The Social Housing Round Table

A Personal Experience of The Power of Community

What happens when housing becomes more than just a roof over your head?
In this week's Social Housing Round Table, host Elaine Middleton is joined by Charlie Chan, Director of United Communities, for a deeply personal conversation about the power of community and the lasting impact it can have on people's lives.
Drawing on their own experiences of homelessness and moving into social housing, Charlie reflects on the friendships, support networks and sense of belonging that shaped their journey. The discussion explores how strong communities can challenge stigma, create opportunity, and help people thrive long after they've found a home.
The conversation prompted attendees to share their own experiences of housing, homelessness and community, creating a powerful discussion about relationships, trust, listening and the importance of seeing people beyond labels.
If you're passionate about customer experience, resident engagement, community investment or the future of social housing, this is a conversation not to miss.
Big thank you to Case Management Solutions Group Ltd and Alertacall Ltd for sponsoring The Social Housing Round Table, without them, none of this would be possible.

Connecting Communities Through Sport

What if the best way to build trust with your tenants was not a repairs satisfaction survey or a contact centre call - but a seat at a football match?
In episode 227 of the Social Housing Round Table, part of the Customer and Community stream, Matt Baird is joined by Kevin Hornsby, Executive Director of Customer and Communities at Ongo, to explore one of the more refreshingly different conversations the Round Table has hosted this year.
Ongo, a housing association managing around 12,000 properties primarily across North Lincolnshire, invests over £1.1 million every year into community-based outcomes. A couple of years ago, a LinkedIn connection sparked a conversation with Scunthorpe United that has since grown into a network of sport partnerships - with Scunthorpe United, Grimsby Town, Lincoln City, and Doncaster Rovers - giving tenants free access to football and rugby matches through a ballot system. Over 2,300 tickets have been given away so far.
But this conversation goes well beyond the logistics of sports sponsorship. Kevin talks honestly about the unexpected ways these partnerships have started to shift something harder to measure - trust. For tenants who have repeatedly been let down, who have learned not to believe things will actually happen, turning up with a ticket and making sure they have a good day out is, as Matt puts it, a stepping stone. A small one, perhaps. But for some people, a significant one.
The session also covers how to get started, how to measure impact beyond ticket numbers, the importance of being willing to walk away from partnerships that do not feel right, and why a conversation at a football ground lands very differently to one on someone's doorstep.
Big thank you to ASB App and Alertacall Ltd for sponsoring The Social Housing Round Table, without them, none of this would be possible.

The Housing Loop: Why Families are Forced Back into Temporary Accommodation

There is a content warning for this session. The conversation includes discussion of domestic abuse, homelessness and the experiences of families in temporary accommodation.
There are 1.4 million fewer social homes in England today than there were in the 1980s. Over 170,000 children are currently living in temporary accommodation. And keeping a single family in that temporary accommodation costs, on average, more than £30,000 a year — while the human cost goes far beyond any figure.
In this episode of the Social Housing Round Table, part of the Customer and Community stream, Matt Baird is joined by Alexandra Pop-Hristic of Bridge Housing Solutions and Naomi Rae Wharton of Populo Living for an honest and at times deeply moving conversation about the housing loop — the cycle that pulls families, and particularly domestic abuse survivors, back into temporary accommodation again and again.
Alexandra introduces Bridge Connect, a matching platform designed to speed up reciprocal moves and get people into suitable permanent homes faster, prioritising those fleeing domestic abuse. Naomi shares her research into the violence risks facing young people in temporary accommodation, the data gaps that make the problem harder to address, and her five-point framework for change.
The wider discussion draws in voices from across the room — housing professionals, tenants, and those with lived experience — and raises questions that go well beyond the immediate crisis: about labelling, about profit, about political will, and about who is really responsible for fixing something this broken.
It is a session that stays with you.
Big thank you to ASB App and Alertacall Ltd for sponsoring The Social Housing Round Table, without them, none of this would be possible.

