Another one bites the dust

Obviously there will be personal pain for Audit Commission employees who lose their jobs - although some may survive if discussions aimed at establishing a private housing audit/inspection business succeed. But more widely, the impact of commission’s abolition might not prove that severe. The organisation’s inspection role had already been dramatically scaled back in recent years. Aside from its short-notice inspection programme, its only other housing roles were inspecting organisations when the regulator had concerns about their performance and assessing whether arm’s-length management organisations qualified for two-star status, enabling access to funding. Mr Pickles must promptly answer calls for clarity on this issue as there are five ALMOs yet to attain their two-stars and so effectively left in limbo.

The Audit Commission has undoubtedly played an important role in improving standards of service across housing providers and highlighting significant failing services - Birmingham, Hull and the Westminster ‘homes for votes scandal’ to name but a few. Under the new regulatory regime, however, landlords have already taken on responsibility for ensuring performance is continuously improved. Indeed they are already answerable to their tenants on this score, a fact no doubt not lost on Mr Pickles and his officials in their call for future scrutiny of public spending to be conducted by an ‘army of armchair auditors’.

The timetable which Mr Pickles has set his officials to establish a housing regulatory framework to replace all that he has swept away is tight - the regulatory review team must complete its work in time for the upcoming decentralisation and localism bill and the spending review on 20 October. However, there is still an opportunity for landlords to have their say in shaping the future environment in which they operate. They should seize it with both hands.