You can take a listen here to our discussion: it was a lively conversation that ranged from the challenges facing home building and to the huge pressures on housing services. As I said during the course of the programme, many registered providers (RPs) have been hollowed out over the past decade as a result of central government budget cuts, as well as rising resident demand.

This has left RPs facing substantial hurdles in delivering even day to day operations, and that is before we get to big problems like the rising bills for temporary accommodation.

In this environment, it is important that we don’t lose sight of the importance of putting resident’s at the heart of decision making. We discussed various techniques to make this happen: they all come back to building trust, transparency and taking joint pride in our homes. This is a process I have a deep commitment too: at Just Housing Group our team has worked on numerous such projects. A stand out example, in partnership with the Curiosity Society, was to help build a body called the Learning Forum. This was a newdecision making body that aspired to help organise and run services across one of London’s largest new developments. Residents were at its very heart. Read about this here - and do get in touch if you have any feedback on our discussion!

John Swinney

CEO of Just Housing Group

My own view is that this is a move which is long overdue: there are over four million social housing tenants in the UK and far too often they lack the opportunities, avenues and ability to have a real impact on the services they receive. This is both regrettable and also perplexing. Social housing tenants are the customers of their landlords who surely should have at the very least the same voice as you would expect other consumers to have in other sectors: In fact there is an obvious argument they deserve even more of a say given housing is a basic human need that is so crucial to everyone’s daily life.

A key factor that I believe holds back many landlords from having a successful, vibrant relationship with their tenants is fear. Engaging with residents properly and bringing them inside decision making processes can result in difficult conversations, and if done badly, consume a great deal of time and resources. One senior politician at a local authority told me once that a key problem was that landlords often simply didn’t know where to start when it came to setting up genuinely successful resident engagement structures or processes that empowered their tenants.

As I have written before, these concerns are understandable, but they can, with the right attitude and know how, be overcome - in fact, they must be overcome!

At Just Housing Group, we have worked with a variety of partners and their tenants (as well as leaseholders) on bespoke plans that have been focused on bringing tenants into the centre of decision making. This has included an innovative project in Barking Riverside to establish a self-governing body for one of London’s biggest new housing developments, delivered by the Greater London Authority, L&Q housing association and the local council (Barking and Dagenham). Outside of London, our team is working with three leading housing associations to develop an exciting road map to decarbonise a collective housing stock of more than 20,000 homes, with tenants playing a key role in shaping the priorities of the project. You can read more about both examples, and others, at our case study hub here.

Ultimately, there is no one “route map” to successful tenant empowerment: it must be bespoke to the situation, and have the buy in of both the landlord and tenants. Most importantly, it has to be achievable and practical, with clear aims and reasonable, cost effective objectives. Do get in touch with Just Housing Group if you want to chat through how we have helped landlords and tenants build, implement and deliver a better relationship.

John Swinney, Just Housing Group, CEO

However, as we discovered when working with a leading housing association in Scotland, the rural sector has a number of unique characteristics – and opportunities.

An obvious starting point when looking at rural housing services is simple geography: rural registered providers will have in most cases a scattered client base of leaseholders and tenants spread over large distances. This immediately makes providing a repairs, major works or other management operation more complicated. With many miles to cover and transport infrastructure often patchy, economies of scale difficult can be difficult to achieve and there is little doubt that labour shortages are particularly acute in rural areas. Probably as a result of these factors, there can also be a smaller pool of good quality contractors, with the know how and experience, to carry out essential day to day works.

Recognising these factors was the key first step in our work with our rural partner and is part of our overall philosophy at Just Housing Group: every solution has to be bespoke, taking into account the environment and climate in which the client operates. As a result, we carried out a detailed commercial assessment of the neighbouring labour market to closely map the ambitions of the Housing Association, which wanted to overhaul its housing services, with what was achievable given the shortages in key skills in the local environment, as well as the disparate nature of their stock. We brought with this an in depth review of their current operation that got under the skin of how they worked and why, especially taking note of how this was influenced by their operational conditions.

You can read more about our eventual solutions here – and if you are a rural provider looking for a new start in 2024, rest assured, how team can offer the solutions you need.

John Swinney, Just Housing Group, CEO

While this climate can seem overwhelming, it is important not to lose sight of the success stories in the housing sector that demonstrate bold innovation; in fact these examples become even more impressive when one considers the current backdrop.

