Housing associations which were on the brink of collapse last year have made a steady recovery, following intense scrutiny and support by the sector's regulator. Peter Marsh, chief executive of the Tenant Services Authority, told MPs that few housing associations were currently a cause of concern among his team, despite revealing last year that six were being monitored closely. Speaking to the CLG select committee on 1 June, Mr Marsh said receipts in the housing association sector had not dried up as quickly as many commentators predicted when the recession took hold. Instead, associations were currently the most active house-builders in the UK, and were expected to miss the sector's target for £1.2bn in receipts this year by just 10 to 15%. Consequently, fewer associations were now in a precarious financial position. ‘Despite much speculation, there are no associations which have joined that intensive [scrutiny] list… and some associations have now left the list,' he said. The six associations under scrutiny since last year, which the TSA refused to name in order to protect their commercial interests, were described as being ‘not in intensive care, but subject to more regulatory scrutiny than is normally the case'.
