OSBORNE RENEWS ASSAULT ON HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS

  

Riverside  boss

Dean Butterworth

`wants to 

have his 

cake and eat it`

The sensational resignation of the work and pensions secretary Mr Iain Duncan Smith got the headlines today as the repecussions of this week`s Budget continued.

Housing associations, still reeling from last year`s attacks by the Chancellor George Osborne have been assaulted again.

The finances of the associations are likely to be hit by the Budget in the same way that they were hit last year, say the experts.

More sleepless nights  therefore for Ms Carol Matthews,  boss of the Liverpool - based Riverside Housing Association.

Last year Ms Matthews complained publicly about her  long spells spent lying awake at nights worrying about her association`s  £1OO  million black hole caused by the  Chancellor`s attacks.
 

As  Ms Matthews reaches for  more  mugs of Horlicks or gets  her  doctor to prescribe more sleeping tablets  there are  other worries building up and more sleepless nights in prospect.

These new worries  concern one of  her regional directors, Mr Dean Butterworth who runs Riverside`s 6,000 homes in Carlisle.

Chief Executive Officer  Ms Matthews gave Mr Butterworth the Carlisle job following the resignation of Mr Patrick Leonard. He was the Carlisle boss who considered he could do his Riverside regional director`s job and at the same time be Cumbria Police and Crime Commissioner.

Mr Butterworth  up to now in his two years in Carlisle has not shown such outrageously bad judgement . But in those two years, there have been  bad Riverside judgements, some of them outrageous.
  
Carlisle City Council considered it outrageous for Riverside to  withdraw key aspects of its vital Careline telephone support service for the city`s elderly and vulnerable.

 It was also outrageous that the city council was not consulted about that decision.

It was also outrageous last year that Mr Butterworth   was unable  to give councillors the name of a firm he himself had recently commissioned to do a report on Riverside`s  dodgy  boilers in 60 of its Longtown properties. 

And it was outrageous that Mr Butterworth made dodgy statements to the same councillors about the independence of Riverside`s so- called  scrutiny  arrangements.

Following all of that and the bad publicity that followed, Mr Butterworth hit back at his critics. In July last year, he decided to ban his leading critic, Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation, from all future contact with his Riverside organisation.

Now out of the blue, he is back in contact with  the Federation .

He wants to use the Federation once again. He has sent emails asking for help with his suffering Longtown tenants and help with relations with the public about the issue.

What a turn-up!  What is going on?

The shocked Federation held a special  committee meeting. It  decided that Mr Butterworth cannot have his cake and eat it. Members decided to tell him  that banning the Federation and then seven months later asking  the Federation for help is ridiculous. 

Just as ridiculous as  his  predecessor Mr Leonard wanting to run a housing association and be be police commissioner at the same time.

This is what the Federation email said:

"The Longtown heating problems caused by Riverside`s dodgy boilers have now lasted for more than four years. This is  far far more than ample time for solving the problems. 

“Your  recent emails to the Federation asking for additional appeals to the tenants to contact the Ombudsman are needlessly repetitive of previous appeals made years ago and are  pure window dressing  to impress local authority critics.

”Your emails were an attempt to again delay a solution to the Longtown  problems caused by Riverside.  As such, your emails are a cause of further  suffering for  the tenants"

 
Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 522277 or 01228 532803.