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, 5 September 2023

Falling From The Sky

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

As a regular Private Eye reader, the recent revelation that in the UK we have a hundred or more schools blighted by failing RAAC (Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete). It’s a lightweight material that was used mostly in flat roofing, but also in floors and walls, between the 1950s and 1990s. It is a cheaper alternative to standard concrete, is quicker to produce and easier to install. In hindsight it was a time when so many new and replacement buildings were required after a crippling world war and full implications and life cycle of this newish material.

While the Romans apparently had concrete in their buildings, they didn’t have RACC, as far as archaeologists seem to agree. Romans also didn’t seem to require substantial ‘planned maintenance’, as evidence such as Hadrian’s Wall and the Rome Colosseum attests.

1960s concrete corroding tie bar corrosion checks

Planned maintenance is often neglected and in my 25+ years in Social Housing continues to reinforce the view that we often do it badly in the sector. In theory (and practice) if we get planned/capital spend targeted right, much can be saved in reactive repairs. While we have many software solutions to help with that, we still love our spreadsheets and manual solutions don’t we?

Many a time I have seen half a dozen staff in a room earnestly lamenting a £80 estimated SOR responsive repair being varied to £350 and examining it in detail, while four blokes next door manage a £4.3m capital budget on spreadsheets no-one can understand. Honestly, we need to understand why the latter is the most vulnerable budget for fraud, not the former.

So, what do the main solutions out there provide, from bigger all encompassing integrated solutions, to more third party interfaced, brand new innovations or standalone options?

All provide the options of defining our required component structure, with options of applying lifecycles, costs, replacement options and other criteria as needed. One size definitely does not fit all, as all RSLs & RPs have special requirements, in addition to 85% of everything that is usually ‘vanilla’ in the sector. This could be as quirky as having some properties with thatched roofs (such as in Gloucestershire or the south west), or communal heating for example.

Once a component structure has been defined, this needs to drive and inform condition surveys, to collect accurate information on what’s present, remaining life, condition and other specific valuable insights. Beware survey companies that resist or refuse to structure their survey offerings to what you need. Surveys are expensive and to extract maximum value fit Social Housing needs closely and be provided in a format easy to bring into the target system or module.

Failure to get this stage right can be extremely time consuming later, costly and frustrating. I have been involved at the start of many clients engaging survey companies and this has been a valuable exercise for client team and surveyors. Most surveyors can be flexible, although keeping to a ‘vanilla’ format saves them money and time, so the argument can be that they have used this for council or HA x, so it should be ok for you. Probably verify with council or HA x what their actual experience was like. In one example I saw of a ‘vanilla’ survey, it could tell us how many hanging baskets the properties had, but not condition or existence of Kitchen, Bathroom or wiring.

If you are paying for it, ensure you are getting good value and exactly what is useful to you. Many stock condition surveys come in spreadsheets, one row per asset (property or block etc), often with hundreds of columns. Remember, Excel or Google spreadsheets are not databases, don’t get confused they are!

Once the data is in your system/module database (a proper one OBVs, not a spreadsheet), we have the means to start to drive practical planned maintenance budgets and programmes. Clearly after initial Life Cycle Costings are produced, other work might be necessary or carried out to determine fit to available budgets and drive practical and effective programmes.

Trellick Tower Cheltenham Estate in Kensal Green, London - built 1972

In the case of suspected or actual RAAC, it appears to be not thought to be common in 1960s-80’s social housing, although possibly condition surveys should incorporate checks in specific build archetypes. If it is suspected in your stock, a component or attribute can easily be added, to allow convenient reporting, monitoring and addressing of issues.

Spookily enough 17 or so years back I was involved in implementing an assets, planned maintenance and survey solution across the Isle Of Man education authority. Thankfully the BBC reported that the IOM government has stated that there is no indication that RAAC was used there - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-66729079

Efficient and complete planned maintenance is crucial for safe buildings and keeping residents, children and others safe. We ignore it at our peril, prevention will save lives and be less costly than a later cure.

If you think your organisation, whatever size you are (we work with organisations managing from 32 properties, right up to 150,000+ ) needs help, please reach out to us.

Subscribe to our blog here on this link, to always catch the latest news on whats happening in the sector.

Acutance Consulting would be happy to help you review Planned Maintenance system options,

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

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.

Shed Seven – Falling From The Sky.
(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 August 2023

Policeman Data Skank

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

I don’t know what crossed your mind a few weeks ago when you heard about the recent UK big data breaches. On the Monday was a loss of millions of names from the UK Electoral Roll. 40 million voters in fact from hackers - Full article here. I suppose that does make a difference for our government to not be trying to be selling it this time!

A few days later came the PSNI data breach, of every serving police officer in Northern Ireland. - Full article here.

The day after that came Norfolk and Suffolk police, fessing up over another data breach consisting of personal details of 1,230 victims, suspects and witnesses - Full article here

While the first one was apparently a successful hack attempt, (we are familiar with some of those in social housing), the second two look more like spectacular own-goals, that would have needed Mary Earps England’s ‘Queen of Stops’ to try to effectively prevent. These were both cases where the police authorities apparently responded to freedom of information (FOI) requests, for summary data. IE number of cases, totals of police staff and roles etc.

