Dear Dame,
In light of recent articles on the Sutton Estate I thought your readers might appreciate an update on the other example of attempted "social engineering" in the heart of Chelsea.
As your readers are no doubt aware those living in the western-most corner of Chelsea were treated to an "interesting" summer thanks to Council-inspired proposals to build a Crossrail 2 station on the site of the Cremorne estate. Proposals that would have resulted in the estate's demolition and the forced relocation of its residents. The locals - residents and neighbours of the estate alike - did not take particularly kindly to the proposals, on which they had never been properly consulted by the Council. They mobilised quickly and campaigned to generate a massive and unequivocal response to the TfL consultation then underway. Sadly it appears that the Council haven't taken particularly kindly to this turn of events.
At a recent meeting of the Kings Road Association of Chelsea Residents those who campaigned against the proposals were referred to as "trolls, troublemakers and activists" by the Leader of the Council. You would have hoped such churlish comments would be beneath both the Council and the Leader, but sadly it appears not.
News of the proposals had originally leaked from within Kensington and Chelsea TMO, the company managing the Council's housing. This would not have been appreciated by the Council and the TMO now appears intent on making amends by crippling the estate's Residents Association. The TMO have written to the Association notifying it that all future communication must be made in writing through its complaints department and that any attempts to contact individual members of staff, including the housing officers and technical staff responsible for the estate, will simply be ignored. Members of staff have confirmed an edict from above to that effect: do not communicate with the Cremorne Estate Residents Association, force them to put everything in writing, cause delay, slow everything down, wear the residents out. An interesting stance for a supposedly "resident led" housing management company whose shareholders include many of the estate's residents!
All in all not what one would have hoped from either the Council or the TMO. Some might be inclined to suggest that it would be wiser for them all to sit down, ponder what happened and attempt to re-open the lines of communication but I fear that they have already taken a leaf out of the "Housing Association's Regeneration Handbook" (currently on loan to Affinity Sutton) and consider antagonising the locals further a more appropriate strategy.
This is not behaviour befitting the Royal Borough. We are all being let down.
Yours
Peeved and disappointed of Chelsea
Well said
ReplyDeleteIt seems that "trolls" is the new shorthand of the Pravda types in Hornton Street to ridicule and dismiss protest in the Royal Borough. The great tradition of trashing democracy that has become the hall mark of K&C Tories
ReplyDeleteIt is so much easier to be dismissive than to take any kind of protest seriously. Recently myself and Judith Blakeman have been variously accused of:
ReplyDelete- being the Dame/running the Hornet website
- provoking Notting Hill Prep parents to near riot for party political reasons
- running the Save the Cremorne website and provoking residents
- politicising the SEN Transport fiasco after a child had nearly died
I can't imagine K&C Tories ever accepting that these campaigns, and so many others besides, may be initiated and organised by traditional Conservative voters who are angry and upset at the lack of representation by their own ward Councillors. Accusing their own voters of being 'trolls, trouble-makers and activists' is disingenuous.
But while they have a think about that (and then do nothing), we in the Labour Group will support any residents who come to us frustrated by the lack of democratic accountability, whatever their personal politics.
Anyone who knows anything knows that Councillor Dent-Coad is one of the few RBKC members who can be trusted to act fairly and with integrity. There are not many RBKC members you can say that about but to avoid an accusation of bias which at the level of post I held which had political restriction I will also say that Councillor Miss Barbara Campbell is another.
DeleteI have encountered Emma Dent Coad and I have found her to be like all K&C politicians entirely self serving.
DeleteEmma Dent Coad has a condescending attitude. I found it hard to connect with her
DeleteI have just clicked on the link above and read about the double dealings of Councillors Judith Blakeman and Tim Coleridge over the footpath. I have never trusted the Tory or Labour Parties and would never trust either of these parties with a path, a right of way or an easement.
DeleteI do not understand why the Action Group will be campaigning for Blakeman's resignation without going for Coleridge as well.
Was Blakeman more to blame?
Judith Blakeman is now on the TMO Board and given her involvement in the footpath we need to keep an eye on her.
