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Ask Irwin, the chief housing inspector, about the cover image and his reply is no bulldog snarl – more of a resigned sniff that shows he's heard it all before. "There's a bit more to us than is implied by the caricature," he says. "There's watching out, and fault-finding, but a lot of our work is encouraging people to do more and sometimes celebrating their achievements."

It's not only registered social landlords who will get to find out whether the housing inspectorate is the sheepdog that Irwin says it is. His staff are embarking on the first inspections of arm's-length management organisations, and acting as "critical friends" advising the work of the nine market renewal pathfinders. In these as well as the comprehensive performance assessments of councils' housing delivery strategies, the inspectorate is looking beyond social housing into the private sector fringes.

It's a wide remit but one that Irwin is willing to embrace. To make the switch from the Housing Corporation as smooth as possible, he adopted the corporation's staff and fostered its inspection system. He explains: "We'll run the two regimes in parallel until we're clear about how they work, then we'll develop an approach where some aspects apply across both sectors, and some are specific to each." But this pragmatic, wait-and-see approach should not spell delay: Irwin hopes to implement the revised inspection approach by this autumn.

Experience with RSLs
He believes the staff transfer answers many associations' fears about how the commission, steeped in local government lore, will handle RSLs. "We will respect the local contexts – political, geographical, organisational and market – that associations operate in," Irwin stresses. "The corporation learned about that, and we've brought in its staff who have that learning."

In the short term, he intends to focus on rent arrears. "I don't think associations are particularly bad as a sector, but as we're about to publish research with the Housing Corporation on good practice, it's sensible to test how they are responding."

In the medium term, he will consult on providing a translation service or shared language between the star ratings used for councils and the results from RSL inspections. "When the government made the decision about a single inspectorate, there was a strong message about comparability of services for tenants."

But whether in associations, ALMOs or local authorities, Irwin will be looking out for what he says is a common failing in the public and voluntary sector. "Often, the intelligence and energy goes into internal things and organisational politics, not what's happening in society and the community and how they ought to respond. There is more to life than being the same as yesterday, or five years ago. Our challenge to them is 'get a life'."

Clearly, Irwin is very aware of housing policy's role in social change. He welcomes the Communities Plan as "a more delivery-oriented system" and a delayed recognition that the state has to grasp more of the levers of the housing market. "How can the state influence or manage the marketplace nationally or regionally?" he asks. "It's all up in the air. But doing nothing is the only unacceptable option."

Irwin is particularly proud of the housing inspectorate's own small lever in this process. Drawing on its experience of inspecting post-transfer authorities, it has developed a "diagnostic product" to help councils view how planning, housing, transport and economic policies work together – and then look over the horizon. "If local authorities don't grasp these issues, we're left with a national policy, but no joined-up reality,"Irwin warns. The inspectorate will use the approach as part of comprehensive performance assessments, but has also been invited to benchmark other councils for a fee.

'Housing gets in your blood'
Irwin started in housing as a school-leaver after a careers adviser pointed towards Sheffield council's housing department with the assurance that it didn't involve numbers. At the interview, he recalls bonding with his future boss over a shared interest in art. He still sketches and is interested in architecture: "I like seeing how places were put together. I think now I have an appreciation of design more than art."

After that interview, he says, "my experience was similar to a lot of people's. Housing gets in your blood and you realise there's big job to be done. Everyone lives in a house, it's core to our souls. You can get a lot of job satisfaction from it."

Colleagues are also satisfied with his work. David Butler, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing, was director of housing at Newcastle when Irwin held the same post in Bristol. "People may not be happy with the results of an inspection, but no one questions the methodology. And he never says one thing in public and another in private."

Gwyneth Taylor, programme manager for the Local Government Association, worked with Irwin when he was an adviser to the LGA on housing and social exclusion. She says: "He's very easy to deal with. You know exactly where you stand, and you know he will listen and try to understand your problem. He has a strong grasp of the issues, of where he wants to go and where he wants housing to go."

Despite his sense of "where he wants housing to go", Irwin is willing to listen to both sides of a debate before he makes a decision. He is reluctant to be drawn on one of the big issues of the moment – the possible introduction of a Dutch-style quality mark – saying he wants more details before he makes a decision.

Another hot potato right now, of course, is the Housing Corporation's new traffic-light rating system. Like many in the sector, it came as a surprise to Irwin, although he had been aware that the Housing Corporation was reviewing its regulatory framework. How will it affect the Audit Commission's work?"It doesn't cause any issues for us," he says. "Our inspections will continue to feed into the corporation's regulatory framework."

So if Irwin had to choose an animal to represent the Audit Commission on the cover of Housing Today, what would it be?

A carpet-chewing puppy? A faithful guidedog? A fun-loving labrador? Irwin looks horrified. "Oh no! The only answer is 'let's not go there'."