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The National Housing Federation table of guidelines for paying board members ("Paid board members set to cost sector £20m", 4 July, page 7) raises interesting questions about relative responsibilities.

The table appears to be based on the premise that responsibility and/or time spent increases as associations increase in size, that there is positive correlation between responsibility, or time spent, and size.

From my experience of working with different associations, I feel that it would be possible to make an equally strong case for the hypothesis that there is inverse correlation between responsibility and time spent and the size of the association.

Many small associations lack highly paid senior management teams with diverse skills and lack the benefit of advice from well resourced consultancy firms. They often need to hone their survival skills faced with continual changes in the external environment. Staff turnover, particularly at senior level, can lead to the board having to put considerable extra effort into the association for extensive periods of time.

One of the main justifications for payment is difficulties with recruitment or retention.

Is there any evidence that large associations have more difficulty than small associations? In my experience the organisations in the housing sector with the most difficulties are very small supported housing agencies – normally registered as charities, but not with the Housing Corporation.

Ironically, the case for paying board members of small associations will probably not be tested as the vast majority of boards of small associations will not want to go down this road.

In practice the payment of board members will follow the principle of affordability, in that some of the large associations are able to afford to pay at the top end of the scale and will do so. Any smaller associations that want to give financial recognition to their board members or chair will have limited financial ability to do so.