26 January 2001
Housing associations which raise substantial amounts of private investment must never forget their role as public sector bodies, their regulator warned this week.
In his first major speech to the sector since taking over as the Housing Corporation's chief executive last October, Norman Perry warned that some registered social landlords were unsure how to operate when they had a foot in both sectors.
'Housing association chief executives work on the boundary between the public sector and the business ethos,' he told the National Housing Federation's chief executives conference in Birmingham on January 22.
'On one side you are driven by business results, financial performance, continuous growth of the enterprise, customer satisfaction; on the other side, you need to consider equity and fairness, legislative frameworks, ministerial policies.'
There was a paradox, he said, between a sector which had successfully raised so much in private investment but, until recently, assumed that it could ignore economic forces and raise its user charges each year by more than inflation.
'I see a sector whose origins are rooted in the alleviation of poverty and social justice, but whose day-to-day performance in serving people in need does not always live up to that historic mission,' he added.
The corporation's Best Value inspection system, which is still in the early stages of development, would focus on residents' experiences.
At the same time, the government recognised that RSLs had a key role to play in neighbourhood renewal, although associations had to 'earn their place at the top table', said Perry
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