Social animal

Women’s work

This issue’s census feature (pages 20 to 31) may not prove there’s institutional sexism in housing – but some of the stories the reporters came across do make Social Animal wonder. Elaine Elkington, director of housing at Birmingham council, described going for a job interview at a council in the late 1990s. Corralled into a room with a number of other women to sit a typing test, Elkington tried to explain she’d been put in the wrong group. But the HR officer told her:

“No. You’re all right – this is the test for the word processing job.” So what job was Elkington meant to be interviewing for? Not, in fact, a secretary, but director of housing.

Retracing their steps

At Housing Today’s efficiency conference last week head of operations at the Northern Housing Consortium, Alan Kelley, navigated his way with ease through the complexities of the efficiency agenda. His sense of direction hasn’t always come so naturally though. During his presentation Kelley also recalled visiting Hampton Court maze as a child and getting completely lost amid the topiary. The image of a child lost in a maze will no doubt resonate for councils grappling with retrospective efficiency forms, due in by 15 June this year.

A homeless and away match

The Homeless World Cup – organised by the International Network of Street Newspapers – will be staged in Edinburgh from 20 to 24 July. The host nation must overcome the strongly fancied Italians, the current holders of the trophy. Whoever wins, the match should provide some well-deserved kicks for sellers of street papers around the world.

The same goal for everyone

Never mind the beautiful game, football is more of a cruel sport according to Peter Morton, chief executive of arm’s-length management organisation Sheffield Homes. The long-suffering Sheffield Wednesday fan Morton was referring not to his own team’s poor results when he spoke at Sheffield Homes’ ALMO conference last Friday – but the fact that if a team gets into the Premier league, another club will be forced into Division One to make way for them. Housing, he said, is a far kinder affair, with room in the top table for every ALMO. Perhaps the league table-obsessed Housing Corporation could do with a reminder.

Cop this

Social Animal would like to put the record straight after the Housing Today switchboard was jammed with people calling to request the phone number of Keystone Housing Association. On page 13 of our 1 April issue we ran an April Fool’s Day story about the said association taking over the running of its local police service. I’m afraid there is no Keystone, and we do not have a reporter called Tim Blueline (geddit?).