031 Guess Who? Why Housing Data Needs Better Questions with Clare Paterson

Join us for an engaging conversation with Claire Patterson as she shares her valuable experiences in the field of data protection, particularly within the dynamic social housing sector. This episode is packed with real-world context on data collection, data privacy, and the importance of relationships in effective data management.

Claire emphasises that data protection isn't just a security measure; it's a fundamental tool for making the world a fairer place. Listen as she reveals how misunderstandings are creating unnecessary friction in the housing sector and why DPOs need to be seen as 'builders,' not 'blockers,' in shaping a strong data strategy and adhering to data ethics.

Key Takeaways:

• The "Guess Who" Analogy: Understanding the struggles of data collection in social housing.

• The Emotional Impact: Connecting data collection and data management to the people they serve.

• Communication: The essential skill for all data professionals—"We need to be better communicators."

Chapters:

• 02:34 - The Guess Who Analogy in Social Housing

• 07:51 - Transforming Data Protection from Blocker to Builder

• 15:52 - Connecting Data to People

Keywords: data protection, social housing, data collection, data privacy, housing sector, data management, data strategy, data ethics, Claire Patterson, Jacqueline Stockwell

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello and welcome to today's show. I'm Jacqueline Stockwell, CEO and founder at Leadership Through Data. I inspire and motivate information leaders across the world. Hello and welcome to today's show. I am really excited today to have Claire Patterson in the studio with me. Claire, do you want to introduce yourself to the listeners?

SPEAKER_01 0:22

So this is the hardest question, I think, of the whole thing is who are you and what do you do? Because I never know how to introduce myself either as for my work. I work in data is the main thing. And outside of work, I don't do a lot, to be honest. So I I work and I work. So I um you you said to uh to me before when we were chatting before, you know, do you do you cook? Do you anything round the house? No, I don't. I am lucky enough that my children I have two young children and uh my husband, their dad, does all of that stuff. And um I get to work, which is the way I enjoy it. Do I do occasionally get allowed out? Uh that's not true. I quite often get allowed out. And I I love to go to gigs. Gigs is my main thing, and podcasts. I just love to listen to podcasts. So I've always got a podcast in my ear. Amazing. Quite often true crime, quite often. Obviously, data ones, obviously including this one. Sometimes housing ones, because housing is my specialist subject, so to speak. And so I've always got either music or a podcast in my ear, and I like to go out and see live music and and that kind of thing as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

I love that. So you kind of like dance the work away after you've got some downtime. So that's really that's a really good thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

It's really interesting that you said you didn't know how to introduce yourself because I do find that that's quite a uh thing within our industry. We're not good at kind of selling ourselves, and we sell basically ourselves by introducing ourselves, right? Um, there's a really good framework that you can use, Claire, and you can take this forward. 60-second pitch is what they call it, but it's who you are, what you do, and what you want to achieve. And then you write it down and you practice it, and then you'll be able to sort of present yourself and introduce yourself with authority and excitement as well. But I do love the fact that you're into your true true crime podcasts and you're a workaholic and you go and dance off at festivals. So I think that's amazing. Um, but not what we're going to talk about today. So I kind of reached out to you because I really like your methodology of guess who or analogy of guess who. So, what are those irrelevant questions that social housing organizations are often asked? And what does it look like when they receive the wrong answer from a customer or a colleague?

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Yeah, so just to quickly explain that uh analogy, and my brain just thinks in analogies, it just makes it easier for me. So I I can't do anything without analogies. So that analogy of guess who is that so often it's like playing guess who but with a toddler. So I have young children, six and nine, and the joy of trying to play guess who with a young child who will ask things that aren't answerable by what's on the cards, or you ask them, do they wear glasses? And they give you the wrong answer. They say yes or no. So you're putting down the opposite of the the cards that you should be. And it can feel like that so often with social housing, because social housing is my my passion. I've spent 20-ish years working in in social housing, and okay, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna jump a little bit again. So go ahead, just fine. I'm gonna jump back to the introduction. Something I found myself saying the other day in response to what you do is I try and make the world a fairer place, which sounds a little bit baby, but that is exactly what I'm trying to do. And that's why I love social housing, because it is about making the world a fairer place, but it needs a little bit of help. So in social housing, the questions that are being asked quite often of tenants or residents, customers, whatever we call them, and of colleagues, staff members, well, data that we think we need, and then we do nothing with. So it's like asking on guess who does the person is the person's favourite colour red? Well, actually, that's not something you can do anything with in guess who? You doesn't matter if you get that answer or not. And at the moment, especially, there is a massive drive in housing to collect special categories data under the heading of EDI or diversity or knowing your customer. And we are going out and asking everybody and anybody basically, who do you sleep with? Who do you pray to? What difficulties do you have? Um and those kind of you know, those really, really sensitive questions, and they're not being seen as that, they're just being seen as data points. And then they're just put in a database, yeah. And we're not doing anything with them. And more and more categories are being added to that. Socioeconomic background is being asked. Again, why? What are we doing with that? And we're not, uh because the collecting the data is taking up so much resource, as you can imagine, and then we don't have the resource left to actually do anything with it, uh or the knowledge sometimes to do anything with that data. So collecting data that we don't need is the biggest thing that I'm seeing at the moment. And it's not just that it's a waste of resource, but you're break breaking trust with those people. You are making um a data breach much more uh damaging because you've got all that, you know, sensitive data. And you're you're just going round in circles.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

