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Given that there are more than 2000 registered social landlords in Britain, this is a serious concern. Apart from the obvious issue of equality, the sector cannot hope to reflect its customer base until more women make it to the top 鈥� three in five social housing tenants are women.

The Housing Corporation is trying to tackle this problem. This summer its former chairman Baroness Brenda Dean set a target that half of the top 200 RSLs (by number of units) should be headed by women by 2010. And next month, the corporation will publish Leadership 2010, an action plan to achieve this aim and increase diversity across the sector's top jobs. The programme will complement the corporation's Career Opportunities for Ethnic Minorities (COFEM) programme 鈥� the situation, of course, is even worse for black and minority-ethnic communities, who make up just 13% of all housing association staff and only 1.6% of senior staff at mainstream associations, according to Housing Corporation figures.

There are a number of issues specific to women that must be overcome before they can succeed in any significant numbers (see "Women Only", right). But as well as tackling these, we must focus on the 400 or so women who are already in senior positions and leading smaller organisations, and on recruiting women from outside the sector. "There's a huge loss of talent because so many women decide not to go for the very top jobs, or even stop being chief executives because it doesn't seem worth it," says Wendy Pridmore, chief executive at Rosemary Simmons Memorial Housing Association.

The work done for the National Housing Federation's rebranding concluded that the sector should invest collectively in leadership training and development. One example is the Leadership 2000 project set up by health charity the King's Fund in 1993, and funded initially by the NHS. By 2000, it was considered that many women had broken through the glass ceiling, but a stream of new applicants persuaded the fund to continue.

One of the Leadership 2000 schemes is the Athena programme. It offers women at senior level a mix of formal teaching, informal discussions with role models, personal skills development through mentoring and learning sets, networking and a consultancy assignment. Participants on a recent course said working with a diverse group of like-minded people had given them confidence and insights into their strengths and development needs.

Rabbi Julia Neuberger, chief executive of the King's Fund, says: "It's very important for the housing sector to develop the talented women it's got, focusing on personal development and working across sectors. Housing must interact with health and social care, and the wider framework of social policy and service delivery."

The NHF will be working with its members to develop a range of programmes during the coming year, and it is hoped that some of those will be targeted at disadvantaged groups. This is not about special treatment, but providing a safe learning environment to develop confidence, and to recognise the value of different leadership styles and tacit knowledge.

Women's networks and learning sets can provide informal learning and development. Existing chief executives 鈥� female and male 鈥� could be asked to help with mentoring, coaching and technical skills, along similar lines to the COFEM schemes. One ex-director suggests: "Could we recruit male chief executives to help, rather than blame them?" And Charlotte Graves, chief executive at Ealing Family Housing Association, says: "Women who have been successful should be encouraging others. We supported five women to do management training and I myself benefited from training geared specifically to women earlier in my career."

How to recruit the best
As well as training, recruitment must change. Jackie Green, assistant chief executive at the Housing Corporation, says: "We must persuade boards and consultants to break the mould on recruitment practices."

There needs to be a radical overhaul of what boards require of their new chief executives. Assessment should emphasise emotional intelligence and competencies, not just traditional skills and experience. Perhaps the recruitment industry itself could help fund the development of training programmes, or provide bursaries.

A decade ago, the Office for Public Management published Getting More Women to the Top, which included a strategy for improving the housing sector. Not much has changed since, but as some of the older cohort retire, the opportunity is there. With the renewed commitment of Leadership 2010, reformed recruitment, training and development for the 400 women in senior roles and the equivalent BME group, the sector really could meet the corporation's target 鈥� and help to create the 21st-century leadership we need.