Regulatory and organisational responses to restructured housing association finance in England and Wales

Risk was shifted from government to housing associations during the late 1980s producing a very different operating environment for associations based around competition. Critical in this has been an increased emphasis on financial management. The paper explores the impacts of these changes through an examination of the Welsh regulator's (Housing for Wales) responses and through changing management and organisation within associations. The policy responses by Housing for Wales indicate an increasing emphasis on social policy regulatory objectives, though within a very interventionist framework, which works to limit the ability of associations financially to plan their future. Innovations in housing associations are also examined to highlight organisational responses to the new environment. These innovations have focused on the, often uncritical, importation of private-sector management practices including telephone-based housing management services, demonstration projects and moves towards core-periphery organisational models. Current evidence in these underresearched areas indicates a changing culture within the sector towards a more business-like ethos emanating from the market-led system in which associations now operate, whilst indicating that there is substantial outstanding knowledge about the changing nature of housing associations.