2nd opinion: Don't panic

Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy characters discover that 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything, and then spend the rest of the series trying to find out what the question was. I am tempted to send a copy of that classic radio programme to each member of the Housing Corporation board – to be played before they make their final decision on the subject of payments to housing association board members.

If paying us is the solution, then what is the problem?

Is it the big associations, where board membership involves taking complex decisions and is demanding in time and commitment? In my experience, the larger associations resource, train and service their boards well, the quality of board members is high and they fulfil all that could be expected. I have seen no evidence of problems finding new board members with the right skills and commitment, and board members' morale is usually high.

It is hard to see what payment will add.

So perhaps it is smaller associations? Here there are undoubted difficulties from time to time in finding enough volunteers at local level to fill all the places our constitutions expect. Maybe throwing a few thousand pounds at prospective members might make a difference, but these are precisely the associations that can least afford to pay their boards, and where payment would be most likely damage the close relationship between the association and the community it serves.

If the bigger associations don't need to pay and the smaller ones couldn't afford to pay, why change the rules? Is it just a case of our beloved regulator trusting us enough to let us make our own minds up about a governance matter? Those who follow my reasoning won't pay, but why should others be prevented from doing so?

Payment is only one aspect of governance. It sits in a delicate balance alongside democratic accountability to shareholders, individual appraisal, collective performance review and recruitment/succession policies.

Most paid quango posts eschew democracy in favour of appointment by a secretary of state or similar. Local government is the prime example of combining payment with election, it does so with a much wider electorate than any association could aspire to have, and knowing that of the several dozen members elected only a handful will have real decision-making powers.

It worries me that offering payment could lead to some curious election results at AGMs. The local authority experience suggests that it could also prove rather more difficult to persuade the member whose sell-by date has passed to step down than in the past.

Let me suggest an alternative way forward. Board members are already reimbursed for expenses incurred in their duties. Let the corporation extend that provision by allowing compensation for actual loss of earnings or compensation to a board member's employer, in a manner similar to that which applies for magistrates or jury members. That will level the playing field so that tenants and others in work are not impeded in taking up board membership, but no one will be able to accuse us of putting our own interests ahead of our residents and service users.

In the final Hitchhiker episode, the two main characters discover the question, only to find that it had been the wrong one all along. I hope the corporation might reach the same conclusion.