Homes England selects prisons grandee as next CEO 

Amy Rees is currently director general at the Ministry of Justice and will take over from interim chief executive Eamonn Boylan in September.

She will be charged with leading Homes England in supporting the government’s target of building 1.5m homes by the end of the parliament.

Rees will take over an agency armed with its most flexible funding arrangement for some time and an organisation that has, in recent years, fostered a place-based approach to regeneration, working particularly closely with combined authority areas.

Homes England’s incoming chief executive has no housing or development background and, up until this year when she joined the MoJ, had spent her entire career within HM Prison and Probation Service.

Between 2008 and 2010 she was governor at Brixton Prison. She has also been head of workforce strategy and head of delivery at HMPPS before being appointed as director general and chief executive in 2022 – a position she held for three years.

Rees said: “It is a huge privilege to join Homes England and lead those responsible for delivering such a critical agenda for our country.

“The housing crisis is one of the most urgent challenges facing our country, and I look forward to working closely with colleagues, government, industry, and communities to deliver the homes people need.”

Rees will take the reins from interim chief executive Eamonn Boylan on 8 September. Boylan took the job in January following the departure of Peter Denton.

Deputy prime minister and housing secretary Angela Rayner described Rees’s appointment as a “momentous step for Homes England”.

“I know Amy’s exceptional leadership and track record makes her the ideal choice as we work together to build 1.5m homes, deliver the biggest expansion in social and affordable housing in a generation, and raise living standards in every region across the country.”