Shame of the fat cat landlords: Ahead of a landmark law forcing housing associations to fix mould and damp, a Mail investigation reveals how their bosses are making SIX-FIGURE sums while their tenants suffer
Fat cat social housing bosses have raked in huge salaries and bonuses despite their tenants continuing to live in mouldy and badly-maintained homes, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Five of the biggest social landlords – all of which receive tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash – are paying their bosses salaries several times higher than what the Prime Minister earns.
The same firms were forced to hand out £1.5 million in compensation to tenants last year after 1,500 complaints of ‘maladministration’ were upheld by the housing watchdog, many linked to repeated failures to deal with the upkeep of properties housing Britain’s most vulnerable people.
The controversy comes a week before the introduction of a new law following the death of toddler Awaab Ishak, who suffered a fatal respiratory illness after living in a mouldy flat five years ago.
From October 27, social landlords will be required to fix reported damp and mould within strict, legally-binding timeframes.
It comes a week before the introduction of a new law following the death of toddler Awaab Ishak, who suffered a fatal respiratory illness after living in a mouldy flat five years ago
The housing firms are keen to emphasise ‘social responsibility’, claiming most of their profits are ploughed back into the business. But that ethos has not prevented them from paying executives bonuses of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Bosses at one firm, Places for People, which manages or owns 262,000 homes including 70,000 social-rented properties, received £263,000 in bonuses last year, according to its annual report last month.
The windfall was split between chief executive Greg Reed, chief operating officer Scott Black and finance chief Andy Winstanley, and was on top of their basic salaries collectively worth £1.1 million.
The payout came in the year the Housing Ombudsman found 120 failings at Places for People, including 51 for property condition and 40 for complaint-handling, with 89 findings of maladministration, forcing the company to pay out £57,500 in compensation.
Over the past five years, Places for People’s bosses have received bonuses totalling nearly £1.8 million – with US-born former banker Reed receiving £465,000 in the four years since his appointment.
His basic salary rose 2.7 per cent to £457,000 last year, in line with a rent rise across the social housing sector, topped up by a £108,000 bonus and £9,000 in benefits, netting him more than three times what the Prime Minister earns.
Reed, 55, was UK head of home repair business HomeServe from 2017 to 2020, after spending more than 20 years in banking, including two years as head of credit cards and overdrafts at RBS from 2010 to 2012, soon after it was bailed out in the banking crisis.
Reed lives in a sought-after Edinburgh suburb and social media shows him and his wife on holiday at a mountain holiday resort. In Places for People’s annual report, Reed declared it existed as ‘a force for good’ while reporting a £215 million profit. It also received nearly £19 million of taxpayer cash from quango Homes England to build new social housing.
The bumper profit came despite the Housing Ombudsman saying the percentage of complaints leading to ‘maladministration’ findings against the company last year was 62 per cent. The previous year it was as high as 84 per cent.
Across the sector, this year’s maladministration findings average 69 per cent for landlords of a similar size to Places for People. But here too big executive pay rises have been announced.
Places for People chief executive Greg Reed has received £574,000
L&Q Group chief executive Fiona Fletcher-Smith received a package totalling £388,000
Clarion handed its boss Clare Miller an 8.5 per cent pay rise taking her to £471,000 a year
Clarion, Britain’s largest social landlord, which lets 125,000 homes and received £109 million in grant funding last year for affordable housing, handed its boss Clare Miller an 8.5 per cent pay rise taking her to £471,000 a year. This included a £52,000 bonus.
Miller, 62, is an accountant who lives with her husband in a £1 million Islington flat. Her pay award came despite 413 findings of maladministration against the firm by the Ombudsman leading to £253,000 in compensation payouts.
Other big social housing providers to reveal pay rises last year include Peabody Trust. It manages 109,000 homes in and around London, and its boss Ian McDermott saw his pay rise from £375,000 to £388,000, while 356 complaints of maladministration against it were upheld, resulting in £251,000 in compensation being paid.
McDermott, 62, who lives with his wife in a £1.5 million five-bedroom house in Twickenham, South-West London, can be seen on social media enjoying ski trips and going for a £500-a-head cabaret evening on board a luxury train.
