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Peabody chair and former civil service head Lord Kerslake dies aged 68
Peabody has paid tribute to its chair Lord Kerslake, a champion of local government and former head of the civil service, who died over the weekend after “a short battle” with cancer.
Ian McDermott, chief executive of Peabody, said: “This news has come as an immense and profound shock to us all.
“Everyone who knew Bob was truly inspired by his exceptional talent, strong work ethic and, above all, his humanity and kindness to everyone he met. He was a remarkable individual who worked tirelessly to improve people’s lives and to stand up for what is right.
“His absence will be deeply felt across Peabody, as well as in the sector and public life in general. Our thoughts are with his wife Anne and his family.”
Lord Kerslake spent much of his career in local government, working at councils including Hounslow and Sheffield.
He then became head of the Homes and Communities Agency between 2008 and 2010. A precursor to Homes England, the agency oversaw the distribution of grant funding for affordable homes programmes.
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Under the coalition government in 2010, Lord Kerslake moved to the role of permanent secretary at the Department of Communities and Local Government (now Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities), before becoming head of the civil service from 2012 to 2014.
In 2015, he joined the Peabody board as chair. He also became a crossbench peer.
In the House of Lords, Lord Kerslake led a successful opposition to the government’s 2015 Housing and Planning Act, which included social housing reforms such as the forced sale of council homes and ‘Pay to Stay’, a policy that would have seen social tenants’ rents hiked if they got a higher-paying job.
Lord Kerslake and peers helped slow the bill’s progress and force significant concessions from the government, before many of its policies were ultimately scrapped by Theresa May’s government in 2016.
Speaking to Inside Housing about his drive to do so at the time, he said: “I just think about my wife. Her family were in private rented accommodation [when she was growing up] and she would describe - as many people who get their first social rented property - this was a point almost at which their lives started. It was the point at which they genuinely felt they had a secure base in which to take forward their lives. It was an immensely important moment to them. We are risking depriving others of that moment.”
Lord Kerslake was also chair of Be First, Barking and Dagenham Council’s regeneration company, and was appointed a non-executive chair at the council’s arms-length facilities services company in 2022.
The same year, he took on a role as independent chair of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council’s regeneration company.
Following the coronavirus pandemic, Lord Kerslake set up and chaired the Kerslake Commission on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping, a committee of health, housing and homelessness experts.
In 2021, he was commissioned by London mayor Sadiq Khan to carry out a review of the Greater London Authority’s housing delivery.
Kate Henderson, chief executive of the National Housing Federation (NHF), said: “Bob was a dedicated public servant who made such a positive contribution to national and local government, social housing, regeneration, homelessness, planning and much more.
“Everyone who worked with Bob will know he was compassionate, principled and very clever. He was also kind, supportive and generous with his time and expertise, something I hugely appreciated both earlier in my career at the Town and Country PCPA and more recently at the NHF.”
Geraldine Howley, chair of the Chartered Institute of Housing, said: “Lord Bob Kerslake was a truly special person. He had great moral judgment and reasoning, and spoke with the clarity and conviction of a great leader.
“He supported me and also our quest to develop upcoming housing talent through the GEM Programme, and will be greatly missed by colleagues in social housing.”
Ceri Richards and Geoff Raw of Be First said: “Those of us who have worked with Bob over the years have lost a great friend and trusted colleague and we are deeply sad at his death. He brought tremendous energy, acumen, and commitment to his work in transforming Barking & Dagenham and the best way we can celebrate his life and honour his contribution is to deliver on that ambition.”
