Cheek pouches bulging with half-chewed gossip
Audit right there …
A slap on the wrist for the author of a letter sent last week from the Office of Public Management about the probe into a possible code of governance for the public sector. The letter, from Sir Alan Langlands, head of the Rowntree-sponsored review, was asking for contributions to his team's work but, at one point, described the Audit Commission as the "inspector and regulator for social housing". Apparently, a tartly worded response was winging its way to Langlands from Housing Corporation chair Peter Dixon later the very same day.

Barker's bite
The scuttlebutt around the Barker Review of housing supply has been surprisingly dry this week, but it seems Christine Whitehead has beaten Social Animal to the story. At the NHF chief execs' conference in Birmingham last week, Whitehead – who is professor of housing economics at the London School of Economics – got straight to the devastating detail. "There are some real horrors in the review," she declared. "Mainly on page 39 – the econometric models are of the sort that any other economist wouldn't normally touch with a barge pole." Scary.

Land ahoy!
With bids for the 2005-8 Treasury spending review due in shortly, I've heard of one intriguing plan doing the rounds in the upper echelons of the ODPM. The idea, so the story goes, is to get more cash for regeneration quango English Partnerships and the regional development agencies to kick-start regeneration projects by buying up strategic sites. Hopelessly wide of the mark or bang on the money? The evidence points to the latter as EP, under the charge of the redoubtable Margaret Ford, has demonstrated a quite voracious appetite for land in London over the past six months as part of its drive to build more affordable homes in the capital. Could its coffers, perchance, be running dry?

Widdecombe to the rescue?
It seems the on-going row with the Inland Revenue over the tax breaks available to transfer associations that use VAT shelters has finally driven one south-eastern RSL to lay siege to the Revenue for its lack of a decision. Maidstone Housing Trust has dispatched its (distinctly disgruntled) local MP to find out what is going on. Expect a decision any day now as the MP in question is none other than formidable former shadow home secretary Ann Widdecombe. It almost makes you feel sorry for the taxman. Almost.

Yamaha-ha-ha
As the NHF prepares to bid farewell to James Tickell, the housing world wonders who will take his crown. Front runner, according to the rumour mill, is Arvinda Gohil, director of membership and regions. Whether she will also pick up Tickell's love of motorbikes and hilarious practical jokes remains to be seen.

Hamming it up

Spring may be in the air but the frosty relations between the Housing Corporation and the ODPM select committee show little sign of thawing. Speaking at the NHF chief executives’ conference last Thursday, Housing Corporation chair Peter Dixon compared the select committee inquiry into the corporation – which began taking evidence on Monday this week – to weighing a pig. “You can weigh it as many times as you like but it doesn’t get any fatter,” he mused. “You have to question whether there will be any value from it.”