A thinker and a doer

Matthew Taylor likes the big questions. Within minutes of meeting him at his office, tucked away at the top of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, near the Strand in London, he’s raising some philosophical corkers: who are we, what motivates us, how do we need to change?

If that all sounds rather nebulous and worthy, it might be a comfort to know that 48-year-old Mr Taylor, now chief executive of the RSA, is also wise to the constraints of reality. He spent three years as head of strategy for prime minister Tony Blair, following the 2005 general election.

As we talk and he wrestles to pin down ideas about how society should be changing, he closes his eyes and puts his hands up as if in prayer, or grips the bridge of his nose. He gives the impression he relishes engaging with difficult topics. I suspect that he has opinions on everything.

That includes social housing: Mr Taylor spoke at the Chartered Institute of Housing’s annual conference in June, while the RSA will host sessions at the party conferences this autumn on public services and spending cuts. He also has some interesting ideas about how social housing should be innovating - such as forgetting about housing management and concentrating on changing tenants’ lives.

Think tanks have got a bad name in some corners of the media, as cosy generators of unworkable policy by the chattering classes. But at their best, they should be where innovative ideas are tested before being launched on the world. The RSA began in a coffee shop in 1754 to do just that: to stimulate ideas in arts and science and to sponsor business ideas and inventions. Now its projects range from designing new curriculums to helping drug offenders (see box, overleaf: Art attack).

Even so, Mr Taylor is wary of running a talking shop. ‘I wanted to work in an organisation that was about making change happen, not one that is about pamphlets and encouraging government to do things.’ Of course, the RSA does a certain amount of lobbying, as well as holding lectures, researching and publishing articles - ‘but fundamentally, what we are about is trying to instigate change ourselves’.

Power trip

If making things happen is what Mr Taylor likes, it should have been hard to leave the heart of government. But he doesn’t miss having a boss, even if that boss was the prime minister. ‘I enjoy running things and although it was an honour working in Number 10 and for Tony Blair, not being in charge frustrated me,’ he explains.

Before the move to Downing Street, he headed up high-profile left wing think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research - a powerhouse for many New Labour ideas, including public private partnerships aimed at introducing private efficiency and cash into the public sector.

Those ideas are still with Mr Taylor, who thinks social landlords should farm out their housing management to organisations such as Pinnacle, a private management company where he is a non-executive director. He insists that that role doesn’t bias his opinion and is adamant that ‘housing management is one of the great unreformed projects. I think that a lot of housing associations manage their housing and they don’t do it terribly well’.

He continues: ‘Housing associations are at their best when they are looking holistically at the issues their tenants face, on employability and care and education. They shouldn’t weigh themselves down with the drudge of having to manage their stock when others can do that and do it better.’
As part of that picture of housing management, he’d relish the chance to do some research on tenant management organisations, which he thinks are ‘at their best fantastic’ but ‘sometimes completely disastrous’.

Face-to-face

The idea of building on tenant expertise and existing knowledge is one that we come back to when we discuss social landlords using online communities. He warns against jumping on the fashionable bandwagon of Facebook, Twitter and blogging without knowing what your purpose is or making sure it aligns with existing communities. ‘I don’t think digital networks can make up for a lack of social networks but [they] can really enhance them. You can only work that potential if it is working alongside that face-to-face community.’

To get people listening, Mr Taylor says, you’ve got to work out what they want to hear. ‘The main problem you have with most websites is - is anyone bothered? You need to identify the people who are most trusted and most credible in the community and get them to write.’

The same goes for social networks - the real rather than virtual relationship links between people that can be built up to benefit the community as a whole. This is something that social landlords are often trying to tap into, whether it is to engage residents or help people develop jobs and skills. The RSA is running a project that develops these links.

Mr Taylor explains: ‘The idea is to show people those networks to play them back to people, so they can think about how they can use and strengthen them.’

But he warns against the tactic sometimes adopted in government projects such as the new deal for communities, which involves trying to construct those networks instead of working with what there is. ‘Too often the public sector, in a well-meaning way, goes into those communities and creates new networks, without having and awareness of what is there already.’

Whether the questions are big - how society should fit together - or small - how to run a blog - Mr Taylor has something to say. Except perhaps at the end of the interview, when he’s stung to the quick when I ask why the walls of his office are bare, the bookshelves half-empty and the mantelpiece desolate. ‘You don’t think it means I’m some kind of weird loner, do you?’ he says. I imagine what his social network must look like: politicians, newspaper editors, authors. I suspect he’s joking.

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