Registered Social Landlords (RSL’s), Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMOs) and Local Authority housing departments all have a similar challenge in terms of information and reporting on a complex set of processes from asset management, development and financial planning to customer complaints, income/debt management and repairs/maintenance services. Changes introduced by the Welfare Reform Act and Universal Credit add further pressures to the sector, particularly in terms of housing needs and debt management.

With a significant performance focus as well as substantial operational reporting from complex systems like Northgate and Orchard, the sector sometimes struggle to truly link internal and external performance measures and KPIs to both strategy and front line management information, bringing all that data together consistently and reliably. As well as the strategic benefits, good MI can also lead to significant practical benefits where better information can give rise to increased customer satisfaction & advocacy, service performance and financial improvements.

A recent project at a large London social housing provider involved the implementation of a flexible KPI layer to provide over 500 automated performance indicators from 30 flexible datasets and included an easy KPI entry system to allow any performance team member to enter KPIs, targets, formatting and other information to quickly amend and maintain automated scorecards with no coding or report development. The system used Microsoft Sharepoint for the KPI dictionary and metadata entry, Oracle databases and SAP Business Objects reporting.

Other projects and common requirements have included:

• Monitoring the arrears process on a stage-by-stage basis
• Reporting on the timeliness, cost overrun and quality of the repairs service and measuring performance across a set of 3rd party contracts
• Planning and implementing an information management strategy
• Improving transaction reporting on iWorld or Orchard
• Call centre data warehouse and reporting (telephony, complaints, ASB etc.)

With expert knowledge in the sector we are able to offer practical advice, solutions to common problems and a partnership delivery approach where you can involve your own resources and support your own solutions.