Where's Jim Coulter coming from?

Jim Coulter's letter (17 October, page 22) suggests he lives in a different world from me. My housing association would not survive without passing the regular ODPM inspections on governance, regulation and accountability. It subjects itself to this regimen to receive all or some of the grants available in the social housing sector.

He also derides Richard Kemp's assertion that the chief executive runs his board with the aid of cronies, but there is some truth in that. On transfer, our executive management team was made up of ex-council officers: who else could run our housing association?

As for the board running the show, that is a fallacy. A week before the board meeting, we receive the agenda and all relevant papers, documents that have taken months to prepare and with which the executive management team are fully cognisant.

Each member of the board reads and digests the contents of the agenda, but at the bottom of each paper is a recommendation of adoption by its author. Can we compare the chief executive and his cronies to the chief executive and his executive management team?

Coulter says findings in September showed an increasing number of associations advertised for board members. If this is true, you will have to pay them – otherwise you will get silly old farts like me coming forward. If you do start paying board members, they will become accountable and that could upset the status quo in relation to the board and the executive management team. That could put jobs on the line – even Jim Coulter's.