Courts could be given the power to appoint administrators if an association got in serious difficulty
Julian Ashby told the Social Housing conference courts could have the power to appoint regulator.
Accordng to Inside Housing:
“The chair of the Homes and Communities Agency regulation committee said the change was being considered as part of a deregulatory package being drawn up by government.
It would replace the regulator’s current powers to appoint managers and board members, which were listed by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in its decision to reclassify associations as public last month.
He said lenders have expressed concern that the power might be dropped in a bid to reverse the ONS decision.
However, the alternative would see courts given the power to appoint an independent administrator if an association got into serious financial trouble, he said.
Speaking at Social Housing magazine’s annual conference in London, Mr Ashby said: “I would like to make it clear that we are engaging fully with government as it looks to respond to the [ONS] decision and redesign regulation to remove the areas that led to reclassification.”
He added: “I know that some lenders are concerned with reference to powers to appoint board members and executives.
“I hope it is of some comfort to you to know that we have only used those powers once in six years and that was not in relation to the solvency of an organisation.
“We expect going forward for the focus to be on defining when the use of these powers if appropriate.”
He said this could take the form of “a special administration regime such as applied in a number of other regulatory environments”.
“That would provide options if an association got into really serious difficulties,” he said. “This is actually seen as a deregulatory step because powers are exercised by courts with an administrator, rather than by government through a regulator.”
Mr Ashby also said regulatory powers to consent to sales, another issue flagged by the ONS, would be likely to change. He said he was “satisfied that we can run a robust regime of regulation without them”.
He also used his speech to issue a warning that the sector will be left “friendless” if it fails to up its output of new homes, and risks undermining its relationship with councils if it moves too far away from its social purpose.
“If you fail to help out in tackling local homelessness, your localist credentials will be undermined. You will be required to build more homes and many of them will be for sale, but don’t forget what your core purpose is and what cross subsidy is for,” he said. “