Regulation and Open Data

The case for regulated ownership of social housing property data.

Why data conventions are necessary

From bar codes to postcodes, we all rely on common definitions and standards to help us, and the technology we depend on, to navigate the complexities of life. Clear, agreed and consistent standards provide a common language through which we can communicate accurately, efficiently and consistently across industries, professions, and everyday life.

The Regulator of Social Housing has already imposed clear financial reporting standards. Statements of Recommended Practice (SORPs) are recommendations for financial reporting that supplement official accounting standards.

More recently their Consumer Standards were agreed with tenant and landlord bodies and have already shown the value of a clear set of comparable, consistent data standards. Both sets of data, mandated and orchestrated by the RSH have helped provide much greater transparency in the sector. Boards, residents and investors can get reliable, fair and common information on social landlords. Transparency builds trust in a sector that has traditionally been seen as lacking openness and helps create continual improvement and a degree of competition in a sector which is essentially not for profit. Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) for example have generated considerable interest among tenants and consumer groups. Comparisons between providers are driving improvement and prompting deeper investigations into the root causes of tenant dissatisfaction.

Surely this is reason enough to create common data standards for the social housing sector assets? If we were able to see the global situation on the quality of the stock we could address the most important things first. A simple, standardised 1-10 categorisation on stock quality would be more useful for customers, regulators and local authorities rather than the comply or not with the Decent Homes Standard.

Why we all need to know our homes (as well as our customers)

The RSH requires providers to have “accurate, up-to-date and evidenced understanding of the condition of their homes”.  The quality and condition of the property is the most pressing and critical factor which affects how residents feel about their homes. Without accurate up-to-date data on property condition, landlords frequently fail to “nip problems in the bud”. Consequently, many property issues quickly worsen, causing costly call outs, complaints and increasing failure demand. A Housing Association CEO recently called for the benchmarked data to be evidenced in In-Depth Assessments (IDAs). As the RSH recognises, having accurate, accessible, real time property data is the key to driving up satisfaction, preserving value, reducing stigmatisation and restoring trust in social landlords.

We are so far away from having delivered this critical benchmark. Everyone is trying to understand home condition using different categories, different data bases, and different software. Surveyors use their own skill and judgement to determine the long term needs of the stock, but this is inconsistent and depends on lots of different assumptions. Add to this scattered and inconsistent categorisation of the components of a home we have most associations with data locked into to creaking legacy systems that they cannot access to provide tenants, regulators or boards with the actual information they seek.

The regulator and the whole sector needs to get behind the HACT standards (ideally simplified and made user friendly), and the RSH must mandate them.

What is the Open Data Exchange?

The ODX is on a mission. The mission is to help the social housing sector develop the skills it needs to  use the data that It has to better understand the homes that it owns, to help residents get the quality of homes they need and deserve.

One thing we worry about is the low priority given to using data to make the right decisions – decisions that are cost effective for landlords and decisions that result in tenant contentment. The issue of data needs to be considered by boards and understood by the sector’s leaders.

Record-keeping and information systems have tested the sector’s digital skills, capacity, and capabilities. While larger providers have been able to allocate additional resources, the vast majority of providers continue to struggle with data, digital and technology strategies and plans. Informal feedback from IT suppliers and data experts suggests that in some cases data quality is “frighteningly bad” and this in itself becomes a disincentive to share data or to be more transparent.

RSH demands that all landlords should understand the condition of each home has forced the sector to think about property condition and data, but they are languishing without clear guidance. They continue to rely on old style, workhorse databases that have the information when the RSH or Ombudsman requires it. However, they do not have access to the data on a day-to-day basis that could make a huge difference to daily and long-term investment decisions.

Government Initiatives

The Ministry of Housing is working with the social housing sector to improve data quality and integrity through initiatives focused on data standards – or perhaps more accurately, data conventions. These conventions are agreed definitions of how we evaluate and understand our environment and make it possible for us to compare like with like. We see data standards as analogous to accounting frameworks, risk management guidance, the technical notes accompanying global accounts and the TSMs. In essence, these are all data conventions – they simplify, clarify and help us all navigate our environment.

Currently, the sector is overwhelmed and finds it hard to innovate or collaborate. The Ministry of Housing has invested in getting towards widespread acceptance of the need for agreed data conventions. Clear expectations from the Regulator help enormously and encourage boards to prioritise the work that has the greatest benefit for the residents. This can be designed as regulation, risk management advice, statistical reporting requirements or best practice. RSH leadership in setting expectations is crucial in shaping the sector’s approach to data governance and improvement.

