Calderbrook Housing Group / BB-Demo – Qbr
Callcompleted
Calderbrook Housing Group · 2025-09-15 16:00
At the 15 Sep 2025 QBR, logins were down by about a quarter, yet nine dashboards are built and seven feed the board pack. Helen Marsden raised an in-house platform discussion. Renewal falls on 2 Sep 2026.
What was said
What this says
Current to 13 Oct 26At the 15 Sep 2025 QBR, logins were down by about a quarter, yet nine dashboards are built and seven feed the board pack. Helen Marsden raised an in-house platform discussion. Renewal falls on 2 Sep 2026.
What happened: Esther Quaye ran the QBR with Helen Marsden. Daily logins are down by about a quarter, but nine dashboards are built and seven feed the board pack.
Customer view: Helen raised an in-house build as a discussion that is not her view. She fears falling logins will prompt the question of why the organisation pays for forty seats.
Commercial: Esther offered a training session for operations and housing services and a one-page value summary. The contract runs to 1 Sep 2026, with renewal on 2 Sep 2026.
Watch: The board pack depends on Helen and one analyst. The dashboard arrears figure sits lower than the finance report, possibly because of former tenant arrears.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Value case before renewal
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
champion
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Esther Quaye to send the arrears comparison and repairs definition to Helen this week.
- Helen to send names for the training and Esther to propose a date.
- Esther to draft the value summary for Helen to review before anything goes out.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- An in-house platform discussion on the digital side could displace the brain before the renewal on 2 Sep 2026.
- Falling logins weaken the case for forty Growth seats.
- Dashboard knowledge sits with Helen and one analyst, a key-person risk.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- Training for the head of repairs, area managers and the income team could bring lapsed users back.
- A one-page value summary built on Helen's own figures, including the chair's comment, supports the renewal.
Transcript
Esther Quaye NoneHello, Helen. Can you hear me alright?
Helen Marsden NoneI can, yes. Hello, Esther. Sorry, I'm just getting the board pack open, give me one second.- Esther Quaye NoneNo rush at all. Good afternoon, by the way. How's your Monday been?
- Helen Marsden NoneBusy. The audit committee papers are due and everybody is chasing everybody. Yours?
- Esther Quaye NoneMuch the same, to be honest. Lots of notes to tidy before I came into this one, so I've got the whole account in front of me. Right, just so we're aligned, I thought I'd start with the housekeeping, then usage, then the dashboards your team have built, and then anything you want to raise. Does that work?
- Helen Marsden NoneThat's fine. Though I do have a couple of figures I want to come back to at the end. They don't reconcile in one section of the pack and I'd rather not lose it.
- Esther Quaye NoneOf course. I've logged that, we'll make sure there's time. So, housekeeping. Nothing open on the ticket side, and nothing in the last month either, so the queue is completely clear. Nothing outstanding on invoices from our side. You're on Growth at forty-four thousand a year, forty licensed users, and the order form and the invoices agree.
- Helen Marsden NoneGood. Though I'll say, a clear ticket queue isn't necessarily a sign everyone is happy. It might just mean people aren't using it.
- Esther Quaye NoneRight, and that's a fair challenge, actually. It's exactly what I wanted to look at next. Can I share my screen?
- Helen Marsden NonePlease.
- Esther Quaye NoneOkay, can you see that? So this is the active users view for the last quarter against the one before. The average number of people logging in on a typical day has come down by about a quarter. It's not dramatic in absolute terms, because we're talking about a handful of people, but I didn't want to skate over it.
- Helen Marsden NoneNo, I'd seen that. Mm. Some of it is the summer. We had leave across the whole of operations in August and the team that does repairs reporting lost one analyst to another project.
- Esther Quaye NoneThat makes sense. Is that analyst coming back to the work, or is that a longer move?
- Helen Marsden NoneI honestly don't know yet. I'd like to say it's temporary. And then there's a couple of people in housing services who just stopped logging in. They were getting their numbers from my team's exports anyway.
- Esther Quaye NoneWhich is a little bit of a risk for you, isn't it? If most of the questions are coming through your team, and I can see that from the usage, then it's a small group carrying a lot.
- Helen Marsden NoneIt is. I won't pretend otherwise. The board pack is mine, my team builds it, and the rest of the organisation reads it. That's the model.
