Beware, ballot could transfer your home to a new company

Published: 8 October, 2010

• INITIALLY, I found it quite confusing to hear that Councillor Terry Stacy is now advocating the rapid demise of Homes for Islington (HfI), the very body that his Lib Dem administration defended vociferously as good value for money.

However, this seeming change of heart begins to make sense when viewed with the eye of experience.

By suggesting a ballot, Cllr Stacy may not intend that HfI should be closed. 

A ballot, on the contrary, may enable HfI to metamorphose into its next stage of development. 

Ballots can be tweaked to direct the outcome, especially with a low number of replies.

In order to divest themselves of council housing, councils are required by law to hold a tenants’ ballot on the subject.

Cllr Stacy’s proposition for a ballot regarding the immediate future of HfI – if it supplies the required vote to retain HfI – could be used to justify large-scale stock transfer... as the popular choice of tenants.

As most of us are now aware, the devil will lie in the precise wording of any such ballot.

Unless we are extremely vigilant, HfI’s final form could result in an independent, property owning organisation… involving the transfer of the housing portfolio to the ownership of a new company.

It is to be hoped council tenants and leaseholders will see beyond the smoke and mirrors and refuse a costly ballot, and demand that their council housing is returned to where it rightly belongs… under direct council management.

DR BS POTTER
Chairman, Federation of Islington Tenants’ Associations, Islington Leaseholders’ Association

• OVER the years we have seen HfI reduce area panels, cut the Federation of Islington Tenants’ Associations (FITA) and Islington Leaseholders’ Association (ILA).

It has increasingly distanced itself from any meaningful dialogue with elected housing reps. 

Instead, it has turned to unelected focus panels.

The directors of HfI give a lot of time to the job but, as far as I know, they still don’t hold surgeries as do councillors. 

If HfI has in any way let residents turn a spotlight on the management of our housing it has been because people have complained loud and long through the local press about its many failings.

You report that the “Axe may be poised to fall on housing agency” (September 24).

Before any shouts of joy we must make sure there is a clear commitment to restoring and increasing levels of resident input into the running of our homes.

This means ensuring the concept of elected resident reps sitting on the council’s housing committee is maintained, with a clear mandate to be reps. Residents should be consulted before decisions are made about their housing, not given so-called consultation after key decisions have been taken.

The old housing panels, FITA and ILA must be reinstated. Residents must have a clear route to meaningful consultation.

There will be little point in abolishing HfI if our housing remains cloaked under bureaucratic paperwork whereby issues get lost in secret council meetings.

Let us not forget that it is tenants and leaseholders who pay the bills.  We do not get our housing at the whim of our landlord. We pay for it and we should have a real say in running it. 

RICHARD ROSSER
Highbury New Park, N5

• SURELY it is time for a government inquiry into HfI’s use of contractors.

We have seen the Audit Commission report say that Islington Council’s contract monitoring is inadequate; Pricewaterhouse­Coopers discovered missing millions; the Office of Fair Trading fined nine Islington contractors for price rigging; the council’s internal audit gave a grade of “no assurance” for having an ineffective management; and the anti-fraud unit discovered duplicate payments to contractors.

Residents are paying for this shambles.

It is time for accountability.

The council has full liability for HfI as it employs it, funds it, monitors it and has a veto of its actions.

Should we go the same way as Hammersmith and Fulham and say goodbye to HfI?

PJ LEAMY
Address supplied