9:37 is correct.
DeleteThis story seems to have the whiff of a scandal especially if a vulnerable resident has been deceived by these Councillors.
If Blakeman and Coleridge cannot explain their actions satisfactorily then they should both be forced to resign from the RBKC Council.
A "whiff of scandal," it stinks to high heaven. RBKC Councillors graduate from "The School for Scandal " that is, double crossing shameless scandal. No wonder the TMO is so good at doing the same.
DeleteI see Nick has now seen fit to respond:
ReplyDeletehttp://rbkcleadersblog.wordpress.com/2014/07/30/development-the-number-one-local-issue/comment-page-1/#comment-313
I fear he simply doesn't understand the concerns of residents.
Is he arguing that "the residents started it"? Very mature!
DeleteIt would have been far simpler, and more effective, to just apologise and be done with it. Why couch an apology-of-sorts in all that waffle?
DeleteOur views on what Nick said:
ReplyDeletehttp://savethecremorne.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/trolls-troublemakers-and-activists.html
The Council claim they are happy to talk to residents. But are they really?
Why did we have to learn of these proposals through a leaked TMO Board briefing? Why didn't anyone at the Council bother to approach us last year when they wrote to Boris proposing to relocate the station to "a location between World's End and Beaufort Street"? Why have they yet to approach the estate's residents or its Residents Association? Is any of that meaningful engagement?
Yes, we're upset. Our homes were put at risk without our knowledge. The works would blight the local area for a decade. Our little corner of Chelsea with its mixed community that has evolved naturally over decades, useful neighbourhood shops that serve all comers, a lovely riverside garden that is meant to make up for some of the highest housing densities in London let alone the borough, would all be destroyed or irreparably damaged at a stroke. And for what? More empty riverside tower blocks to be used as property banks for dodgy offshore money?
This Council needs to get its priorities right. At the moment they are very, very wrong.
I wonder what the TMO think they're going to gain by trying to disenfranchise the Residents Association? Wasn't it elected at a packed meeting in the presence of Greg Hands MP? That's a pretty conclusive show of support from the estate's residents.
ReplyDeleteCommon sense and the TMO are often mutually exclusive.
DeleteIt wasn't that long ago that the TMO managed to create it's own "mountain out of a mole hill" as disgruntled resident shareholders called EGM after EGM to express their discontent with the Board and senior staff.
DeleteThe threat of EGMs has been seen off with judicious and timely amendments to the TMO's company rules but much of the original discontent remains. In particular as the Council conveniently shelved the much lauded independent report into the TMO's many practical and moral shortcomings without bothering to address any of them.
The CEO would be best advised to get a grip on his staff, make sure they deliver the service they are paid for in an honest and transparent way and put an end to the constant politicking, schmoozing of "friendly" residents and empire building that far too many appear to be so fond of.
The social residents of the Cremorne estate should just be grateful to have housing in Chelsea rather than stirring up all this trouble against our Council. The borough has benefited enormously from the talented leadership first of Sir Merrick Cockell and now by Nick Paget-Brown to the point where this borough is the richest in Europe with over £250 million in cash in the bank.
ReplyDeleteA train station would have benefitted the whole area with just the loss of a few social housing tenants, and you have gone and ruined it for everybody.
Naughty - some people do not understand irony and might think this comment is for real!
DeletePaul you can't be that thick...or are you pulling our legs.
DeleteThe £250k in reserves is our money generated through overtaxing.
Pooter Cockell was a fag seller
Easy to build up large reserves when you charge people too much Council Tax. It is called being a good Tory. Come to think of it, Ken Livingstone did it at the GLA.
DeleteWe were not warned of the implications of the TfL consultation. We were not told that we were being consulted on the demolition of our own homes. We were subjected to the worry and uncertainty of displacement having committed no wrong and trusting those who are paid by the public purse to protect our interests. We fought in an honest and honourable way with right on our side. We came together from all political persuasions with one common interest: to save our homes.
ReplyDeleteWe are now being systematically discredited and sidelined by those who should hang their heads in shame. Our most vulnerable residents are losing services as our residents association is targeted. Officers of the TMO have been instructed not to have any direct communication with our residents association. This renders our residents association powerless and unable to serve our community.
