CIH to cut jobs to boost services and save £600k

The Chartered Institute of Housing is slashing up to 16 jobs as part of a plan to save around £600,000 a year and offer more member-only products and services.

The organisation, which currently employs around 150 people, on 7 April launched a 30-day consultation on plans to restructure. A total of 16 posts are likely to be axed. Grainia Long, chief executive of the CIH, said the total number of people leaving the organisation will be in single figures due to other employees being recruited and internal job transfers.

Ms Long said the move was part of a plan to ‘rebalance’ the organisation so there is a greater weighting towards its educational role. ‘This is about repositioning the CIH and returning to the core purpose as a professional body,’ she said.

The jobs cut will be a mixture of senior management and administrative positions. Ms Long would not confirm which parts of the institute are likely to be hit, due to the need to protect the confidentiality of CIH staff whose jobs are at risk during the consultation period.

She stated the move is part of the CIH’s drive to focus on providing more services and products such as guidance publications, webinars, round tables, networking events and career support tools available to members only. It is also hoped the move will lead to annual savings of £600,000 a year from 2015.

Ms Long insisted the policy and practice side of the CIH will not suffer cuts as a result.

The CIH’s most recent published accounts, for 2012, showed a fall in membership of 1 per cent between 2010 to 2012, while its income fell by £438,000 between 31 December 2011 and 31 December 2012.

Ms Long would not say whether these trends continued throughout 2013. The CIH’s 2013 accounts are due to be published at the end of the month.

She said: ‘It [the restructure] is not in response to a fall in income.’ She added that the changes will help ‘ensure the organisation is financially stable in the future’.