A £200,000 Poisoned Chalice?

It comes with twice the salary being offered by Sir Alan Sugar. And it has already had its own “Katie” moment, with a position offered only to be refused at the last minute. So why does no-one seem to want one of the biggest jobs in Scotland’s social sector? And are critics correct to describe it as the highest-paid poisoned chalice in the country?

Despite an intense round of interviews, a global trawl has failed to find a new chief executive for the £200,000-a-year post of chief executive of the Glasgow Housing Association. The organisation has been a leaderless ship since the previous incumbent, Michael Lennon, called it a day and returned to Australia in January.

Canadian Derek Ballantyne, who headed a similar operation in Toronto and might have ticked all the right boxes, was offered the job but refused, citing personal reasons. The continuing vacancy would suggest the other candidates, four it is reckoned, were unsuitable for the post of heading Scotland’s largest social landlord, or did not want it.

An inheritance of four years of political bitterness resulting from the failure to split the organisation into more than 60 local associations, a financial “black hole” said by some to be £500m, and a massive catch-up on the programme to build 3000 homes by 2012 suggest a post that should come with a health warning.

The ripple effect of what has happened in Glasgow is widely considered to be the reason why a number of other local authorities across Scotland have failed to convince their tenants that a stock transfer to a social landlord is the way forward.

GHA’s search for a new boss has been extended, the Dominions again scoured, and interviews for the chief executive’s position are scheduled for late this month. It will give no date for when a new boss will be in place. Best guesses are early autumn. Privately, its major headache is that not one of the latest batch of applicants may make the grade.

While the organisation might have a calm exterior, praising the efforts of its acting chief executive and proceeding with its plans, it could do well to take serious note of some rumblings in Holyrood. Because while Labour may be off to seethe in the sun for a fortnight, all holidays for the SNP are cancelled. Among the piles of papers the new administration will be wading through in the coming weeks is one marked “GHA”.

Once ministers get to grips with the fact that the dossier has more three-letter abbreviations than the government’s list of proscribed organisations, they will see that the problem lies in the seemingly intractable positions on what is referred to as “second stage transfer” (SST), the promised movement of the housing stock to the smaller community-based operations.

Behind the jargon is a shortage of family-orientated social housing, a problem made all the more acute by rising house prices and the inability of people to get on the property ladder.

Given the speed with which the SNP is adapting to power, Nicola Sturgeon’s promise to “use the next few weeks to review the progress GHA has made in delivering on the original promises to tenants and to consider the way forward” should be taken at its word.

So too should Alex Salmond’s that the “Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing will take time to review the progress that is being made on delivering the promises that were made to the tenants of Glasgow”.

Sandra White, a Glasgow SNP MSP, has long campaigned for the second stage transfer and has been a vocal opponent of the GHA since day one. The MSP, who meets the GHA today and the Communities Minister, Stewart Maxwell, later in the week, has little doubt there will be a new broom within weeks.

She said: “We’ve been told a special department will be set up to look at why, four years down the line, the GHA has not transferred any of its housing stock. That department is probably already working away. I genuinely believe that until that happens, until there is community ownership, hundreds, if not thousands, of people will sit on waiting lists for suitable family homes.”

A Scottish Executive spokeswoman said: “We are currently assessing what progress GHA has made in delivering services to tenants. This will allow us to take stock of the issues and options, and allow us to consider the best way forward. We will look very closely at the needs of communities and tenants before making a decision on what steps to take next.”

But while GHA has been criticised for “having its head in the sand” over what the new administration will mean to the whole process and continued existence of the organisation, officially it insists it welcomes the renewed interest from Edinburgh.

Sandra Forsythe, chairwoman of GHA, said: “We have decided to widen our search to fill the position of chief executive. The board is mindful of the need to fill the vacancy as soon as possible, but is determined to find the best person for the job. In the meantime, we are satisfied that business is continuing apace and progressing well against the ambitious challenges set out in GHA’s statement of intent for 2007/08 and we are delighted that Taroub Zahran has agreed to continue her role as acting chief executive until we make a permanent appointment.”