David Seviour, Group Chief Executive of the £540 million LHA-ASRA housing group, stepped down after 29 years in the post. When he joined LHA (Leicester Housing Association) as its first employee and Director in 1977, the organisation owned 300 homes, had just £16,000 to its name, and had no other staff, systems, or policies. Now, the LHA-ASRA group manages 11,000 homes across 57 local authorities, employs 450 staff, and is worth close to half a billion pounds.
The LHA-ASRA group's accommodation ranges from affordable general needs rented housing, to shared ownership homes for key-workers, to sheltered housing for older people, to care and support for vulnerable groups.
In the early 1980s, David Seviour provided support to establish ASRA Midlands Housing Association (which is not related to the LHA-ASRA group) and developed the UK's first specialist accommodation for isolated first generation Asian and African Caribbean elders in Leicester.
A decade later, David Seviour developed and implemented a successful rescue plan to save six housing co-operatives from financial failure resulting from poor management, following an approach from the Housing Corporation.
David Seviour is particularly well-known for his commitment to resident involvement, and his work on behalf of blighted mining communities in North Nottinghamshire and North East Derbyshire. Working with residents of pit villages, he spearheaded a 17 year campaign to reverse 1980s government policy which blocked urgently needed repairs and improvements to decaying homes, triggering £14.5m of investment. More than 600 homes were transformed with new plumbing, new wiring, new kitchens, new bathrooms, new inside toilets, double-glazed windows, and in some cases, new brick walls.
In the 1990s, David Seviour conceived of a new model of community-led regeneration that would spark social, economic, and physical regeneration in deprived former mining communities, helping to create the East Midlands' first village company, at Whaley Thorns & Langwith. Combining an enterprise ethos with social objectives, this became a template for a network of similar companies launched by LHA and its partners, which have provided a focus for regeneration, created employment and training, and improved local services and amenities in the former coalfields.
Through the 'village companies project,' more than £1 million of external funding has been captured, more than 25 new jobs have been created in target communities, significant community assets have been developed and secured, and new enterprises have been launched. As a result, confidence, entrepreneurship, and self-reliance are returning to communities hard hit by the collapse of traditional industries.
Alongside LHA, Seviour created an arms-length social enterprise group, TREES, which comprises a network of local companies with a shared commitment to job and training creation. TREES is a major player in the region's social enterprise economy, with a group turnover of £8.6m, a substantial and growing customer base, and a national reputation.
It has brought excluded groups into the labour market, raised skill levels, improved employment prospects, and engaged communities by harnessing commercial success to social justice. That is particularly evident in Braunstone, Leicester, where the work he pioneered following the transfer of 220 desperately neglected homes to LHA from the local authority for wholesale regeneration, is very visible today thanks to a partnership between LHA and social enterprise company, Newlife.
When LHA was appointed Accountable Body to the broader £49.5m regeneration programme, David Seviour worked closely with Braunstone Community Association to help keep the programme on track during sometimes testing times in its early years. A similar 'neighbourhood stock transfer' project is just reaching completion in Northampton, where 140 apartments for sale and rent have been created following the £8m refurbishment and makeover of two 1960s tower blocks.
David Seviour is Chairman of Urban Living (the Birmingham-Sandwell Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder), a board member of Meden Valley Making Places Ltd., a board member of Leicester Regeneration Company, represents the Government Office for the East Midlands on the board of Regeneration East Midlands, and is former Chair of the National Housing Federation Regional Council.
Atul Patel took over from David Seviour as Group Chief Executive of LHA-ASRA at the end of March.
Steve Boyd took over as Managing Director at Tristar Homes. He was previously Chief Executive at Nomad Homes. The new Acting Chief Executive at Nomad is Ian Prescott, who was the Development Director there.
English Partnerships announced the appointment of John Callcutt as its new Chief Executive. He is currently Deputy Chairman of Crest Nicholson plc following fourteen years as its Chief Executive.
Dartford Council appointed Peter Dosad as Head of Housing Services. He moves there from Medway Council, where he was Housing Services Manager.
Lesley McInnes joined West Highland HA as its Chief Executive, moving there from the role of Care & Housing Director at Margaret Blackwood HA.
Lara Oyedele joined Odu-Dua HA as Chief Executive. She moved there from Pinnacle PSG where she was a Contract Manager.
Steve Rumbelow, Director of Housing at Manchester Council, was appointed Chief Executive at Burnley Council.
John Stemp was promoted from Director of Housing Services to Managing Director at Leicester Housing Association.
We continue with our series that offers training providers the opportunity to discuss their training programmes, ideas, initiatives, approaches, etc. This month's article, from Michael Guest Associates, examines the need for effective training at Board level.
Michael Guest Associates are experienced in supporting boards, housing associations, ALMOs and others, in both whole board and individual member reviews, advising on and delivering programmes of development to meet agreed priorities. As well as developing greater competence in governing, such reviews lead to increased confidence on the part of all involved about their roles and how to conduct them.
Long gone are the days when boards of Housing Associations were viewed as bodies to merely 'oversee' the running of the organisation and 'give a steer' to the Chief Executive. The level of responsibility from legal requirements onwards is now well recognised across the housing sector. These responsibilities flow from the law, requirements of regulators, and good practice developed and promoted in support.
Housing Associations are complex businesses, needing to be stable and continuing landlords that impact so directly on people's quality of life, combined increasingly with more diverse objectives to be achieved in the wider built environment. Housing Associations are also major financial undertakings, often subject to significant amounts of privately borrowed funding, supported by public money. Add to this the expectations of residents, government, the Housing Corporation, Audit Commission, local authorities, indeed their own staff; taking ultimate responsibility for the proper governance of the organisation is rightly viewed as a serious matter.
There is widespread recognition that for boards to perform well, they need to bring a range of skills and knowledge 'to the table.' However, governing well goes beyond this to how board members behave. This includes how relationships with the executive are conducted, how the organisation is represented to the wider world and the nature of leadership regarding the association's current and future direction; crucially though, without getting involved in operational matters.
Board members are subject to pressures from many directions. As well as receiving support from their executive staff, they need to develop their own capacity to deal with the advice being given and add real value to the association's policy making and monitoring activities.
There is a range of means to develop such capacity with the support of executive and other key members of staff being central to this. Also, attending seminars and conferences (and in the process meeting board members from elsewhere), and reading the range of material available around the sector is useful. However, undertaking structured programmes of board training ought to be the foundation of such development.
In turn, training should be based on an assessment of what individual board members and the board as a whole need by way of development, as compared to what 'good practice' suggests. At the same time keeping at least one eye on Housing Corporation and Audit Commission expectations is of course necessary.
There is a variety of ways to achieve this. The board as a whole can undertake exercises to consider how it governs benchmarked against developed 'good practice.' For individual board members, approaches include methods based on self-assessment, peer review and appraisal by the Chair and Chief Executive. Occasionally board members are surprised at the suggestion of executive involvement, but remember they are beneficiaries and victims of the board's performance.
Michael Guest Associates: www.michaelguest.co.uk
March 2006: Shelter. An overview of courses offered by the Agency.
February 2006: Barry Marlow - Rent Management Time for a Change training seminars.