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".

Labels: ALMO, housing, Labour Lambeth

Days since Lambeth Labour Leader filed a blog - seven
Days since Lambeth Lib Dem Leader filed a blog - 69

It came home to me on Saturday at a busy 'surgery advice centre' what a lousy deal the residents of Lambeth Council-owned estates get from their landlord especially those who live on small estates without a big voice in the tenants movement.

You'd think that the seventh biggest social landlord in the country would have some world class players in its management team - a Beckham or two perhaps - especially in view of how much our Labour masters pay them. It's wrong to generalise, of course, because there are some rapidly eroding islands of good practice among the officer ranks - we just lost a really great area manager here in Norwood called Bayo. Yet it's hard to beat the tale Edna, Winifred and Sharon told me (names have been changed to protect the innocent and in any case my Mum's middle name was Winifred).

Winifred's flat has a new source of running water only it's not from Thames Water. It's pouring in from the flat above which has been 'sublet' by the tenant who is living somewhere else with his girlfriend and no doubt claiming benefit there. But when Winifred spotted two Lambeth housing officers they 'didn't want to know' because they were there to 'investigate' something else and said 'ring the office.' Not exactly the 'can do' style of management. Neither were they interested in hearing about the flat that has been empty for two years just along the corridor.

Edna's problem was rather different. The gasman came to inspect her boiler on Friday, but as he was only 'health and safety' he just switched the whole thing off and left saying - you've guessed it - 'ring the office' - because he didn't want to know. As a result, Edna now has no hot water until someone turns up from repairs in a week or two. The scandal is that the boiler is the same one installed when the property was built 30 years ago and is costing her a fortune to run. Yet I believed all that council junk about energy efficient heating systems that reduced the carbon footprint.

Last of all there was Sharon. Her problem is anti social youths making her life a misery and threatening anyone who tells them to stop making a racket including her pregnant daughter. And you've guessed it when she rang the office 'they didn't want to know.' All these residents tell me they never see the community police team heralded with lots of backslapping by Labour politicians who regularly write sanctimonious rubbish in the local newspaper about initiatives that make no difference to anyone. Now I happen to know that our local police team make a real effort, but without the active support of highly-paid council officers and intelligence from the housing service they can't make a decisive impact especially with the small minority of anti-social tenants.

How come all these good folk turned up at the surgery from the same estate? It may have had something to do with the community newsletter we put round as councillors the previous week-end. As far as we're concerned Sharon, Edna, and Winifred represent the good solid residents living on our estates who deserve a lot better than what Labour gives them. And we're actually going to do something about it by inviting them to our joint advice centre with the police next month as well as by goading the housing officers with our members' enquiries.

Labels: anti-social behaviour, housing, police, surgeries