In this conversation, Eddie shares how his experience across Parliament, local government, and housing associations has shaped his approach to policy, regulation, and community impact. From his time as Minister responsible for Grenfell engagement to his current consultancy roles with organisations like the Church of England and The Housing Network, providing unique insight into what drives real change in the housing sector. 

Welcome to the People in Housing podcast. I'm absolutely delighted to welcome Eddie Hughes.

Thank you.

Eddie, we've known each other for a long time.

We sure have. It's good to get back together for a bit of a chat.

I know. Obviously had a bit of an epiphany. I thought, the budget has come out. We were having a conversation. I was like, Eddie, “why don't you come on down” And you kindly have given us an hour or two of your time. So thank you so much. For the viewers who are watching this podcast,

Can you give us a summary in terms of who you are and your experience in housing over the last five to ten years?

Indeed I can. Well, let's go back a little bit further. So I started as a Civil Engineer, but when I graduated, the first job that I had was setting out the foundations and drainage for social housing development.

And then I spent much of my life working in either the construction management, or the maintenance of social housing, and ended up working for YMCA as the Assistant Chief Exec here in Birmingham, a charity helping young people at risk of homelessness, giving them accommodation and support.

And then Theresa Mae called the general election, which surprised us all. 56 days after calling that election, I was on the train to Westminster as the new MP for Walsall north, where I spent seven years in parliament. And that included some time, two and a half years I was in the Department for Housing or levelling up, first of all as government whip, making sure that government legislation went through, and then as the Housing Minister for rough sleeping and housing. So a bit of everything mixed.

Bit of everything. I think we could do about four podcasts in this. We'll talk about the last five or six years.

What made you go for chair of Walsall Housing Group, Assistant Chief Executive of YMCA. What made you apply for the MP role within government?

Well, I'd wanted to be an MP for a very long time. I stood originally in 2005 for Hall Green in Birmingham, and didn't get elected. And to be honest, I thought that opportunity had passed me by. I thought the ship had sailed.

And then Theresa May, when she called that surprise general election, a few people phoned me up and said, you should be the candidate for Walsall North. I was a councillor on Walsall Council. And people just thought that I would be a good fit. So I applied. It was all happening so quickly, the pace of selecting candidates, and I was delighted to be selected.

There's not many people who are listening, who would have applied for something like that.

So talk us through the application interview process for that kind of role.

Let's quickly back the truck up. So, civil engineering at university. But like lots of people at university, I've been sat around in the common room talking to my mates and obviously we all thought we could run the country better than the politicians we saw on the news. So when I left university, I went straight back to night school, did A-Level politics the first year and then A-Level economics. And it was my politics teacher who said, you should take home these manifestos. I think you're more politically motivated than you realise.

I read the Conservative Manifesto, I realised I was a closet Conservative. I'd only voted once previously and I voted Labour because, my dad was a bus driver, my mom was a cleaner. They voted Labour all their lives, Irish immigrants. And so when I was going to the pub one night, my mom said, make sure you vote. And I said, how should I vote, mom? And she said, Labour, obviously. I was 18, voting for Neil Kinnick against Margaret Thatcher. What was I playing at?

Anyway, then I end up becoming a member of the Conservative Party. You kind of get drawn into it more and more, but basically, I would recommend to anybody who has done what I did, shouting at the telly and thinking they could do a better job. Pick a political party, join up, get involved, and then who knows, you might end up becoming either a local councillor or an MP or the Prime Minister. Who knows where it could lead?

Some of our younger viewers are going to be thinking, common room at university. Is that a thing?

Oh, dear. We're showing our age.

We definitely are.

And in terms of the role that you held, what were the top two to three things that held you in good shape with the exposure and experience that you had with YMCA? And being Chair of the Board at Walsall Housing Group in doing that role as MP for Walsall?

