Welcome to the Thames Gateway, twinned with Pays de la Seine and Tony McNulty. Yes, there is something overtly gimicky about the latest proposal cooked up by the deputy prime minister to pair his five ministers with the four growth areas in the South-east and the nine market renewal pathfinders in the Midlands and the North. But with so much riding on the success of the Communities Plan, it can only help by making ministers personally responsible for pushing through the measures needed to build the 200,000 homes Prescott has promised to deliver in the South-east.

Similarly, the pathfinders need all the ministerial cheerleading they can get – the louder the better. The idea should aid joined-up thinking and is a mark of just how important housing has become – even Tony Blair is keeping track on developments in the South-east.

One can imagine the apoplexy of mandarins at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister faced with the prospect of consulting so many masters. If the cynics are to be confounded, these ministerial champions must clear their diaries and devote themselves to their new constituencies. They may also have to survive the odd reshuffle.

The thorny issue of whether registered social landlords are public bodies or social businesses never slips far down the agenda. Two new legal challenges this week highlight the practical and potentially damaging consequences of this identity crisis: a Belfast court decided a housing association was a public body for the purposes of a human rights case (page 8), while the anti-transfer lobby in Glasgow used the confusion as its secret weapon to try and halt the city's £4bn transfer (page 8). As yet, these are more irritations than calamities. The crunch will come next month, when the European Commission decides whether housing associations are public bodies and must comply with EU procurement rules.

These ministerial champions must clear their diaries and devote themselves to their new constituencies

On the political front, associations feel their independence is under siege from a meddlesome government. The fact is, as the role of housing associations becomes increasingly important in delivering the government agenda, greater scrutiny is a fact of life.

Scrutiny or no scrutiny, it is in no one's interest for RSLs to slip – by stealth or by EU dogma – into the public sector. Financial independence is the bedrock of social housing provision. The chancellor has already landed in hot water for the lack of clarity around Railtrack and its successor; the last thing the government wants is for RSL status to be rocked and its financial model tumbling like a house of cards.

Source

Housing Today