Introduction

This is a book about housing management. It is an occupation which closely touches the lives of both those delivering the service and those who receive it. As Colin Ward observes, housing is so fundamental to ensuring quality of life, that its distribution and control lies at the very core of a welfare society. Without a secure base, few other benefits of an advanced society can properly be enjoyed. This work is not intended to be a policy analysis of the success or failings of social housing, nor a technical evaluation of the costs of delivering the landlord function. Each has been undertaken elsewhere within the recent past. Instead, the perspective of the book is that of the practitioner. Whether employed as a front-line housing officer or a director of housing, the role of individual housing staff is often as critical to the manner in which services are delivered as the policy framework within which they operate.