- Esther Quaye NoneUnderstood. Let me show you something that I think is genuinely good news, then, because I looked at the dashboards builder this morning and I counted nine dashboards your team has built. Is that right? I want to check I'm not looking at old drafts.
- Helen Marsden NoneNine, yes. Seven of them are live and feeding the board pack directly. The other two are the ones we're still testing.
- Esther Quaye NoneThat's a lot of investment. Honestly, that's more than most Growth customers have at this stage. Can you take me through them? I'd love to hear how they map to the sections of the pack.
- Helen Marsden NoneRight. So the first group is the tenancy section of the board pack. Arrears by area, arrears by tenancy type, and the movement month on month. Then repairs: completion against target, and repeat visits. Then complaints, which the regulator is quite interested in, so the board asks about it every single meeting.
- Esther Quaye NoneAnd that's the one that pulls the tenant calls in alongside the complaints, yes?
- Helen Marsden NoneYes, that's the one I'm proudest of, if I'm honest. We can now see that a complaint was usually preceded by a call two or three weeks earlier that nobody joined up. Before, that was three different spreadsheets and a lot of guesswork.
- Esther Quaye NoneThat's exactly the picture you wanted when you started, isn't it? The board-ready view, rather than three people each telling you a different story.
- Helen Marsden NoneIt is. The chair actually commented on it at the last meeting. She said it was the first time she'd felt the complaints figures were joined to what was happening on the ground.
- Esther Quaye NoneThat's lovely to hear. I'll put that in my notes, if that's alright. It's the kind of thing that really matters when we talk about what the brain is worth to you.
- Helen Marsden NonePut it in. I'd rather it's on the record.
- Esther Quaye NoneDone. Now, you said there's a section that doesn't reconcile. Shall we take that now while we've got the dashboards up?
- Helen Marsden NoneYes, let's. It's the arrears section of the pack. The total current arrears on the dashboard is different from the total in the housing management system report that finance run on the last working day of the month. It's out by a small amount, not huge, but the board will ask, and I can't tell them why.
- Esther Quaye NoneOkay. And is the dashboard figure higher or lower than the housing management system report?
- Helen Marsden NoneLower. Slightly lower on the dashboard.
- Esther Quaye NoneRight. So I don't want to guess, because I'd be doing exactly what you've asked me not to do. A couple of things it could be. One is timing: the nightly refresh finishes by 07:00 on business days, so if finance run their report later in the day, and payments have gone through since, the two will legitimately differ. The other is how a measure is defined, for example whether credits or tenants who've moved out are counted.
- Helen Marsden NoneI did wonder about the timing. But the report was run on the same morning, early. That's why I don't think it's that. Can you show me the source for the dashboard figure?
- Esther Quaye NoneYes. Give me a moment and I'll open the arrears dashboard and the underlying definition. Mm, bear with me.
- Esther Quaye NoneOkay. So the dashboard is built on the arrears table from the housing management system connector, and the measure your team created sums the current balance for tenancies that are flagged as active. Does that sound like what you intended?
- Helen Marsden NoneActive tenancies, yes. Hold on. The finance report, I think, includes former tenant arrears as well. Which is a separate line in the pack, so, no, hmm. That would make their number higher.
- Esther Quaye NoneThat might well be it, then. But I don't want to say it's definitely that until we've compared the two on the same basis. What I can do is take the finance definition and your measure, line them up, and show you where the difference sits. I've logged that, and I'll chase engineering today for anything on the data side, in case there's an issue with how those balances are being brought in.
- Helen Marsden NoneThat would help. And can you put it in a form I can show the board? Something I can put an appendix in. The board will want to see the reconciliation, not just be told it's fine.
- Esther Quaye NoneAbsolutely. A simple table, the two figures, the difference, and the reason. I can't give you a date on the engineering side, because that's not mine to promise, but I'll have the comparison written up and with you this week.
- Helen Marsden NoneThis week is fine. Thank you.
- Esther Quaye NoneWhile we're in here, is there anything else in the pack that you've noticed that doesn't line up? I'd rather find them all in one go.
- Helen Marsden NoneThere's one on repairs. The number of completed repairs on the dashboard is fine, but the average days to complete is a bit different from what the repairs team quote. I think they exclude emergency jobs and we don't. But I haven't properly checked.
- Esther Quaye NoneOkay, I'll add that to the same note. Same approach, I'll show you how it's calculated and where the repairs team's version differs.