Here at Just Housing Group (JHG), we have played our role in many of these examples of best practice: our case study hub shows how through expert advice, hard work and original thinking, we have been able to work with registered providers to produce better outcomes for them and their customers. I wrote in the summer about an exciting project JHG is involved in with four housing providers who have begun a successful journey towards net zero (case study here), while in other fields our expert team have worked with a rural housing provider to strengthen its in-house team and helped other large organisations prepare for the rigours of the Building Safety Act.

One case study that seems particularly relevant at the moment is our work with a large London borough: this project involved a client who wanted their housing repairs and maintenance services to be remodelled and re-procured, as their old contracts were coming to an end. The borough also wanted to reconsider their model of delivery to improve their service delivery to tenants and leaseholders. Our case study explains how we navigated this terrain.

It is a tough climate out there, but if you are a housing provider looking to improve your service, do get in touch: at Just Housing Group, we have a track record of finding effective, strong solutions despite the pressures many registered providers are currently grappling with.

John Swinney, CEO, Just Housing Group

As  we have discovered at Just Housing Group (JHG), the journey to net zero is certainly a complicated one, but it can be both rewarding and successful. We will shortly be adding to our case studies hub with a new example of how we have worked with a consortium of three housing associations and one local authority to build a coherent, carbon reduction strategy across 30,000 homes. Crucially, we have taken the first steps towards finding money to make this plan a reality, with a large initial tranche of funding recently secured.

We have found that there are some basic principles that all social landlords should consider when building their carbon zero agenda:

Creating a shared vision based on the facts:  A successful net zero strategy must have a shared vision across all parts of the organisation, and, crucially, this must include tenants. Achieving net zero will mean substantial work to existing buildings to improve, for example, their insulation and heating systems, and a culture change in how tenants approach their energy usage. This is, to put it bluntly, big stuff with a lot of disruption, especially to people’s homes and organisational mindsets.

At JHG, we approached this exercise from a variety of angles: we hosted workshops and information sessions for residents and staff that helped everyone  understand what the priorities and opportunities were. These conversations were built on clear facts: for example using a heat map based analysis of the stock to allow the most energy inefficient homes to be identified by location. This along with the detailed analysis of each landlords core archetypes gave the consortiums leadership the data to shape a clear idea of what needed to be done, when and where - hand in hand with their tenants.

A handle on the practicalities: A theme in all JHG’s work is that we must never lose sight of the practicalities. An ambition is no good without a clear idea of how it will be achieved. In this case, JHG worked with the consortium partners to identify how much a net carbon zero approach would cost based on a detailed financial analysis of the stock. We also conducted a careful research exercise that identified what funding sources were realistically available that could complement existing budgets, and produced a detailed roadmap, fully costed, of what were the most efficient, high quality methods of decarbonising the existing housing stock.

Communicating at every step: A terrible mistake made by many landlords is to carry out this work shrouded in darkness: in our case we advised an open communications strategy that took tenants on the journey. Our consultants helped establish a distinctive brand for the project, including a web hub, oversaw the issuing of paper communications to tenants and represented the consortium at important stakeholder events. This helped us explain why the net carbon zero agenda is making an important contribution to tackling the climate change emergency.

Implementing the plan: Having a clear project management plan was essential to make sure that funding application deadlines were neither missed nor ignored, and that this aligned with the important vision building exercises described above. Our team also identified a number of potential pilot projects some of which have now been actioned.  Building a robust governance framework to ensure best practice and effective checks and balances on these projects, as well as the whole scope of the required major works , was another aspect, as was ensuring the partners’ in-house teams had the right skill mix to manage and implement the stratgey.

Running through each one of these key principles is one word: collaboration. This was an obvious necessity in a project that saw four landlords joining forces. However, even if the project involves only one landlord a carbon zero agenda can only flourish with a healthy, cross working culture across all interested partners.

This particular project has just won £14 million in funding for its programme, which is an excellent start but still leaves much to do to reach net zero carbon. Watch out for our soon to be published case study that will outline the next steps in this journey …

John Swinney

CEO Just Housing Group

At Just Housing Group (JHG), we have discovered the multi-faceted potential of Power BI to enhance the operations of our clients, specifically in disrepair cases management. As we delved deeper into the data, we uncovered a number of system bugs and process errors that were hindering our clients' efficiency.

Traditionally, our clients relied on manual methods to track disrepair cases, which could lead to missed deadlines or overlooked issues. With Power BI, we were able to visualize the entire disrepair management process and identify patterns that revealed anomalies in their systems. These anomalies ranged from incorrect data entry to misaligned processes that caused delays in addressing disrepair cases. By addressing these issues, we streamlined our clients' processes and improved the quality of service they provided to their residents.

