Comment

I don't know the rights and wrongs of the Places for People dispute and have no intention of speculating. This, combined with the discussions about top pay at Sanctuary Housing Association, does however give the sector the opportunity to look at its governance issues.

Over the past 15 years, I have negotiated with RSLs, sat on the board of an RSL, worked for and promoted RSLs, so I am not an enemy. But I do believe that standards of governance within the sector are often low.

Many boards are packed with mates of the chief executive who rarely challenge senior staff, often because they are ill-trained in the sector's needs.

The concepts of openness and democracy are foreign to many. Why is it that very few RSLs hold their meetings in public? In large-scale voluntary transfers, the openness of the housing debate becomes opaque overnight. Major decisions affecting tenants are made with very little public discussion. Many associations are winding down tenant involvement activity because tenants are too difficult to deal with. Of course, some things need to be discussed privately, but this isn't an excuse for retreating into an RSL laager.

I speak to too many people in the sector who maintain that RSLs are private companies and should be run as such. This is rubbish. RSLs depend on money from the state. They get huge amounts of housing benefit towards their revenue accounts and get development grants from the Housing Corporation and other partners. Even when they borrow from banks, they do so against assets acquired using public funding and often acquire assets at knockdown prices because of arcane funding methods.

The recent moves by the National Housing Federation into neighbourhood activity will not be possible unless greater thought is given to involving the community in decision-making. If neighbourhoods are to be changed then local people need to "own" the strategies, the policies and the projects. This means transfering power from those that have it (RSLs, councils and quangos) to those that can use it better: the community. RSLs need to understand they are a part of the public sector and should be accountable to those who ultimately pay the bills.