Social and affordable housing
Housing associations and local authority landlords, where a repair that gets missed is now a regulatory event.
Where it breaks
A small sample of the problems we hear most often in social and affordable housing. Not a complete list, and not all of them will be yours.
- 01
Damp reports nobody joins up
A resident describes a smell, then a stain, then a window that runs. Three calls logged as three separate repairs, and the pattern only shows up once it becomes a complaint. Awaab's Law is now an implied term of the tenancy, so that first call started a clock: twenty-four hours on an emergency, ten working days to investigate a significant hazard, three more to issue the written summary, five to begin the work.
- 02
Complaint clocks that start before you know
The Complaint Handling Code runs from when the resident first raised it, not from when somebody coded it as a complaint, and the difference is usually a fortnight. Then it's five working days to acknowledge and ten to answer at stage one, five and twenty at stage two, and if you use an extension you have to give the resident the Ombudsman's details. That last one is the one that gets missed.
- 03
Stock condition data is old
The cycle is five years, delivered as a fifth of the stock a year. Surveys compete for the same budget as visible repairs and decarbonisation and lose, because nobody complains about a survey that didn't happen. The thirty-year business plan is built on the result.
- 04
One number, every kind of call
Repairs, rent, ASB and tenancy changes all come through the contact centre against a fixed headcount. The resident who waited forty minutes is the one who then complains.
- 05
Competence you now have to evidence, contractors included
The standard is assurance-based, so what gets tested is the system and the outcome rather than a folder of certificates. Qualification tracking sits in an HR system built for training records generally, and the contractor half, which is also in scope, sits nowhere at all.
- 06
Regulatory returns built by hand
TSM and consumer standards evidence gets assembled out of several systems each period, by people who also have day jobs. The first thing an inspection tests is whether the data you reported matches what's actually on the ground.
What we'd build
A small sample of the kind of thing we build. What we'd actually scope depends on which of the problems above is costing you most.
Hazard patterns spotted across contacts
Every resident contact read for the language of damp, mould, disrepair and vulnerability, with related reports linked and raised as one case. Each Awaab's Law timescale run as its own clock from first report, escalating before the deadline rather than reporting after it, and flagging the alternative accommodation duty explicitly where a timescale can't be met.
Awaab's Law timescales met, and damp cases joined up before they become complaints.
Complaints recognised on day one
Contacts classified against the Complaint Handling Code as they arrive, with the statutory clock started and the response deadlines visible to the team that owns them. Where an extension gets used, the justification recorded and the Ombudsman's details included in the response without anyone having to remember.
Code timescales met from first contact, and fewer findings against you on process alone.
Repairs taken on any channel, any hour
Reports taken by voice or message, triaged by urgency, raised in the housing system, with the resident told what happens next. The queue stops being the front door.
Shorter waits, fewer abandoned calls, and contact centre headcount that stops being the constraint.
Evidence assembled as you go
TSM and consumer standards reporting drawn continuously from the systems of record, so the return gets reviewed rather than built, and the places where the asset record and the compliance record disagree show up before an inspector finds them.
Returns reviewed rather than built, and reported data that matches the ground when an inspector looks.
The competence picture, staff and contractors
Every person in scope with the qualification they hold or are working towards and the evidence they hold it, contractors included. The policies and the code of conduct version controlled, with how residents fed into them recorded, so what comes out is an assurance pack rather than a folder.
Competence evidenced on demand, for contractors as well as staff, rather than reconstructed before an inspection.
Recognise any of these?
Thirty minutes with a founder. Walk us through the problems your team lives with and we'll talk about whether any of it has to stay that way.