Being chair of the board and being a board member of Walsall Housing Group, WHG, was incredibly informative and helpful. They obviously provide social housing for a large number of residents across Walsall and across what was to become my constituency.

And their tenancy engagement is just unbelievable. They are genuinely an amazing organisation to work for, and with, and be part of. So when you see the way they engage with tenants and they make sure that their board members have regular opportunities to speak to their tenants. So you don't have to just take the word of the Executive Directors when they talk about the great engagement they're doing. They let the board get out and meet members, meet tenants. So you have the chance to check for yourself firsthand. That was excellent grounding.

And the time that I spent as a Councillor on Walsall Council, again, various roles, that meant that I had a lot of opportunity to speak to people who were to be my constituents across Willenhall and Bloxwich. So those two things combined put me in a good position to be a strong representative environment.

I was born in Walsall, raised there. Lived there for 46 years. So obviously, I've seen the change with WHG in that evolution.

You obviously secured some funding for our hometown of 25 million. Talk us through how you got for regenerating, that level of money, obviously, Walsall is in need of.

Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure. Well, I tell you what's good is you get to Parliament and it is all new and exciting, or at least it was for me, for some of the people that I met who were my colleagues, Oxford, Cambridge University, educated, they'd been in and out of Parliament and had a better understanding of how it all worked, but it was new for me. I like to, understand how things work and kind of get under the bonnet. And so I did that when I got to Parliament and I spoke to lots of people in a very humble way, if you don't understand how something works. Ask the people who do.

And they explained to me how you go about lobbying ministers, speaking to number 10 or to secretaries of State, and explained to me how the process works. So when any funding opportunities or whenever there was even a sniff of a funding opportunity, I was straight in there speaking to the people in the constituency to understand the mechanics and the amount of money they needed and so on, and then going and speaking to the relevant minister to understand, how we might try and get our hands on it. And over the period that I was, an MP, it was just phenomenal, the amount of money that came in.

So actually, I need to give a bit of a shout out as well to Andy Street, because he was a proper inspirational guy to work with as Mayor of the Combined Authority. Having ran John Lewis, he knew what he was doing, to say the least.

So working with him for a funding bid to make sure we got money for Willenhall train station was excellent. We got some levelling up funding for Willenhall that helped us with compulsory purchase to assemble some land to build some new houses.

Towns deal for Bloxwich, £25 million going to help improve King George V Park and things like that. The highlight I have to say, of all of that effort was the funding for Walsall Manor Hospital.

Which was an incredible kind of intricate communication process between the people who were running the hospital, the Chief Exec at the hospital, the Health Department, the Secretary of State and then Number 10 to try to keep in constant dialogue with everybody, to explain to them just how important it was to the staff and patients of Walsall that we got the funding for that new department. I've been into the old building and it was so cramped for the staff and the patients. It was horrible.

Sadly, when you have to go to the A&E in Walsall, I mean, it was dire.

It was dire.

It was. It was dire.

There were narrow corridors and not enough cleaning facilities in the different bays and things like that. And so I felt very passionate about this need. And it's a combination of passion and persistence. You can't just go and ask for money once and expect people to sign it off. You have to keep badgering them at every opportunity. And again, that's something you and I share, I think, in terms of our persistence and determination to get things done. Which is how you are growing such a magnificent business because you're just relentless in pursuing that goal. I have the same energy that I brought to the task involved.

I think what happens then is we both end up with white beards. Yeah, that's the problem.

That’s how it manifests.

For the viewers who haven't been to Walsall, how much was the A&E build project cost?

Well, £36 million was the amount of money that I secured. I think it might have been slightly over that when we add in variations and so on, but money secured, built, open. And the last time I checked, and it may have changed since then, the fastest decant time of ambulances in the West Midlands.

They became a bit of a victim of their own success because they were getting people out of the ambulances quickly and dealing with them other hospitals ended up redirecting some of their patients their way. The staff there are magnificent. They do a fantastic job it's all very well having a shiny new building, but you need dedicated staff too.

