Orr’s tall order

The chief executive of a smaller housing association trade body stepping up to replace the chief executive of a larger one. One white, middle-aged housing male picking up where another has left off. However, this would be doing the affable Orr – and Richard Clark, who gave him the job – a disservice.

First, Clark has avoided the schisms that were likely if the appointee had been a high-profile chief executive of an English association. Second, the chair of the NHF will feel his choice has credibility due to Orr’s experience as chief executive of London-based Newlon Housing Group and his work for the Scottish executive and homelessness charity Centrepoint.

However, if these were the only reasons for appointing the 49-year-old Scot, Clark would be rightly criticised for being too timid. But it was Orr’s record of successful campaigning that swayed the NHF’s kingmakers. He fought off attempts by the Scottish executive to extend the right to buy to housing association properties.

His combative approach allowed the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations to punch above its weight.

Orr has already received warm words of welcome. However, his honeymoon period will be brief. The issues in his in-tray include government moves to pay grant to private developers and improvements to the NHF’s In Business campaign. Under his lead, the federation needs to make its mark as the campaigning body for social housing. Clark will hope he has got his man.

Playing politics with asylum

As both Ted Cantle (page 24) and Bishop David Walker (page 23) point out this week, asylum and immigration are playing a worryingly prominent role in the run-up to the general election, expected in May. The polls show that voters approve of the sound and fury, but this support has shot up only in the past two months – since the Conservatives and Labour began trading blows over the subject.

The parties should be ashamed. As the number of asylum seekers in need of support has fallen to 40,000, the Home Office’s plans to cut 30,000 bed spaces from the current provision of 70,000 seems sensible on the surface. It will look efficient and save money.

However, experts warn such a drastic cut will increase the risk of some asylum seekers being left homeless (page 7). Often these will be people in the most urgent need of housing. The suspicion has to be that it is politics, not resources, that is driving the cut. It is right to cut the number of properties to avoid waste, but not to win votes.