Bearded.........
The Dame says.....
In giving his evidence he failed to say why he never resigned when in all the circumstances it would have been the decent thing.But how on earth did this useless former student from Aberdeen Art College get this lucrative position with responsibility for the lives of thousands?
Black appeared with a beard on his first appearance and lost it the next day!....Strange
Shane Carter writes.....
Robert Black, the £140,000 a year former Chief Executive of the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) gave evidence to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry yesterday.
Robert Black admitted to keeping the TMO Board "in the dark" about fire safety issues. He failed to tell the TMO Board about:-
- problems with smoke detectors at Grenfell Tower,
- the Fire Brigade issuing a deficiency notice in relation to Grenfell Tower,
- problems with Fire doors in another block of flats where a fire broke out.
More shockingly, the TMO commissioned a Safety Management Review in 2013 which "identified a lack of leadership at Executive Level" and that 1000 fire risk assessment actions were outstanding. Robert Black told the TMO Board that an action plan was being devised but did not advise his Board about the risks or the problems addressed in the Review.
Councillors of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea knew that the TMO was a failing housing organisation. In 2008, they received a report from Maria Memoli, a Solicitor brought in by the Council to investigate the TMO. Memoli identified twenty-eight systemic failures at the TMO but the TMO continued to manage social housing badly for another eight years; culminating in 72 people losing their lives..
These same Councillors were happy to crow when the Labour Government in 2006 gave the Council an extra £12 million of funding (bringing the total funding up to £36 million) for the Decent Homes' Partnership on the basis of an inspection of the TMO carried out by the Housing Inspectorate in 2006. Just how the Government's Housing Inspectorate managed to judge the TMO a centre of excellence by awarding it a three star rating in 2006, when Memoli found so much wrong with it two years later, is a circle that cannot be squared.
Councillors had a duty to ensure that the many issues that Maria Memoli identified were resolved. Robert Black paid lip service to the report by referring to the rebuilding of trust amongst the many who had lost confidence in the TMO. Instead, things went from bad to worse at the TMO and Councillors must have known that. Councillors must now accept their share of responsibility for what came to pass at Grenfell Tower. The Tories were happy to abrogate housing management responsibility to the Tenant Management Board effectively washing their hands of the many problems brought to them by Council tenants.
What I will never understand is why Labour Councillors supported the tenant management sham. Labour Councillors are supposed to be the Council tenants' friend - what a joke.
A Tenant Management Organisation derives its authority from its Board:-
ReplyDeleteBeing responsible for devising policy, overseeing its implementation and associated practices.
The TMO Board was unable to discharge this duty when Black decided to suppress the risks, including fire safety risks, set out in the Safety Management Review.
Why did the Councillors on the TMO Board fail to ask Black what risks were identified in the Safety Management Review. We could not expect much of the Tenant Board Members but we could expect more from the highly intelligent Councillors on the TMO Board - Councillors Condon-Simmonds and Blakeman.
You're right about Tenant Board Members not being too clever. One former Board Member who was on the TMO for years could not read or write. I hear he learned to read when he was sent to prison for nine years for child abuse.
DeleteThe Attorney General agreed to immunity from prosecution for any witness who admitted to a crime during the course of evidence to the Inquiry. I suppose it turns on whether those who were grossly negligent in the performance of their duties at the TMO have admitted to anything that incurs criminal liability in their evidence.
ReplyDeleteWhen Black started at the TMO, he told tenants to put the past behind them, with the previous unethical and incompetent management teams, and move forward.
ReplyDeleteI did not know that Black was so unethical. Failing to report the fire safety concerns identified in the Safety Management Review to the TMO Board.
He failed to tell the TMO Board that the Safety Management Review in 2013 identified a lack of leadership, that is his lack of leadership.
DeleteCouncillor Emma Dent Coad was on the TMO Board for three years after the Memoli Report was presented to the Council. She knew that the TMO was treating people like Sh*t because I told her.
ReplyDeleteWhy didn't she do something about it.
