Fordham Research RIP by Dr Richard Fordham
I set up Fordham Research in 1987. The remit I gave it was to work in the public interest for the public sector. That is largely what we have done: we have worked for most of the councils in Britain and produced hundreds of detailed technical reports. These provided the evidence base for many planning inquiries and for council policies on housing (especially affordable) and planning.
During that period the staff rose from just myself to a peak around 2005-2007 of over 20. Our work was paid for by contract mainly won at tender. Our besetting problem was always the lack of quality control in the various fields in which we worked. We did not aim for impossibly high standards but just to do a 'good job'. This enabled us to win a reasonable proportion of tenders in the 1990s and up to around middle noughties. But it was always a struggle: I wrote a monograph in 1995 which said that 'Millions of pounds are being wasted by councils on poor HNS (housing needs surveys)'.
That statement remains even truer today than it was then, and applies also to SHMAs (strategic housing market assessments). Poor quality is partly due to cheap work (and poor staff) and partly to poor checking by councils, who do not have the technical means to do it. I have spent some time demonstrating this by appearing at inquiries to show that studies were not good enough, causing a number of such studies to be declared 'unsound' by planning inspectors. I also visited various officials at CLG to make this point, most recently Steve Quartermain the Chief Planner. Nothing happened.
In retrospect, if a fraction of the millions of pounds spent on the NHPAU (closed down last year) there would be a lasting legacy of much better evidence bases for councils. I did suggest this, but the glamour of building academic models won the day. What people don't easily understand is that 90% of a good job is useless. Going for the cheap option does not produce 90% of the same product, but misleading and wrong results.
In retrospect too, I should probably have closed Fordham Research in 2007, since after that we found it very hard to pay our way: we went through two voluntary liquidations and now the final one. On the other hand our work has continued to be of good standard and our innovations have continued into the days of Affordable Rent.
I hope that the fact that our firm has gone, and with it a tradition of good work, will have the effect of making CLG think again. At present the evidence base of household surveys which are the key to working with the localism agenda is patchy and often poor: it is important that it is improved.
Finally I should thank the upwards of a hundred excellent and committed staff who have helped me in this work over the years. Many of them joined me out of college and have now gone on to senior posts in other organisations. Perhaps that will be the most lasting legacy of the firm. I hope so.