Our approach to improving efficiency and tenant satisfaction

We have already harvested the low-hanging fruits. Inflation is high, and expenditure on existing homes must increase to fund building safety, decarbonisation, and damp and mould eradication. The consequences of failure, lest we forget, can be tragic.

For housing associations, cross-subsidy has meant using outright sales income to sustain underfunded affordable housing delivery. Now we see larger associations – the biggest developers – reaching their affordable credit limits while caution towards market-exposed development grows. Many economists predict the UK will suffer the deepest and longest downturn in the G7. House prices are falling.

Are we surprised that dozens of associations have seen their financial viability and credit ratings downgraded by the regulator and Moody’s respectively? Few boards are likely to decide now is the time to ramp up sales activity.

For us, a merger felt like the most rational response to the complex challenges ahead, using scale and density to enhance resilience and improve local services.

“Closeness helps us join the dots, reducing the risk of overlooking vulnerable residents and improving referrals to our tenancy sustainment teams”

Rather than accelerate development in the short to medium term, we plan to invest more in existing homes and services, tackle building safety and improve environmental efficiency. We plan to build more from 2026 when, we believe, the economy will pick up.

The sector is diverse and each association will develop its own solutions, but here is our four-pronged approach to improve satisfaction and efficiency.

First, we’ll act upon feedback from residents.

Having worked alongside residents for 30 years, I value their insights and experience. Plus, research has shown that involving residents in governance and service design reduces waste and improves satisfaction. We have appointed four residents to Southern Housing’s board and are recruiting to our new resident governance structure, which was co-designed with residents.

We continue to invest in co-creation, enabling residents and colleagues to work together to improve processes. We have already seen the benefits of this approach, including improving how we handle anti-social behaviour. We’ll use co-creation to redesign our post-merger services to give residents what they want rather than what we think they want. Having an engaged and motivated workforce is key to this, so we’re investing time and resources in building a resident-focused culture.

Second, we will in-source more services.

This will bring them closer to residents, giving greater control while maintaining the rigour and vitality of a mixed economy. Closeness helps us join the dots, reducing the risk of overlooking vulnerable residents and improving referrals to our tenancy sustainment teams. Our denser, post-merger footprint makes it more cost-effective to in-source and carry the overhead.

“We are now large enough to foster critically important local relationships with councils, developers, landowners and contractors”

Third, we’ll use economies of scale to invest in new and emerging technologies.

We’ve already seen the benefits, for example, of automating Universal Credit claim validation. We are excited to explore how technology will improve the way we work, interact with residents, and construct and maintain homes. Artificial intelligence especially is developing fast (take chatbot ChatGPT, for instance). With 77,000 homes, we can get a bigger bang for our buck.

Finally, we’ll use our denser footprint to strengthen local partnerships, building on regional relationships.

In London, we own more than 30,000 homes, and we’re the largest housing association in Kent and Sussex. In parts of the South East, we own 70% of the social housing stock. Recent stock acquisitions from other associations have increased density in core areas with more in the pipeline. We are now large enough to foster critically important local relationships with councils, developers, landowners and contractors.

This will facilitate collaboration with for-profit providers – as we do already with Sage Homes and Legal & General Affordable Homes – to manage more homes, unconstrained by our balance sheet. We need to think differently about the relationship between ownership and management.

This year will test us, but we must remember that housing associations provide long-term stewardship to benefit residents and their communities, and we do this best by holding the ring and developing and nurturing cross-sector partnerships.

Southern Housing is uniquely placed to support the people in our key regions. We are confident our four-pronged approach will help us provide them with a more prosperous year ahead.

Paul Hackett, chief executive, Southern Housing