Tower Hamlets Homes: UNISON lobby against cuts to patch sizes

Picture collage is from a lobby last night outside Tower Hamlets Town Hall.

UNISON members who work for the the ALMO Tower Hamlets Homes were protesting against plans to cut the number of estate patches from 27 to 18. This would increase the size of each area that a Housing officer would be be expected to look after by 50%.

This seems frankly daft at a time when due to welfare cuts and austerity you will need greater estate management resources in order to support and protect residents and enable the organisation to function (whose motto is after all "helping to build happy, safe and strong communities"). 

Most Housing organisations in London are prioritising estate management and many are reducing patch sizes in order to do so. The members I spoke to at the lobby were very experienced and capable staff who were genuinely worried that the service to residents would suffer and they would be unable to do their jobs properly.

I knew many of those of those present from when we all worked directly for the borough and from the days of the Tower Hamlets Housing Strike of 1999 which was also about protecting local housing services. I gave a personal message of support to the lobby as a local housing colleague and UNISON NEC member.

Everybody was really pleased that Labour Candidate for Mayor, John Biggs,  has promised in his manifesto if elected to scrap Tower Hamlets Homes and bring it back under the control of the Council.

A Solar Future for Social Housing?

Guest post by Alan Griffiths: UNISON London Labour Link

forum Motion 2012.

"Decent Homes work was evidently coming to an end late in 2010. No other investment for improving Council housing had been mentioned by the Tory-led government.  An acquaintance with the author-publisher of this blog had taught the UNISON stewards in Ascham Homes that Housing Associations had already been making development staff redundant. Could we influence our ALMO to do anything that might keep our colleagues in a job and show that the public sector could still do new, useful things in these dire times?

We were aware that some ALMOs and Housing Associations had done “rent a roof” deals with private sector partners to offer free solar electricity to their tenants. We were also aware of the contracts drafted by the London Development Agency for Ken Livingstone in 2007/8 for private sector partners to lead investment in energy efficiency and be paid from the future savings. UNISON stewards in Ascham Homes wrote “Every South facing roof is a potential Power Station” in January 2011. 

Waltham Forest Council got HM Treasury approval for Prudential Borrowing of £9 million to fit Solar Photo-Electric Panels to 1,000 Council houses and some of its big buildings. This way the income of up to £2 million is to the Council.


The project was reported on the “Waltham Forest Guardian” website on Thursday 3rd November 2011. The government announced the Tariff cut the next week and the scheme was put on hold. During the new round of number crunching, several colleagues became redundant.

It was still viable! Two Contracts were let, each for 500 houses to be completed, by 31 March 2012 and as many as possible before the Tariff cut. Letters went to tenants late in January 2012 outlining the scheme. 688 were done by Friday 2nd March 2012, when the Tariff cut began.

Energy efficiency is Investing to Save. Costs are coming down, but future projects will become more complex and demand more skill. UNISON needs to shout more about being the Construction Professionals Union.

It is generally believed that renewable electricity from roofs cannot be supplied to flat and maisonette tenants. This blockage needs removing. 

Newham Homes ALMO returns to Council

Good news! "Newham Council have agreed that housing services should be brought back under direct control of the council in order to save money and continue to deliver good housing services.

The council's Cabinet agreed on Thursday (December 16) that an agreement with the arms length management organisation, Newham Homes, be ended from next April.

Newham Homes has received £225m of Decent Homes programme funding over the past five years. However, many of the advantages of having an arms length management organisation (ALMO) have now disappeared. The council can now bid for decent homes funding directly from the government and it will be cheaper for the council to deliver housing management services directly.

Consultation with tenants and leaseholders was carried out in November. Some 56 per cent of those consulted supported this change with only nine per cent against.

Councillor Andrew Baikie, executive member for housing, said: "It is simpler, more efficient and more effective for the housing management service to be returned to the council. Significant savings are likely to arise which can be used to fund service improvements.

"We can cut duplicate costs - and the biggest benefit for tenants and leaseholders would be that customer services, neighbourhood management and community safety would be provided by one organisation."

Discussions are under way with staff at Newham Homes and trade unions about the transfer. In the meantime, business continues as usual. Services to tenants and leaseholders should not be affected and the transition of services back to the council should be seamless.

Newham Homes was originally set up in 2005 to access government funding to improve council housing and deliver the Decent Homes programme. A bid for additional decent homes money will be submitted to the government in January". (topical seasonal picture from Newham Story of Newham Homes Repairs depot in Abbey Road).

