This year’s conference will breakdown the key ingredients to successful tenancy sustainment with a range of speakers talking openly and honestly about their organisation’s approach from using data to identifying those who are struggling, to strategies for engagement and ‘making every conversation count’.

The topics we’ll cover include:

• The importance of data in maximising tenant incomes and reducing debt – how do we get to know our tenants better? How do we build meaningful relationships?
• How do we get ahead of the game when it comes to potential debt problems? The cost-of-living crisis, changes to welfare benefits and increasingly erratic employment patterns have piled financial pressures on the majority of residents. In many cases rent arrears are just the tip of the iceberg
• How do we overcome the barriers of stigma and anxiety? Tenants that are most in need of support are often the least likely to seek it out.

We’ll also hear from:

• DWP about the new government’s approach to work and welfare
• The pioneering new ‘Holding onto Home’ research from Sheffield Hallam University.

It’s a great opportunity to meet up and network in-person with fellow income and tenancy sustainment professionals from across the housing sector.

Essential for:

• Income/Rent managers and teams
• Tenancy sustainment managers and teams
• Financial inclusion staff
• Housing and benefit/income adviser staff
• Directors of Housing/Customer services.

10:30am Chair’s welcome and introductions

• Chloe Fletcher, Director, HQN

10:40am Migration to Universal Credit and how DWP are working with stakeholders

• Tanya Hodnett, Head of Move to Universal Credit Stakeholder Engagement, DWP

Tanya will provide delegates with an update on Universal Credit and managed migration, including any autumn budget changes. She will explain how DWP are working with stakeholders including those from the housing sector to inform their approach. She will also provide an overview of the information and insight we provide stakeholders to support our joint customers in migration. Delegates will be able to ask questions and raise any emerging issues with DWP directly.

11:10am Our holistic approach

• Mark Manns, Head of Housing, One Vision Housing

• Kyle Lane, Neighbourhood Services Manager, One Vision Housing

Mark and Kyle will talk about their innovative and holistic approach to income collection.  After going through the HQN accreditation Maximising Income: Sustaining Tenancies with Tony Newman, HQN Associate they overhauled their approach and started to look at both customers and staff in the round.  Their focus is very much on sustainment and support and providing help as early as possible to prevent a worsening situation.  They will include how they use their data to improve their knowledge of customers and make performance monitoring effective.  They will cover how they have improved their reporting systems by developing their own and working with their inhouse IT analysts to make the most of their resources.

11:45am Break

12:00pm ‘Holding on to home: tenancy sustainment in social housing’ – final report

• Paul Hickman, Professor of Housing and Social Policy, Sheffield Hallam University

• Kesia Reeve, Principal Research Fellow, Sheffield Hallam University

Paul and Kesia will share the findings of the final report of the project ‘Holding onto Home’.  This research has explored the behaviours and experiences of tenants and landlords in relation to rent arrears and tenancy sustainment.  Paul and Kesia will share a summary of the evidence they have discovered and provide practical guidance which will improve landlords’ tenancy sustainment policies and practices, making it easier for tenants to pay their rent and fewer tenancies to fail.

12:40pm Lunch

1:40pm Communities that Work – how housing providers can support tenants into work

• Kate Shone, Chair, Communities that Work and Managing Director, Torus Foundation

Kate will update delegates on the latest housing and employment policy and funding developments.  She will also talk about a range of initiatives that have proved successful for social housing landlords in getting tenants into work and top tips for those considering branching out into this area.

2:10pm Benefit maximisation and financial inclusion

• Lee Ryan, Financial Inclusion Lead, Cobalt Housing

Lee will outline Cobalt’s approach to financial inclusion which seeks to support tenants in maximising their income by ensuring a personalised approach be that getting into work, maximising benefits or providing energy advice.

2:40pm Break

2:55pm The key ingredients of a successful call

• Laura Kilby, Professor of Discursive Psychology, University of the West of Scotland

Laura will outline the results of her recent research analysing telephone calls between income managers and tenants encountering rent payment difficulties.  She will share her insights into what works and what doesn’t and provide practical advice for income managers on how to approach rent arrears calls with tenants for the best possible outcome.

3:25pm Knock, knock, who’s there?  The importance of the home visit

• Duncan Brown, Associate, HQN

Duncan will highlight the importance of the home visit to your income management process.  He will outline the unique things it can tell you that a phone call or an office meeting wouldn’t and why you should keep this tried and tested element in any rent collection strategy.  His session will also provide practical tips and suggestions for you to take away from his extensive experience in the sector, carrying out health checks of landlords’ income collection service across the country.

