Ballot As Fishy as the 1950s Docks in Hull
Labour came in last year on a promise to improve the housing service for our long suffering tenants and what's happened? They are about to cut the emergency out of hours repairs service and the Handy Persons scheme in a desperate bid to stave off bankruptcy.
In the meantime in a ballot worthy of a banana republic, Labour is claiming that a majority of its residents living on its estates want to transfer themselves to an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO). Why have the wheels fallen off the Labour bandwagon quite so quickly?
One of the answers is that Labour doesn't like any kind of scrutiny and is too slow to open the books when things go wrong. Overspending on the housing revenue account by GB pounds 2.1 million for the year ended in April 2007 smacks of incompetence, especially as it was supposed to be GB pounds 2.5 million in the black. They can hardly blame anyone but themselves, but no doubt they will given their GB pounds 150,000 team of spin doctors at least two of whom used to work full time for Labour.
It seems that the district auditor has also caught the Labour Party cooking the books and processing revenue receipts - such as costs for building maintenance - as capital receipts. This may not mean much to many people, but as far as bean counters are concerned it's serious. The auditor has ordered GB pounds 2.3 million of expenditure be restored to the housing revenue account, which is supposed to be spent on housing and for no other purpose.
Finally, the ALMO ballot is about as fishy as the docks in Hull used to be when I was growing up in the 1950s. The 51% to 49% alleged result actually involved the leaseholders voting 'No' by a large margin of 57.5% to 42.5% and some 1,505 ballot papers were returned marked 'don't know.' Hardly a convincing mandate, especially given the complaints from some residents that they never received a ballot paper.
UPDATE: Vauxhall's Labour MP Kate Hoey has submitted a Parliamentary Early Day Motion that "notes with dismay the balloting process undertaken by Lambeth Council".
In the meantime in a ballot worthy of a banana republic, Labour is claiming that a majority of its residents living on its estates want to transfer themselves to an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO). Why have the wheels fallen off the Labour bandwagon quite so quickly?
One of the answers is that Labour doesn't like any kind of scrutiny and is too slow to open the books when things go wrong. Overspending on the housing revenue account by GB pounds 2.1 million for the year ended in April 2007 smacks of incompetence, especially as it was supposed to be GB pounds 2.5 million in the black. They can hardly blame anyone but themselves, but no doubt they will given their GB pounds 150,000 team of spin doctors at least two of whom used to work full time for Labour.
It seems that the district auditor has also caught the Labour Party cooking the books and processing revenue receipts - such as costs for building maintenance - as capital receipts. This may not mean much to many people, but as far as bean counters are concerned it's serious. The auditor has ordered GB pounds 2.3 million of expenditure be restored to the housing revenue account, which is supposed to be spent on housing and for no other purpose.
Finally, the ALMO ballot is about as fishy as the docks in Hull used to be when I was growing up in the 1950s. The 51% to 49% alleged result actually involved the leaseholders voting 'No' by a large margin of 57.5% to 42.5% and some 1,505 ballot papers were returned marked 'don't know.' Hardly a convincing mandate, especially given the complaints from some residents that they never received a ballot paper.
UPDATE: Vauxhall's Labour MP Kate Hoey has submitted a Parliamentary Early Day Motion that "notes with dismay the balloting process undertaken by Lambeth Council".
Labels: ALMO, housing, Labour Lambeth
posted by Cllr John Whelan on Sunday, July 22, 2007
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home