They say a little knowledge is dangerous and that would certainly be true if that data was extracted into Excel perhaps (a tool we all love a little too much), and a pivot table/formulas created for creating the summary totals. To be compliant with a FOI request they could have easily supplied a short PDF of the totals page. To share way too much data we could provide the much bigger spreadsheet and inadvertently and criminally overshare.

In the case of the PSNI data breach, it could not have been much worse a mistake.

I have worked a lot over in Northern and Southern Ireland over the last 25 years. When I first traveled there, they had barely dismantled the British army checkpoints outside Belfast international airport. I have 100% always had positive and uplifting experiences with all sides of the communities I have worked with and received care and generosity throughout. Belfast and other places have improved immensely. Offices and property blocks have plate glass on the outside again and hen parties cycle around city centres on big beer/gin bikes. Its one of my favourite corners of these isles.

One institution in society that still polarises there is the PSNI. Once called the RUC reflecting just one part of society, its new incarnation is still extremely suspicious to both communities, nearly 22 years on:

Loyalist community suspicion

Republican community suspicion

In terms of putting people at risk and drastic effect on safety, over twenty thousand ordinary people doing some very dangerous jobs have been put in even more danger. Perhaps all down to lax training of admin staff on GDPR, our responsibilities to it and how they are to use software tools handling our data.

It wouldn’t be the first time I have encountered organisations doing a well meaning GDPR induction, yet with no practical advice of how and where to store data and the importance of it being accurate, succinct, consistant and well controlled. Its probably the subject of another future post or two, but we do give staff tools such as Excel and barely train them on it (if at all). No wonder they try to use it like a database and have no idea what they might inadvertently share using it. With such lack of knowledge, staff should be banned from using the common off the shelf excuse, “I cant do that due to data protection!”.

So, could these last two types of gaffs happen easily in your organisations?

How well do you induct and keep all staff aware of GDPR?

How do you induct staff on how your systems and storage needs to be used consistently for good data hygiene?

How well do you control information access and controlled release, particularly of sensitive data?

If you have any doubts on the above, please take action right now, before your organisation makes some rooky mistakes and we can all watch its gory details examined on Newsnight and Sky News.

If you are struggling with getting your GDPR in order, or replacing spreadsheets with systems or databases, just get in touch with us.

Subscribe to our blog here on this link, to always catch the latest news on whats happening in the sector.

Acutance Consulting would be happy to help you review systems options,

please just get in touch, for a chat over a ginger nuts & a brew ☕😋

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

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

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

Saturday, 5 August 2023

Add a zero

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

I’ve worked with some of the biggest socialhousing providers in the UK & Ireland, but also with some of the smallest. For the latter how is a provider with just 34 homes for a specialist tenant audience. There are suitable systems and solutions for both and everything in between. I have fitted to all types of budgets and needs.

As I have written in this blog previously, for the most part its not that much easier for smaller providers than the very large ones. I was chatting to one of my clients the other week about being on top of FRA’s (Fire Risk Assessments), gas servicing and legionella testing in his 200 properties. It was clearly complicated and challenging with just a few full time staff.

He had a great expression, “Just add some zeros on the number of homes and its just like the bigger providers”. A lovely way to put it and it reflects the needs of smaller providers these days, once you add up the returns, statistics, new White paper and legislative requirements, required of all social landlords.

I have helped even the smallest RP’s with managing asbestos, servicing, electrical safety, capital works and heating system maintenance. It truly doesn’t get easier, and there are many ways to crack a nut. A lot of these things can be recorded in even the simplest HMS solutions out there, sometimes having to be backed up by some spreadsheets. Well designed ones OBVs!

The best solution is to record as much of the data in your HMS and ensure for all assets (properties & blocks) there is evidence of either relevant work required/components present (or not) and extract to monitor in spreadsheets. That way there is no chance of accidently deleting a few filtered rows in spreadsheets and missing servicing a few years, until the issue is discovered (or a serious incident occurs).

Assets teams are recommended in my experience to embrace shared solutions, rather than find their own siloed alternatives. The data can then be of use to as much of the organisation as possible, particularly to improve overall data quality. Always keep your data clean!

If you are struggling with getting your asset data and compliance in order, just get in touch with us.

Subscribe to our blog here on this link, to always catch the latest news on whats happening in the sector.

Acutance Consulting would be happy to help you review systems options,

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

how well linked into the Assets team are they?

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

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The Power Station - Go to zero.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

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

Thursday, 27 July 2023

Speed Racer

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

I have spent long enough in ICT to have been involved with development, witnessed sales promises with good and less good delivery. Getting it wrong can be down to a lot of possible factors, which most of us have historically experienced.

These include over-ambitious sales, lack of good specification definition, poor overall understanding and setting of expectations, incorrect estimates of effort required from the development teams, or perhaps sloppy communications across staff or remote development teams. This last one is very interesting and can also be cultural too, particularly where software development is offshored. While teams often share a common language (English and technical programming languages and technologies), culturally often they could be far from similar.

