Immaculately turned-out, Strachan looks more like a polished businessman than a civil servant. Indeed, he is a one-time investment banker, something that gave him experience of the fear and loathing regulators can inspire in those they scrutinise. However, he is no liberalising free marketeer. He is convinced that the public sector needs a "strong external challenge", and is a big fan of the comprehensive performance assessment, introduced last year to rate the overall performance of England's largest councils.
Strachan, who turns 50 next month, arrived at the Audit Commission last November. It was a hectic period for the public service watchdog: it was preparing to launch the CPA league tables and had just been confirmed as the inspector for housing associations. Yet less than a year later, in his speech to the NHF conference, Strachan said: "There is far too much regulation and nobody can say the UK has a better public service sector as a result." A number of delegates, not least outgoing NHF chair Richard McCarthy, remarked on how impressed they were with his words.
Shake-up of whole regime
By mid-October, the commission will publish details of the areas where it wants to scale back its work. Housing is not expected to be one of its main targets: nevertheless, in his speech to the NHF Strachan made it clear that the inspection regime needs a shake-up. "There is a need for pointed questions to be asked about the audit and inspection process, particularly its value for money," he says. "We need to identify the key aspects of what we require from strategic inspection."
According to Strachan, these can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Housing inspection, he believes, should be more user-focused and proportionate with performance (HT 3 October, page 13). He wants the commission to work closely with the Housing Corporation to help lift the regulatory burden on registered social landlords. "If you are on a road that is increasingly complex, but want to shrink the amount of regulation, one way to get round this is to have a lot more joined-up action."
Strachan also plans to make the inspection process more "positive". The Audit Commission has long been criticised for its approach of naming and shaming poorly performing authorities: even councils that find favour have complained that their achievements have been downplayed.
Strachan agrees that inspection reports have sometimes erred on the overly negative side. "The commission's role should be one of a critical friend. But the actual experience of having the inspector call has not always lived up to this," he says, and promises that he is aiming for a reversal.
But many association chiefs saw their previous regulator, the Housing Corporation, as capable of better understanding the sector and are sceptical about a wholesale culture change at the Audit Commission. Howard Farrand, chief executive of Whitefriars Housing Group, says he is "very impressed by [Strachan's] presence and command of his subject" but questions whether the commission will be able to change its "'caught you out' mentality". "The commission needs to trust associations to know their own business. It's fine for it to point out good practice, but it shouldn't be its job to second-guess – which is what its track record suggests it will do," he says.
For Strachan, the commission's image isn't helped by an imbalance between local and national targets. He dislikes sweeping, abstract goals thrown the way of councils and public bodies by central government, and sees locally set targets as key tools in improving performance. "National targets are totally beyond the control of most organisations," he says. "We've elevated them to a ludicrous level. What people are crying out for is a different ratio between national and local targets, and national aspirations are best served by acknowledging that different areas have different needs."
Councils and associations will have to be ready to prove that housing services have materially improved for tenants. "It's a priority to ask people in a locality if they can see positive change – and the answer needs to be 'yes'," says Strachan.
He also plans to resolve outstanding differences between the inspection of housing associations and councils. Although he will not be drawn into revealing any details on issues such as whether star ratings will be extended across the board, he does want "some means of comparing the performance of councils with housing associations".
He is keen for the principles of CPA to be applied to RSLs, though he won't say if league tables are on the horizon. "It makes sense to have one baseline and then to make decisions to inspect against it," Strachan says. High-performing RSLs seem likely to get something equivalent to the "freedoms and flexibilities" on offer to excellent councils under the new Local Government Act.
The man for the job
If these plans don't sound like the sort of thing one might expect from the head of a regulatory body; Strachan is not the kind of man one might expect to be doing such a job. He has had an unconventional career, involving success in the business world, spells in the voluntary and public sectors and nearly a decade as a photographer. His partner is Baroness Blackstone, the former arts minister. Also, he is deaf, which he says has affected "every millisecond of my career".
After studying economics and English at Cambridge, he wanted to be a documentary film-maker – "because of my deafness, I always had a strong visual sense" – but changed tack when he found he wasn't earning enough. "I didn't have any money – money was a problem throughout my childhood – so I decided I needed some financial independence and then could return to film school," he says. And earn money he did: by the age of 35 Strachan was "running the UK side" of investment bank Merrill Lynch. True to his plans, however, he left to study photography and journalism at the London College of Printing, and had a "lovely life" for the next eight years.
A chance meeting with Lady Winifred Tumim, then chair of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, led Strachan back into management. "I didn't know who she was, but we were sitting next to each other and she said: 'Why aren't you working for the Royal National Institute for Deaf People?'" Strachan was persuaded to work on a new strategy for the charity and was "slowly sucked in to becoming chief executive", from which job he moved to the Audit Commission.
Aware of the need to build up trust levels between associations and the commission and motivated to cut back the burden of bureaucracy, Strachan seems like someone willing and able to turn the commission into the kind of regulator that associations need.
He is, he says, "one of the most determined people you'll ever meet" – something that's been shaped by his disability: "I'd never have been that determined if I hadn't been deaf." He's certainly determined about the changes he wants and believes he has support. "What's stopping us?" he asks. "The government is very much in favour. The public wants to see an improvement in services. The commission has an independent agenda, not a separate one."
Source
Housing Today
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