Places for People hopes for end to supervision by April

Places for People has dropped its strongest hint yet that it could be freed from Housing Corporation supervision by April.

England's largest housing association, which has an annual turnover in excess of £200m, advertised last week for a new chairman and two non-executive directors.

It hopes to fill the posts within three months.

They will replace outgoing chairman Siebert Cox and the two board members appointed by the corporation in October after a boardroom dispute that led to two resignations and two board members being voted off (HT 17 October 2003, page 7).

The chairman's position has been advertised at £20,000 a year. The non-executive board members will be paid £12,000 each.

The rates are at the upper end of the National Housing Federation's proposed scale for housing association board payments.

We will report back to the corporation in March and look to have completed recruitment by April

Places for People spokesman

The corporation's temporary appointees – Julia Middleton, chief executive at Common Purpose, an organisation that campaigns for better leadership, and John Belcher, chief executive of registered social landlord the Anchor Trust – are expected to step down soon after the appointments are confirmed. If, as is expected, this happens before April, the statutory appointees will have served less than six months at the association.

A spokesman for Places for People said the recruitment of the new board members was a "key milestone" in the group's governance review. He said: "We will report back to the corporation in March and look to have completed the recruitment by April. Then we will await corporation guidance. There will be a handover period between the existing board and new board, but we don't know how long."

A spokeswoman for the Housing Corporation said it was aware of the recruitment process and the timetable Places for People had in mind for appointing its board members. She added that there was no minimum time period for supervision.

A quick end to supervision would help to restore Places for People's prestige, which has taken a battering since the corporation stepped in.

It has been barred from becoming one of the corporation's preferred development partners until its governance problems are resolved.