the other thing I was also told is that their "electoral roll" was 20 years out of date! what's been going on?
Lambeth Council tenant? Had your ALMO vote paper yet?
- Thread starter ViolentPanda
- Start date
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
The ALMO ballot sounds quite similar to the sorts of surveys conducted by the Peabody Trust: the decision has already been taken higher up and the survey is done to give a veneer of consultation to the exercise. They closed our estate offices and nowhere on the q'aire was there a question asking us if we wanted to retain the estate offices.
Don't let Lambeth off the hook!
Don't let Lambeth off the hook!
aurora green
Tectonic
nino_savatte said:
What can we do though? We've been stuffed.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
aurora green said:
I keep thinking "judicial review" but I have a feeling that that avenue has been closed off.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
I thought it was friday 27th, but it looks like I was wrong.guinnessdrinker said:
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
aurora green said:
Depends.
I'm wondering if the editor's experience is unique, or if a significant number of tenants didn't receive their papers.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
nino_savatte said:I keep thinking "judicial review" but I have a feeling that that avenue has been closed off.
At 51% for, 49% against, the amount of tenants not receiving their ballot papers could be VERY significant.
Onket
Je suis [CONTENT REMOVED]
Lambeth are currently a one star council. The way that the scoring system works means that they only have to improve one scoring area for a possible jump straight to 3 stars.
I forget which area it is but most of the others are 3 or 4 stars and the overall score given is the score for the lowest scoring area.
I'm not sure if that's explained very well though, actually.
I forget which area it is but most of the others are 3 or 4 stars and the overall score given is the score for the lowest scoring area.
I'm not sure if that's explained very well though, actually.
guinnessdrinker said:
Thats a stretch to believe, even for Lambeth. There's no way their electoral roll has not been updated in the last twenty, that would be illegal under various Representation of the People Acts surely, or similar Acts? (langrabbie would know??)
If Lambeth or other parties have been using an out of date electoral roll (have they??), then that should surely be challengeable legally.
aurora green said:
I doubt it. This 'result' looks so open to legal challenges on multiple grounds!!
Contact Defend Council Housing (is there a locally based activists' group??) and see what they say ...
They tend to be a bit slow and crap at updating their website with breaking stories though
nino_savatte said:
yes!
nino_savatte said:I keep thinking "judicial review" but I have a feeling that that avenue has been closed off.
not necessarily. I was in Portcullis house back in the winter, with another urbanite and Southwark DCH, and a woman was up in court the next day to defend her rights, she won, I believe, her rights to a judicial review over Tower Hamlets council decision to turn her estate, the Ocean estate, into an Almo.
William of Walworth said:I doubt it. This 'result' looks so open to legal challenges on multiple grounds!!
Contact Defend Council Housing (is there a locally based activists' group??) and see what they say ...
They tend to be a bit slow and crap at updating their website with breaking stories though
see post 66 on this thread.
William of Walworth said:
I think there's a confusion here between the 'electoral roll' for voting in political elections which is what you're talking about and the 'electoral roll' for voting in the ALMO.
The ALMO voting roll will be council tenants and could easily not have been updated in years. So for instance if a flat is swapped between people the council could easily not know (especially if the new people continue paying rent). Or if there's a Right to buy exercised again they won't necessarily have logged & cleaned it.
If this is true I'd imagine there are a lot of flats that are currently occupied by people who aren't entitled to them...
guinnessdrinker said:
OK, but how active were they in this process?
Bob said:
Cheers for that Bob ...
Clarification appreciated.
But that factor (and it's important) leaves the ballot 'result' very possibly
more open to legal challenge, not less, surely ....Apols if this q. has been answered already, but what was the turnout?
Have to say I still find it hard to believe that Lambeth's Council's tenancy records are out of date by 20 years. Directors of Housing in other boroughs should have been, and surely would have been, and maybe even have been, sacked for less, I'd have thought.
With all Southwark's various inadequacies, they'd never stand for that much out of dateness.
I maintain my theory, conspiranoidly invented by myself, that Southwark pay Lambeth money to be especially and spectacularly crap, to divert negative attention away from themselves in the SLP and across South London
But in any case, Lambeth ARE crap**, ludicrously, ridiculously and melodramatically so, while Southwark are merely fairly crap by comparison.
<waits for Southwark Council cheque to pay for that last sentence
>**Country Show aside!
