OSBORNE`S HOUSING ASSOCIATiON SELL-OFF "COULD BE FATAL"

Carol Matthews,

Annie Graham,

and letters

to Santa

Just like children waiting for Christmas...tenants and leaseholders cannot wait for next week`s Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. So much depends on what George Osborne has in store that speculation about it seems endless.

CAROL MATTHEWS... presents for her?

Santa Osborne will have big presents in his Statement for the lucky few, depending on your political viewpoint. But what about the unlucky few, the struggling?

What about housing boss Carol Matthews, far from struggling personally on her lavish salary, but her organisation struggles, too bossy, far from efficient, and accountable to no one? And what about Annie Graham, one of Carol Matthews`s forgotten tenants in Longtown (near Carlisle)? What sort of presents will Santa Osborne have for  her?

Ms Matthews is Chief Executive of the giant Liverpool-based Riverside Housing Association which is now struggling to cope with a government blitz - some call it a government vendetta- along with other housing associations, as Santa Osborne decides what presents he has for them.

Or has he any presents? The forecast is not good for housing associations. There may be no presents. Santa Osborne  may become Scrooge Osborne, or  someone even more sinister.

Annie Grahan is a widow  in her seventies, struggling, as she has been for four long winters. Her struggle is  with her Riverside heating boiler which like many others is dodgy, and the sky-high energy bills of £4,000 which it produces for her small flat in Moor Road.

ANNIE GRAHAM...she dreads £4,000 energy bills

Annie dreads these bills and worries incessantly because she cannot afford them. Sadly, the forecast for Annie, like  the forecast for Ms. Matthews, is not good.

So what happens now  for the two strugglers in the week that is  left  until the Chancellor`s Autumn Statement on November 25?

Struggling Ms Matthews is cautiously hopeful. She has written what might be called a letter to Santa Osborne telling him what presents she would like in her stocking on Christmas Day. Her letter was an article in the social housing journal, Inside Housing, much of which was reprinted recently in an earlier post on this blog .

The article  attempted to fend off the  government attacks with  some new ideas to change housing associations.

No letter to Santa from the struggling Annie Graham. But ”kind neighbours” this week held  what might be called a pre-Christmas get - together with friendly council bosses to see what can be done about  her boiler and all the sixty other dodgy Riverside boilers in Longtown houses and elsewhere, and the vicious £4,000 bills that go with them.

The “kind neighbours” are two officials of Longtown Action for Heat, a community group which was formed to fight for justice for Annie and all the other tenants condemned to live with Riverside`s dodgy boilers.

The two, Jimmy Robb and Tim Hall spent more than an hour pressing Annie`s case and that of the others at a meeting with Councillor Colin Glover, Leader of Carlisle City Council and two of his senior colleagues.

The councillors promised to do what they could to help.

And what about that that speculation  about George Osborne`s Autumn Statement? The speculation follows a report in the Financial Times that Mr. Osborne  has his eye on £44 billion in government grants made to housing associations over the years.

The Chancellor wants to get hold of this money and privatise it in a massive Thatcher-style sell-off to the public, says the Financial Times

SINEAD BUTTERS..."our existence under threat"

Housing association bosses have warned that if Mr Osborne`s  sell-off  took place, it would damage their ability to build homes and also undermine their historic social purpose.

One of them, Sinead Butters, chief executive of  the Newcastle-under-Lyme based Aspire associaton said:“Should  the sell-off actually happen,  it will be the latest in a series of  government policy changes that rock the housing association sector to its very core, threatening our existence.”

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

NICOLA STURGEON BOOSTS HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS

Carol Matthews

and a call

for tenants`

`freedom...`

Another storm is brewing for the beleaguered Carol Matthews struggling with a government attack on housing associations. 

Nicola Sturgeon...more freedom

Now comes an attack from Scotland.

Nicola Sturgeon`s Scottish  government wants more freedom for the tenants and leaseholders of housing associations. That freedom is very much in short supply here in England.

The freedom news comes this week in an announcement that Scottish housing associations are set to become subject to Freedom of Information(FOI) laws.The associations include  the  giant Liverpool-based Riverside Housing Association whose chief executive is Ms Matthews.

Riverside owns  the Irvine Housing Associaton in Strathclyde covering much of south west Scotland, and extending to the English border at Gretna. Irvine Housing Association is a subsidiary of Riverside  and owns 2,100  of Riverside`s total of more than 50,000 properties.