I sadly had to go there, last year and you obviously visualise that you're going to go to the Warsaw A&E, that really cramped up area, wait outside where it's warm and stuffy. And I got there and I was like, what the flipping neck is this? It was unreal. So thank you. That was absolutely brilliant.

Are you allowed to talk candidly about the ones that got away in terms of bidding that you were looking to secure for the town?

Well, I would say this, wouldn't I? There wasn't anything that got away. It's quite breathtaking, how much money was secured. So the money for the hospital, money for Bloxwich, money for Willenhall, money for the train station.

I was only there for seven years and we're talking about upwards of 100 million quid there, coming into Walsall as a result of, not just my lobbying, but working with Andy Street to secure that money. I think we were just about as effective as we could be.

You say about being candid. Let me tell you there was one thing that frustrated me when I was a Minister and perhaps served me well. So I think frequently government departments can be a bit compartmentalised. They're a bit silo driven and they only focus on what they're doing.

So frequently it was the case that, for example, the Transport Department might not necessarily know how much the Levelling Up Department had given to a particular town. And so I would be off seeing three different ministers asking for money. So I'd ask the Health Secretary for some money, and ask the levelling up department for some money. I asked the Transport Department for some money and because nobody was talking to each other. Nobody said, hang on a sec, this guy's had £25 million off us already for this, that, and the other. And so luckily you end up securing money from three or four different funding streams. Now, sometimes that was a bit frustrating because I felt too much money ended up, in certain places. But when I first got elected, my constituency was the poorest constituency represented by a Conservative MP. Yeah. So it needed the cash and I'm glad I was able to secure it.

No, I can relate to that because I did live in Bloxwich. For a number of years. When you see the difference between the north and the south side of the town, there's a big difference.

It's quite a disparity. When you map the life expectancy figures, it's crazy that across a single borough like Walsall, it can vary so widely. So, it needed levelling up, that's for sure.

100%. So the budget's come out recently, in the last two weeks.

What's your top two or three things that you've been really pleased about that's been released in terms of what Rachel Reeves is going to be doing for affordable housing?

Well, I guess there are three things. And firstly, obviously the money. Two of them are money related. So the first thing is £39 million. It's nice for registered providers to understand long term that there's going to be a funding programme available to help support them in their ambitions.

Did you kind of hazard a guess how much she would be giving out and was she kind of on the money?

I think it is kind of broadly in line with the amount of money that the Conservatives had spent previously. You see, the problem is now, you can offer more money, but the machine has to be able to process it. And so I guess they've done a calculation to understand just how much social housing can be built by the registered providers who are going to be delivering it, given the structural restraints that we've got.

We need more Brickies and Plasterers, to say the least. So, there's a limit on that. So I think they've pitched it at the right level in terms of the amount of money that's going to be absorbed. Because one of the things you cannot stand when you're a Minister, you allocate money to do something, in this case build social housing. What you don't want at the end of the year is to see money unspent that you've got a big budget and yet people haven't been able to make good use of it. That's in nobody's interest. So I think they've got the level right there.

The second thing is fixing the funding settlement for a ten year period. Although, I saw George Osborne do this previously and then review those figures. I'm a little bit worried. It's all very well offering to do these things over a ten year horizon, but we've got some bad stuff going on around the world and it means we're going to be spending a bit more money on defence and that might be ratcheted, up and I wonder whether the Chancellor might ever have to come back to revisit that figure. But the one thing the sector needs is certainty and I think that 10 year settlement gives it.

But the thing I am most excited about, and maybe I am just childishly excited, it'd be interesting to know your thoughts. AI and the effect that might have on our ability to process planning applications. I don't know whether are you using AI to assess candidates and to read CVs or are you not allowed to tell us? Is that top secret?