Beyond Qualifications - What’s Really Driving the Competency and Conduct Standard

The Competency and Conduct Standard arrives in October 2026, and the sector is paying attention. But there is a question worth asking: is the attention landing in the right place?
Much of the conversation around the standard has focused on qualifications — who needs one, by when, and how to get it done. What has received less focus is the broader set of obligations the standard places on registered providers: the requirement to ensure that relevant staff have the right skills, knowledge, behaviours, and conduct to deliver genuinely good services. That is a different challenge, and arguably a more complex one.
In the first episode of the Social Housing Round Table's Policy and Governance stream, Matt Baird is joined by Amy Stirton, Director and Founder of The Social Housing Academy and specialist social housing solicitor, to explore what the Competency and Conduct Standard is actually asking of the sector — and why getting qualified is only part of the answer.
The conversation covers where the standard came from and what drove it, including the evidence heard at the Grenfell Inquiry around staff training and the disregarding of residents' concerns. It covers the very real pressures facing frontline practitioners, who are navigating an increasingly complex legislative landscape alongside the day-to-day demands of housing management. And it introduces HousingPro, a 10-module e-learning programme developed by the Social Housing Academy in partnership with Me Learning, designed to help organisations upskill large workforces at pace in readiness for October.
This was one of the most attended sessions of the year. It is not hard to see why.
Big thank you to Alertacall Ltd for sponsoring The Social Housing Round Table, without them, none of this would be possible.

What Is Service Design and Why It Matters to Housing

A tenant reports a leak. She uploads photos, explains she has a young child, and flags that she is worried the ceiling might collapse. A week passes. She hears nothing. She chases - online, by phone, in person. The repair team eventually come out, leave her some buckets, and advise her to keep containing the water. More of the ceiling falls. The light fittings fill up with water. She is told the flat is still liveable. The hotel she is offered is miles away and she does not drive.
From the organisation's perspective, the process was followed. The case was closed. And yet the experience failed - completely.
That gap between what a landlord thinks it delivered and what a tenant actually felt is, as Oliver Goldring puts it, customer experience. And it ended up in the media.
In the first session of the Social Housing Round Table's new People and Culture stream, Matt Baird is joined by Oliver Goldring, Head of Digital, Design and Communications at Magna Housing and author of Listen, Act, Change, for a candid and practical conversation about service design - what it actually is, why the sector has normalised poor design without realising it, and what it would take to genuinely change.
The conversation covers the difference between process mapping and customer journey mapping, why so many organisations are confusing the two, how technology has come to define services rather than support them, and what Oliver calls the uncomfortable truth: that in housing, there are thousands of Sarahs because services were never designed to actually work.
Big thank you to Alertacall Ltd for sponsoring The Social Housing Round Table, without them, none of this would be possible.

Exploring Risks and Hazards for Neurodivergent Children in Temporary Accommodation

There is a content warning for this session. Some of the material shared is distressing. But it is important and the conversation is worth hearing in full.
There are nearly 176,000 children in England living in temporary accommodation right now. That number would fill Wembley Stadium almost twice over. Families are spending an average of four and a half years in these situations. And between 2019 and 2025, 104 children died in temporary accommodation, with their housing listed as a contributing factor. 73% of those children were under the age of one.
In this episode of The Social Housing Round Table, Matt Baird is joined by Professor Katherine Brickell and Dr Rosalie Warnock from the Sensory Lives Project at King's College London, to discuss the findings of their landmark report: It's Like Torture: Life in Temporary Accommodation for Neurodivergent Children and their Families.
Published in January 2026 following the first ever national call for evidence on this topic, the report reveals a picture that goes far beyond the commonly reported issues of damp and overcrowding. 
Neurodivergent children placed in hotels and hostels face unsafe windows, unsecured staircases, no space to self-regulate, no familiar belongings, and environments that are overwhelming in ways that most housing decisions simply do not account for. Families are moved with hours' notice, sometimes hundreds of miles from their support networks. Children fall off NHS waiting lists every time they cross a borough boundary. And the system, at almost every point, fails them.
The report is available to read alongside this episode and we encourage you to do so. See it here: https://urbanhealth.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Impact-on-Urban-Health-Neurodivergent-Children-in-Temporary-Accommodation.pdf
Big thank you to Case Management Solutions Group Ltd and Alertacall Ltd for sponsoring The Social Housing Round Table, without them, none of this would be possible.

