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Kate Henderson: profile of the new NHF chief executive
The incoming NHF chief executive is a passionate advocate of garden cities who has not been shy to criticise government.
The new National Housing Federation (NHF) chief executive comes from outside the housing association sector, but certainly not outside housing.
Kate Henderson had been close to housing policy for several years at the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA). The TCPA – for those unfamiliar with the organisation – is a charity established in 1899 by Sir Ebenezer Howard, the founder of the garden cities movement.
She will be a familiar face to any attendees of housing-related conferences or events in recent years, and has never held back from airing her views on housing.
She has been chief executive of the TCPA for the last eight years and has worked her way up the organisation, having joined as a communications manager in 2007.
This made her not only the first chief executive of the charity in its 120 year history who did not have a background in planning, she was also the first woman to take the role.
It will be a similar story at the NHF, where the previous longstanding incumbents have been called David, Jim and Richard.
In 2014, she spoke of her responsibility as a female leader “to encourage other women” into the traditionally male-dominated planning and housing sector.
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“It is so important that we have more women in senior roles in this sector, because the decisions we make about the built environment can’t be undone,” she told The Guardian. “They’re not just about bricks and mortar, they are about creating a better society for us to live in, and surely that better society needs to reflect the views and aspirations of the population.”
Her previous background was in marketing for the renewable energy sector, and this is where her early academic interest also lies – having written a thesis on the economies of wind energy in Southern India in collaboration with the World Bank as part of a masters in environmental technology in 2005.
Nonetheless, housing policy has clearly been her focus of recent years.
She has been involved in a number of government panels and independent commissions including the Lyons Housing Review and the Raynsford Review of Planning. She has also co-authored three books on housing and planning.
“It’s a leftfield choice but a good one,” says one sector figure. “The NHF could easily have gone for one of the familiar faces from within the sector, but this feels like a good choice. She certainly has the ear of government.”
This is true. The TCPA is based out of a small office in Carlton House Terrace – a row of elegant town houses nestled in the corner of London which holds Whitehall, Buckingham Palace, Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament. This is a reasonably good metaphor for the charity itself, which has managed to nestle itself in fairly comfortably as a lobbying voice in the corridors of power.
This is evidenced mainly in its success at keeping the idea of garden cities on the agenda, its major lobbying call ahead of most fiscal events and housing policy changes.
Ahead of the 2015 election, all three political parties signed up to the idea and successive Conservative-led governments have kept promising to build them, although they have as yet struggled to follow through with that promise.
The TCPA under Ms Henderson has not been shy of challenging ministers to go further, despite having a voice at the table.
It reacted to a flagship announcement on New Town powers earlier this month with a blog post saying it did not go far enough. They have frequently warned settlements branded garden cities may not actually meet Sir Ebenezer’s original principles.
"The TCPA under Ms Henderson has not been shy of challenging ministers"
They have also consistently called for a greater emphasis on affordable housing in the planning system, and were among the strongest critics of the plan to introduce Starter Homes as an alternative to the traditional affordable housing announced by David Cameron in 2015.
Ms Henderson lashed out at those plans with a national newspaper column saying the plans “could not be more deluded”.
“How will this announcement help meet the housing needs of everyone in Britain? How will this announcement help all those homeless families currently living in bed and breakfast accommodation? How will this announcement help the 1.4 million households currently on the social housing waiting list?” she wrote.
Juggling criticism with influencing is a tough job for any lobbyists, but the task required of the chief executive of the NHF can be a more complicated tightrope. The TCPA is not a trade body in the same way responsible for representing the views of several hundred housing associations members.
The sector will be hopeful that Ms Henderson rises to this challenge. But what it has is an accomplished leader with a track record of influencing ministers and longstanding expertise in the housing sector. Which makes her, you would think, an excellent fit for her new role.
