Case Study: Knowing Where You Stand

How Plymouth Community Homes Used an Independent Data Maturity Assessment to Validate Progress and Plot a Clearer Course Forward 

The Organisation
A large housing provider with growing ambitions for data-led decision-making 

Plymouth Community Homes (PCH) is Plymouth’s largest social housing landlord, with over 16,000 homes across Devon and Cornwall. In recent years, the organisation has made a strategic commitment to improving how it manages and uses data, recognising that reliable, well-governed information is fundamental to delivering good services and meeting growing regulatory expectations.

Driving that work is Charlotte Edwards, Head of Strategy, Data and Insight, who has been with PCH since the organisation's earliest days. Charlotte has worked with colleagues across the organisation over the last 18 months to develop PCH’s first data strategy, carry out data quality assessments, and putting stronger processes in place. But reaching that point raised new questions. Were they actually on the right track?

PCH decided to partner with 3C, a part of Infoshare+  specialising in data management for the social housing sector, for some external perspective. 

The Challenge
Solid progress made, but no external benchmark to judge how far they had come

PCH had come a long way. Data quality scores were improving, teams were beginning to engage, and a dedicated data governance team of five had been established. The changes clearly meant more data they could trust for resident and business performance insight. But without an external point of reference, it was difficult to know whether the approach was truly as effective as it appeared from inside the organisation.

 "Am I looking at the world through rose-tinted specs?”,  Charlotte recalls considering,
“I feel that, in the timeframe, we've done really well. But I also wanted to know what the really great housing providers are doing with their data governance and insight." 

Beyond the question of progress, Charlotte was also conscious of some specific gaps. Data stewardship at the operational level - where frontline staff take active day-to-day responsibility for the accuracy of the information they hold - had not yet been fully embedded across the organisation. The strategy existed but translating it into consistent practice on the ground remained a work in progress. 

The Turning Point
A question in the boardroom that no one could answer

The urgency behind PCH's data ambitions crystallised during a facilitated board session. They asked a straightforward but pointed question: how do you know your residents are safe today?

For Charlotte, the honest answer was uncomfortable.

"We didn’t. At the time, we were relying too much on retrospective reporting. We could see the position at the end of the month, once the numbers had been compiled, but we wanted to get to a place where we had clearer insight on the position at that exact moment. And that truth sat with me for some time."

The discussion highlighted the limits of relying on retrospective reporting and reinforced the importance of connected, accurate data to support assurance, prioritise action and improve services for residents.

Around the same time, a new chief executive joined PCH, bringing strong expectations that data would underpin decision-making at every level. Combined with increasing regulatory scrutiny of data quality across the social housing sector, these factors created the conditions for a step change in data management. Soon after, and under Charlotte’s leadership, PCH would be able to answer the question of whether residents are safe today. 

The Solution
An independent data maturity assessment to map the journey ahead

To support the next phase of their strategy, Charlotte partnered with 3C, a part of Infoshare+ with deep digital and data consultancy expertise in the social housing sector. 3C ran a data maturity assessment - a formal evaluation process that scores an organisation across multiple dimensions of data capability, including data quality, skills, analytical tools, systems architecture, insight capability, and strategy. The framework provides a consistent benchmark, scored out of five, that organisations can use to understand their current position and set realistic goals for improvement. 

The assessment involved structured interviews with senior leaders and data governance staff, but crucially also included frontline operational colleagues. That broader engagement allowed 3C to test whether the data strategy was genuinely embedded in day-to-day practice, not just understood at the top. 

“I really liked 3C’s approach”, Charlotte says,
“Teams that we had not engaged with directly said they had still felt the benefit of the systems and processes we have put in place around the data. It highlighted that we have a really positive data culture starting to develop”.

One of the most striking findings to emerge was the scale of PCH's systems landscape. Over time, the accumulation of different tools and platforms to meet operational needs had resulted in a far more complex picture than anyone had fully appreciated.

Charlotte explains, "When the number of systems came back, I said – sorry, how many? It was quite a shock!”

That finding alone prompted an important conversation with IT leadership about consolidating the systems estate over time. PCH has already started acting on this, including work to bring key repairs and compliance management information onto a single platform.

The Benefits
Confidence, clarity, and a credible platform for what comes next

PCH scored 3.5 out of 5 on the data maturity assessment, a result Charlotte describes as a genuine source of pride for her team. Charlotte reflects that, before the current data strategy work began, PCH would likely have scored significantly lower. Having an independent, evidence-based view of where the organisation now stood gave the team recognition for the work done and a credible foundation from which to plan next steps.

"Having that data maturity assessment, seeing the results, seeing that actually from an external perspective we achieved such a positive score on our first assessment - I feel like it's given me and my team a lot of confidence that we can do this. That we're on the right journey.”

Beyond the headline score, the process delivered practical insight with immediate value. The assessment identified that resident demographic data had not been refreshed for a considerable period, prompting a focused exercise to update records and improve data capture within the housing management system.

It has also sharpened PCH's understanding of which datasets to prioritise for reporting, and helped support the transition to a centralised data warehouse with Power BI as the primary analytical tool. This marks a significant step forward from the legacy reporting tools the team had been working with previously. 

We've generally been quite a high performing organisation, which is fantastic. But that has required a lot of effort on colleagues’ part where the data has not been great. There's been an awful lot of manual workarounds and resource put in to attain those high performing scores. Colleagues are now able to connect the dots more easily because they can access the insight in a much clearer way.”

At a strategic level, the work has supported stronger assurance around data integrity and helped PCH show the impact of sustained, structured investment in data governance.

Following the assessment, PCH is now working with 3C on embedding data stewardship at an operational level, developing the training, workshops, and frameworks that will give frontline staff the confidence to take genuine ownership of the data in their areas. The focus is on building lasting internal capability rather than continued reliance on external support.

 "What has stood out is 3C's willingness to share learning and examples from other organisations, while helping us build our own capability.

There is a real desire for people to succeed at this and get better at it. It has felt like going on this learning journey together and making sure that, when they step away, we will be able to do this for ourselves. It has been a breath of fresh air”.  

Key Takeaways

• After building its first data strategy internally, PCH sought external validation to confirm it was on the right track, to understand what ‘best in class’ looked like and what the next phase of improvement should be.
  
  
• A formal data maturity assessment, conducted by 3C, provided an independent benchmark across multiple dimensions of data capability including quality, skills, tools, systems, insight, and strategy.
  
  
• The process surfaced some further findings, which have driven and informed PCH’s future plans as they continue on their data journey.
  
  
• A score of 3.5 out of 5 gave the team both recognition for the progress made and a clear foundation from which to set future targets.
  
  
• The work has strengthened strategic assurance around data integrity and provided a clear board-level view of the impact of sustained investment in data governance.
  
  

PCH's experience demonstrates that investing in understanding where you are - not just where you want to be - is a vital step in any data improvement programme. An external, structured assessment can validate effort already made, surface blind spots that internal familiarity can hide, and build the confidence needed to take the next steps.