We may only be talking about a handful of homes, but the gazumping of Hastoe Housing Association's bid to buy Ministry of Defence houses in Essex is symptomatic of the contradictions at the heart of government policy (page 14). While those in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and its associated agencies strive to deliver more affordable homes, the stark reality is that other government departments are pulling the rug from under its feet by selling their estates to the highest bidder.
In the days before Margaret Thatcher sold them off, homes were regularly provided for nurses, policemen and firefighters. Now, week after week, there are continual reminders of how the shortage of homes for these key workers is crippling the public sector. Teachers in London are striking because their salaries – even with weighting – go nowhere near to meeting the cost of finding somewhere to live in the capital. Hospital waiting lists get longer because the NHS can't recruit nurses when there's nowhere for them to live.

The NHS has particularly been under pressure to tackle this issue after the sale in the summer of its surplus land to the private sector to build luxury homes. Behind the scenes, the Housing Corporation and NHS Estates at least appear to be trying to resolve these competing demands. The two organisations are in talks about housing associations buying the land at sub-market rates to provide homes for nurses. Deals like this will inevitably need more changes to government accounting. But what the Treasury loses on the economic swings in subsidising housing in this way, it stands to gain far more on the political roundabouts.

One scheme where affordable housing has not lost out to the private sector is the Isokon building in north London, pictured on the cover. Keen to retain the building's pioneering ethos, Camden council turned down lucrative offers for the building in order to sell it to Notting Hill Housing Group, which is renovating it to house teachers. When author Agatha Christie and her chums graced the Isokon in the 1930s, its sleek modernist design and community spirit put it on the map. In its latest incarnation, the Isokon is forging new territory by providing affordable housing with a minimal grant. It is one of three very different schemes featured this week showing the financial ingenuity available to social housing providers struggling to create homes on scarce public resources (page 26).

While the ODPM strives to deliver affordable homes, other government departments are pulling the rug from under its feet