Peabody was criticised over the death of Sheila Seleoane, 61, in 2019. Her body lay undiscovered in her flat in Peckham, South London, for over two years despite neighbours complaining of smells.
An independent report said Peabody, which received £20 million of taxpayer grants last year, failed in its stated ambition of being a ‘human and kind’ landlord.
Another firm, L&Q, which manages 110,000 homes and received a £26 million grant from the Government to build new social housing, saw total executive pay rise from £1.9 million to £2 million.
Chief executive Fiona Fletcher-Smith received a package totalling £388,000, up from £377,000 the previous year. Some 769 maladministration complaints were upheld against it in 2024 resulting in £481,000 of compensation pay.
Fletcher-Smith, 57, has also shown off her wealth, posting pictures from the rooftop bar of a Manhattan hotel last autumn.
And Guinness Partnership, which manages 74,000 homes, again paid £311,000 to its boss Catriona Simons. It had 214 maladministration complaints upheld and paid out £118,000.
Simons, 55, lives with her husband in a smart, semi-detached home in Barnes, South-West London, worth more than £2 million.
Homes England and the Greater London Authority are paying the firm £407 million over four years to build affordable housing.
Labour MP Clive Betts, deputy chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, criticised pay in the sector, calling for the housing regulator to be able to ‘take a view’ on bonuses at organisations where there were ‘multiple failings’.
He said: ‘My view is you should pay a rate for a job and people do their job. If you have a bonus system, you have to have it set up for exceptional performance only.’
Places for People said much of its business, including 100 leisure centres, is commercially-run. Reed said his bonus was decided by the pay committee but admitted it was ‘a large amount of money’.
Clarion said its boss’s wages reflect the responsibilities of running 125,000 homes and providing 1,700 new properties last year.
Chairman Jock Lennox said: ‘We are investing hundreds of millions in maintaining and retrofitting our homes, and support thousands of people into work and training.’
A spokesperson for L&Q said: ‘L&Q is a large, complex organisation with a turnover of over £1 billion and we serve around 250,000 residents in 110,000 homes. Executive pay is set by L&Q’s governance and remuneration committee following an independent review.’
Peabody said its boss’s pay was for running a ‘complex not-for-profit housing association and social landlord’ providing affordable homes to 220,000 residents and care services for 25,000 people.
It said it spent £431million last year looking after and improving residents’ homes, and hundreds of millions more building new social and affordable housing.
Guinness Partnership was contacted for comment.
- Additional reporting: Dan Barker
Firm in toddler death scandal hands boss £7k rise
Amanda Newton
THE death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak in a mouldy flat led to a national outcry and led the then-housing secretary Michael Gove to intervene. At an inquest two years later, coroner Joanne Kearsley said it needed to be a ‘defining moment’ for the sector.
Ishak died in December 2020 from a respiratory condition caused by mould in the one-bedroom housing association flat in Greater Manchester.
His death came after his father had complained to their social landlord Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) about the mould for over three years and was told to simply paint over it. After the tragedy, RBH was placed into special measures and under Government oversight by Gove.
After the scandal, RBH cut pay for executives, with total board pay falling to £573,000 from £614,000 in its 2023-24 accounts.
But there has been a recent surge in its boss’s pay. Amanda Newton, an ex-banker appointed in 2023, saw her pay rise by £7,000 to £182,000 last year.
At the same time, RBH, which looks after 12,000 homes, paid £3,500 in compensation for 12 maladministration complaints.
The new tenant at Ishak’s flat says it still suffers from damp, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
She said the property had been infested with silverfish since a neighbour’s leak last year. The tiny translucent insects thrive in damp conditions. The single mother-of-two, who asked not to be named, said she reported the problem to RBH in August last year but the silverfish remained.
Newton, who worked for the Regulator of Social Housing, PwC and Barclays, is a ‘keen scuba diver’ who loves underwater life’, ‘especially sharks’. On RBH’s website she adds: ‘I’m unapologetically passionate about the positive difference we make to the people who live in our homes – they are the reason we are here.’
A spokesperson for RBH said that it had met the regulator’s standards by March 2025, adding: ‘We’ve made huge progress in returning to our role of trusted landlord. Customer satisfaction is improving and compares well with other firms.’
It also said it was investigating the silverfish infestation and said it would take ‘swift action’.
