Social Housing Transformation: Challenges and Key ‘C’ Words

By Kirsty Wells · 30 July 2024

‘Change’ has been at the top of the political agenda since the results of the general election became clear on 5^th July.

As I embarked on my own change journey to ARK Consultancy at the start of this month, I have been reflecting that words beginning with ‘C’ seem to keep coming up in ‘C’onversations around social housing transformation!

Can-opener
Carbon reduction/neutral
Challenge
Change
Choice
Collaboration
Colleagues
Communication
Communities
Complaints handling
Compliance
Condition of stock
Construction
Consumer regulation
Co-operation
Co-production
Cost of living crisis
Country
Crisis
Culture
Customer experience/voice

The Challenges Ahead

Together, these words combine to signify the challenge facing the new government and the social housing sector in building and investing in safe, sustainable communities. Places where people want to live, where homes are warm and affordable, where housing services are delivered with respect and on time, where there are jobs, good public services and transport links.

The Issue of Choice in Social Housing

In some places and in some organisations, transformational change is required. In the change that we need, however, fundamentally the people living in social housing have no ‘choice’ in the services that they receive and have no ‘consumer’ power to exercise if they are dissatisfied. The debate is well-rehearsed around social tenants being unable to switch their landlord in the way that we can choose to switch supermarket or mobile phone provider because we want better customer service, better value for money and better products and services.

So how do we switch the balance of power and ensure that the outcomes of consumer regulation are transformative? How do we listen to the customers’ voice and act upon what we hear?

The Role of Data in Driving Change

The collection of tenant satisfaction data is only the can-opener, informing landlords of the views of their existing tenants and residents. How the data is acted upon is what drives change. This means staff analysing the data and gaining insights into how tenants feel about where they live, the services that they receive and what key drivers are affecting the results. In the first few years, the data may make uncomfortable reading for senior teams but by embracing an improvement journey with their staff population and their tenants they can transform the narrative.

Landlords who recognise that empowering their customers in their improvement journey is essential, will be the ones that lead the way. It may take time, and it may be a bumpy road, but sharing power and including service users in the co-production of new services is known to have positive outcomes. It is about doing the right thing, in the right way, with the right people.

ARK Consultancy’s Role in Social housing transformation

At ARK Consultancy, we have the skills and experience to support you with transformation, involving your community at all levels within your organisation – both horizontally and vertically. This is as much about your employee community as it is about your customer community. It is about collaboration, communication, co-operation and culture.

People will need to combine their efforts to improve the employee experience, implement culture change, transform customer experience and actively share power and decision making to effectively meet the challenges of consumer regulation. As Richard Branson says “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of you clients.” Staff who feel valued, listened to and invested in will be the key driver of change in our sector.

Find out more about how ARK can help with your social housing transformation goals by contacting us today.