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The sector has been rocked by the news that three high-profile figures are to leave.

It emerged this week that Genie Turton, the ODPM director general for housing, homelessness and planning, will depart next May.

She joins Housing Corporation chief executive Norman Perry and Peter Redman, chief executive of Notting Hill Housing Trust, who announced their departures on Tuesday.

Turton, who joined the civil service in 1970, has agreed an early retirement package with the ODPM. She will be 58 when she leaves next year.

A source said: "Turton has decided she's had enough of the civil service. The recent reorganisation – when Richard McCarthy was brought in to oversee the delivery of the Communities Plan – resulted in Turton's empire being carved up.

"She feels that if she's not got the top job any more, May will be a good time to go. There is now a much sharper focus on delivery in housing and the old ways are not seen as not good enough."

Turton's colleague Philip Ward, director of the performance unit, has also resigned.

Meanwhile, the race has begun to replace Norman Perry at the corporation. The early candidates include Peter Williams, deputy director general of the Council of Mortgage Lenders and a former board member of the corporation, and Neil Hadden, assistant chief executive for investment and regeneration. Both men were unavailable for comment.

Perry, who has been at the corporation since October 2000, said: "The chairman and I have agreed that I should leave after his first six months … People will say what they want, but [chairman] Peter Dixon and I had decided this prior to his appointment and before Places for People being placed under supervision."

He also aimed a parting shot at the ODPM, saying the corporation was "seriously underfunded".

"I have talked to the deputy prime minister about getting a boost to our funding to ensure we are able to properly carry out our job," he said.

Perry declined to comment on what level of funding he felt the corporation needed above the £36.4m it received in 2002/03.

Perry will leave next March after overseeing the end-to-end review of the body that began last month.

He also hopes to have concluded the bidding process for the recently unveiled £3.3bn new approach to investment.

The chief executive of a large southern association said: "It is sad to see Norman go, but I suspect the writing was on the wall after the corporation lost the inspection role to the Audit Commission last September."

Peter Redman, who has been at the helm of Notting Hill Housing Trust for 10 years, stepped down at an emergency board meeting on 29 October and has not been in the office since.

The association received three amber lights in the Housing Corporation's traffic light assessment. Ingrid Reynolds, who has temporarily replaced Redman, admitted that he had had "a difficult year".

The inspection follows a scandal last summer, when it was found that Notting Hill was not following allocations policy in Kensington and Chelsea, London.

Notting Hill's chairman Lord Tom Sawyer said Redman had left by mutual consent, adding: "We need to make a lot of changes as a result of our Audit Commission and Housing Corporation reports and need to do this with very strong leadership."

The chief executive of a large London association said: "He's gone because Notting Hill has not really transferred his vision into reality."

n Caroline Pickering has been named interim chief executive of Peabody Trust, replacing Richard McCarthy.