The Littlest Rebel

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

I have often worked with clients on ‘customer journeys’ to examine and build sustainable processes and ICT solutions, that support all steps in the chain. Now we all encounter and know about silo-thinking, how mostly its not effective and it can blunt performance.

Its hard in many respects to shrug off silo thinking if staff are struggling with workload or being challenged to do more with less. I certainly understand that and am very aware of the effects of local authority cuts and other squeezes. I share that with my clients too, I get it to put it mildly.

Procedures at all time need to be carefully thought out and also importantly well communicated to staff, who understand GDPR and other implications as well as their effect on staff and end-customers, further downstream. What do I mean by that, you may ask?

Well, respect for data and its accuracy is crucial, as well as being governed by law. Poor recording of data, storing it in the wrong place, or in many places, creates issues later which are much more serious. One example is where an admin staff member may choose to drop some documents with personal information in some team network drives, rather than a corporate EDRMS. That saves 30 seconds per document and that specific team probably knows where to look to locate that information. However, this is false economy.

Where it falls apart somewhat is when much further down the line, another team is pursuing info around a complaint, disrepair claim (we have many complainants and chasers), audit query, FOI (Freedom of Information) or ‘right to be forgotten request’, this is where the downside can be found. This too is as difficult to small as well as bigger providers. Each of these requests can take days maybe weeks to resolve. If disrepair claims or challenges from the ombudsman result in cash payments to tenants, you can bet that many times that internally is wasted on chasing around to pull disparate information can be corralled together.

With a government and department of levelling up and communities mad keen to tell renters to ‘report your landlord direct to the ombudsman’, on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere, those queries and complaints are coming thick and fast. They will be increasing too. Lets hope we can see squeezed repair and other budgets, used to resolve issues in the most satisfactory manner possible, rather than using it to chase our tails struggling to find information.

Get processes right from the start, train staff to operate in a certain fashion and know why we do it that way and manage them well to use it, is the best foundation.

We need more good leaders, not rebels cutting corners.

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

please just get in touch, for a friendly chat over some chocolate gingers & a coffee ☕😋.

       Related Post: Now PPI is over, guess what the ambulance chasers are concentrating on? 

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 - The Littlest Rebel.
(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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. . . . . . . . . . . .

Dark Maven

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

I read an interesting article in last weeks Guardian about AI targeting of that girls school in Iran and possibly how that went pear-shaped. While most of what papa Trump touches goes wrong this is a surely data shaped cock-up.

The bit in that article lands harder than all the usual breathless AI chat, because it gets to the real problem. It was not some magic machine turning evil on its own. Surprise, surprise it was stale data, bad assumptions, poor governance and human beings building speed on top of shaky foundations. That is the bit people in SocialHousing and Asset Management ought to be paying attention to, because we are in danger of doing our own smaller-scale version of exactly the same thing.

No, social housing is not a war zone (I mean now and again it may feel so!), and I am not being melodramatic. But the underlying lesson is the same. When old, wrong, shanky or incomplete data is fed into newer, faster, more sophisticated reporting tools, the output can look clever while being fundamentally unsound. The system appears confident. The dashboard looks polished. The report has plenty of decimal places. The presentation to the board feels reassuringly modern. Meanwhile the underlying asset data might be a mess. Only our asset management colleagues at the sharp end may actually realise this.

That is our Achilles heel.

I see far too much discussion at the moment about clever tools, predictive analytics, AI, optimisation engines, automated investment planning and all the rest of it, with nowhere near enough honesty about the quality of the data sitting underneath. If your component records are patchy, if installation dates were guessed fifteen years ago during a rushed LSVT stock condition exercise, if replacement history, or subsequent SCS's have not been consistently updated, if attributes have been bulk-loaded from old systems with half the meaning stripped out, then wrapping that in shiny new software does not create truth. It just creates faster nonsense.

And housing does love a bit of faster nonsense at times. We have all seen it. A landlord buys a new asset system, or switches on a new reporting layer, and within five minutes someone wants a thirty-year investment profile, a full life cycle costing model, and a heat map of future liabilities by estate, archetype and component. Lovely stuff on paper. But if your kitchen data is wrong, your roof data is vague, your windows are classified three different ways (by spot cost, by unit, by archetype, or a bit of all?), and half your components are defaulted to generic dates because nobody knew the real answer, then that LCC report is not a strategic asset. It is an expensive comfort blanket.