UNISON National Housing Seminar

I had an early start this morning to take the train to Birmingham for this annual seminar on social housing issues. There were over 120 UNISON members from Council housing departments, ALMOs and Housing Associations from all over the UK.

This is UNISON at its very best. Bringing together union members from different regions and employers, arranging top class speakers while encouraging us to make contacts to share good ideas and experiences.

London delegates sat together for the main speeches and presentations. We then went off to workshops (I went to the Housing association one and we came back into the main hall in the afternoon). I’ll try and post separately on the workshops and sessions I attended.

Housing use to be a political backwater, especially so called “social housing”. The cult of “owner occupation” use to mean everything. Any other tenure was considered as 4th rate. Things are changing.

During lunch time I sat at a table with Edinburgh Council UNISON members, one of whom use to work for the Citizen Rights Office where I first started my “career” in housing. There had also been some confusion during registration since I was listed as being in UNISON Northern region. It turns out there are two “John Gray” UNISON housing activists. I sought him out and met up with my Newcastle long lost cousin. How lucky and blessed the union is that there are two of us! Not least since we both agreed that we can blame the other John Gray for things. We swopped our regional name badges. Both of us are obviously steeped in the finest traditions of British local government.

At the end of the day there was an open forum for comments. I reminded folk about the disgraceful wages being paid to Housing Chief Executives. In particular the £327, 000 being paid to the Anchor Trust CEO (formerly “Help the Aged Housing association”) who is also trying to de-recognise their trade unions. How can these people be so shameless?

I’ll post further stuff as and when. If anyone else who was there wants to contribute then email me.

Picture is of Joseph Chamberlain, the Tory municipal "socialist" Mayor of Birmingham.

LBTH Friends, the Deputy Mayor and Fab.

Last night I went to a London Borough Tower Hamlets Council (LBTH) staff reunion with a slight difference. Top former Globetown (St James Local Housing Office) Housing officer, Dinur (Dula) Rahman had organised a meal for LBTH staff that work or have worked in the former Globetown neighbourhood area.

I worked with Dula in St James (now alas closed) a couple of years ago. He has moved on and neither of us now work for the Council.

Dula had not only booked the very good Kaya Restaurant in Hanbury Street, E1 (just off Brick Lane) but had arranged delicious food and drink.

To everyone’s surprise he had also arranged as guest of honour, the deputy mayor of Tower Hamlets, (Labour) Councillor Ali, to attend as well as well as local MTV singing star “Fab”, who of course arrived in a Stretched limo. I have never been to a council staff reunion with a pop star. However, this is after all Tower Hamlets. Fab asked me not to post her photo since she is due to lauch a new single soon on MTV.

A good time was had by all even though existing staff in the Tower Hamlets Housing directorate are feeling just a bit bashed around recently. The Council is trying to transfer all its existing social housing to an ALMO. At least one current member of staff present was under notice of redundancy.

Picture above is of some of the people present (most good UNISON members of course). Dula is far left (not in the literal sense of the word of course).

It is a funny old world at times.

UNISON Housing Staff Vote for Strike Action: Jack Dash smiles on…

Today there was a joint union meeting of Tower Hamlets staff who work in the 12 local estates based housing offices. The meeting was to discuss management proposals to transfer the 20,000 remaining Council owned properties in the borough to an ALMO - Arms Length Management Organisation (Bad or Good). In doing so they also want to cut the number of offices down to 4, probably making staff compulsory redundant, also all existing staff to be re-interviewed and tested for their jobs and possibly open offices from 8am to 8pm, Monday to Friday and Saturday morning.

Not surprisingly, staff voted unanimously to reject such proposals and to consider strike action if negotiations fail (see photos). Many residents are also up in arms about the proposals to close their local offices. UNISON national and local policy is opposed to ALMO. Further consultation with management is due to take place next Wednesday.

The meeting was held in the old Council Chamber of “Jack Dash House” in the Isle of Dogs. Jack was a well known Communist docker trade union leader. As you can see there are murals on the walls of the Council Chamber, showing Jack “in action”. Jack was proud that he was active in every London Dock’s strike from 1945 to 1969. In his retirement he was a London tourist guide and pensioners’ activist. He died in 1989.

No doubt Jack was a committed atheist. However, I am sure if he found that he had got things wrong on the religious front, he would have negotiated himself out of trouble by now with the big boss. He would also be urging us on, from up above, to have a proper East End “row” with our own governors.