3:55pm Closing remarks from the Chair

• Chloe Fletcher, Director, HQN

4:00pm Close and networking opportunity

About Mobysoft

Founded in 2003, Mobysoft provides data-based insight solutions to a wide range of social housing clients, supplying AI-based data analytics platforms that help landlords to improve their income-collection processes for the good of all involved. Mobysoft delivers two market-leading products RentSense and RepairSense which help keep tenants housed in a home they can enjoy and simultaneously improves rent collection for the long term good of the organisation.

About Paypoint

Paypoint is a leading payments provider in the UK which works across the social housing sector to provide quality payment advice, tailored support, and training in rental income to housing associations and councils across the UK.

With over 20 years of experience in the field of innovating the payments sector, it has a digital omnichannel payments solution – MultiPay. With over 450 clients using MultiPay and over 514 million transactions processed each year, Paypoint is highly experienced in understanding the impact fintech has upon tenant communications.

Paypoint has a range of digital payment channels including Paybylink, the app service, online, text, direct debit, phone/IVR, cash, cashout and recurring card payments.

Its solution multi-pay is a one stop shop for all digital payment, offering a single view of all payment channels and a point of truth including real time cash data. MultiPay offers providers a full API catalogue to integrate into existing systems, easy integration, and a roadmap with ever-evolving new features.

About Voicescape

Voicescape is the UK’s leading provider of resident engagement solutions for social housing and local authorities. By leveraging machine learning, AI, automation, behavioural insights, and data science, we offer multi-award-winning digital solutions that enhance operational efficiency and service quality. Supporting over 70 UK organisations, Voicescape helps connect with communities across key areas including rent arrears management, gathering real-time customer feedback, and booking safety and compliance checks, enabling resources to be reinvested into supporting more residents and improving outcomes.

About allpay

Based in Hereford, allpay are the market leader of payment services within the UK public and social housing sector, providing a range of payment channels to more than 50% of UK local authorities and 90% of the UK’s top 200 housing associations. Established in 1994, allpay was built on foundations of providing bill payment services – primarily to the public sector – and this year will handle £8.5 billion on behalf of over 4.5 million end customers. With an aim to work with each of their clients to reduce costs and add flexibility to their customers, allpay have created a suite of modern payment systems that are both cost-effective and convenient for the end consumer.

Chloe Fletcher, Director, HQN

Chloe has worked in the social housing sector for over 25 years since her first role in housing management with JSS Pinnacle as a trainee housing officer. She completed a Masters in Housing with Professional Qualification at the London School of Economics and then moved into housing policy, working on behalf of the London boroughs, initially for London Housing Unit and then London Councils. She joined the National Federation of ALMOs (NFA) in 2007 working with members, government officials and wider housing stakeholders to develop NFA policy and support the ALMO movement. She brings her wide range of housing management and policy knowledge to HQN as Director, working across the business and bringing her skills and experience to the whole social housing sector.

Kyle Lane, Neighbourhood Services Manager, One Vision Housing

With a commitment to creating opportunities and changing lives, One Vision Housing is a provider of over 13.6k homes across the North West. Their Community Safety Team is dedicated to forging a better future for communities and has been praised for its approach to community safety. The driving force behind the housing association’s approach is Kyle Lane, Assistant Neighbourhood Services Manager, who has worked in housing for over 14 years.

Kyle has a real passion for bringing innovative ideas to life and championing community and tenant engagement to improve service delivery.

Paul Hickman, Professor of Housing and Social Policy, Sheffield Hallam University 

Paul is Professor of Housing and Social Policy at Sheffield Hallam University. Over the last thirty years he has conducted research on a range of subjects including: tenant participation in the social and private rented sectors; the impact of welfare reforms, including Universal Credit, on both landlords and tenants; Housing Benefit; and, the lived experiences of poverty. He has a particular interest in tenancy sustainment in social housing and has led a number of studies in this area. These include the on-going ‘Holding on to home’ study for the Nuffield Foundation. The study pays particular attention to identifying the causes of rent arrears, as this is the main reason why tenancies fail. By exploring the behaviours and experiences of tenants and landlords, the research will provide evidence and guidance which, it is hoped, will help landlords to develop and improve their approaches to tenancy sustainment.

Kesia Reeve, Principal Research Fellow, Sheffield Hallam University 

Dr Kesia Reeve is a Principal Research Fellow in Housing at the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) at Sheffield Hallam University. During Kesia’s 25 years as a housing researcher she has managed and delivered 50+ housing research and evaluation projects funded by: national governments and government departments; national charities; local authorities; public sector health bodies; and housing associations. This extensive body of research has generated more than 100 outputs for a wide range of audiences.  Her research interests focus on aspects of housing deprivation and exclusion including in the social and private rented sectors, and in relation to homelessness. Much of Kesia’s research is policy-oriented, designed to inform housing policy and practice.

