MANAGERS TO GO BACK TO COLLEGE

 

Gove`s new law to tame rogue housing

Congratulations to Housing Minister Michael Gove (pictured) for introducing a new law that will require managers and executives employed by social landlords to obtain professional qualifications. This is the biggest reform to professional standards in the social  housing sector’s history.

 The changes will mean about 25,000 housing staff going back to college, and will change the way staff are trained and recruited in the social housing sector.

Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation which publishes this blog has campaigned for nearly a quarter  of a century to get better professional standards in social housing,

particularly the Liverpool based giant organisation, Riverside Housing Association.

Better standards seemed to be the last thing Riverside has  sought to achieve over the years.  Complaints about these standards by tenants and by the federation achieved nothing because Riverside  had no care about such things. . Riverside is accountable only to itself

The  planned  law is primarily a response to the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 and concerns that the building was not adequately managed by its landlord, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea , and its management body, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation .. 

But then came the inquest into the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak in a housing association home in Rochdale. The verdict  was that his death was caused by serious damp and mould in his home which went unaddressed for two years.

The verdict led to a significant hardening of the rhetoric from Michael Gove, the housing secretary towards rogue housing in the sector. 

This, of course, follows two years of revelations about poor repairs performance, and an increasingly active Housing Ombudsman publicising the failures it investigates.

  Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52

THE UNCARING WORLD OF AUTOMATIC MACHINES

 No charity

 in this big bank

account

Today`s callous disregard  for people by big business seems to be much worse than the uncaring  world of automatic machines that newspaper reader Ina Grassie oulines this week in the Cumberland and Westmorland Herald.

 Another  Herald reader says:”One of the high street banks recently sent me a form to complete saying they  had a string of questions needing answers about a charity account I help to run. It comprised several sheets and was a bit like an income tax form. It took nearly half a day to complete.

“More  than a month later they contacted me  again by letter saying they needed more information and would I ring them.

“Then came a bossy Big Brother bit.

 “Not only did they want me to ring them, they insisted on my ringing them within a week otherwise they would close the account..

“Charming, I thought.

“Naturally, I wanted to keep the account open so I wasted no time in trying to get in touch. Little did I  realise the  impossibility of getting in touch . I spent an hour on the phone but there was no reply.

“The following day I spent another hour on the phone and there was still no reply This went on for a week and while I can say that I have had dozens of recorded messages  from the bank  apologising  for what they called “delays in answering” I have still not had a  single reply to what I estmate  must have been something like seven hours on the phone.

“Meanwhile  my phone bill must have shot up to goodness knows  how much,  the bank account has been closed and I am furious.

“ Of course I have complained by letter and I shall contact  the bank ombudsman and possibly  put the story on Facebook.

“But who cares?

“I am sure the bank doesn`t.”

 Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 5222

 

 

RESEARCH BACKS HOUSING CAMPAIGNERS` CONCERNS

 Riverside

tenant concerns get short shrift

 New research backs up what  campaigning group Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation was up against in its long fight against the giant Riverside Housing Association and its continued failures.

 The research shows that overall tenant satisfaction has dropped by five percentage points to 79% since 2020 in an analysis of sector’s performance against new tenant satisfaction measures.

The  research is by data firm Housemark. It shows for the first time how landlords are performing against the Regulator of Social Housing’s (RSH) new tenant satisfaction measures (TSMs). 

Data firm HouseMark...a trade stand.

 The research also found that only 56% of tenants are satisfied with their landlord’s complaint-handling.

The data, which involves more than 100 landlords, comes ahead of the official launch of TSMs in April.

Housemark’s report  said that for the past 12 years, the English social housing sector has seen “little scrutiny” of the services it provides residents since the closure of the Tenant Services Authority, a government body that was scrapped in 2010 in the so-called ‘bonfire of the quangos’.

The Grenfell Tower disaster, which claimed the lives of 72 people in June 2017, was the catalyst for a major overhaul of regulation of the sector.

The resulting Social Housing Regulation Bill, due to receive royal assent this year, brings in a host of changes to the law, including a beefed up Housing Ombudsman and RSH

Many years prior to the Grenfell disaster, the   campaigning group Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation had been attacking  Liverpool-based Riverside as a grossly-inefficient organisation which is accountable  to no one but itsself.

"Tenant concerns get short shrift from Riverside", said a federation spokesman. 

"What HouseMark has unearthed is not very different to what we have been saying for two decades", the spokesman added

    Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 5222

 

CONSPIRCY OF SILENCE BY RISHY AND KIER

 

Home truths from The Times

newspaper

Home ownership is now out of the reach of too many Britons. It is well past time for Rishi Sunak and Sir Kier Starmer to get serious about housebuilding”, says The Times newspaper in an editorial this week.

The editorial goes on “Home ownership was once a  rite of passage for Britain`s aspirational young. It should be  again.

 “Even the first government of Ramsay MacDonald (pictured) managed in its ten unremarkable months in office to set in train a major programme    of housebuilding.

“Nearly a century on voters are instead confronted with a conspiracy of silence by the prime minister and his likely successor.

“They will reward the man to tackle vested interests and get Britain building again”

   Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 5222

END THIS FAILURE OF TENANTS SAYS MICHAEL GOVE

 

Rishy attack on rubbishy housing 

bodies

New Year 2023 and a new start for social housing is getting underway as the Rishy Sunak government  is on the attack

There is a warning for rubbishy housing associations that their failures must end. There is new hope for tenants getting together. And there is optimism for the future of social housing from the author of a new book tracing past successes of  council estates.

The warning follows criticism by the Housing Ombudsman of Clarion, the UK’s largest housing association, for its “unacceptable” handling of a resident’s request to be removed from a tenancy.

Maladministration was also found in the landlord’s complaint-handling.

Clarion was also handed severe maladministration notices in April, May and July this year and was the subject of a wider investigation by the ombudsman.

In response to the latest findings,Michael Gove the housing secretary said: “Once again, Clarion has failed its tenants and refused to treat people with respect.

“This must end. After four maladministration notices in one year, I am now considering appropriate action.

”The new hope for tenants came when more than 250  from across England met last week for the launch of a panel to improve the quality of social housing

The new panel will ensure social housing tenants will no longer be “denied a voice”, according to  Michael Gove, speaking ahead of its first session .

The government said in March that it was launching the Social Housing Quality Resident Panel.

It forms part of a series of reforms, including the newSocisl Housing Regulation Bill to improve tenant engagement and the regulation of the social housing sector in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire.

 Optimism about the future comes from the social housing historian,Mr John Boughton (pictured) speaking about his new book, A History of Council Housing in 100 Estates.

Having tracked this history, how does Mr Boughton feel about the future?  He  told the social housing magazine Inside Housing:”There are reasons for optimism, but also – when you consider how far we have fallen from the days when one in three people lived in secure council housing and the stilted progress in so many areas despite a century of work – reasons for despair.

 “It’s easy to be caught in the immediate political moment when there’s no reason to be positive whatsoever. But councils want to build. And I do think we are moving forward, moving to an era where public housing is going to be more important, more valued, better understood as a necessary component of a mixed economy of housing.”

"One of the best ways to understand this is to simply look around at the estates that have risen from the ground over the past 100 years and the enormous role they played in increasing the living standards of the millions who have passed through them in that time".

Mr Boughton’s  book is a vital record of that.

 Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 5222