All we are guilty of is coming together as a community to fight to save our homes.
Paulw.....A train station would have benefitted the whole area with just the loss of a few social housing tenants, and you have gone and ruined it for everybody.
ReplyDeleteGreat to see the head of planning or a Lawyer or whatever title he wants to dream up for himself - Hammer of the poor sounds good - really cares about social housing tenants. We will point this out to Greg Hands when he visits the estate shortly and naturally all of the social housing tenants in the borough. Dont vote Conservative if you are a social housing tenant. Your home will be sacrificed for the good of the underground -
The true colours of bland useless Nick are coming to light. Trolls? Anyone who disagrees, questions or are not grateful for what falls from their table are to be ignored. Clearly their 'empathy' training sessions have worked brilliantly...they think.
ReplyDeleteHead slightly tilted whilst smiling gives the impression that you care, repeat what has just been said to you, then the minions will think they are important, then walk away. Thats the strategy. The residents are not idiots and will fight back.
This would seem like an ideal opportunity for the local Ward Councillors to prove their worth, approach these residents and deal with whatever shenanigans are afoot. Will they jump at the chance? Or hide under a rock?
ReplyDeleteUnder a rock thats a guarantee. They have no courage conviction or dedication to residents.
DeleteThe TMO is, and always has been, politically motivated. The TMO does, and has always done, exactly what its Tory Paymaster Council wants it to do. The TMO has never, and will never, bite the hand that feeds it.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry if Cremorne Residents have only just realised that the TMO has the best Interference Department in the social housing sector. Yes the Interference Department has an innocuous sounding name like Resident Engagement or Business Improvement or some other fancy sounding thing. Its officials are paid a fortune and they come the aid of the Council whenever required to do so.
A TMO is supposed to provide residents with an opportunity to stimulate, inspire and develop ideas even if such ideas challenges the professional power of Housing Officers and the political power of Councillors. TMO Management has never given practical expression to these principles and residents have no more input in to matters which affect their housing, second to health the most important aspect of their lives than they did in the days of the authoritarian RBK&C Housing Department.
There is more than a touch of irony about the TMO now doing down the residents of Cremorne. In 2008, a former TMO Chairman rallied Cremorne residents to come to the aid of the TMO when residents who had enough of incompetence from the Board and its Executive brought the Company to its knees with two damaging General Meetings of the Company. Nothing changes
Brilliant, go, go go.
DeleteThe TMO is a lie. A lie sold to residents. The lie being that it would enable them to have a say in how their homes are managed. In reality the TMO permits no such thing. Where any issue of substance is concerned the only people with a say are the Council and the TMO's Executive team. The views of residents are, in true K&C tradition, simply ignored.
DeleteThe residents on the Board are patsies; a mixture of the unskilled and the unprincipled. Housing Associations may dream up "steering groups" when it suits them to distract, confuse, divide and conquer their residents; the TMO has one on hand all the time. The only resident Board member with any principles was booted off over the summer. What remains are those happily taking home their monthly stipend for turning up to half a dozen meetings a year to sign off the Executive team's latest grand plan.
That'll be the monthly stipend us ordinary plebs aren't supposed to know about right?
DeleteYes, the eight elected Board members are costing the public purse the best part of £20k a year in allowances. And for that £20k they don't actually do anything beyond attending a handful of meetings. They don't interact with residents in any meaningful way and they certainly don't represent them.
DeleteDuring the recent Crossrail 2 fiasco only one of them attended any of the TfL drop-in events, the other seven were completely absent. And he's just been booted off for very possibly doing that. The others couldn't have cared less. Poor value for money doesn't even begin to describe them.
I wish that Anonymous at 09.48 had given his or her name. We all know how ghastly the TMO is to those of us who stand up for what is right. Please tell me the name of the resident who was booted off the Board last summer and why the TMO Board got rid of them. I have known any one who was any good to be on the TMO Board.
