Stalinist Takeover?

Since positioning themselves as 'directors' of the Camden Federation of Tenants and Residents Associations (CFTRA), Camden Association of Street Properties (CASP) committee members (I'm reliably informed) have been using the CFTRA offices as a meeting place for themselves and their hardcore 'socialist' comrades to huddle together a plotting and a planning ......

Who next to tell lies to the police about and get arrested?

How much public money they can get away with stealing?

How many parking tickets they can 'persuade' the council to waiver?

This private limited company whose 5 'directors' have no liability for the public funds they (mal?) administrate and who only represent one section of the community - yet it is tenants from across the borough of all beliefs and political leanings that pays for this private company to help themselves to public funds. Tenants have no say on whether they want to fund this discretionary 'service' - that is paid for (and not accounted for properly) from within housing management costs.

Remember the housing department scandals of a few years ago - the below is just a example:

Clearance scam mafia

Sabotage of gas supply on estate

The scandals that made the local papers were only the tip of the ice-berg I reckon.

These are not nice people.

The old stale Labour party council of previous years set the stage for these types to operate and the lib Dems have continued on the same path.

Cllr James King the Fib Dim (Kilburn ward) executive member in charge of housing services and community safety is alleged to have used his position to try to get a tenant activist arrested for calling him an idiot and stupid. Fair comment in my view and hardly crime of the century.

Has he been taking lessons from the CASP nasties I wonder?

Tenant Participation Costs

The latest on the ongoing saga of wastefulness of public resources by the housing directorate on 'tenant participation' are the blackberry mobil phones that the DMC chairs have acquired. The council also directly employs 6 tenant participation staff at a cost of around £215,000 per year as well as funding the Camden Federation of Tenants and Rresidents Associations to employ 2 staff at a cost of around £75,000 per year plus 'perks' for the 10 or so 'directors' - to do what exactly?

The cost of providing the tenant participation 'service' far exceeds the costs of the 'front line services' that tenants receive which is hardly economic, efficient or effective, Tenants are 'charged' for the TP 'service' but because it is hidden within the rents they have no say on whether they want the 'service' or not. The cost of council housing management appears to rise each year.

Every January dmcs hold a joint meeting with the council where they more or less go along with the council raising tenants rents and charges - the same rents and charges that the council uses as 'bribes' to these treacherous greedy tenant 'reps' and and a handful of 'non jobs' for council officers.

Tenants should have say on whether they want to pay for this 'service'.

-----------------------------

My comments in blue italic

Appendix : Extract from report of the scrutiny panel on Housing Consultation submitted to Executive in March 2006.

Cost of housing consultation (figures are from 2005/06 budget)

Consultation	Amount	Method of calculation
Costs of Servicing DMC &joint DMC meetings	£108,000	Costs are calculated as the salary costs for an estimate of time spent preparing for meetings, going to meetings and dealing with actions from meetings. Non-salary overheads of 30% have been added. Possible dubious
Tenants Satisfaction Survey	£40,000	Average expenditure for the last 3 years
Leasehold Consultation	£500,000	Estimate of time spent on Statutory Consultation, Leaseholder’s Forum, Elections and Ad-hoc Consultation possible dubious entry
District Management Committee Grants	£190,000	The DMCs have budgets from which they can allocate grants to Tenant Associations. possible dubious entry
Strategic Housing Group	£10,000	The Strategic Housing Group meets 4 times per year. It is supported by the Temporary Tenant Participation Assistant(20% time). It is attended by representatives from DMCs,DMPs, TMOs and Other Community Groups. A small amount is added for other Officer’s time.
District Housing Office -Tenant Support Fund	£30,000	Financial Assistance is given toTenant Groups in each of the 5 Housing Districts. This includes DMP funding.
Housing Needs Survey	£20,000	This is the budget allocation for the Housing needs Survey
Camden Federation of Tenant and Resident Associations -Grant	£355,000	Camden gives an annual grant to CFTRA. The cost is the value of the grant plus 20% for overheads

Direct time – Districts	£510,000	Patch Managers (25% of time)and Area Managers (10% of time) have a role in working with Tenants Associations and residents. Non-salary overheads of 30% have been added. In addition other District staff including Customer Service Officers, Estate Officers and Caretakers liaise and consult with residents. Possible dubious entry
Complaints Team	£235,000	Cost of employing Complaints Team with 30% added for non-salary overheads Possible dubious entry
Compact	£22,000	This budget is allocated for consultation on the compact Possible dubious entry
Policy Forum	£11,000	This budget is allocated for the Policy Forum
Financial Assistance to Borough wide groups including CASP, the Strategic Housing Group and the Compact Monitoring Board	£14,000	This budget is allocated for Financial Assistance to Boroughwide housing groups and includes transport, childcare costs etc for meetings the departments arranges. Possible dubious entry
Employment of Tenant Participation Team	£75,000	Direct cost of employing Tenant Participation Co-ordinator and55% of Tenant Participation Assistant with 30% added for on-salary overheads
Capital works Consultation	£250,000	Estimated costs of carrying out Consultation on capital works both Statutory and Non-statutory.These costs include administrative support as well as staff time possible dubious entry
TOTAL	£2,370,000

Intimidation?