At ODX we warmly welcome this development, and we are committed to supporting them to help government digitise and modernise. As a country we cannot meet the needs of our citizens for housing and the services they need without getting up to date with the opportunities that data can enable. At ODX we are doing all we can to put data into the heart of decision making in the public sector, so it can match the great strides that have been made in the private sector.

PM´s emphasis on Modernisation and Growth

The government’s commitment to growth, and the drive to improve technology in the public sector (including using AI to drive efficiency), provide a refreshing backdrop. The RSH has a key role to play in supporting the growth of the UK economy, by helping to create a regulatory environment that unlocks innovation and investment, supports businesses to thrive and allows much-needed infrastructure to be built.

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”. Customers use mobile applications to pay bills, monitor balances, and compare products. Banks leverage customer data to provide customised recommendations. Also, modern banks like Monzo, Revolut, and Starling have disrupted or partnered with established financial institutions and technology firms to overcome the limitations of legacy systems.

Social housing providers could learn valuable lessons from other sectors’ digital transformation journeys. Data standardisation efforts have been crucial in enabling the use of open data in many sectors. The Open Property Data Association, with the MHCLG, is now committed to digitising property data and working to build the trust framework that is needed for the safe and secure sharing of data. Data had to be structured in a consistent format to be effectively shared and utilised. Common data models and formats have now been established and agreed.

The advent of Open Banking, benefitting from open data models, has driven more significant change – innovation, greater transparency, and superior decision-making. As a result, the financial regulator can demand access to certain data sets. APIs and data-sharing frameworks have been instrumental in the protection and efficient dissemination of financial data. Most importantly agreed data conventions have produced uniform data models and formats for effective sharing and application.

The pain of our Legacy Data Systems

Within Housing Associations and Local Authorities, each existing system operates in isolation. Many of these systems are incompatible, preventing the seamless flow of data between different platforms and departments. Consequently, housing providers encounter difficulties in delivering smooth services to tenants. Senior managers and boards are unable to make data-driven decisions, and regulatory compliance and audits are unnecessarily complex.

The social housing sector faces challenges in terms of skills and capacity when it comes to effectively utilising existing data resources. Each organisation is compelled to reinvent the wheel as there is no standardised, user-friendly system.

Housing data is dispersed across multiple platforms, including WhatsApp, texts, emails, and paper records. This fragmentation results in lost data, incomplete information, and compounding errors. The absence of a unified data solution forces staff to spend valuable time manually cross-referencing data from different sources. For instance, responding to government requests for specific data, such as identifying properties over 18 meters or those with damp and mould, becomes a time-consuming and error-prone task due to these outdated tools.

The answer must be to harmonise, standardise, and integrate these diverse data sources to establish a unified and comprehensive baseline, so that landlords, their tenants, investors and regulators can access accurate, secure and easy-to-understand information while simplifying data management processes for social housing providers.

In the long term, it would help both housing providers and IT suppliers to have a comprehensive database of essential master data (precise location, property characteristics, age and condition, safety risk management, energy source and efficiency). We shouldn’t need to be scrambling around in different systems and putting spreadsheets together.

Who would benefit from standard Open Data conventions in housing?

In the long term, the primary beneficiaries would be tenants, who would gain direct access to information about their own homes. The implementation of Social Tenant Access to Information requirements would be significantly streamlined through common data conventions. Additionally, tenants could actively contribute by providing real-time evidence of property conditions, helping to build a more comprehensive picture of decency and safety in social housing.

For the Regulator and the Housing Ombudsman, the ability to access tenant perspectives and aggregated housing association data would enhance assurance and oversight. A standardised dataset would serve as a foundation for greater unification and collaboration across the sector.

Housing associations would benefit from seamless data sharing within their business intelligence frameworks, enabling them to benchmark performance, identify trends, and collaborate. The ability to analyse large-scale property data would also support AI-driven modelling, providing insights into long-term asset management and housing conditions.

Beyond housing providers, the wider sector would see substantial operational efficiencies. Repairs contractors could use centralised property data to optimise coordination and planning, improving service delivery. A comprehensive database incorporating Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) data for all social housing stock would further drive sustainability efforts, encouraging targeted actions to support the sector’s net-zero emissions goals.