Neil Hadden, the corporation's assistant chief executive for investment and regeneration, said the corporation would investigate the quality and usefulness of the services provided by any new group.
He added: "Having set a threshold of £10m, a number of associations decided to group together. That's fine.
"We will be looking at the added value they bring to the process and how strategic they are. Rather than marriages of convenience, they must bring something strategic to the table."
Hadden declined to name the consortia that had caused his concerns.
Speaking at the Chartered Institute of Housing conference in Harrogate last Thursday, Hadden said the corporation would become more active in choosing schemes for sites and signalled that housing associations would face greater competition.
He reiterated his warning to the 71 associations chosen as partners that there was "scope for other associations or groups to come into the club and scope for others to fail and leave it" (HT 2 April, page 17).
As part of this move, the corporation and regeneration agency English Partnerships will identify sites for affordable housing and hold competitions among local partner associations to find a scheme to fund. He added that the corporation would run a competition involving "non RSLs" bidding for social housing grant next year.
The corporation hopes to have a financial stake in developments so it would make money as property values rise and redistribute profit to other areas. It has piloted this approach with EP at the Millennium Dome site.
Mervyn Jones, chief executive of Pavilion Housing Association, said: "There'll be a further shake-out. Some of the consortia that came together did appear to be dreamed up at the last minute because they had no previous record. Some of those will prove to be appropriate to the new world we are living in and others need to reform in a regional framework."
Source
Housing Today
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