Not so long ago if someone called you disruptive you knew they were not paying you a compliment. But today if you are disruptive you can wear that badge with pride because 鈥榙isruptors鈥� are the innovators, the people with the bright ideas, challenging the status quo and changing the world.
They are also very often lone voices, easily drowned out by the established players that dominate whatever field of endeavour it is that they want to disrupt.
This is nowhere more true than in the field of public sector procurement where the status quo still holds sway.聽
But just over a year ago, in January 2022, an organisation called Procurement for Housing (PfH) launched a new procurement framework for the social housing sector that specifically targets disruptive technologies.
Procurement for Housing was set up in 2004 by the National Housing Federation, Chartered Institute for Housing and HouseMark. Last year it procured around 拢320m-worth of goods and services for over 900 UK social housing landlords.
The framework is called the Social Housing Emerging Disruptors (SHED for short) and helps social landlords to procure non-traditional solutions compliantly from micro-businesses and SMEs 鈥� many of them focused on construction and retrofitting homes.
Inspiration for SHED was provided by the Proptech Innovation Network (PIN) 鈥� a specialist subset of the Disruptive Innovators Network (DIN), which describes itself as 鈥渁 membership organisation for social housing providers investing in innovation鈥� and whose mission is 鈥渢o enable members to make sense of disruption, be more innovative and grab the opportunities to build back better and maximise their social impact鈥�.
Jenny Danson, director of the Proptech Innovation Network, says: 鈥淚t can take a huge amount of effort to bring innovation into social housing. Suppliers and housing providers have to jump through hoops to satisfy procurement regulations 鈥� it often involves lots of effort and cost.聽
鈥淭hat鈥檚 why we developed the SHED with PfH 鈥� it gives social landlords a route to compliantly procure solutions quicker and cheaper, and suppliers have the certainty of being on the framework for three years and they receive support to break into the sector.鈥�
SHED is one of more than 20 procurement frameworks operated by PfH. SHED1 runs until the middle of December this year; SHED2, launched in January, runs until 2nd January 2026.
Worth up to 拢100m over the next three years, SHED2 has 20 suppliers, nearly all of them SMEs. 鈥淥ur framework is mainly targeting SMEs and startups, but we don鈥檛 specifically exclude anyone,鈥� says Neil Butters, head of procurement at PfH. 鈥淏ritish Gas is one of our suppliers; the only benchmark is innovation,鈥� he explains.
Nevertheless, most of the suppliers are small outfits and, for them, a framework like SHED provides an invaluable foot in the door.
Public sector procurement has traditionally been seen as a barrier to innovation, introducing processes and bureaucracy that make it harder to buy emerging technologies from entrepreneurial SMEs and micro-organisations. Fledgling suppliers are unable to scale their solutions and invest in further innovation because buying teams are unable to procure services compliantly under existing rules.
鈥淭o get on most public sector frameworks you need to satisfy stringent requirements relating to trading history, compliance and so on,鈥� says Butters. 鈥淭hat often precludes SMEs.鈥�
Procurement for Housing has set up a dedicated SHED portal that will enable housing providers to conduct a desk-based supplier selection process. The portal will identify the supplier that can best meet their needs and PfH鈥檚 procurement team will provide pricing information and support the contracting process.聽
One of the first companies to join SHED1 last year was Rubixx, which has developed a cloud-based housing management software system that looks after everything from occupancy and planned maintenance to health & safety compliance, finance and document management.
Rubixx group director Simon Reay says he wasn鈥檛 interested when he first heard about SHED. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 know what a framework was,鈥� he admits. 鈥淚 thought it was probably just cheap stationery.聽
鈥淚t looked like a lot of paperwork but my team kept saying 鈥榳e鈥檝e got to get on it鈥�,鈥� he says. And now he鈥檚 glad he did: 鈥淲e鈥檝e already won two big contracts, for Trust Housing in Edinburgh and the Salvation Army Housing Association, and there are two more in the offing,鈥� he says.
鈥淚 was quite surprised: one contract is for 5,000 units and the other for 2,000. These are meaty deals,鈥� says Reay. 鈥淲e鈥檝e won huge amounts of work through SHED.鈥�
The framework has been such a success for Rubixx that Reay says he鈥檚 now walking away from tendered work. In a lengthy post on the LinkedIn social media site, Reay explained why he recently withdrew from one tender: 鈥淭he size of tender process was suited to a large housing association or local authority but the client was just over 1,000 units. We don鈥檛 have enough fat built into our contracts to absorb that level of admin and risk.鈥�
Rubixx is a small company 鈥� Reay has 12 members of staff 鈥� and it operates in a market that is dominated by half a dozen big legacy suppliers. He cannot devote huge amounts of time responding to tenders.聽
鈥淔or 拢10,000 a year of work I鈥檓 not going to spend 60 hours doing the paperwork,鈥� he declares. Tellingly, he says that when bidding through the SHED framework, Rubixx was described by one client as 鈥渟uspiciously cheap鈥�.