DeleteI hear that most of the Tenant Board Members use this honey pot amounting to 20K a year to top up their means tested Social Security Benefits. The Dame, along with hard pressed working tenants, will be appalled to hear that this scrounging is legal!
DeleteWill The Dame, who is so well connected, report this scrounging to the Secretary of State so that Social Security Officers review this scandalous situation and recover the overpaid benefits from these patsies.
I do not understand this about the monthly stipend and Tenant Board Members claiming the Social. I call it working and drawing. The Dame, she knows you know
DeleteIf people only knew the truth. The TMO is rotten to the core.
DeleteA Former TMO Board regularly treated itself to lavish hospitality at a top Hertfordshire hotel called Ashridge on company money.
Not just a former TMO Board. The current TMO Board treat themselves to luxury "away days". They can't see beyond the trough.
DeleteI am sure The Dame would like to bestow Anonymous at 13.14 with the Good Hornet Award for doing the public spirited thing by grassing up those Board Members who have had lavish luxury days out on public money.
DeleteThe Dame is not nosey but likes to know.
Residents on this estate should call an Extraordinary General Meeting of the Company to hold the TMO to account over this disgraceful decision.The TMO is not acting in their best interests.
ReplyDeleteWake up TMO. Residents have brought the Company down before and could do it all over again. The persuasive Juliet Rawlings could go round the estate with her bit of paper rabble rousing; that's all she would need to do and it would be trouble with a capital "T" for the TMO. I would not be surprised if the TMO tried to buy her off by offering one of their superior Council flats.
Now that's a good idea.
DeleteThe TMO should be very wary of the simple fact that it doesn't actually take much to convince people to sign a petition calling an EGM. Yes, it was trivially easy to do when all you needed was 50 signatures and you now need 500. But when recent petitions collected several thousand signatures in a matter of days and the membership list is out there it won't take long for someone to put 2 and 2 together and everyone can pretend it's 2008 all over again.
DeleteThe TMO has a Director of People and Performance. I thought this was a posh politically correct name for a Dinner Lady directing children to queue up for their lunches making sure that they perform the task of eating it. I suppose someone has to organise all of the skullduggery that is going on.
ReplyDeleteThey have a Director of People and Organisational Development too. I thought that was a Lollipop Lady.
DeleteI had never heard of the TMO before reading all this. I am glad that my husband had a good job and we bought our place nothing to do with the Council or the TMO. I had no idea how bad it was for tenants. Does the dame know if it is as bad as this in other Councils?
ReplyDeleteMy mum lives on the World's End Estate. I don't know why the TMO delivers Tenant's Link to my mum who reads how wonderful the TMO says it is and then looks at the way her mates who are relying on the Cremorne Residents' Association to save their homes are being treated by the TMO and the Council.
ReplyDeleteThe Dame knows the power of social media, the TMO does not. The Cremorne RA should set up a website so that people can go to town by blogging every time the TMO and the Council goes too far with insults and petty officiousness. The Dame will understand that I am using my married name so that they cannot get back at my mum.
http://savethecremorne.blogspot.co.uk/
ReplyDeleteIn reply to the post by anonymous at 18.04, there are loads of articles on the link which you mention but only two comments on the entire website by those affected by the demolition of the estate. The Council will conveniently interpret this lack of active participation as being an acceptance of the proposal by the majority of residents.
ReplyDeleteAt least those of us who rub shoulders with The Dame have been more vocal.
The blog is the means by which residents and other interested parties are kept abreast of what's happening. There are comments to some articles, but not too many (older articles have more comments). Given the demographics of the estate it would be both unreasonable and unrealistic to expect the blog to become the focus of resident involvement.
DeleteThe real indication of the community's views are the petitions we ran, all of which accumulated several thousand signatures. One of those petitions was handed over to Greg Hands MP at the Cremorne Estate RA AGM. He wrote back to each and every signatory.
And one petition - demanding to know the extent of the Council's role in the whole fiasco - is still accumulating signatures as we speak.
