Chapter II: Managers

On all working-class estates, whether of higher or lower grade, there is much evidence to show that managers should be in complete control, attending to all matters connected with the property, including the collection of rents and repairs. There is evidence that the separation of responsibility for rent collecting and for ordering and superintending repairs leads to delay in repairs, and, in some cases, has acted adversely on the rent collecting. Rent collectors who are not responsible for repairs are apt to forget to report the need of them.

Whether the manager should be a man or a woman is not, in the opinion of the Sub-Committee, so important as that the principle of management inaugurated by Miss Hill should be adopted. At the same time, they are agreed that it should not be overlooked—

(1) That the housekeeper is always a woman;

(2) That the woman usually pays the rent;

(3) That housekeeping and repairs are closely connected; and

(4) That, therefore, a woman will usually be better equipped than a
man to deal with the problems arising out of the management of
working-class property.

Whether a man or woman, the Committee are of opinion that the Manager should be properly trained under managers of accepted standing, should thoroughly understand the finance and law involved, should be of recognized efficiency for superintending repairs and upkeep, and should be well-versed in the social problems of the day and the methods of dealing with them.

A word should be added on personality. The more social and industrial difficulties are represented on an estate the greater will the prominence of the personal element be. Whatever the class of property, the personal qualifications of the manager are of importance: tact and consideration are always necessary. But the successful redemption of a slum area will demand specially strong personal qualifications, with wide sympathies and broad outlook, and, just as some learned people never make good teachers, so some human temperaments will never produce good managers, however much “trained.”

The Sub-Committee feel that, on the whole, the splitting of the management under separate Departments is inadvisable. Where such division has succeeded in the past, it has done so largely because a former (pre-war) selection of tenants has kept the most difficult problems of management away from it. In bad areas it is most important that there should be one Head in as direct contact with the Estate as possible, responsible for upkeep and repairs as well as rent collecting and selection of tenants.