Council housing : you only get the investment if you vote to privatise your estate

[kyser_soze]

I'm assuming that ALMOs are private, profit making companies?

Cos I'd have thought that devolving control to tenants while maintaining landlord status would be a fairly good way of going about this.

Other than that I think my views and opinions on social housng are well known...i.e. there isn't enough of it, the money from RTB should be reinvested in building more, private developers should have harder planning gain requirements placed on them, estates should be given the option of becoming self managing when it comes to stuff like general maintainance, with oversight and auditing carried out by the LA.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

I'm assuming that ALMOs are private, profit making companies?

Cos I'd have thought that devolving control to tenants while maintaining landlord status would be a fairly good way of going about this.

Tenants reps on ALMO boards have to take on the responsibilities similar to those of company directors.

Their responsibilty is primarily towards those of the interests of the company, not those of tenants. There is an obvious conflict of interest there.

Tenants reps are outnumbered by non-tenants on the board also.

 

[kyser_soze]

So ALMOs are profit-making companies, yes? I had a feeling that was the case.

The only people on the board of such companies should be tenants and other locals. And they should be legislated to be not-for-profit organisations.

*wanders off into cloude cuckoo land*

 

[Fozzie Bear]

So ALMOs are profit-making companies, yes? I had a feeling that was the case.

Yes. Sorry, I should have made the clearer.

 

[kyser_soze]

Thanks mate. I'm now going to leave the thread cos I'll just get pointlessly wound up about it but anyone want me to sign owt/call people/throw fake bricks let me know

 

[William of Walworth]

Real bricks??

 

[kyser_soze]

*shifty looks*get yer 300 fer a monkey mate.

I don't *do* vandalism anymore...altho I have driven thru Chelsea and Knightsbridge on a few occassions and thought 'Would deflating all the tyres on these 4x4s be *that* bad a thing? In fact, would slashing the tyres really be *that* bad'

Then I remember I'm 31 and behave like an adult

 

[cockneyrebel]

It's disgusting what is happening.

Link here to an article in Workers Power:

Council housing: a thing of the past?

 

[stevendurrant]

Councils DELIBERATELY mislead tennants with propaganda.

They give the impression that the 3 or 4 options are for the tennants.

This is a lie. The council chooses and gives you a vote on what they decide with the execs of who-knows-what inc.

If you vote "no" they make you vote again or gerrymander your voting area.

It's democracy Neo-Labour styles.

The Labour Party wants all council housing flogged off by around 2007

We're up against it, but all we can do is keep campaigning for no votes.

Defend Council Housing are excellent, but we need more solidarity and activity among local groups.

I'm too busy with election stuff right now :-(

But I went to a Manchester meeting setting up a group called People-not-Profits (which is against PFI etc as well) which was very promising

 

[umi]

for those that are interested, this is Austins responce to a critical letter of his column.



I’m sorry Jim Coulter (16 March) finds my modest article to be “glossy propaganda”. It’s nothing like as glossy as the brochures, videos and paid celebrity endorsements shoved through tenant letter boxes in stock transfer ballots.

He says I shouldn’t call transfers privatisation. Yet if giving away the housing stock to a private company bound by the Companies Act and financed by and answerable to the banking sector isn’t privatisation, he should provide a better word for it. Charitable donations?

I don’t say the “easy profits” will go back to the housing associations. Nor will they go back to the community which made the initial investment. However, the financial industry built up to exploit this nice little earner will do well out of it so will RSL top management, whose pay is moving up to fat cat levels.

I’m not opposing stock transfer on ideological grounds. That’s the ground it’s being pushed on. I merely oppose it as daft, divisive, wasteful and unnecessary. There are better ways of bringing private capital into social housing than giving it all away. There are also better things to do to give social housing the huge boost it needs to provide for the rapidly increasing numbers of people who can’t afford to be first time buyers than an irrelevant fight over who owns the deckchairs on our Housing Titanic.

