<p>The Charity Commission has granted the Aster Foundation, the charitable arm of southern-based housing association Aster Group, official charity status.</p><p><span>The Foundation, which goes beyond housing to improve the lives of people who live in and around Aster’s communities, will now become a separate entity to the core business. Aster Group said this would afford the Foundation greater transparency of operations through the Charity Commission and fundraising regulator. And it would allow a long term plan of support for the Foundation’s communities.</span></p><p></p><p><span>With Aster Group’s data showing that almost half of the neighbourhoods it works across are “financially stretched”, the Foundation’s move to charity status would, Aster Group said, allow it to offer “a wider and holistic range of programmes to help these groups and ultimately meet its aim of enabling the lives of 40,000 people by 2030”.</span></p><p></p><p><span>The Aster Foundation, overseen by a board of trustees, has now appointed an independent chairperson, Amanda Wiggan. Wiggan has spent more than 25 years of championing the interests of consumers and service users, having worked at senior levels including as a government appointee within the rail industry and a lay inspector for the Social Services Inspectorate.</span></p><p></p><p><span>Wiggan also has lived experience in the arena, having been …