Members only

The HQN Housing Management online Annual Conference on 27 February is the place to be to keep up to date with developments and give yourself the time and space to think and plan the changes you need to make. 

You’ll hear from innovators in the sector like Matthew Gardiner, Changemaker and Ian Wright of Disruptive Innovators Network, as well as experts like Debbie Larner on professionalism and practitioners from the likes of Hackney Council, Riverside, Greatwell Homes and Leeds Jewish Housing Association.

This year’s Tenant Satisfaction Measures will be finalised at the end of April giving you great insight into what needs work and what is going well, the Housing Ombudsman has been publishing recommendations like they are going out of fashion and complaints are rising.  Come and hear from colleagues and experts about how you make sense of all of that and implement change on the ground.  With reducing budgets and rising staff costs you can also hear how new technology and innovation can help you do more with less.

Take a step back and give yourself some time and space to think about how to prepare to meet the consumer standards, how to ensure you continue to learn and adapt as you begin to embed the tenant voice and customer feedback into improvements and how to embed the Housing Ombudsman’s expectations across your team’s work.

In this year’s annual conference, we’ll take a look at what landlords have been doing to ensure that tenants sit at the heart of decision-making – by restructuring services and embedding themselves in communities and share ideas and tips for changes that could really help you improve outcomes for tenants.

We’ll cover:

• The impact of regulatory changes on landlords – what have we done and what we still need to do
• Transformation in practice – how can we change the way we work at pace, to benefit staff and tenants
• The importance of clarity and communications on service standards and understanding tenant expectations
• Best practice on service delivery from across housing management
• How to change culture and attitudes of staff toward tenants and ensure a human-focused approach.

10.30 Chair’s welcome and introduction

• • Jackie Fearon, Director of Operations for Tenancy and Home Ownership, Hackney Council

10.40 Keynote speech on the impact of regulatory changes and how the sector can keep moving forward

• • Matthew Gardiner, Changemaker, Smart Home Advice

11.10 Reporting on the TSMs case study

• • Simon Phillips, Community Engagement Officer, Leeds Jewish Housing Association

11.40 Stonewater shares best practice around supporting vulnerable tenants including those impacted by domestic abuse

• • Helena Doyle, Customer Experience Director – Wellbeing and Support, Stonewater

  • Nicola Lambe, Head of Domestic Abuse, Stonewater

12.10 Panel discussion and reflection on the morning

12.30 Lunch

13.10 The Housing Ombudsman spotlight report: attitudes, respect and rights – relationship of equals

• • Victoria King, Sector Learning and Development Lead, Housing Ombudsman Service

13.40 Going beyond continuous improvement to innovation

• • Ian Wright, CEO, Disruptive Innovators Network

14.10 Cuckooing and the steps landlords can take to address it

• • Amy Tagoe, Senior Associate Solicitor and Head of Housing Management, MSB Solicitors

14.40 Panel discussion on recruitment and retention and preparing for mandatory qualifications

• • Maxine Cousens, Director of People and Culture, Riverside

  • Debbie Larner, Associate, HQN

  • Emma Withnell, Learning Technology and Partnerships Manager, LiveWest

15.10 Closing remarks from the Chair

• • Jackie Fearon, Director of Operations for Tenancy and Home Ownership, Hackney Council

15.15 Close

Ian Wright, CEO, Disruptive Innovators Network

Ian is the Founder and CEO of the Disruptive Innovators Network, a forum he established in 2018 for leaders wanting to understand and respond to disruption threats and take advantage of innovation opportunities. He has worked at senior executive level as a Deputy Chief Executive/Director for the last 20 years, most recently at HouseMark the UK social housing sectors data and business improvement organisation. His expertise lies in building cross sector business experience programmes and leaders’ networks.

In his work he has developed close partnerships with the likes of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, John Lewis, IKEA, Telefonica, AO.com and BT to name a few. He led on the establishment of the social housing sectors first crowd funded start up accelerator, Evolve. An innovative programme involving 18 social housing providers which attracted over 80 submissions from start-ups across the world wanting to develop solutions for social housing. He has a particular focus on business innovation, organisational culture, new technologies and the customer experience.

He has extensive relationships with a range of businesses sectors as well as a Directorship with boutique leadership consultancy, Unforgiving Minute, He is an innovation advisor for LMarks a start-up investment accelerator. From a social impact perspective, he also supports Social Enterprise UK. He is currently retained by a number of the largest Housing providers helping them build capacity and capability in the innovation space.