The Senior Management Team at the TMO over the last six years has been very high handed far more so than it was in the day of Gordon Perry. It was unnecessary for the TMO's current management team under the direction of Mr Robert Black to dictate that unless the Cremorne Residents' Association contacted the Complaints' Team none of their concerns would be answered. What was wrong with the Chief Executive, Mr Black, instructing all of his staff to refer any communications received from the Cremorne Residents' Association to the Complaints' Team for reply. This would have been the intelligent way for the TMO to maintain consistency in its replies ensuring that all of its staff are singing from the same hymn sheet as opposed to the dictatorial, high handed and confrontational way which the TMO has chosen; an all too familiar hallmark of the current management regime. If Mr Black can instruct his staff not to answer correspondence or engage in telephone conversations with the Residents' Association surely he could instruct his staff to refer all communication to the Complaints' team for reply. TMO management clearly enjoys being high handed especially with those who are at risk of losing their homes and community ties. The Council should be ashamed of its housing management contractor.
ReplyDeleteI thought this type of control freakery died with the Stasi in East Germany.
If the TMO provided a decent service resident associations wouldn't have to contact and chase their staff all the time. That's the real question those running the TMO need to ask themselves: Why do residents and resident associations feel the need to contact your staff so regularly? Might it have something to do with the poor service you and your contractors provide day in, day out?
DeleteHaven't you heard? The staff can do no wrong and the contractors are wonderful. Why would anyone ever feel the need to chase anything or complain? Rumours of poor contractor performance - shoddy quality repairs, light and lifts out of service for weeks on end, fire doors that don't close properly.These are all mere figments of the imagination.
DeleteI know what they are like.
DeleteWe all know what they're like. The problem is that the Council either ignore what they're like or tolerate it. Either way they're not doing anyone any favours.
DeleteShane Carter is right. Common sense is in short supply at the TMO.
ReplyDeleteHow simple it would have been if all TMO staff had been instructed to refer all communication from the Cremorne Resident Association to a named official for reply. Control freaks are controlling because they are very insecure people. Perhaps, the bloke in charge is very insecure and did not anticipate the fall out.
There is something unpleasant about the TMO dictating that correspondence will only be answered if it is addressed to the Complaints Team. The TMO has made a rod for its own back by unnecessarily laying down the law. With a little intelligence and common sense on the part of the TMO, The Dame would never have heard about this situation.
ReplyDeleteWhat is Councillor Mellon going to about the TMO? it is a disaster
ReplyDeleteNothing. The TMO allows Councillors to claim that the day-to-day management of the Council's housing stock is none of their business. It enables a massive democratic deficit where elected representatives willingly choose to neither take responsibility for what happens to a valuable public asset or represent the interests of the members of our society that depend on it. And our Councillors like it that way.
DeleteAnyone interested in seeing just how poor the TMO really is should dig out a copy of the report the Council first commissioned and then shelved in 2008. Very little has changed in the last six years.
DeleteThe TMO has clearly decided that it "can't work" with the Cremorne Estate's Residents Association, very probably because the most active members of the Association's current committee are probably being just a bit too effective at pointing out the TMO's many repeated failings. The campaign against the Crossrail 2 station was probably the final straw.
ReplyDeleteThey will therefore proceed to try to "divide and conquer" the Committee by promising "friendlier" Committee members the earth so as to encourage them to oust those "less friendly" to the TMO from the RA. If that doesn't work they'll try to get rid of the whole Committee and proceed to have a "puppet regime" of friendly residents elected in their place.
Think that sounds far-fetched? It happens all the time. The TMO orchestrated a similar "coup" in another Residents Association in Chelsea last year and was only prevented from doing the same to another in the north of the borough by the intervention of one of the local Ward Councillors.
The real problem are members of staff who consider this kind of meddling "part of the job". It isn't. Their job is to manage housing. If they didn't do such a piss poor job of that fewer residents would feel inclined to have to point out just how rubbish they are in the first place.
Is this really what TMO staff get up to? Surely this isn't acceptable behaviour?
DeleteWasn't it the Cremorne where members of TMO staff and a certain well-known resident conspired to get their hands on some Council money under false pretenses a couple of years ago?