The freedom news is a worry for Ms. Matthews, particularly as the Irvine Association area is  next door to her troubled Carlisle area and its 6,000 properties- the Irvine area`s Gretna boundary is just a mile or two from Longtown  with its well-publicised Riverside heating fiasco of ice box properties. This fiasco is  dragging unresolved  into a  fourth winter.

Peter Howden....worried

The freedom news is also a worry in Scotland because of  the expense involved.Peter Howden, chair of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations put it this way:“ 

We’re worried about associations being dragged into time-consuming and expensive processes to deal with FOI requests,”

“Compliance with the bureaucratic FOI procedures can divert staff away from providing services to tenants. It also means more of tenants’ money going to lawyers as associations take advice on matters such as what is and isn’t covered by FOI.”

The beleaguered Ms Matthews has enough on her plate already to tackle this new layer of expensive  bureaucracy, particulary faced with the increasing Whitehall attacks and her forecast of a massive £100 million  loss of income in the next four years.

So, what now?

Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation has this to say to the beleagred  Ms Matthews:

·     Riverside has had four years to get the Longtown problems

   sorted and the tenants there are still suffering.

·        

   After `13 years, leaseholders in Carlisle are still struggling  to cope with with Riverside`s incomprehensive expenses` tangle.

·       

   Scottish Freedom of Information is a big new Riverside worry.

·     

    How many years will Riverside take to get Scottish Freedom of Information sorted?

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

CAMERON VENDETTA AGAINST HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS?

Carol Matthews

and a housing

association that

may be sold off

The gathering storm over housing associations threatens to engulf them completely.

A couple of weeks ago, housing association boss Carol Matthews was saying that she  wanted  some changes as it was estimated £100 million would be lost by her organisation in the next four years.

She said she wished to articulate a new vision for her association.

Sadly, the Government has a different vision to articulate. Mrs Matthews now faces the possibility that her feet will be swept from under her amid today`s speculation that the government plans to sell off all housing associations.

Or it may nationalise them.

The speculation has led to a very worrying week for Ms Matthews, Chief Executive of  the Liverpool-based Riverside Housing Association and to the other associations,

At the end of the week their worst fears were realised. An Office for National  Statistics review  concluded that English housing associations are   now part of the public sector, sparking  worries  that the government would  now seek to limit or control the borrowing of the associations, according to the well-informed  social housing magazine, Inside Housing.

This reclassification would remove a potential barrier to the government nationalising associations, Inside Housing added.

The week of shocks started with the revelation by Nick Clegg(left) that five years ago the Liberal Democrats in the coalition government talked the Conservatives out of cutting social housing rents.

The former Liberal Democrat leader, in a newspaper column  said that while in government he managed to stop the Conservatives from “fiddling with social housing rents to reduce the benefit bill”.

He said this would have had a “disastrous effect on the ability of housing associations to raise money to build new homes”.

Mr Clegg said the Liberal Democrats had agreed to a cut in rents, as long as associations were given a clear guarantee of rent levels for the next 15 years. He said: “Within weeks of assuming power this year the Conservatives tore up that ‘guarantee’, undermining [housing associations’] financial stability.”

There was an apparent government vendetta against housing associations, said Mr Clegg .

As the week went on, and more restrictive government measures were announced, Emma Maier (below)  the editor of Inside Housing had this to say:

"This government`s approach could probably best be described as `system disruption`:forcing change by tearing up the rule book and throwing the pages in nthe air so that, at the very least, they land in a different order. It is destructive and undoubtedly painful for landlords and tenants"

That is true. But is this sort of system disruption anything new to Ms. Mathews` leaseholders and tenants? It is not new.

Ms. Matthews should reflect on this as she struggles with the Government`s system disruption, tearing up the rule book and throwing pages in the air.  She should  remember the behaviour of her own organization a dozen years ago.

At that time, Riverside swept into Carlisle to take over the city`s 7,000 former council homes, armed with exactly that policy of system disruption and tearing up the rule book.

A new bossy Riverside regime was installed, tenant groups and long-established community groups were dumped and their supporting grants withdrawn.

Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation which was one of the groups targeted and threatened by Riverside at the time, has been fighting against  Riverside`s authoritarian regime ever since.

To the struggling Ms Matthews fighting against the government`s gathering storm over housing associations the federation says this:

Now, you are getting a taste of what your organisation has been dishing out for years. 

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