There are moments in any of our lives where we realise that we have been blind to something that we really should have known about because it is life affirming, positive and humbling.

So it was in the last few days when I had the opportunity to spend some time at one of the IHSCM’s social housing association partners, Trivallis, to learn more about their approach to collaborative communication and the relationships that they seek to develop with their tenants. I rocked up thinking that I knew something about social housing – and within minutes I realised that my reservoir of knowledge was as empty as a Derbyshire reservoir in our Spring drought. Unless you physically work in the sector, I simply can’t believe that anyone really knows what it is like.

Local authorities have borne the brunt of budget reductions over the last 15 years. The Institute of Fiscal Studies research report from December last year highlighted that over the period from 2010 to 2025, council’s overall core funding will be 9% lower in real terms and 18% lower in real terms per person than at the start of the 2010s. Just between 2020 and 2023 the number of children in secure units or children’s homes rose over 30% (as did those children with education, health& care plans), while the number of homeless households in B&Bs doubled between 2019 and 2023.  The cost of care home placements for adults over the age of 65 rose 35% just between 2019 and 2023. In Wales and over the same 15 years from 2010 to 2025, spending on services has decreased by 42% compared to what it would have been if spending had kept pace with cost and demand pressures. That decrease equates to £24.5 billion in service cuts (Cardiff University research). Scotland and Northern Ireland have both experienced similar cost and demand pressures.

You can imagine, or you might even have personally experienced, therefore, just how difficult and challenging it is for local authorities to provide safe, affordable housing for all those who seek their help. Add into that the complexities of family life, mental health, drug or alcohol dependency, community relationships, physical disability, abuse of all types, and more. Now add in the myriads of communication, approval and monitoring networks and systems required to meet quality and regulatory compliance and statutory responsibilities. And at the end of this, with all the boxes ticked and approvals achieved, the bundle of bureaucracy masquerading as humanity is handed from the local authority to the social housing association and they must find a way to engage, support, reassure, and provide the housing solution that is at the apex of the individual person’s public health need.

I heard extraordinary, worked experience stories from housing officers, tenant support workers, maintenance teams and tenant representatives. I will not breach the confidentiality that any of these demands, but I can tell you that the sheer complexity of the individual situations that they each deal with is incredible. More importantly, the difference that they make to people’s lives is emotionally so powerful as to be indescribable in the parameters of my editorial. I know that it’s not a competition, but the relief, joy, wellbeing, and health that these combined teams bring to some of the most vulnerable people in our society is just as valuable as a complex operation performed by a skilled surgeon.

The overriding theme is team. Each of the people that they support may well require interaction with multiple agencies and, to be clear, those agencies are not connected by a sophisticated patient record system. Their tool of choice is the telephone. Their emotion of vocation is kindness. Their KPI is tenant happiness.

I well remember listening to the ex-CEO of the once cherished organisation that was Public Health England, Duncan Selbie, and him quoting Kant’s rules of happiness – that to feel happy, each of us needs three basic things: someone to love, something to do and somewhere to live. My sight has been enabled as to the excellence of social housing providers and local authorities in delivering the latter in sometimes extraordinarily demanding circumstances. I really believe that social housing is just as much part of the health and care system as is an acute hospital and my thanks to Trivallis for helping me understand that. Do please drop me a line if you would like to comment – [email protected].

Stay safe, stay strong, and thank you for the brilliant work you are all doing.

Jon Wilks

CEO