For example, we discovered that several disrepair cases were wrongly categorized, causing them to be assigned to the wrong teams. This resulted in longer response times and additional costs. Power BI helped us identify these inconsistencies and rectify the categorization process, leading to faster resolution of disrepair cases and increased resident satisfaction.

In another instance, we found that certain disrepair cases were taking longer than expected to resolve due to a lack of communication between teams. Power BI allowed us to visualize the data and spot bottlenecks in the process, which enabled us to recommend better communication strategies and more effective collaboration between teams.  With the ability to easily make Power BI dashboards accessible to internal teams and external partners this resulted in a more efficient workflow and reduced the time taken to resolve disrepair cases.

Our work with JHG clients has demonstrated that Power BI is more than just a tool for quick insights. It can also be an invaluable asset in identifying and addressing inefficiencies, leading to more streamlined processes and better service delivery. By leveraging the full potential of BI, housing providers can uncover hidden issues and implement data-driven solutions to improve their overall performance.

In conclusion, Power BI is a versatile and powerful tool that can significantly enhance the operations of housing providers. By looking beyond the surface and embracing the full potential of BI, organizations can identify anomalies and outliers, leading to more efficient processes and better service delivery. The experience of JHG clients serves as a prime example of how BI can be utilized to drive improvements in disrepair cases management and other aspects of the housing sector. Don't let knowledge gaps or cultural barriers hold you back – unlock the full potential of Power BI and see the transformative impact it can have on your organization.

David Ashton

Business Intelligence Lead, Just Housing Group

How can we get it right?

Recently, Just Housing Group (JHG) partnered with the Curiosity Society (CS) to work on a ground breaking resident-led project in one of Europe’s largest housing developments: Barking Riverside. More than 10,000 new homes, as well as millions of investment in new infrastructure,  formed part of an impressive remodelling of a former industrial area near the Thames, with the delivery overseen by the local council, the Mayor of London and a leading housing association. A key part of the planning condition for the new development was a commitment to a resident-led body, initially called the Learning Forum, with members drawn from the local community. The project’s central aim was for this representative body to set up the future governing structure of the entire area, which would include a framework for practical, hands on control by residents of local assets like a community centre. More generally, it would become a powerful voice for the community on how their area was run.

This of course was a unique challenge to a unique area: yet the principles that led to a successful outcome are those that can, and should be, applied to all forms of resident engagement. 

The first is to trust the residents: there is a lot of talent, experience and know how out there in our communities – and most importantly, a lot of people who want to help make their patch of the world a better place to live in. Importantly, you must find a way of harnessing this resident power at every stage: from establishing a truly representative structure that reflects the local area through to an ongoing set up that allows discussion and debate, while at the same time ensuring there are mechanisms that lead to outcomes, decisions and successfully completed tasks.

In the case of the Learning Forum, JHG and CS worked on a targeted open, recruitment plan to populate the board with representatives from across the area, including striking a balance between established and new residents, as well as different cultural groups. We ensured over a two year period, one interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, we had a rolling programme of meetings and working groups that utilised the latest collaborative techniques, from digital whiteboards to interactive management plans, to draw everyone into a focused discussion on outcomes. And we communicated and communicated: a web portal, newsletter and social media postings helped spread our work to the wider community.

You can take a look at a summary of our work here – and take a deep dive through this analysis: and our near miss on winning a Pineapple award here!

Whatever the challenge my message to RPs is the same: all RPs should approach resident engagement as a real opportunity, one that if done right can bring real benefits to their organisation and the wider community.

John Swinney, CEO, Just Housing Group

The Building Safety Regulator is headed up by Peter Baker, Chief Inspector of Buildings.

Alongside the formation of this new organisation, key dates, and processes, have quickly become clear. Here is my summary of what is happening and when …

January 2023

The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 is now in place . It requires residential buildings to have specific actions undertaken by the responsible person to mitigate fire risk. All RPs must have this in place now.

April 2023

Start to record all high-risk buildings  (HRB) for submission to the Regulator. This means any residential building over 18m high with more than two occupied dwellings.

To assist with the understanding of what building detail is required the Higher-Risk Buildings (Key Building Information) (England) Regulations 2023, will become legislation. Currently going through Parliament.

