By Alistair McIntosh, chief executive, HQN

With all the talk of ditching QUANGOs it was a good move for the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) to put out their analysis of value for money (VfM). No one else has the clout to prise the facts and figures from associations. So, the RSH must stay. Here are the reports – please read them as they are clear and helpful.

But the RSH needs wider powers.

The regulator gives us great analysis of VfM across associations. Yet it says nothing about council housing. Pity the mayor or cabinet member trying to work out if the housing department or ALMO is giving enough of a bang for the buck.

As if that’s not bad enough, look at the gaping hole on temporary accommodation. This is the biggest headache for many councils. Costs are going through the roof. Children are living in misery. Angela Rayner wants action. Give the RSH powers to inspect the quality and challenge the costs here. Today.

It would be a good start if the RSH went on a campaign to cut the number of empty homes and speed up relet times. For some reason this isn’t a core part of the RSH standards. You can’t get the numbers in temporary accommodation down if we don’t tackle this snarl up.

The RSH VfM report makes many fine points. Let’s take three of these. Costs are high in London, it’s expensive to manage tall buildings and merger isn’t a panacea.

Yes, working in London gets through the cash quickly. But there is a big bill for doing nothing also. We just aren’t building enough social housing in London so the Boroughs are snapping up homes in other areas. This is just spreading the problems and inflating costs all round. It’s not a win-win, instead it’s a lose-lose.

New Labour always pushed for savings to return the cash to the front line. I expect New New Labour will want more of the same. That is precisely why the RSH should gather cost and quality data to help councillors as well as board members drive VfM.

In expensive areas, social landlords aim to build as many homes as they can on the least amount of land. So, they reach for the sky. As we all know complex buildings bring big bills. I remember a G15 chief (when there were 15 of them) refusing point blank to take on any homes with lifts.

During the austerity era of low grants, when chiefs spoke openly about “ducking and diving,” that went out of the window. So, now we have people living in all sorts of weird and wonderful towers. You’ve got tycoons in penthouses above shared owners next to key workers with social renters dotted about. Frequently, the association doesn’t own the freehold and has no say in appointing the managing agent. Those were the deals on the table.  Good luck figuring out who pays for what!

My first job at Camden in the early ‘80s was to wage war on managing agents to bring service charge bills down. I feel your pain. But if we do need complex high-density homes, and we do, then the funding regime must ramp up. Asking people in affordable housing to pay for the services is akin to getting blood out of a stone. The RSH should insist on a well thought through – and affordable – management plan for all new high density developments. Put that in the Rent Standard.

My one gripe with the RSH is that they insist on using the term ‘merger’. Why don’t we call a spade a spade? In actual fact, what we are seeing all too often are rescues by one association of another. Of course, emergency action brings higher costs as there is such a lot to sort out.

We are about to see a spate of mergers across councils. Will this lead to better services or not? Siva Anandaciva of the King’s Fund is talking about the NHS but it could be a warning to us: “I’ve experienced one reorganisation of the national bodies and watched countless others from the side lines. What I’ve seen suggests that they take far longer than you think, end up costing far more than you anticipate, and leave you with a distracted and demoralised workforce.” Ouch!

The RSH needs to tell councils loud and clear that it will inspect the new landlord services. That should keep the blinkers on to dodge the King’s Fund curse.

The RSH says it wants board members to know where their association sits on cost and quality. That’s why the latest HQN model pulls together the VfM data and perception scores. You can check out instantly how you are doing against peers and take action to get better. Plus, you will be in a stronger position to answer questions at your IDA. We will send out this model to members soon.