It's an interesting question Eddie. We're actually going through an overhaul of our whole of our software at the moment. So we've had an external consultant come into our business to kind of look at automation and AI. Because obviously in the housing sector they're also looking at that in terms of flat pack homes. So to answer your question, we've allocated for our business a six month window in terms of going, where can we automate specific systems and processes? So I've actually got four meetings in the next month, to find out all about this because I think it's where the world's going. I think it'd be quite interesting. I think with these £1.5 million homes it will be interesting because people like WHC that have got a very well-oiled development team. They'll be able to hit their KPIs and hit the new homes built. Obviously we've got that stretch on Green Lane where all of those homes are being built.

What challenges do you think the smaller housing associations with smaller development teams will have? Do you think that they should join forces? Do you remember like the Zenith Development Programme where all the associations merged together? Do you think we'll see anything like that, down the horizon where the medium sized associations with 4,000 to 8,000 units, will create their own private sector development arm, to get some of this funding?

Yeah, I mean it is possible. But I don't think we'll see too much of that. I think what we're seeing is in terms of sharing of specialisms between organisations, there's a bit more of that going on. I'm very excited to be working for the Church Development Agency which is part of the Church of England. They've got enough land up and down the country I think they reckon to build about 30,000 homes. We just got to sort out which bits are developable.

And we're going to be doing some of that in partnership with other registered providers. So, I think if we're able to do it and to be able to get the expertise that we need to develop, then I think other people are going to be able to do it as well. Maybe we'll see a bit more teaming up in the future.

I think what we need to do most of all this is back to my point about AI, is try to streamline the planning process. It's crazy. The length of time, if you're a small organisation, to secure a piece of land and then maybe not be able to get a JCB on site for two to five years. We've got to make that process quicker. That will help ensure that people develop.

Yeah, absolutely. I think the way Building Control now are really pushing those developments where once you commence on site, you can't be holding on to land banks and you've got to complete the projects in a certain time scale, I think that will also help move things forward.

Anything that can be done to encourage people to get on with it is a good idea, I think.

100%. In terms of biggest lessons learnt in your time as Housing Minister, what would you say your top two biggest learns that you've taken, that you're going to be moving forward in your career from what you learned?

Don't believe the first thing you're told, I think. I read an article at the Weekend by Michael Gove and he was saying that sometimes when he was given advice by Civil Servants and it had a legal line in it that said the legal team have said it's not possible to proceed with this policy. He would write on it, get better legal advice.

Because sometimes you just take what you're told on face value without being challenging enough of that information. So you become a Minister and it's all very exciting. You've got your red box and you've got your chauffer driven car, and you can kind of be a bit overawed by it. Whereas what people need to do is quickly assimilate into that role. As quickly as you can figure out what authority you've got to push back against Civil Servants to challenge them, because they like that. They're very smart bunch of people and they're very open to the idea of being challenged and to explore new opportunities and new ways of approaching problems.

So I would say to any minister, don't be frightened to challenge whatever advice you're being given. And I think that's something that's serving me well in life subsequently. Have enough confidence in yourself and what you've learned and your experiences to be able to push back and challenge wherever you need to.

And by challenging the legal team and hindsight's wonderful thing, because that was your first rodeo within government.

If you had to do that again, what would be the top two things that you did differently?

What would I do differently? That's a good question. I think I would probably try to narrow the focus a bit more, because the problem is that when you get your job as a Minister, there's like a headline title that effectively goes on your business card, but sat below that is loads of other things. Might be 15 other areas of responsibility.

For example, during my time as the Housing Minister, the Minister responsible for rough sleeping and housing, I was also the Minister responsible for the building regulations. So we had what was glamorously called the Part L Uplift in the Building Regs. We changed the building regs as a stepping stone on the way to the future home standard. And I was responsible for that as well. As well as a raft of other bits, and bobs that they threw into the pot.

