As the cost-of-living crisis heads into the tough winter months, HQN and Mobysoft ran a roundtable with income collection professionals to get a sense of the big challenges, how they’re being solved and what more needs to be done.

Participants

Chair: Jon Land, HQN
Janette Pearce, Group Director of Customer Services, Together Housing
Derek Streek, Head of Communities, Standards and Partnerships, VIVID
Andy Sage, Head of Customer Services, settle
Craig Tyldesley, Head of Revenue Services, Bolton at Home
Jonathon Brownbill, Director of Customer Success, Mobysoft

Tackling the cost-of-living crisis will be a defining moment for housing providers as they feel the weight of incoming consumer regulation and face questions around their purpose, residents’ trust and their effectiveness to deliver.

As the country heads into winter, the scale of the problem will start to become clearer. How many people are going to cut back on heating altogether? What will the knock-on effect be? Will there be job losses from businesses unable to afford the utility bills? How will this further impact those who are unable to afford rents and service charges?

Housing did a lot of great work in identifying and working through solutions with those at most financial risk during the pandemic, and it’ll be needing a similar response to this latest crisis. In this roundtable, we sought the views of different housing providers to get a sense of what’s happening on the ground and how we can maybe solve or mitigate these problems.

Janette Pearce, of Thirteen Group, explains the early impact on her organisation.

“We know our customers have a lot less money now and many are on partial universal credit,” she said. “We work across 35 different local authorities, and they all have different criteria for household support.

“Navigating that with staff is really challenging and having teams trained up and seeing what’s available in each area takes up a huge amount of time and resource.”

She also spoke about increased costs for the organisation itself: “Utility costs in supported housing and communal areas are far higher than we’ve ever had to deal with and again that makes a challenging discussion around service charges.

“We’ve not got just rents to think about but also what we do with service charges and what we may have to pass on or swallow here. We know it’s not appropriate to be passing those costs on to customers, so we’ll have to find that money from somewhere in the business.”

Craig Tyldesley of Bolton at Home echoed those thoughts and added: “If we can get the rent covered plus a little bit more, that’s probably where are going to go with this.

“We’ve got all these things we can do, such as working with the council and increasing the hardship fund, but we haven’t got anything that we can do that will really sort someone’s situation out. It’s all a sticking plaster.”

And Andy Sage of settle group says his preparations were hampered by a lack of action from government for months.

He added that difficulties around measuring people’s level of need was also of concern and spoke of developing a furniture offer for residents, with that being the number one cause of instant debt on moving.

But there were also issues with outside agencies: “We’ve found that organisations such as Citizens Advice Bureau are struggling to keep up with the cases we, and other organisations, are sending them. Added to this the people they’re seeing are coming to them with far more problems and the solutions just aren’t there.”

“We’re hearing that people are using the microwave instead of the oven and that people are going to bed when it’s dark”

All of the participants talked of increasing the hardship funds they had available, and many talked about the impact they were seeing on the ground from residents.

Andy Sage said: “One issue that’s growing is disconnection of prepayment meters and compliance. We’re encountering issues around compliance with disconnections and meters that have run out of credit. That’s a hot potato that we’re dealing with now.”

Derek Streek added to that point: “We’re heari ng that people are using the microwave instead of the oven and that people are going to bed when it’s dark. As we go into the winter, that’s not going to be sustainable.”

And on the issue of staff resilience and mental health, how are providers coping with the increasing demands put on frontline staff?

Craig Tyldesley says it’s all about having a strong wellbeing offer.

“We’re very focused on support, like we were during Covid. We wanted to make sure they have the resilience to do the job most effectively.

“A big focus has been on the enforcement side who are starting to see the hoarding, the disconnection of the prepayment meters, and more. Keeping their wellbeing high is going to be important. What we’ve said we’ll always do is protect our frontline services.”

And Bolton at Home are currently exploring an early pay increase to help staff see themselves through winter. It’s an approach Derek Streek is also taking at VIVID.

He said: “We’re looking at whether we bring forward our pay offer which is usually offered around April time in a bid to retain our staff. There could be an effect in April later if they don’t get another rise. With the rate of inflation higher than the cap that will be imposed, there will be a gap and we’ll have to fill that somehow.”

“You’re relying on relatively inexperienced colleagues looking at incredibly complex caseloads. That has an overall impact on the offer, with the expertise more stretched than we would like it to be”

For Andy Sage at settle, the issue they’re grappling with is around staff experience.

“You’re relying on relatively inexperienced colleagues looking at incredibly complex caseloads. That has an overall impact on the offer, with the expertise more stretched than we would like it to be as we’re recruiting people who have little or less experience than we may have wanted to.”

And if those issues weren’t enough, the government has introduced a rent cap for social housing. How do the participants see that impacting the organisation? It all comes down to priorities.

Derek Streek says that VIVID were in “a strong financial position with a surplus of 41%”, which has allowed the organisation to not take any drastic decisions. Instead, it looks likely that housebuilding will be vastly reduced.

And while there was agreement that any cuts cannot impact residents, Janette Pearce said efficiencies will need to be found.

“We must be mindful that any cuts we do make are not at the cost of the customer. We need to find a way of doing things more efficiently.

“We need to look at making the systems take the strain so that the people we employ can get on and do the job to help residents.”

“We’re encountering issues around compliance with disconnections and meters that have run out of credit. That’s a hot potato that we’re dealing with now”

And while the sector has long grappled with technology, Janette explains how the work Together has done in this area has now led to efficiencies and more targeted resources.

“We’ve always been data rich in terms of assets, but we had to catch up on resident data. That’s taken a bit of time. What we’ve done with that is to tailor services around it and target specific streets and households that need it.

“Having that indicator was really important and helps us drive that efficiency we need and target our resources in the right way.

“We’ve got a data scientist working in our organisation and what that gives us is a rich picture of the whole organisation and means we can be efficient in how we deal with our customers and make sure that every contact counts.”

And as we draw the roundtable to a close, the participants are asked about their big priorities over the coming year.

Derek Streek said it was about three strands – tackling the cost-of-living crisis, developing an anti-poverty programme and making better use of community centres.

On the latter, the organisation has been speaking about using these community centres as “warm hubs” and making the best for all in the wider community.

For Janette, it’s about ensuring that the organisation sticks to its morals.

“We may need a rethink about how we achieve some of our goals. We’re committed to carrying those on, but we need to do that in the most efficient way possible.

“I think we must have a good look at KPIs. We’re going to have a look at what is right for Together, what’s not right, and how we compare with other organisations who have benchmarking tools. We could meet all targets but evict 100 people and that’s not what we’re about.

“Our turnover is reducing constantly, and it’s about sustainment of tenancies and keeping evictions low. We want to make sure we stick to that.”

Practical tips

• Identify vulnerable customers early – communication with all residents key
• Gather as much data as possible on payment trends
• Be aware of changing behaviours – disconnecting from mains, refusing access to properties, switching from DDs to standing orders
• Ensure your housing management systems link up with your CRM systems
• Work with some residents on a one-to-one basis
• Increase hardship funds where possible
• Explore partnership opportunities in the local area – council, charities, community hubs
• Use communal buildings as ‘warm hubs’ – also a way of driving engagement
• Protect staff on the frontline by ensuring they have mental health support
• Train staff effectively so they can deliver for residents
• Consider an early cost-of-living pay offer for staff before winter sets in
• Look at where adopting technology can help save money and resource
• Join HQN’s Rent Income Excellence Network for peer-to-peer support, best practice groups and all the latest briefings and advice.