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Welsh association bosses quizzed over pay
Housing association bosses were grilled over chief executive pay as part of a Welsh Assembly inquiry into regulation on Monday.
Chiefs from Pobl Group, Grŵp Cynefin, Newport City Homes and Wales & West faced questions on senior salaries as they gave evidence before the Public Accounts Committee.
The committee, chaired by Conservative Assembly member Nick Ramsay, has been gathering evidence for its inquiry into the regulation of housing associations in Wales since 16 January.
Lee Waters, a Welsh Labour Assembly member and committee member, asked Wendy Bourton, chair at Pobl Group, and Amanda Davies, group chief executive: “We’re familiar with the argument that in order to attract the people with the right skills you need to pay competitive wages to do that. I’m just interested in terms of governance, what arrangements do you put in place to ensure that the performance of the organisation matches the pay?”
Ms Bourton responded that Pobl Group has a “robust” framework of target-based performance reviews, though Mr Waters raised concerns about Gwalia, one of the associations which merged to form Pobl Group in March 2016, where chief executive pay had previously been the highest in Wales despite what he described as below-average financial performance and a breach of care regulations.
The Public Accounts Committee is considering:
- The effectiveness of the current regulatory framework for housing associations in Wales;
- The effectiveness and quality of governance arrangements;
- Whether the current regulatory regime is effective in managing and mitigating sector wide risks;
- The effectiveness of the co-regulatory approach in practice;
- The remuneration levels of senior staff members of housing associations.
Last month, Neil McEvoy, a Plaid Cymru assembly member, tweeted an image of a document marked “restricted” listing association chief executive salaries with the hashtag “DrainTheBay”.
This session was the first to hear evidence from association bosses, with the previous two meetings attended by representatives from Welsh Tenants, the Welsh Local Government Association, the Chartered Institute of Housing and Community Housing Cymru, among others.
Associations’ inclusion of tenant representatives on boards, financial accountability, diversification and supported housing delivery were also discussed at the meeting.
The inquiry continues at its next session on 27 February, with the committee due to publish its findings in late April.
READ MORE ABOUT REGULATION IN WALES
Welsh regulator to introduce performance standards
Update, at 09.20 on 15.2.2017
An earlier version of this story described Neil McEvoy as a member of Labour. Mr McEvoy is in fact a Plaid Cymru assembly member. We are happy to correct this error.
