Independent panel on quality in housing association homes

Housing associations exist to provide good quality, affordable social homes for people who need them and offer vital services to support their communities.

While most housing association homes are of high quality, we know that some of our homes and services are falling short of the high standards that we expect and that our residents deserve.

We want to take action to address these urgent issues of quality, learn where things may be going wrong, and begin to tackle the root causes of the problem.

The NHF, in partnership with the CIH and our members, will be bringing together an independent panel, with expertise and lived experience of social housing, to guide the sector on this vital journey.

The panel will be chaired by Helen Baker, who is a highly respected and experienced figure in housing, social care, health and education. The panel will meet over the summer with residents, community leaders, frontline staff and others to understand more about the issues. They will then recommend actions housing associations can take to improve, and set out what support the sector may need to do so.

The NHF will then work with housing associations across the country to come up with an action plan to take these recommendations forward.

How housing associations can get involved

We will work closely with our members over the summer of 2022 to keep them informed and ensure they can shape our sector response to the panel’s recommendations.

The NHF has brought together a member steering group, chaired by Charlie Norman of Mosscare St Vincent’s and Ian McDermott of Peabody, to guide the sector’s response to this work.

This group will be transparent, accessible to the sector and representative of the sector’s views.

Roundtable sessions for NHF members

We are holding three sessions for NHF members to meet with one of the chairs of our member steering group.

These roundtables will be an opportunity to hear more about the work of the steering group, the how the panel will work, the terms of reference for the panel’s review and answer any questions you may have. If you have any questions, please get in touch.