So I would try to focus again. I don't want to keep cheerleading for Michael Gove, but he said you should just try to focus really on three things during your time as a Minister, that you put most of your effort in, in terms of trying to achieve them. Sometimes you kind of drift into wanting to look at loads of other things and you do them all, you move them all on a little bit, whereas it might be easier to focus on a smaller number of things and move them on a lot.

I feel that now in my time post-parliament, that there's lots of things in housing that I'm excited about and wanting to be involved in doing some stuff with, networks that are looking at dealing with temporary accommodation. Huge challenge for Birmingham Council here, right on our doorstep. So, I'm just trying to focus my time on maybe three or four things in housing that I care a lot about and I can actually help them.

And how has that experience within government now made you look at things differently to, obviously the projects that you're looking at now?

It's kind of funny. You feel like you've seen behind the curtain and you understand how the world works and, and this is a very good point. Because sometimes there is a very big gap between what the government, of any political affiliation, says and then what happens. And sometimes I think as a Minister, you think because you've announced funding a billion pounds for this or half a billion pound for that, you feel like your work is done, whereas actually your work is really only just beginning.

Because then you need to make sure that that money gets out the door and delivers what the government was expecting it to deliver. So it's all very well, you referenced the spending review. We've heard what the government is going to spend on various things in the years ahead over quite a long time horizon.

Ten years, I think.

Yeah, but bearing in mind there's going to be a general election in the middle of that, so Nigel Farage could be our Prime Minister by then. You never know.

Crikey.

So he might take a very different view. Although, I’m hoping and expecting Kemi Vanoch will be our Prime Minister. So, it's a very unknown future. And so our job as people who are interested in the housing sector and want to see the sector, in good health, we need to hold those Ministers to account. We need to keep pushing them and keep in touch with them to make sure their agenda is delivered. So you tell me, who's your local inventor?

Oh, you put him on the spot now. I have no idea.

This is the point that I'm making. I'm saying to people. I've got this phrase, love your legislator. I think everybody should know who their local MP is. And rather than shouting at the telly about things that they're unhappy the government is doing, regardless of what party is representing them, they should be writing to that MP to make sure that the MP knows what they really care about. Not all the time, not every week. But just two or three things that they really care about. And, try and build a relationship with your local MP.

And obviously we live in a cynical world. On that note, Eddie, do people really read these emails or letters that disgruntled residents in the local area actually send?

Well, now, that is an interesting question to which I would say. MPs are given a budget of about 150 grand a year for staff. I had at one point an all-female team. Gabby, who ran my office, was amazing. First class, honours degree graduate, super smart and she made sure we had a really effective team who read all of those emails. And then we'd have weekly team meetings where she could explain to me, what were the hot topics or who had got in touch that was particularly knowledgeable in a certain area. And did we want to bring them into the office and have a chat or did we want to, amalgamate, if we'd had 50 emails come in on a similar topic from lots of different people, was that something I particularly needed to raise with the relevant minister the next time?

So, no, let's not kid ourselves that any MP reads every email that comes into their office. Maybe some of them do. That would be, I think, a waste of their time because you're given a decent budget and you can have a good office set up with some smart people who will crystallise that information down into something that you can use and will be accessible.

Yeah, I mean, within that 150, obviously that's going to be a team of three to five, depending on what levels. You just got me thinking about the Shawshank Redemption where he used to write a letter every week.

So we are again, showing our age.

Yeah, we are. It's a great film.

We live in such a cynical world. But I think if someone's watching this to go, well, hang on a minute, I'm going to start emailing my local MP once a month. I mean, I've learned something today about that. There will be someone reading these emails to go, actually, there will be a call to action. If there is enough noise.

Yeah, for sure. Sometimes even if it is something completely left field, that it might be coming up for discussion in Parliament in the near future. It's nice for an MP to know that they might have been making a speech to contribute to that debate in Parliament, that legislative change, and then they would love the idea of being able to feed in something that has been raised with them by a constituent. So, I think that's a good idea.