DeleteThe conspiracy mentioned by Anonymous at 17.27 was to do with the creation of a Company called Grand Union Homes. The TMO refused to discuss it when residents enquired. I believe that Michael Beverley had a hand in that matter too.
DeleteIn my experience Greg Hands MP does not like rocking the boat at the TMO. I wonder if one of Sir Macolm Rifkind's constituents might approach Sir Malcolm whom I found to be very good at taking on the TMO when he represented the resident of Chelsea. .
Contributor at 18:01 is on the money. Michael Beverley was implicated in the Grand Union Homes saga right up to his neck.
DeleteI suspect 17:27 was actually referring to a much more recent event involving the forging of many signatures to secure monies from the Council - nothing other than criminal fraud involving TMO staff and some of the locals.
DeleteGrand Union Homes was the "grand plan" of a former CEO that unraveled pretty much as soon as the word got out. The former CEO was quietly moved on. What was surprising was that the TMO Board members involved were allowed to remain in post as if nothing had happened.
DeleteI implore 23.37 to tell the Dame about the forging of signatures to obtain money from the Council. The TMO were shown up in Private Eye, a few years ago, when a Board Member accepted company money for the purposes of throwing a pensioners' tea party but then decided to spend the money on an agreeable meal in a nice restaurant for a few select friends. There are offences enshrined in the Fraud Act 2006 covering this conduct.
DeleteThe TMO said that the Board member had done nothing wrong, a circle which it could not square because the Board member was made to repay the money which she spent on the meal in a restaurant. If the Board member did nothing wrong, why did the fiddled money have to be repaid? Beats me. Michael Beverley did not like it when I brought this matter up at an Annual General Meeting of the Company
Don't get me started on Michael Beverley. He was on the TMO Board for well over 10 years. He made a lifestyle choice to opt out of earning a living and expected his neighbours to keep him. He proudly claimed the Social and was very good at avoiding the Jobcentre. He bragged about the monthly allowance which he got from the TMO and that Social Security and RBKC Housing Benefits did not reduce his benefits because a former TMO Chief Executive cleared this arrangement off with the Social and the Council's Housing Benefit Office.
DeleteThe "allowance" all TMO Board members received is income. As such it should be declared to DWP when applying for any means-tested benefits, to the Council when applying for housing benefit and to HMRC as untaxed income subject to income tax.
DeleteI wish that 08.37 did reveal more about the late Michael Beverley. I have thought long and hard and now feel compelled to bring a disgraceful matter involving Mr Beverley in to the public arena so that everyone may judge the unethical stance of past and present TMO management.
DeleteA few years ago, I was shown a leaked document. Another resident who is now living in abroad was shown the same document at the same time as me. The document revealed that TMO Board Member Michael Beverley was offered psychological counselling at the TMO's expense from a private therapist in North London. The leaked document gave the therapist's name and address (which I do not think I should mention because she has done nothing wrong) and provided her Bank Account details at Lloyds Bank, 499 Oxford Street Branch,London W1 so that her fees for each session could be settled by the TMO electronically.
I wrote to the current management team expressing concern about this situation. The many Council tenants who need counselling for depression and other mental health problems have to join long NHS Waiting Lists whereas the privileged, and ever so deserving, Mr Beverley went private courtesy of money which came from the public purse. Two senior managers at the TMO refused to discuss the situation with me making wooly use of the Data Protection Act 1998; falsely claiming that legislation prevented discussion. I pointed out that this is nonsense because the Data Protection Act 1998 does not afford any protection to the data of the dead.
Whilst Mr Black's team was not responsible for authorising this private medical treatment, it is disappointing that his team took such an unethical position. Two senior managers refused to discuss the situation when, despite their claims to the contrary, there appears to be no legal impediment to doing so. It would have been better for them to come clean to show that an ethical and moral team now heads the TMO giving practical expression to drawing a line under a shocking past; something which Mr Black said he was keen to do when he started at the TMO.
The Memoli Report in 2008 in to the TMO stated that Board Members should not receive personal benefits, or favours from the company, or get preferential treatment with repairs. A former Company Secretary told me that the TMO could find no evidence of personal gain by any Board Member when at least one person still working in the Organisation today was involved in arranging Mr Beverley's private medical treatment and had personal knowledge of it.
