Abode Recruitment

The new social housing regulator and investor vowed the agencies would avoid becoming tools to ‘enforce the will of government’, as they prepared to open their doors for business.
Speaking at a question time event organised by Inside Housing, Sir Bob Kerslake and Peter Marsh both promised the new agencies would take a strong independent line.
The Homes and Communities Agency, headed by Sir Bob, and the Tenant Services Authority, headed by Mr Marsh, are due to launch on Monday. Sir Bob said his agency would help meet government housing targets but wanted to be a ‘national agency that works locally’.
He acknowledged: ‘There is clearly a risk that we struggle in that agenda to balance it with national targets.’
But he pledged that the agency would act as a ‘voice of delivery’ in Whitehall, making strong representations to government about what it should be doing to help housing providers on the ground. Sir Bob added that the principle of ‘agencies working from the top down and enforcing the will of government is no longer a viable one, if it ever was’.
Mr Marsh promised the TSA would not be a ‘policy passporting agency of government’.
‘We will no longer see compliance with [anti-social behaviour orders] or the number of tenant board members being the TSA way because a minister said so,’ he added.
Both chief executives also laid down some of their plans to tackle the credit crunch.
Mr Marsh said the TSA would hold an immediate ‘scenario day’ with developers, housing associations and lenders to talk about how to rescue a housing association suffering financial difficulty in the economic environment.
‘I do happen to believe that there are enough people in the sector with capacity and appetite to absorb a failing organisation that finds itself in difficulty,’ he said.
Sir Bob said the HCA had to be realistic about its ability to encourage lenders to increase the supply of mortgages for shared-ownership products. He added the focus was likely to be on persuading lenders against repossessing homes.
But Conservative shadow housing minister Grant Shapps cast doubt over the long-term future of the HCA, saying a Conservative government would scrap it should the body fail to deliver. Mr Shapps blasted the creation of the HCA – and the Tenant Services Authority – as ‘enormously disruptive’.