The short goodbye

It was an afternoon like any other at Anchor Trust’s headquarters in central London when a memo dropped onto the desks of senior staff that would shake the 37,163-home organisation to its core. After 15 years at the helm John Belcher, the Canadian boss who has topped Inside Housing’s league table of housing association chief executive pay for the past two years, had resigned.

Mr Belcher’s £391,000 pay package for 2008/09 - a 20 per cent increase on the previous year and £70,000 more than the next best paid housing association chief - has been widely criticised, including by Conservative housing spokesperson Grant Shapps, who called it ‘inappropriate’.

But there was no reason to think that Mr Belcher would not be around to pick up his hefty salary next year, and the hasty manner of his departure has led to widespread speculation that he was dismissed.

His resignation comes amid a restructure at Anchor and follows the departure of at least one other senior executive, suggesting some degree of turmoil at the organisation. The trust also has a new chair, Aman Dalvi, who took up his post 13 months ago. Could Mr Belcher’s exit mean the new broom is starting to sweep? Or did a poor set of financial results have a role to play?

Inside Housing has spoken to several sources close to the situation at Anchor in a bid to uncover the full story.

The official line from Anchor is that Mr Belcher ‘resigned from the role of chief executive to pursue other business interests’.

A spokesperson said last Wednesday that Jane Ashcroft, deputy chief executive at the trust, is currently acting as chief executive, but would not say whether Mr Belcher was also still in post.

One source confirms an announcement was made to senior staff saying he had left but giving no explanation. ‘I heard he left with very short notice,’ says the source. ‘If this had been planned he would have a big goodbye party.’ Several sources suggest he has departed after a dispute with the board.

Mr Belcher is not the only senior staff member at Anchor to have left in recent weeks. Barbara Laing, managing director of housing services, left the organisation in September. There is no suggestion that she did anything wrong and Anchor was about to undergo a major reorganisation.

It is impossible to say whether the two departures are directly connected - one senior source says they are not - although several others have made the link because Ms Laing and Mr Belcher left unexpectedly within weeks of each other.

Inside Housing attempted to contact Ms Laing several times by phone and email, but did not get a response. It is thought she may have signed an agreement not to talk about her departure.

One source claims senior-level departures were not uncommon at Anchor. Mr Belcher seemed to replace his senior mangers ‘on a fairly regular basis’, the source adds. Four left by ‘mutual consent’ as part of a managerial shake-up in 2003 (Inside Housing, 14 March 2003).

A former staff member says Mr Belcher was nicknamed ‘the smiling assassin’ after the 2003 restructuring, and another source claims he had a ‘macho’ management style.

Cash calls

Mr Belcher’s departure comes 13 months after Mr Dalvi became chair of Anchor, replacing Dianne Jeffrey, who left to chair the merged charities Help the Aged and Age Concern. Mr Dalvi joined Anchor’s board in December 2004 and is head of regeneration and planning at Tower Hamlets Council and a former assistant director of investment at the Housing Corporation.

Mr Belcher’s controversial pay deal for 2008/09 was settled before Mr Dalvi took up his chairmanship, but he was in the job by the time it hit the headlines.

Most sources say the controversy over pay is not the trigger for Mr Belcher’s departure, but that it will not have helped his relationship with the board.

Given the size of Mr Belcher’s remuneration, any pay-off will be a hot topic. One source says the long-standing chief stands to receive a year’s salary, but it is unclear whether this would be simply basic pay, which was £280,000 in 2008/09 or also include bonuses and benefits, which added a further £111,000 that year.

Commenting on Mr Belcher’s pay package this year, Mr Dalvi said: ‘Anchor has changed enormously since John took the helm in 1994. Turnover is now £267 million - around double what it was, even allowing for inflation.’

This has not been a good year financially for the organisation, however. Many associations have been forced to write down land which has dropped in value and finished last year on a loss. But Anchor’s £35 million loss included a £12.4 million land writedown, which was one of the largest impairment charges made by a housing association.

As well as poor financial performance, Anchor could have had to deal with extra attention from regulator the Tenant Services Authority this year. Mr Shapps’ criticism of the salary ‘would mean it would have to be on the regulatory radar’, one regulation expert suggests.

While the regulator does not set caps on salaries, it can take action if it believes the board is not in control of executive pay and risks ‘bringing themselves and the sector into disrepute’.

But Clare Miller, executive director of risk and assurance at the TSA, says there is no out of the ordinary regulatory activity of Anchor.

Anchor’s spokesperson says the organisation had ‘not been informed of any plans by the regulator to investigate the salary’.

Amid the furore, it is easy to forget Mr Belcher’s achievements for Anchor. One source says: ‘He is a very clever man. There was a lot of asset management [during his tenure] and he did bring in bright people and was prominent politically.’

Mr Belcher has kept his counsel about events: last Wednesday, and on Monday and Tuesday this week, he said he was in meetings and unable to speak but could talk the next day, but he did not respond to repeated subsequent calls.

Anchor added little to a statement it issued last Wednesday, which hardly clarified the reasons behind Mr Belcher’s mysterious departure. Be it turmoil at senior management level, a new chair with a point to make, controversy over a robust pay packet coupled with poor financial results, or simply ‘other business interests’, one thing is clear - a new name will top the salaries league table next year.

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