And it drives me. I can see why it's a real challenge, isn't it? You know, don't collect data unnecessarily. Um, so it's um yeah. So you're also a published author. You've written a book, a practical guide to data protection in social housing, and it addresses a critical need. So, what is the most common and costly data protection mistake you see housing landlords making today?

SPEAKER_01 6:21

I wouldn't say it's one mistake, it's one misunderstanding of data protection and what it's all about that it's seen as being about security. And I think the phrase doesn't help, does it? Data protection. It sounds like you get all the data, you stick it in a big bucket and we keep it safe. And as long as we've got firewalls and encryption and all that technical stuff, jobs are good done. And it's as you know, not that at all. It's should we have it in the first place, coming back to collecting, you know, data we don't need. And then once we've got it, even if we had a lawful basis for collecting it, we can't just start reusing it for other things. So it's this whole myth of what data protection is and isn't about. And I struggle with that a lot because if I'm trying to tell people, oh, I can help you with your data protection, they go, no, no, we're fine, we've got an IT security team. So we've done data protection. No, you haven't, because I've seen your form that you're sending out to all your customers and you are asking, are you male, female, or bi uh or trans? That's not it's not a question you need to ask. It's not a a correct set of answers, and it's not useful. So you absolutely bloody well do need help with data protection, but it's that. Let me in, I'll help you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me in, absolutely. And and it is, it's it's that thing, which I don't think is just housing specific. I think that's across all sectors that we go, well, we've got security, so we're fine.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Yeah, I agree with that. Or I'm I I'm GDPR compliant, is what you hear, uh, because I've done this, this, and this, and it actually it's you know, it's always revolving and moving as well. Yeah. Um so you're also a champion of data protection.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Sorry, Claire. Yes. Or they go, I've got a privacy notice, so I'm fine. Yes. It's like, yeah, but what does it say? And do you actually do what it says? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Yeah. Um, so you're a champion of data protection professionals. What do they need to do differently to move from being seen as a department of no to a strategic partner in housing sector?