The 'housing directorates' apparent vendetta against tenants who 'don't tow the line' and who speak out about the corruption that is embedded within the housing department (and the council in general) continues, with one of their underlings hand delivering a 'notice seeking possession' to a tenants home who they seemingly want to intimidate.

The new director of Housing, Adult Social Care and Community Safety Jim Wintour hasn't wasted much time adapting to the councils 'ways of working'?

The response to this attempt by 'Camden Council Rotten Landlord' to distress and intimidate this tenant into dropping her appeal hearing at Blackfriars Crown Court on 10&11 Dec 2009 is this: if they believe they have a case to bring legal proceedings to evict this tenant then they should go ahead and the tenant will see them in court.

Irrational?

Why did the CASP committee organise a 'protest' outside a council estate property in Belsize Park the council was selling off?

What does the Camden Association of Street Properties have to do with council estates when they are supposed to be 'representing' street properties?

Is it a coincidence that another hated enemy of a particular 'delightful' and manipulative casp committee person happens to live on the estate?

One who this CASP 'lovely' threatened to 'fcuk over' at a Gospel Oak DMC meeting?

One who spread smears around about her husband being 'sexually inappropriate' towards her?

A filthy accusation (lie) she spreads around about quite a few people?

Blabbering Bawlers

Interesting story in the Mail about a local parish council whose members are 'spitting their dummies out' because they are scrutinised on a blog - they have resigned! ..... if only the same effect could be had here in Camden.

I wonder if any of the council members who are blabbing like babies have even bothered to try and resolve things with the blogger by erm 'talking to him'?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1224013/Council-collapses-lone-bloggers-sniping-forces-mass-walkout.html

Council collapses as lone blogger's 'sniping' forces mass walkout

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 5:01 PM on 30th October 2009

• Comments (30)
• Add to My Stories

A town council has disbanded after members staged a mass walkout in protest at being constantly criticised by a lone internet blogger.

Eleven of the 15 members on Somerton Town Council, in Somerset, resigned after being subjected to three years of online abuse.

The blog was started by resident Niall Connolly, 58, who first attacked the council after plans for a community hall were scrapped.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1224013/Council-collapses-lone-bloggers-sniping-forces-mass-walkout.html#ixzz0VTgFwHLq

Muck & Brass Blogspot

Court Case re-hearing

A 2 day re- hearing regarding alleged harassment by me of some Camden Association of Street Properties (CASP) committee members will be heard at Blackfriars Crown Court on 10 and 11 Dec 2009. Nearest tube station is Borough on the Northern Line.

All welcome to attend.

Its been a real eye opener to experience first hand the 'justice' system we have in the UK and people should be made aware of just how subverted it is, so I will in due course be writing up the whole sorry saga.

RED ALERT

HOT OFF THE PRESS and HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

SENSATIONAL BREAKING NEWS

A new 'homophobic hate crime' and possibly new council by-law punishable by a heavy fine or even imprisonment has recently been invented by the absurd Tenant Participation Team.

Being the law until themselves they are its now a 'crime' and one that the TP Team and their enforcers will come down heavily on if one happens to 'accidentally' stick any number of fingers up at a nasty lying trouble making tenant 'rep' who happens to be homosexual.

What appears to be occurring here is that this person who happens to be gay (which I have no problem with) and is a Camden Association of Street Properties (CASP) committee member, is using his sexuality and the councils (and the polices) fear of getting on the wrong side of the gay lobby to cry wolf about everyone and anyone he doesn't like as being 'gay bashers'.

This idiot gets public funding and recognition from the council to laughingly represent thousands of street property tenants to which I am one. He doesn't represent me in any shape or form and the sooner he goes the better.

Despicable behaviour in my view that puts the gay rights movement back years.

How much longer do tenants have to put up with these morons?

Time to get rid of the ridiculed by all TP team who clearly can't do their over paid 'jobs' properly?

Time to get rid of Moira Gibb the chief executive officer? Time to get rid of the Lib Dems?

Local Government Act 2000

The Local Government Act 2000 gives local councils the power to promote the economic, social and environmental well being of their areas. This power also includes anything (within the law) that is 'incidental' to the promotion of the economic, social and environmental well being.

Housing and 'incidental' things such as providing public funding to tenant groups would fall into this category.

