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Beyond the Dashboard: Lessons in Turning Insight into Action

For many social landlords, data is something to report on rather than act on. Dashboards are often cluttered, definitions unclear, and the connection between a figure on a screen and the life of a tenant can feel frustratingly abstract.

But during Mobysoft’s Moving From Data to Smarter Data panel at Housing 2025, Rebecca Taylor, Executive Director of Business Change at Golding Homes, shared a different story. A story of how meaningful service transformation doesn’t require overhauling everything at once. Instead, it starts with one focused insight, one changed process, and one empowered team. “Start small,” she said. “Take one thing, shout about it as loudly as you can.”

Golding Homes’ experience shows how data, when made usable and human, can trigger major improvements in tenant experience – and even prevent homelessness.

Seeing the Gaps Others Miss

Golding Homes began by examining the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) data in their systems – a data set that many organisations collect but struggle to use in a meaningful way. What emerged was a striking insight: women aged 30 to 39 were the highest users of the repairs service, yet they were also the least satisfied with it.

This wasn’t just a curious anomaly. It was a call to action.

Rather than getting bogged down in finding causality, Taylor’s team responded by trialling practical changes to improve the repair experience for this specific demographic. It started with simple things: updating the language used in communications, reviewing the time slots offered for appointments, and adjusting how follow-ups were handled.

The results? Increased engagement and improved satisfaction scores. More importantly, it reinforced a critical lesson: data doesn’t have to be perfect to be useful. It just needs to be trusted and actioned.

Golding’s story mirrors findings from the Housemark 2024 ESG report, which stresses the importance of using segmented data to tailor services more effectively. One-size-fits-all approaches simply no longer cut it in a world of rising tenant expectations.

Preventing Homelessness Through Joined-Up Insight

Beyond repairs, Golding Homes also took bold steps in tackling a more acute challenge: preventing homelessness.

Working with Centra, a specialist in telecare and support services, the organisation integrated housing, support and neighbourhood data to create a clearer picture of tenants at risk. This partnership led to over 100 early interventions – each representing a situation where a tenancy might have broken down but didn’t.

This is predictive analytics in social housing at its most tangible. It’s not about clever graphs or heatmaps. It’s about keeping people in homes.

These kinds of collaborations will only become more important as pressures increase. The latest Homelessness Monitor from Crisis warns of rising levels of hidden homelessness and calls for better data sharing between housing providers, local authorities and support services. Golding’s approach stands as a working example of that call in action.

A smiling man with a lanyard and ID badge stands outside a house, holding a laptop and talking to a woman at the door on a sunny day. ©Mobysoft

Culture Change Starts on the Frontline

For any of this to work, data has to be usable by the people on the ground. And that was another barrier Taylor’s team had to overcome.

Like many providers, Golding had access to a wealth of internal data – but much of it was locked behind complex dashboards. Frontline staff either couldn’t access the insights they needed, or didn’t trust what they saw.

The solution wasn’t more training. It was better design.

Golding worked to simplify how data was presented to frontline teams. Dashboards were stripped back to essentials. Definitions were clarified. Visuals were replaced with plain-English insights. And most importantly, teams were involved in designing the tools they were expected to use.

This participatory approach reflects best practice outlined by the Data Maturity Framework for the Social Sector developed by DataKind and NPC, which highlights the importance of aligning tools with user needs.

The result? Greater confidence in using data. Staff began to spot patterns, raise flags, and make more informed decisions. Data became less of a reporting burden and more of a decision-making tool.

Improving tenants lives - father holding his children

From Small Wins to Big Shifts

What Golding Homes’ story shows is that you don’t need to wait for perfect data, full integration, or a major transformation programme to make an impact.

  • Start with one insight
  • Design for real people
  • Show the results
  • Repeat

And crucially, as Taylor urged, shout about it. Celebrate what works. Use the momentum from small wins to fuel bigger shifts. Because cultural change doesn’t start in a boardroom. It starts when people on the ground see that using data makes their jobs easier and their tenants’ lives better.

Golding’s approach brings to life the very essence of smarter housing data tools: turning insight into action, at scale and with purpose.

Want more insight?

Catch the full Moving from Data to Smarter Data panel discussion from Housing 2025 — now available on the Mobysoft YouTube channel.

Join Chair Engin Yilmaz (Mobysoft) and expert panelists Jason Wickens (Incito Solutions), Rebecca Taylor (Golding Homes), and Chris Fleck (Mobysoft) as they explore how social landlords can strike the right balance between data governance and innovation. Packed with real-world examples and practical takeaways, it’s a must-watch for anyone looking to unlock the power of housing data responsibly.

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