Why Silo working is the misunderstood key to scalability
23rd April 2025
Matt Chenery
In the fragmented world of UK social housing, the tendency to work in silos has long been perceived as a barrier to progress. But what if these silos aren’t actually barriers —instead we view them as untapped engines of innovation?
We are witnessing a growing movement within the sector flipping the narrative and treating siloed projects as actually pilot schemes, whose shared learnings can help shape scalable, evidence-led solutions for housing providers across the country.
A prime example of this approach is our work here at the Healthy Homes Hub, a membership body uniting housing providers, contractors, academics and residents around one clear mission: improving the health of homes and the lives of people who live in them. Rather than hoarding insights, we champion democratised knowledge —providing open access to pilot outcomes, lessons learned and best practice that can be applied across the board.
“Every siloed project is actually a knowledge capsule for people to learn from,” says Jenny Danson, co-founder of the Healthy Homes Hub. “If we take what’s working locally and share it nationally, we stop reinventing the wheel — and we start building real change.”
One of the many ways that we are turning these words into real action is with the development of Housing AI, a sector-specific digital assistant powered by artificial intelligence designed to absorb and disseminate knowledge from across the housing landscape. Importantly it provides users both knowledge and additional time to deliver on their objectives through curated resources available direct to their desktop. From board paper templates to compliance advice and retrofit strategies, Housing AI synthesises a growing database of shared practice and outputs ensuring collective knowledge is widely available to all.
“We’re democratising knowledge in a sector that’s been historically held back by consultancy and capacity constraints,” says Lee Reevell, Chief Innovation Officer at Healthy Homes Hub. “When everyone has access to the same intelligence — not just the loudest or best-resourced voices — we help level the playing field.”
This pairing of digital intelligence and grassroots collaboration is not just a nice-to-have. It directly addresses known gaps in policy implementation and sector capacity, particularly around health-based housing interventions and retrofit compliance. With a patchwork of initiatives running in isolation right across the sector — from mould prevention pilots to decarbonisation trials — the risk of duplicated efforts and missed opportunities is high.
This knowledge-sharing approach also supports alignment with the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023, which places a renewed emphasis on accountability, transparency and tenant voice. The Act gives the Regulator of Social Housing powers to intervene where performance is lacking, and initiatives like the Hub and Housing AI offer housing providers access to tools to demonstrate continuous improvement through shared learning and evidence.
Participatory by design
The Hub is not a top-down operation. We embrace and demand collaboration, inviting residents, housing professionals, policymakers and contractors to co-create the knowledge base.
This isn’t about showcasing polished case studies; it’s about surfacing the messy reality of innovation in practice — analysing what worked, what didn’t, and why.
The Hub is also drawing on academic research and public health data, helping organisations to understand and quantify the impact of housing quality on health outcomes. Early partners include TPAS, the NHMF and subject matter experts like Simon Jones on air quality.
As one housing association director put it during a recent Hub roundtable, “We’ve all got pieces of the puzzle. The Hub helps us put them together.”
A sector ready to share — and scale
The challenge ahead is less about generating innovation, and more about curating and scaling what already exists. “We don’t have a shortage of good ideas in housing,” says Jenny. “We have a shortage of structures to share them properly.”
That’s where Housing AI plays a critical role — supporting scalable, repeatable change by making knowledge accessible, searchable and sector-specific.
The model is already drawing interest from investors and policymakers keen to reduce NHS costs through the creation of healthier homes, and from housing providers wanting to ensure residents benefit from living in healthier environments.
Next steps:
Sector leaders, regulators and digital innovators are urged to lean in. If you’ve trialled something that made a difference — share it. If you’re planning a new pilot — design it with replicability in mind. And if you're sitting on years of data and experience — now’s the time to feed it forward.
Because when we break the silos, we don’t just innovate faster — we make housing better, together.
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