New turf war begins

A fresh battle for the future of regulation between the Audit Commission and the Housing Corporation got underway this week.

Professor Martin Cave's long-awaited review of regulation, published this week, recommends setting up an entirely new body to police all social landlords.

But the government immediately said that it was not convinced a new regulator was needed or that it should cover all stock. It claimed the commission might be able to take on the role – even though Professor Cave warned it lacked the support of all stakeholders – or alternatively the corporation could form the backbone of a new regime.

The commission immediately set out its stall with chief executive Michael O'Higgins telling Inside Housing that it was ‘the logical place' for housing regulation.

Mr O'Higgins said he was pleased the government had taken ‘a more even view' than the Cave report.

‘We felt that perhaps in focusing on housing regulation that the wider aspects of the agenda, such as place shaping and the broader regulation agenda of having fewer regulators, didn't get enough weight [in the Cave report],' he said.

‘Local authorities are not going to welcome another regulator on top of the Audit Commission.'

Julian Ashby, who helped draft the Cave review, said he still felt the new organisation should be completely independent.

‘That means independent of other substantial functions,' he said. ‘A renamed Housing Corporation could be the technical legal vehicle for it.'
The new organisation should include staff from both the commission and corporation, he added.

‘That is the best and most natural way of getting a new approach to the regulation of social housing,' he said.

Steve Douglas, who takes over as chief executive of the Housing Corporation at the start of July, said it would work with the government and the commission to come up with the best solution.

However, he added that the corporation had an experienced regulatory team that had been praised ‘by lenders, by the sector, by the National Audit Office and others'.

‘I think that the whole sector would want to ensure that in any new system that track record and that expertise does act as, in a sense, the core or the base of the new regulatory construct,' he said.

Alistair McIntosh, chief executive of Housing Quality Network, warned that the government could not have responded to the Cave report ‘in more damaging terms'.

‘It is an invitation to tender,' he said. ‘Both sides will look at that [what the government has said] and they will talk partnership and they will talk collaboration but behind the scenes there will be a contract race.

‘The biggest victims will be the waistlines of housing professionals as they are schmoozed by both organisations.'

Professor Cave's review also recommends establishing a national voice for tenants and a single housing ombudsman. He also said bad landlords could face a range of sanctions, including fines and a takeover of their stock.

The professor said it was important that whoever the regulator was they should be responsible for making checks on all housing providers.‘I think this is absolutely fundamental,' he said. ‘In our examination of social housing it seemed to me very strongly that whoever the provider was the relationship between tenant and provider was broadly similar.'