Watch: Evidencing Our Costs – Turning Transparency Into Practice

You know something’s in the air when a breakout session at a conference session fills the main auditorium.

That’s what happened when Rob Thomson and Gemma Reilly from Thirteen Group joined Trace’s Managing Director Louise Dawson for a frank discussion about service charge transparency at a sold-out NHF Leaseholder and Tenant Service Charges Conference 2025.

Chaired by Andrew Snee of the Curo Group, housing professionals from across the industry came to grapple with the fundamental challenge facing them all: how do you prove you’re doing the right thing when your systems won’t let you?

And with new transparency legislation looming, the conversation has now moved beyond whether housing associations need better systems. The question is ‘how?’.

What made the session resonate was the honesty. Rob and Gemma didn’t present a sanitised case study. They talked about the reality of transformation – the embedding of rigour into messy data, the practical steps that actually work, and crucially, how you bring teams along when you’re asking them to change fundamentally how they work.

For teams still fighting the annual service charge battle with inadequate tools, there’s something powerful about hearing from peers who have been exactly where they are. Not just that it can be done, but how.

Housing associations are recognising that transparency isn’t a compliance box to tick. On the contrary, it’s fundamental to maintaining resident trust and recovering costs they’re entitled to.

For anyone who couldn’t make it to the Royal College of Physicians that day, or who wants to revisit the insights shared, you can watch the full panel discussion above. It’s worth the time, particularly if you’re trying to make the case for change in your own organisation.

Because at some point, the conversation needs to shift from “should we do this” to “how much longer can we afford not to?”

If you’d like to know more about BlueBox service charge software for housing associations, please call us, email us, or use the contact form below.

We can provide demonstrations online or in person, at your convenience.