Saturday, August 1, 2009

Wendy Alexander's GHA failure receives damning report


Dear All

Under a disastrous scheme by New Labour; Glasgow City Council transferred control of social housing stock to a company called the Glasgow Housing Association or GHA.

As a tenant I voted firmly against this as this meant less accountability.

The aims of the tenant transfer were to give local tenants control over housing in their areas but the reality is that the GHA still has a firm grip on housing stock.

And complaints mount whether it is from tenants or owner occupiers.

In the space of less than a month another senior top tier figure of the GHA has quit, the troubled agency.

Donna Stevenson, director of strategic services at Glasgow Housing Association, left her £100,000-a-year post as the housing sector's watchdog strongly criticised the organisation's governance and failure.

Ms Stevenson had been a GHA executive director for more than five years and had responsibility for "Second Stage Transfer", the intended break-up of the organisation which in my opinion will not happen unless forced by the Scottish Government.

So after jumping ship before the report came in Ms Stevenson had left to seek fresh career challenges; I suspect she will probably appear in another quango.

She left after deciding it was "job done".

One can only speculate on what that means.

The GHA was a New Labour baby and it is no surprise that it is riddled with problems and failure; it is too much to expect the Glasgow Labour Party to get it right for ordinary people.

It is expect that other members of this failed organisation will also follow Stevenson out the door as the regulator demands changes.

The problems of the GHA have come to ahead by the bringing forward of an audit after much criticism and this uncovered a number of serious issues most notably that the GHA;

"has not set a clear purpose and direction that key stakeholders understand and support".

Again we can only speculate what “job done” means.

Given that the GHA is the largest social landlord in Scotland, it beggars belief that the board are;
"giving too little time to the consideration of critical strategic issues" and "approving many agenda items with little challenge or discussion".

It appears to me that the GHA was set up to never be dismantled.

The GHA chairwoman Sandra Forsythe in defending the organisation said;

"Donna has driven the hugely complex Second Stage Transfer process for GHA and it is thanks to her that six community-based housing associations have taken ownership of homes with more to follow in the future. This would not have happened without Donna's hard work, commitment and superb expertise."

Given the statement above and her legal background, how exactly was this hugely complex for Stevenson?

She either knew what she was doing or she didn’t.

Stevenson departure has been welcomed by smaller, community-based housing associations who hope her exodus will accelerate the break-up of GHA.

Damning statements by the Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations said;

"We hope that Ms Stevenson's departure signals a new willingness on GHA's part to pursue the transfer of GHA housing to locally based associations on a fair basis.

"Sadly, this has not been the case since GHA took over Glasgow City Council's housing in 2003."

It seems that this quango has to be removed and all housing second staged transferred to local housing associations, the sooner the better but a better option maybe to return control back to Glasgow City Council by reballoting tenants.

This is a prime example of New Labour’s, Wendy Alexander’s incompetence; she was the architect of GHA and the envisager of SST.

The people of Glasgow are still paying the price for her failure.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

2 comments:

  1. Donna Stevenson: could that be the same one as is now at the Scottish Futures Trust?

    ReplyDelete