How can we make sure compliance creates the space for social housing to make an even bigger difference to people and communities? By Caroline Gitsham FCIH
Social housing has always been about more than providing a physical home. At its best, it creates opportunities, strengthens communities and changes lives.
Of course, none of this is possible without getting the fundamentals right. Safe homes, effective repairs, gas and fire safety, and meeting our regulatory responsibilities must always come first. These are essential foundations, not optional extras.
But I sometimes wonder whether, as a sector, we have become so focused on demonstrating that we are doing the right things that we risk losing sight of why we wanted to do them in the first place.
I started my career in housing working on reception in an office that was a converted house in the middle of a priority estate in the 1980s, and I saw how good housing management coupled with genuinely co-created community development could transform lives, strengthen communities and create opportunities. That early experience shaped my belief in the wider purpose of social housing – a belief that has stayed with me throughout my career.
Getting the fundamentals right
The regulatory environment in social housing has evolved considerably, with frameworks, standards and assurance processes covering everything from building safety to service quality. Expectations on housing providers are rightly high, and the consequences of getting things wrong can be significant.
Good frameworks provide assurance, expertise and consistency, helping organisations meet their obligations without reinventing the wheel. When we can be confident that the essentials are being managed properly, we can focus on the wider challenges and opportunities facing our communities.
The difficulty comes when compliance starts to feel like the end goal rather than the foundation for everything else.
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We can become very good at demonstrating that we have met a requirement, completed a process or achieved a target. Yet ticking a box and making a lasting difference are not necessarily the same thing. Nowhere is this tension more apparent than in social value.
When social value becomes another compliance exercise
Social value has rightly become a more prominent part of procurement, with growing expectations for organisations to demonstrate the wider benefits of their spending.
Frameworks and measurement tools play an important role in recording, measuring and reporting those benefits. They help organisations understand what is being delivered and provide evidence that commitments are being met. If we claim to create social value, we should be able to demonstrate it.
However, there is a risk that focusing too heavily on measurement can diminish the energy and ambition behind the work itself.
Many people enter social housing because they want to make a difference. Reporting and accountability are important, but they are not the whole reason for doing what we do. People are motivated by the belief that housing organisations can be a force for good: supporting individuals to overcome barriers, creating opportunities and making communities better places to live.
We must ensure that the systems designed to demonstrate our impact do not inadvertently distract us from that purpose. Rather than asking ourselves whether we can prove we have delivered social value, we should ask whether we are doing everything reasonably possible to make that value meaningful.
From ticking boxes to changing lives
The opportunity for social housing extends well beyond providing homes and maintaining buildings.
Housing associations are often deeply rooted in their communities. They understand local challenges, build relationships with residents and partners, and can influence outcomes far beyond housing itself. Procurement gives us an opportunity to use our spending power to support that wider ambition.
This could mean creating employment opportunities for people who have struggled to access the jobs market, opening doors for young people excluded from mainstream education, or supporting people leaving the criminal justice system to build a different future.
Throughout my career, I’ve been involved in a range of training, employment and enterprise programmes, working with people facing multiple barriers to employment – often barriers I hadn’t fully appreciated or even considered before. These experiences have taught me that no two journeys are the same, and that the support and effort needed to achieve sustained employment can vary enormously from one person to another.
Progress is rarely linear. Sometimes it’s two steps forward and one step back; at other times, it can feel like one step forward and two steps back. But that doesn’t mean progress isn’t happening. If we focus solely on the final outcome, we risk overlooking the determination, resilience and distance travelled by the individual to get there. The real impact isn’t always captured by the end result; sometimes, it lies in just how far someone has come to reach it.
These are not just activities to record in a report. They are opportunities to change lives, strengthen communities and address the structural barriers that hold people back.
This is where social value becomes particularly exciting. It moves beyond contractual commitments and becomes part of a broader conversation about how we use available resources to create lasting change.
It also offers social housing leaders the chance to reconnect with the ambition that brought many of them into the sector: doing something genuinely worthwhile.
The role of procurement
Procurement has a significant role to play. The challenge is not to choose between compliance and creativity; we need both. Robust processes, clear accountability and confidence that our obligations are being met are essential. But we must also create the conditions in which social value can flourish.
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That means looking beyond the immediate transaction and asking what else our procurement activity could achieve. It means working with partners who understand social housing, know how to embed social value into procurement and can turn good intentions into practical outcomes.
This is one reason organisations such as Procure Plus are important. Their expertise in social housing procurement can help providers navigate complexity and meet their requirements with confidence, while creating opportunities for wider social impact.
Compliance should be something we can rely on. Getting the fundamentals right should be embedded in how we work, rather than consuming all our time and attention. The bigger opportunity lies in what this enables us to do next.
By working with partners who understand both procurement and social value, housing providers can access expertise, opportunities and networks that might otherwise be difficult to develop independently. This support can help deliver meaningful outcomes while allowing providers to decide how closely they want to be involved in individual initiatives.
In other words, we can have confidence that the essentials are covered while remaining ambitious about what comes beyond them.
Rediscovering the joy in what we do
Over the years, expectations of social housing have shifted. At times, the emphasis has been on the sector’s wider role as a community anchor; at others, the message has been to concentrate on core responsibilities such as collecting rents, maintaining homes and delivering repairs.
The reality is that we need to do both.
Residents must be able to rely on safe, well-maintained homes and organisations that meet the highest appropriate standards. But social housing also has the potential to contribute so much more.
When we get the foundations right, social value can become more than a demonstration of compliance. It can create opportunities that would not otherwise exist, help people overcome barriers and enable communities to achieve lasting change.
That is the opportunity in front of us. Frameworks, measures and processes remain crucial in providing assurance and accountability, but their greatest value comes when they help us achieve something more meaningful.
Ultimately, we should ask ourselves not only whether we have ticked every box, but what more we can do and how we can create greater value for tenants.
The real success of social housing is dependent on going further than just meeting obligations. We have to use our resources, relationships and influence to make a genuine difference to people’s lives and communities.
And we should never lose sight of the ambition, creativity and joy that make that possible.
