Weeknotes: Shared Objectives

Social Purpose

On Friday, DIN’s Ian Wright posted a tongue in cheek request for alternative names to disruptive, innovation and transformation so not to offend the fearful. 😂

So, still a long way to go in getting buy-in. By happenstance, this week a Cabinet Office Report on addressing the barriers to digital transformation in central government departments was published.

It’s findings could be transcribed almost word for word into the social housing sector. Most of what follows as been edited only slightly.

Business Need

Digital transformation and modernisation of services and data are instrumental in achieving efficiencies. Transformation is not simply implementing new systems and software.

Outdated IT systems and ageing data are a key source of inefficiency and create a major constraint to improving and modernising services. Many of these systems were built several decades ago and are commonly referred to as ‘legacy’ systems. Failure to modernise legacy systems exposes organisations to possible service disruption, operational failure and cyber-attacks. The increasing and hidden costs include those arising from:

• additional manual processes to compensate for missing functionality in the legacy systems;
• increased complexity caused by electronic interfaces with other systems; and
• costs associated with third-party agreements for support services.

Data Driven

Its acknowledged there are longstanding issues with the quality of data. Some level of human error is almost inevitable given our process complexity. Some progress has been made on establishing data standards through HACT, but this is a major undertaking. In many cases there is no data function, or it is not part of the digital function in all organisations.

People with data skills command a premium in the market. In the social housing sector, pay levels do not attract the talent required for the scale of transformation needed.

Digital impact

Digital leaders in housing association have a good understanding of the challenges the sector faces and bring much needed expertise to the sector. However, they often struggle to get the attention, understanding and support needed from senior decision-makers.

Maybe we could all get behind some common objectives. How about the six missions of the Central Digital & Data Office (CDDO). These are:

1) Digital services should be efficient and help people access the services they need.

2) Make it easy and secure for people to prove who they are and log in to online services.

3) Make it easier to share and use data consistently across the sector.

4) Providers should use modern technology that runs more efficiently and at lower cost.

5) Providers should have the right skills for the digital future.

6) Put the right funding and delivery models in place.

Are these the right things? What do you think?