EXECUTIVES GET DOUBLE THE AVERAGE PAY

Greedy housing bosses lose their way

 With their bosses earning twice that of other charities, have housing associations lost their social purpose? asks Andrew Kersley, pictured, in an article in the publication, Byline Times.

 The UK’s 13 biggest housing associations paid their executives over £22m with bosses earning almost double the average for the UK’s biggest charities says the article

 

 Analysis of annual accounts for the members of the G15, the group of the UK’s biggest housing associations, found that their chief executives earned netted some £3.9m between them, or an average pay packet of around £300,000.

Meanwhile, the average salary at the UK’s 100 largest charities, was just £175,000. Pay at major housing associations outstripped the pay for the heads of some of the country’s biggest charities, including Mind and Cancer Research UK.

Non-executives, meanwhile, earned almost £2.5m last year usually for giving the 13 firms a few hours of advice a month.

The findings have led housing campaigners to warn that the nominally ‘non-profit’ housing associations have lost their “social purpose” and were wasting money even as many were failing to give thousands of their tenants a “decent home”. 

Housing associations are private non-profits that run 63% of social housing in the UK – accommodation linked to local incomes in order to make it affordable for those on average incomes or using benefits. 

But the G15 housing associations in particular – including L&Q, Clarion, Peabody, MTVH and Notting Hill Genesis – have been the subject of constant scandals in the past two years over the poor quality of the homes they offer their often vulnerable tenants.

Byline Times previously found the biggest private providers of social housing are registering billions of pounds in surpluses – despite the record numbers of tenants reporting damp, mould and other disrepair in their homes.

This blog which is published byCarlisle  Tenants` and Residents Federation has frequently  campaigned agaunst the very excessive surpluses  and  grossly excessive pay to executives of the Liverpool-based Riverside Housing Association

 Andrew Kersley`s article continues:The three highest-paid G15 executives worked for Peabody, Clarion and L&Q, and all netted over £320,000 in pay and bonuses last year, with the highest-paid directors at Peabody earning £438,000 in pay and bonuses.

One Housing Group – which was recently taken over by fellow housing association Riverside in search of  "financial resilience" – paid over £1.7m across its leadership team in pay and bonuses last year, one of the highest rates in the G15.

Pay has stayed steady for executives at the 14 ‘non-profit’ housing providers and did not significantly drop between last year and the year before. 

“It’s just another symptom of the fact that major housing associations have lost their social purpose,” says Suzanne Muna, the secretary of the Social Housing Campaign Group.

“If you look at the traditions and where these associations come from their founders would be horrified”. 

Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 522277