Welcome · your private member area

Building Collaboro
together

This is the private space for Direct Works Group members. Everything member-only — peer connections, working group spaces, sector resources, the member directory — will live here in Collaboro, our new private community for social housing maintenance professionals.

✓ Collaboro launches October 2026. Between now and then, we're building it with members — not for them. Tell us what would help you do the job, and we'll shape the community around it. Every Organisational, Professional and Industry Partner member is automatically included — nothing extra to pay, nothing to sign up for.

Tell us what you need See what Collaboro is

Collaboro —
Direct Works Group's own community

A dedicated, private space for the people who run social housing maintenance in-house — to ask, share, connect and learn from each other. Here's what it brings together:

✓ Topic channels for repairs, compliance, procurement, asset management and workforce
✓ Peer Q&A — ask the question you can't ask anywhere else, answered by practitioners running services like yours
✓ Resource library — templates, guidance, case studies and working group outputs in one searchable place
✓ Working group coordination — agendas, outputs and between-session discussion all in one place
✓ Included with all memberships — no extra cost, no separate login on launch
Shape the hub

Tell us what would help you most

Collaboro is being shaped around what members actually need — and your input goes straight to the people shaping it, below. What would genuinely help you day to day? Tick what matters and add your own ideas; we're building this with you, not for you.

Member-only access — not available to the public. Your details are used only to notify you of the Collaboro launch.

What's inside

Your member hub — everything in one place

The Private Member Area brings together the tools, connections and intelligence that make Direct Works Group membership genuinely useful day to day.

Members value this most

Ask the Network

A really valuable part of membership: post a question and get real answers from practitioners who run services exactly like yours. Stuck on an Awaab's Law approach, a contractor decision, a compliance grey area or a staffing problem? Ask the people who've already faced it. No sales pitches, no theory — just honest, practitioner-to-practitioner advice you can't get anywhere else. It's the benefit existing members tell us they'd least want to lose.

Because we know how valuable this is, members can use it right now — ahead of the full Collaboro launch. Just send your question from your housing work email so we can verify your membership. This is a transitional arrangement until Collaboro goes live.

Available Now Ask a question

Member Directory

Connect with the full network — housing associations, local authorities, ALMOs and industry partners. Find peers by organisation type, region and delivery model, and reach the right person when you need to.

In Collaboro

Events & Bookings

National seminars, CPD webinars, working groups and the annual awards — a full year of events. Members get priority booking, with places at in-person seminars before they open to the wider sector.

Available Now Book an Event

CPD & Resources

CPD-accredited webinar recordings, best-practice guides, compliance resources and working group outputs — produced by practitioners in roles like yours. Specific, applied, and grounded in the reality of in-house delivery.

In Collaboro

Working Group Hub

The five Direct Works practitioner working groups — Repairs & Maintenance, Asset Management, Compliance, Procurement & Commercial, and Workforce & Culture. Agendas, outputs and shared resources in one place.

Available Now

Sector Intelligence & Regulation Radar

Quarterly insight reports with real data and expert analysis, plus a regular Regulation Radar pulse flagging what's changing and what it means for in-house teams. So you can see what's coming and plan ahead, rather than react to what's already common knowledge.

Members Only

Practitioner Tools

A growing library of free, browser-based tools designed to help members do the job quicker and better. Covering areas like service assessments, Awaab's Law readiness, insourcing decisions and more — and shaped by what members tell us they need. If a tool would help, we'll work with you to build or source it. Included with membership.

→ Open Tools

PeerPath Benchmarking

Our benchmarking platform for in-house teams — being built with members right now, so it measures what genuinely matters to you. The aim: a clear, confidential picture of how you compare to peers like you. Members are shaping it from the ground up.

→ Help shape it

Ask the Network —
available to members now

Post a question and get real, practitioner-to-practitioner answers from people who run in-house repairs & maintenance services just like yours. Because we know how valuable this is, you can use it right now — ahead of the full Collaboro launch.

✓ Members only — please send your question using your housing work email so we can verify your membership before it goes to the network
✓ Real answers from practitioners who've faced the same thing — no sales pitches, no theory
✓ A transitional arrangement — this is how Ask the Network runs until Collaboro goes live, when it moves into the community hub
Ask the network

Post your question

Tell us who you are and what you're wrestling with. Use your housing work email so we can verify your membership, then we'll put your question to the right people in the network and come back to you.

Member-only benefit — questions are verified via your housing work email. A transitional arrangement until Collaboro goes live.

Built with you

The people shaping Collaboro

Collaboro won't be shaped by a select few. We're building a representative group that covers every layer of an in-house repairs & maintenance service — so the look, feel and content of the community are guided by the complete picture, working directly from the ideas members share through the forms above. We're putting the structure in place first; representatives for each layer are being confirmed.

Built around the whole service

Every layer of the service has a voice

Rather than pick a handful of people, we've built representation across every layer of an in-house repairs & maintenance service — so Collaboro is shaped by the complete picture, not a select few.

Layer
Scope
Places
Confirmed
Your ideas → the people in each layer → a hub shaped by the whole service

Confirmed leads

● In development — shaped by members

PeerPath — built with practitioners, for practitioners

PeerPath will be Direct Works Group's own benchmarking platform for in-house maintenance teams — and we're building it in collaboration with members from the ground up. Benchmarking only works if the metrics are the ones that actually matter and are measured the same way, so rather than impose a model, we're bringing together members who want to help define it. Below is the direction we're heading; the detail will be shaped by the people who'll use it.

Chris McKellar
PeerPath Lead
Chris McKellar
Leading the development of PeerPath with members
The direction we're heading — to be refined with members
📊

TSM Profile Analysis

The aim: help you see how your Tenant Satisfaction Measures data compares against the wider sector — so you understand where you sit, and where you may need to act, before the Regulator does.

🔍

Peer Comparison

The aim: benchmark against peers of similar size, geography and delivery model — with as little internal effort as possible. Exactly how this works, and what's compared, is what we want members to help define.

⚡

Early Warning Intelligence

The aim: flag where your metrics diverge from sector norms — giving you time to respond, not react. Which signals matter most is a question we want to answer together with members.

Help us shape PeerPath

We're looking for members who want a say in how DWG benchmarking works — what gets measured, how it's compared, and what would make it genuinely useful day to day. Areas we're exploring include:

✓Repairs satisfaction & timeliness metrics
✓Complaint handling and responsiveness
✓Safety and compliance performance indicators
✓Decent Homes and property condition tracking
✓Voids, cost and delivery-model comparisons
Shape the benchmark

Tell us what to measure

Benchmarking only works if it measures what genuinely matters to you. Share your thinking below — it goes straight to the people shaping PeerPath. What would make it useful? Which metrics actually matter in your world?

Member data is kept secure in Collaboro

This page is a public overview of what membership includes. The member directory, contact details and all private resources are held inside Collaboro — our secure members' community — not on this website, and are accessible only to logged-in members. Member information is shared in confidence within the community. Questions? Contact julie.thompson@direct-works.co.uk

Launching October 2026.

Every Organisational, Professional and Industry Partner member is automatically included — nothing extra to pay, nothing to sign up for. Between now and then, tell us what would make it most useful to you.

Share Your Ideas Back to Main Site