Calderbrook Housing Group / BG-Demo – QBR
Callcompleted
Calderbrook Housing Group · 28 Apr 2026 12:30
Helen Marsden says the brain's arrears total does not reconcile to the housing system report. Usage has fallen as analysts moved to an in-house platform scoping, and the executive team is questioning the £44k a year cost.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Helen Marsden says the brain's arrears total does not reconcile to the housing system report. Usage has fallen as analysts moved to an in-house platform scoping, and the executive team is questioning the £44k a year cost.
What happened: On the 28 Apr 2026 QBR, Helen raised an arrears total that differs from the housing system report. Daniel Okafor showed that the brain's total includes ended tenancies and promised both bases by Friday.
Customer view: Helen says the team likes the brain and the refresh has been reliable. Two analysts have been moved to scoping an in-house data platform, and she has been asked to help cost it.
Commercial: Executives are comparing the £44k a year against use by too few people. Active users are a handful against 40 licences, and tenant services were never rolled out.
Watch: Helen wants sourced figures she can defend. She asked for options before the renewal notice, and Daniel is to brief Tom Ashdown on commercial terms.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Arrears mismatch, in-house threat
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
mixed
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 arrears totals on both bases, with the rows, from the same refresh by Friday.
- Daniel Okafor to write the sourced value note and brief Tom Ashdown on usage and what Helen said.
- Helen Marsden to send the board pack section and housing system report, and ask the repairs and complaints leads about a walk-through.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- The executive team is costing an in-house platform against the Growth subscription, and usage is a handful of people on 40 licences.
- The arrears total in the brain does not match the housing system report, which damages the BI team's credibility with the board.
- Helen cannot yet show the value of the brain in numbers to her executives.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Repairs and complaints leads have not been onboarded, so a walk-through could add weekly users and show value.
- A sourced value note on how the brain feeds the board pack could give Helen a case for her executive team.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforHello Helen, can you hear me all right? I think my headset was being awkward a minute ago.
Helen MarsdenYes, I can hear you fine. Good afternoon, Daniel. Sorry, I've just come out of another meeting, give me a moment to find the right window.- Daniel OkaforNo rush at all. Thank you for making the time, I know the board pack season is not far off for you. Is anyone else joining us today, or is it just the two of us?
- Helen MarsdenJust us. One of my analysts was meant to come but she's been pulled onto something else, which is rather the theme of this call, I'm afraid.
- Daniel OkaforRight. Well, we'll come to that. How's the week been otherwise? It's properly grey down here, I don't know what it's like in Leeds.
- Helen MarsdenSame. Drizzle since the morning. Look, Daniel, before we go through your agenda, can I start with the thing I'm chasing? The rent arrears figure in the board pack, the section on tenant income, doesn't reconcile.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. Tell me what you're seeing and where.
- Helen MarsdenSo the brain gives me a current arrears total across all tenancies. The report that comes straight out of the housing management system gives me a different total for the same date. The gap is not small. The board will ask, and I can't tell them which one is right. I need to be able to say where each number comes from.
- Daniel OkaforThat's fair, and I'd feel the same in your seat. Just so I understand, which one are you treating as the one that has to match? The housing system report?
- Helen MarsdenYes. That's the system of record. The brain has to agree with it, otherwise my team's credibility with the board goes.
- Daniel OkaforUnderstood. Can I ask a couple of questions? When you ran the housing system report, did you filter to current tenancies only, or does it include former tenants?
- Helen MarsdenHmm. I'd have to check with the person who built the report. I think it's current tenancies, but I wouldn't swear to it.
- Daniel OkaforOkay. The reason I ask is that in a lot of housing data the former tenant arrears sit in the same table as current ones, and depending on how a field is read they can be counted or not. I'm not saying that's what it is, I'd rather not guess. But it's the first place I'd look.
- Helen MarsdenCan you show me the source? If it is that, I want to see the actual rows, not a description of them.
- Daniel OkaforYes. Give me a moment, I'm going to share my screen. Can you see it?
- Helen MarsdenI can see a page with the arrears summary. Yes.
