Corporate Watch have done a piece on Hyde.
Hyde Housing: strapped for cash or hungry for profit? | Corporate Watch
The ever thorough Corporate Watch show in this article show how Housing Associations have lost their way and are behaving in ways that are not in the spirit of why the Housing Association movement was set up.
Excerpt from the article:
Hyde Southbank Homes would be in a healthy financial position without that interest. Its overall surplus for 2016 was £2.1m, and its accounts show it has reserves of £45m.
And the overall Hyde group's finances may be boosted by its move to sell flats privately but, given the “great shape” figures quoted above, they are not dependent on it. Hyde cites the “challenging environment” caused by the government’s one per cent reduction in social housing rent levels over four years as justification for closing the community centres.
This will have an impact on Hyde’s finances but it is not as significant as suggested. The Hyde group accounts show revenue from socially rented letting was £151m in 2016, with an operating surplus of £87m, giving them plenty of wiggle room even after the reductions.**
So it is not a question of whether the community centres are affordable but whether they are the kind of 'assets' that those at the top of Hyde want to spend money on. Many of the things residents like about their community centres can't be valued financially, so you're not going to appreciate them by just looking at a balance sheet.
With friends like these...
Unfortunately, a look at the backgrounds of those at the top of Hyde suggests it’s the bottom line that will concern them most. CEO Elaine Bailey's 12-year tenure at Serco before she joined Hyde saw plenty of scandal. In 2013 she had to defend the company as it faced accusations that it overcharged the government through its criminal tagging contract. A full audit and a £68.5m bill followed. The company also took flak for its involvement in the controversial Work Programme while immigration detention centres it ran were accused of a variety of abuses. In September 2012 for example, women detained in the Yarl's Wood centre, run by Serco, organised a “Movement for Justice” to challenge degrading treatment that included being paid just £1 to do essential jobs inside the centre.
Her Linkedin profile boasts that under her Serco’s Home Affairs division won their 2012 bid to continue to run Doncaster prison and also “oversaw [a] successful transition”. Two years later, after she had left Serco, that transition didn't look quite as successful, as inmates were found to be locked up without electricity or running water for over two days. Bailey also says she “opened up three new markets” in her time at Serco, one of which was “supported housing for asylum seekers”. By 2016 the company was saying it was “happy” to lose the contract after facing yet more criticism over the neglected, badly-managed service it was providing.
The Hyde job may seem prosaic in comparison but the £242,000 salary Bailey enjoyed in 2016 (up from £189,000 the year before) presumably makes it bearable.
The board is just as corporate. Before becoming Hyde Chairman Mark Sebba ran online retailer Net a Porter. Before that he was an investment banker, as were two of his colleagues. They are joined by a corporate lawyer, former higher-ups at BT and weapons manufacturer BAE Systems, and a chartered surveyor who has “worked extensively in private sector housing development”. Rounding out this motley crew is the boss of G4S' prisons and justice division, which has a similar record to Serco's.
Charitable status and a lack of shareholders aren't guarantees that an organisation will be run for more than money. Hyde is not just a passive victim of outside pressures – it is actively pursuing a strategy that puts corporate success over the concerns of its residents.
