The Housing Corporation has completed its reorganisation - and the final line-up suggests it is in safe hands.
Alongside new chief executive Norman Perry will be newcomers Bob Dinwiddy, from the Government's regional co-ordination unit, who will be in charge of regulation and best value, and Jackie Green, head of corporate affairs at Places for People (formerly North British), responsible for "organisational effectiveness", and - the only internal appointment - Neil Hadden as assistant chief executive, investment and regeneration.
Hadden has impressed in his two years as director of investment. His appointment is likely to be well received: continuity here will be a good thing given the big changes under way.
Norman conquest
As Perry pointed out at his first major speech to a housing association audience at the chief executive's conference last month, paper-based bidding is to go in favour of on-line systems, and away from a scheme-based to a programme-focused approach, led by policy at local and regional level. He also pointed out that development will be pre-negotiated "rather than lobbed cold into the bidding system".
The problem is that this requires funding programmes over more than the one year timescale that central government has traditionally worked. I say "traditionally" because over both this Government and the last few years of the Conservative Government, three year spending plan promises have been kept.
The only caveat is that it has been easy for them to do so given the favourable economic environment. The real test would be if things went sour. Then we would see whether the Treasury would hold its nerve.
Perry also revived the idea of rationalisation of the sector: he is amazed that there are no fewer than 50 associations operating in Liverpool for instance. He suggested that the sector's day-to-day performance in serving people in need does not always live up to its historic mission. He pointed out that even large associations have a scatter of properties in places that don't fit with their future corporate needs.
Perry believes management of these should be handed over to smaller associations "which could do with a square meal of some extra properties". It would amount to a licence to manage and was not necessarily about ownership.
He also expects to see rationalisation continuing in development with more money going to the larger, expert associations. The trend towards that will continue, he said, adding that he didn't see why so many associations needed architects, quantity surveyors and so forth.
But for all Perry's optimistic outlook about conquering low demand, the sceptics were not so sure. Tony Shoults of Metropolitan Housing Trust told him that he didn't believe the Corporation could do anything. There were too many DETR regeneration initiatives and they would not get rid of low demand in ten years, while such things as backlogs in payment of housing benefit "are making our jobs much more difficult". The comments, he added, did not reflect how hostile the environment is for associations.
On housing benefit Perry hinted at very short term measures to provide cash flow support. If he succeeds, he is likely to get the admiration of many associations, some of which have as much as £2m owing from local authorities - the total owed by all local authorities exceeds £80m.
Rent asunder?
It seems that the changes to the housing association rent regime may be more problematic than first thought. Big anomalies are emerging.
Crude earnings measures mean that rents will fall in areas such as Hampshire, and rise in low demand areas in the East Midlands - "we may not have tenants at all", Frank Cooper of Eastern Shires HA believes. And Keith Exford of Bexley-based Broomleigh HA wonders how he is going to explain to tenants that rents of less desirable flats will go up, while those of more desirable houses will fall.
Open to some
I promised to bring you news of the "open space" forum at the conference where "whatever takes place is the only thing that could have" and "when it ends it is over". Well, it wasn't that open: journalists were excluded.
The National Housing Federation has another exciting event planned. Its finance conference in March will introduce "spiritual intelligence SQ - the ultimate intelligence of the leader". The brochure says that SQ "arises from humanity's deep need for and access to deep mean, fundamental value, and abiding purpose.[sic]" Can't wait!
Source
Building Homes