While deadly dangers stalked north Kensington, RBKC was publicly feted for it's 5 star status. It was the Tory government's flagship council; going around advising less able administrations how to conduct their affairs. Despite evidence to the contrary on multiple issues, RBKC acknowledged no flaws in any aspect of it's practice.
ReplyDeleteThe Labour group was complicit in the TMO's obvious failings. Calling them out would result in fewer invitations for drinks in the mayor's parlour. So councillors played along. Meanwhile the Grenfell tenants knew what was happening. They were ignored and then threatened. Then they died.
Despite 72 deaths, not a lot has changed. Reports and consultations are manipulated to 'prove' that despite all evidence to the contrary, RBKC remains at the pinnacle of municipal rectitude. The rest is swept under a very large, ever growing and very bumpy carpet.
How right Witness is!
ReplyDeleteThe "Labour Group was complicit in the TMO's obvious failings." "Calling them out would result in fewer invitations for drinks in the Mayor's Parlour."
Whatever next? Labour Councillors pissing it up at the expense of Council Tax payers. I thought that was the exclusive preserve of the Tories.
It is high time that those Labour Councillors who are tainted by service on the TMO took personal responsibility for their complicity and shortcomings and tendered their resignations.
Resignations? Do you mean resign from the Council?
DeletePretentiously, this council in those days had a Cabinet. Pooter Cockell famously suggested that his role as leader equated to that of Prime Minister! But, here's the thing....
ReplyDeleteCabinets are all about something called "Collective Responsibility". There are two members of that 'Cabinet Pudding" now on the Leadership Team. The Leader, Cllr Campbell and her sidekick, Cllr Weale famous for saying about residents, "we hear but we don't listen". These two are an embarrassing reminder of the past and the young new intake of councillors who are actually rather good should push them out.
Had I resigned there may have been ramifications as far as my £70,000 a year pension was concerned. Though I am not categoric on this point and nor would I want to seem so greedy as to allow it to influence matters....if you know what I mean?
ReplyDeleteIan Henderson stood as an independent candidate for election to the Council in 2012. In his election material, he campaigned for the reform of the TMO. None of the Labour lot seeking election in 2012 made the same pledge in their addresses to the electorate.
ReplyDeleteThese councillors, regardless of political party, must never be allowed to have anything to do with social housing ever again.
ReplyDeleteRBKC's Councillors can't be trusted with such a valuable social asset.
DeleteLabour Councillors knew of the abuse that the TMO visited on its tenants. They knew that people were threatened by the TMO and that Solicitors' letters were sent to Grenfell residents who refused to be bullied.
DeleteWhy did it take the Grenfell disaster for Labour Opposition Councillors to get worked up with two of them managing to throw a strop a bit late in the day.
Labour Councillors knew about the TMO's Black list and did nothing about it. They condoned it.
ReplyDeleteBad people (at the Council and the TMO) need nothing more to compass their despicable ends, when good people (Labour Politicians) should look on and do nothing.”
ReplyDeleteA person (including local politicians) may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.
ReplyDelete22.57 The Labour Party knew what the KCTMO was like. They accepted and tolerated this thoroughly bad situation at the expense of Council tenants.
DeleteIn 2012, Ian Henderson, the Housing Activist, stood for election to the Council and stated in his election leaflets that he wanted to sort out the TMO.
ReplyDeleteIn 2012 Emma Dent Coad, the Labour Councillor, had served on the TMO Board for four long years. Why didn't she sort out the TMO and raise the roof about it?
Greg Hands MP was no better. He received complaints about the TMO and was careful not to cross swords with Hornton Street Tories.
DeleteI know that Hands was a right one when it came to having a go at Labour Hammersmith and Fulham. Well Greg, H&F Labour did not bring about anything like the Grenfell disaster.
DeleteIf Ian Henderson could identify the TMO as a problem in 2012 then why did Emma Dent Coad and other Labour Councillors fail to do the same.
DeleteThat's right 19.48 and 17.59. Greg Hands and Labour Councillors (with their blame the Tories mantra) have done their best to emerge from Grenfell unscathed. Hands and Labour Councillors all supported tenant mismanagement and, therefore, played a significant part in keeping the worst housing management contractor in the UK in business.
