Our pink panther sniffs out a few mysteries
Not the master detective
The sleuth employed by the Housing Corporation to track down the fink who leaked confidential IT information has proved more Clouseau than Columbo. The private eye apparently departed after a month-long investigation without ever staging his grand denouement.

Instead, corporation assistant chief executive Jackie Green is to send letters to each member of the 39-strong IT team, letting them know that they are being watched … Do you think the confessions will come flooding in?

Vision on
At long last, after spending £700,000 and deliberating for over a year, the National Housing Federation has settled on a new image for social housing. The snappy new slogan dreamed up by marketing guru Wally Olins reads "iN business for neighbourhoods". Fed chair Richard McCarthy explains: "The small 'i' is for the softer community side of associations' work. The harder 'N' represents the business end and the whole thing is set against the blue sky as the sky's the limit." Can't wait to see it? You'll have to: the full launch won't take place until the Fed's annual conference on 24 September in Birmingham.

Gamekeeper turns poacher
The long enquiring arm of the Audit Commission stretches ever further this week as it formally takes on the inspection of housing associations from the Housing Corporation.

The commission has also recently been made responsible for monitoring the progress of the housing market renewal pathfinders in the north of England and the Midlands. Apparently the pathfinders have already had to make concessions to the watchdog as it has poached some of their best staff. Certainly no problems of low demand as far as inspection positions are concerned, then.

Tall skinny flats
Trendy coffee shops and social housing have more in common than you think. According to Richard Clark, chief executive of regeneration agency Prime Focus, they are only sectors that are still growing. So will anti-globalisation protesters be descending on your local housing office? Will we soon be able to refer to "housing association intellectuals"?

43 minutes spent form-filling …
In an effort to estimate the cost of Supporting People services, one council has issued a questionnaire asking the staff of supported housing projects how they spend their time. No detail was spared.

Staff were asked to everything from how much time they spent cleaning to showing residents how to use the iron. Methinks this exercise might prove a tad counter-productive.

Tower envy

Sarah Webb, Chartered Institute of Housing policy director and former head of housing at Birmingham council, says the top brass at Birmingham and Glasgow used to compete over whose stock was bigger. One thought he took the prize because he had the most tower blocks. The other said he won because his towers were taller. “A metaphor perhaps?” wonders Webb.

Source

Housing Today