The Ripple Effect of Poor Conflict Management on Tenancy Sustainability

Most tenancy breakdowns don't start with a tenancy issue. They start with a noise complaint, a parking dispute or a falling out between neighbours - something that, with the right intervention at the right time, might never have escalated at all.
In episode 222 of The Social Housing Round Table, Matt Baird is joined by Kim Logan, MD of ADR Mediation and Training CIC, for an honest and practical conversation about what happens when conflict in a tenancy goes unmanaged, and why mediation is so often the last tool reached for rather than the first.
The session explores the ripple effect of unresolved neighbour disputes, how a single complaint can quietly spread into community tension, repeat contacts, and eventually enforcement action - and what a different approach might look like. Kim also shares why Conflict Resolution Week exists, and what she hopes it will shift across the sector.
With contributions from tenants, housing officers and local authority professionals in the room, this is a session that covers the full picture - and raises some important questions about how the sector currently responds to conflict, and how it could do better.
Big thank you to Case Management Solutions Group Ltd and Alertacall Ltd for sponsoring The Social Housing Round Table, without them, none of this would be possible.

How Does Effective Partnership Work Support Community Cohesion in Birmingham?

In this Social Housing Round Table session, hosted by Matt Baird, we were joined by Emma Peniket and Julie Smart from the Birmingham Social Housing Partnership to explore how effective partnership working can support community cohesion.
The discussion focused on what true collaboration looks like in practice, particularly within community safety and resident-first decision making. Emma and Julie shared how open communication, shared responsibility and a willingness to work beyond organisational boundaries are helping to create stronger outcomes for residents across Birmingham.
This session highlights what can happen when partnerships move beyond theory and into action, offering valuable insight for housing professionals looking to strengthen collaboration and deliver more joined-up services.
Big thank you to Case Management Solutions Group Ltd and Alertacall Ltd for sponsoring The Social Housing Round Table, without them, none of this would be possible.

Electrical Safety in The Social Housing Sector

Electrical safety in social housing has, for a long time, sat in the shadow of gas safety. Everyone knows the annual gas check. Far fewer give the same weight to electrical installations — installations that can harbour serious, hidden faults and show no outward signs of danger whatsoever.
That is beginning to change. New regulations are now coming into force that will require all social housing providers to have electrical installations inspected and tested every five years — and to get a copy of the certificate to tenants within 28 days.
In episode 220 of The Social Housing Round Table, Matt Baird is joined by Martin Simmonds, Head of M&E at a large housing association and Chair of the Electrical Safety Roundtable's Social Housing Subgroup, and Lana Adkin, Communications Officer at NAPIT and secretarial support for the ESR. Together, they walk through what the new regulations actually require, what the biggest operational challenges are, and how the Electrical Safety Roundtable has been working to support both landlords and tenants in meeting them.
The conversation covers what an electrical inspection involves and what the report codes mean, the scale of the access problem facing the sector, the free tenant education resources the ESR has developed — including an EasyRead document co-produced with adults with learning disabilities — and the thorny question of who is responsible when things go wrong.
It is a practical, grounded conversation on a topic that carries real consequences for residents living in social housing across the country. Well worth your time.
Big thank you to Case Management Solutions Group Ltd and Alertacall Ltd for sponsoring The Social Housing Round Table, without them, none of this would be possible.

Digital Transformation in Social Housing: Is it Actually Working for Tenants?

Digital transformation in social housing has been underway for years. New systems, new platforms, new technology landing in homes and housing offices across the country. But there's a question that doesn't get asked often enough: is any of it actually working for the people it's supposed to serve?
In episode 219 of The Social Housing Round Table, Matt Baird is joined by Stewart Davison, founder of The PropTech Peer Group, for an honest and wide-ranging conversation about where digital transformation is landing well, where it's falling short, and why residents and tenants are still so often an afterthought in the process.
The discussion covers the gap between what housing providers buy and what tenants actually need, the role of co-design in technology procurement, why smaller tech providers often get this right when larger ones don't, and what it would take to genuinely put residents at the heart of digital decision-making.
The session also features contributions from tenants and housing professionals in the room, including a candid account from a tenant about the real-life impact of technology imposed without her input.
Plenty to reflect on for anyone involved in technology, procurement or tenant engagement in the sector.
Big thank you to Case Management Solutions Group Ltd and Alertacall Ltd for sponsoring The Social Housing Round Table, without them, none of this would be possible.