SPEAKER_01 8:33

So it's a really fine line. So I gravitate towards DPOs and and people like that who can feel really lonely, especially because I I was there. So I worked in-house, in data protection, wasn't called data protection officer in those days, in the old days, but that, you know, was essentially what I was doing. And it was really lonely. And you were fighting to get hurt, and quite often being told, oh, we don't like that advice, go and get external advice. And I'm quite often now the person that gets called for that. So I just I get it so much. And I know that it's not necessarily that my advice is more right than their advice, it's just people get seen differently when they're external. So I yes, I have found myself with this amazing community of DPOs, and and we have a network now that a monthly membership, the dish, and we focus on those challenges. And yes, they are seen as the the department of no. And you'll you'll have heard um that Luke Beckley and I, we coined the phrase blocker to builder. And it's not that we are blockers all the time. Sometimes we, the DPOs, sometimes we are blockers, but mostly I think we're seen as blockers when we're absolutely not. And that if we were understood, we could absolutely be embraced as the builders that we we should be of a trustworthy business. But there are things as well that they could do differently. Sorry. I don't know, I just you go. There are um there are some DPOs that are still a little bit no. The first answer is no. Um, and actually it's a fine line though. I think we do need to be more proactive and we need to be more able to say yes if you do this and this. But I did talk to somebody yesterday who said that he's looking at jobs at the moment and he saw a job description for a DPO in a social housing provider. And one of the things that jumped out to him was that it said you must be prepared to be pragmatic in applying data protection law, which to him and to me that feels like a red flag. That they're saying you must be prepared to allow us to bend the rules a little. Again, I hope comes from misunderstanding. A lot of bad stuff comes from misunderstanding, but it might be that that's a misunderstanding about what data protection is all about and what a DPO is all about. And and that's one of the biggest things I try and instill in in these fab people that I work with is not to take it personally and to not get too entrenched and and stressed, if if possible.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Yeah, and I think it's really and I and I think you're on a good point then. I don't just think it's in the housing sector, I think it's like a in the whole privacy date protection space. It's that actually we're spending too long being reactive. Um, and because we're being reactive and we're always on the back foot, that's when the you can't do that situation comes in. But if we were more preact proactive, but as you said, we're gonna go back to the start, like how you introduce yourself, you know. You know, if you were saying this is what I want to achieve, I mean you've got the first one, Claire Patterson, and and you want to change the world. So that's your what you do, or you change. I can't remember exactly what it was, Claire, but want to make the world a fairer a bit fairer.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Bit fairer, and then kind of what you want to achieve. If you kind of enter a room with that or an email kind of with that, and say, This is actually the presence that I'm bringing to you, would that actually change the situation? Because basically, we're all communicators, we have to communicate in our job roles, and it's like we have to be better at that, and we have to be more open, we have to be more understanding of how other people want to be communicated too. And I think it's that the soft skill element of our job roles that we just need to enhance it, enhance a bit more and remove the word no and replace it with if.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

I like that clear yes, if, yeah, you know, can we do this? Yes, if you do A, B, and C first. Yeah. And actually, it comes back to another conversation I was having yesterday that you know you you're talking about, and I completely agree. We need to be better at certain things, we need to do more of certain things. And I think, and this isn't just data protection and this isn't just housing, this is the world. We're constantly trying to add things on top and add improvements on top, and something's got to give. So I think instead of waiting for things to collapse and things to give, we need to proactively decide what can we drop, what can we actually take off our plates, what is not our responsibility, what is not aligned with our purpose, what is not aligned with our energy today, which might be different tomorrow, might be, you know, and purpose might be different today as it is tomorrow. But we can't just keep adding, which you know, the thing that quite half often happens when we talk about improvement is that we're gonna add another layer and we can't.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Yeah, and I I relate to that as well, and I think that's around our time management, because if we actually sat down and methodically looked through what we were doing each day, and we kind of audited it really, like what are the things that I should actually be doing, and what are the things that I shouldn't be doing, what are the things that I should delegate, and and actually if you if you spend that time going through methodically, like what was the role of a state protection officer, or what actually am I doing that I shouldn't be doing, that I should be doing other things. Yes, you can actually free up some of that time and then you can prioritize the stuff that you actually need to be doing, which is building those communications, building those relationships with stakeholders and you know senior managers within the organization, because that's effectively the job that you're there to do.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

And I know it's hard. I think a lot of data protection officers are really lovely people, and so somebody comes to them with a question, they want to answer it. And I was trying to say yesterday, tell them if you've written the answer in a document somewhere, in it's in your policy, it's in your procedure, tell them to thinking well read it first. And they're like, Oh, I feel a bit uncomfortable doing that. No, you've put the time in already, you've answered that question, it's in the policy. That's the kind of things that I think a lot of DPOs they could do with being a little bit less nice sometimes. Yeah, to allow themselves to build relationships.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

100%, but then it's kind of looking at on the other side is you know, have they not read the policy because they can't find the policy, or have they not read the policy because they've got oh yeah, you can direct them to it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Direct them to it in a nice way, absolutely. And you want to have written it in plain English and you want to have made it accessible, definitely. You know, you don't want to be directing people to a legalese, you know, impossible to understand policy. But there is definitely a lot of times where we can say nicely, I've already answered that, it's in such and such. Have a read, and if you don't understand it, come back to me.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Yeah, 100%. Or you can have a nice shallow pictures. I think pictures, you know, pictures sell better than words. So if you have definitely an imagery on the front page of the policy, you know, frequently asked questions or something like that. Diagrams and and I think it's for us as information leaders to think outside the box actually, if I'm having this question asked too often, what can I do to change that or adapt that to make those improvements? We started right at the start. Yes, a hundred percent. Um, you started at the start telling me that you love listening to rock music, uh preferably live. So I had to put this question in this session today. So if your data strategy uh physiology had a theme song, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 16:20

