In a paper for the Institute for Public Policy Research's inquiry into the future of social housing, John Swinney, managing director of JSSPinnacle - one of two private companies currently managing local authority stock - argues that social housing tenants will have a greater diversity of potential landlords and managers to choose from.
The roles of landlord and manager are different and need to be split, he adds, and given this, private sector involvement in management is likely to increase over the next ten years.
Private companies can already outperform their competitors, he argues, and there is nothing wrong with a profit motive if they can run a local authority service better and at lower cost. Conversely, housing associations' "lack of organisational clarity is bound to mean confusion" and while their growth is focused on stock transfer, customer service provision is likely to remain a "secondary focus".
He adds: "While the manager and the landlord roles are one and the same and the possibility of changing manager is not on the agenda, tenant involvement in reviewing their service provider has no teeth and will therefore continue to be tokenistic."
John Perry, the Chartered Institute of Housing's director of policy, said the social housing sector had "got to take notice of operators such as JSSPinnacle, which has obviously made such a success of its contract in Hackney".
However he added that rather than private firms taking over, the social housing sector should "learn the lesson of how the private sector operates".
Profit is not the only driver in achieving good management, he added. "Service to tenants can be a driver as much as the making of profit".
Paul Lautman, the Local Government Association's head of housing group added that "many local authorities are very good providers of housing services".
Source
Housing Today
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