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Islington Tribune - by PETER GRUNER
Published: 3 October 2008

Homes three-star rating ‘massaged’

A ROW erupted this week over claims that Islington’s housing organisation was guilty of “money wasting” in its bid to gain prestigious three-star status.
Homes for Islington (HfI), which manages council houses, is accused of paying £40,000 for a “mock” inspection to look at ways of beefing up its service after receiving two stars from the government following an appraisal in November last year.
It appealed to the government’s Audit Commission to up its grading before finally gaining three-star “excellent” status this month.
HfI then paid more than 1,000 employees £125 each as a thank-you.But tenants’ and leaseholders‘ leader Brian Potter has accused the organisation of winning the upgrading by default rather than merit.
Mr Potter, chairman of the Federation of Islington Tenants’ Associations, said: “I believe the three-star results have been massaged. HfI have got a long way to go before they are excellent. Most tenants and leaseholders would agree.”
Thomas Cooper, another tenant representative, said he could point to a number of defects and desperately needed repairs on his Hilldrop estate in Holloway.
He added: “Since autumn 2007 a significant number of lights in our block do not work at night. This has been reported several times.
“I have also taken photographs of hazardous disrepair over months and years which remains unresolved.”
HfI chief executive Eamon McGoldrick said the use of mock inspections was perfectly normal when considering ways of improving service. He added: “To put it in context, our management fee is about £45million a year. That £40,000 spent is less than 0.1 per cent of that fee.”
Paying staff £125 was an important way of saying thank-you for their involvement, he said. “We’ve saved over £4million over the past four years thanks in part to staff suggestions, changes and agreeing to cut backs,” he added.

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