Capital conundrums: G15 boss Geeta Nanda assesses the issues London landlords face
Metropolitan Thames Valley chief executive Geeta Nanda shares the challenges she faces as the new chair of the G15. Jack Simpson reports. Photography by Jon Enoch
When Geeta Nanda became vice-chair of the G15 in 2019, there was no way she could have predicted how turbulent the next two years would be for social housing.
During that period, the group of London’s largest landlords, like the rest of the sector, experienced a pandemic, an ever-growing building safety crisis that has already cost huge sums to rectify, and a zero carbon drive that is likely to cost as much if not more.
More recently, a long-running investigation by ITV News has brought social landlords, including a G15 member, under the microscope, highlighting the appalling conditions some tenants are having to endure.
For the 12 housing association members of the G15, there are clearly testing headwinds to navigate. And, until 2023, Ms Nanda, chief executive of Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTVH), will be captain of the ship.
Two months after she replaced Helen Evans, chief executive of Network Homes asG15 chair, Inside Housing meets Ms Nanda to discuss the biggest issues facing the capital’s largest housing associations.
She is relishing the new job. “There are a lot of challenges; it’s nice to take the role of chair and address some of these things,” she says.
There are few with more experience of the capital’s social housing sector. Born in Gravesend, Kent, before her family moved to Sutton shortly after she was born, Ms Nanda has spent her career working at London landlords. But it could have been so different.
Ms Nanda had aspirations of being a clinical psychologist, but that dream ended after a year working in a psychiatric hospital. “Back then it was about locking people up and stuff, it was horrible,” she explains.
Instead, she got a role as a graduate trainee at Wandsworth Council in the 1980s. “It covered housing finance and education. I did housing first and then finance – you can guess which one I preferred,” she jokes.
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Leading and learning
Her big break came when she joined Thames Valley Housing as chief executive in 2008. After nine years at the helm, she moved to Metropolitan Housing Trust. Within 18 months of her appointment, the two housing associations had joined forces, creating MTVH, the 57,000-home landlord that she has led ever since.
It is clear Ms Nanda enjoys her role as she speaks passionately about the oversight it gives her. “As chief executive, you get to see the whole picture, you’re an expert of nothing,” she says. “It is about leading people and learning from them.”
She has definitely had to lead and learn over the past 18 months. Rewind to January last year and the global pandemic was not high on the risk registers of most chief executives. By early March, however, coronavirus was taking up most of their thinking.
In those early days, it was MTVH’s care and support team that kept Ms Nanda awake at night. “Everyone was focusing on the hospitals, and the care and support stuff was secondary,” she says. “We were always thinking, ‘Have they got the right equipment? When do people need to go on the frontline?’ And we were reassuring people – a lot of people were quite scared.”
She says she was amazed by the selflessness of care workers, who were putting the care of residents as their top priority. But it was also a period of sadness as MTVH lost staff members to coronavirus. “Some of our colleagues went into hospital and never came out,” she explains. “It was a very emotional and traumatic time because these are people I’ve worked with for years.”
There are other lasting impacts too, not least that spending months in lockdown has highlighted the importance of living in a safe and comfortable home. However, in recent months there have been questions as to whether some providers are falling short.
Poor housing conditions
Our chat takes place as ITV News continues to highlight numerous examples of poor housing conditions and disrepair in blocks owned by social landlords. First came an interview with an L&Q resident who suffered from severe breathing difficulties and was living in a flat with severe damp issues. L&Q said it was sorry and admitted it had let the resident down.
Clarion, the largest association member in the G15, was the subject of one particularly shocking case study. The report focused on the Eastfields Estate in Mitcham, south London, which was found to be infested with vermin and plagued by damp. In one case, a family had lived for several months with a collapsed ceiling.
At the time, Clarion apologised for the conditions but said progress with the regeneration of the estate had been slower than nearby schemes.
Responding to the news report clip, Ms Nanda says: “We all agree that nobody should be living in poor conditions. Nobody wanted to get into housing to preside over poor housing conditions and where there are individual failures, that is recognised.
“But the majority live in good-quality accommodation and that mustn’t be forgotten in the midst of journalism.”
She also points out that the estate was in line for regeneration. But just because a development is to undergo regeneration, should residents expect to live in worse conditions? Ms Nanda says absolutely not, but explains that often residents in blocks earmarked for regeneration are reticent to move into temporary properties because they do not want to move twice and fear a move may see them lose their new home in the regenerated estate.