May – September 2023

No date has been set but more details on safety assessments for technical and competency will be published to assist RPs complete their Building Safety obligations. A good source of information is the HSE Building Safety ebulletin site. You can subscribe here

October 2023

Conclude the  registration of high-risk buildings to the Regulator – all HRBs must be registered by this date.

Part of the improvements and registering of competency on Building Control Approval (Gateway 2) Building control and inspectors will need to apply for registration.

April 2024

The Regulator will begin reporting assessments of HRBs , includingSafety Cases. The likely route will be to report/review weak submissions first, possibly producing a table of outcomes for publication.  

October 2024

As part of the goal to increase the general competency of Accountable people, a register will be administered by the Regulator. This Register of safety approvers closes this month.

In other news … ongoing work registered providers should be aware of …

·        All Registered Providers should have completed the data structure and collected condition and programme data for the Golden Thread - one source of digital asset intelligence.

·        RPs must begin the process of identifying their Accountable Person and Building Safety Manager (see PAS8673 and Flex8670v3).

·        A detailed plan for implementing the Building Safety Act requirements

·        Developing the structure for the Building Safety Cases.

·        Developing a process and procedures including the reporting path and content to the Regulator.

·        The Gove changes mean that service charges and resident consultation need to be underway , especially if you have leasehold high-risk buildings. Three committees for resident consultation, industry competence and technical advisory have been set up in the  interim to assist the Regulator.

·        The Fire Safety Act 2021,amended the Regulatory Reform Order 2005, and clarifies the responsibility of managers to minimise fire risk to the occupants of multioccupancy buildings.

·        Inclusion of service charges for safety costs and their recovery in place.

·        Remediation orders on construction products not meeting  standards have come into force.

Tim Hayton, Just Housing Group consultant

This transformation is not just about making our digital hub look better or improve its functionality, although our partners at Noble Studio have achieved both in some style. The change is at its heart about showcasing the true breadth and depth of what Just Housing Group is providing to its family of clients across every part of the country.

There is no doubt that housing, like many other sectors, is facing an exceptionally tough set of challenges as we head into 2023, whether it’s the ramifications of the Building Safety Act and the drive for Net Zero, or the turbulence in the economy, particular from rising inflation and labour shortages. These issues, which have been bubbling around for some time, do not sit in isolation, they share common themes that interact and interrelate to create a dizzying landscape for many decision makers.

However, across many providers I sense a real desire to meet these challenges not with fear, but with innovation: in the strategic delivery of services, in the way they operate on a day to day basis and in the culture they employ. In our new case study section, we highlight a snapshot of some our recent work with partners to bring this ethos to life: whether its revitalising service delivery to tens of thousands of households in some of London’s biggest boroughs, introducing new direct labour organisations in rural communities, preparing large providers for the rigour of the Building Safety Act or helping one of the country’s largest developments to set up an exciting resident-led governance body.

As our new service section demonstrates, we have the experience, thinking and ability to work with partners to make a real difference despite the testing climate. If you want to work with us, whatever the challenge, then make sure you drop us a line.

John Swinney

CEO, Just Housing Group

In terms of local authorities, the first issue that any procurement team faces is the obvious reality that spending public money is subject to regulation and scrutiny. The rules are tested and interpreted by case law, with guidance regularly published, along with articles and case studies produced in order to support compliance and best practice. It is a thick forest that needs navigating, or a swamp to traverse, depending on your point of view!

The rules and their complexity are often perceived as the most difficult aspects of public procurement. The key, however, is often the operational team’s understanding of what is required at the beginning, throughout and at the end of the contract period.

For procurement professionals the procurement rules and all associated documentation, processes, risk identification and mitigation, planning and administration are fairly consistent across all subject matters, types of procurement and systems used. If a manager can describe what is needed from the procurement process, the procurement team can translate that into tender documents, pricing schedules and quality assessments.

Describing what is wanted is often complicated and difficult, especially in a contract lasting more than a couple of years, and perhaps seeking something different from what is currently in place. Managers will have to consider what is needed at contract start, sometimes 12 to 18 months after the publication of the advert, and all through the contract length, including all possible extension periods.

This means that managers will have to turn their attention away from the day job to estimate, design or just guess what will be needed for the next few years and express requirements that may appear to be very obvious to them in words that a non-expert can understand. This is a key point that is overlooked: procurement requires focus and dedication that means the procurement process itself needs to become the day job.

