Culture is at the Heart of Compliance 

Culture is at the Heart of Compliance 

By Harriet Rushton

I’ve been thinking a lot over the last few months about culture and its impact.

Having a good culture which allows the golden thread of influence, engagement, improvement, understanding, data, and equity to properly deliver the regulatory and legislative changes of our revised governance and risk frameworks is now key.  It was poor culture that enabled the devasting failures over the last decade; poor culture enables flawed decisions, inadequate process, the pouring of glitter on bad news, and it is poor culture that overlooks the impact of overwork on our colleagues.

When you listen to the sector react after a tragedy, there is much soul searching and a desire to prove “it couldn’t happen here”, which is our comfort blanket against the, often unexpressed, acceptance that it could.  We all have our perfect storms that would allow a tragedy to manifest and it’s an effective culture that will reduce that risk. We often lack the confidence to slow down, look under the hood and fix the root cause but that is what we must do, if we are to move beyond tick box compliance and fully embed the spirit of the regulation and legislation.

For a long time, our sector has been focused on being better than each other, rather than working together as group to change things.  We have a metric and output driven sector encouraged by the wider environment of regulation, lender covenants and media condemnation.  We have all butted up against the secrecy of other housing associations and not wanting to share, a fear of exposure.  We know the frustrations of this, as much as we know the relief of talking to a counterpart in another association and hearing they are going through the same things.

The sector is changing though. We are more willing to reach out to each other to ask for support and best practice, even if the only way we can do it is via anonymised forum data.  Our Boards are becoming sharper at asking what others are doing from a best practice lens; we are starting to embrace the notion of not re-inventing the wheel.

Across housing, and other sectors, we focus all the responsibilities for culture at the top but if we want to ensure change and safe spaces, we need to re-focus where we think our culture is a problem.  The adage that culture comes from the top is only part of the story; it also rises from the bottom and those in the middle of organisations have a difficult path to navigate to please both sides.  If you focus the support further down the organisation and give them the skills to manage and lead collaboratively and encourage accountability, it will permeate both ways.

The indications are that professionalisation requirements will rest at the top, and I worry we have again missed a trick at supporting and developing the majority.  You need to ensure that those who are responsible for the largest number of touchpoints in the organisation, and in the community, are the ones best equipped.  If as a sector, we do not want to be defined by our failings, we need to ensure all staff can live a good culture and change things for the better, one conversation at a time.