- Daniel OkaforGood. So this is the arrears page on your brain, and the total at the top is the one you've been quoting. If I open the breakdown underneath, there's a tenancy status column. You can see current, ended, and a smaller group marked as transferred.
- Helen MarsdenTransferred. That's tenants who moved to another home within the group. Those shouldn't be counted twice.
- Daniel OkaforRight, and that's exactly the sort of thing I want to check. I can't tell from this screen alone whether they're being counted once or twice. What I can tell you is the arrears total in the brain includes the ended tenancies, which will be bigger than a current-only figure.
- Helen MarsdenThen the board pack is wrong, or the brain is wrong, depending on what we meant to show. These don't reconcile unless we say which basis we're on.
- Daniel OkaforAgreed. I'd suggest this. I ask our data engineer to produce the same total on both bases, current only and all tenancies, from the same night's refresh, and I send you the rows for the difference. Then you can match it line by line against the housing system report.
- Helen MarsdenThat would help. By when? I have the pack going to the chair soon.
- Daniel OkaforJust to close the loop, I'll come back to you by Friday with the two totals and the rows. If the engineer needs longer I'll tell you on Thursday, not on Friday afternoon.
- Helen MarsdenThank you. I'll send you the exact section of the pack and the housing system report so you're comparing the right things.
- Daniel OkaforPerfect. Now, since we're here for the quarterly review, can I walk you through the usage picture? I'd like to be straightforward with you about it, because it isn't where either of us would want it.
- Helen MarsdenPlease do. I've seen the dashboard, I know it's gone down.
- Daniel OkaforSo you're licensed for forty users on Growth, and the number of people actually active in a typical month has fallen by about a quarter compared with the previous quarter. It averages a handful of people now. Questions asked have followed the same line.
- Helen MarsdenYes. It's mostly me and two of the analysts now. Possibly someone from the repairs side now and then.
- Daniel OkaforThat fits what I see. And I'm not going to dress it up, a handful of people on forty licences is something your finance team will notice at renewal. So I'd rather hear from you what's happened. How is the team finding it?
- Helen MarsdenThe team likes it. That's not the issue. The issue is that two of my analysts have been moved onto a project. There's a decision from above, from our executive team, to look at building a data platform in-house. I want to be clear, it wasn't my plan.
- Daniel OkaforOkay. Thank you for telling me directly, I appreciate that. Do you know how far along it is? Is it decided, or is it still being looked at?
- Helen MarsdenIt's being scoped. I've been asked to help cost it, which is uncomfortable, frankly. They want to know what the group is paying for outside against what it would take to do inside.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a reasonable question for them to ask, and I'd much rather you asked it with the facts in front of you than without. Can I ask what they've said they're comparing? Is it the subscription alone?
- Helen MarsdenIt's the forty-four thousand a year, mainly. And they've said the brain is used by too few people to justify that. I don't entirely agree, because the board pack leans on it, but I can't show them the value in numbers at the moment.
- Daniel OkaforMm. Then that's the piece I can help with. The contract is at forty-four thousand a year, and that matches what's been invoiced, so there's no surprise on that side. What we haven't done well is show what that buys you in terms of outcomes.
- Helen MarsdenGo on.
- Daniel OkaforI'd like to put together a short note on how the brain feeds the board pack. Which sections draw on it, how many hours of reconciling your team used to do by hand across tenant calls, repairs tickets, complaints and arrears, and what questions are being asked. Not a sales document. Something you could put in front of your executive team and defend.
- Helen MarsdenI'd want the figures to be ones I can source. I won't put anything in front of them that I can't show the origin of.
- Daniel OkaforEntirely. Anything I put in that note, I'll tell you which record it came from. And where we don't know, I'll say we don't know.
- Helen MarsdenGood. Because honestly, if they build something in-house, the first thing I lose is the join across the tenant calls and the repairs tickets. That took us a long time to get right.
- Daniel OkaforI remember. That was a lot of the early work. Can I ask something a bit different? You said the repairs side dips in occasionally. Are the repairs and complaints teams themselves using it, or is it still mostly BI?
