade I have probably saved clients getting on for £1m in total, in rejected change control. Much of it due to supplier disconnect between sale and implementation, rather than sharp practice.

One last thought, keep your project focused. While this is a challenging prospect over perhaps an 18-24 month project, try hard to stay fixated on achieving original project outcomes. Understand when projects are drifting and challenge suppliers and your own team quickly, to keep on track.

While this has been a bit of a whistle stop tour of this subject, I hope its helpful to organisations considering or embarking on a new COTS implementation project. Comments or questions welcome – feel free to get in touch!

If we at Acutance Consulting can help your organisation with data issues,

please just get in touch, for a friendly chat over a Jaffa Cake & a coffee ☕😋.

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

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

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

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

Wednesday, 11 January 2023

Light Specific Data

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

I remember many years ago reading VS Naipaul’s “A house for Mr Biswas”. It’s a recognised classic, a tale of a Hindu Indian with a small disability, trying to fit in the community of rural Trinidad and Tobago. I recommend it, a brilliant and insightful book, that was acclaimed world-wide.

Early in the novel, Mr Biswas sets out to acquire a home library to appear well-read and intelligent. To do so, he orders x feet of book. He doesn’t particularly care what the books are, but he builds a library for himself.

The character collects books like many organisations collect data.

I have met many people in organisations, who are more focussed at time on the quantity of data we have, rather than the quality of it. Often its very burdensome to look too deeply into our data. Its expensive and often irritating to have to fix it. No wonder many obsess about the abstract concept of big data, most of us have not actually cracked small data yet.

I have met many ICT and data professionals, who have tried to make improving data quality their aim. Personally I have been there myself, creating exception reports and generating automated prompts, in order to flag up issues to staff before they become much bigger data problems. They like me I think were all universally hated, and referred to at times, to be the data police! It’s a moniker I can live with, and deep down I know good quality data, leads to better decisions.

How often do you and your organisation question your data quality? Only on one occasion in my career, have I seen an organisation underline the importance of data to staff on a full day of presentations. Everyone should try it.

How often in particular, are staff involved in :-

Inaccurate data
Incomplete data. If data is incomplete, organisations may make decisions based on a false understanding of the situation.
Outdated data: If data is not kept up-to-date, organisations may make decisions based on out of date information. This can lead to missed opportunities or a failure to identify new trends
Lack of data standardization: Poor data quality can also be caused by a lack of data standardization, which makes it difficult to compare and combine data from different sources. This can lead to confusion and mistakes in decision making.
Inconsistency in data: Inconsistency in data can lead to difficultly in tracking progress and identifying areas for improvement, which can lead to poor decision making.

Lets think now about the last time you spotted a data anomaly.

I have discovered many when migrating data from one system to another. Often systems are patched historically and data left incorrect in-situ. Data migrations do tend to flush a lot of this out. One example I saw around this involved car-port assets that were thought deleted seven years back. We had to reinstate them as historic data referred and related to them. Watch out for this yourself.

Another lovely data story I remember was from a West Midlands socialhousing landlord. I cannot actually remember what I was on-site doing, but I was asked if I could do my client a favour. I try to be a helpful bloke, so yes, I would always try my best to help, even if it caused me to miss my lunch!

What they were looking to do is mailshot/SMS txt all their live tenants over the age of 65. Quite an easy query in most integrated housing systems, (if you can avoid any Mr Void’s in one particular one, I am not so rude to highlight – but you guys know who you are!). My SQL query was soon done and its results dropped into Excel. (Not a database itself, before you ask!).

Now many people would have surely stopped there, passed the list and maybe the query on and cracked on with my lunch BLT. Being me I just thought I would check the sensibility of what was being pulled out, based on Dates of Birth. It was then that I wondered if I had made a serious scientific discovery, or was just looking at some dodgy data. I discovered that over a hundred of their tenants were over 1,000 years old. Digging further, they all lived in a place called Tipton.

I had never been to Tipton at that point, and wondered if it might be one of those types of communities you read about in Japanese islands or Southern Greece, for extraordinary life expectancy. Since then I have visited Mad O'Rourke's Pie Factory, in Hurst Ln (on my birthday actually, a few years back and it was bostin, although thankfully not the 4lb Desperate Dan Cow pie), so I was in no doubt that life expectancy, could well be nearer the west Midlands average in Tipton town.

The sad truth was that the DOBs were habitually entered incorrectly in the RSLs old Tipton Office, and never challenged or corrected. So I had to cancel David Attenborough and the film crew, it was just sh*t data, that could be easily corrected by a temp.

Its not just old people with poor data that we need to concern ourselves with, the young-uns can be problematic too. At another big West Midlands RSL, I looked into a problem with residents being button-holed by DLO staff to provide satisfaction feedback, but it was often residents still of school age. A great story for the Wolverhampton based Express & Star, although on investigation a lot of resident data was being incorrectly recorded, including tenant ages (defaulting to 0, as DOB could be entered as today) and the wrong household member being flagged as the ‘main’ resident.

Once pinned down to a couple of housing staff requiring some training, plus a regular report to flag them to fix them all, the problem was no more. In this last case, the problem was causing the DLO issues, and had a source right back when the tenancy was set up. Be aware of this type of thing. Often one dept needs to ‘take one’, for the wider team, which isn’t always an easy sell.

