New boss of housing association at centre of Awaab Ishak scandal to earn around £170k

The new chief executive of scandal-hit Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) is set to earn roughly £170,000 per year.

The housing provider was slammed following death of Awaab Ishak, a two-year-old toddler who lived in an RBH property in the Freehold estate. His death was caused by prolonged exposure to mould at the family’s flat, a coroner found.

In the wake of the tragedy, RBH staff were slammed for holding a 'wholly unacceptable' attitude towards refugees. Awwab’s family were asylum seekers from Sudan.

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Following Awwab’s death, the Manchester Evening News and charity Shelter campaigned to change the law in order to shake-up the social housing sector. The news also led to the sacking of RBH’s chief executive, Gareth Swarbrick.

In the interim, Yvonne Arrowsmith was put in temporary charge of the organisation, describing the Housing Ombudsman report as containing ‘sobering but not unexpected findings’.

Now RBH is looking for a permanent CEO to take the reins. A job advert, which closed today (April 25), confirmed that the new boss will earn ‘circa £168,000 per annum’ — and revealed the scale of the task the head honcho has.

“This is a crucial appointment for RBH,” it said. “Our new Chief Executive is vital to the successful future of RBH, its tenants, communities, and staff teams. We now need to embed the immediate changes we have made and implement our recovery plan, to regain the trust of the wider community.

“At the heart of this is our unstinting commitment to deliver high quality homes and services, as that is what our tenants rightly expect of us. As a co-owned mutual housing society, we are rooted in the legacy of Rochdale’s pioneering