That is the danger with life cycle costing in particular. People often talk about it as if it is some kind of grown-up, evidence-led answer to long-term planning. In principle, it can be. In practice, it is only as good as the component data, assumptions and replacement rules beneath it. If the dates are wrong, the quantities are wrong, the useful lives are generic, or the survey data is incomplete, then the report can give a completely false sense of control. It can tell you with great confidence that spend will peak in year eight, flatten in year twelve and rise again in year nineteen, when in reality it is built on a pile of half-remembered survey notes, inherited coding structures and wishful thinking.

This is where people get seduced by sophistication. They think the answer to poor information is a better tool. Sometimes the answer is a torch, a clipboard, a proper data model and a grim few months of sorting out the basics. That is less exciting, of course. Nobody gets invited to a conference to say, “we cleaned up our component hierarchy, tightened our validation rules and stopped pretending unknown dates were known.” But that dull work is often worth more than the glossy AI strategy that comes afterwards.

In the article I highlight,  failure was not simply “technology”. The failure was letting a system run at speed while relying on information that no longer matched reality. That should ring bells in housing. We do it when asbestos records are incomplete. We do it when stock condition data is old. We do it when compliance statuses depend on weak integrations. We do it when repairs history does not feed asset intelligence properly. We do it when planned works teams, compliance teams and housing management all hold slightly different versions of the truth and nobody is quite sure which one drives the report to the board.

Then along comes a new supplier or a new platform promising insight. Suddenly old problems are dressed up in modern clothes. Instead of one vaguely  unreliable Excel spreadsheet, you get a dynamic dashboard. Instead of a crude five-year plan, you get scenario modelling. Instead of a rough estimate, you get “predictive” forecasts. But prediction based on bad source data is not insight. It is theatre.

That is the bit I think the sector still does not say loudly enough. Data quality is not some boring back-office technical issue. It is operational risk. It affects compliance, investment, tenant safety, financial planning and organisational credibility. If you do not know what components you have, where they are, when they were installed, what condition they are in, and whether that information has been properly maintained over time, then the fancy reporting layer is not your salvation. It is just a better quality mirror for your confusion.

And to be fair, this is not always laziness or incompetence. A lot of landlords are carrying legacy data structures and systems that were never designed for today’s expectations. They have been through mergers, outsourcing deals, stock transfers, system migrations, rushed mobilisation exercises and years of under-investment in proper data stewardship. Bits of the truth are scattered everywhere. The asset system says one thing, repairs says another, finance codes something differently, and the survey programme has never fully caught up. Then somebody asks for a fully costed decarbonisation pathway or a stock reinvestment plan by component and tenure, and wonders why the answers wobble.Because the data wobbles, so them we assume the system is wibble.

So before anybody gets too excited about AI, digital twins, predictive replacement models or miracle dashboards, there is a simpler question worth asking. Do we trust the component data? Not “is there some data”, not “can the system produce a report”, but do we genuinely trust it enough to make expensive, high-impact decisions from it? If the answer is no, or even “sort of”, then that is where the effort belongs.
 

There is no glamour in saying your first priority is data assurance, better survey discipline, tighter updates from planned works, cleaner integrations and proper governance around defaults, assumptions and exceptions. 

But that is the grown-up answer. In housing, as in every other serious field, speed built on stale data is dangerous. The consequences may differ, thankfully, but the principle does not.
 

We should remember that every time someone waves a shiny new tool in front of us. Clever software cannot rescue weak asset knowledge. It can only amplify it. And if we are honest, that is probably the real lesson here. Our problem is not that housing lacks sophisticated systems. It is that we still too often ask sophisticated systems to compensate for basic uncertainty. That never ends well 

Is your organisation struggling to justify a software change, or worried not everything has been covered? 

Get in touch , I will drop in for a cuppa & bring the Fox's Chocolate Gingers ☕

       Related Post: As a client told me recently, the right Critical Friend, will potentially save you more money than you spend.

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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.

