Downland Housing Association in latest mega merger mania

Whilst the dedication and enthusiasm of Downland Housing Association staff in promoting resident involvement and discussing issues in an open and honest way is clearly evident, gaps still exist in some areas of practice as the association is merged yet again to become the more nationally focused Affinity Sutton Housing Association. The former Mid Sussex Housing Association which took over the local district councils housing stock was subsumed within the larger organisation, and a series of mergers has led to this latest national merger of housing associations.

Downland Housing Association has been criticised in the past for its remuneration policy (£233,000 "golden exit" paid to a departing CEO in 2003) and continues that practice with a pay increase of 47% in 2008 according to Inside Housing for the current CEO Mark Perry who becomes the new Group Commercial Director at a time when its ordinary staff got no pay increase. Whilst he disputes this figure there is no doubt that housing association chief officers are receiving massive pay increases many times over the standard increase for their staff, and each merger leads to another excuse for a pay increase (egged on by the same pay consultants that no doubt advise the banks!).

Meanwhile the pros and cons of any merger receive scant attention and the centre of power in housing associations become more remote from the communities they serve. Mark Perry has said savings as a result of the merger will be put into "new initiatives" describing housing associations as "commercial businesses". Housing associations should not forget they are social businesses, albeit with a commercial ethos, but they should not forget their charitable basis, and their accountability to their tenants and the communities they serve.

Too often weak boards have allowed chief officers to have their way without proper accountability, which is particularly the case for large national housing groups like Downland's latest manifestation as Affinity Sutton, which lacks an integrated tenant or community base that can call them to account. Tenants have often not been involved in these strategic issues, no business case has been presented for the merger in terms that residents could give their opinion, or that would allow the benefits of merger to be independently assessed.

As housing associations become larger and potentially more remote, they need to put more resources into resident and community involvement and dialogue - part of a Downland Resident Involvement Conference last week was to look at these issues. Some interesting ideas were revealed in a "Customer Influencing Strategy" presented to this meeting - although not sure who is doing the influencing, what happened to the much stronger participation and involvement?

Estate management is the issue that probably most concerns tenants, although this can get forgotten in the race for more sexy initiatives that many housing associations seem so keen on taking on. Any merger should be highlighting the benefits in this area given tenants concerns about combating antisocial behaviour, ensuring estates are clean and tidy, and having local named tradesman responsible for repairs and cleaning communal areas. In Downland Housing Association estates one problem is that the housing association will not pay for fence repairs around tenant gardens, any other private landlord would be responsible for this expenditure, but for some reason Downland do not take responsibility.

As local communities we want to hold our local housing associations to account, to be able to assess and compare their performance, and to have locally named representatives we can easily contact to discuss management problems. Efficiency savings need to be ploughed back to better services at a local level if these mega mergers are to have any real benefits to tenants. Some of these issues are clearly already being taken on board by Downland aka Affinity Sutton, but more needs to be done, with a sense of priorities flowing from a strong tenant influenced management board to the executive officers, not vice versa.