Tony Shoults on how Metropolitan Housing became more transparent and accountable

We felt we were just getting too complicated. We had incorporated Rushcliffe Homes and Refugee Housing Association, and the three regional divisions also had committees. We thought the MHT board should be taking strategic decisions for the group.

So we got replaced the three regional committees with direct links between the business and management teams of the regions and the residents. People are now directly accountable to their residents and residents have the right to meet the management.

We brought the assets together by bringing Metropolitan Homeownership into the Trust and transferring assets from Refugee into the trust to create fewer boards and reduce bureaucracy.

The board was 17 people but will be reduced to 13 in February, including myself and the finance director. There's no longer a quota for the number of residents on the board, but we want residents' points of view so we invite them to apply to the board. We've also set up a national residents' group which has direct access to the board.

We incorporated the Combined Code, which is a recommendation of conduct for companies, and the DTI/Higgs recommendations, but we have not adopted all the recommendations as we do not distribute profits and are regulated by the corporation.