Mansun - Dark Mavis

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


Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here , what projects do we get involved in? Access them 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,ActiveF,ActiveFinance,ActiveHousing,Acutence,Advanced,Affinity,Aidenn,Agile,Agile365,AHB,AirWatch,Alscient,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,BrikHousing,Browser Applications,BC, Business Central, 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,Cx Assets, 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,CxFeedback, DRS,Deeplake,Datatank,Designer Software,Development Systems,Director,Document,Documotive,Docuware,Dynamic AI,DynamicAI,Dynamics 365,D365,Dynamics365,Dynaway ECMK,EDM,EDRMS,ERP,ESRI,Elmhurst,Enghouse Interactive,England,English,EnterpriseBI,Estatecraft,Esuasive,Esynergy,Etive,Exhibition,Exponential-e, F&O, Facebook,Factorwise,Fast Lean Smart, Field Service management,Finance,Financial Systems,Financials,FLS,Footprint,Forms,Freezes,Fusion,Fuzzlab Gas Tag,G-Cloud,GCloud,GDPR,GGP,GIS,GasTag,Genero,GeoSolveIT,Getting best 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Bricks and morter

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK
or LinkedIn here uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/
 
Over the years I have worked with many asset managers, good and less so, in the provision of planned maintenance and responsive repair services. My experience many years ago with tank container maintenance made me the perfect choice at a software house for ‘working with planned maintenance types’. Or so my manager convinced me at the time. It did lead to many interesting years, working with some fascinating people. (Arent everyone in housing??)

I have read over the years, many articles and opinions about whether housing IT systems are unnecessarily property orientated and if they should alternatively be centred around customers and residents. Recently, even if the traditional housing HMS package can be replaced with a CRM solution has been discussed on forums. CRM stressing the ‘Customer’ and a few of the wrap around ‘Contact Managers’ from some suppliers obviously fitting this view.

I suspect that the death of the HMS is being over-egged, but in my opinion property and residents (or more accurately assets and customers) are two sides of the housing coin. Both need to work in harmony and if an asset management function is working well, it needs to service both of those, by sharing appropriate information. Key areas include sharing of servicing information (when chasing an arrear it might be appropriate to also chase the outstanding gas service) and information on void and letting (for example adaption levels and likelihood of PM works, like kitchen and bathroom refits being required).

Many options are available. The main HMS might contain integrated modules to record asset and attribute information. External third party solutions can be bolted on to the main HMS, such as Keystone, Promaster or Codeman. The success in ‘bolting on’ (or integrating which is the more proper term), generally determines the usefulness of these solutions to the wider housing organisation. In many cases the former solution can provide better integration yet lighter functionality. The last approach is homegrown spreadsheets or an Access database. These can be adapted to local needs, but may be problematical to share or control among other teams in the organisation.

One mistake often made is over complication of what to record, regarding asset or asset attribute information. By the latter I mean component and other information; Kitchens, Bathrooms, Regular Redecs, Gas or Oil Servicing, EPC status etc. It is important to drive the structure of what is stored to cover the minimum needed and no more. Each piece of data must earn its keep as it carries an inherent cost to store and maintain.  Draw up a list of what essential return or purpose the information is needed. For example, Key and Non-Key attribute data including condition (poor or otherwise), may be needed for decent homes (or SHQS Scottish Housing Quality Standard).

I have met asset managers & surveyors who have come up through an academic route and can define reams of options for everything, rather than relate it strictly to the stock they manage. IE its unlikely to encounter many thatched roofs in social housing, in city centres. I am also keen on the term asset, not property, as repairs should be able to be attributed to blocks, schemes etc as well as individual dwellings. The practice of logging roof repairs on flat one of a block is not a clever one. Having block, scheme or even bin store asset types available makes this a lot easier.  Each need a unique number. Ideally a sequential one, not one composed of segments or additional coding, such as an owning body, area, street, walking order etc. These are all reporting requirements that can change. These are better coded against the asset instead.

Initial asset data can be created from local knowledge, a stock condition survey or from updates from the maintenance programme. It needs to be a living system kept up to date. Where data is stored and not current, staff will lose faith in it very quickly. Housing officers know that uPVC windows are in a certain scheme as they visit it each week, if the repository for asset data reports it as softwood, what else can they not believe?

When other housing staff see inaccuracies, they must have a means to notify the asset manager or asset team to have these issues rectified. Responsible ownership of the data always will benefit the whole organisation.

A last thought to leave you with. It was said to be me once that the good test of your asset system was how long it takes to generate a list in answer to the following question from a resident or applicant: “How many three bed bungalows do you have in the town of X”? Test your asset team and take the stopwatch!

Read On, Who owns Keystone now?

http://tonysmiththathousingitguy.blogspot.com/2014/05/turn-to-keystone.html

I hope this track helps you focus on your assets: Brick House.