So it would depend on the day that you caught me, I would imagine, and what was going on. But the one that just keeps playing in my mind when I am getting really passionate about this, the EDI thing, especially that's happening in housing at the moment, and we are asking these very invasive questions of people for no purpose, is a little song by Twisted Sister called We're Not Gonna Take It. And it's about we're not gonna take any more shit from anyone. That's this song. That's a song that it does run through my head when I'm just like so wound up and it's like, oh my god, we've got to start treating people better, um, and not kind of you know, painting tenants with the same brush and going, oh, you're all this or you're all that. And it's very we've been very um patronizing by going, well, we know best, and we're gonna tell you that you need to tell us who you sleep with and who you pray to. And actually, um I want those people, I want to be the voice of those people to turn around and say, we're not gonna take that anymore.

unknown 17:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

So that's that's one that does a lot. When I think about my DPO community, I think it would probably be uh Bon Jovi living on a prayer, because it can feel like that being a DPO, that we're just hanging in there. We're just hanging in there. So it would depend on the day.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Okay, I love that. Well, thank you for sharing that. So, what's one thing you wish every frontline housing officer understood about the data they collect?

SPEAKER_01 17:58

So it's about connecting the word data to the people. I think, especially if there's been a real drive to be data-driven and data-centered and data, data, data. And a big part of that problem, the problem that that causes, is that we see data as separate from what it's about. So it's numbers and words and it's in a database over there. But no, it's about the people. And we need to bring that back together. And that some data is that not all data is created equal. So we talk about data like a big blob, and in housing, especially, we'll kind of not differentiate between is it addressed data? Is it information about the boiler make in your home? Or is it about your ethnicity? And they are really different pieces of data with different impacts for different people, even if we say ethnicity, is ethnicity a sensitive piece of information? Well, we know it's special categories, but for some people it's gonna be more uh sensitive than others to share that. And if that gets breached, that's gonna be more problematic for some people than other people. And I really want to get over the fact that asking the question can be harmful. So the person that's going out with the clipboard and saying what box do you tick, I think they need to be more aware that especially in the environment we're in at the moment, with all the flags going up and all the rest of it, but if you as a white person sit down in front of a non-white, non-British person today and say, for no reason at all, uh what's your ethnicity? What's your religion? That immediately is causing uh distrust, it's causing worry, it's causing at the very least, it's causing questions to be asked of why the heck do you want that? And that's not appreciated. Yeah, agreed. So that's why I don't want to do that. Yeah, agreed.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, knowing what you know now, and about the importance of data, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 20:13

This is a really difficult one because I could go down a massive rabbit hole of telling my younger self to get into data sooner, to appreciate the things that I now appreciate about data and about the potential harm sooner, to be braver earlier in my life. But actually, my approach to that kind of thing is I am where I meant to be now. So I don't really like that thought of what could I have done differently? Because it's all led to where I am now and where I'm going to be in the near future, in the the distant future, and I'm quite happy with that. So I don't really have an answer.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

I love that. But you said be braver. So that is a that is an answer, and I think that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Yeah. Yeah. Brave is always good. I probably could have saved myself a lot of stress if I had been braver earlier, but actually the way things worked out, I became braver once I had my first child, and that couldn't have happened any sooner than it did.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

And so, you know, there's just it's worked the way it was supposed to work. Beautiful, I love that. Everything happens for a reason. I'm very much on that mentality as well, Claire. It's been sensational today. Thank you so much for your time. I've had a brilliant, brilliant session with you. How can listeners reach out to you?

SPEAKER_01 21:39

So I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, I hang out on on LinkedIn quite a bit, and uh I would love people to find me and follow me and connect with me. So I'm Claire Patterson, Claire with no I, Patterson with one T. I have no extra letters. And there are two of us that pop up, the other one. Works at the BBC. So if you want Claire Patterson data protection, put that in the search and you'll find me.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Amazing. Thank you so much, Claire, for your time. Thank you. Thank you. It's been amazing. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Journals of the Information Entrepreneur with me, Jacqueline Stockwell. I hope you found this episode inspiring and helpful and have some takeaway tips that can be useful to you. If you liked this episode, please like, review and share it with your friends. Your support helps us reach more information leaders to stay inspired and listen to great content. Want to test out your strengths and weaknesses and measure it against our Empower framework? Please complete the scorecard. It's a great way to improve and evaluate your skills. You can find the scorecard at the end of the description of this podcast. Stay tuned for new podcasts every Thursday and remember to be bold, be brave, and be beautiful.