Kate Shone, Chair, Communities that Work and Managing Director, Torus Foundation

Kate Shone is Chair of Communities that Work, the national body in England focused on social housing and employment. She is also the Managing Director for Torus Foundation, the charitable arm of Torus Group which owns and manages 40,000 properties in the North West of England. Kate joined Torus Group in September 2016, having previously worked for Clarion.

Kate has worked in the social housing sector for over 20 years in both the general needs and supported accommodation fields. Kate is also Chair of Communities That Work, the UK’s leading consortium of social landlords who are rising to the challenge of helping people into work.

In 2015 Kate was awarded an MSc in Management from Chester University where she gained a distinction.

Laura Kilby, Professor of Discursive Psychology, University of the West of Scotland

Laura Kilby is a Professor of Social and Discursive Psychology at the University of the West of Scotland based in the School of Education and Social Sciences. Laura is an expert in the study of talk and communication. Her research examines forms of institutional power and the oppression of marginalised individuals and communities in and through language. She has variously studied social class and poverty; citizenship and immigration; gender and homelessness; and social deprivation and health. Most recently Laura has been a co-investigator on a major Nuffield Foundation grant that has focused on poverty and housing insecurity, examining the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on social housing tenants in England and the implications for tenancy sustainment. In this work, Laura has studied what makes for effective rent related communication between social housing landlords and tenants.

Mark Manns, Head of Housing, One Vision Housing

Mark began his housing career at Richmond Housing Partnership 2004 in neighbourhood services, becoming Service Centre Team Leader and winning Employee of the Year.

He joined One Vision Housing as a Neighbourhood Officer in 2008, becoming Head of Housing in 2023. The neighbourhood services team delivers all generic aspects of housing and estate management, as well as community safety, leasehold and commercial services, complaints and customer satisfaction.

Since April 2023 he has led on income management, that since April 2024 has incorporated leasehold and commercial services.

He led OVH voids and letting service to top quartile and top performing nationally between 2018 and 2023. With his management team, they are looking to deliver a similarly high performing and supportive service for OVH across income management for social and commercial customers, ensuring regulatory compliance.

He is a qualified EFL teacher, has a Masters Degree in International Relations, and is a keen runner, having completed several marathons and raised £2k for charities.

Duncan Brown, Associate, HQN

Duncan is an HQN associate who is also an independent consultant, interim manager and trainer.  Duncan has over 29 years’ experience across the social housing and private rented sectors.

Duncan began his career working in a temporary accommodation team and subsequently progressed from a first level management post through to senior management posts in social housing.

Since 2014, Duncan has focused primarily on helping social sector clients maximise rental income, manage debt risk and improve services to customers whilst supporting the financial wellbeing and independence of residents. He has a successful record of supporting clients to improve performance in challenging environments (such as in Inner London), and was commissioned by Tower Hamlets Homes to deliver improvements to how the rental income team managed Universal Credit.

Duncan has authored several papers for the Rent and Income Excellence Network and has spoken at many conferences with the most recent being a ‘Leadership in Income Focus Event’ on 9 February 2024 provided by one of the sponsors of todays event, Mobysoft. Duncan has been a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing London Board where he chaired the Policy and Influencing Sub-Group, and was a Trustee with Citizens Advice Hillingdon Ltd.

Lee Ryan, Financial Inclusion Lead, Cobalt Housing 

Lee Ryan is a recent addition to Cobalt’s financial inclusion team as Team Leader. Lee has over 30 years’ experience in the area of welfare benefits, which has included working in the voluntary advice sector, law sector, and social housing.

Lee is also originally from the local area and has been instrumental in expanding the financial inclusion team to meet the challenges faced by customers during the major welfare reform process that will continue for the next four years.

Cobalt Housing is a housing provider of around 6,000 homes in the north of Liverpool. The financial inclusion team has been meeting the needs of customers for many years. Many of the team at Cobalt are from the local area and have an ingrained passion to provide the best outcomes for customers.

Cobalt is based in the heart of the community and has a passion for doing the right thing for their customers and providing as many services as possible in conjunction with local partners and community groups.

Tanya Hodnett, Head of Move to Universal Credit Stakeholder Engagement, DWP

Tanya has been in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for more than 35 years and worked in a variety of roles and grades.  In June 2022 she became the Head of Stakeholder Engagement for Universal Credit.

Tanya is passionate about meeting the needs of citizens and although she has had many varied roles, she feels making improvements and listening to citizens and stakeholders is what she loves the most.​ Along with her team, Tanya has been working very closely with up to 200 organisations covering welfare rights, charities and housing organisations to support the migration of citizens from tax credits and legacy benefits onto Universal Credit.

Tanya’s previous experience includes working in key front facing service roles in Jobcentre services and since being part of DWP corporate centre she has worked on legacy DWP benefits and supported operational colleagues on accessibility nationally. Tanya’s experience has been key to working collaboratively with external stakeholder networks.

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