At an AGM of the company in late 2008, I put down a written question requesting details of the expenses paid to, or moniesworth bestowed on, each Board Member. The then Chief Executive who authorised Mr Beverley's private medical treatment gave me a global figure for the entire Board and told me that if I could do long division, I would be able to calculate the mean average for each Board Member.
The TMO looks after its Board Members, who like Mr Beverley, can be relied upon to come to the Organisation's aid when residents like those at Cremorne fight back against injustice and oppression.
I have the courage of my convictions so I am publishing my name as I have done before.
Well said, Shane.
DeleteBeverley loved the TMO. I think he saw it as an expression of his life -poor creature god love him.
Michael Beverley's sense of entitlement - Social Security, Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit, the TMO Monthly Board Member's Allowance,with the extra benefits of trips to top Hertfordshire Countryside Hotels and the best restaurants was greedy but he came to rely on these handouts out of economic necessity. He was capable of getting a job and performing the duties required. He was incapable of getting on with people so any employment which he might have obtained would have been short-lived, intermittent and would not have provided the same regular income. The money which he scrounged from the Benefit System, and the TMO, was small but guaranteed every week. He would have found going to work, taking orders, doing as he was told, and getting on with colleagues too much to bear. A tortured soul and those of us who work all ended up paying for him.
DeleteMichael was self serving and self possessed. The TMO gave him recognition validating his dreary existence.
DeleteThe TMO gave Michael Beverley power. He created clicks and only admitted to the click those Board Members who grovelled and crawled around him. Those who were not admitted to the click were outsiders and made to feel outsiders. They longed for admission to the click striving for the Michael Beverley stamp of approval. Gaining acceptance from Michael Beverley was all to some Board Members. I found it ingratiating.
DeleteNow let's get this straight!
ReplyDeleteIf you have had experience of the TMO's Department of Interference you would be in no doubt about what the TMO is capable of and what they get up to. As I said only last week on this very blog, the TMO has the best Interference Department in the social housing business. I would not be at all surprised if someone at the TMO has got a certificate in meddling and interference from Oxford Brookes University.
Lemon is right do not underestimate the capacity for dirty tricks at the TMO. They will try to divide and rule and encourage people who can be easily manipulated to take over the Resident's Association.
I am writing anonymously because I work at the TMO and do not want to be victimised by TMO Management for speaking out. The TMO is buzzing with talk of what is written on this website. I don't mind telling you that it has caused quite a stir amongst the rank and file who work there. We are worried that there are such a large number of tenants on the Cremorne Estate who have lost faith with the TMO and senior managers. We don't blame the residents, we think they have got a point. We are worried for our jobs because if a petition is presented asking for an EGM requesting that the Company is scrapped, we don't think the current management team would be able to see the residents off in the way that the previous management team did. We know that the current team is not very good but please understand that we are worried about our jobs.
ReplyDeleteIt is quite telling that TMO front-line staff fear their management.
DeleteDiscontent among residents is not confined to the Cremorne Estate. There are many other residents and Resident Associations keeping a close eye on what happens here. The TMO "interference department" referred to by another poster has been able to operate with impunity in the shadows and out of sight up to now. But not this time. Residents are all very much aware of what is happening and what they're up to. They would be well advised to behave themselves for a change lest the fallout prove entirely unexpected.
A petition calling for an EGM is not the only possible outcome. And if an EGM is called it is unlikely to be to "scrap the company". That wasn't what the EGMs in 2008 were about and it is unlikely to be this time round either. Having said that, I suspect that much of the sympathy the company had among those asking for EGMs in 2008 has long since evaporated. That's what happens when promises of meaningful change and improvement remain unfulfilled.
It would be heartless not to feel sympathy for some TMO staff. But it is within the TMO's power to defuse the current situation given that it is entirely of its own making. It was the TMO who started placing restrictions on what residents could or could not do after all, not residents. Apologise, make amends and move on.
