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.

Tower Hamlets Homes Lobby

This evening I went along to a noisy but largely cheerful lobby by UNISON members of a Tower Hamlets Homes Board meeting in the Toby Club in Bethnal Green.  Tower Hamlets Homes is a ALMO which has run into let us say "problems".

I use to be an assistant branch secretary of the  UNISON Tower Hamlets Local Government Branch and was invited by local stewards to attend this lobby.

Management have announced 80 redundancies (out of some 500 staff).  Which is bad enough - but what has incensed the workforce is that they have been told that they have to apply within 7 days for voluntary redundancy or they will lose any right to a severance payment.  Despite the fact this severance payment is a TUPE right!

What is even more iniquitous is that the staff have not been told what possible jobs are available under the new proposed structure.  Never mind what are the proposed job descriptions, numbers of posts, possible grades and assimilation rights.  These are agreed good practice HR processes which are being simply ignored.

What this means is that staff are being blackmailed into applying for redundancy before knowing all the facts and when it might have turned out that they have a job to go to after all.  This is bad employment practice and probably needs to be tested at an employment tribunal. 

Wearing another "hat" I am extremely concerned at some other allegations made about staff aged 55 or over which I will investigate further.

Staff told me that they understood that the organisation has severe financial difficulties and they have their own ideas about reducing costs but the current process is simply wrong and grossly unfair.

The UNISON reps did have a number of positive and constructive conversations with managers and members of the Board on the way in which I thought were really helpful. The reps had produced an excellent precise and hard hitting leaflet detailing their concerns. 

All in all a successful text book lobby and many thanks to Tony and Trevor for organising it.  They tell me this is only the beginning.

Tower Hamlets Housing Forum: Residents set the Standard

Tower Hamlet’s Council free newspaper “East End Life” published this report and photo on last month’s Borough Housing Forum meeting. Look at the photo and play “Spot the...” gobby housing officer boring his table; the retired top UNISON steward and now Island Homes residents rep; the former GMB steward and aspiring Labour Party Councillor candidate as well as being a founder member of a brand new TUC recognised trade union called (I believe) “The General Workers Union”. Finally, a former Bow & Poplar Area Housing manager and all round nice guy. (double click picture to bring up detail)

East End Life 1 Feb: Residents set the Standard “Taking action against anti-social behaviour, improving repairs and providing value for money are the top three priorities residents want social landlords to deal with.

More than 70 residents from 15 social landlords across the borough met at York Hall last month to talk about what services mattered the most to them.

The event was organised by the Tower Hamlets Housing Forum (THHF).

The biggest issues for residents on the day were how their landlords deal with anti-social behaviour, improving the repairs and maintenance service, and ensuring value for money for tenants and leaseholders, particularly around service charges.

Housing associations and the arms-length management organisation (ALMO) Tower Hamlets Homes want to develop service standards that will apply across all social landlords in Tower Hamlets. They will be working with residents to draw up minimum standards for these three areas.

They want residents to be involved in monitoring whether they are keeping to these standards and also to be able to compare the performance of their own landlord against others.

Pam Cole, who is a resident with Island Homes, said: “I found the day enjoyable because it was properly facilitated so that everyone had a chance to have their say. However, the success of the event will depend on what comes out of this and I hope that we get genuine improvements in services that involve residents at every stage.”