Jim misunderstands my attitude to housing associations. Many are excellent. So are many councils. All would benefit from tough regulation but if Jim misunderstands them as wilfully as he misunderstood my article then I can see why he thinks his feather duster regulation is “tough”.

Yours faithfully


AUSTIN MITCHELL

 

[exosculate]

Its all about borrowing and how much you're allowed to borrow against future rental streams.

Of the four options all allow extra borrowing apart from the inhouse option. This is because the in house borrowing is considered as part of the PSBR which the government wants to keep down. They could just amend the regs to free Local Authorities as they have done in Germany and hey presto PSBR is no longer an issue, but for ideological reasons they won't and hence the stay in house option is immediately disadvantaged. Its like tying someones hands behind their back and then wondering why they cant do handstands.

 

[exosculate]

Because it is a fundamental change in landlord the legislation forces Local Authorities to ballot their tenants.

But the EU factor is in operation here i.e you keep balloting until you get the 'right' answer and then you never ballot again. Its a one way ballot street.

 

[treelover]

'But I went to a Manchester meeting setting up a group called People-not-Profits (which is against PFI etc as well) which was very promising


Steve any more info on them

 

[treelover]

ah just googled, ex SA/SP etc by look of it.

http://www.socialistunitynetwork.co.uk/voices/breathe.htm

 

[belboid]

Its all about borrowing and how much you're allowed to borrow against future rental streams.

Of the four options all allow extra borrowing apart from the inhouse option. This is because the in house borrowing is considered as part of the PSBR which the government wants to keep down.

Actually, I think ALMO borrowing would still count against PSBR as well! Insufficently distanced from the public sector 'proper' I believe. Which justs adds another level of farce to the whole situation.

 

[belboid]

ah just googled, ex SA/SP etc by look of it.

http://www.socialistunitynetwork.co.uk/voices/breathe.htm

yeah that's right I think. There's a group in Liverpool as well as Mancs I believe.

 

[treelover]

ah well, onwards and upwards...

 

[exosculate]

Actually, I think ALMO borrowing would still count against PSBR as well! Insufficently distanced from the public sector 'proper' I believe. Which justs adds another level of farce to the whole situation.

Not as I currently understand it - that is the main grounds for transfer as I have been told anyway. If you're right it is absolutely farcical. What makes you think that?

 

[belboid]

something I read about a year and a half ago when they were selling off some of the Sheffield homes. I'll see if I can find the docs, but as far as I remember it was because the revenue was still paid to the council, just indirectly (that that was the case was the major selling point for ALMO's when they went through a couple of months ago - that tenants would still be with 'the council')

 

[exosculate]

something I read about a year and a half ago when they were selling off some of the Sheffield homes. I'll see if I can find the docs, but as far as I remember it was because the revenue was still paid to the council, just indirectly (that that was the case was the major selling point for ALMO's when they went through a couple of months ago - that tenants would still be with 'the council')

Yes the stock is still owned by the Council but the management is privatised, so the accounting is private. I understood the private management aspect would make it exempt from PSBR.

 

[William of Walworth]

The Labour Party wants all council housing flogged off by around 2007

We're up against it, but all we can do is keep campaigning for no votes.

Fully in agreement, but I think 90% of the emphasis of blame should lie with Nu Layblair in Central Government. At local level, yes, some councils/councillors are going along with these enforced 'choices' to a greater or lesser degree of enthusiasm -- at least some councillors, I know, co-operate in this way because they are desparate to rid their very cash strapped councils of the responsibility of maintaining crumbling estates, and this is the only way the see the money forthcoming, because as Austin Mothell and Defend Council Housing point out, any Govt. money comes with very tight privatising stings attached. This post isn't an excuse for those councils, more an explanation ...

 

[William of Walworth]

Thee's no way they'll succeed in flogging it ALL off by 2007 anyway ....

 

[exosculate]

Thee's no way they'll succeed in flogging it ALL off by 2007 anyway ....

In some areas tenants will never vote yes, so unless they impose it there will still be LA housing for sometime to come.