- Helen MarsdenMostly us. We never properly rolled it out to tenant services. We meant to, and then other things took over.
- Daniel OkaforSo that's where the headroom is, really. You have the licences, you have the data connected, and the people who would benefit most from asking questions of the repairs and complaints data aren't yet in it. If five more people were using it every week, the conversation with your executive team would look quite different.
- Helen MarsdenIt would. But I have to be realistic. I don't have analysts to spare for training sessions at the moment. They're on the other project.
- Daniel OkaforI wouldn't ask your analysts to do it. I could run a short walk-through for the repairs and complaints leads myself. An hour, on their own data, no preparation from your side beyond getting them in the room.
- Helen MarsdenLet me think about who. There's the head of repairs and the person who runs complaints. I'd have to ask them rather than assume.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. And I'd go through you rather than around you, so you're not surprised by anything.
- Helen MarsdenI'd appreciate that. I don't like things landing on people's desks without me knowing.
- Daniel OkaforUnderstood. Can I move on to support for a minute? I can see there was one ticket from your side in the last month. Just to close the loop on that, did it get resolved to your satisfaction?
- Helen MarsdenThat was the export one. Someone wanted the arrears table in a different layout. It was sorted quickly, no complaint. Your team were fine.
- Daniel OkaforGood. And nothing urgent, nothing outstanding, nothing that's been irritating you quietly?
- Helen MarsdenNo. The refresh has been there when I come in each morning. That part has been reliable. I want to say that, because it would be unfair not to.
- Daniel OkaforThank you, I'll pass that on. It's good to hear, and it's useful for the note as well.
- Helen MarsdenDaniel, can I ask you something directly? About the renewal. The contract ends at the start of September, doesn't it?
- Daniel OkaforIt does. The term runs to 1 Sep 2026 and the renewal falls on 2 Sep 2026. The formal renewal notice will come from me ahead of the summer, so you won't be getting it cold.
- Helen MarsdenThen I'd like to be able to tell my director, before that notice arrives, what the options are. Not a decision, just what the options would be.
- Daniel OkaforThat's sensible. Let me be careful here, because I don't want to promise terms that I don't own. Tom Ashdown looks after the commercial side of your account, so anything on price or the shape of the agreement would come through him. What I can do is make sure he's across the usage picture and what you've told me, so that when you do talk it isn't a conversation starting from scratch.
- Helen MarsdenI'm happy for you to share that. I'd rather he heard it from you, accurately, than guessed.
- Daniel OkaforI'll do that this week. And I'll ask him to come back to us, you and me together, with what's possible, rather than to you alone.
- Helen MarsdenThank you. One more thing, and then I'll let you go. If the in-house route goes ahead, what happens to the data that's in the brain? The history we've built.
- Daniel OkaforGood question, and an important one. It all sits in your own Snowflake account, so the data is yours and always has been. What we'd want to agree is a sensible handover so nothing is lost or left in a state your own team can't use. But I'd not want to get ahead of ourselves, you haven't decided anything yet.
- Helen MarsdenNo. Not yet. I'm just trying to know what I'm dealing with.
- Daniel OkaforWhich is the right thing to be doing. So, to recap what I'm going to do. First, the arrears totals on both bases from the same refresh, with the rows, by Friday. Second, the short value note on how the brain feeds the board pack, with sources. Third, I'll brief Tom on where things stand. And I'll offer a walk-through for the repairs and complaints leads once you've spoken to them.
- Helen MarsdenAnd from me, the board pack section, the housing system report, and a word with the repairs and complaints leads about whether they'd come.
- Daniel OkaforThat's it exactly. And if the reconciliation turns up something awkward, ring me, don't wait for the note.
- Helen MarsdenI will. Thank you, Daniel. I know this wasn't the easiest conversation.
- Daniel OkaforIt was a useful one, and I'm glad you told me plainly. Take care of yourself, Helen, and good luck with the pack. Best wishes.
- Helen MarsdenKind regards. Speak soon.
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