20-minute question time not democracy as I know it

• HOW can HfI board member Jessie White say “Residents do have direct access to board members at each board meeting. Residents are able to come and ask questions or raise concerns and the board will investigate”?

I have attended these meetings as a leaseholder with questions to ask and have found them intimidating. The public sit at one end of a large room with board members around a huge table some distance away.

Questions can only be asked in the first 20 minutes of the meeting, which starts at 6.30pm – not a good time for people who work or people with families. The meetings take place at Highbury House, down a dark side road, with no passing public transport whereas it’s obvious they should be in the Town Hall, which is known to everyone.

Quite often questions are not answered at the board meetings. Instead, the poor old tenant/leaseholder is sent home with the promise of a written reply. Not democracy as I know it.

VICKI LEONARD
Director, Islington Leaseholders Association

• JESSIE White said there was a 20-minute slot at HfI board meetings when residents could raise questions. However, HfI guidelines state such questions must relate to “strategic and operational functions” while “individual cases will not be heard at the meeting” and must be dealt with in writing to the governance team.  

From her own experience as an activist, Jessie must know how intimidating it is for many tenants to take their case to a board meeting or in writing to the governance team. That is why I suggest directors should hold surgeries.

Council tenants and leaseholders have experienced a prolonged programme of major works. I cannot recall one occasion where HfI directors came to visit our tenants’ association to find out how the works were going, or what we wanted. Yes, directors do make visits but meeting tenants without the protective cloak of HfI minders isn’t on the agenda. 

I fail to see how resident directors, and especially Jessie as a former chair of the Federation of Islington Tenants’ Associations, could so readily accept the withdrawal of its grant, the reduction in housing panels and the introduction of unrepresentative focus groups. HfI has been sidelining traditional resident involvement. Much of its policy has been designed to sideline Brian Potter, despite his regularly being re-elected as chair by tenants and leaseholders groups. This is no way to organise a coherent consultation with residents.

HfI’s governance code has deliberately turned resident directors from activists into compliant team players whose first loyalty is to the company. 

RICHARD ROSSER
Homes for Islington residents director, 2004-2006