Raphael asked me to accompany him to the Combined Area Panel meeting. He is our rep on the Deptford Area Panel, and this meeting held at Goldsmiths was for the three area panels from across the borough (made up of both tenants and leaseholders) to get together with various officers from Lewisham Homes.
As an observer, I didn't have a vote and was discouraged from speaking, but it was very hard to keep my trap shut. It was also the first time I had ever seen the CEO Andrew Potter in person. When Joan Ruddock wrote to him on our behalf last year, the reply came not from him, but from Lesley Seary, Customer Relations Chief for Lewisham Council – so this man has yet to earn my respect.
The meeting was convened by an independent chair, who announced there was a heavy schedule of presentations to get through, so comments on them would be restricted due to time. Subjects could be followed up at the end of the meeting. This was so bloody typical of Lewisham Homes' strategy of strangulating the views of residents that I almost walked out there and then. These meetings are not for us to discuss anything, but are simply a one-way channel for LH to pass down information: not consultation at all.
Where are the councillors and what is not minuted?
Matters Arising began with what appears to be a continual occurrence at these meetings, judging from the last minutes – a question on why councillors do not attend. It turns out that LH had only extended the invitation to councillors the day before – although they insisted that councillors have the calendar of dates provided in advance as much as we do. A brand new Labour councillor from Telegraph Hill, Paul Bell, was present however.
Raphael wanted it noted that he had spoken at length at the meeting before last but none of his points had been noted in the minutes. His attempt to have the minutes amended to include his points by going to the Holbeach office with a short write-up of what he had said, had met with failure. Another resident pointed out that requests made at the last meeting for certain items to be on the next agenda had not been met either.
Presentation from the Warden Service
The first presentation was from the Warden Service, explaining how it works. There are only 8 wardens to cover the whole of Deptford and New Cross, which might explain why they're rarely seen (which seemed to be the experience of many of the residents at the meeting). Their hours are 10-6 in winter and 10-10 in summer. A resident asked why not the same hours in winter, and the logic appears to be that wardens' chief job is to be visible (which they wouldn't be in the dark of winter). They are not trained in fitness (as pointed out by a resident) and are not expected to act as law enforcers – that's the job of the police. Raphael asked about duplication of this service with our very own ASB Service, which, he reported, had been roundly condemned as totally ineffectual at a recent Focus Group specifically about the service. Potter explained that there are six ASB Officers, who chief job is to enforce tenancy agreements and they spend most of their time on building cases. Perhaps we would like a presentation on the ASB Service at the next meeting in August? (Oh God, no, not another back-slapping presentation, please).
Presentation on Resident Involvement
Adele Stevens gave a presentation on Resident Involvement. She's a very nice woman, but quite honestly I'm not surprised to hear there are 3000 people on the database (out of a potential 20,000?) but that hardly anyone turned up to the Fun Day. I started to feel like the day dreaming soldier learning about guns in the World War 2 poem by Henry Reed,
Naming of Parts, as I gazed out the window at the brilliant blue sky and could vaguely hear the chitter chatter and clink of glasses from the outdoor balcony area of Goldsmiths Union Bar.
"Today we have the naming of parts, yesterday we had daily cleaning, and tomorrow we have what to do after firing. But today we have the naming of parts. Japonica glistens like coral in all the neighbouring gardens, and today we have the naming of parts"...
I was awoken from my reverie by the announcement of the next item, which was a presentation by the Head of Estate Services, ex-caretaker, Dave Tutt.
Presentation on Estate Services
Apparently we have 96 caretakers, 2 estate team managers, 8 estate team supervisors, 2 mobile team supervisors and 2 others whose jobs disappeared off the powerpoint presentation before I could write them down. All this lot manage 740 blocks, and are responsible for caretaking and some aspects of the Council's Environment team's work (ie sweeping and bulk household waste removal). I would've thought regular attendees at these meetings already knew all this, as the slide show went through 'WHAT THEY DO!' (which is all available on the website anyway, apparently).
If you didn't know, caretakers' hours are 8-4 Mon-Fri, 8-1 Saturday and 8-12 on Bank Holidays. There will be a new extended service by the 'mobile' staff until 8pm soon, since it had finally been recognised that a lot goes on after 4pm and many residents who go to work often felt like there was no caretaking going on at all since any tidying up done during the day could be completely undone again later in the day...He made it sound like looking after council house residents was like clearing up after a load of toddlers in a nursery. Which is probably true.
I wrote this stuff down because it was information not provided with the meeting Info Pack (which, this month, is 59 pages long and contains most of the presentations in written form, with the inevitable graphs and statistics that LH are so good at, usually with no explanatory keys...not only are these posted out to panel members but an equal tonnage of paper is also used in providing a similar number for the meetings, but there appeared to be about another 30 left over since most folk bring their own copies)...
Tutt talked about Inspections (his 8 estate team supervisors conduct 10 inspections a week...er, I don't think he said whether that was 10 each or between them). Questionnaires had been sent to TRAs about inspections.
I've not seen one, though. They were looking at extending inspection times to later in the day so that more residents could attend, and Saturday inspections are available on request. Yeah, yeah, yeah...not happened yet, though, has it.
