How Jill Murray made housing EPIC again

She is also someone not afraid to challenge the status quo – as an example, at her request, we will call her Jill during this interview, rather than Inside Housing’s usual house style of Ms Murray (“I know journalists all do it, but I would ask you as journalists to think again about that,” she says).

Childhood trauma

If that is the précis of a year, what it does not capture is the story that led Jill not just to Scafell Pike but to the peak of her profession, and how that has informed her campaign (and, indeed, her entire career). Inside Housing met up with her virtually to talk about how her childhood and early experiences in the sector have driven her approach, and what she is hoping to have achieved in her year as president.

Jill’s Sunderland childhood was one in which she was surrounded by love, but she also faced incredible trauma. Her dad was diagnosed with cancer and given months to live while her mum was still pregnant with her, and died when she was just 11 months old.

Her mum, an NHS nurse, was “left with four kids under nine”. Jill’s description of her mum will ring bells for anyone who knows the CIH president. “She was a values-driven individual and she used to do a lot for charity,” Jill says. “And she continued to nurse as well as bringing four kids up.” When she was 13, Jill’s world was turned upside down when her mum died suddenly. “I went to school as normal one day and my mum, who wasn’t ill, wasn’t in a high-category risk group, went to work as normal that Friday morning and dropped down dead. My dad’s mum came to school with my sister and I was brought out of the classroom and my life just fell apart really.” She stayed with her grandmother and, when she went home for the funeral, she found out her dog had been put down.

“I ended up so angry with the world. I was just in despair. It was an awful time for me. I went to stay with different relatives and family friends because I was abusive, aggressive, just without control. I was smashing places up.”

Looking back, she says she could not cope with what had happened and “nobody could cope” with her. “I was destined for local authority care, because I wouldn’t go to school and I refused to entertain anybody and was just so awful.”

Thankfully, at her lowest point, her older sister intervened. Her sister was then in her early 20s and had just got married. She sat Jill down and invited her to live with them – but asked that in return she started being more respectful of the people around her.

Jill moved in and, although she suffered with nightmares for many years, the stability and support her sister and brother-in-law provided was a turning point.

“Knowing that somebody wanted me, and that I had my space, my room in the house, meant I could start again. It was a new beginning with me. And they told me, at 21 years old, ‘You can achieve anything you want, but you’ve got to decide that’s what you want to do.’”

After working hard at her O-Levels, Jill’s life changed again when she was 16 and the careers office sent her for a job at Sunderland Council’s housing department, then run by Peter Walls, who went on to become the chief executive at stock transfer housing association Gentoo.

Today, she describes the Peter Walls of the ’80s as “a bit funky” and wearing “flamboyant clothes”. In turn, he likened her to punk icon Siouxsie Sioux “because I had maroon hair which was spiky”. While today that style would barely cause a shrug, at 1980s Sunderland Council it caused some comment. A memo from one of the bosses “which I was just disgusted at” stated that they would “prefer if you didn’t wear outlandish attire for work”.

“I didn’t see any members of the public,” she recalls. “I thought that’s got nothing to do with it [how I do the job].”

Today she describes it as the “clash of this outlandish kid who wanted to do a good job” and an office “full of all these people who were very conservative”. Mr Walls’ advice? “Just be yourself, just keep being yourself, don’t change.”

She did keep being herself, but she did change and develop, with a passion for learning and a desire to develop her career. And a fledgling magazine called Inside Housing played its part, too.

“I would read it cover to cover and think, ‘What’s this about, how do I get more involved?’ And between Peter Walls and Inside Housing, I was really inspired by housing at that very young age. I thought, ‘I must do more, I must find a way to become CIH-qualified.’ Although it [a CIH qualification] wasn’t mandatory, you did have to have it to become a manager.”

Fast-forward 40 years and after a successful career, which included senior roles at Gentoo before she became chief executive of Byker Community Housing Trust, Jill wanted to give something back. She put herself forward to become CIH vice-president (who is elected into the role by members, then becomes president the next year). It is not a big stretch to see the links with her formative years when you think about her presidential campaign. Over the past year, she has been encouraging the sector to be EPIC, which she defines as being Educated, Professional, In Control and Chartered Institute of Housing. It is difficult not to imagine her as a teenager flicking through her copy of Inside Housing, being proud not just of the campaign, but of the fact that she has stuck to those same values throughout her career.

Obviously, qualifications in housing have been a topic of much discussion over the past couple of years. The previous Conservative government had pledged to introduce mandatory qualifications for housing managers “to protect residents and raise standards in the sector” – and the new Labour government has signalled its support, too. There have been some concerns in the sector over cost and potential difficulties filling roles while people train, or that it might discourage people from joining the sector in the first place. But, broadly speaking, there is support for, at the very least, the reasoning behind the changes. And for Jill, who has seen education play a massive role in her own career development, it is an important focus.

Being professional

Jill recalls a former colleague once telling her that “confidence comes from competence”. She says: “My competence in my role allowed me to be that person who would put my head above the parapet.”

If education and knowing your stuff is one step to becoming EPIC, what about being professional? Arguably, much of the criticism levelled at the sector in recent years relates to the interaction between residents and their social landlords. Getting this right is as important as the formal education, Jill states.

“Being professional is about having professional attitudes and behaviours,” she says. She cites one example: shortly after she became chief executive at Byker, there was a protest outside the housing association’s office about a variety of issues.

Jill invited the protesters in for tea. She talked to them “about what I could do, how I could help them and how they could help me by being involved”. She also talked to them about how they could get involved in the future strategy for the organisation.