DeleteEmma Dent Coad came off the TMO Board in 2012 with full knowledge of what was going on in place. She took up her new role as Leader of the Opposition at the Council. What did she do in this "top dog" position to take on, and oppose, the TMO?
ReplyDeleteIt seems that she must have approved of the TMO. She
ReplyDeletehad four years' service as a TMO Board member. A good long stint by anyone's reckoning. She would not have stayed on the TMO if she were unhappy with it.
How right you are. She approved of the TMO. Post Grenfell she is up in arms, No wonder Moore Bick refused "core participant status," she was not of any use to the Inquiry.
DeleteI see RBK&C and all the ex-TMO are playing their games on the Cremorne Estate again. Given the horrors the Inquiry reveals day by day you'd think they'd have learnt their lesson. Clearly not.
ReplyDeletehttps://savethecremorne.blogspot.com/2021/06/rewriting-history-for-thirty-pieces-of.html
https://savethecremorne.blogspot.com/2021/06/another-newsletter-another-farce.html
Not a surprise.
DeleteBlack is rightfully getting grilled at the Inquiry but his replacements are no better.
Doug Goldring has made many of the same promises Black did about reforming the place and has had just as much success.
Kim Taylor-Smith is quite happily pissing off the north of the borough will ill thought out and insensitive schemes. The cleverest politician ever he clearly isn't.
The staff the Council inherited from the TMO are back to their usual shenanigans.
Anyone under the delusion that the new administration is any better or different to the old needs to take off the blinkers.
Exactly.
DeleteNever assume that when the likes of Black and Goldring make promises they have any intention of keeping them. The truth is they don't. They're lying and they know it.
Same goes for the Kims of this world.
It was pathetic and stupid of the Kensington and Chelsea Labour Group to continue supporting the TMO.They were conceited in thinking they could change things by fighting the good fight from within by having a Labour Councillor on the TMO Board. The TMO was a disaster from the moment is started and it deteriorated every day from then on.
DeleteHow could things ever change now that Council Officers are accountable to Councillors? Many of the people who worked for the TMO are doing the same at the Council.
Be fair. A Labour Councillor got the TMO to change the nomenclature from "Chairman of the Board" to "Chair." Quite an achievement, absolutely splendid.
DeleteThe TMO was a Dirty Tricks' Department par excellence.
DeleteWith all that was wrong with the TMO, including a complete disregard for fire safety, what very important things does a Labour Councillor do? Insist on calling the Company's "Chairman" a "Chair." What was wrong with concentrating on the most important, single, issue of fire safety?
DeleteThe hard left are obsessed with "controlling" everything including people's use of language. So don't worry, we Labour Councillors can't do anything about fire safety but we will police your language.
How does changing a Chairman to a Chair change anything for tenants? That's socialism for you.
DeleteWhat a shower!
ReplyDeleteLabour and Tory Councillors elected to Kensington Council from 1997 to 2017 all knew that the TMO was a litany of incompetence, malpractice, mendacity and corruption. They all have such high opinions of themselves - they're egocentric power crazy maniacs- time to consider their positions.
ReplyDeleteFraud? It was rife. Rotten to the core.
ReplyDelete"Incompetence, malpractice, mendacity and corruption."Labour is supposed to be the opposition.
DeleteWhy did we not hear about this from Labour Councillors? Too busy sucking up to the Tories. Nye Bevan, a straight talking no nonsense Labour lad, once called the Tories "vermin." If the cap fits..........
Robert Black, disgraced CEO of the TMO, told me when he started work at the TMO that he was "not Gordon Perry."
DeleteOne high profile TMO Senior Manager told me in less than six months of Black doing the job "everything is now sorted under Robert"
Whoever told Delusional that must have been on something
ReplyDeleteDelusional here. That "Senior Manager" is still at the Council and worked at the TMO under Kingsford, Perry, Evans and Black. Her words were cheap.
DeleteIf that same woman still works there, she will be telling everyone that is "all resolved under Doug." Very dangerous and worrying! She had a high opinion of Black and that opinion was very dodgy.
Delete