This can often be a shock to operational teams. Some will consider it the job of the procurement team to ‘go and buy x’. The secret ingredient is ‘x’, and this can only be defined and explained by the teams who will use what is bought. The better this is defined and understood, the better the procurement process. Clarity around ‘what, why, when and how’ will ensure a straightforward process that is easy for bidders and evaluators alike. A lack of clarity will confuse all participants in the process. Confusion can result in a torturous process and a contract doomed to fail.

Successful procurement requires procurement experts, but cannot be done without operational managers being given the space, time and support to consider and explain what the service needs from the procurement process.

With that focus, procurement can deliver not only suppliers, contractors and partners, but also savings, efficiencies, shared risk and social value benefit.

Rebecca Shaw, Just Housing Consultant.

JHG can be found on the following Lots:

1 Business Services

2e Procurement

6b Strategic IT

8e Housing and Housing Support

Should you require any more details about the framework and processes for securing our services through the framework's award processes, please go to www.espo.org.

This provides a further route to testing and appointing Just Housing in line with clients' requirements and budget. It provides confidence for public sector commissioning officers as the framework has been procured compliantly in line with the requirements of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (as amended).

John Swinney, Just Housing Group CEO, said:

 "We are delighted to be present in various lots on the ESPO Consultancy framework, and hope that previous, current and future clients are also happy to work with ESPO to find the best solution for their needs."

There are a number of factors at play and resolving the current challenge must include a focus on building long term skilled capacity. This means recruiting staff, increasing apprentices, opening up training, creating more college capacity and so on. All of this resource challenge is coming at a time when the sector needs to start thinking seriously about how it can meet the move to net zero carbon homes. Given that we cannot complete day to day repairs, how are we going to build a new green industry (potentially 300,000 plus jobs) to deliver on our green commitments?

However, there is a parallel question: is this emerging crisis simply hiding a flawed delivery model for repairs? What does this mean? At the centre of social housing repairs delivery is the principle of carrying out all repairs based on different priorities each with set timelines. This puts huge pressure on the landlord and contractor(s) in terms of organising resources to meet deadlines. Why do we do it this way? Meeting these timelines creates a delivery pressure that, particularly at the moment, is often impossible to meet.  

What if instead of categorising repairs around emergency, urgent and non urgent we moved to something where only emergencies were delivered on an appointment basis and everything else happened around estate, street or neighbourhood repair days. This would mean allocating multi skilled teams on set and well publicised days to undertake all of those non-emergency jobs; alongside an accessible and flexible booking system for residents, thereby  allowing the most effective planning of works.

‘Repair days’ would be organised in line with demand – some estates or areas might require more regular visits but there would be a baseline bi-monthly visit. The days could become ‘events’ with other related housing management services also being present. This approach would raise the profile of repairs in a positive way.

There is also something about estates having similar issues due to construction age and type. Indeed, is there an opportunity, as part of this process, to research common issues and, perhaps with resident and TRA involvement, develop broad solutions to issues such as failed drainage or condensation.

Clearly, part of this change, must be close control over the definition and application of an emergency to stop ‘old hands’ shortcutting the process. At the same time, it will be important to understand how to support those who find it difficult to access repairs call centres and appointment making, but who just ‘put up’ with things until they become emergencies.

We also need to recognise, more generally, that emergencies have become part of the delivery problem. The number of jobs categorised as such is undermining the service for many landlords and sorting out the call centre/customer contact to better define inbound calls and what is and isn’t an emergency must be a priority. This needs fixing under any future solution – thoughts for another day!

The idea will take the day to day pressure off the delivery of repairs. It will allow non emergency work to be planned, will help join up repairs with other housing services and should give residents a more reliable and predictable service. Anyone ready to give it a go?

 John Swinney, CEO of Just Housing

There has undoubtedly been a trend in the last decade of local authorities taking a renewed interest on whether services, particularly repairs, outsourced in the 1990s should be returned back to the direct control of their officers and politicians. There is a very lengthy PHD that could be written about the various ideological undercurrents that swirl around this particular facet of the housing sector. But at its heart is the central question that politicians of all political colours and their officers end up returning to: whether an in-house team delivers a better service for residents than an outsourced service? 

In truth, there is no yes or no answer to this question. But there are common questions that local authorities, as well as registered providers, should ask themselves when reviewing the future of their services:

How would rate your procurement processes and could they be improved? This includes you tendering, preparing specifications, establishing an appropriate commercial approach and establishing a flexible contract

Are you happy to have an organisation working with your residents that may have different visions and aspirations from the organisation those residents chose to rent from? Would you prefer your organisation’s values embedded in every aspect of the service that your residents receive?

