Calderbrook Housing Group / BB-Demo – Escalation
Callcompleted
Calderbrook Housing Group: documents · 2026-01-29 15:30
Helen Marsden escalated arrears and repairs figures that are stale while the dashboard shows green. Staff have drifted back to spreadsheets, and she struggles to justify £44,000 a year with an in-house build being discussed above her.
What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Helen Marsden escalated arrears and repairs figures that are stale while the dashboard shows green. Staff have drifted back to spreadsheets, and she struggles to justify £44,000 a year with an in-house build being discussed above her.
What happened: Helen said the arrears figure does not reconcile to the housing system, and the repairs count has looked low for a fortnight. Arjun Nair reproduced a stale arrears table but has not found the root cause.
Customer view: Analysts went back to spreadsheets after losing trust in the figures. Helen asked whether credits are owed; Amara Obi said Growth credits cover availability, not data freshness, pending a read of the order form.
Commercial: Helen will not take a value case to committee until the figures reconcile. Dominic Hale committed to a next update by 12:00 the following day and a written record of which nights the refresh completed.
Watch: for this cycle her team will footnote the housing system figure in the board pack. The evidence does not show the cause or the outcome.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Stale arrears data, lost trust
Importance
complaint
Sentiment
negative
Voice
champion
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Dominic Hale to send the next update by 12:00 the day after the call, with a written record of which nights the refresh did and did not complete.
- Amara Obi to read the order form line by line and tell Helen plainly where she stands on credits.
- Arjun Nair to give a written root cause as soon as he has one.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- The £44,000 Growth subscription is being questioned and an in-house build is being discussed above Helen.
- Active use is only a handful of the forty licensed users because staff no longer trust the figures.
- A green status over stale data may mean the 07:00 nightly refresh commitment was missed, with no credit for freshness on Growth.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- Helen says a value case can be built once the data is right, using questions asked, who asked and what the brain replaced.
- Fixing the data and restoring trust gives BB-Demo a route to bring analysts back to the brain.
Transcript
Amara Obi NoneHi Helen, can you hear me okay? Dominic and Arjun are just joining, I've got them both on the invite.
Helen Marsden NoneGood afternoon, Amara. Yes, I can hear you fine. I've literally just come out of another meeting, so bear with me while I find the right document.
Dominic Hale NoneAfternoon, Helen. Dominic Hale, I run the support team. I think we've only exchanged emails up to now, so it's good to put a voice to the name.
Arjun Nair NoneAfternoon. Arjun Nair, I'm the engineer on your tickets. Sorry, my camera's refusing to start, so it's audio only from me.- Amara Obi NoneNo problem at all. Thanks for making the time, everyone. Helen, I'll be straight with you: I've only recently picked up the account, so I've read the history and the three tickets closely, but you've lived it and I haven't, and I don't want to pretend otherwise. So before anything else, what does good look like for you when we come off this call?
- Helen Marsden NoneThank you, that's helpful. The discrepancy I'm chasing is in section four of the board pack, the rent arrears summary. The current arrears figure the brain gives me does not reconcile to the housing management system. It's out by a margin I can't explain, and the board will ask. I took one number to the committee last quarter and I now can't tell the chair which number is right. So good looks like a figure I can trace back to source, and a time by which I know it's fixed.
- Dominic Hale NoneThat's clear, thank you. Let me say what's confirmed and what isn't, so we're all on the same page. Confirmed: three high-priority tickets from your team in the last month, and I've taken ownership of all three as of today, so there's one name on them and it's mine. Not confirmed: the cause. Arjun has been in the logs, so I'd like him to tell you where he's got to, in his own words, and then I'll give you a time for the next update.
- Arjun Nair NoneSure. Helen, can I ask for a failing example? One specific figure that's wrong, and the number you expected next to it.
- Helen Marsden NoneYes. The arrears total at the end of last month. The housing system says one figure, the brain says another, and the gap is wider than it was the month before. Separately, the repairs count in section six has looked low for a fortnight and I can't see why. My team did the comparison by hand in a spreadsheet, which is exactly what we bought the brain to stop us doing.
- Arjun Nair NoneMm. That second one is useful. When did your team last see the repairs count move?
- Helen Marsden NoneAround the middle of the month, I'd say. Possibly a little earlier. I'd have to check with my analyst, he keeps the log.
- Arjun Nair NoneOkay. If you can share your screen with the arrears view I can compare it with what I'm seeing on our side.
- Helen Marsden NoneGive me a second. Right, sharing now. Can you see it? That's the arrears page, and that's the total I'm unhappy with.
