Welcome on Board

With my Housing Association Board hat on - I'm the chair of the Black Country Housing Group (BCHG) - I spent a couple of days earlier this month listening to Anthony Mayer - the chair of the new Tenant Services Authority (TSA) - talking about the move from 'regulation' to 'governance'.

My reaction was to be both excited and terrified in equal measures. From his position on the podium Anthony looked us straight in our collective eye and, in his inimitable way said: 'if we have reasons to be concerned about the performance of your organisation, it's the Board we will be coming to for a little bit of a chitty-chat'.

In case we hadn't got the message, he went on to explain that the TSA expects to have its primary relationship with housing associations and ALMO Boards rather than with Chief Executives. He isn't expecting the TSA staff to regulate the work of employees - he is expecting Boards to exercise robust governance of their organisations.

I think this is fantastic news - to my thinking it's a far more significant victory than the promise of 'light-touch regulation' and offers us the opportunity to have a far more 'adult' relationship with the regulator.

With my CIH hat back on - it's also making a reality of changes that we've been pressing for over the last five years. Before Elton and Cave we did some work on a new approach to regulation - one that was customer-centric and that covered all tenants - no matter who their landlord is.

The scary part is that this new approach really is a wake-up call for housing association and ALMO Boards. Whether we are looking within our own sector - or further afield - there is hardly a major organisational failure that hasn't resulted from poor governance (think Mirror Group pensioners, Enron, WorldCom and Ujima).

This is clearly the time for Boards to do some serious self-examination. To ask themselves 'are we fit for purpose? Are we really in control? In what ways are we accountable to our residents?' It's a question I'll be asking at BCHG, but it's also something CIH will be exploring as I launch a major governance review of our own organisation - the first in many years. Paddy Gray (CIH's next Vice President) will be leading this work and I expect it will result in some significant changes for us. It's also an area of work that CIH and our consultancy, ConsultCIH, will be prioritising as we seek to offer support to the sector to respond to the major changes ahead. ConsultCIH's existing expertise in this area is part our wider commitment to Healthy Organisations - whether that's yours or ours. So my question to you is: are you ready for the TSA's move from regulation to governance?