As I approach the Harrogate conference, which marks the end of my Presidential year, I have been both reflecting back on what has been a busy year and looking forward to what is clearly going to be a demanding time for our sector. At the beginning of my Presidential year, I set myself a number of objectives and it looks as if I will have achieved all of these by the point that I hand over to Howard Farrand next week. These were to:

• ensure that the CIH continues as a strong and influential organisation


• ensure that the CIH effectively influences policy and decision makers on the issues that are important to us


• leave a legacy with my "Housing Heroes" theme


• raise £40,000 for the Crisis "changing lives" project


• visit all of our English Regional Committees, our National Business Units in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales as well as our Asian Pacific Branch

Looking back, I feel that it has been really important to "kick off" both our Membership Review and Governance Review. We have not changed the way that we work for many years and it is important to update the way that we work if we are to continue to be a successful, modern and influential organisation. I believe that we have made a great start in developing healthy relationships with both the Homes and Communities Agency and the Tenant Services Authority.

Last week, Sarah Webb, Richard Capie and I met with Sir Bob Kerslake and a meeting also took place with Peter Marsh. Over the year, we developed good relationships with both Caroline Flint and Margaret Beckett, but after last weeks latest cabinet reshuffle, we now need to develop an equally good relationship with John Healey, our new Housing Minister.

Last autumn, we were leading with some exciting thought leadership in relation to the future of our sector, but as the credit crunch hit us, along with the associated collapses in both the banking sector and the housing market, our focus had to move to more immediate issues. We carried out a lot of work behind the scenes on various mortgage rescue packages and it is a shame that the Government didn't take up our proposals, as they would have had more impact than what they eventually went with. We have also quietly worked with organisations such as the Homes and Communities Agency and were pleased at how quickly they moved to allocate additional grant to allow unsold shared ownership properties to be converted to rented accommodation and to increase grant rates to help get some movement in what was a stagnant housing market.

I have been delighted by the way that people have enthusiastically embraced my "Housing Heroes" theme. I have had the opportunity to recognise and reward some fantastic people across the UK including John Lynch who is pictured receiving the North East award at their Charity Ball last month. I'm also looking forward to presenting Ocean Media Group's "Housing Hero's" awards later this week and am really pleased that they have launched these annual awards, as this means that there will be a lasting legacy from my Presidential year.

   

I have exceeded my target of raising £40,000 for the Crisis "changing lives" appeal, despite the difficult economic situation. I have had some fantastic support from both friends and colleagues, including Jeremy Adams and his team at Adams Integra who recently raised £5,000 at a golf day. Both Gavin Brown and Graham Scanlon and all of their colleagues from the North East Region have done a tremendous job including organising a Charity Ball, a Golf Day and a Quiz Night. Claire Sarel, a friend of mine also raised £3,000 at a Charity Ball in Bournemouth and the picture shows me enjoying myself with some of my colleagues from Testway at this event. There is also a picture of my team, which included three former colleagues at the Adams Integra golf day. None of the team of Kevin Dey, Nick Fry, John Morris and myself are golfers, but we had an enjoyable day and it was great to catch up and relive the stories of when we all worked together in Bournemouth in the mid 1980's.

I have also achieved my final objective of visiting all of our "Branches" at least once during my year. This has involved a lot of travelling, but I have some fantastic memories of time spent in Northern Ireland at the Conference of the Isles, in Scotland at their conference in Aberdeen and at the Welsh Housing awards in Cardiff. Over the year I have also attended events in Bolton, Brighton, Cambridge, Durham, Nottingham, London, Telford, Torquay and at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

My Presidential year has been incredibly busy and I have now handed over the reigns to Howard Farrand at Harrogate. Howard will be taking over at a busy time. Internally we need to complete both our Membership Review and our Governance review, while externally we need to carry on working through difficult market conditions, new regulatory arrangements as well as developing a good relationship with John Healey, our new Housing Minister.

It has been a real privilege to serve as the CIH President for the last year. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my employer Testway Housing, which is part of the Aster Group for allowing me to carry out this role, as well as all of the employees and members of the CIH who have provided fantastic support over the year. I have really enjoyed the role and hope that people feel that my year has been a success.

Steve

Shaping our sector for the future

One of the highlights of the Presidential year is the annual dinner at the Natural History Museum in London, which this year took place on 11th February. Not only is it a chance to bring together 600 people who care deeply about housing and to nurture relationships between different parts of the sector, but it is an important opportunity to raise funds for the Presidential Appeal.

Guests at this year's dinner were very generous and our collection for Crisis 'Changing Lives' on the night raised the remarkable sum of £2,547.20. I would like to thank all those who made a donation to this worthwhile work.

I was delighted that CIH was able to recognise the work of a number of individuals at the Presidential Dinner. Firstly, we celebrated the outstanding performance of two housing students. Wondu Mekonnen was named CIH Student of the Year, for achieving outstanding success despite having to face real challenges in his life at the time of studying. And Dan Roberts was named CIH Distance Learning Student of the Year for outstanding performance in studying for the Postgraduate Diploma in Housing. The Housing Minister Margaret Beckett presented both students with a medal and a cheque for £200.

