SCOTS` VOTE ECHOES ACROSS THE BORDER

GIVE US A

REFERENDUM

TOO, SAY

FREEZING TENANTS

Scotland`s big debate  is  so deafening today that it can almost  be heard just over the border where a few dozen English people are wishing that they too had an independence referendum.

The independence that these people long for is independence from a landlord they say does not care. It does not care because it allows tenants to continue suffering in their unheated homes.

The sixty or so Longtown tenants are on the brink of their third winter without  heating they can afford.  This week their group  had its third monthly public protest meeting against the Liverpool-based Riverside Housing Association.

Something  important emerged from that meeting of the group, Longtown Action for Heat.

It was this: Amazingly, despite two years of protests, meetings and lobbying, no organisation could be found to make the housing giant, Riverside replace or repair its botched heating systems  and give its tenants a warm winter.

Officially, such an organisation does in fact exist and has the job of  policing Riverside and  the other housing associations in the country. That organisation is  a  government-appointed  regulator called the Homes and Communities Agency, a quango.

But is that agency  in any way effective? Could it help the distressed tenants of Longtown? The signs are  very far from hopeful. In fact, they  are disastrous.

By coincidence, on the very day that Longtown Action for Heat was meeting and protesting, the Homes and Communities Agency  published what it called its annual Consumer Regulation Review. It is an unbelievable publication.

In the  year under review, the agency had 509 consumer complaints (similar complaints to those in Longtown). Four hundred and seven of those (80 per cent) could not be dealt with because the agency did not have the power to do it.

The remaining 102 were referred to a panel of the agency but only 40 of these were investigated further. Just three of these, it was decided,  justified any intervention by the agency to put things right.

Just three complaints out of a total of 509!  In  percentage terms, about half of one per cent.

You couldn`t make it up, might  be a fair comment.  

All three  complaints referred to gas safety. One housing association had not serviced a gas boiler for two years, a second association allowed gas safety checks to become overdue and the third association  was found to have  out-of date safety certificates.

What is to be made of derisory results like this? How would the Homes and Community Agency cope if the Longtown tenants presented their complaints- all much more serious and much more numerous than the farcical half of one percent.

Would the agency have the power or the inclimation to deal with them?

The answer  comes in several highly-critical comments  by readers of Inside Housing, the influential  magazine for social housing which published the agency`s review.

Here is one of those reader`s comments;”This review makes my blood boil. Our complaint was dismissed by the agency and we now realise that the main focus of this useless organisation is to dismiss complaints.

“Is it any wonder that housing associations do as they damn well please?”

The Homes and Communities Agency  promises to mend its ways.

In masterly  gobbledegook it explains:”Action has been taken to improve online signposting for tenants and work continues on wider promotion of understanding.”

Yes... you couldn`t make it up.