- Arjun Nair NoneI can see it. Mm. Could you scroll down to the by-region breakdown? Yes, that one. And the last refresh stamp, bottom corner. Right.
- Helen Marsden NoneSo that's the refresh stamp. It says it ran, but the numbers underneath haven't moved the way I'd expect them to.
- Arjun Nair NoneI can reproduce this. The connector to the housing system reports as healthy and the nightly job completes. But the arrears table has not picked up new records for a good while, and that matches your repairs count going quiet. Root cause is not found yet. I'm not going to guess at it on a call, because if I'm wrong you'll take the wrong thing to your board.
- Helen Marsden NoneI appreciate that, I do. But you'll understand I've been told it's healthy before. The dashboard is green and the numbers are wrong. Those two things shouldn't be able to be true together.
- Dominic Hale NoneThat's a fair point and I'm not going to argue with it. Here's what we know. The job ran, the status was green, and the data underneath is stale for that table. A green status that doesn't reflect the data is something we need to look at properly, and I'll write that up once the cause is in. Our commitment is that the nightly refresh is complete by 07:00 on business days, and for your tables I can't yet tell you that has been met. I'll confirm that against our logs rather than from memory.
- Helen Marsden NoneThank you. I'd like that in writing, please, with the dates it did and didn't complete. The board will ask exactly that.
- Dominic Hale NoneYou'll have it in writing. Noted, and I'll put the dates in.
- Amara Obi NoneHelen, can I ask one thing that might help Arjun? Has anything changed on your side in the housing system recently? An upgrade, a new export, a field renamed, anything like that?
- Helen Marsden NoneNot that I'm aware of. But I wouldn't necessarily be told. A colleague in IT looks after that system and they do tweak things. I'll ask them today and come back to you.
- Arjun Nair NoneThat would be worth checking on your side, yes. Specifically anything touching the arrears and repairs tables, a column change or a permissions change. Even a small one.
- Helen Marsden NoneI'll ask the exact question. Can I say something about the tickets themselves, though? Because that's part of why I asked for this call.
- Dominic Hale NonePlease do.
- Helen Marsden NoneThe third one I raised last week, and I was asked for the same screenshots I'd already sent on the first. My analyst sent them again and then I was asked to describe the problem again. I'm not saying anyone was rude. It's just that every time I explain, someone new picks it up, and I'm back at the start.
- Dominic Hale NoneThat's on us to tidy up and I'm sorry. I've taken ownership, so from now you're not going to be asked twice. I've got all three tickets read and I'll merge the notes into one thread today, so there's a single place with the examples, the screenshots and the plan. If anyone asks you for something you've sent, tell me and I'll deal with it.
- Helen Marsden NoneThank you. I'd rather have one thread and one name.
- Amara Obi NoneAnd that's me as well on the commercial and adoption side, so you've got a name there too. Can I raise something a bit uncomfortable, Helen? I've been looking at the usage, and here's what the numbers say. You've got forty licensed users and only a handful of them are active in a typical month. That's down on the previous quarter, by quite a bit. I'd rather say it out loud than let it sit.
- Helen Marsden NoneYes. And I'll tell you why, because it isn't mysterious. People stopped trusting it. Once two analysts had found the arrears figure didn't match, they went back to the spreadsheets. I can't blame them. If I can't defend a number in front of the board, I can't ask my team to use it.
- Amara Obi NoneThat makes complete sense. So the usage fall is a symptom, not the problem. Fix the data, then win the trust back, in that order.
- Helen Marsden NoneIn that order, yes. And I should be honest with you about the other thing. There's been a conversation upstairs about whether this sort of reporting should be built in-house on a platform of our own. It isn't my plan. I brought the brain in because I thought it would give the board a single picture of tenants, repairs, complaints and arrears. But I'm being asked what it's worth at £44,000 a year, and at the moment I'm struggling to answer.
- Amara Obi NoneThank you for being that direct, I appreciate it. I'm not going to try to answer the value question today while the figures are wrong, that wouldn't be fair to you. What I'd like to do is get the data right first, and then sit down with you and put together a proper picture of what your team was getting out of it when it was working. Questions asked, who was asking them, what it replaced.
- Helen Marsden NoneI'd welcome that. But the order matters to me. I'm not going to a committee with a value case built on numbers I can't reconcile.
- Amara Obi NoneAgreed. Completely agreed.
- Dominic Hale NoneCan I come back to the cause for a moment? Arjun, is there anything you need from us before you go back to the logs, so we're not waiting on each other?
