The Vanguard Scotland Housing Reports

Following a report from the Scottish Housing Regulator highlighting the breadth of failures in the housing system we have decided to intervene and offer our expertise gained through years of housing sector consulting.

In a short series of 3 free reports we challenge the assumptions around how to design and run social housing systems and offer answers on how to run them better and cheaper.

The reports cover

  • Why more information technology is not the answer
  • Why outsourcing will increase costs not save money
  • Why setting targets for doing a repair (regulator recommendation) will increase the time to complete
  • Why using schedule of rates codes increases costs and decreases service
  • Why housing voids don’t work and what to do about it
  • Why taking people to court costs more money for less rent
  • How most authorities and RSLs have failed by putting the wrong staff at front of house

Report 1: ‘Failing in Housing; failing to learn’

Open Housing Report 1 (PDF)

Report 2: ‘Common Reasons Why Public Sector Housing Services are Failing

In this report we cover the 3 most commonly encountered areas of difficulty and offer some solutions.

Open Housing Report 2 (PDF)

Report 3: Real Life Results

For this final report in our series we have an interview with Graeme Hamilton, Business Improvement Leader at the Glasgow Housing Association, one of the largest social landlords in Europe.

This indepth interview gives great insights into the kind of results a Systems Thinking approach can give in a housing environment and what it takes to get them.

We have split the interview into 2 parts to make it quicker for you to download.

Part One: