A home should always be more than four walls and a roof. Social housing providers are working hard to stay informed with all the recent developments and advice which has come out of the proposed Social Housing Bill, the Decent Homes Act, and the need to meet the regulatory requirements related to tenant engagement.

Housing professionals are having to keep their ‘finger on the pulse’ to ensure they have the right technical solutions that has buy-in from their tenants while achieving high digital engagement levels. Highlighting recent innovations, this workshop is aimed at those with innovation responsibilities in social housing to learn from other sector leaders as to how they implemented cost effective digital solutions, that have resulted in improved resident engagement.

Addressing the current pain points

Speaker one: Dan Blake, Executive Director- Customer Experience. Berwickshire Housing Association.

• Balancing cost vs. value for money in line with the residents’ expectations (HB and UC)
• Digital readiness – Wi-Fi poverty, device poverty “Digital feeling personal” how to get tenants to engage with new technology
• Futureproofing, interoperability.

The legal and regulatory drivers to accelerate digital engagement

Speaker two: Gill Healey, Non-Executive Director, Trustee and ex Director of Torus

• Social Housing White Paper
• The 2021 Consumer Regulation Review
• Social Housing Regulation Bill.

An example solution that reduces digital poverty and increase tenant engagement

Speaker three: Martin Cutbill, Director, Alertacall

• How to overcome the barriers to digital engagement
• Providing multiple methods to improve resident communications
• Ensuring the WIIFM for residents (What’s In It For Me)
• Advisory board and video.

This event is for those working for social housing providers:

• Digital innovation and transformation professionals
• Innovation consultants
• Business design, performance, and service improvement roles
• Boards and executive teams
• Heads of service including housing management, asset management, IT
• IT teams
• Customer and business insight teams.

Dan Blake – Executive Director

Dan is Berwickshire Housing Association’s Executive Director – Customer Experience with responsibility for the strategic delivery of all customer services (housing, estates and repairs services and wider community initiatives). Dan began his career in Glasgow’s East End with Milnbank Housing Association, progressing to West Lothian Housing Partnership, Barony Housing Association and latterly Loretto Housing Association, all part of Wheatley Group before Joining Berwickshire Housing in April 2019.

A proud member of the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIHM), Dan formerly sat on its Board over a two-year term. He has been involved in work with Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum for Housing Associations, Scottish Federation of Housing Associations ‘Innovation and Future Thinking’ programme’ and presently sits on Housemark Scottish Advisory Board as well as Housing Options Scotland Board. Dan is very passionate about CX and wants the customer voice to be heard, represented and influencing change throughout all services BHA offers.

Martin Cutbill – Director and Chief Marketing Officer

Martin Cutbill is a director and Chief Marketing Officer at Alertacall, and also works closely with the company’s advisory board. He has previously worked on several boards, including as Chief Executive for Hitachi Capital Finance and Insurance Services. He has also held senior roles at PWC, Bank of Scotland, and also as Director of Commercial Services at the Federation Of Small Businesses.

Gill Healey 

Gill has recently retired as Managing Director of Housing with Torus, a Merseyside based Housing Association with over 40,000 properties where she has worked for the last 11 years. She was previously Managing Director of Arena Options, a large specialist supported housing provider across Cheshire and Merseyside which was then part of the Arena Housing Group. She has over 37 years’ senior experience in all aspects of Housing Management but specialises in Supported Housing. In her role at Torus she has been the corporate lead for Safeguarding and Diversity and Inclusion. From Jan 2019 until retirement in September 2021 she was the Chair of the Liverpool City Region-Operational Directors team bringing together the senior officers for all registered providers operating in the LCR to ensure collaboration and a joined up strategic approach to delivering housing initiatives across the region. She is passionate about the impact that good quality housing has on health and worked as part of the original team setting up St Helens Cares as part of the award winning approach to Health, Housing and Social Care integration.