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DAMESATHOME@GMAIL.COM
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Wednesday 3 December 2014

ELM PARK GARDENS RESIDENTS HIT OUT AT THE TMO













What on earth is the matter with the RBKC Tenant Management Organisation?

The Dame hears nothing but complaints about this 'unfit for purpose' organisation. 

She has to ask the question whether, under Mr Black, it's fit for purpose.
Certainly, it's far from helpful having wannabe property developer, Rock Feilding Mellen running the show.
Even the Norfolk bumpkins kicked him into touch when he tried to destroy their ancient woodlands.

There are the elderly and frail living at 71 Elm Park Gardens....sort it out, Rock!


To:      Councillor Rock Feilding Mellen, Cabinet Member for Housing
             Ward Councillors: Sir Merrick Cockell, Councillor William Pascall  Paul Warwick
Nicholas Holgate, Town Clerk and Chief Executive
We, the undersigned residents, of 71 Elm Park Gardens wish to express our dissatisfaction with the repeated failure of the communal central heating service.
We have experienced five breakdowns since October of 2014 and had three breakdowns in the Autumn of 2013 all of which are characterised by the failure of the boiler to ignite in the mornings.
We wish to register our indignation that the Tenant Management Organisation has failed to provide any information or explanation for this situation.  
We have no confidence in the Tenant Management Organisation’s ability to manage the property and provide an efficient, responsive and effective level of service.  
We urge you as our elected representatives to represent our concerns and interests; responding to every signatory.

Flat Number
Name
Signature

25 comments:

  1. Come on sniffer - here is a call to action. Lets see what you are made of. ANOTHER chance for you to demonstrate that you are not just baggage in the Cabinet.

    Getting a boiler fixed is not that difficult. Even Ludo, the Dames nephew, has been known to manage such a thing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Supporter of Cllr Moylan3 December 2014 at 09:57

    Moylan would sort this out, given the chance.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He is too busy in his new basement flat in Sarf London

      Delete
    2. Its called "kick ass". Something that Moylan is good at. The Socialist luvvies on this blog may not like it - but lazy and incompetent organisations need a good kick from time to time

      Delete
    3. Wannabe Lord Pooter4 December 2014 at 09:06

      Moylan is chief amongst those who have allowed officers to do waht they will so don't try to present him as some sort of champion of the poor and oppressed. Moylan has spent the years gathering as many well paid taxpayer funded jobs as possible....£130k a year at the last count.
      He comes from a humble working class family but disavows his background

      Delete
  3. Member of the TMO.3 December 2014 at 10:55

    There is one bloke in Elm Park Gardens that tells it like it is when it comes to the TMO.
    His name is Shane and I have heard him tell it like it is at a number of meetings of the Company. He knows what's what when it comes to that dreadful place. If allowed he would sort the TMO out once and for all. He is a clever lad alright.

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  4. I heard about the disastrous running of The TMO down there for years. Are the TMO aware of the bad decisions they make - or do they work at it , just to pee everyone off.
    If they work at it they should be given some kind of award. Perhaps the Dame can come up with some appropriate awards for Bad Practice in RBKC - a bit like the Golden Raspberry awards - only for RBKC. Cmon Dame !

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    Replies
    1. The Rotten Apples?

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    2. More apt award would be the durian fruit award, preferably cut in half when awarded.

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  5. Call to action from The Ward Councillors - i can see the tumbleweed rolling down the kings road.

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  6. Social Housing is one of the difficult and problematic services provided by Local Authorities. Unfortunately, the creation of a Borough-wide TMO in Kensington and Chelsea has made matters worse.

    Does the Dame remember when Local Authorities had Housing Departments?

    Unfortunately, the RBKC Housing Department was committed to the flames in 1996 by well meaning individuals with the best of intentions.The then Tory Government (1992 to 1997) required Local Authorities to put out to competitive tender a range of services which were traditionally provided by Council Officers; Social Housing was one such service. It was known that if the RBK&C Housing Management Service was put out to tender that a bid from the private sector would probably succeed. There was much talk at the time of a French Water Company putting in a bid which would be better value than a bid put in by Council Officers to keep the service in house in the Town Hall.

