RODDONS Housing Association has issued a strongly worded statement defending the appointment of former police chief Mick Gipp to a �52,000 a year assistant director’s role.

Their statement came in the wake of the disclosure that ex Chief Supt Gipp would be taking the job vacated by Debby Bunn who has been promoted to become Roddons �75,000 a year managing director.

Christopher Smith, Group Operational Director of Circle Housing Group, of which Roddons Housing Association is a part, said: “We would not normally comment on the personal lives of our staff, but on this occasion consider it important to do so as the allegations involved are wholly unfounded and untrue.

“Mick Gipp has been offered the role of Assistant Director of Access and Customer Care at Roddons after a rigorous and objective recruitment exercise.

“This involved not only Debby Bunn as Managing Director but also two other members of the Roddons Senior Management Team.

“The whole recruitment exercise was also overseen by our Group Human Resources Team in order to ensure complete objectivity and integrity in terms of the process followed.

“Mr. Gipp was clearly the outstanding candidate for the role and has hence been offered the position”.

Mr Smith revealed that talk locally of Mr Gipp and Ms Bunn being involved in any form of relationship was wide of the mark.

“From the perspective of any relationship of a personal relationship there is no romantic relationship between them and never has been,” said Mr Smith.

He said Circle Anglia knew full well that Mr Gipp, in his time with Cambs Police, was Ms Bunn’s line manager and this had been declared throughout all stages of recruitment.

The recruitment of Mr Gipp involved written management testing scenarios, said Mr Smith, and he emerged as “the outstanding candidate. The recruitment process was completely objective, completely without any bias and Mr Gipp was unanimously offered the role.”

Roddons job description says Mr Gipp, until now Safer Fenland Manger and responsible for issues as diverse as CCTV and licensing, will involve customer access and satisfaction.

“You will discover news way to significantly boost the organisation’s insight into its current and potential customers as well as revolutionising the equality of access,” said the advertisement for the assistant director’s role. The objective was to put “the customer at the heart of everything Roddons does.”

Roddons is part of Circle Anglia and was set up in November 2007 to manage the transfer of 3,650 homes from Fenland Council.