Transforming social housing through the use of open, shared, and collaborative data.
ODX is working to stimulate innovation and collaboration through open and shared data. Everybody knows that reliable, real-time data is key to ensuring that homes are safe, decent, and well-maintained. Our vision is to unlock the potential of property data and give ownership of the data to residents* to influence decisions about their home.
Our objectives.
ODX starts with treating the resident* as a consumer.
What if we pool what everyone knows about each home — the landlord, the resident, and the maintenance contractor — to support intelligent, data-based decision-making?
We have changed the power balance, so residents are consumers, not supplicants. ODX landlords share everything they know about the home, so tenants are as well informed as homeowners. Like homeowners, working together with their landlord, the resident can determine the investment plan.
Use data for the benefit of tenants, promoting equality, transparency, and accountability.
Create a comprehensive database of social housing in the UK.
Improve data literacy, skills, and capabilities by raising standards and learning from others.
Using open data.
Open data is the way to activate the tenant voice. ODX captures the tenant view to which the HA must respond. This can best be done through respectful partnership and listening. Open data will have the effect of forcing up standards. Everyone wants higher standards and better homes – residents, landlords and regulators. Although making it public seems scary, this is the most effective lever there is to driving up quality.
There are examples we can follow. 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”. The advent of Open Banking, has driven significant change: innovation, greater transparency, and superior decision-making. Most importantly data standardisation has enable the establishment of uniform data models and formats for effective sharing and application.
In the public domain, the water companies and a spectrum of broader stakeholders were mobilised into a working collective called ‘Stream’. The collective then co-created an Open Data Framework that provides the capabilities required to unlock the value of water sector data.
Use cases.
Open data implies data-sharing. The tenant is adding important data as they know more than the landlord in key respects. So do the contractors who carry out repairs or specialist actions (eg boiler replacements, gas safety checks, void works etc). ODX will allow contractors to add their knowledge about the homes they maintain, adding another layer of data and valuable information that the landlord and tenant may not know.
Open data would also encourage landlords to correct and improve their mouldy old data. Tenants can check for accuracy and will be able to use the ODX platform to input the facts. Consequently, we will move towards self-healing data, making the job easier because the data is pooled and the endeavour is shared. Open data also implies specific agreed reporting standards which accelerates better data collection and allows people to compare landlords more effectively.
Landlords, tenants, and contractors gain from this novel, straightforward and honest account of social housing assets.
We believe the regulator and Ombudsman would benefit from being able to see what tenants think about their landlords and also to access the data they require. They will be able to chart the improvements in the quality of housing and satisfaction over time and thus prove to the public and the government that their work is having an effect.
Tenants can view summary record of the condition, energy performance and safety of their property.
Regulator of Social Housing and Housing Ombudsman can access tenant view and aggregated totals of housing associations for assurance
Housing associations can provide and access data as part of their business intelligence portfolio to benchmark performance and collaborate with others.
Repairs contractors can procure location and ownership of properties to optimise logistics and planning.
Any business organisation can use dataset for research, innovation and product development to generate insights for the sector and government.
Create a single dataset of existing but fragmented housing data which can be used as foundation for unification and collaboration
A comprehensive database containing the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) status of the entire social housing stock would encourage actions to achieve net-zero emissions.
A publication scheme (standards) for all Housing Associations to comply with the requirements of Access to Information Scheme.
About ODX.
ODX was invented and originated by Steve Dungworth, MD of Golden Marzipan.
In the Autumn of 2023, Steve shared his idea to create a collaborative data application for housing associations. That vision has blossomed into something bigger: a national database of social homes. Now joined by colleagues Kate Davies, Amanda Leonard, and Neil Topping and supported by many others, we have created the Open Data Exchange to promote this idea into something tangible.
We have a social mission. This comes first. We are still working as volunteers and paying for campaigning and development out of our own pockets. This is time-consuming but thrilling.
We will need to invest in our product, which has been designed, tested, branded, and marketed by competent professionals. We aim to keep prices as low as possible for smaller housing associations but charge a realistic price for something we think will bring about positive social change. To be clear, we are a for-profit enterprise.
Join the community.
If you would like to get involved or just be kept up-to-date with all things data in social housing, then you can do so in the following ways:
Sign-Up for our Mailing List
Share your resources or write a blog about your data experiences in social housing.
We will publish your stories on our Insights page.
We also intend to curate and maintain a page of the most useful resources for data practitioners in the sector.
If you have something which you think would be useful for other data professionals in social housing please let us know.
Suppliers and Commercials
If you wish to support social housing providers by supplying services, then best practice is the look on the Digital Marketplace or register for procurement frameworks.
We will accept advertorial blogs and case studies to display in our community resources, assuming that you will, in return, contribute a donation to our start-up funding. [Please ensure less than 600 words with one featured image and your logo].