Due to popular demand the full recording of our event ‘Helping tenants find their “perfect home” masterclass – best practice in mutual exchanges and right sizing’, held on 27 February 2025, is now available to watch on-demand for a limited period.

Order your on-demand viewing today to:

• Watch a full video recording of the event, including all presentations, Q&A sessions and panel discussions via Zoom
• Receive copies of the slides used during speaker presentations
• Get access to on-the-day materials, including speaker biographies and the agenda.

The messages from the Regulator and the Housing Ombudsman are clear – know your tenants, know your properties and use this information to influence your (tailored) services.

This includes helping your tenants move to more suitable homes. We know the immense stress that many households face from living in unsuitable accommodation – either overcrowded or under occupying, in the wrong location, needing adaptations or alterations. But securing a timely move to a more appropriate home can be very challenging – there’s such a high demand on social housing.

Facilitating mutual exchanges, assisting tenants to ‘right-size’ and supporting moves within your stock are therefore key to achieving that perfect fit – improving tenants’ lives and making best use of your properties. However, it is not that easy to achieve. It is a complex process to oversee involving many different parties with different expectations and a variety of hurdles to overcome on the way.

Listen to our experts in this practical masterclass where we provide useful tips and advice drawing on good practice from across the sector.

What we cover:

• Promoting mutual exchange and rightsizing opportunities to tenants
• Setting realistic expectations and checking facts
• Identifying and providing the appropriate support to encourage and successfully deliver moves
• Managing the process effectively – to timescales and required standards
• Ensuring full compliance with health and safety requirements
• The customer perspective – the things that really make a difference
• The officer perspective – the tricky things to manage and the solutions.

What you will get from the recording:

• An understanding of the end-to-end process of mutual exchanges and right sizing
• Practical solutions to the common challenges faced by landlords and tenants
• Practical tips to set realistic expectations, while delivering a quality product and customer experience
• Good practice case studies from councils and housing associations.

If you’re looking for solutions this is the workshop for you.

Essential for:

• Directors of housing
• Heads of housing
• Housing managers and officers
• Heads of allocations and lettings
• Customer service teams.

Damian Roche, Director, HQN

Damian Roche, HQN Director, will lead the session. Using his extensive experience of undertaking assessments against the Regulator’s consumer standards, as well as wider consultancy work, Damian will identify best practice approaches and solutions to managing mutual exchanges and other moves for existing tenants.

Damian is one of HQN’s experts on the consumer standards. He has played a key role in our consultancy projects since the new regulatory framework began its journey into law and supported a wide range of organisations (local authorities, housing associations and ALMOs) with their self-assessments and improvement plans. His particular areas of expertise are in customer engagement and wider stakeholder engagement as well as governance, complaints management.

Damian is a regular speaker at HQN events and recently devised and delivered a series of workshops to assist providers with their preparations for the new regulatory framework. He has developed toolkits for use in self-assessments, the latest covering the empty homes and lettings process and our condensed toolkit for the regulation of social housing.

As well as the learning and insight that Damian has gained through consultancy and project work, Damian also has hands-on practical experience of delivering services. He has worked in the housing sector for more than 20 years, much of which has been at a senior/executive level, including eight years as director of customer experience for Accent Housing.

Suzanne Hemingway, Associate, HQN

Suzanne Hemmingway, HQN associate and Fellow of CIH, will use her experience in both strategic and operational teams to set out the key elements of a comprehensive approach. She will focus on ‘right-sizing’ and how to help tenants make moves within social housing to better meet their needs.

Suzanne has over 30 years’ experience of the social housing sector. She started as a volunteer in a women’s refuge and a homelessness shelter and went on to manage a variety of services for disadvantaged groups. She has held senior roles in both strategic and operational teams. As a consultant, Suzanne provided advice and training to a wide range or national, regional and local organisations from 2008-2016, when she returned to a full-time director role, integrating the wider housing brief – strategy, repairs, management and homelessness – with wider community engagement, development, arts and leisure briefs. In returning to consultancy, Suzanne brings experience of supporting boards and elected members to deal with adverse events and to prepare for new housing regulation, as well as of providing advice and training at a senior level. Suzanne has been a Fellow of CIH for many years.

Annalisa Howson, Assistant Director of Housing, Waverley Borough Council

Annalisa is a proud housing professional with some incredible experiences in her 30-year career in social housing, all with the aim to ensure everyone has a good place to call home.

As Joint Assistant Director for Housing at Waverley Borough Council and Guildford Borough Council she is leading the teams through the changing landscape of housing and focusing on improvements in tenant involvement, performance management and professionalism.

She was instrumental in the creation of the Waverley’s EasyMove scheme, which provides practical help and advice to tenants to move to a home appropriate for their needs and supports right sizing and health and wellbeing.

She is delighted to be the CIH South East and London Regional Group Leader and is dedicated to helping raise the profile of social housing and promote the professionalism of the sector to ensure everyone has a good place to call home.

Karen Lucas, Head of Housing Options, Barnet Homes

Karen has worked in local government for over 30 years, starting her career in the West Country and obtaining a PG Dip in Housing at the University of Bristol.

Karen spent many years working for Islington Council in a variety of roles including Housing Aid Centre Manager, Supporting People Manager, Interim Director Housing Needs and Strategy and Head of Covid Resilience during the Covid Crisis.

After a period in Enfield Council as the Head of Housing Management, Karen joined Barnet Homes in 2023 as the Head of Housing Options.

Denise Bracken, Fresh Start Officer, Barnet Homes

Denise started working at Barnet Homes in July 2025 as a housing officer in the neighbourhood team before moving to the rents team as a financial inclusion officer.  This role consisted of assisting tenants to make sure they were claiming the correct benefits and maximising their income where possible.

Denise finally moved to her current role in the voids and lettings team where she assists tenants to downsize to a smaller property within the Borough of Barnet.

Chair’s welcome and introduction

• Damian Roche, Director, HQN

What you need to know about mutual exchanges   

• Damian Roche, Director, HQN

Case study

• Annalisa Howson, Assistant Director of Housing, Waverley Borough Council

Break

Best practice on right sizing

• Suzanne Hemingway, Associate, HQN

Case study

• Karen Lucas, Head of Housing Options, Barnet Homes
• Denise Bracken, Fresh Start Officer, Barnet Homes

Closing comments

• Damian Roche, HQN Director

Close