- Helen Marsden NoneThank you. Right. Can I raise something else while we've got a moment? It's slightly awkward.
- Esther Quaye NoneOf course. Go ahead.
- Helen Marsden NoneThere's been some conversation within the organisation about where our business intelligence tooling should sit in the long term. There's a view, and it isn't mine, I should say, that we should be building more of this in-house on our own platform. It's coming from the digital side, not from my team.
- Esther Quaye NoneThank you for telling me. I appreciate that, Helen, I know that isn't easy to say. Can I ask, is that a decision that's been made or a discussion?
- Helen Marsden NoneA discussion, as far as I know. But the usage figures you've just shown me are not going to help my case. People will look at a falling number of logins and say, well, why are we paying for forty seats?
- Esther Quaye NoneYes. I can see that, and I'd rather we face it than pretend it isn't there. I'd say two things. First, the dashboards and the board pack are the value, and they're being used by the board every cycle, which a login count doesn't capture. Second, I think there's real headroom with the operations and housing services people who've drifted away, and that's something I can help with.
- Helen Marsden NoneGo on.
- Esther Quaye NoneSo, what I'd suggest is a short training session for those teams, built around their own questions, so they can ask the brain directly instead of waiting for an export. And alongside that, I'd write a one-page value summary for you: what the board pack looks like with the brain, what it took before, and what's been built. Something you can put in front of the people having that in-house conversation.
- Helen Marsden NoneI'd welcome that. But it has to be accurate. Can't be a sales sheet. The figures have to stand up.
- Esther Quaye NoneAgreed. It would be your numbers, your dashboards, and I'll cite where each one comes from. Nothing I can't show you the source for.
- Helen Marsden NoneGood. That's the only version I'd be comfortable with.
- Esther Quaye NoneCan I ask one more thing on that? Who are the people in operations and housing services you'd most want in the training? I'd like to name them in my note so it's clear who it's for.
- Helen Marsden NoneLet me think. I'd say the head of repairs, one or two of the area managers, and someone from the income team, because arrears is where the questions come up. I'll send you names rather than say them off the cuff.
- Esther Quaye NonePerfect. And your own team, are they all comfortable with the dashboards builder? Any gaps there I should know about?
- Helen Marsden NoneThey're good. If anything the risk is that it's too dependent on two people, me and one of the analysts. If either of us were off for a while, I'm not sure the others could pick it up quickly.
- Esther Quaye NoneThat's useful to know. I could include a short walkthrough for the rest of your team in the same session, so the knowledge isn't sitting in two heads. I'd rather it was documented, to be honest, I always say that, but it's true.
- Helen Marsden NoneYes, that would be sensible.
- Esther Quaye NoneOkay. Let me recap, just so we're aligned. One, I'll write up the arrears comparison and the repairs definition, with the source for each, and get that to you this week. Two, I'll chase engineering today on the arrears balances. Three, you'll send me names for the training, and I'll propose a date. Four, I'll draft the value summary for you to review, nothing goes out without your say. Have I missed anything?
- Helen Marsden NoneNo, that's everything. Oh, one thing. Can the value summary mention the complaints joining-up? The chair's comment. If she's happy for me to say it.
- Esther Quaye NoneYes, I'll leave a placeholder line for you to approve rather than quote her without asking. And I'll keep it in your words.
- Helen Marsden NoneThanks. Right, what about renewal? I know it's a way off.
- Esther Quaye NoneIt is a way off. The contract runs to 1 Sep 2026 and the renewal falls on 2 Sep 2026, so we've got a good while. I'd rather we spend the time between now and then building the case properly than leave it to the last few weeks. I'll keep the conversation going at each review, so there are no surprises on either side.
- Helen Marsden NoneThat's what I'd want. No surprises.
- Esther Quaye NoneWonderful. Is there anything else you'd like to raise today, Helen?
- Helen Marsden NoneNo, I think that's it. It's been useful, actually. Better than I expected. I came in a bit wary.
- Esther Quaye NoneUnderstandable, and thank you for being so open about the internal conversation. It helps me far more than being told everything's fine. I'll send the follow-up email this afternoon, with everything we've agreed.
- Helen Marsden NoneLovely. Speak soon, Esther.
- Esther Quaye NoneSpeak soon. Many thanks, Helen. Bye for now.
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