G15 mergers: How 15 became 12
- Clarion (125,000 homes) – merger between Affinity Sutton and Circle Housing in 2016
- L&Q (95,000 homes) – merger between East Thames and L&Q in 2016
- Peabody (66,000 homes) – merger between Peabody and Family Mosaic in 2017
- Metropolitan Thames Valley (57,000 homes) – merger between Metropolitan Housing Trust and Thames Valley Housing in 2018
- Notting Hill Genesis (55,000 homes) – merger between Genesis and Notting Hill in 2018
- Optivo (44,000 homes) – merger between Amicus Horizon and Viridian in 2017
“Often on regeneration schemes, the quality of the accommodation is poor and you do have to work through that in terms of what can be spent and what’s the best use of that money, but also how can you encourage people to move while you are doing the work?” she adds.
Ms Nanda believes that while there should be encouragement for people to move, it is imperative that the conditions for those who stay are good. “[The homes] have to be in a condition where people can live in [them], because it is unacceptable for people to live in blocks with holes in their ceilings or walls,” she says.
In an interview with ITV News, housing secretary Robert Jenrick laid the blame at the door of a “small number of landlords” that were guilty of a “lack of compassion” and “poor management”. When asked whether he thought associations had “lost their way”, he said some have become “very big and sophisticated”.
Ms Nanda’s 57,000-home MTVH is one of the UK’s 10 largest housing associations. She believes that bigger does not always mean more sophisticated and points to the benefits of scale, such as taking on more risk on large development projects and setting up better systems around things like repairs.
Mr Jenrick also took aim at housing association executive pay, which he described as “out of control”.
Ms Nanda, who received a base salary of £265,000 last year, says chief executives’ pay is decided by remuneration committees that look across the sector, as well as private and charitable organisations. “The pay is set independently with comparisons that are reviewed. I’ve always felt lucky and privileged doing what I’m doing,” she says.
With choppy waters ahead for housing associations, particularly those in London, chief executives will have to earn every penny of these salaries in the coming years. The housing sector is in the midst of a building safety crisis, which has huge associated costs. G15 members expect to spend £2.9bn on fire safety remediation work between now and 2032.
Fire safety and climate change
Ms Nanda is not complimentary about the government’s approach to fire safety. The past fortnight has seen confusion over whether fire safety checks – External Wall System 1 (EWS1) forms – are required on blocks under 18 metres. “It’s like one step forward and two steps back,” she states. “We need this EWS chaos to subside.”
You can see why this is important to the G15. Figures from the body reveal that there are still around 7,000 buildings that need to be checked.
Ms Nanda says that it is about getting the right people in the room to find a solution. “The difficulty in announcing things without the stuff underneath is that our phones start ringing with people thinking they can move again.” She thinks a risk-based approach should be adopted to ensure people are not needlessly trapped.
But fire safety is not the only crisis the sector needs to play a part in addressing. Around 14% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions come from housing. The Committee on Climate Change has said the sector’s overall emissions need to be reduced by 24% by 2030.
Has the sector been to slow in meeting the climate challenge? “I would say give us the money and we will show what we can do,” says Ms Nanda. “We’ve got a lot of stock that doesn’t meet requirements.
“If [the government] can get a significant slice of the money to us, we will be able to make a big change for the environment really quickly.”
There is no getting away from the fact that tackling both crises will cost money and inevitably affect development plans. In the next 10 years, the G15 will deliver 120,000 affordable homes and Ms Nanda is clear that number would be far more without the fire safety and zero carbon challenges.
In numbers
12: London landlords that are members of the G15 group
7k: Blocks around London that still need an EWS1 check by the G15
24%: Amount the housing sector needs to reduce its carbon emissions by 2030
Yet, London has seen a cut in the Affordable Homes Programme, with the capital receiving £4bn to spend in the next five years – down from the £4.8bn it received in the previous funding round. Ms Nanda does not hide her disappointment. “It’s good to see the funding going to other areas that need it, but a bigger part of that pie would be better.” She points to London’s lack of rental housing and escalating temporary accommodation
costs as examples of why more money is needed.
But will all the money promised under the Affordable Homes Programme actually be there for the developing housing associations? With increased pressure on government finances following the pandemic, some sector leaders predict that housing could be susceptible to cuts come the Spending Review this autumn.
Last month, Matthew Bailes, chief executive of Paradigm and former head of affordable housing at the then-Department for Communities and Local Government, said the housing sector needs to be on a war footing ahead of the Spending Review.
Ms Nanda echoes this. “In any Spending Review, you are jostling with other sectors for money. The sectors that will be heard the loudest will be health and education,” she says.
She believes the sector needs to show the links between housing and these areas. “Your housing situation affects your education, it affects your health,” she explains. “The stability of a home is a really important point that we need to get through [to the government] before any Spending Review.”
In the next few months, we will know if housing has been spared by the chancellor. But what about the future of the G15? Days before this interview, members Peabody and Catalyst announced they were in talks to create a new 104,000-home landlord.
In the post-pandemic trend of mergers, will the G15 – now technically the G12 – consolidate further? Could we see it become the G8, G4 or even the G1? “I don’t think so,” Ms Nanda responds, laughing. “The number might get smaller, but there will still be diversity.”
