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Alistair McIntoshAlistair McIntosh is one of the social housing sector's most respected and best known personalities.
As founder and chief ...more
League tables for social housing: start of a new season?
As the Premier League football season kicks off, Alistair McIntosh looks at how a league table system could work for social housing providers
So will we see league tables for housing? That was the whisper as MPs left for the summer. We will see how this one pans out. But how would these league tables work?
You would think that satisfaction ratings would be a big part of it. And they could be.
For now there are a few stumbling blocks. First of all the landlords gather the data in different ways.
“It’s tough to predict the satisfaction level landlords should hit.”
Of course you could sort that out. But how do you know if the satisfaction rate is good or bad? Years ago Ipsos Mori cracked this problem for council housing.
First of all they worked out the satisfaction rating they predicted you to hit. How did they do this? Well they took into account who lived in your homes and how much you were spending on repairs. Then they looked at the rating you actually got. If you beat the expected score you were doing well.
It’s not so easy to do this now. You’ve got landlords working in lots of places and dealing with different sorts of people. So it’s tough to predict the satisfaction level they should hit.
There is a way of fixing this. But you’re not going to like it. And you will think I am trying to get my old job back.
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Yes, you have to go and visit the landlord to find out what is happening on the ground.
That sounds a bit like an inspection. The NHS Choices tables do use customer feedback but they also send in the specialists to get to grips with things.
You can get different results depending on what you do. Ipsos Mori gave a northern city top marks. But when the housing inspectors went in they were scathing about what it was doing.
The bad news is that the pollsters and the inspectors were both right. It was just a different exam question they were each asking.
And inspectors would need to ask the right questions for today. That would mean safety becoming a much bigger part of it than it used to be. I don’t think the inspectors of yore would have spotted the issues that are coming to light at Grenfell.
And the polls would need to change, too. Can it be true that 90% of tenants are delighted with what you do? Pull the other one. And what services do people want anyway?
Half the time I hear that folk want to go beyond housing and run all sorts of helpful services.
But you do get tenants who think this is just empire building. They say it’s time to stick to the knitting. Please don’t ask me to judge who is right. I suspect the answer will vary.
There is no point having league tables unless there are consequences. That brings us slap bang into the switching debate. If tenants can’t shop around they aren’t customers, are they?
“If you could get the league tables to be reliable, then it opens up a world of promotion and relegation.”
The government is doing what it can to drum up a bit of competition in personal finance and on the buses. Here’s how they go about it. They are forcing the incumbents to hand over key data to new players.
The hope is that we get to a level playing field. That should shake things up. Will the new players sharpen the pencil? We’ll see. Let’s hope this works out a bit better than the privatisation of trains, water, gas etc.
Of course the question you are asking is what services tenants could pick and choose. The stumbling block is that landlords own the homes. We just couldn’t have endless conveyancing as homes moved from owner to owner.
On the other hand you could say there is a bit of a precedent with supported housing. It shows you can get along with different owners and managers. And you could just about see how it would work for choosing who does repairs inside the home. But it’s all a bit tricky so I think this is a blind alley for now.
If you could get the league tables to be reliable (and for me it is a big if) then it opens up a world of promotion and relegation. Would that be a bad thing? The table-toppers would be in line for more grants and land, while those at the foot of the table would face tough action from the regulator. Certainly the executives and boards would have some explaining to do.
“There is not enough information out there to make smart decisions about which landlords to back.”
Maybe you don’t fancy league tables. Yes, it’s easy to shoot down the idea. But there is not enough information out there to make smart decisions about which landlords to back.
We need to fix that. How much data will we need to give away? I guess it hinges on how well open data works out for buses and personal finance.
Here’s a thought to leave you with: customers give us the data so they must get to use it. They own it. Customer insight is a two-way street. Landlords and tenants should both use it to make choices.
Alistair McIntosh, chief executive, Housing Quality Network
