Link: Semi-privatised empires | Joe Public | Guardian Unlimited.
What I was witnessing - this has been the history of housing associations in recent times - was the progressive alienation of public property and the creation of a sort of semi-privatised empire dependent on public funds without any of the accountabilities or safeguards forced on the public sector itself. Foundation trusts in health are a parallel.
This is a point also made recently by Laurence Demarco
Community controlled housing associations (CCHAS) are increasingly establishing parallel Development Trusts as vehicles for wider community enterprise activity. Such diversified CCHAS provide a powerful model of Anchor Organisations with the impact to empower communities. The governments housing green paper 'Firm Foundations' fails to appreciate this potential and deliberately favours the role of the larger housing associations without local identity.