Secondly, it was with great pleasure that I was able to present Honorary CIH Membership to three very distinguished members of the housing community. Baroness Diana Maddock, the Rt Hon Nick Raynsford MP and Sir Bob Kerslake have all made significant and valued contributions to the housing sector and each has also been a great friend and supporter of CIH.

This year we were joined not only by Margaret Beckett but also by Margaret Ritchie, the Minister for Social Development in Northern Ireland. Mrs Beckett was our guest speaker and she underlined her determination to support the house building industry as much as she could through difficult times. The minister said that it was 'essential that local authorities and RSLs continue to do all they can' to keep delivery of affordable housing on track, and told the audience that she was 'open to suggestions about what more could be done' to remove obstacles in their way.


The minister gave a clear message to the sector to innovate, and these innovative solutions and new approaches are clearly important, but in many ways it's the longer-term vision for our sector that we at CIH are more concerned about.

In trying to survive today's crisis, we mustn't simply aim for a return to the way things were. However unwelcome - the credit crunch and global recession presents us with an opportunity to fundamentally re-shape our sector for the better. Our ability to be successful in reshaping our sector's future will in large part depend on our ability to promote the right kind of personal and professional development - and you have my pledge that this will be CIH's immediate priority going forward.

Working together

January has been a busy month and one of my first duties was to speak at the CIH London AGM. I shared a platform with Richard Blakeway, the London Mayor's Housing Director, who is coming to my Presidential dinner this week. I also had the pleasure of presenting the first ever London Student Excellence Awards to Stephen Dodd and Taiwo Ojutalayo, who have successfully completed their studies and have become Corporate Members of CIH..

In January I also attended the CIH South East House of Commons reception, which gave housing leaders from the region an opportunity to speak to MPs and local councillors. Laura Moffatt MP for Crawley encouraged all housing professionals to 'keep on the tail of your Members of Parliament, keep talking to them ...because we are all open to hearing how to deal with what are extremely difficult and challenging housing issues'. David Edwards, the Regional Director of the Homes and Communities Agency welcomed the opportunity to exchange views and network with members of parliament, councillors and housing leaders.

I was also pleased to be able to announce the new South East Housing Coalition between CIH, Shelter and the National Housing Federation to provide a united voice for housing in regional economic planning. I hope that by working together we can provide support to the Regional Minister, MPs and regional bodies to maintain the South East as a successful and prosperous region.

At the end of the month I attended the Midlands Excellence Awards, which was organised by Investors in Excellence. They are a not-for-profit organisation providing practical solutions to enable their customers to become more effective, efficient and competitive. Julian Beaney, the Chair of CIH West Midlands works for them. It was pleasing to see several housing organisations amongst the finalists, including Trent and Dove who were highly commended.

As CIH President I am very fortunate to be able to attend functions, award ceremonies and other events which highlight the importance of partnership working. The relationships that we build up within the sector and beyond enable CIH maximise our reach and influence and I am particularly proud of that. In challenging times, working together to ensure better outcomes for people in the communities we serve seems the obvious and the right thing to do.

Thinking positively about 2009

I'm usually filled with optimism when a new year starts, but the seemingly constant news of job losses and companies in trouble, as well as people facing redundancy, debt and even homelessness, makes me wonder how long it will take us to pull out of this economic downturn, and what will happen to people at risk in the meantime.

My son has recently been laid off from his job, so I know how tough the employment market is, even if you have good qualifications and recent work experience, never mind if you haven't worked for some time. I'm particularly pleased that CIH is doing some work to support housing organisations in helping their residents back into work. Our new worklessness toolkit is a resource that gives useful guidance on how to help residents develop their skills and employability and how to help them overcome barriers to work, for example by providing subsidised child care places, like Places for People do through their Places for Children nurseries.

I am also encouraged to see how many fantastic initiatives there are to give residents better access to affordable credit and to encourage them to save, making them more financially independent and able to plan for the future. CIH will soon have a total of four staff working with housing organisations on developing partnerships with people like credit unions and money advice centres. Part of their role will also be to work with housing organisations to assist them in developing strategies to help their residents face the future with more confidence.

Despite the economic slowdown, the low numbers of housing completions and the drying up of credit, I feel that we have an historic opportunity created by the downturn to acquire good quality land at low prices for affordable housing provision. But most of all, I am encouraged by the continuing enthusiasm and energy of the people working in our sector and by their commitment to help improve people's lives and, in turn, their life chances.

Recognising fantastic contributions

At the end of November I was a guest at the prestigious Welsh Housing Awards in Cardiff where CIH celebrated achievements across the breadth of the housing sector in Wales. The awards were presented by Jocelyn Davies AM, Deputy Minister for Housing, who praised all the shortlisted entries for the positive contribution they are making as organisations and individuals.

It was great to hear about successful work in areas as diverse as environmental sustainability, developing and regenerating communities and delivering customer driven services. You can see the list of the winners here.

My particular role in the event was to present the award for Welsh Housing Hero, as part of my campaign throughout my Presidential year to recognise the extraordinary people who work in our sector and make such a difference.



