Social housing regulation: two cultures

1. Social housing regulation: two cultures Janis Brightjanis.bright@icloud.com

2. This presentation • Aspects of regulation covered • Styles of regulation in England and Scotland • Concepts: new public management and entrepreneurial governance • Case study and findings • Conclusions • Issues for future study

3. Aspects of regulation covered • Formal ‘regulation function’ • Self-regulation • ‘Performance’

4. Styles of regulation • England: shift from inspection and prescription to consumerist model • Scotland: increasing intervention underpinned by national standards • Co-regulation

5. Concepts • New public management ‘The critique of capitalism … ceased being a political claim and became a managerial one about how to run things better.’ (Finlayson 1999) • Entrepreneurial governance ‘Discursive reimaginationof public management into a simple formula of financial efficiency’ (Du Gay 2000)

6. The case study • Three housing organisations working in both countries • Qualitative methods, semi-structured interviews • Senior officers and ‘involved’ tenants • Attempts to capture experience of those regulated • Three areas of enquiry: use of data, accountability & what drives improvement, and the future

7. Findings: use of data • Suspicion of the numbers • ‘Involved’ tenants used data • Internal benchmarking used extensively • Qualitative data highly valued ‘Looking at published information from other organisations? We do, we have, and it’s all nonsense.’ Senior manager ‘It’s the conversation that gives the real insight into how to make things better.’ Senior manager

8. Findings: accountability • Development of scrutiny role and relaxation of rules (England) brought step change • But more prescription welcomed in Scotland • No immediate belief that tenants would really hold board to account • Polarised views on value of inspection • Regulators under-resourced? ‘The regulator’s only thing is to make sure people aren’t putting the money in their own pockets. The rest of it they couldn’t care less.’ Involved tenant ‘Painful though it was, inspection was actually very useful.’Senior manager

9. Findings: the future • No support for return of prescription in England • Fear of problem cases triggering intervention • Demand for standards to avoid race to the bottom ‘It will only take a failure for the pendulum to swing again, and we’re probably not far from that.’ Senior manager, England ‘As an organisation we felt culturally ready for something new. The constant threat of intervention skewed things.’Senior manager, England

10. Conclusions • Hierarchy of trust in data • New public management style internalised in new culture • Entrepreneurial governance style seen to complement organisational culture • Tenants and officers value scrutiny structure • But – tensions in accountability

11. Issues for future study • Significant changes since study conducted • Towards a longitudinal study • Practical problems?