Moonlight Robbery Posted Results

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last updated on: 05/08/2008 19:04

Moonlight ROBBERY

Campaign to stop the robbery of council tenants

Results posted below:

Background

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I’m absolutely appalled about the robbery of tenants through their rents and lease holders through siphoning 75% of right to bus sales to the coffers of central government instead of reinvesting this money back into the maintenance and upkeep of the council homes we all live in. This generates dilapidation of our homes which in the long run costs even more to put right which presumably will be charged back to us. LEGALISED BAREFACED ROBBERY

A drop contributes to a glass of water, a glass contributes to a bucket, and before you know it you have lakes, seas and oceans. The motto here is that tenants and lease holders must stand united and join forces with our political masters in opposing this central government practice which amounts to no less than legalised theft. Nationally, if council housing is left alone, rents and other receipts contributing to the National Housing Revenue Account, is self financing. Not only that, it is sufficient to provide high quality affordable council homes to all who need one. The problem here is successive governments' love affair with private developers, and obsession with stigmatising and decimating council housing.

I am angry that the government is allowed to get away with all this. Brown did a humiliating U turn about the 10p tax rate recently. This tax on council tenants most of whoom are just above the Housing Benefit thresh-hold is a tax on the poorest in our communities. Socialism - Brown style!!!

I support the campaign. This is an immoral tax on people who are more likely to be at the poorer end of the scale

Why is the government allowed to get away with this? What can I do to support the Campaign?