Are there some areas that need to be outside of your inside set up? Are these too specialist and technical?

What do your residents want? How does the political outlook affect your rationale?

Does having an in house team help in providing a comparator with any external contractors?

To provide some context to these questions, In-house teams certainly bring benefits and costs to a service. A clear economic benefit is that VAT is not charged, and so there is an immediate saving of 20%. Balanced against this is often the higher on-costs associated with directly employed staff, including access to pensions, organisational as well as technical training and improved employment conditions in the public and third sectors over most private sector employers.

In addition, unning any service has its ups and downs and requires expertise in strategy, leadership, finance, people  management, and an understanding of how teams can contribute to the aims and objectives of the organisation. This effort is the same whether it is the housing management team or the responsive repairs team.

If your team is in-house, you will have these problems. If your team is external you will not have the day to day concerns of absence management, training and development, communications, recruitment, payroll and termination of staff. You will instead have contract management concerns and remain responsible for how staff interact with residents, service performance and complaints, and all your landlord duty of care responsibilities.

The case could be made for either approach.

It’s really about where and how you want to exercise control. The question is whether you want to direct deliver or not to direct deliver…

Darren Smith, Just Housing

In many organisations, tighter budgets have led to reductions in procurement teams, with the result that many providers are often no longer ‘doing’ the buying for managers, but providing system support for the various portals being used. Senior staff are now often left on their own, probably, for example, not fully aware that the UK no longer uses OJEU and wondering what else might have changed as a result of Brexit. This is just one substantial issue, amongst many, that smaller teams now have to grapple with while at the same time attempting to do the day to day busy work of ensuring contracts are being procured properly.

In a perfect world, procurement starts with a clear strategy, developed in line with requirements around what is to be bought, market conditions and the organisation’s vision and objectives for purchasing the service, goods or works. However, we rarely have this luxury.  More often a contract is coming to an end, a contractor is no longer performing as required, an urgent gap in service delivery is identified or a supplier is no longer available – all of a sudden something must be done.

Senior staff faced with the job of procurement might be frustrated by the range of options available, their complex range of advantages and disadvantages, and the range of rules, requirements and administration of any public sector purchasing. While we all understand the public purse must be protected, how on earth can this be navigated?

A first step is often be to decide between using a framework and going to market alone. The framework route has the advantage of already being compliant, is often able to benefit from purchasing power and economies of scale, and usually allows the purchasing body to either directly award contracts or to run mini-competitions to select the most appropriate supplier from the framework. This can also provide solutions relatively quickly and with the framework provider guiding the manager throughout the process.

Not all frameworks are equal and it is worth spending time researching specialisms, age of contracts, contract management arrangements and to seek legal advice as to how to access the framework in line with your own organisational governance.

The disadvantages of a framework include its general nature and not being bespoke for your needs. Prices and specifications are already in place, and amendment to these may or may not be possible. Arrangements are unlikely to be longer than 4 to 6 years.

The current trend to use frameworks can be seen as a way to manage the transition to fully post-Brexit procurement regulations and practice. As with all approaches to market, a clear strategy is needed, but perhaps less well defined than when going it alone.

However, what needs to be avoided in pursuing this route is doing it just because it is quick, easy to action and requires less internal resource. The apparent benefits will be quickly lost if it does not facilitate the organisation’s service objectives. If this is the outcome the consequences of not providing a bespoke solution will be felt for a long time.

Rebecca Shaw

A common theme from clients is a desire to do things differently; to build more digitally inclusive solutions, to deliver greater social value and to reinvent the customer journey. These characteristics are increasingly underpinning where social landlords are looking to go. 

However, we can see even greater potential and opportunity in rethinking the whole repairs to asset investment journey. Typically organisations look at elements rather than the whole process. This may be because functions report to different executives, timelines vary for re-procurement across services, a Direct Labour Organisation (DLO) may be underperforming so energy is directed at improvement rather than innovation or simply because there is no vision for the benefits that might follow from joining up. 

Strategic consultancy aims to address this but while the big consultancies are blessed with great talent, technology and resource they rarely understand the culture of social landlords, the importance of residents, the difference between councils and housing associations and the challenge of working in a political environment - in local government this is critical.

In response, we have been developing a suite of ideas to test with landlords that could transform the way repairs and technical services are delivered, including in terms of procurement and how residents are involved in the process.  The first of these will discuss the new trends in procurement followed by a series of articles about whether to DLO or not to DLO. 

And if you have any issues you would like us to take a look at, please do get in touch.

John Swinney