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So said Iain Duncan Smith, secretary of state for work and pensions, in his speech to the Conservative Party conference this week in Manchester.

He went on to say that ‘pockets’ of social housing had laid the foundations for this summer’s riots. Through the think tank the Centre for Social Justice which he founded, Mr Duncan Smith is more informed than most cabinet ministers on such issues; however, such generalisations are unwise.

Yes, poorer people in society, many of whom live on social housing estates, have their problems: broken families, unemployment, teenage pregnancies, drug and alcohol abuse.

But the hard-working families of whom Mr Duncan Smith spoke live there too and they are in the majority.

It is all too easy to reinforce a stereotype but very difficult to alter it. Yet this is what the social landlords present in Manchester this week were attempting to do - both about their residents and their roles in their lives.

By being there in force (we counted at least eight fringe events run by housing associations), landlords were taking a risk that they would lay themselves open to charges of profligacy at a time of financial hardship.

However, if their clear message of ‘here’s how we invest time and money in the people in our communities - we don’t just collect the rent’ changed even a few minds, it will have been a risk worth taking.

This is work that, in partnership with the Chartered Institute of Housing and the National Housing Federation, Inside Housing is building on this week with the launch of our Riot Report panel.

Its members, all experts on the ingredients which combine to make successful communities, will help us ensure that the Riot Report we publish at the end of the year showcases in the best possible light all that is good about the work of social landlords.

Perhaps at next year’s Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, Mr Duncan Smith might find reasons to be more cheerful about the prospects for some of the UK’s more disadvantaged people.