michael barratt
Council tenant

Elsewhere (Please specify opposite)
crawley
ON
Submit
28 June 2008
21:39:14

Hon. C Flint MP Minister for housing Communities and Local Government Eland House Bressenden Place London SW1E 5DU Dear Minister, I have requested my Member of Parliament, Laura Moffatt to forward this letter with an attachment to you for your consideration and response. As you see, in the attached letter to me from Mr Michael Coughlin, Chief Executive of Crawley Borough Council, he refers to the May 2006 stock condition survey conducted by Savills in conjunction with Tribal Plc that identified an investment need of £115m in the first five years in respect to CBC housing stock. During a recent meeting a director of Savills in the company of a senior CBC technical manager, informed me that £115m less items relating to tenants’ aspirations of £10.3m was the minimum sum Savills considered was necessary to maintain CBC stock in a minimum state of repair for the first five years and by extension their insurers would warrant. As you can see in the attached letter to me, the £104.7m (£115m less £10.3m) deemed necessary by Savills as minimum expenditure was considered by Crawley Borough Council to be unaffordable and they have as a consequence reduced that sum to £82m in the first five years or £60.2m up to 2010/11, it should be noted that neither £82m or £60.2 million are sums warranted by Savills and their insurers as being sufficient to maintain CBC housing stock in a state of repair over the mentioned time frames. Both the Audit Commission and the Advertising Standards Authority found that CBC had wrongly characterised monies required for newly arising and future works as alternatively being required to rectify DHS failures. Finally, it has been established that only £2.7m of the £104.7m mentioned above actually relates to rectifying Decent Homes failures when a strict interpretation of Decent Homes criteria is used in accordance with the guidance provided by your Department (June 2006). As the Crawley News, Wednesday September 5, 2007, succinctly observed: “The initial cost of bringing the council’s 8,200 homes up to Decent Homes Standard was put at £60.5m in May 2006 This figure dropped to £25.3m in January but now more number crunching by council run Crawley Homes has put the figure at just £2.7m.” Since £2.7m of the £104.7m relates to strictly defined DHS failures, only the former possibly is outside of HRA/MRA calculations, the balance of £102m should fall within the HRA/MRA system as newly arising or future work. Yet Mr Coughlin’s letter states that CBC does not have sufficient money and as a consequence over £20 million has been slashed from the sum that CBC consultant’s Savills stated was the minimum required to maintain CBC homes in a warranted minimum state of repair over the first five-year period. Within the context that Crawley Borough Council returns to Central government between £10m-£13m per year of assumed surplus rental income, there is an apparent shortfall of over £4m per annum required to meet a warranted minimum standard of repair. Clearly, the current formula for calculating assumed surplus rents is not fit for purpose in respect to the calculation of investment needed to adequately maintain Crawley Homes housing stock and avoid disrepair. I have been unsuccessful in bringing the present inadequacies relating to the calculation of assumed surpluses to the attention of your predecessor Ruth Kelly and senior advisors within your Department. I am therefore of the opinion that your Department in steadfastly refusing to permit CBC to retain sufficient rent income to maintain their housing stock to a minimum warranted standard of repair will be the author of subsequent disrepair and DHS failures that may arise as a consequence, irrespective of the outcome in 2009 of your Department’s deliberations on the very subject of assumed rental income surplus, especially since nearly five years have transpired since those CBC housing stock repair needs were first identified. Within the context that Crawley is a debt free council and council tenants pay their rents, tenants expect their homes to be adequately maintained to a good standard that surpasses the minimum warranted standard of repair that CBC currently considers to be unaffordable. The 20,000 or more people, who inhabit Crawley council homes live in the real world and would dismiss as nonsense and gobbledegook, talk of assumed rather than real surpluses when basic repairs to their homes are apparently unaffordable: “Where an authority generates an assumed surplus on its housing revenue account, this surplus is captured and used to cover similar expenditure elsewhere where there are deficits.” Ruth Kelly in a letter to Michael Meacher MP dated 11th September 2006. Or: “Many councils, and Crawley is one, generate a surplus of assumed income over assumed expenditure, and this surplus is captured by the Government and redistributed to other councils who generate a deficit.” Brian Lea of DCLG to myself dated 26th July 2006.” Two years after a Scottish firm surveyed CBC housing stock, Savills conducted a £60,000 survey of 15% of the CBC housing stock and the results were published in a September 2004 report. The Report identified £14m was required to be spent in the first five years on kitchen and bathroom replacements. Eighteen months later, Savills were commissioned by CBC to conduct a further £60,000 survey on another 15% of the CBC housing stock and a report was published in May 2006 that identified £18.6m not £14m was needed to be spent in the first five years on kitchen and bathroom replacements. CBC council tenants questioned why there had been such a catastrophic premature failure of kitchens and bathrooms before their time since in the Report there were only five recorded instances of decent homes failures relating specifically to kitchens and bathrooms. In response to tenants’ questions, Cllr Bob Lanzer the leader of the Council wrote to the Crawley Observer Wednesday 25th October 2006: “On a specific point – the £18 million in our Decent Homes Standard for kitchen and bathrooms is not inflated – in fact it is barely enough to bring the homes to the basic level set by Government, not the higher level tenants have already said they want.” In spite of the apparent urgency and scale of work confronted, only £2.93 million has or will be intended to be spent on kitchens and bathroom replacement since Savills May 2006 report was published up to and including 2007/08 (see Mr Coughlin’s attached letter). A sum representing only 16% of the expenditure deemed necessary by Savills in their 2006 report and agreed by CBC. Yet in the past few years there has been a persistent under spend by CBC of HRA/MRA income received. Presumably the Savills September 2004 report was in part intended to identify work needing to be carried out in the first five years up to 2010. In contrast, Mr Coughlin in the attached review of my FOI request states that CBC will not know until the end of 2008 how much money will be actually allocated to kitchen and bathroom replacement or on any other items. One can only speculate how CBC managed to calculate the precise sum of £60.2million required until 2010/11 without having any idea according to their FOI response as to how this resource was to be allocated. As previously mentioned, in the May 2006 Savills report there were only five reported instances of kitchens and or bathrooms actually failing to meet the requirements of the relevant Decent Homes Standard. The remainder, mostly identified as needing replacement nearly five years ago consists of approximately 4650 kitchens and 1,325 bathrooms, that have in effect failed before their time and, in accordance with your Department’s DHS Guidance, should usually be replaced as responsive repairs. It would seem from CBC prevarications and lack of investment to date, the Council have not been permitted by your Department to retain sufficient income from their tenants’ rents to carry out the work deemed necessary by their consultants Savills. I reaffirm, should CBC continue to be deprived of retaining sufficient of its own income to maintain its housing stock to the minimum standard warranted by Savills and their insurers, your Department would inescapably be the author of disrepair and DHS failures. A scenario that would be at odds with Government ministers’ and your Department’s stated policy of promoting sustainable housing and communities. Yours faithfully, Council tenant and pensioner