Future plans, then, Eddie. What's the plans in the next coming years? Obviously, you've come out of Parliament, you've obviously been Assistant Chief Executive. The YMCA, which is national, and I think they've got 46 different business units.

Yeah, it's like a federated organisation.

That was the word I was looking for. Obviously, one of the biggest providers for social housing within the Midlands in terms of WHG, can't call it Walsall Housing Group. What are the plans for the next couple of years now that you've got all this knowledge within different departments of public sector coupled with your private sector experience.

Well I think at the moment I'm working for three different organisations that are all housing related. So it's exciting. I'm doing some proper hands on stuff with the Church of England, the Church Development Agency, helping them assess sites. So I'm looking at about nine or 10 sites from Derby down to Bristol, to see if it's possible to develop some social housing on them.

I'm working as a Housing Policy Consultant with the National Federation of Builders. That's the oldest membership organisation in the construction industry in the UK. So they've been going for a long time now. And then the third thing is The Housing Network and they do some great stuff. A good example of the great stuff they do. They are the biggest providers of accommodation for the Ministry of Justice for people who would be discharged from prison and who would otherwise be homeless. They do such a great job of the support that they provide for those people.

So values driven organisations and all housing related. So, interesting stuff. I'm delighted to say, only keeping me m busy like two or three days a week because I'm still enjoying the pace of change from working seven days a week as an MP to only having to work three days a week as a normal member of the public.

You must find it a piece of cake then.

Well, it's definitely different. I mean it is. So the MP job is you're in parliament for four days a week, then you come home, you're in the constituency, visiting schools and businesses for a couple of days and then weekends you've got to knock doors, deliver leaflets, campaign with local councillors. So it is properly a seven day a week job being an MP in those three different compartments. So I don't feel quite the same push now to be as active.

I don't blame you. And you've got a really good three different blends. I'm familiar with a few of those organisations.

Talking AI earlier, is there anything that those firms are doing within that space that you've seen as a Consultant that's quite forward thinking and going to affect social housing?

Not one of those organisations actually. But an organisation that I'm passionate about and I've met the guys who founded it is called Beam. The guys that run that effectively, they are tech guys and one of the products that they've got at the moment is something called Magic Notes.

The idea is that when you're doing sensitive kind of support work, if I'm your support worker and I'm having a very personal conversation with you. You're telling me about your drug challenges or tackling alcoholism, or whatever it is. Then the last thing you want to do is see me taking notes throughout. So you have something that records the conversation and then can populate template forms, that are necessary for the support worker, as possible part of their role. And it means that they can be more personal in their intimate conversations.

They can be present can’t they Eddie.

Absolutely. So, I think that sort of kit is interesting to see in terms of AI can now figure out which person is talking and take that information and then put it into the different boxes on the form. And as you say, that leaves the support worker to be more present. So I love that idea.

Yeah. It's like when you go to the GP and he or she doesn't even look at you. They're at the computer and they go, right you got five minutes, and they're just typing away. And I think that automated AI transcription where it gives a summary because then it gives it to the resident and the support worker because he or she then won't miss anything.

Yeah, for sure.

I think that kind of technology will make people more present. It’s interesting that's something that we're looking at for our Consultants. So they don't miss anything.

I don't know if any of the people listening to this will have been into your office, but it is amazing to walk into that office and just see all the desks populated and a real buzz in the room. I just imagine anything that you can do will just improve some of the efficiency of the back office stuff, whereas they're leaving your staff free to have those personal conversations with clients or prospective customers.

That's very kind. Thank you, Ed. I think it’s productivity and efficiency, isn't it? Does that support worker really need to be writing something. When really a bot or something can automate that chat.

In terms of challenges within social housing locally, because we're both local guys, what do you think of the top two or three challenges that we've got within social housing within the West Midlands?

I think it's going to be the same West Midlands or across the country. We've seen the regulator of social housing has had some damning findings. Particularly, it seems to me on councils rather than registered providers. I think we're seeing that know we've just had the 8th anniversary post Grenfell.

