TECHNICAL BULLETIN
ISSUE 34 MARCH 2019
CHALLENGES FOR HOUSING PROVIDERS ANDY FLOOK, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR, SAVA
This article discusses the challenges housing providers face with respect to the data and legislative changes and addresses the journey of overcoming the issues presented. Understanding and complying with the mass of Government papers and legislation driving action on tackling fuel poverty can present a challenge. Across the country there’s a push for energy efficient housing stock and maintenance of fair fuel pricing policies, as well as funding mechanisms such as ‘ECO’ to encourage property improvements. The Clean Growth Strategy has set the scene for the long term aims of decarbonising our working and living environments, and it is without question that most of these legislative drivers are driving behaviour in the right direction, but is this enough? What is especially challenging, is how to pull everything together in a meaningful way that ensures effective progress towards clean growth targets. There is also the need to make appropriate decisions around tackling fuel poverty and draw on any funding opportunities to assist with budgetary constraints for stock improvements.
vital in successfully managing and improving housing stock, which are:
Seeing the wood for the trees
Where to start?
•• the quality of data available •• the effective consolidation of data sets from different sources (e.g. EPCs, Gas Safety certificates, condition surveys, maintenance paperwork etc.) •• confidence in the information collected. 100% data quality, 100% confidence in the data and 100% effective consolidation of data from multiple sources sounds ideal, but for most this has become the holy grail. However, much like any mammoth task, taking small steps in the right direction and consistently striving to increase the percentages in each of these areas can make the vision a reality.
Housing providers responsible for maintaining properties face a continuous struggle managing their housing data to enable strategic improvement decisions for the stock as a whole, and also considering each property and tenant in isolation. Whilst asset management system software exists to assist, there are a number of points to consider that are
The best place to start is to understand the quality of the data that decisions are made from. Often, the most efficient investment in the early stages can be consolidating and cleansing the data. This allows the confidence to begin forecasting long-term improvement strategies: modelling the carbon savings and energy efficiency impact.
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