In Business is failing says half of sector

Almost half of housing professionals feel the National Housing Federation’s £1m campaign to rebrand the sector has failed to raise the profile of registered social landlords in its first year.

The findings, revealed in an exclusive poll conducted by Housing Today, will make sobering reading for the NHF, whose In Business for Neighbourhoods initiative reaches its first anniversary this week.

The poll also found that fewer than one in five respondents believed the effort had been value for money (pie charts, right). And although 40% said they had noticed RSLs taking a different approach to their work as a result of In Business, a similar proportion said there had been no obvious change.

However, the NHF can take comfort from the fact that two-thirds of the respondents who were RSL staff were clear on the aims of In Business. More than half of respondents who worked for RSLs had seen their organisations start to do things differently.

Even for this group, however, In Business was seen as having little impact: just a quarter of RSL staff felt the initiative had raised the profile of the 418 associations that have signed up.

The picture becomes even more bleak when considering the views of councils, arm’s-length managers and other bodies.

Almost 60% of these had not noticed associations doing anything differently and just 22% said they felt those who had signed up to In Business had seen their profiles raised.

Responding to the findings, the chief executive of a large South-east association that has joined the campaign said: “It is a bit disappointing .

“You can’t pretend that a year ago you would have set out aiming to get these figures. I’m surprised that more associations aren’t already doing things differently.

“I’d like to see the federation ensuring that people demonstrate that they are doing things differently and that they are improving the communities in which they work. The key thing now is to demonstrate that the money committed to this has been well spent.”

Mike Donaldson, director of corporate strategy at London & Quadrant, said: “Inevitably there are things that could have been done differently. However, people are now beginning to properly think about In Business as part of their strategies and this is a 10-year project as far as we are concerned.”

Jim Coulter, chief executive of the NHF, said: “In Business is long-term programme that also aims to tackle the perceptions of housing associations and their work.

“This survey shows that we are more than beginning to make inroads into the way we work. [But] our members also have a job to do to talk to their stakeholders about the work they do in communities and neighbourhoods.”