There have been significant changes during that period. I was delighted to be associated with turning the social housing white paper into regulation. And it's taken us a long way, but there are still obviously providers up and down the country who don't know their stock and aren't close enough to their tenants.

And when we see things like Awab's Law coming in. Just the fact that that change in the law was necessary, the changes that people will have to make to make sure that A) they understand their stock better in terms of compliance with regulation and B) that they are closer to and are better at listening to their tenants.

I think we're going to see a continuation of that journey in the months and years ahead and it's going to continue to throw up via the work of the housing ombudsman and the regulator of social housing. We're going to see some bad cases coming out of the woodwork. I just hope they're few and far between.

As a recruitment company post Grenfell, obviously we saw a massive spike in all the associations asking for very specific technical Surveyors. But encouragingly that there is still that demand where people are looking at it because they want to know the quality of their housing stock. Just wondering if you've seen the new Netflix documentary that's only been recently released on the Grenfell disaster.

No, I haven't. No.

A friend of mine watched it. He posted about it on LinkedIn and he said it's an art. It's a very, very interesting documentary. It’d only been released in the last three or four days. It's on my to do list.

I'll have to get and have a look at that. I was the Minister responsible for liaison with the Grenfell community, running up to the fifth anniversary of that tragic fire. 72 people died. I think if I'm remembering correctly, 18 children. It's heartbreaking. And as a result of that responsibility, I've been into the tower and have had like a floor by floor account of how the fire started and spread. And that interaction that I had with the bereaved and survivors has stayed with me ever since.

If you want to feel motivation to deliver, better outcomes for social housing tenants, that was all the motivation I needed, just spending time with those people and I have nothing but a strong feeling of admiration and humility. We've moved the dial quite a long way post Grenfell. But I think sometimes when you see that people still don't understand the condition of their stock in terms of compliance with fire regulations and stuff like that, the pace of change needs to increase. We need to be in a position where we are confident that we are offering all social housing tenants decent, safe homes to live in. That feels like it should be a relatively low bar, but it feels like some people still have a long way to go to overcome it.

We've got a separate compliance division and their workflow is constant within all the big six elements, especially fire post Grenfell. So in a good way, I think where we're getting so much work in from those. And these are private sector consultancies, private sector contractors who work within social housing space.

We're still seeing a skill shortage within social housing sector. Eddie. Of course, CIH have now professionalised it, and rightly so, around membership. How do you think that we can attract more private sector people into social housing and see it as a career of choice?

I think we need more of the exemplars in the sector to be doing more, to publicise the great work that they do. We've got some great housing associations operating locally. Obviously you and I both familiar with WHG, but Midland Heart, absolutely outstanding. Delighted to see that Joe Reeves has just become the Deputy Chief Exec there. He's an absolute superstar. So I would say let's just make sure that those amazing housing associations who are doing great work don't feel that everybody knows about it just because they're doing it.

I think it is beholden to all of us to make sure that we, A) talk and bang the drum more for the great work that we are doing and B) publicise that so that the staff feel that they're appreciated, but more importantly so that other people are drawn in to the great story that is the provision of social housing.

Part of the problem we've got is the regulator is doing good work, the housing ombudsman is doing good work. But the stories that get the headlines are when things go wrong. That's what makes news. Bad news is what's sells the news. Whereas we, the rest of the sector, doing good things, need to do things like this podcast. But we need to do more things to kind of publicise the great work so that people appreciate as well, the range of opportunities that are available. Obviously it's not just support staff and development staff, it's maintenance opportunities and, social interaction and social benefit. There's just a range of opportunities. There must be literally hundreds of professional disciplines that are represented within the sector that people can get involved in. It's a great sector to work in. And of course, pay is one thing, but a real feeling of going home at the end of the week, that you've done something, that you've changed people's lives, that you'd felt some of the most vulnerable people in society and I think that's invaluable. And so we need to make sure that we shout about it more often.

