Vice president Jim Strang steps up to become president – taking over from Alison Inman – while Aileen Evans becomes vice president.

Their new roles were officially approved at CIH’s Annual General Meeting which took place in Glasgow today (Monday 5 November).

Meanwhile at the CIH:

A new project to explore how social housing is being allocated across England is being launched by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH).

Rethinking allocations aims to analyse what housing associations and councils are doing now – and why – and stimulate debate about how things could be improved.

Social housing providers are being invited to take part in an online survey to share their experiences which opens today which closes on Friday 23 November.

Rethinking allocations is the next stage of CIH’s successful Rethinking social housing project, which saw more than 3,000 people have their say on the future of social housing via workshops, an online survey and public polling. The report demonstrated that while there is wide support for a much broader range of people to be able to live in social housing, in practice the shortage of genuinely affordable housing for rent means that some form of allocation system will remain necessary.

It also highlighted serious issues with the sector’s ability to support people on very low incomes. Housing professionals who took part said the shortage of homes for social rent is affecting their ability to help people in housing need. According to research from Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 70% of councils across England find it difficult to help people access social housing to prevent or relieve homelessness.