The National Housing Federation, Chartered Institute of Housing and Housing Corporation are working on an initiative to encourage new people into the social housing sector, encouraging career advisers to take housing seriously and encouraging employers to be more receptive to candidates ("The rising sum" 5 March, page 26).

Bright Futures, Bright Lives, Bright Careers promotes social housing as an attractive sector to work in for school, college and university leavers, community groups, people returning to work and those seeking a change in career.

The website www.brightfutures.uk.com is being redesigned to include a mix of promotion to different target audiences and good practice for employers. We will be asking associations to evaluate their current recruitment processes and procedures, from using more user-friendly application forms to asking appropriate interview questions for different types and levels of jobs.

We will also be reminding housing providers to make the right first impression of the sector on candidates as a school-leaver today may be a chief executive of the future.

Feedback from associations is that there are issues with basic numeracy and literacy among school leavers, so the website will point young people to where they can improve their skills and what employers can do to assist them: work placements, graduate programmes, sponsored learning and so on.