Does innovation still happen in hard times?
Inside Housing speaks to Tom Robins at Switchee, who explains some of the challenges and opportunities presented by doing things differently in the social housing sector
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With no shortage of challenges facing the social housing sector, it can be hard for social landlords to explore different ways of doing things; harder still to implement new approaches. Yet difficult times are often precisely the point at which innovation is most needed.
Inside Housing speaks to Tom Robins, chief executive of housing analytics and insights firm Switchee, to explore where innovation currently sits on the sector’s agenda.
How would you assess the current environment for innovation in the sector? Has it become more or less favourable in the past 12 months?
Times are hard for tenants and for housing providers. The cost of debt has materially changed the conversation on innovation in the past year. Bond rates are up three or four times and that hurts social housing providers. It hurts when it comes to operational costs, because those costs need to be squeezed to cover the cost of debt. That in turn makes it feel hard to invest in innovation.
There is also a different relationship [in England] with the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) and the Housing Ombudsman. There will be a range of opinions on that, but there is definitely a much more engaged and involved RSH and ombudsman than we’ve ever seen.
That creates some challenges for innovation, but potentially some opportunities, too.
There are changes in the political environment as well, as we approach a general election. Housing has very much become a political football.
We’re seeing not just a war of words, but constant escalation on which party is going to be harshest on
the sector.
This political agenda is one in which we as a housing sector need to get involved, because the focus shouldn’t be on who is going to kick us the hardest. It should be about who is going to be there to support us.
Who’s going to be there to bring in the money that is needed? Who is going to build a housing environment that’s positive and constructive, allowing innovation and supporting change?
How successful do you think the sector is at innovation currently?
I’d start by emphasising that successful innovation shouldn’t be about ideas and pie-in-the-sky stuff.
It’s about really delivering change. But innovation is hard; doing things differently is hard. And innovation in the housing sector is really hard, particularly at the moment.
On the face of it, innovation is about experimenting. However, experiments do not equate to large-scale and consistent improvements to the lives of residents. That involves the sector applying the ideas that emerge from experimentation, driving them through and establishing new ways of working.
We talk about return on investment, but we should also talk about return on innovation. Delivering that return means a focus on people and outcomes, not experiments.
Housing is great at experimenting – one of the very best at trying new ideas. Housing is not great at changing the operating model and that is what I believe we need to do. We need to make the move from reactive to proactive.
At Switchee, we have a mission to improve the quality of life for people in rented homes and our focus has always been centred around innovation. We wanted to find ways we could bring commonly available consumer technology into the housing space, and use it to deliver value for the people who need it most.
Tom Robins is Switchee’s chief executive. His career has been centred on innovation, latterly with a specific focus on software and technology businesses.
Working in the housing sector since 2015, he believes in the power of technology to improve the quality of life for residents, while transforming the operating model for providers.
What changes might help innovation flourish in the sector?
We feel it’s really important to support those brave people who are trying to do things differently, not least by creating a supportive community and bringing them together.
To change ways of working and really make innovation flourish in the housing sector is going to require a broad coalition. Of course, that will include some innovative housing providers.
But we also need a diverse range of tech providers, from the biggest in the market, right through to the smallest. These companies are the ones that help bring new ideas to the sector.
There is a need for consultants, too – people who can join the dots between vendors and providers. Finance experts need to get involved, to help find new ways of bringing money into the sector that will support greater use of technology.
And there’s need for support from politicians, and scrutiny from the media, to really help advance this agenda.
Where are you and colleagues focusing your innovation efforts?
For a long time, housing has been very asset-based. We’ve focused on collecting data about assets. But by bringing in data about tenants, we can focus on the things that make a real difference for them.
Just as times are hard for housing providers, so of course they are hard for residents. We’ve seen a year in which the cost of living has increased at a rate that hasn’t been seen since just after the war. The cost of energy has gone up materially.
From the data that comes in from our smart thermostat devices – they’re now used in tens of thousands of homes across the country – we’re seeing people having to make very tough decisions about how they can best look after themselves and their properties.
I believe that sort of data, and the technology focused on collecting it, can help the sector be tenant-led and tenant-centred. It can also help it become data-led.
Sometimes it feels like the sector is being data punished – beaten up by the data that is out there. Instead we need to use information to be proactive in understanding what residents need and the challenges they are facing – and, most importantly, to inform and guide innovation that makes their lives better.
Why do you think it is so important for social landlords to focus on innovation, despite the current challenges?
I know that when money is tight, the first thing to go is innovation: “We haven’t got time for something new; we need to do the old thing but harder, cheaper, faster.” We’ve worked in innovation for a long time at Switchee, and we have seen this frequently. In tough times, it is often the innovation projects, the new ideas, that get
put on the back-burner.
But we exist because we know that tough times are exactly when the sector does need to innovate. It’s precisely when it needs to do things differently; stop looking at old ways and start looking at new ways. We need new models and new ideas, to enable housing associations to support residents better. And we really believe that technology can be a key innovator and a key driver in doing that.
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