Offshoring can work very well although often good managers need to be embedded, or local attitudes need taking into account. For example while Vietnamese developers are quite blunt and black & white at times in attitude, Indian based staff can be too optimistic and positive, often ‘to save face’. I’m a massive fan of the sub-continent, but often experienced the same in its four corners when traveling extensively there. These misunderstandings no doubt affect deadlines and lead to incorrect, somewhat de-scoped or lightweight solutions being finally delivered.

Over the last 2-3 years increasingly we hear our suppliers telling us they are utilising agile methodologies and sprints, as this should be a possible thing. If we are trying to catch a train or bus and running late, we ‘sprint’. How could we not think that a methodology like this could not get us our upgrades, enhancements, patches or bug fixes much faster?

Of course, when we ‘sprint’, now and again we drop our umbrella or leave something behind, occasionally making us regret that we rushed at all. Equally, how often were you promised that your supplier was tackling your change in the ‘next sprint’ and you find a month later, after gearing up your project accordingly, that, “Oh sorry it missed that sprint”!

The whole methodology of sprints even brings its own terminology for failure. In one meeting I attended, a development manager stated that 40% of the next sprint was being used to address known “technical debt”. A hapless housing finance manager asked if this would be adding more features around technical rent arrears. I had the unfortunate task to explain the developers were just spending 40% of their resource on what they failed to finish in the last few sprints. Fixation with short & soon deadlines, does lead to various failures as often “we didn’t have enough time”.

Only a few things can practically be done if heading for the end of sprint deadline. Cut corners including features and quality. Force or coerce staff into working (more) overtime. Cut out other activities, such as mentoring or training. So not brilliant for staff (or customers further down the line).

While Kanban dispenses with the time boxed concept of ‘The Sprint’, we will clearly still be hearing much of it for some time ahead. As one client of mine remarked the other week, “failure of the sprint”, is the latest excuse they always heard these days, as whatever they were relying on, was never delivered on time. Clearly, better setting of expectations by management & sales/account management would do much to improve customer service in many areas.

If there is one principle I have taken on board over the years, its to always try to under promise, then over deliver. That’s what people actually remember.

Have you been the wrong end of a supplier sprint and had to explain to your management why your system improvements & transformation will be another three months or more away? You have my commiserations!

Subscribe to our blog here on this link, to always catch the latest news on whats happening in the sector.

Acutance Consulting would be happy to help you review systems options,

please just get in touch, for a chat over a Hobnob & a brew ☕😋

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

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

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

Thursday, 6 July 2023

Keystone Cold Crazy

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

Is it so great when stuff just creeps up on you?

You know like your need to renew your driving licence or passport, when you have known about needing to do it, for ten whole years. Many of us may have been (nearly) caught out by that one. I was earlier this year, when I realised I had less than 6 months to go on my passport, before a trip to an EU country. I did managed to sort it in time however, without the deadline tripping me up.

One known about more than a decade ago deadline seems to have just tripped up many in SocialHousing. That is the popular housing applications out there, that utilised the early centuries big Microsoft trailblazing & expensive technology, Silverlight. Its late to the table response to Adobe Flash Runtime, launched 2007 and already had an end date planned by 2012.

I first blogged about its demise about 11 years ago - , not that many folk took notice. Still, nothing was to be needed to be done until 2019.

There are a few software applications out there with Silverlight, the two key ones in many housing organisations being Keystone for asset management and 1st Touch mobile. The latter issues (in the forms designer), was announced as fixed by a replacement called ‘Versaa’ - a couple of years back. That fix came with a cost however, as existing clients are aware.

The interesting one for me is the former and over the last three months have never been contacted by so many existing Keystone users. Several dozen appear to have only just woken up to the dangers of keeping it on their networks, particularly if there is web access. The risk of future vulnerabilities has meant that many ICT teams have moved their version to isolated internal servers and to near the top of their risk registers added to other known dangers, with good reason.

Keystone has been a very popular Asset Management package, which was bought up by Civica in 2014. I have over the years found it a very capable package, although rarely fully exploited or integrated well into HMS or other packages. In many cases, Asset Management can have been managed in its own organisational silo. In theory there is a replacement option from its owner, although its fair to say that organisations I have encountered are all keen to test the procurement market, including soft-testing.

While some lightweight options exist, it can be pretty expensive to replace Keystone properly and leverage considerable transformation too. Integrations as ever are trick to overcome, which can lead to looking more comprehensively at systems in use, particularly if they are knocking on a bit. No doubt about it, better transformation can be achieved with the assets area fully in the mix, together with potential significant savings. If you are a current Keystone user, it’s a thought worth popping into your cafetiere, and seeing if it comes out brown!

If you need any assistance getting to grips with life after Keystone, please reach out and have a chat on 07854-655009

Subscribe to our blog here on this link, to always catch the latest news on whats happening in the sector.

Acutance Consulting would be happy to help you review systems options,

please just get in touch, for a chat over a brew ☕😋

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

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

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