Stirred, not shaken

"The best chief executives," says Moat Housing Group chief executive John Barker, "have the ability not to get worried about things." Barker is a prime example. His own ability to stay calm under pressure was honed when he worked as an area manager for Metropolitan Housing Trust from an office in Brixton, south London, as riots raged through the area in April 1981. Angry masses wielding broken bottles fought outside the office as staff boarded up smashed windows from the inside to protect themselves.

It was a "hairy moment", Barker recalls with characteristic understatement. But rather than dwell on the bad memories, he prefers to concentrate on the positive change that was prompted by the riots, such as the £200,000 regeneration scheme that allowed post-riot Brixton to rise from its own ashes.

These days Barker heads a housing organisation that owns 11,500 homes in London and the South-east. Under his leadership, it has carved a niche for itself in the shared-ownership market, with 3795 homes co-owned by tenants.

Barker says he is particularly proud of the way Moat has turned itself around from darker days in the 1980s when it had developed what he guardedly refers to as "a bad reputation" in development terms. Today, however, Moat is one the main players in the starter home initiative – one of the government's favourite ideas: 212 of its shared-ownership homes were built under the initiative.

Barker, who travelled to London from his native Preston in the 1970s on the advice of a canny careers officer, describes himself as a stubborn man. "Once I've got an idea into my head it's hard to shift it." Indeed, government officials should beware: there are a number of issues that Barker has got into his head and, phlegmatic though he may be, he is by no means a shrinking violet.

He is outspoken in his criticism of the London mayor's ambitious 50% target for affordable housing on new developments: "While it will meet immediate needs, in the long term it is not going to produce good sustainable communities," he says. If anyone knows about shared communities, he does: Moat has 266 sub-market rent and shared-ownership homes on south London's Greenwich peninsula, part of the 1200-home Millennium Village there.

In fact, as a result of that involvement, Barker is one of the housing chiefs invited to give their views to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister before John Prescott issues his Communities Plan statement in January. So, what will he say? "I'd like to see a recognition that housing associations are the key delivery agents in producing affordable homes in mixed communities and in delivering neighbourhood improvement. The government doesn't need to try to invent new agencies when we're here with the skills and capacity to do more."

He continues: "Housing associations should be the lead developer on large mixed-tenure developments, particularly on land being sold by public authorities." This is an idea that many in the sector, including Joseph Rowntree Foundation director Lord Richard Best and Housing Corporation chief executive Norman Perry, have recently been pushing and it is known to be a theme close to the heart of the deputy prime minister.

Barker is not afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve. He says what pleases him most about the job is not the big deals – "although they're obviously good" – but making people's lives better. "Last week, I went to see people on one of our care and repair services in Essex. We do different handyman jobs for our tenants and I saw some people there that were just full of admiration for what we had done. It's things like that, where you can talk to people where you're making a real difference to their lives – that's what gives me the biggest buzz." Just to remind himself of these good things, Barker's office is adorned with five or six pictures of the schemes of which he's particularly proud.

Former colleague Sue Bayes, Metropolitan's regional director, south Thames, describes Barker as "a very good manager." She says: "He's very good at motivating staff and is very ambitious. He's very tough and doesn't take any nonsense, but is warm and friendly and enthusiastic."

Barker says his biggest disappointment was the failed merger with Genesis Housing Group in 1999. "It would have been great for us both to put ourselves together and achieve more as a result," he says. "Unless you try these things you don't achieve anything."

His current thinking is that group structures are the way ahead, with smaller associations coming to join part of a larger parent. Moat subsidiaries include Moat Care and Repair and Moat Home Ownership – the organisation's shared-ownership arm.

Of the latest issue to grip the sector – paying board members – Barker is cautiously welcoming but says he was "disappointed that the consultation paper didn't contain the opportunity to include greater executive responsibility for board decisions."

Ultimately, Barker's philosophy is a simple one. "I've heard some chief executives blame bad decisions on the board and take the credit for good ones," he says. "I would like to see more executive directors sharing responsibility for the organisation."