In the first of a new feature of online interviews, we turn the spotlight on to Ralph Catto, Chief Executive of Scout Solutions.
Before forming Scout Solutions, Ralph spent about 12 years in the city and was a director of the UK's largest firm of private client stockbrokers. He steered many multi-million pound transactions and his sectors of focus were IT, Residential Property and Leisure. He is a Member of the Securities Institute. He has been a non-director of a quoted company and has served as a committee member to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England & Wales.
Reflecting on his days in the city, Ralph said: "I enjoyed it but it did not address my desire to be significant in what I do alongside being successful. I have a Christian conviction and believe you need to use your skills not for self-fulfilment and advancement but to affect others in a positive way."
Outside of work, Ralph is busy with a family of two small children. His key leisure interest is skiing, having skied for over 25 years. He was an instructor in his youth.
This Housing Monthly Diary interview focuses on Ralph's career involvement in the social housing sector.
HMD: With your career in the city, what drew you to the social housing sector?
RC: Starting in 2000, Scout Solutions has focused on providing good IT solutions to the social housing sector. My fellow executive director, John Carthew, was from a social housing background and has a desire to give better service to the sector than he experienced when he was in it. Scout Solutions started shortly after the Internet became a viable business tool, so we have focused on Internet delivered solutions that allow organisations to share information and improve customer service.
The social housing connection came from a combination of factors. We had a huge knowledge of the residential sector. John's background was in social housing. Choice-based Lettings was in its infancy and mainstream IT providers didn't know how to proactively market property.
However, deeper than this is a desire to use the power of business to affect society in a positive way. Housing is a fundamental need forpeople and from our initial look at the sector, the customers (both landlords and ultimately tenants) were not getting a good deal.
HMD: HomeSwapper has attracted media attention - what impact has this new service had for you?
RC: HomeSwapper.co.uk is our latest venture, which was established to replace the Homeswap mutual exchange service, which was closed in January. Without it there would be no professional national mutual exchange service for tenants and landlords. HomeSwapper has become the UK's replacement service with over 40,000 tenants joining in just a few months. Already the service has found one million potential swaps.
What excites us is how this success translates into outcomes:
The ethos of our business is described as "to make a difference in people's lives by blending commercial and social strategies". HomeSwapper fits perfectly with this.
HMD: IT has taken us a long way from the early manual mutual exchange system - what sort of progress has HomeSwapper introduced and what new developments do you envisage in the next five years or so?
RC: Well, the biggest move forward for a long time has just happened with the launch of HomeSwapper. Although based on the closed Homeswap service, it takes huge strides forward in a number of ways.
1. National and LOCAL mutual exchange: For a long time Homeswap was marketed only as a long distance mutual exchange tool, but there was no reason not to use it as a mutual exchange to move down the street. HomeSwapper is for any tenant wanting to move any distance - its 3D. Let me explain what I mean by 3D. A landlord running its own mutual exchange system often allows its tenants only to swap with its tenants in the area the landlord operates - 1 dimensional - 1D. With HomeSwapper you get 3D:
The critical mass the 3D effect creates translates into outcome - over 2 in 3 people who register with HomeSwapper get at least one match within 24 hours!
2. Improved matching: Rather than once every 6 weeks, as Homeswap did, HomeSwapper searches for new possible swaps ('matches') for members every night. All new members and every member that has changed their preferences will be checked against every other member to ensure nothing is missed.
3. Easy access to information: To check your matches on the old Homeswap system you had to run a search for each of the (up to 9) areas you stated you wanted to live - better than a manual process but laborious none the less. With HomeSwapper all matches are recorded (for all the areas a member is interested in) and available at any time to members by logging in to their own private area of HomeSwapper.
4. More (& more) communication: With Homeswap members got contacted only every 6 weeks. Whereas HomeSwapper alerts members up to twice a week if they have matches. In addition, we have also new communication channels of email and text match alerts, as well as still providing letters as an optional service to landlords who partner with HomeSwapper.
5. Easier to use website: Accessibility standards change and HomeSwapper has the appropriate accreditation.
As for the future, I think a step change will be to be far more consultative. Homeswap was what government thought landlords and tenants wanted from a mutual exchange solution. HomeSwapper does not have the constraints Government has to operate under, so HomeSwapper asks tenants/landlords what they want more directly and far more often. HomeSwapper can react to feedback quickly, as it does almost weekly. On many occasions we've made improvements at the suggestion of landlords (on certain occasions it has helped them with their impending inspections).
