CIH Presidential address
Paul Diggory, Vice Chair, CIH
Good morning colleagues. This is my first CIH Scotland Conference, although a number of my colleagues from Wales have attended in recent years and your reputation goes before you. I'm extremely pleased to be here with you.
In thinking about what approach to take to cover so much of what's going on across the UK in a short time, I was reminded of a recent incident in mid-Wales. Ahead of the May elections, Tony Blair had been warned that Labour's support in the rural areas had been slipping and he agreed to visit to make a speech.
He arrived at the Agricultural Showground at Builth Wells only to find a solitary Welsh farmer in the hall, sat on the front row. The PM was not impressed and said "Look, I'm really sorry, but it's hardly worth bothering for just one person."
The farmer looked up at him and said "I've got 1,000 head of cattle over 20 miles from my farm. If I went out there to feed them and only one cow turned up, I'd still feed it."
"Good point", said Tony. "I'll give you my speech."
Two hours later, he finished, and said to the farmer, "Well. . . what do you think?" The farmer looked up at him, pushed his cap back and said, "I don't think I'd have given it the whole truckload!"
So don't worry. . . I won't be giving you the whole truckload this morning.
It's been a busy time for all of us in housing and the last few months have been an extremely busy time for the CIH. As some of you will be aware we've recently established ConsultCIH, a wholly owned company of the CIH which will provide consultancy support to the sector. And that's really why I'm here today – because with the creation of ConsultCIH, Janet Hale has had to step down from the Presidency and from Council.
Janet is, however, with us this week in her new role with ConsultCIH and I would like to thank her for her contribution to the work of our governing Council and in her period as President.
Now, depending on how you look at it, that means I get two bites of the cherry – I get to visit and speak at two CIH Scotland Conferences rather than the usual one. Unless anything happens to me of course!
Seriously, the housing world is having to contend with lots of change – and this is happening at every level.
As a President of the CIH who is based in Wales I'm having to get my head around changes that are taking place in all countries of the UK.
It's only March and already in England there's been an announcement on the creation of Communities England, the start of work on Martin Cave's review of the regulatory framework and just two weeks ago the launch of John Hills' assessment of the future of social housing. Similar work on the role of social housing is under way here in Scotland and in Northern Ireland there is a Review into Affordable Housing. An interim report on this was published just before Christmas which the CIH has responded to and we are awaiting a final report soon.
Whatever the debates about future policy within the different countries in the UK all of us are interested in, and will be affected by, the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review.
The Review – whenever it reports – is of fundamental importance in shaping how well we will be able to meet housing needs across the UK. Over the past year CIH has been Making the Case for Housing to influence the Government's Comprehensive Spending Review and to underpin our case we have to continue to promote the importance of housing and to demonstrate the positive outcomes that housing delivers for people and for communities.
And at this point it's worth recalling that 2007 has also brought us a TV series that has highlighted the need for resources and investment in housing and the value of engaging people and communities. I'm talking about Colin and Justin on the Arden estate in Glasgow. Whilst this will be covered in depth in the next session, the programmes proved a real talking point, and not just amongst people who work in housing. Whatever you thought of the series, it attracted a lot of attention right across the UK. And let's be fair, many of the issues and problems highlighted are common to many of us, wherever we work. I felt it was positive in that it showed that you can make progress if you're able to harness enough people in a community to effect change and it showed a wider audience how difficult the job can be without adequate investment.
Of course, something like this can also provoke action in a different way and a number of people have been prepared to defend the area and its residents, including a group of teenagers who've recorded a rap song and video about the estate that's been aired on Radio 1.
We all know how important housing is. A good home is the foundation for the well-being of people and communities – positively contributing to better health, education, a sustainable environment and community cohesion. Moreover, a dynamic economy where households can prosper needs accessible and affordable housing. And we have to continue to make the case to UK Government, the Scottish Parliament and the Assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland.
One of the key challenges which will arise in each of the three countries will be the forthcoming elections. Here in Scotland there is clearly a lot of speculation about who the largest party will be and what the political complexion of the Executive will be after May. And with Proportional Representation in the local government elections there is the prospect of further change there too.
Like other organisations, the CIH has been doing what it can to both influence and inform policy makers both in the lead-up to and following the elections. Here in Scotland the CIH launched its programme for action Building a sustainable housing future for Scotland late last year. In addition I am delighted that CIH in Scotland has been a partner with the SFHA, Cosla, Shelter and the Scottish Council for Single Homeless in producing a joint manifesto – Housing Scotland: Planning for a better future – which was launched a couple of weeks ago, and which you'll hear more about this afternoon.
Racism is something which can undermine community development and it's been in the news in Scotland lately through a couple of football incidents, both on and off the field. For those of you old enough to remember, racism in football used to be really bad going back to the 1970's. An example of how it's improved in general occurred at the Liverpool v Barcelona game recently Ronaldinho had been roundly booed as a result of his theatrics in the first leg, but when he went to take a corner at the Kop end he was greeted with a song that went along the lines of "Cilla wants her teeth back"! Still cruel, but it wasn't racist. I suppose that's progress of sorts but we have to be persistent.