Simon Phillips, Community Engagement Officer, Leeds Jewish Housing Association

Simon Phillips is Community Engagement Officer at Leeds Jewish Housing Association (LJHA), a minority ethnic social housing provider providing homes predominantly for the Jewish community. The main focus of his role is empowering residents to have their voices heard on the services that matter to them. He oversees the Resident Engagement Strategy at LJHA. In conjunction with the Resident Consultative Group, he helped to devise the Listening to Residents Action Plan, which was influenced by the Tenant Satisfaction Measures survey carried out at the end of 2022. He is currently working on the Tenant Satisfaction Measures survey for 2023/24.

Simon has a passion for the importance of resident engagement and has delivered inputs to staff and other local and national networks on the importance of accessible communication and information across all frontline housing services.

Debbie Larner, Associate, HQN

Debbie has been working in social housing for over 30 years – most of which was spent at CIH as Head of Practice. Debbie has led the sector’s work on professional standards and has also been focusing on building/fire safety since the Grenfell Tower disaster. She was a key member of the Industry Steering Group focusing on the role and the competency of the Building Safety Manager. For HQN, Debbie has been focusing on building safety and disrepair as part of her lead associate role – hosting workshops on a range of topical issues, including health and safety compliance.

Victoria King, Sector Learning and Development Lead, Housing Ombudsman Service

Victoria King is the Sector Learning and Development Lead at the Housing Ombudsman Service. She joined the Service in January 2023 having worked for 6 years at the UK Health Security Agency in Global Health and Emergency Preparedness Resilience and Response. Victoria has experience in various Learning and Development roles, including Financial Services Complaints and as a course tutor in A Level Criminology. Victoria is part of the Quality, Engagement and Development Department, and is part of the team developing the Housing Ombudsman Service’ Centre for Learning, which will share learning from complaints and drive positive complaint handling across the sector. The function also provides insight into service provision from themes and trends in complaints to facilitate sector learning and a positive complaints culture for landlords and governance.

Matthew Gardiner, Changemaker, Smart Home Advice

Matthew Gardiner is a sector “lifer”, joining the then Housing Corporation in 1978.  He is an experienced facilitator, accomplished CEO and experienced NED who has worked in London, Liverpool and Manchester.

Most recently, he led Trafford Housing Trust from transfer from Trafford Council to the successful transition of the organization into the L&Q Group.

He became Head of Ideation at L&Q, exploring how housing associations should prepare for a very different future in the 5-10 year time horizon, as societal patterns change, innovations advance and new technologies become available.

Now with a portfolio career, he is an Associate Director at DIN, acts as an Advisory Board member and Risk Committee Chair for Complete Technology Group – a telecommunications infrastructure company – and has his own consultancy, Smart Home Advice Ltd, through which he promotes the use of modern proptech, and coaches and mentors future leaders.

Amy Tagoe, Senior Associate Solicitor and Head of Housing Management, MSB Solicitors

Amy Tagoe, a Senior Associate Solicitor at MSB Solicitors with 18 years social housing litigation experience, heads the Housing Management team within the Social Housing and Regeneration Department. Amy’s wealth of experience has established her as an expert in her field enabling her to provide valuable insight into the core topics faced by Social Housing providers. Amy understands the importance of increasing awareness of cuckooing in social housing so that staff, other residents and community groups spot the signs, to ensure that incidents are reported and investigated. Amy’s session hopes to provide the tools RP’s can utilise to tackle such an important issue.

Jackie Fearon, Director of Operations for Tenancy and Home Ownership, Hackney Council

Maxine Cousens, Director of People and Culture, Riverside

Emma Withnell, Learning Technology and Partnerships Manager, LiveWest

Helena Doyle, Customer Experience Director – Wellbeing and Support, Stonewater

Nicola Lambe, Head of Domestic Abuse, Stonewater

If you are unable to attend an event or public training course, please let us know in writing (email is fine) at least 48 hours before. Please email [email protected]

Otherwise, a cancellation fee of £60 plus VAT will be chargeable.

If you are using a package place to attend and do not inform us within the agreed time frame, then a place will be taken to cover your non-attendance.

Cancellations must be made in writing, and will be acknowledged by HQN Limited.