Martha Lane Fox, the Government's Digital  Champion, recently made a plea to social housing landlords to get behind projects to get tenants online.

Our Digital Housing Report highlighted the critically low digital capability of the UK's social housing sector, and inspired Grant Shapps to convene the digital housing summit. Mr. Shapps, myself, Grainia Long (CEO, CIH), David Orr (CEO, NHF), David Parsons (Chairman, Environment & Housing Programme Board, LGA) then wrote to housing association CEOs urging action ( see letter).

Government has asked me to update on housing providers now embedding digital strategies and helping their residents to get online. To this end I would be extremely grateful if you would complete a very short questionnaire at http://bit.ly/MLFQblog before February the 10th, so I can represent your organisation's thoughts and efforts.

Digital capability is core to every work stream. Residents with inadequate digital skills feel more isolated and socially excluded, are less employable, attain lower grades in education, and pay more for goods and services. Digital technologies also enable savings and improvements for your business (but only if your customers are switched on to using them).

I urge you to place the digital capability of your business and residents firmly on your Corporate Risk Register, and I thank you sincerely for taking the time to complete my survey.

If you are a UK social housing provider then please take a few minutes to follow this link: http://bit.ly/MLFQblog.

The importance of getting tenants online as part of tenant's empowerment was recognised by BDA in 2010, when it established TenantBook - the free social networking site for social housing. Our aim was to provide a forum where tenants could talk to each other - without having to set up expensive websites and forums - and where housing professional could too. The social networking site offers a unique opportunity for tenants staff and board to talk to eachother, share knowledge and experience across the whole country. It's like Facebook and offers the opportunity to have both public and private forums.

Join the current 783 members at www.tenantbook.co.uk.