We need a National Social Housing Database, combining Open Data with Technology Standards. Sector wide, and government-led, this would be the cheapest and fastest way to drive improvement in social housing, transforming the customer experience while reducing costs.
Written by Kate Davies and Steve Dungworth (Golden Marzipan)
This is not just a technology solution. It is a multi-level good governance opportunity:
- Strategic – to fulfil our promise to provide quality homes and keep our residents safe.
- Fiduciary – reporting and information is a core government and corporate governance requirement. A database has cross-sector and cross-DHLUC uses and benefits.
- Generative – it is a catalyst to rapidly expand the sectors skills, capacity and capabilities to make use of its existing data and identify what is required in the future.
Most Housing Associations and Local Authority Housing departments are at capacity. They are reducing new home building to carry out repairs, safety improvements and insulation. Yet, everything they do is hampered by a lack of reliable data – primarily on the quality and quantity of their homes; and on the needs and preferences of residents. In addition, their ability to make rational spending decisions, strategic changes, or to evaluate staff or organisational performance is limited by the age, quality and arrangement of their data. Both Regulator of Social Housing and Ombudsman have acknowledged that the lack of reliable data undermines their ability to regulate effectively, but more importantly tenants suffer from confusion and delay in their interactions with their landlords. Earlier this month, NHF boss, Kate Henderson heralded the Knowing our Homes programme setting out the measures social housing landlords can use to collect data and share best practice examples to support the sector to implement this new approach. Everybody knows that reliable, real-time data is key to ensuring that homes are safe, decent and well maintained.
Much of our data has been piling up for 60 years inputted by thousands of people, and on many different platforms, including WhatsApp, texts, emails and paper, and does not begin to match modern requirements. We rely on spreadsheets, cardboard folders, email trails, and the memory of managers. When the government demands a list of homes over 18 metres, or a data base of properties with damp and mould, even the biggest and best HAs have to send someone out to measure buildings or scour their databases for any complaints or mentions of mould. Several weeks later they have an approximate answer. This would be like Spotify having someone at the end of a telephone, putting a record on a turntable and playing it for you.
Each of our existing systems have immense value but don’t “talk to each other” (they are incompatible), they don’t allow data to move from one platform or system to the other, which stops HAs and LAs being able to provide frictionless services, prevents senior managers and Boards from making wise and rational data-based decisions, and complicates audit and regulation.
A single, simple, limited in scope database will force a universal data structure, common formats and connectivity standard which makes it easier to share data between platforms, or between organisations. We suggest that the specification of the technology we require is done together with the RSH and government (enlisting the experience and expertise in ONS and GDS). This one standard must become obligatory for all. Private sector companies will supply the technology and be informed by existing HACT work, having absolute clarity about what is required and a guaranteed marketplace.
Despite its obvious cultural differences, the financial sector has harnessed the power of data analytics and automation to improve decision-making and customer experiences through Open Banking aka “FinTech”. Customers use mobile applications to pay bills, monitor balances, and compare products. Banks leverage customer data to provide customised recommendations. Also, modern banks – like Monzo, Revolut, and Starling have disrupted or partnered with established financial institutions and technology firms to overcome the limitations of legacy systems.
The advent of Open Banking, benefiting from open data models, has driven more significant change – innovation, greater transparency, and superior decision-making. As a result, the financial regulator can demand access to certain data sets. APIs and data-sharing frameworks have been instrumental in the protection and efficient dissemination of financial data. Most importantly data standardisation has enable the establishment of uniform data models and formats for effective sharing and application.
The government, and our residents, quite rightly demand excellent records, transparency, reliable evidence, and the rational use of data in social housing. This is a big ask of a sector that is struggling to do so much more than providing a bank account or selling insurance. We own and manage aging homes that need fixing four or five times a year, we take money every month, and we deal with lots of queries and complaints. This is in the context of a lifelong relationship. It can be complicated, and the sensitive nature of our work demands the very best technology (and properties) not the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel.
A database, by definition is a structured collection of data that is organised in a way that enables efficient access, management, and updating. The platform would complement but not replace existing HA applications. Modern principles would require it to be near real-time, cloud-based and updated through API, federation, automatic file ingestion. The high-level results would be published though a website and the internal stakeholders could subscribe to more detailed insights through an easy-to-use online business intelligence application.
The scope would be on low risk GDPR property data covering the outcomes (not detailed processes). It could replace and simplify some existing RSH annual data collections.
The minimum viable product can be development by a small group of sector digital leaders using agile methodologies and a small amount of seed funding.
Ownership is important in terms of design and delivery. The most important thing is that the Government give a lead. It must mandate all social housing providers to work together to agree adequate data standards and then procure technology to deliver hyper transparent data which can be compared, interrogated, evidenced and shared with ease to improve outcomes for social tenants.
While this concept may be novel to the social housing sector, the necessary technology has a proven track record, and datasets are emergent based on the specific solution. The financial sector and government (DVLA, DWP, Passport Office, GDS, Covid-19) have paved the way for successful open data initiatives. The hardest part is getting competing organisations to do the same thing, rather than insisting that “we are different!”.