michael barratt
Council tenant

Elsewhere (Please specify opposite)
crawley
ON
Submit
28 June 2008
21:40:49

Michael Barratt Back to the Workhouse The major political parties, including Labour vie with each other for the vote of ‘middle’ England resulting in struggling families on low incomes being effectively left without representation and politically powerless. As a consequence, Labour government policies have seemingly awarded employers and ‘middle’ England with all the advantages of Globalisation and immigration, and bestowed all the disadvantages on the disenfranchised. There was a time not so long ago when employers were obliged to pay a minimum adult wage that might just support a worker and their small family. Over recent decades wages paid by employers to unskilled workers have shrunk to being barely sufficient to support an 18 year old living at home with their parent(s). Since the 1970’s there has been a growing disparity between skilled and unskilled wage rates both in the US and the UK. According to the Irish Financial New (15th April 2008) wages for unskilled US workers have dropped in real terms 20% since the 1970’s. So it has come to pass, the responsibility to pay a barely living wage to unskilled UK workers with families has largely been transferred from employers to the general taxpayer. With the family tax credits and the council housing benefits system topping up inadequate wages paid by employers to a level at or below that of poverty and thereby in effect subsidising employers’ business expenses. One Labour cabinet minister accurately remarked over a decade ago that life on unemployment benefits was not intended to be an easy option, yet work for those on low incomes can be an even harder option. Low paid workers are frequently employed on temporary contracts with varying and often unsocial hours of work. Few holiday or sickness entitlements result in affected workers experiencing a bureaucratic nightmare of continual adjustments and recalculations of their family tax credits, housing benefit and council tax entitlements with a frequent self perception of losing out. Whereas jobseeker allowance claimants are paid 24/7 with no rent (until recently) or council tax payments worries. Low paid workers are required to seek and accept work within catchments’ that may extend 10-12 miles from their home resulting in the need for some to purchase season bus passes costing in excess of £100.00 a month, there are also the additional expenses of work clothes, tools and meals away from home to consider. With little or no monetary benefits between working and not working, those in receipt of jobseeker allowances etc. have the advantage of their children receiving free school meals, representing a saving for a family of three children in excess of £20.00 per week, plus school uniform and outing allowances. Job seeker claimants are entitled to enrol without payment in many courses at colleges and other institutions of further education and enjoy free entry to many local authority leisure centres and gyms. Aside from financial considerations many of those on low incomes, care for young children and/or disproportionately having illness or disabilities within their family, making going out to poorly paid work frequently an unattractive option in relation to staying at home. The problem has therefore arisen for Government, how might those with little financial incentive or social advantage in doing so, be encouraged to seek employment? Perhaps this Labour government will loose the last remnants on its’ integrity and follow the US model by limiting welfare payments to a few months. Caroline Flint and her Government colleagues have travelled well down the US route by promoting ‘flexible’ work practices that undermined the job security and working conditions of low income earners and they are now attempting to extend that insecurity into the home by the linking of social housing provision and security of tenure with work. The process of undermining the security of tenure of low-income earners living in social housing began some time ago when Government ceased building new council housing in favour of housing association projects and with frequent duplicity encouraged council tenants to transfer from local authority to housing association ownership. The rights and security of tenure of housing association tenants are without question inferior to those enjoyed by council tenants. The rights of council tenants are protected by legislation. Whereas the rights of housing association tenants are primarily protected by the laws of contract and remedies must usually be sought through the courts. As Bernard Shaw observed the English law courts are open to all, like the entrance of the Ritz hotel. Furthermore, housing association landlords enjoy and exercise a number of mandatory rights of eviction that are not available to local authorities. In the escalation of this trend of the emasculation of tenants’ rights, the Labour Government Minister for Housing Caroline Flint and her colleagues are currently proposing ‘back to the workhouse’ policies whereby council and housing association tenants who do not find work face losing their homes. As Shelter chief executive Adam Sampson observed: "What is being proposed would destroy families and communities and add to the thousands who are already homeless”. This unfair proposal would, for example; replace council tenants rights to security of tenure with knife-edge insecurity, especially for those tenants with lower skills who are frequently employed in insecure work and/or on temporary contracts. In spite of the criticisms, Ms Flint’s proposals are as might be expected well supported by conservatives, such as the former Tory Prime Minister, Ian Duncan Smith who in an address to the Chartered Institute of Housing’s June 2008 conference questioned whether handing out secure tenancies was the best use of social housing stock. Encouraged by such support, Ms Flint and her colleagues persist with their apparent intention of ensuring the socially disadvantaged and low paid are subjected to same insecurity in the home as they currently experience in the workplace, presumably with the objective of ensuring a plentiful supply of cheap and compliant low skilled labour.

