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The Housing Corporation is to offer its new chief executive a salary of up to £160,000 a year, Housing Today has learned.

The figure emerged as the corporation lost another senior member of staff with the surprise resignation of assistant chief executive Jackie Green on Tuesday.

The new chief executive's pay packet will be 33% more than the basic salary the post's former incumbent, Dr Norman Perry, received for 2003.

It would make the new chief the third highest paid leader of any quango – beaten only by Steve Bundred, the chief executive of the Audit Commission, who earns £200,000 a year, and the newly appointed chief executive of the South-east England Development Agency, Pam Alexander, who earns £160,000. It would trump the £140,000 paid to David Higgins, head of regeneration quango English Partnerships, and would even eclipse the £127,791 earned by deputy prime minister John Prescott.

It has been set this high in order to attract the best candidates from the public and private sectors.

But a senior housing professional said: "Given the recent criticism by the corporation of the salaries being received by housing association chief executives [HT 26 September, page 11] it would be a bit rich to offer such an increase."

It is understood that the corporation has instructed recruitment agency Veredus to start looking for a replacement for Perry, who unexpectedly announced his departure two weeks ago (HT 7 November, page 7). He will work until March – a six-month extension to his original three-year contract.

Jackie Green oversees organisational effectiveness at the corporation and is paid £89,175 a year. But she will leave her job in February to join Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital NHS Trust as executive director of human resources.

Green acknowledged the sensitivities of her resignation's timing, but said she could not reject the job offer.

Writing on the corporation's intranet, she said: "While I recognise the timing isn't ideal, I'm afraid the opportunities offered by a new job in a new sector proved irresistible."

Her priorities during her three months' notice will include the corporation's end-to-end review and outsourcing many of its IT systems, she said. A looming strike ballot over pay means she will not get an easy ride.

Perry wrote to staff on Tuesday to say the corporation will push on with a 4% pay increase even after most of the corporation's 350 Unison members voted to reject it.

Unison wanted a 5% rise and is to ballot for industrial action in December.