The award went to Adrian (Ady) Gratton from Llamau, the charity working in South Wales to improve the lives of socially excluded, homeless people. Ady (shown on the right above) works with young people in supported housing, where his enthusiasm and passion inspires all of his colleagues. He recently recruited a team of young people that he was working with to take part in a soccer tournament. He arranged training sessions outside of his working hours and made sure that everyone got kit. He raised funds and generally enthused the team, who went on to win the tournament. This helped fill everyone with greater confidence, pride and a sense of achievement.

Ady is also working with another young man with Aspergers. He is devoting his own time to supporting and encouraging him, and hopes that this young man will compete in the 2012 Para-Olympics in London.

Frances Beecher, Chief Executive of Llamau, tells me that Ady has a great rapport with all of the service users and that she couldn't think of a better person to get this award.

An inspiring story. I look forward to recognising more of housing's heroic people in 2009. Meanwhile, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all of you season's greetings and a happy New Year.

On the road...part two

On 10th October I flew from Hong Kong to Toronto to attend the Tri-Country conference which, this year, involved New Zealand and Hong Kong as well as Canada and America. It was my first trip to Canada. The first day of the event was a conference open to housing professionals from across Canada and was opened by the Mayor of Toronto who has taken a personal interest in housing and homelessness - showing what can be achieved with clear political leadership.



The remaining three days were the Tri-Country Conference proper with 20 delegates from each country taking part. We took people from across the sector including two young professionals (award winning students Tanya MacGregor, left, and Jo Flood pictured above), Steve Amos from Barclays, Steve Trussler from Wates, Julia Unwin from JRF and Lesley Morphy from Crisis (the organisation that I am collecting money for through my Presidential Appeal). The three themes for the conference were: governance, young people and new financial models.

We were surprised by the high numbers of street homeless people despite a new initiative called 'streets to homes' that finds permanent accommodation and support for homeless people. We also saw a project called 'Homeward Bound' that supports homeless women into education and work. We visited a regeneration project where a real effort has been made to engage young people and saw a video made by children about their concerns around demolition.

By the end of the 4 days of learning and networking the primary concern for all three of our delegations was the impact of the credit crunch on our efforts to improve the supply of affordable housing and the dangers of encouraging low income households into owner occupation (3 million homes in the US have been abandoned). It was particularly interesting to reflect on the fact that Canada has been less impacted than the UK and US by sub-prime lending, in part because of stricter regulation of mortgage lending.

My overall impressions from the whole trip are: firstly, we are all facing similar issues although the methods we have for tackling them have to vary because of different politics and institutional and financial structures. Our success in creating effecting housing markets is based on having a supply of creative and innovative housing professionals who are dedicated to finding solutions and making things work for some of the most vulnerable people around the world. Secondly, UK housing policy is one of the most advanced and comprehensive in the world. Thirdly, CIH is respected around the world for championing professionalism, for nurturing the next generation of talented individuals and for our objective thought leadership.

On the road...impressions of housing on three continents... part one

In October I attended an anniversary dinner to celebrate 10 years of CIH's office in Northern Ireland. The Minister for Social Development, Margaret Ritchie, not only attended but used the opportunity to launch her new procurement strategy - and a number of assembly members were also there. I left with an impression of how well respected and influential CIH is now in Northern Ireland. I also met housing students at Ulster University and was impressed with their enthusiasm and commitment to housing.

The following week saw me visit Beijing - my first time in China. I was amazed by the scale of the city - it's twice the size of London. We met with the CPMI (Chartered Property Management Institute) to build on our on-going relationship. They took us to see some impressive private housing schemes with high levels of on-going property management - including secure common areas with signs that ask you to talk quietly. Whilst there we signed up six new CIH members - all involved in property management in China.

Next stop Hong Kong. I visited the offices of the Hong Kong Housing Society - the second largest public landlord after the HK Housing Authority. They are doing some very impressive work to support a) owners of poor quality older flats and b) older people in need of supported housing and care. We met the Permanent Secretary for Housing at the HK Housing Authority and had a conversation about a mutual interest in customer insight work. Another point of interest here is that the Authority is similar to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive in that it is both the largest social landlord in the country and the strategic housing authority. The high rise, high density estates are all immaculate - in part due to a regime whereby you get points for ASB and lose your home once your have reached a certain total. I also attended the 20th anniversary dinner of the HK Housing Institute. The Minister for housing in HK attended and I spent a long time talking to her over dinner. She was keen to explain the value placed on professionalism by the government.

On a visit to Macau - a special administrative area of China in the same way that Hong Kong is - I discovered that there are more casinos than there are in Las Vegas. It is interesting that the Macau government has used the gambling industry to regenerate the economy and the result has been a huge increase in property prices. We saw a social housing development managed through a contract with a private company that also manages private housing estates. CIH members in Macau are employed in the private sector for the most part, which is clearly different from the UK context.

In my next blog I'll share my impressions from the Tri-Country conference in Toronto, and the effects of the credit crunch on social housing in North America.