I think it's more of a branding piece. When I go to recruitment events, 1 in 10-15 know what a housing association is. You have to initially tell someone that you recruit in the public sector. Then you say a recruit into a housing association. There like, what's that? And I'm like, I think there's about 4,500 in the UK.

Yeah. Housing a significant percentage of the population. So, we need worry about it more.

It’s worrying.

It is a bit worrying.

And what about the apprenticeship scheme? Do you think that in social housing that we're doing enough to bring in young talent via the apprenticeship scheme? Obviously, big corporates like the big four within the accountancy and finance, they're looking at students straight out school. What could be done around apprenticeship programmes where we could nurture young talent from school levers to A levels to go. You don't have to go and work for PWC.

I'm slightly embarrassed by the fact that my focus when it comes to apprenticeships has all been construction related. There’s a dramatic shortage of Brickies and Plasterers, but also right the way across the spectrum in terms of roles that we need to fit fill in the construction sector. So, that's where all of my efforts have been focused.

I was recently at an event, Deuces and a few other people, Taylor Woodrow represented there trying to get young people and catch young people early. We're talking about 15 or 16 year olds to draw them into Construction.

I've not actually given much thought to how the apprenticeship route should be applied to social housing more generally. So I'll be going away and doing a bit of Googling and phoning a few people to understand that better myself. But you're right, that sounds like a good opportunity.

And how could we bring like the private sector contractors with the new build and the property maintenance and the gas firms, in your opinion, with the public sector firms to go? Where we could do some sort of joint ventures to attract more young talent into our industry, but also attract more private sector professionals to go, well, actually I want to work within the governance department of a housing association or within local government.

That’s a good question. I think some of the bigger and better housing, associations already have those excellent partnerships. It's an interesting view. The NAT Fed, the National Federation, has different kind of strands of its organisation depending on the size of the housing provider. And maybe that's something that they could or should be doing. And terribly, if Kate listens to this, hopefully she's not shouting, saying, we're already doing that. So it might be the case that the NAP Fed is the route by which those partnerships could be made. But, it feels like that would be the obvious place for it.

I think so.

And in terms of your advice to those who want to follow your route, in terms of going into government, what would your top two or three tips be to those people? Because some people watching this podcast would never even think of doing what you did. So there'll be some people there being from a housing management background, asset management, and they're not an Assistant Chief Executive over an organisation or a board member. What would your top two, three. Two or three tips be to those people?

Yeah, I'm not sure whether I would be encouraging too many people because there's a lot of effort and the chances of reward is limited. For example, if we take the role of an MP, there are only 650 MPs at any one time and a general election let's say on average every four years. So it's a very limited opportunity to get that type of job in the first place.

Basically pick a side pick, pick a team or political party that best aligns with your views and get involved. Because even if your aspiration isn't to become an MP, but your aspiration is to be involved from a political point of view and to shape policy and political thinking. Then join a party and start trying to shape that from the inside, I would say. Regardless of your political affiliation, there's a great social opportunity there and you get to understand behind the scenes how policy is formulated and maybe have a role in formulating that, or at least formulating the various policies that each party will have.

The Conservative Party is going through a bit of a renewal process at the moment where it's talking to lots of its members about things that they would like to see in a future manifesto. And so you genuinely have the opportunity to feed in to those processes. We're still possibly four years from the general election, so whichever party you sign up to now is your chance to start shaping the offer that they will make come the general election.

I think that's a great point. Get involved. Don't just moan at the TV, write your emails. Become the chap from Shaw Shack Redemption, and that will give you an insight. I love that phrase, what you said earlier about behind the curtain, of what interestingly happens. And what you were saying in terms of going, once you're in there, be pragmatic and proactive because each department doesn't talk to each other, hence how you manage to get so much cash. Eddie, thank you so much. It's been lovely, so insightful.

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