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Have your say
United’s board is made up of independent members (i.e. not United staff) and residents. They have overall responsibility for making sure that everything we do is shaped around your needs and priorities – for example, developing our business plan, improving services and making sure we meet our mission, vision and values, which you have helped develop.
To do this they have to attend regular board and committee meetings, working groups with residents (such as value for money and asset management), joint away days with residents and staff (for decision making), business planning events and training sessions so they have the knowledge and skills to do the job properly.
The Tenant Services Authority (who set the rules for housing associations) monitors how well boards perform and whether the decisions they make keep associations legally and financially viable (i.e. meet legislation and have enough money to run the services) and improve services to you.
This is becoming an increasingly challenging role and the level of responsibility required is more than could be reasonable expected of volunteers. So in order to make sure they get the best people involved, the board have decided to pay board members for their involvement.
In making this decision, the board has consulted the value for money working group and residents involved in the business planning event.
But we would like to get feedback from residents who are not members of these groups:
- Given the increase in responsibility, do you think it is right to make a reasonable level of payment to board members for governing the association?
Your views will be reviewed by board members and take this into account as part of the review of governance taking place in November 2011.
Resident Involvement Strategy
We will be inviting residents to help develop our resident involvement strategy. The strategy will set out how we will develop resident involvement to ensure that that your involvement influences the housing services we deliver and offers value for money and, that involvement activities are accessible to everyone.
If you would like to give us your views on board member payments or the resident involvement strategy, please contact Jackie Bonnick on 0117 944 0549 or e-mail: jackie.bonnick@unitedha.org.uk
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