(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854655009

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

File Under: 360,1stTouch,4Js. 07854-655009 , 07854655009 , 07854 655009 ," ""07854 655009"" ",07854-655009,#UKHousing,1st Touch,3squared, Acutence,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,App,Associates,ACL,Abritas,AMS,AX,aspireview, BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Process Review,Business social networking, Blockwise, Block wise,BI,BancTec,BluTek,Bluebox, Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Cx,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics, CHR,Citrix,Civica,Clearview,CMS , CCS IT Keystone CCSIT, Contractor Systems,CORE,CorVu,Cost Reductions,Covalent,CRM,Crystal Reports,CTI,CTX,Customer Relationship Management,Cashflow, COA,Coactiva,Codeman,Comino,Competitive Dialogue process,complex IT procurements,Component Accounting,Consilium,Consolidation,Consultancy,Consultant,Contact Manager,Context,CIH,Chartered Institute Of Housing,Cadcorp,Cerrus Saturn,convergeOne,CACI,CPL Director, Deeplake,Development Systems,Document Management,Documotive,datasystems , Microsoft dynamics GP 2013 ECMK,EDRMS,England, English,EnterpriseBI,ERP Systems,ERP,Elmhurst,Estatecraft,EDM,ESRI,DRS, OptitimeDRS, Exponential-e, Finance,Financial Systems,Financials, Factorwise,Facebook ,Fusion, Getting best from,gotonysmith, Grasp,Grip,GeoSolveIT,GIS,GGP, HouSys,Housing software,HG,Housemark survey,Housing Blueprint,Housing Group,hotpixuk, HousingIT,hotpix,Hardware,Hitex,Housing Contact Company, Housings Best Kept Secret, HousingsBestKeptSecret, Housing'sBestKeptSecret, Housings'BestKeptSecret, ImpactResponse, Impact Response,implementations,In House,In4,InMotion, InMotion2014, InMotion2015, InMotion2016 , Exhibition, conference, Infoflow,Information Technology,Informix,inHouse,in-house workforce, Innovation,Inside Housing,Internet Portal,Invu,Ireland,Irish,IT Budget,IT Training,iWorld, Innovation Group Apex,ITIL, In4Systems Promaster,IT,Insight, Keylogic,Keystone,Kirona,Kypera,Keyfax, Ledgers,Linkedin,Locality,Liquid Voice, MD ,Mr Void , MrVoid, Measuring Change,Mebus,Miracle,MISCS, mobile functionality,Monopoly board images and pictures, Montal,MS Dynamics,MS Dynamics CRM2011,Miracle Software,Management Reporting,MI,M3,MIS,MIS-AMS,Mobysoft, Northgate Codeman,Neighbourhoods and Communities, Northgate,Notice,NROSH,NINTEX , NINTEX workflow,Nintexworkflow, OA,OGC Buying Solutions,Ohms,OJEU Limits,OmFax,Omniledger,Open source software,open tender,OpenHousing,Opti-Time,Oracle,Orchard,Outsource and outsourcing,OpenContractor,ORS,OneServe, PIMMS Data Systems, Paloma,performance management systems,PfH,Pick,PIMMS,pimms4communities,Planned maintenance,People Value,Plus,Peoplevalue,PM,Progress,Promaster,Proval,Pyramid,PRINCE2,prince,Pamwin, QL,QLX,Quiss,Qlikview, Registered Providers,Registered Social Landlord,Rent Increase Freezes,Repairfinder,Reporting,Reports,ROCC , Rocket,RPs,RSL,Reality,ReAct,reidmark,RM865, Saffron,SAP,Scots, Scottish,Scotland,SDM,sector,Server Virtualisation,servicing, Servitor,Sharepoint,Simdel,Simdell,Slash and Burn,Social Media,Software,SQL Open Housing,SQL Reporting Services,SQL reporting services,SQL Server,Star rating,Stores and Stock,Strategic Asset Management,Sunguard ,Surveys,Sx3,System alignment, Systemwise,SM,Sequoa,Serros,SP,Scout,score,Swordfish,Serengeti,SOTI,south view,Sunguard,Service Charges,Southview, Template,Task,Terminal Services, tonys , tonysm , tonysmi , tonysmith, tonysmithth, tonysmiththa, tonysmiththat, tonysmiththath, tonysmiththatho, tonysmiththathou, tonysmiththathous, tonysmiththathousi, tonysmiththathousin, tonysmiththathousing, tonysmiththathousingg, tonysmiththathousinguy, sharepoint, share point Three Star,Today,Total repairs,Tribal,Twitter,U2, tonysmith , tonysmiththat , thathousing , thathousingIT , thathousingITguy ,TED,Tagish Casework,TP Tracker,Telecetera,Tagra,Trace, UniClass Enterprise,Unidata,Universal Housing,Universalcredit, universal credit, universal credits,UC,Universe,Unrest, UK, United Kingdom ,Ukhousing,UK Housing, Van Stock,Voice and data,Vantage Sentinel,Version One,Visualmetrics,Voluntas, Wales,Welsh,Windows Server,Workflow and tasking,Wheatley, Xmbrace,XML ,XenApp,Xen App

