It seems that turkeys will vote for Christmas if they think they’ll get lots of grain to eat.
That’s the conclusion I’ve reached following the piece in last week’s Inside Housing by Stuart Macdonald. He reports that in a survey, larger housing associations supported the introduction of charging for regulation, seeing a “clear benefit to their business of a regulator with the resources to effectively regulate their organisation”.
In principle, this is a reasonable stance to take as it would enable the regulator to winkle out the problems in the sector and shore up the funders’ confidence in being able to lend to the sector.
And yet, it is very likely that Mr. Pickles will take the opportunity to remove the money that the government puts into regulation now and we will be left with a regulator that continues to struggle with the very same issues that it has currently. The obvious question then is how will charging fees lead to improved regulation if the regulator does not get increased funding?
I suspect, as has often been the case, that the position taken by larger associations is more to do with their development programmes than with principle.
Why would they argue against resourcing for their regulator when it is the same organisation that provides funding for development? And if better regulation would lead to funders being more confident about lending, why would they not want to support it?
The quid pro quo for regulation charging should be genuine, effective scrutiny of the regulation by associations to ensure they are getting value for money.
