FINAL GPSJ Summer edition 2024 ONLINE VERSION.2pdf - Flipbook - Page 18
GPSJ
LOCAL AUTHORITY & COUNCIL
How innovative tech solutions can help
social housing providers meet Labour’s
new challenges
By Stephen Repton, CEO and founder of project-management SaaS
and training firm, Flowlio, and social-housing PM expert
The recent King’s
Speech set out some
once-in-a-generation
tasks for social
housing providers
Sir Kier Starmer wants to
create 1.5 million homes in
the next few years and local
councils will have to play a
major role in this, overseeing
some enormous building
works.
The Regulator of Social Housing’s
new standards have also created
a lot of work for social-housing
landlords, including councils
and housing associations, who
need to collate and report the
views of hundreds of thousands
of tenants on the upkeep their
homes. Landlords also need to
find quicker, more efficient ways
of maintaining properties.
All this creates the need for
some huge, complicated projects
and project management.
Many council leaders may feel
overwhelmed at the prospect,
dreading the paperwork and
staff and resource coordination
involved. That is where new,
innovative tech solutions come
in. Systems that provide central
digital hubs from which everyone
can work collaboratively and
efficiently.
Setting sensible goals
It’s important that any local authority
or other organisation sets out a
clear business case that is specific
to their needs and capabilities,
before stating any project. It sounds
obvious, but all too often it doesn’t
happen.
Over my career advising and
working with housing associations
and councils, I’ve seen major
maintenance or building projects
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that get underway with little
reference to how they fit in with an
organisation’s wider strategic plans.
Staff and leaders haven’t been clear
on the precise benefits to them or
their section of the organisation
of the project. This can lead to a
lack of staff buy-in, poor use of
resources, slow project momentum
and even project failure.
A tech solution with a centralised
dashboard allows all leaders and
teams to see exactly what the
project aims are and the mini
targets to be reached along the
way. This almost forces planners
GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC SECTOR JOURNAL SUMMER 2024
to come up with a clear case that
shows the benefits of a project, as
it can be scrutinised by everyone
involved, rather than just enforced
top-down with limited explanation.
The dashboard can also detail
everyone’s tasks and roles in the
project, with an obvious golden
thread running through them so
staff can see exactly how they are
contributing to the end goal
Under the new government’s
targets, of course, an overall aim
might be as simple as “build 10,000
houses in the area”. But having a
centralised hub allows you to make
it clear how this is broken down into
a series of smaller goals.
Software systems can also
automatically report to teams how
the project is already bringing
benefits, before completion, to spur
them on. An increase in tenant
satisfaction scores, perhaps, or a
10% reduction in heating costs, due
to the rollout of new maintenance
procedures.
Working together
If everyone from roofers to company
finance directors are working on
a building or maintenance project