 

[belboid]

in those places they'll just run the estates down until the only 'solutions' are demolition or privatisation (to get the necessary repair funds in). That's what they've done here anyway.

 

[exosculate]

in those places they'll just run the estates down until the only 'solutions' are demolition or privatisation (to get the necessary repair funds in). That's what they've done here anyway.

Forgive my directness here, and please ignore this question if you don't want to answer - but roughly speaking where do you live?

 

[belboid]

Sheffield.

Just been looking for the PSBR stuff (now re-named PSNCR apparently, dunno what it means) and the only governemt docs I can see are very vague on the question.

 

[sacx]

i'd echo marty21's comments - individual housing officers have no effect over policy. only collective action can make a difference - both amongst tenants, and amongst h.a. & council housing workers.

under my h.a. the same problems recur all the time, but the way the complaints procedure works means every tenant has to go through the hoops every time things fuck up, no matter how many other tenants the same thing affects. there's a tame tenant's forum, but naturally it's paid for and under the aegis of the h.a. - and starting tenant's organisations across the whole h.a. from scratch would be a mammoth task. and then - what about tenants of other h.a.'s? and council tenants?

it's a perfect situation for the privatisers - an atomised, low income 'customer base'.

h.a. and council tenants need to share information, experience and the struggle to preserve social housing, because whoever our landlord is, we face the same problems: poorer services, rent rises and the breaking up of our communities.

Well I can only give my opinion of housing officers and I've always found them to generally be ineffectual at best and downright small minded reactionary petty bureaucrats normally

There's also a danger of seeing local authority housing through rose tinted specs. My experience of council housing before the right to buy was of drab estates with every front door painted the same colour. If you were lucky enough to have a front garden you were given the regulation 4 rose bushes and not expected to change it. If you lived in a high rise you got dirty, dark, piss stenched lifts and hallways, waste disposal that never worked and fungus coming through the floors, walls and ceilings.

Rather than arguing for more local state, or private control, why not argue for cooperative housing, with tenant self management and real control over the immediate environment?
http://cch.coop/coopinfo/index.html



ps. It's out of print now but if you ever come across a second hand copy of Colin Ward's "When We Build Again" I'd recommend it.

 

[exosculate]

Well I can only give my opinion of housing officers and I've always found them to generally be ineffectual at best and downright small minded reactionary petty bureaucrats normally

There's also a danger of seeing local authority housing through rose tinted specs. My experience of council housing before the right to buy was of drab estates with every front door painted the same colour. If you were lucky enough to have a front garden you were given the regulation 4 rose bushes and not expected to change it. If you lived in a high rise you got dirty, dark, piss stenched lifts and hallways, waste disposal that never worked and fungus coming through the floors, walls and ceilings.

Rather than arguing for more local state, or private control, why not argue for cooperative housing, with tenant self management and real control over the immediate environment?
http://cch.coop/coopinfo/index.html



ps. It's out of print now but if you ever come across a second hand copy of Colin Ward's "When We Build Again" I'd recommend it.

How many housing officers have you met? What a ridiculous generalisation.

Underfunding has been around for a very long time, its just getting worse, it hasn't been adequate for a long time. How exactly has RTB changed underfunding etc?

I'm with you on the tenant involvement stuff, but its already a possibility if a majority of tenants vote for it - under the right to manage aspect of the Secure tenancies legislation.

Colin Ward is excellent - no argument with your last statement.

 

[audiotech]

How many housing officers have you met? What a ridiculous generalisation.

I've met quite a few and I concur with sacx. Not all of course.

 

[exosculate]

Sheffield.

Just been looking for the PSBR stuff (now re-named PSNCR apparently, dunno what it means) and the only governemt docs I can see are very vague on the question.

Oops sorry the acronyms changed, funny how you get used to them.

I think your analysis is correct for large urban cities, although as I understand it, some authorities are in much better financial shape, usually the smaller authorities (and as such more viable under existing conditions), unfortunately they are increasingly moving to LSVT because they are in the best position to do so.