Anyway, the thought I would like to leave you with, is that we all need to really doubt all our data, all the time. Take ownership of it and how it should be fixed. Then keep fixing it!

At some point, being aware of the above and putting this into practice, your data will take you and your tenants to a better future.

If we at Acutance Consulting can help your organisation with data issues,

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

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

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

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

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

Friday, 23 December 2022

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 ☕😋.

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

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

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

Saturday, 3 December 2022

Artificial

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

Its been out nearly a whole month at the time of writing this, since the latest chatbot on the block, has been available to play with.

In the past you may have read about a few other chatbots that have come unstuck. ChatGPT from Silicon Valley outfit OpenAI seems to be the first to pass 'The Nazi test'.

There are stories of A-Level & degree students knocking up essays and even I managed to knock up a great 300 word one on George Orwell, but it stopped short when asked about doing a 5,000 word one. Maybe you only get so much for free ?

We have been here before however….

Tay you might remember, was a chatbot developed by Microsoft in 2016 as an experiment in artificial intelligence and machine learning. It was designed to be a social media bot that could learn from and interact with users on platforms such as Twitter and Kik. It was designed to mimic the language and behaviour of a young adult and was programmed to respond to users in real-time. It was intended to be used as a way for users to have fun and engage with artificial intelligence in a playful manner. The more you chat with Tay, said Microsoft, the smarter it gets, learning to engage people through "casual and playful conversation."

Unfortunately in less than a single day, it had learned right-wing and Nazi principles directly from Twitter users interacting with it maliciously. Here’s a sample:

That kicked off quickly !

No at this point I can forgive Microsoft haters, that might just say, “What a typical MS schoolGates error”. Didn’t Microsoft do any real-world testing before releasing this cluster-f*** into the world, to last not quite just 15 hours? Most humans have filters to some degree, but raw AI? It’s a potential lawsuit waiting to happen. Which is probably why Alphabet/Google and others have been dabbling with this tech for many years, but are in no rush seemingly as yet to release it

Alan Mathison Turing Statue, Sackville Gardens Manchester - RFF5JN

Also, as I discovered, the current incarnation of ChatGPT and the way it serves up responses, might well seriously disrupt the ads first way Google works to turn its dollar.

Do I think it passes the mathematician Alan Turing test? Well, it comes close!

The currently available incarnation has certain limits, however returns results in a believable natural language (whichever language you happen to speak):

Oh la la 👍

It’s a fun utility to play with, if you have (too much) time on your hands

Well I am happy with that

You can even ask it for code snippets, including SQL statements, Javascript, C++, VB, SalesForce APEX, SAP ABAP, old skool COBOL and PERL. I tested out a few languages I have worked with in the past.

A lot of the examples are accurate and very close to believable answers. Give some of these a try yourself. Once signed up and verified, you will be asking crazy questions within three minutes.

Need any relationship advice 😉

Just taking the above (totally fictional I assure you!) example into account, I think The Sun's, Dear Deirdre column writer, could be in trouble!

Here’s a response to a professional question, I am often asked in my working life:

Suppliers, do you recognise yourselves in there ?

This is all very readable and believable, however in relation to the question asked, I would only score this answer slightly under 40%. I know to interpret the answer in that way and even the broadly correct parts, do not reflect that Northgate has been NEC for over a year, as has Orchard been part of MRI for longer than that and branded so. Core housing above looks to refer to eCORE reporting

After an hour of working with ChatGPT you like me, will trust it a lot, although I know that at times reliability is not always greater than 90%. We definitely need to question everything AI serves up, just as any of us might be questioned in our day-to-day job roles. It could be quite easy to act totally innocently on the results being served up, although without verification in the real world, serious mistakes could be made.

ChatGPT is very limited. No outside access to the internet, trained by humans its claimed. Its "good enough at some things to create a misleading impression of greatness", is how one tweeter described it. This is quite accurate for the moment I feel.

Maybe replacing expensive ICT staff and experienced consultants, is not totally practical at the moment for SocialHousing ICT🤔. However this is useful, although clearly currently the chatbot does not have access to wider weblinks and very much has relied on (truthful humans?) helping to shape content and truthfulness. Clearly this is a more expensive option than just trawling and scraping the web for all kinds of content. A bit like the initial aim of Yahoo.

You will also notice that ads and weblinks are not being served up. Google has conditioned us to wade though ads and find our own best quality links. When we click on an ad, Google earns its 50p or whatever that click is priced at. Searching using ChatGPT frees the user from a lot of that chaff. However, its inherent risk of incorrect or misleading info, needs to be taken into account at all times.

OpenAi currently are slightly immune currently from the types of media storms that might result if say Google, Amazon or Meta released a new chatbot, making mistakes, spreading conspiracy theories or untruths. This would most likely be a major issue and hence I think why they are holding back currently. Also of course, how is this best monetised?

Clearly at some point, openAI who have had incredible investment so far, need to properly monetise this too. We are at the start of a journey here, expect the mainstream chatbots to come and new applications to come out of it. Embrace it when they come, however also consider the risks, commercially and reputationally.

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 & some Chocolate Gingers ☕😋.