michael barratt
Council tenant

Elsewhere (Please specify opposite)
crawley
ON
Submit
28 June 2008
21:42:22

Back to the Workhouse The major political parties, including Labour vie with each other for the vote of ‘middle’ England resulting in struggling families on low incomes being effectively left without representation and politically powerless. As a consequence, Labour government policies have seemingly awarded employers and ‘middle’ England with all the advantages of Globalisation and immigration, and bestowed all the disadvantages on the disenfranchised. There was a time not so long ago when employers were obliged to pay a minimum adult wage that might just support a worker and their small family. Over recent decades wages paid by employers to unskilled workers have shrunk to being barely sufficient to support an 18 year old living at home with their parent(s). Since the 1970’s there has been a growing disparity between skilled and unskilled wage rates both in the US and the UK. According to the Irish Financial New (15th April 2008) wages for unskilled US workers have dropped in real terms 20% since the 1970’s. So it has come to pass, the responsibility to pay a barely living wage to unskilled UK workers with families has largely been transferred from employers to the general taxpayer. With the family tax credits and the council housing benefits system topping up inadequate wages paid by employers to a level at or below that of poverty and thereby in effect subsidising employers’ business expenses. One Labour cabinet minister accurately remarked over a decade ago that life on unemployment benefits was not intended to be an easy option, yet work for those on low incomes can be an even harder option. Low paid workers are frequently employed on temporary contracts with varying and often unsocial hours of work. Few holiday or sickness entitlements result in affected workers experiencing a bureaucratic nightmare of continual adjustments and recalculations of their family tax credits, housing benefit and council tax entitlements with a frequent self perception of losing out. Whereas jobseeker allowance claimants are paid 24/7 with no rent (until recently) or council tax payments worries. Low paid workers are required to seek and accept work within catchments’ that may extend 10-12 miles from their home resulting in the need for some to purchase season bus passes costing in excess of £100.00 a month, there are also the additional expenses of work clothes, tools and meals away from home to consider. With little or no monetary benefits between working and not working, those in receipt of jobseeker allowances etc. have the advantage of their children receiving free school meals, representing a saving for a family of three children in excess of £20.00 per week, plus school uniform and outing allowances. Job seeker claimants are entitled to enrol without payment in many courses at colleges and other institutions of further education and enjoy free entry to many local authority leisure centres and gyms. Aside from financial considerations many of those on low incomes, care for young children and/or disproportionately having illness or disabilities within their family, making going out to poorly paid work frequently an unattractive option in relation to staying at home. The problem has therefore arisen for Government, how might those with little financial incentive or social advantage in doing so, be encouraged to seek employment? Perhaps this Labour government will loose the last remnants on its’ integrity and follow the US model by limiting welfare payments to a few months. Caroline Flint and her Government colleagues have travelled well down the US route by promoting ‘flexible’ work practices that undermined the job security and working conditions of low income earners and they are now attempting to extend that insecurity into the home by the linking of social housing provision and security of tenure with work. The process of undermining the security of tenure of low-income earners living in social housing began some time ago when Government ceased building new council housing in favour of housing association projects and with frequent duplicity encouraged council tenants to transfer from local authority to housing association ownership. The rights and security of tenure of housing association tenants are without question inferior to those enjoyed by council tenants. The rights of council tenants are protected by legislation. Whereas the rights of housing association tenants are primarily protected by the laws of contract and remedies must usually be sought through the courts. As Bernard Shaw observed the English law courts are open to all, like the entrance of the Ritz hotel. Furthermore, housing association landlords enjoy and exercise a number of mandatory rights of eviction that are not available to local authorities. In the escalation of this trend of the emasculation of tenants’ rights, the Labour Government Minister for Housing Caroline Flint and her colleagues are currently proposing ‘back to the workhouse’ policies whereby council and housing association tenants who do not find work face losing their homes. As Shelter chief executive Adam Sampson observed: "What is being proposed would destroy families and communities and add to the thousands who are already homeless”. This unfair proposal would, for example; replace council tenants rights to security of tenure with knife-edge insecurity, especially for those tenants with lower skills who are frequently employed in insecure work and/or on temporary contracts. In spite of the criticisms, Ms Flint’s proposals are as might be expected well supported by conservatives, such as the former Tory Prime Minister, Ian Duncan Smith who in an address to the Chartered Institute of Housing’s June 2008 conference questioned whether handing out secure tenancies was the best use of social housing stock. Encouraged by such support, Ms Flint and her colleagues persist with their apparent intention of ensuring the socially disadvantaged and low paid are subjected to same insecurity in the home as they currently experience in the workplace, presumably with the objective of ensuring a plentiful supply of cheap and compliant low skilled labour.