Paradise By KPI Dashboard Light

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


No doubt many readers of this blog will agree with me, when I say most application software is pretty poor, when it comes to reporting. This is very much the case with Housing Management systems, where as a norm, few standard reports are provided out of the box and if they are, they are generally dull and simplistic.

At a special user group session just the other week in Solihull, I chewed the fat with some of the developers of one HMS’s reporting solution and also a lot of the wide variety of attendees, who are tasked with getting reports out from their systems, or facilitating it. Overall it was a positive experience.

So firstly, why is standard reporting so poor from our suppliers?

The stock answer from your supplier (or prospect if you are out in the market for a new system), is that ‘Our solutions are too flexible’. What!, I hear you scream.

Well, they do have a point I have got to concede. We do take systems and then set them up in a non-standard way, because we believe ourselves to be, well, ‘special’. So we don’t put data in the right places it was intended to go into, we might use ‘Scheme’ as ‘Needs Category’ or ‘Area’ as ‘Archetype’, rendering most of the standard reports supplied, less useful. Maybe at implementation, the implementers should be informing us of this upfront and doing more to influence those early decisions. Use of a best practice implementation can be of great benefit, where integrated modules can be configured as originally intended.

While the above is a defence, there is rarely enough standard reports, and they are rarely designed to allow quick addition of new data related to key entities, or are silo-ed in a single module. I.E. a Repairs WO report might have difficulty easily showing the household size or age of the oldest occupant.

So, customers need to resign themselves to re-inventing much of the wheel and writing their own reports. This can be frustrating, character-building or an enlightening process, depending on how its tackled.

If you are an end user (or if you aren’t, pop yourself in their loafers or kitten heels for a mo), what do you see in the reports & KPIs that are provided. Is it a limited list of essential colour coded KPI’s (RAG), with simple drilldowns to locate problems? Most users are unfortunately wading through rows of data, rather than seeing clear information.

The example below from Solihull, a lot the work of Nick Halfpenny, who has put some awesome ideas into practice, shows how clean KPI’s could be.

When data is processed into information we see real benefits from our data. Just giving us data (probably in rows), leaves us lost in the forest, not managing to see wood for the trees.    

Related Post: Flowcharts, does anyone manage to do this properly?? 

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.

Meatloaf – Paradise By Dashboard Light.
(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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Insecurity

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

It was a low-key announcement last week from the UK ICO (Information Commissioner Office) that caught my eye, but an important one for the socialhousing sector. 

They issued a reprimand to the Clyde Valley Housing Association in Lanarkshire, Scotland after personal information was accessible to other residents on an online customer portal. In fairness CVH are not the only provider in the news recently. Lets not forget that digital self-service for residents is essential.

It was stated that it was a resident user on the first day of use, that discovered they could easily access other tenant data, including documents and personal information.

Other residents reported the same issue and due to lack of escalation, the situation continued for five days. The danger of criminals (or just optimists) obtaining personal information for nefarious purposes is real and can easily lead to identity theft.

This situation was most likely caused by a number of factors, all of which could have easily been detected and mitigated quite easily.

More attention to secure design would have been a start. By the looks of the login it uses a relatively standard turnkey resident portal with a design layer from a third party web partner over the top. This is a very popular strategy and can be executed very securely in most cases. It does however need good design considerations.

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is an essential stage, one that often has scant attention for many implementations. It often needs to be lengthy and detailed which puts many organisations off. Also, it should not be ignored that most staff have never had to thoroughly test software before. Some coaching is needed with inexperienced staff, where skilled testing staff (or staff that have tested before) are not involved.

I have worked with many organisations to build UAT plans for them and produce some training materials to help them understand the process and execute it well, creating audit for each test.

Lastly, engaging a third party security organisation to look at access, do some penetration testing and other probing of the solution, to determine any flaws and means of accessing inappropriate data, is recommended. Browser based solutions open many more vulnerabilities than many older legacy applications and are best checked over more frequently, at least annually.

