North Star Housing won the bronze award in the innovation category of the inaugural Housing Technology 2024 awards. Sean Lawless and James Walder from North Star Housing explain more about their award-winning programme.
At North Star Housing, we embarked on a transformative journey to replace our legacy housing management system with Microsoft Dynamics, with the goal of implementing a module which would provide immediate and significant benefits to the business. We decided to go live first with our complaints module, allowing users to familiarise themselves with Dynamics, before transitioning to our compliance module.
Compliance administration, particularly without a direct labour organisation (DLO), can be intricate and cumbersome. Our existing reporting system was slow and our entire compliance process was perceived as being too complicated. Internally, compliance has always been a challenging area, requiring in-depth knowledge of our legacy system. The complexity of this process added a layer of difficulty to compliance reporting. To ascertain compliance status, lengthy reports had to be generated, filtered and summarised.
Creating a streamlined solution
Understanding these challenges, we aimed to streamline the compliance process to enhance the efficiency of our compliance team. Our objective was to standardise the compliance process across various items and improve the overall management of workloads.
Collaborating with Infinity Group, we developed a solution focused on all aspects of compliance. Our new system follows a comprehensive cycle:
- Job ticket generation – The system generates a job ticket for a contractor to attend a property for servicing a compliance area 90 days in advance.
- Tenant contact and escalation – The contractors contact tenants to gain access. If immediate access isn’t possible, the contractors use a simple system connection to update us on the escalation phase, including any letters sent.
- Certificate upload – Once the job is complete, the contractors upload their certificates to SharePoint.
- AI-assisted assurance check – Microsoft AI performs an assurance check on the certificate, verifying the UPRN, matching property address, validity date, signature and specific compliance details (e.g. verifying boiler details for gas compliance).
- Automatic processing – If the certificate passes all checks, details are automatically uploaded to Dynamics, the job moves to a ‘ready to invoice’ stage and the certificate is saved against the property and tenancy in Dynamics, resetting the compliance cycle.
- Error handling – If any checks fail, the certificate moves to a failed folder for review and correction by our compliance team.
In addition to these steps, the AI scans the certifications for any remedial measures required. For example, in fire risk assessments, the AI extracts details of each recommendation, priority and deadline for the compliance surveyor’s review.
Comprehensive coverage and real-time reporting
This new process covers most compliance areas including: gas certification; commercial gas certification; electrical installation condition reports (EICR) for minor and major works; fire maintenance; fire risk assessments; portable appliance testing (PAT); lift testing and regulations; and legionella.
Our reporting for each compliance area is now real-time and user-friendly. We’ve created views for each compliance area, indicating if a property is compliant, non-compliant or nearing non-compliance. Additionally, all data is connected to a live PowerBI dashboard, offering a comprehensive view of compliance data for our entire business.
Impact on the compliance team
We manage over 4,000 properties and our compliance team includes a manager, surveyor and two administrators. Before this transformation, the team spent a lot of time (around 24 hours per week per administrator) manually uploading, checking and logging compliance items.
Since implementing the new module in November 2023, the team now only spends nine hours per week on these same processes. This shift allows the team to focus on assurance checking rather than being overwhelmed by bulk data-processing.
The increased efficiency has enabled the team to tackle additional projects. For example, we have initiated a new tree management programme for a forest on one of our estates, a task previously earmarked for external consultants but now handled in-house. The compliance team will also manage the new damp, mould and condensation (DMC) module in Dynamics, enhancing the monitoring and reporting of DMC beyond the day-to-day repairs team.
Revolutionary results
By leveraging AI, we have introduced a level of assurance to our certification checking that was previously unattainable. This innovation mitigates the risk associated with compliance management and focuses the compliance team’s attention on critical areas, while efficiently processing satisfactory certificates in bulk.
The time savings achieved have allowed our compliance team to concentrate on other essential areas with greater detail and dedication. This transformation underscores the power of AI in revolutionising compliance management and creating a more efficient, effective and focused team at North Star Housing.
Sean Lawless is the director of insight and transformation and James Walder is the executive director of finance and business support at North Star Housing. The housing provider won the bronze award for innovation at the inaugural Housing Technology 2024 awards.
