Calderbrook Housing Group / BG-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Calderbrook Housing Group · 2 Dec 2024 12:00
Helen Marsden queried a small repairs backlog gap in the board pack. Daniel Okafor showed the connector loading nightly and one job that was a timing difference. Adoption is rising and the account is quiet on tickets and payments.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Helen Marsden queried a small repairs backlog gap in the board pack. Daniel Okafor showed the connector loading nightly and one job that was a timing difference. Adoption is rising and the account is quiet on tickets and payments.
What happened: Helen found the brain showed slightly fewer open repairs than the housing system and asked to see the source. Daniel showed the repairs connector loading every night and one job that was a timing difference.
Customer view: Helen is pleased with adoption, with the neighbourhoods and income teams asking questions unprompted. She wants the arrears work shown to the board.
Commercial: Daniel confirmed Growth at £44k, with the order form and invoices agreeing and nothing outstanding. The renewal is next September and was framed as a conversation about what has been useful.
Watch: One job does not prove the whole gap, so the line-by-line must hold up. Helen will warn BG-Demo if complaint categories change.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Repairs reconciliation and adoption
Importance
praise
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Daniel Okafor to send the line-by-line repairs reconciliation by Wednesday, with the extract time on every line.
- Daniel Okafor to offer January dates for an hour-long income team training session.
- Daniel Okafor to spend half an hour with Helen's analyst making the arrears question repeatable.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- An unexplained gap between the brain and the housing system in a board paper would undermine trust in the figures.
- A change to complaint categories could make trend lines jump and be read as a data fault.
- Only around seven people are active, so value rests on a small group and on Helen as sponsor.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Training for the income team on arrears could widen use well inside the forty licensed users.
- A repeatable arrears and repairs question could give Helen a board story to support the renewal.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforHello Helen, can you hear me all right? I think I've just come through.
Helen MarsdenYes, loud and clear. Hello Daniel. Sorry, I'm eating a sandwich at my desk, so you'll have to forgive me if I go quiet.- Daniel OkaforNot at all, it's lunchtime, that's the whole point of a twelve o'clock slot. Thank you for making the time. I'll just check who's joined. It's only the two of us, is that right? I wasn't sure whether anyone from your team might drop in.
- Helen MarsdenJust me today. One of the analysts wanted to come but he's out visiting a site with the repairs team, so I said I'd take notes and pass things on.
- Daniel OkaforThat's fine. And how was your week? You said last time you had the board cycle coming up.
- Helen MarsdenYes, that's actually where I'd like to start, if that's all right. I've got a figure I've been chasing since Thursday. In section four of the board pack, the repairs backlog, the number we pulled out of the brain and the number in the housing management system didn't reconcile. Not by much, but the board will ask.
- Daniel OkaforRight. Okay. I'm glad you raised it straight away. Do you remember whether the gap was in one direction, or did it move about?
- Helen MarsdenOne direction. The brain was showing slightly fewer open jobs than the housing system. So my first thought was that something wasn't loading, but then I thought, no, let me look at it properly before I email anyone.
- Daniel OkaforWhich is exactly what I'd have hoped you'd do. So what did you find?
- Helen MarsdenWell, I want to be careful. I think it's a timing thing. The housing system counts a job as open until the contractor closes it on their side, and our extract runs overnight. So a job closed during the day appears closed in one and open in the other until the refresh. But I can't tell you that for certain, and I'd rather not put it in a board paper as a guess. Can you show me the source?
- Daniel OkaforOf course. Let me share my screen and we'll go through it together. Bear with me a second, I'll find the connector page. Can you see that?
- Helen MarsdenI can see a list of connectors. Yes, that's it.
- Daniel OkaforSo this is the repairs source. You can see the last successful load and the records indexed, and the refresh has been completing every night for as long as I can scroll back. Nothing has failed, nothing has been skipped. So that rules out the thing you were worried about, that something stopped loading.
- Helen MarsdenMm. That's helpful. So the records are arriving.
- Daniel OkaforThey're arriving. Now, the other half, the timing. If I open one of the jobs in question, there's a last-updated stamp coming from the source system, not from us. Pick me a job reference that was in the difference, if you have one to hand.
- Helen MarsdenHold on, let me find my notes. I've got a couple written down. Right. I'll read you one of the references. It's the boiler replacement on the Harehills estate.
- Daniel OkaforGo ahead and read it out and I'll search.
- Helen MarsdenSorry, I was squinting at my own handwriting. Yes, it's the one ending in the contractor code, I'll paste it into the chat now.
- Daniel OkaforGot it, thank you. Right, so here it is. And you can see the status is open, and the source system's own update stamp is late afternoon on the day before your pack was produced. So the brain has the job exactly as it was at the last refresh. The contractor closed it in your housing system after that.
- Helen MarsdenSo it is a timing difference. Not a missing record.
- Daniel OkaforThat's what this one says. I'd want to be honest with you that one job doesn't prove the whole gap. What I can do is go through the full list you were worried about and tell you, line by line, which are timing and which, if any, are not. Would that be useful for the pack?
- Helen MarsdenIt would be very useful. Because if I can say in the note that every difference is explained by the refresh time, with the extract time printed next to it, then the board is content. They don't mind a difference. They mind a difference nobody can explain.
- Daniel OkaforThat's well put. I'll come back to you by Wednesday with the line-by-line, and I'll put the refresh time on it so you can quote it. And if there is one that doesn't fit, I'll tell you plainly and we'll look at it with your analyst.
- Helen MarsdenThank you. That's what I wanted. I'll stop there on that one, and you'll forgive me if I come back to it at the end.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. Shall we look at how the team is getting on more generally? Just to close the loop on the quarter, really. How is the team finding it?
