League of its own

I love league tables, whether they are for football, Olympic medals, Eurovision songs or registered social landlords’ performance. It’s a system with which everybody is generally familiar: Arsenal is the best, Leeds gets demoted.

So, in principle, I have no gripe with the Housing Corporation’s first, laudable effort to produce an efficiency table for the sector, however clumsily it may have been publicised – although, in fairness, it was the housing media and not the corporation that dubbed it so and took the trouble to order the rankings.

However, the problem with our league is that it is, as yet, disconnected from the normal rewards and recognition for coming out on top or the infamy and penalties associated with failure. Indeed, the regulator is already back-pedalling from such direct associations, relying on the plethora of other devices already available to exercise its God-like powers.

What bothers me is that this excessive and relatively undiscriminating form of regulation is complicated, costly, uncertain and, all too often, ineffective. I know or know of a number of other RSLs and I reckon I can assess their supervisory future at least a year ahead of the appointed monitors.

Anyway, we know what the agenda is and the objective should be to offer constructive criticism so that we have a fair, accurate and objective benchmarking tool that will allow us to address our inevitable shortcomings. There must be consequences to give the regime some meaning – rewards and punishments.

At the same time the government and corporation must work towards stripping out the ungainly, outmoded and ineffective regulatory machinery currently in operation. Let’s all get lean and mean.

We should be agitated by any new measure that detracts from our efficiency and effectiveness. A major item in my company’s risk map is modification of housing benefits and stopping direct payments to landlords is definitely adverse.

I respect the argument about promoting independence, but I find the choice argument spurious and I’m not sure I would like the responsibility implied by the limited budgets imposed on benefit recipients.

Far better to make the system fairer, reducing the onerous tapers that are a disincentive to returning to work or honest declaration of income, spending money helping people into work (including housing mobility) balanced by some stricter measures for the minority who wilfully exploit the system. Let’s get shot of the “nanny state” syndrome, too.

We need to consider very carefully what is required to achieve real affordability. This might mean a bit of moderation, a few less “must dos” or “must haves” on the spiralling list of policies adding to our costs. We must balance better homes with more affordable homes. Let’s get our priorities right.