NHF confirms office closure and job losses

The National Housing Federation (NHF) has confirmed it is to close its Birmingham office as part of a restructure that also involves job losses and reductions in management posts that together is expected to save £500,000 a year.

However, following consultation with members and staff, the NHF says it is to seek accommodation in the offices of one its members in Birmingham so that space is provided for the Birmingham Social Housing Partnership officer, hot desking facilities for the NHF to use and the provision of video conferencing facilities.

Overall, the restructure and redundancies will see a net loss of 10 jobs.

“We are in an extremely tough operating environment – with falling commercial income and a high rate of inflation. Our members also expect us to deliver strong value for money,” said chief executive David Orr.

“As a result, it was clear that we had to reduce our cost base, while protecting the quality of our core services. These changes are designed to streamline the way we work, improve our services to members and our business efficiency and reduce our costs.”

Under the new structure, the NHF will maintain dedicated staff in all of its nine discrete regions and ensure strong support for its regional network.

The local and regional perspective will remain at the heart of the organisation’s campaigning, lobbying and influencing work through the creation of three regional assistant director posts – which will be part of the management team of the campaigns and neighbourhoods directorate.

This change in itself will ensure that the voice of members is more clearly heard in its central decision making processes, the organisation said.

Each of its nine regions will be served by a lead manager (two in London) and they will be responsible for direct engagement with members. There will also be a new post responsible for direct member communications.

In Commercial Services, there will be a new assistant director post – while three head posts will be removed from the structure, as well as posts in business sales and support. There will be a new business development assistant, a new senior conference organiser and a new business sales and support manager.

In Corporate Services, as has already been confirmed, the head of finance and head of ICT posts are going. Again, these roles will be replaced by a single post, assistant director – finance and business systems.

Orr added: “During the consultation process we have received feedback from members and staff alike – and we are extremely grateful for their input. While we have decided to proceed with the proposals to reduce our headcount, which will regretfully mean the loss of employment for a number of valued colleagues, we have made a number of important modifications, most importantly deciding to seek accommodation in the offices of one of our members in Birmingham.”