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As an executive board member of Weslo Housing Management, I was interested to read of Julian Ashby's "Route to a better board" (24 October, page 19).

Operating in east central Scotland, our company has four executive directors: a part-time chair, a policy and development director and two housing services and financial directors. These work within a board of 12 with eight non-executives, made up of four tenants, two local councillors and two others.

The company, set up in 1993 as a private company limited by guarantee with charitable status, has applied a traditional, recognised and government-recommended governance model.

Unfortunately, the regulator in Scotland has taken a narrow view, notwithstanding the new powers it has to regulate companies involved in social housing following the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001.

It is refusing to entertain our application for registration as a social landlord, on the grounds that Weslo has paid members of staff on its board.

We intend to test this decision but, in the mean time, our 2300 tenants are by default considered to be private sector tenants, therefore unable to gain from the many benefits contained in the act. Both Falkirk and West Lothian councils are unable to call on us to assist in their strategies to combat homelessness.

Weslo will seek to confer upon our tenants and the councils the benefits of the act on a voluntary basis until such time as our position becomes formalised.