The Chief Executive of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme Steve Harriott, has announced that he will be leaving his post in the middle of September 2012 to take over as Chief Executive of a specialist housing association based in south London.

He will remain on the TDS Board in a non-executive capacity.

The Board has agreed to appoint Nick Hankey as Interim Chief Executive, pending a recruitment process for new Chief Executive. Nick Hankey has been the Director of Resources at TDS since September 2011 and has been central to delivering many of the recent improvements.


Steve Harriott has been at TDS since September 2010 and has led a major reorganisation of the Scheme leading to a huge transformation of its fortunes. The Scheme is now financially robust, delivering outstanding performance and is now very much a customer facing organisation. This was demonstrated earlier this year with TDS winning both the UK Government Award for Customer Excellence and the Property Drum award for the best tenancy deposit services provider.

Chairman of TDS Professor Martin Partington said: "We are sad to see Steve go. In the last two years he has delivered huge improvements at TDS and he has created a strong organisation, which is delivering great results, has recently launched SafeDeposits Scotland and which is well poised to secure a new government contract for England and Wales in April 2013."

Ian Potter, Managing Director of ARLA and a TDS Board member said: "Under Steve's leadership TDS had made a great leap forward in terms of being much more member focussed. He has built an effective team which is well placed to meet the future challenges."

(CD/GK)