It's of more concern though, when racism is used politically and I'm sure it concerns you that the British National Party is standing in the Scottish Parliament election. The platform adopted by the BNP presents a serious threat to integration and community cohesion in Scotland and one of the priorities for all of us must be to challenge the prejudice and misinformation that's being spread through our communities and to take a stand.
I'm sure that you'll have noticed that England appears to be trying to catch up with Scotland by creating Communities England, through a merger of the Housing Corporation and English Partnerships. Isn't it a little ironic that one outcome of the election here could result in the abolition of Communities Scotland?
One of the key issues which we will have to return to after the elections are the debates about the future of social housing which are taking place in different parts of the UK. In Scotland CIH has published the Newhaven report on The future for social renting in Scotland and the Scottish Executive are now conducting their own review. It will be interesting to see whether the Executive identify as concerns any of the same issues emerging from John Hills report:
- that many tenants of local authorities are dissatisfied with their landlord and that many aren't happy with the repair and maintenance standards,
- that too many households in social housing are economically inactive which, according to Ruth Kelly, represents lost potential and closes down opportunity, and
- that social housing has to do more to help achieve social and economic mobility with social housing used more as a stepping-stone to other options.
With members across the UK the CIH is in a unique position to draw these different reviews together. In response to the Hills report, the CIH has re-opened its web-based discussion forum to enable practitioners from across the sector to contribute to the debate and I'd like to encourage you to take part in that discussion and help shape our thinking.
It's also worth emphasising at this point that one of the key objectives we have in establishing ConsultCIH is to help turn good practice into common practice. So as we develop our thinking on strategic and policy issues we will be better able to have an impact on quality and service delivery at the operational end.
Whilst as housing professionals we are focused on these debates we also recognise that there are bigger, more fundamental concerns that we need to respond to. The recent Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change was a stark reminder of the potential global impact of not acting now – and the proposition was made that the cost of inaction could be a permanent loss of 20 per cent of global output. In response to the report, Tony Blair said the conclusions of the Stern Review should be seen as "the final word on why the world must act now to limit the damage we are doing to our planet."
The consultation paper issued in January, Building a Greener Future, indicates that we face stringent targets and changes to building regulations with the aim of achieving zero carbon emissions through domestic housing by 2016. It's a tremendous challenge for the sector.
In my own organisation, North Wales Housing Association, we are trying to act locally and think globally. By all of us carrying out small changes through simple actions, we believe we can contribute to a bigger change.
It was Mahatma Gandhi who said: "We must be the change we want to see for the world". So, to make a difference to the future, we have to be involved. Stimulating people to act in new ways and giving them the power to do so is one of the most important differences between those organisations which stagnate and those which develop and sustain a competitive edge. At the CIH we can provide the leadership, the support and the encouragement to enable members to realise their potential and enhance the possibilities for transforming the sector. The future that we shape for the communities where we work will become our legacy. And not the legacy that we otherwise face as a consequence of failure to take responsibility and failure to lead.
We need to continue to ask ourselves: are we truly exploiting the resources we have and do we have the right structures and the skilled staff to provide the level of service the public expects.
– and that's where CIH has a key role to play.
Our starting point is how we deliver our mission statement – which is to maximise the contribution that housing professionals make to the well-being of communities – whether that's helping to settle an asylum seeker, tackling anti-social behaviour or developing a local housing strategy. How we carry out these tasks has a lasting impact on the well being of the communities we serve.
The UK has become increasingly aware of the importance of building a skilled workforce as we face the challenges of increased globalisation. At the CIH we share that commitment to education and training. CIH accredits over 110 courses both in the UK and overseas, from level 2 certificates to Masters degrees and we've recently accredited our first degree programme at Wuhan University in China.
More and more people recognise that being a member of CIH can provide them with the knowledge and skills which enable the delivery of services now and in the future. And – having set a target of 20,000 members by the end of 2007 – I am delighted that we met that target 11 months early.
Many organisations put great effort into recruiting quality people into housing – and that is important. But we also need to develop our existing staff, ensuring they have the skills to do the job – and we have to do more to develop the leaders for tomorrow – not just staff but tenants and committee members.
And the reason why this is important is that it is critical to our ability to do what matters most to all of us – which is to improve services and create successful communities.
As the next session will highlight, we have to provide decent housing – housing that at least meets the decent or quality standard. But our ultimate measure of success is whether we can transform our housing and our communities into ones that people choose to live in, not want to move away from – a positive choice for people and not a second rate one.
Colleagues, my aim is to help the CIH provide the leadership, support and encouragement to enable members to realise their potential and enhance the possibilities for transforming the sector.
So that the future that we shape for the communities where we work will become our legacy.
Thank you for listening, thank you for inviting me and I wish you well in meeting the challenges that 2007 will bring.