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Just had a self-congratulating puff about the ALMO vote through the door, "signed" by Lambeth Labour's John Katzanddogzarse, all "we won the vote", nothing about the small scale of the turnout, nothing about just how many people didn't receive voting papers, just "we got 51% of the votes and we're getting on with screwing you over, suckers".
Cunts. Trying to get some "facts on the ground" established before they get pulled up.
Cunts. Trying to get some "facts on the ground" established before they get pulled up.
Legal action, the only way forward now surely??
Go fer it
Go fer it
if you do decide to take it further, it might be time for some FOI requests?
start by asking for the Value for Money assessment carried out by the Councils Financial Planning Team. They *should* have carried out an assesment of ALMO vs In House cost benefit analysis which *should* have been presented to the councils management cmmtee
then ask them for a copy of the Medium Term Financial Strategy relating to the ALMO - this should contain in it assumptions made for tenant rental increases - these may well be back loaded in the MTFS to give a few years of bedding down/peace and quiet. they may also be linked to further PFI funding.
I would also make some enquiries around planned increases to light and heat costs. a good source of an ALMO skim if ever there was one.
The Councils Housing Revenue Account *should* be ringfenced but most LA's raid the fuck out of them to prop up the councils General Fund. Adding an ALMO makes this easier to do. Look for guarantee's around HRA protection from GF subsidisation.
They may bat it all off as 'commercially senistive' tho
just what i would do like if you wanted to piss them off
start by asking for the Value for Money assessment carried out by the Councils Financial Planning Team. They *should* have carried out an assesment of ALMO vs In House cost benefit analysis which *should* have been presented to the councils management cmmtee
then ask them for a copy of the Medium Term Financial Strategy relating to the ALMO - this should contain in it assumptions made for tenant rental increases - these may well be back loaded in the MTFS to give a few years of bedding down/peace and quiet. they may also be linked to further PFI funding.
I would also make some enquiries around planned increases to light and heat costs. a good source of an ALMO skim if ever there was one.
The Councils Housing Revenue Account *should* be ringfenced but most LA's raid the fuck out of them to prop up the councils General Fund. Adding an ALMO makes this easier to do. Look for guarantee's around HRA protection from GF subsidisation.
They may bat it all off as 'commercially senistive' tho
just what i would do like if you wanted to piss them off
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Hypothetically, who would one submit FOI requests to at Lambeth council?
ViolentPanda said:
Phone them up.
Every Local Authority will have a mechanism to deal with FOI requests.
Some they will turn down because the information will take to long to collate, or they will look to pass on a cost (probably prohibitive) some due to commercial sensitivities.
It varies how many they get i imagine but i know for certain lots of people use them - particularly around how much things cost, how decisions were got to, reports etc.
They have a positive effect too - I have sat in meetings where work have said we can't really do X like that anymore in case we get a FOI on it.
Don't underestimate them, a well asked FOI question that they can't wriggle out of answering can be a very good thing
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Dan U said:Phone them up.
Every Local Authority will have a mechanism to deal with FOI requests.
Some they will turn down because the information will take to long to collate, or they will look to pass on a cost (probably prohibitive) some due to commercial sensitivities.
It varies how many they get i imagine but i know for certain lots of people use them - particularly around how much things cost, how decisions were got to, reports etc.
They have a positive effect too - I have sat in meetings where work have said we can't really do X like that anymore in case we get a FOI on it.
Don't underestimate them, a well asked FOI question that they can't wriggle out of answering can be a very good thing
Cheers for that.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Irenick said:
Which is why I'll be sending a FOI request to Lambeth council asking how many complaints of non-receipt of voting papers they received.
It's worse than you think!
See site for full ballot results.
http://www.salmon.talktalk.net/press.htm
Town Hall Monday 7PM room 8 the Council will ratify the Ballot result and thereby allow the formal submission of the ALMO Bid to DCLG.
Lambeth DCH will be at the Town Hall tomorrow to protest and have arranged a public meeting at St. Vincent's Community Centre Talma Road Brixton SW2 1AS 7PM Thursday 2nd August.
purplecondorathotmail.com
See site for full ballot results.
http://www.salmon.talktalk.net/press.htm
Town Hall Monday 7PM room 8 the Council will ratify the Ballot result and thereby allow the formal submission of the ALMO Bid to DCLG.
Lambeth DCH will be at the Town Hall tomorrow to protest and have arranged a public meeting at St. Vincent's Community Centre Talma Road Brixton SW2 1AS 7PM Thursday 2nd August.
purplecondorathotmail.com
