The new tenants’ champion is already spoiling for a fight with landlords, ministers and millions of potential clients.

Peter Marsh, 39, is to head the Tenant Services Authority (TSA), the new regulator for social housing with powers to remove landlords and set rents, which launches on Monday. He is the former deputy chief executive of the Housing Corporation and his role will be to improve standards in housing association and council homes and ensure that rogue landlords do not exploit tenants.

He will have his work cut out for him with nearly five million on council waiting lists, no houses being built and a deepening recession, but he has ambitious plans. A childhood spent in a council house in Basingstoke fired Mr Marsh’s passion for improving standards for the ten million people living in social housing. “Quality housing matters and access to quality housing improves people’s life chances,” he says. “My life chances were linked to the fact my parents were able to live in a decent-sized house in a decent neighbourhood.” The stigma associated with social housing must also be removed: “There is nothing wrong with renting.”

His first priority is to improve standards by exposing landlords’ bad practices and allowing tenants more choice. He wants to start an online league table of landlords in his first few months. The table, which is likely to set star ratings, will compare a range of indicators such as the level of rents, the proportion landlords spend on refurbishing homes and cleaning communal areas, and how swiftly repairs are done. “In two years’ time I would like people to be able to log on to the TSA website, put in their postcode and be able to see a list of providers and landlords and compare their performance. We will spend the next few months listening to tenants to see what indicators they would like to compare.” The intention is to apply pressure on bad landlords to improve their performance. But ultimately Mr Marsh could oust the worst and install good landlords to manage the properties.

More controversially he believes that many of the people in social rented housing shouldn’t be there in the first place. He suggests that many are too rich and should have been offered alternatives, such as shared equity or private rented accommodation.

He questions why social tenants in Central London pay £70 to £100 a week to rent a flat, while private tenants would pay £800 a week for a similar property or £1,000 a week for a fixed-term mortgage. “There is a big gap between the first two. I think we need to discuss what might be the most appropriate offer for people who have no choice about what to buy or rent because the price for properties are ten times average incomes.”

He is instead keen to explore intermediate rents – where the state subsidises some but not all of the costs – and more shared equity homes where tenants buy a stake in the property.

In the next few months he wants to investigate the incomes of those living in council homes or low-cost housing. “Eighteen months ago the average wage of a family moving into a socially rented house was £185 a week. But the average wage of someone moving into a shared ownership home was £385 a week. What is happening to those on between £200 and £300 a week? They are not all moving into shared ownership, but they would like to live in a home that is well managed and maintained. We need to review the availability of choices between social rented and outright ownership for that category.

“We know there are people earning £15,000, £20,000 or £40,000 a year who cannot afford to buy a home and are on council waiting lists. There are simply not enough houses to go round.

“Small estates of social, intermediate and private rent are the only way to kick start the building market and help cater for the five million people who cannot afford to buy and who are not needy enough to be allocated a home for social rent.”

The lowdown

Who
Peter Marsh, the CEO of the Tenant Services Authority (TSA)

What
TSA is the new regulator of affordable housing in England, committed to raising the standards of services for the country’s ten million tenants

When
TSA goes live on Monday and will launch the largest tenant-engagement process in England in January 2009 to shape its standards framework

Why
Martin Cave, director of management under regulation at Warwick University, led a review of social housing, Every Tenant Matters, published in 2007. In it he outlined how the lack of choice in affordable housing presented a compelling argument for the formation of a single regulator that would champion the needs and aspirations of tenants and prospective tenants. The Housing and Regeneration Act, which outlined the responsibilities and set out the ten statutory objectives of the new social housing regulator, was passed in July, paving the way for the TSA

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