Spreadable Mayo

you might expect the chief executive of the National Consumer Council to be unnaturally interested in cowboy builders and the price structure of mobile phone companies. And you’d be wrong: Ed Mayo has a far broader vision.

This month he’s taking to the conference platform at the National Housing Federation’s annual conference in Birmingham to give his views on how consumers can be given greater choice over where they live. At the same time the NCC is publishing a guide to customer attitudes to public services, which will reveal that they are most satisfied with museums and galleries, least satisfied with sports and leisure facilities, and only averagely content with local authority housing.

In fairness, the NCC has always had a remit to look at the public sector – its work led to the creation of the Tenants Participation Advisory Service, a tenant empowerment body – but the big, broad issues are also where Mayo’s heart lies. Mayo is already a familiar figure on social housing’s conference circuit, both in his present role and his former as executive director of leftwing think-tank the New Economics Foundation.

“He has been a visiting conscience for the housing association movement, reminding them that they are social businesses, but at the same time not alienating them,” says James Tickell, partner with housing consultant Campbell Tickell. He describes Mayo as an intellectual with a lot of energy for getting things done: a contention backed up by his published work. This is a man who has an author’s credit on such publications as The Mutual State, Brave New Economy, and Banking and Social Cohesion.

You don’t have to open such publications to get the idea that Mayo is a deep thinker, and someone who is out to influence if not change the world. The Mutual State, which demonstrated how public services can engage with and respond to consumers, did just that: it influenced then health secretary Alan Milburn’s proposals for foundation hospitals.

A self-confessed advocate of enterprise-led regeneration, Mayo has advised the Treasury on enterprise and led the development of community investment tax relief. With all these achievements on his CV, it is no surprise that two years ago The Guardian named Mayo as one of the 100 most influential figures in UK social policy.

Throughout a career that has progressed from studying philosophy to the NCC, Mayo’s work has combined the harsh facts of economics with social inclusion and sustainability. “At heart I’m a social entrepreneur,” he says. Casually dressed in pale blue shirt and chinos, he looks the part, and although the chief executive’s job comes with the conventional personal office in the NCC’s central London headquarters, Mayo is almost apologetic about having his own workspace, pointing out that this is the first time in his career that he’s had an office to himself.

In his two years at the helm of the National Consumer Council Mayo has done much to engage with key causes such as credit and debt. Now regeneration is ascending the agenda. Here’s how.

Q&A

A lot of people have heard of the NCC championing the interests of consumers on the private sector stage, but we have a unique mandate to look at the public sector too. Regeneration is the leading field where the private and public sectors come together to meet the needs of consumers. We have been focusing on how to widen choices for tenants, micro-renewable energy and the process of regeneration.

But we’re still exploring what role we can most usefully play. We’d welcome a dialogue with all sectors of regeneration.

How do you think regenerators serve their customers?

The good news is that there has been a coming together of those concerned with larger-scale physical regeneration and smaller-scale social regeneration.

But there is a quality crisis in some of the projects – sometimes short-termism wins out. There are examples of excellence, but overall the quality of the end product hasn’t been there.

There was a book written in the 1970s by John Turner and Robert Fichter that was probably 30 years ahead of its time. It was called Housing – used as a verb. It critiqued the way regeneration worked by treating housing as if it were a noun. I think regeneration is still in the first steps of combining the two.

Housing is almost uniquely a consumer product, but there is very little recourse for complaint if things go wrong. It is stunning that with such a major purchase we have so little redress. We are looking to see how we can champion the roles of consumers.

How has the NCC been learning about regeneration so far?

There are a minority of people who are willing to become more actively involved in their community

We’ve pulled together an exercise in listening to consumers, and regeneration is one of the sectors we looked at. Together with the CBI we ran a citizens’ forum in March. The results were inspiring.

The headlines that emerged were that government focuses on hard targets and outcomes, and in some senses that is welcome and easier to manage. But what really matters is the soft side – people said that things like empathy, listening and compassion mattered. People are open to services being run by private, public or voluntary sectors, as long as they have that “softer” side. I’ve seen how regeneration projects on a large scale become driven by measurement, instead of the softer aspects that are actually fundamental to their success.

It is a paradigm change in thinking that there are other forms of expertise in regeneration to those we have traditionally valued. The boards of regeneration businesses have architects, engineers and other construction professionals on them, but they are not valuing people with the softer skills, like the residents themselves.

What’s the next step?

We’ve followed on with structured research with people involved in housing. We’ve found that there is now a very imaginative toolkit on how to engage people – not just standard market research, but innovations such as electronic kiosks. But there are a minority of people who are willing to become more actively involved in their community.

In our research, led by the University of Strathclyde, we asked more than 1000 consumers on housing estates of all tenures why they got involved with their community, what stopped them from being involved and what the outcomes were. We found that in housing about 8% of people were willing to get actively involved. Their reasons for getting involved varied – some were campaigners, some were cross with things that had gone wrong, and others were happy with things that had gone right and wanted to put something back. Whatever the motivation, we found that engagement was not only good for them individually, it was good for community services. It shows that the process of engagement builds community. Out of that we’re developing a more systematic approach.

What else are you looking at?

We’re also looking at choice-based lettings, because the uptake of it has been so slow. It is a much praised approach because the old waiting list was the worst of the old paternalistic state; it was demeaning and symbolised all that we were trying to change.

What other industries should regenerators be looking to for best practice?

Healthcare is undergoing a transformation in using emerging technologies for self-diagnosis, which is allowing patients to take more control of their own health, under what’s called the expert patients programme. You could imagine an expert resident programme in regeneration.

Also, National Rail Enquiries has been good on the softer side. National Rail has recognised that it will take a long time and billions of pounds to improve its core service, so in the interim it has taken measures to improve customer service. It now offers text messaging, online access and a far better telephone enquiry system.

What environmental initiatives are you working on?

We are running a programme focusing on sustainable consumption – how to be smart in the way we use resources. We’re starting from the perspective of consumers themselves. There has been a lot of finger wagging and heroic exhortation in this area; we estimate that there are something like 500 tips on environmental living out there. But you can’t ask people to climb a wall, so we are starting from where people are.

We’ve interviewed householders with micro-renewable energy such as solar panels and the early findings are very positive in that they show that being part of a community that is environmentally savvy and sustainable encourages them to do more small things, like turning the video off standby.

In regeneration there has been a real interest in sustainable design, and good work done by organisations like Hastoe Housing Association. But these projects are more beacons of hope than integrated systematically.