- Arjun Nair NoneTwo things. One, the connector's own history from the last month, I can pull that myself. Two, if Helen's IT colleague can tell us whether the source system changed, that narrows it a lot. If it didn't change, the fault is more likely on our side of the load, and I'd go there first.
- Helen Marsden NoneCan you tell me at least which direction you're leaning? Our side or yours?
- Arjun Nair NoneI'd rather not say. I haven't found it. I'd be speculating, and I said I wouldn't. What I can say is that I've reproduced the stale table, so it's real and it's not just the way your report is built.
- Helen Marsden NoneFine. I'd rather have that than a confident answer that turns out to be wrong. We've had one of those already.
- Amara Obi NoneHelen, while Arjun looks, is there a figure you can safely use in the board pack this cycle? I don't want you carrying a number you don't trust.
- Helen Marsden NoneThat's the real question. For now my team will take the figure straight from the housing system and footnote it. It's embarrassing, but it's honest. What I need to know is whether the brain's figure will be right by the time the pack is finalised.
- Dominic Hale NoneI won't promise that until Arjun has the cause, because a promise I can't keep is worse than no promise. What I will give you is a time. Next update by 12:00 tomorrow, from me, in the single thread. Even if the answer is that we haven't found it, you'll hear that from me at that time rather than having to chase.
- Helen Marsden NoneTomorrow at twelve. Thank you. I'll hold you to that, politely.
- Dominic Hale NonePlease do.
- Helen Marsden NoneThere's another question, and I'm sorry if it's awkward. When the data's been stale, are we owed anything? A credit, anything like that? Because we have been paying for a service that wasn't doing the job, and I'd like to know where I stand before someone on our finance team asks me.
- Amara Obi NoneIt's not awkward at all, and I'll answer it honestly. Under the Growth tier, the service credits are for availability, meaning the brain being up and answering. Data freshness isn't covered by a credit on Growth. Your order form is what decides it, though, and I'd want to read yours line by line before saying anything final. So let me do that and come back to you rather than guess.
- Helen Marsden NoneSo it was available, but wrong.
- Amara Obi NoneYes. Which I know isn't a satisfying distinction from where you sit. It's a contract position, not a judgement about whether it's been good enough, and I'm not hiding behind it. I'd rather the conversation is about fixing it and what we do for you, not about the wording.
- Helen Marsden NoneI'll take that for now. Please do read the order form, though, and tell me plainly.
- Amara Obi NoneI will. Plainly.
- Dominic Hale NoneHelen, one practical thing. You said your analyst keeps the log of when the repairs count stopped moving. Could he send that directly into the ticket thread? Dates are what Arjun will need to line up against the job history.
- Helen Marsden NoneYes, I'll ask him this afternoon. He's good at keeping notes. He'll have the dates and the screenshots all in one go this time.
- Arjun Nair NoneThat would help. Even a rough day is fine.
- Amara Obi NoneLet me read back what I've got, and tell me if I've got any of it wrong. One: Dominic merges the three tickets into a single thread today and gives you the next update by 12:00 tomorrow. Two: Arjun carries on in the logs and gives a written root cause as soon as he has one, no guessing before then. Three: you ask your IT colleague whether the housing system changed, and your analyst sends his dates into the thread. Four: I read your order form and come back to you on credits, and I write up the usage picture so we've got something to build the value case on once the data is right.
- Helen Marsden NoneThat's right. Add one more, if I may. Dominic, the written record of which nights the refresh did and didn't complete.
- Dominic Hale NoneYes, that's mine. It'll be in the thread alongside the update.
- Amara Obi NoneGood. I'll send a summary of all of that to you straight after this, so it's in your inbox as well as in the ticket.
- Helen Marsden NoneThank you. I want to say, for the record, that I'm not enjoying having to push. I brought this in because I believed in it, and I still want it to work. But the board pack doesn't wait, and my team's credibility goes with it.
- Amara Obi NoneI hear that, and you're not pushing too hard. Honestly, you're being clear, which makes it easier for us to help.
- Arjun Nair NoneI'll go straight back into the logs after this. If I find anything before tomorrow I'll tell Dominic and it goes in the thread straight away.
- Helen Marsden NoneThat's all I ask. Right, I should let you all go. I've another meeting at four.
- Amara Obi NoneOf course. Let's get the next catch-up in the diary once the data's sorted, so we're not leaving it open. I'll find a time with you by email.
- Helen Marsden NonePlease. Thank you all, and thank you for being straight with me.
- Dominic Hale NoneThanks, Helen. Speak tomorrow at twelve.
- Arjun Nair NoneThanks, Helen. Cheers all.
- Amara Obi NoneBest, everyone. Speak soon.
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