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From the archive: our 2008 CEO salary survey reveals the ‘super-surgers’
Inside Housing looks back at what was happening in the sector this week 10, 20 and 30 years ago
30 years ago
A major survey of new tenants, done by the then-National Federation of Housing Associations, cast fresh light on who was getting access to social housing – which concluded that homes were being allocated to those in greatest need.
A significant majority of new tenants were reliant on benefits, unemployed or had incomes well below the national average, the survey of 977 associations found.
Less than a third of new lead tenants were either in full or part-time employment, another 31% were retired and 24% were unemployed. Between 1978 and 1988, the proportion of new tenants in work had halved.
The net average income from all sources for new tenants was only £77.50 a week, compared with a figure of £224 a week for the general population.
20 years ago
Ideas often fade away and then come back into fashion once again – a trend which is confirmed by looking at Inside Housing’s front page 20 years ago, when ranking of housing providers and tenant involvement were the order of the day.
Back then we were reporting on efforts to beef up scrutiny of social landlords, with the Audit Commission to set up a new inspectorate of housing that would investigate and rate their performance.
Several ideas were being explored for how this situation would work, with ‘hit squads’ of tenant representatives on inspection teams being one option proposed.
Another suggestion was to second staff from councils and housing associations.
The idea was also explored to inspect landlords in terms of their wider role in the community as well as their housing function, this would have been a joint investigation with Ofsted and the social services.
“We are working out what the questions are and what the alternatives are within those questions,” an unnamed source at the Audit Commission said.
10 years ago
Inside Housing’s salary survey of chief executives grabbed the front page, with photos of those paid the most labelled as the “super surgers”.
Average pay for chief executives had jumped 7.3% that year, with “an emerging premier league of top earners”. We also observed that the credit crunch had failed to arrest growth in pay at the top.
The highest paid executive that year was John Belcher, boss of Anchor, who took home £327,000. Anchor’s current chief executive Jane Ashcroft was this year’s second highest paid, as we revealed last week, taking home £414,288.
That’s almost a 27% increase in 10 years – actually a below inflation increase. Mr Belcher’s salary of 2008 would be worth roughly £431,000 in today’s money.
Inside Housing subscriber? Click here to read this year’s salary survey data
