A new report from Housemark and Tribal Consulting concludes that housing associations are wasting vast amounts of time and money because their computer systems are not good enough.
Findings of the report - RSLs and IT: Operating Costs, Usage and Suppliers - include:
The report also finds that the financial performance of some suppliers is beginning to deteriorate. It suggests that RSLs should consider giving time to investigate the supplier as well as the product when buying a new system.
It also notes that the movement towards mergers and group structures is causing inertia in respect of IT system procurement.
A survey into the approaches to the management of housing improvement programmes showed that most housing organizations have several different sources of information which hold details about the programme. This, the report adds, leads to many inefficiencies in keeping track of the progress for the programme.
As an overview, the report comments that current products are not, on the whole, meeting users' requirements. In particular, there is a frustration about difficulty in integrating or interfacing asset management systems with housing management or works management systems, which can mean duplicate data inputting. In some cases, problems linking systems together meant there had been a failure to provide "key information to the housing system about the warranty details of major improvement work".