    Many Councillors objected to this unprecedented meddling in the affairs of Local Government by Central Government. In RBK&C the Council decided to create a Borough wide TMO which would preclude private sector competition to run the housing management service. Unfortunately, the well intentioned Councillors of 1990's had over looked one crucial thing: successful TMO's elsewhere in the Country tended to be small around 300 to 500 properties; often based on one estate. The services provided to the residents of these small TMO's tend to be effective, efficient and responsive as opposed to the bureaucratic, authoritarian and unresponsive services provided by the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation which manages 9000 properties.

    Today's Councillors in K&C appear to be uninterested in Housing Management. I have been told more than once that Housing Management is not something that should concern Councillors because the TMO with its democratically elected Board and its professional management team is responsible for the service. In short, these Councillors have forgotten that they still own the properties and have the collective legal personality of landlord. In short RBK&C Councillors have abrogated responsibility for Housing Management to a Tenant Management Board most of whom lack the level of education to keep policy and associated practices in check and under constant review and most of whom have been unsuccessful in holding the Company's Executive Officers to account. The failure of Tenant Management Board to participate in a meaningful and effective way by creating policy and practices challenging the professional power of Housing Officer suits the TMO Executives and Councillors just fine.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. too afraid to give my name3 December 2014 at 12:18

      Regardless of whteher there is a TMO or not, RBKC Councillors should represent the concerns of those who pay the rent every week. The Councillors should hold the TMO to account on issues of under performance. Shane is right, Councillors have "abrogated" responsibility to a Board which TMO Executives lead a dance.

      Delete
    2. It is shocking that someone is "too afraid to give their name" when they make such a valid point. I am disabled and the TMO has bullied me too and reduced me to tears

      Delete
    3. This is disgraceful. If I didn't know better, I would say that the TMO was being run by the Khmer Rouge.

      Delete
  7. The TMO's future is dark,
    Its future is black.



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No pun intended says the "future is black." Has the TMO ever been "in the black?"

      Mr Black knows only too well that the Decent Homes' Budget was overspent by £ 9 million after the Labour Government in 2006 chucked an extra £6 million into the pot to bring RBKC Council tenants' homes up to a decent standard. If Labour had not given the TMO the extra tranche of £ 6 million, the overspend would have been £15 million. Why worry about the National Debt and Government Deficits with the TMO running the show.

      Strictly speaking this £ 9 million overspend was not TMO money being overspent but a loss to the Housing Revenue Account which is an account whose funds are owned by the Council, yes the same Council which entrusts those funds to the TMO as sole custodians. It is clear that the TMO costs residents dear.

      More worryingly, the Company Chairman at the time had the effrontery to deny all knowledge of the £9 million overspend at an AGM of the Company in front of Councillors; some of whom knew nothing about the £9 million overspend..

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    2. It seems that TMO staff and its former Chairman lack integrity.

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    3. TMO Standards and Ethics Committee Member4 December 2014 at 11:54

      I am an Ex TMO Board Member. Juliet Rawlings was reported to the TMO's Standards and Ethics Committee for lying at the AGM about the £ 9 million overspend. We decided that she had misled the AGM as opposed to telling deliberate lies- so put that in your pipe and smoke it.





      Delete
    4. The Dame, being who she is, rarely engages with comment makers, but on this one she is perplexed.....
      What is worst..... to mislead( and one assumes this was deliberate) or lie?
      She has also got her scrawny old hands on the 2009 report which she will be putting up.

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    5. The TMO leaks like a colander. We look forward to The Dame castigating that shower at the TMO with revelations from a repot in 2009.

      Delete
  8. What's £ 9 million among friends.

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  9. In RBKC standards and ethics committees are a fiction.

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  10. The TMO Standards and Ethics Committee Member encapsulates everything that is wrong with the TMO. She says that the TMO allowed its former Chairman to lie by passing off a blatant lie to the Company's membership as "misleading."



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From memory the TMO Board abolished its Standards and Ethics Committee a couple of years ago. It was apparently surplus to requirements (!).

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    2. The Standards and Ethics Committee was not surplus to requirements. Oh no, most definitely not. One man managed to report four or five Board Members to the Committee for wrong doing. All of his complaints came in around the same time and there was more than a grain of truth in what he reported. This bloke rang rings around TMO management and the situation became farcical because there were only one or two Board Members left who could sit in judgment on all the other Board Members reported to the Committee.

      The old pals act kicked in on that Committee and Robert Black got rid of it.

      Delete

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