Tutt sounded agreeable and cuddly when doing his presentation but soon became his usual disagreeable self when it came to questions from the floor. One resident commented on the Bulk Household Waste Removal scheme not working very well in his area. In fact they seemed to have more waste hanging about than ever before, and suspect flytipping. Mr Tutt refuted the idea that the scheme wasn't working and suggested this might be a local minor problem peculiar to the gentleman – the usual old chestnut pulled by Sandra Canham: 'see me at the end of the meeting about your peculiar little localised problem'. When other residents concurred it was happening elsewhere, we were more or less told to shut up. Before the Chair hastily stepped in to get another question from the floor, Tutt conceded there might be a problem with local tradesmen knowing they could dump stuff and that the council would clean it up. They had advertised the service widely, he said (but one panel member said she had never heard of it). I was going to mention that there were no details about it in the last newsletter (that came with the service charge bills) but the Chair moved on.
Raphael wanted to know if Mr Tutt could explain what was meant by 'cleaning', and got short shrift from Tutt, who has been asked this question many times before by Raphael, although perhaps not in front of this particular audience. Raphael was referring to cleaning 65 stairs with a mop and a bucket of cold water, and began waving photocopied images of filthy stairs at other panel members, but Tutt got nasty. "I don't hear complaints from other people on your estate about the cleaning, it's just you going on about it." When I chipped in to support Raphael, the Chair, sensing discord, rapidly moved on and we were silenced.
Presentation on Repairs
Next up was a presentation on Repairs that was supposed to come from Chris Cuttleton, but Andrew Potter delivered it himself, since Chris couldn't be there "and I've been with him all day, so I know the stuff." Although he doesn't look like either, he
sounds a lot like a cross between Peter Mandelson and David Cameron. A consumate politician. Anyway, his presentation was short and mainly referred to the new texting service available to tenants who report repairs in their homes, and that this service will be extended to caretakers reporting communal repairs.
Raphael weighed in with our perennial leasehold question about NOT KNOWING WHAT WE PAY FOR because we don't know what repairs are being done and it's not good enough that only caretakers are told when jobs are being done (and then only if they report them). Whilst Raphael was building up a head of steam on the subject, Potter was laughing and saying "I can answer that, and I think it will be an answer you like" (you can imagine Mandelson saying the same thing to Jeremy Paxman)...
POTTER MAKES AN ANNOUNCEMENT. HUSHED SILENCE PLEASE...
Potter said:
- if we want to know what repairs are going on, this information can be provided on request.
- very soon, we will be able to view all repair orders online.
I pointed out that only a couple of weeks ago Sandra Canham had told us this was IMPOSSIBLE, and that she'd been saying this forever. Raphael said we'd always been told this would be TOO EXPENSIVE to implement. Potter laughed and said OF COURSE it has cost implications. The Chair stepped in and silenced us again so we didn't get to ask, for instance, what was the timeline on the latter, since 'very soon' in Lewisham Homes World usually means 2 or 3 years?
(And anyway, hadn't they been ordered to do this by the Council's Scrutiny Committee in its Recommendations for Leasehold Services?). Also, if I'm going to start emailing Mick Duncan or Alex Slattery once a week to find out what repairs are going on on my estate, wouldn't it make sense for them to just formalise the procedure and send me (or the TRA) weekly reports?
Finally, some common sense...
The meeting came to an end with a couple of pertinent comments from two panel members:
A North West Area Panelist (a leaseholder) commented that it should be noted that when we make requests for things to be on the agenda, that these requests are met in full. The panel had asked for Green Team to do a presentation at this meeting, but this hadn't happened. He also wanted it noted that the Lumber Collection Scheme doesn't seem to be working and that it was wrong to have assumed that the gentlemen who raised a question about it was told it was a local problem to him only.
A Deptford Area Panelist (a tenant) commented that LH should reconsider the purpose of these meetings. She understood they might work in the same way as the Complaints Procedure. For instance, when you make a complaint, if it is not sorted, it proceeds to a 2nd stage, and then to a 3rd if it is still not sorted and where it must be resolved. Likewise, as she saw it, one might bring a problem to a TRA meeting, and if the LH officer present (or not present she seemed to infer) did not get the problem sorted by the next meeting, you took this problem on to Special Interest groups, and finally the Area Panel meetings. But
if these meetings continued to be congested with too many (sometimes pointless) presentations with no time for discussion and comments among members then problems had no chance of ever being resolved. Panel members should be respected as having the sense not to waste the meeting's time on highly localised issues, so it should not be assumed that when a panel member brings up a local problem that it was not widespread across the borough.
I could've kissed that woman. Crossfields Leaseholders will recall how when we tried to meet with Lewisham Homes back in June 2009 to resolve issues of overcharging, Lewisham Homes set the agenda with an astonishing time wasting hour and a half devoted to a presentation on Antisocial Behaviour. They have been using this technique to silence residents for far too long.
By the way, I may have missed something out in this account. I have made no mention of the buffet provided, most of which was left behind, although I think Raphael snaffled a salmon sandwich for his tea later. Also, Adam Barrett, Head of Resources, was present at the meeting but I can't remember if he actually gave a presentation or said very much at all. Apologies if his unremarkable contribution has gone unreported. No doubt all the highly paid staff present had the next day off (time off in lieu) for a conveniently long weekend.
And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards the early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers: they call it easing the Spring.
The whole procedure is flabberghasting.
How are we doing? they ask.
You said, we did, they say. Any fool could predict many of the things residents come up with at these meetings, most of them are common sense ideas that a manager with half a brain should be able to foresee when planning a service. Perhaps instead of wasting all our unpaid time in endless unproductive meetings, they should be made to come and live on one of our estates for three months and find out for themselves...