鈥淎nother client spoke to us and said 鈥榳e鈥檙e interested but we鈥檙e going to go out to tender鈥�. So I said, 鈥榯hen I鈥檒l have to up the price by 40%鈥�. They came straight back and said 鈥榓re you on any frameworks?鈥�.鈥�
Rubixx is not alone in facing obstacles when tendering for jobs. 鈥淥ur SMEs are mostly micro-SMEs 鈥� people who are juggling a lot of balls and sometimes don鈥檛 have the bandwidth to get up to speed,鈥� says Butters.
鈥淭hey might spend a lot of time and energy knocking on doors to find a partner to pilot their idea but in the end they reach a financial threshold and can鈥檛 scale it up. They go to a local authority but the local authority doesn鈥檛 know what to do with them so they go out to the private sector 鈥� and the public sector misses out.鈥�
Most of the startups on SHED have identified a specific problem, says Butters, and some are offering entirely new technologies.聽
Ambue鈥檚 3D building model, for example, helps social landlords to understand sustainability, energy efficiency and heat loss improvement opportunities.聽
Bays Consulting鈥檚 dashboard provides housing organisations with stock condition predictions related to home hazards and health risks.聽
And PH Jones will enable social landlords to create virtual power plants of the future from the domestic batteries and renewable energy solutions that they install in their homes, so they can provide stored energy during periods of peak demand.
Another of last year鈥檚 successful SHED1 companies is XMReality, a Swedish firm that uses augmented reality (AR) to enable landlords to offer tenants remote trouble-shooting support.聽
Unlike some of the SMEs on the SHED framework, XMReality鈥檚 system is already proven, albeit not in the social housing sector.
鈥淚t was a Swedish government-funded project originally for the military,鈥� says Johanna Edepil, XMReality鈥檚 chief marketing officer. 鈥淚t is like first-aid for industry 鈥� for when something goes wrong and you need eyes on-site.鈥�
The technology has already been deployed in various industrial applications, such as manufacturing and food & drink. The first UK social housing landlord to adopt the technology was the Kingdom Housing Association, based in Glenrothes, which has been using XMReality since 2021.
Since XMReality joined the SHED framework, other housing associations have followed in Kingdom鈥檚 footsteps, including Sovereign Housing Association and Cobalt Housing. 鈥淭he UK is the first market where we鈥檝e served this sector,鈥� says Edepil.聽
For social housing landlords with thousands of units to maintain, reactive maintenance can be very costly and time-consuming 鈥� especially if you have to send someone out in a van to check a dodgy boiler late at night.
Feedback from users has been encouraging, says Edepil: 鈥淪overeign carried out a pilot project that involved a lot of measuring and they found that they were able to move almost a third of their tickets to remote. That represents a good return on investment. And it鈥檚 good for their environmental footprint,鈥� she says.
Edepil says XMReality has found the SHED framework to be a boon. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an efficient way to increase our visibility. We like the fact that it鈥檚 easy and transparent and it gives us validation.
鈥淪ocial housing is a big growth area now; but in 2020 it wasn鈥檛 even on our radar,鈥� she adds.
Butters says that, with rising energy costs and growing pressure to reduce carbon emissions, he assumed that SHED2 would be focusing on net zero. But many of the chosen suppliers also provide services designed to empower and engage tenants, in acknowledgement of new tenant satisfaction standards that come into effect from next month.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot about 鈥榙igital inclusion鈥� and efforts to minimise problems for vulnerable residents,鈥� says Butters.
He cites Hello Lamp Post as a prime example. This is an interactive text messaging service that gathers views by asking residents to chat with street furniture. There鈥檚 also Alertacall, a contact system that creates digital communities in sheltered and supported housing, so tenants feel safe and connected.
鈥淪ocial landlords are dealing with rising prices, a 7% rent cap and a cost of living crisis, alongside urgent targets on building safety, net zero and development,鈥� says Butters. 鈥淭hey desperately need brand new ideas to tackle these challenges. The SHED framework is a safe space to try out these ideas without complex procurement rules, legal challenges or lengthy tender documents getting in the way.鈥澛�
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