- Helen MarsdenBetter than I expected, if I'm honest. When we started I thought it would be me and one analyst using it and everyone else would carry on with their spreadsheets. But the neighbourhoods team have started asking it questions about complaints, and the income team are using it for arrears. I didn't ask them to. They just heard about it.
- Daniel OkaforThat's lovely to hear. And it matches what I see on the usage side. The number of people actually active in a typical month is roughly seven now, which is nearly four times what it was the previous quarter. That is a big move in a short time.
- Helen MarsdenSeven. Right. It feels like more than that when I'm answering emails about it.
- Daniel OkaforWell, some of them will be people dipping in, and the average smooths it out. But it's the direction that matters. And you've got forty licensed users, so there's a good deal of room before anyone is anywhere near a limit.
- Helen MarsdenYes. I did wonder about that. I'm a bit wary of just handing out logins to everyone, though. I'd like people to understand what it's for first, otherwise they ask it something vague, get a vague answer and decide it doesn't work.
- Daniel OkaforI think that's wise. And that's partly why I wanted to ask. Is there anything you'd like us to do on training? We can do a short session for the neighbourhoods team or the income team, whichever you think would get the most out of it.
- Helen MarsdenThe income team, I think. They're the ones who most want to slice arrears by estate and by tenancy age, and at the moment they're doing it by hand and then asking me whether the number is right. If they could see where the number comes from they'd trust it.
- Daniel OkaforThen we'll do that. A walk-through of how to ask, how to read the source underneath an answer, and what the nightly refresh means for the figures they see. Around an hour, on a video call, nothing heavy. I'll send you a couple of dates for January and you can choose what suits them.
- Helen MarsdenJanuary is better, yes. December is chaos with the year-end returns.
- Daniel OkaforUnderstood. Let me ask about tickets while I think of it. I looked before the call and there's nothing from you in the last month at all, no questions and no problems. Is that because everything's quiet, or because things have been annoying and you haven't wanted to bother us?
- Helen MarsdenQuiet, genuinely. I'd tell you otherwise. If something stops working I'm usually quite quick to say. The repairs gap was the only thing and I wanted to look into it myself first.
- Daniel OkaforGood. Though do bring me that sort of thing earlier next time, even if it turns out to be nothing. It costs us a few minutes and it saves you a weekend.
- Helen MarsdenFair point. I will.
- Daniel OkaforCan I ask about the arrears work a bit more, because you mentioned it? Which systems are feeding that at the moment?
- Helen MarsdenThe housing system for the balances, and the rent account extracts, and then the complaints and tenant call records on the other side. That's the whole point, being able to say, for tenants in arrears, how many have also rung us about repairs, and whether the complaint came before or after. Nobody could answer that before.
- Daniel OkaforAnd is that the picture that's going in the pack?
- Helen MarsdenPart of it. There's a page in the tenant section that I want to build around it. The chair of the committee asked a question in the summer that we simply couldn't answer, and I would like to be able to answer it next time. That's the sort of thing the brain is for, as far as I'm concerned.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a very good use of it. If you want, I can sit with your analyst for half an hour and set up the question so that it's repeatable, rather than something he has to re-run by hand every cycle.
- Helen MarsdenYes, please. He'd welcome that. I'll ask him to send you what he's got so far.
- Daniel OkaforLovely. Now, one small thing on the commercial side, just so nothing surprises you later. You're on Growth at forty-four thousand a year, the order form and the invoices agree, and there's nothing outstanding on your account. Which is exactly how it should look.
- Helen MarsdenOur finance team did mention it had all gone through without any chasing. They like that.
- Daniel OkaforGood. The renewal isn't until next September, so there's plenty of time. I'll raise it with you properly well ahead of then, and I won't leave it to the last minute. But I wanted you to know I'm thinking about it as a conversation about what's been useful, not a form to sign.
- Helen MarsdenThat's reassuring. I'd want to have the arrears work done and shown to the board by then, so I can say what it's produced.
- Daniel OkaforThen that's a good thing for us to aim at together. A story you can tell your board in your own words, with the numbers behind it.
- Helen MarsdenYes. And I should say, I do think the people side has been good. You've been quick when I've needed something. The analyst said the same.
- Daniel OkaforThat's kind of you, thank you. I'll pass it on to the engineers too, they'll like hearing it. Is there anything coming up on your side that might affect the data? A new system, a change in how contractors report, a reorganisation?
- Helen MarsdenNothing that I know of for certain. There's a conversation about changing how complaints are categorised, but it's not decided. If it does change, I'll tell you before it happens, because it'll change how the counts look.
- Daniel OkaforThat would be ideal. A change in categories is precisely the thing that makes a trend line jump for no reason, and I'd rather we warned your board than let them wonder.
- Helen MarsdenExactly. The board will ask.
- Daniel OkaforSo, to close the loop. From me: the line-by-line on the repairs figures by Wednesday, with the refresh time on it. A training session for the income team, with some dates in January. And a half hour with your analyst on the arrears question. From you: the analyst's work so far, and a heads up if the complaint categories change. Have I missed anything?
- Helen MarsdenNo, I think that's it. Can I just add, when you send the line-by-line, could you include the extract time on each of the lines, not only on the top? Otherwise I'll have to ask.
- Daniel OkaforYes, on every line. Done. Thank you for the time today, Helen, and enjoy the rest of your sandwich.
- Helen MarsdenHa, I will. Thank you, Daniel. Speak soon.
- Daniel OkaforSpeak soon. Best wishes.
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