Looking into the future, I would always sound a note of caution on technology. I am not a technologist and all too often I have seen or read of IT projects that have got carried away with what technology could do - only to launch clever IT projects that are impractical when examined against the backdrop of day to day operations. So in looking to the future I'd look at (a) what are the existing operational problems that remain to be cracked and (b) what technology will be coming along anyway that can be harnessed?
An existing problem is accessibility to information on potential swaps for those without regular, or any Internet access. For some groups, engaging in technology is off limits and printed information (letter or lists) will remain the best way to service them. HomeSwapper already caters for this, but we need to partner with landlords to ensure all the tenants get access to these services. I doubt technology will solve that issue completely - there will always be a requirement for paper-based information for some people.
However, I think as mobile phones turn more and more into fully functioning computers with good Internet access, those able to access current (and future) HomeSwapper features via the Internet will increase as a percentage of all tenants.
I think having more information available in different languages will be something technology will feature in more and more. Its expensive and time consuming to have pages of text interpreted. Plus, for a fast moving website the page may have changed a 2nd time by the time the 1st translations are back. I expect instant translation of text to be increasingly a software delivery solution. Already there is some pretty sophisticated stuff out there, but there is a way to go yet before we get near perfect translation in real time.
We're always looking at a number of things and have others waiting for technology or affordability to catch up - we have to weigh (a) effectiveness, (b) number of potential users and (c) cost. Ultimately cost must get passed on to landlords or tenants, so there is no point in having a great solution that no one can afford.
An example of something we've looked at is improving accessibility by giving telephone access to the database. Members could then call in via any telephone and login via the number keypad. Then they could use a spoken keypad driven menu to check on their membership e.g. 'press 1 to listen to any new matches you have.' Sounds easy but once you get through the standard menus you've got an electronic voice reading unique property data from the database - including some tongue twister addresses - and it needs to be understood. That's not so easy.
Something we'd also like to crack is a way to weed out time-wasters without unfairly penalising people - perhaps a rating system on how serious a potential swapper is judged to be by other members, something along an eBay rating system maybe.
HMD: Can the HomeSwapper service be improved and if so, how?
RC: HomeSwapper is a great leap forward, but all things can be improved - we're making changes to it every week. HomeSwapper changes by listening to its tenant and landlord customers plus analysing how they use the service, then finding the balance to deliver what they want.
As already mentioned above, we'll probably always be looking for ways to improve accessibility, to seek to ensure the maximum number of tenants can benefit from the service.
But there are other, less obvious angels. For example, I think HomeSwapper's data can be mined to contribute to the picture of demand trends. Take London for instance, HomeSwapper has tens of thousands wanting to move into or within London. Is there another single source of up-to-date data that can be so easily mined to create a demand profile - where is the demand hot spots? how many bedrooms? etc - that could inform many areas of how landlords operate, building plans for example
HMD: How will you measure the success of HomeSwapper and have you set any targets?
RC: Recently it's not a case of setting targets, but constantly having to set new targets as existing ones are over whelmed. The reception HomeSwapper has had has been fantastic. Tenant registrations have been at double the rate experienced by Homeswap. Within weeks of launching the landlord side of HomeSwapper it was well on the way to three figures on how many landlords were signing up.
Day to day, week to week, we measure performance across many areas. The critical one is moves achieved. Historically Homeswap was only able to capture data on a small proportion of those who had moved. HomeSwapper will encounter the same difficulty but we have built in ways to improve 'move monitoring' which will in time provide good data. The great news is already every month hundreds of families are swapping to new homes through HomeSwapper, and these are just the ones we're told about.
Another key measure is how many landlords have partnered with HomeSwapper. Lots have partnered very quickly, but there are two key reasons to push for many more:
The level of landlord interest is very encouraging in this regard. We recently ran an informal event for landlords to come along to learn more about HomeSwapper - 75 people turned up! Also the CIH conference in Harrogate saw the HomeSwapper team working almost without a break on its stand to meet the demand for more information and demonstrations.
HMD: Can we finish with a few quick questions? What has damaged social housing in the UK most?
RC: Insufficient Government direction and planning failures to ensure the building of an appropriate number of new homes.
HMD: What one thing could improve social housing the most?
RC: 500,000 new homes appropriately spread across the UK.
Who has made a significant contribution to social housing and why?
RC: I think the unsung heroes of the sector are the thousands and thousands of front office staff. The balancing act of professionalism, service and compassion is not an easy one.