DeleteI am very disappointed with Anonymous at 9.38. Scrapping the TMO is the only answer. Why would anyone want something so dreadful to continue; something which appears to have been a litany of fraud and incompetence.
DeleteThe Anonymous TMO Employee at 18.15 would do well not write to Dame Hornet on any computer in the TMO's offices. In 1999 or 2000, an Anonymous TMO employee sent a typewritten letter accusing two former Executive Directors of the Company of racism. The letter was also copied to a number of high profile residents. I used to work for the the TMO at the time and remember that it conducted an aggressive Witch Hunt. It had every hard drive on every computer in the place examined to see if it could rout out the informant. They hoped that even if the document had been deleted from the directory on the screen, the hard drive might not have been written over with new data which would make it possible to establish that the writer had used a particular computer. The Chief Executive's Secretary will probably be able to brief Mr Black on this one. May I congratulate Dame Hornet who has provided the community with a platform to show the TMO up.
DeleteThe fundamental problem here is the need for residents and Resident Associations to have to chase up the TMO on a permanently continuous basis. The TMO claims that this is because residents have unrealistic expectations but the truth is that the TMO continually fails to meet its own targets. For example, the TMO "aims" to respond to written inquiries within 10 working days. In practice this target is rarely if ever met. If you're lucky to get a response within 10 working days it is unlikely to be a meaningful response. A meaningful response is likely to take weeks if not months and require lots of chasing. And if action is required we're likely to be talking months if not years and lots and lots of chasing (spot the trend?).
Delete11:55 is a perfect example of what's fundamentally wrong with the TMO. The TMO is solely concerned with appearance. It is not concerned with real problems (such as the example of racism given) and addressing them. And this is why improvement is unlikely. You can't improve if you refuse to accept there are problems, never admit fault, never apologise for anything, and never take remedial action. This is the cultural problem the new CEO and Exec team were supposed to address. They have clearly failed to do so.
DeleteAnnoymous at 11.55 is correct except for describing the current Chief Executive as "new". He has been there six years and when he was "new" he talked a good talk. I knew from the first moment that I met him that he was no mover or shaker. Shortly after he joined the Company, he took on a Customer Service Director who is now the Operations Director and he also took on a new Head of Resident Engagement who is now the Director of People and Performance. This trio work in concert, they admit nothing, concede nothing and above all are defensive about the mess that the TMO is in. COUNCILLOR MELLON- deeds not words please. It is time that it all ended in tears.
DeleteFor Councillor Rock Feilding Mellen
DeleteAnon @13.08 has forgotten to include the Business Improvement Manager in the list of those responsible. The holder of this post must accept her share of the blame for the mess. She worked at the TMO when Mr. Kingsford was in charge. She has held the posts of Complaints' Officer, Policy Officer and now Business Improvement Manager. She has hardly made much of an impact in any of these posts- there are still plenty of people complaining, policy is made and implemented on the hoof, and above all else nothing has improved.
11.55 is right. The TMO is solely concerned with image. The Dame is great at denting that image. Robert Black needs to hang on to his job so as long as he does what he is told by the Council he will keep his job and lose the housing.
DeleteWe have now received emails from the TMO falsely accusing a member of the resident's association of being abusive to staff and and contractors. Dissolving our residents association must be the objective. This is the price we are paying for defending homes.
ReplyDeleteIf they wanna scrap you, gerra a petition up to call a meeting to scrap the TMO. Fight back, fight dirty and mean.
DeleteThis is quite simply bullying of the worst kind. This is not professional behaviour, however much they might try to dress it as such. The TMO staff concerned should be ashamed. The Residents Association must remain united in the face of such open and venal hostility to one of its members.
DeleteRobert Black must accept responsibility for this bullying.
DeleteThe TMO needs no lessons in bullying. There is something of the night about it.
DeleteThe Kensington & Chelsea TMO gunning for the Cremorne RA,
ReplyDeletethe unspeakable in pursuit of the unbeatable.
This Tenant Management Organisation is the TENANT MIS-MANAGEMENT ORGANISATION.
ReplyDeleteThe Council gives it about £3 million every year to MIS-MANAGE. .
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