The above precautions should also be repeated at each upgrade or application of patches. While this all sounds like hard work, its all about keeping secure. Applying upgrades is also part of that. Leaving too long between upgrades potentially introduces new vulnerabilities and may also violate your contract with suppliers. As for the latter, make best use of their help desk services if you are paying annual maintenance for them. Often working as a Critical Friend, not enough is made of this and relationships with suppliers can be poor (& get poorer!).

Where you may have built portals internally and they are home-grown by your ICT team, remember they then need to take on these responsibilities, as essentially what they have built will be one of a kind.

I hope my notes here provide some takeaways and help you avoid anything similar happening in your organisation.

Full ICO article text here.

Acutance Consulting can help you with Self-Service, UAT & staying secure, 

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

       Related Post: After Covid, are we embracing the New Normal ?

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

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

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


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

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

File Under: #HomesForBritain,#HousingDAY,#InternetOfTenants,#Shout,#UKHousing, 07854655009, 1st Touch,1stTouch,360,365Agile,3squared,4Js, ACL,ALMO,AMS,AX,Aareon,Abritas,Academy,Accuserv,Accuserve,Active Housing,ActiveH,ActiveHousing,Acutence,Advanced,Affinity,Agile,Agile365,AirWatch,Alfresco,Alignment,Allpay,Amazon Web Services,Anite,Apex,App,ArchHouse,Archouse,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Associates,Aurora,Average IT Costs,AWI SX Integration Toolkit,AWS, BI,BO,BPR,BancTec,BigChange,Blockwise,BluTek,Bluebox,Blueprint,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Planning,Business Process Review,Business social networking, CACI,Capita One Housing,CBL,CCS IT Keystone CCSIT,CEDRM,CHICS,CHR,CIH,CMS,COA,CORE,CPL,CRM,CRM2013,CRS,CTI,CTX,Cadcorp,Capita,CapitaOne,Capita One,Capital Management,Cashflow,Castle,Castleton,Castleton Technology,Cedar Open Accounts,Cerrus,Change,Charges,Chartered Institute Of Housing,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics, Citrix,Civica,Civica CTX,Civica Cx,Civica 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Rat In Mi Kitchen

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

Those were the days, drinking real ale in the Eagle and Tun, corner of Banbury Street Brum, famous for being used in the pop video for the Red Red Wine single.

Decades on, the crème coloured UB40 unemployment benefit attendance card, is no longer used for signing on, killed by online UC. 

The old E&T also killed off by demolition, being unfortunately in the path/periphery of that great white elephant HS2.

Birmingham is also now our UK city most likely with kitchens with a rat in it, due to months of bin worker strikes, triggered by pay cuts suggested by a now bankrupt city council. Brum however is not the sole council with section 114 notices. They join Croydon, Nottingham, Woking, Thurrock and Barnet. My own patch Warrington Borough Council is not far behind in £1.8b in debt.

Birmingham is unique however, in that the failed implementation of a new Oracle Fusion ERP IT system was a key contributory factor in its recent downfall. Within social housing, costs of new ICT systems have sometimes derailed actions like mergers.

A detailed 67 page report is now available, which examines what went wrong.

Spookily, it contains plenty of familiar themes that I see in my various projects, soft-market exercises, procurements, reviews and Critical Friend engagements to assist clients (Councils, Housing Associations, Charities, AHB’s, RP’s etc) to reach a timely go-live while not running into too much unnecessary Change Control.

Some of the key gotcha’s are some of the usual suspects:

• Poor governance and lack of independent oversight (no third eye)
• Poor pre-project business case – a moving target
• Internal resourcing of the project poor, project staff not freed from BAU.
• Overly dependent on contractors and suppliers
• Lack of an 'Adopt' strategy, rather going down an Adapt path trying to recreate existing internal processes
• Lack of adequate engagement with operational teams when implementing
• Too much ‘Good News’ reported, led to optimism bias. Risks & issues underplayed
• UAT Testing and design weaknesses
• Go-Live was undertaken with significant known issues and risks insufficiently mitigated, trapping the council

Do any of the above sound familiar to projects you are involved in?

A re-implementation at the city council is currently in play and will be at least another year at earliest, later in 2026. I would recommend anyone changing major systems to read the full report here.

Any comments, observations or queries, please share.  

Old and stale Social Housing systems - how to scope your options ?

Get in touch , I will drop in for a brew & bring your fave chocky biscuits ☕

       Related Post: How best to understand the products you know & the vast options you maybe don't know about?

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

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.

UB40 – Rat In Mi Kitchen.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009


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

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