New council housing boss on salary up to £180k to lead revamped housing team

Bristol City Council is creating a role for a new top boss on a taxpayer-funded salary of up to £180,000 to try to sort out the housing crisis. An independent review has recommended a senior staff restructure including a standalone department for homes and landlord services.

The team currently forms part of the much wider growth and regeneration directorate, but a report by consultant Michael Scorer says a lot more can be done to tackle critical housing issues if it becomes a separate division in its own right, led by a dedicated executive director. The new position would be the fourth such position at City Hall, one rung below the chief executive, commanding a salary range of 150,096 to £180,096.

The idea received the unanimous backing of the homes and housing delivery policy committee. Interim chief executive Paul Martin told the meeting: “In the council’s constitution these organisational issues and management structure are delegated to the chief executive.

“In recent years the direction of travel in Bristol and other places has been towards a smaller number of multi-hatted executive directors, so the report runs contrary to the trend. So it requires an explanation and justification as to why we conclude it’s important to have a separate department.

“I’m minded to agree with Mr Scorer’s recommendations.” He said Nick Hibberd, who will become the council’s permanent chief executive in January, had read the report and agreed.

Mr Martin said: “Mr Scorer is right that the current issues facing housing nationally but also locally in Bristol are of such a magnitude and complexity that they require full-time dedicated professional leadership. John Smith, executive director for growth and regeneration, and his colleagues are doing a commendable job in their stewardship of housing but at the executive director level the inevitable juggling of housing with numerous other competing responsibilities means the time and capacity is simply not commensurate with the demands of the council.

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“These demands range from the urgent need to improve building safety, to strengthening our landlord services, including our repairs and maintenance service, our relationships with council tenants, the need to build affordable and social housing units, tackling the growing homelessness and temporary accommodation pressures in the city, and the estate regeneration opportunities. Some of the most significant financial pressures we face in other departments are directly attributable to housing pressures and we need to apply imagination and creativity in identifying solutions.”

Cllr Jos Clark (Lib Dem, Brislington West) told the meeting: “It’s never a great idea in these financial conditions to be employing more expensive staff, we don’t want to be investing in posts we don’t feel we need. When I came into the committee this year and read the reports, I was horrified by the position this committee finds itself in with the state of the housing stock in Bristol.”

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“There is a huge piece of work to be done here. You’re absolutely right in identifying that we need someone to lead that and to lead that at the appropriate level in the council.

“I’m fully behind us doing this. This department is on a journey. We need to flip it. We are failing our tenants and unless we get somebody in position who’s going to really embrace the agenda, we are not going to get on with it fast enough.”

Committee chairman Barry Parsons (Green, Easton ) said: “This is an historic moment in this council’s approach to our homes. For too long councils have seen residents through a patriarchal lens as people we provide services for but who don’t necessarily have a say on how those services are run and structured and we need to be standing alongside people and involving citizens at every possible level and opportunity.

“A home is the foundation for a healthy life, for opportunity, for the ability to live in our communities and to really take advantage of all the opportunities our city has to offer. Without a decent home our citizens cannot thrive.”

Committee vice-chairman Cllr Richard Eddy (Conservative, Bishopsworth) said: “It gladdens the heart to receive this report. It echoes what I passionately feel. This administration views the housing crisis as Bristol’s number one woe.

“A dedicated, standalone executive director would be the way I would go. I have previously alluded to Bristol City Council treating its tenants as medieval serfs.

“Michael might have raised it somewhat differently but we do have a real cultural journey to go on.”

Mr Martin said that although people were understandably impatient for progress, it would take six to nine months for the new executive director to join the council.