However, where I and others have a problem with the funding of tenants groups is that it is on the whole a political venture with little substance or benefit to a significant number of residents. It exists in some cases solely to promote political strongholds or to put on a show of being inclusive of marginalised groups of residents.

This is the case in Camden.

There is also the public interest issue of how the council manages the funds it allocates to these groups and the accounting of the funds. The council from Moira Gibbs office down to housing management appear to take little interest in how council officers and tenants manage and account for these funds. The Tenant Participation funds in particular and the lack of internal and external auditing and control of these funds that over a period of 4 years has run into £m's possibly up to £10m is being brushed under the carpet by the Housing Directorate and the Chief Executives Office.

Fraud is not being taken seriously by this council and the impact it has on others and to the reputation of the council is clearly not even considered.

Concerned residents who challenge the council on this fraud and lack of internal control are targeted for harassment and intimidation. This comes in the form of such things as sending the bailiffs round to your home on the pretense you haven't paid your council tax demand when you have, to threatening you with as ASBO to colluding with known criminals they provide funding to in getting you arrested for trumped up harassment offences. This is my experience and the experience of others. Its very sinister indeed and designed to cause the target as much distress as possible.

The council and the tenant villains will also put on a show of being concerned about harassment of tenants by other tenants (something they have been doing for years and getting away with) and set out to name you as an 'offender' at public meetings and declare you have been 'dealt with by the courts'. This campaign to vilify those who expose the council and tenant criminals will be backed up by Moria Gibb the CEO of Camden. The council can't let the concerns of a few 'irritants' stand in the way of the fraudulent workings of the council afteral its the 'nuts and bolts' of how the council works.

The Audit Commission who are doing the councils 2008/9 accounts and who have found that the Housing Directorate has weaknesses in its banking accounts should in my view produce a public interest report about this, but the AC won't do this possibly because of political conflicts. The AC has produced such reports on their website.

Because the council can't use public funds to start legal proceeding for alleged 'defamation of character' not that Camden council could because their reputation as being less than honest and lawful is well documented they will use other ways to punish you for daring to challenge their crooked ways. This is the pretend democracy we live in where government and its agencies want to do as they please, act like tyrants and who set out to punish any dissenters. Welcome to communist Britain.

ASBOs

Certain people in the housing department (namely Jackie Smyth a district housing manager) has been publicly minuted speaking about Anti Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs).

Ms Smyth says in the minutes of the Holborn DMC meeting held on 1 Sept 2009 the following:
"action could include seeking a demoted tenancy or an Anti-Social Behaviour Order, neither of which required a criminal level of proof in court". In its proper context what Ms Smyth is saying is typical of the bullying threats this directorate makes to subdue tenants who don't 'tow the line' or who they simply don't like for whatever reason.

From what I can gather reading case law on the subject the courts are beginning to see the pitfalls (abuses) of this civil standard of proof used in what amounts to the criminalisation of residents who in some cases their only 'crime' is being an 'irritant' to local government employees. In my view just because the police haven't actually made formal charges and a prosecutor isn't involved doesn't mean that it isn't about alleged criminal actions and that the standard of criminal proof doesn't need to be provided.

Who's next in line on the housing directorates/ 'hit list' to be stitched up I wonder?

Could it be a tenant rep in Gospel Oak they don't like and that there is possible involvement of one or two casp/ cftra committee members?

Could it be that the usual tactic where a casp/cftra committee nasty (or two) makes a complaint (or five) to the police about the target (usually about being harassed and about how distressed they are and in fear etc etc etc ... oh yeah and how badly its affecting their health) and the police are directed to go speak to certain housing officers - who in turn back up their complaints?

Surely this tactic wears a bit thin when the police can quite easily assess their data base and bring up the history of the complaints the complainant has made?

Put two and two together ......

Hmmm maybe not.

-----------------

For those who still doubt that this sort of thing goes out I refer to a statement made by a ex Camden Town DMC member Sandi Dunn HERE which I reproduced on a earlier posting HERE who had a truly awful experience of being stitched up by housing officers in colussion with other tenants- who sought to get an ASBO against her and who by Ms Dunn's account lied through their teeth about her to the court. Thankfully the judge saw sense and threw the case out.

Do not under estimate the lengths these nasties will go to get their own way and to discredit and intimidate others who oppose them.

This sort of behaviour by some council employees and some so-called tenant reps is not acceptable in my books and they need to be exposed and stopped.

Council members who are supposed to be in charge of council employees don't seem to be willing to do anything to put a stop to it and the borough police aren't interested so it is left to people like myself and others who have been on the receiving end of this malice to expose it and put a stop to it.

Camden Councils Corporate Plan 2008 - 10

The councils corporate plan can be found on the councils website HERE. The council has a set of 198 national indications to which it is accessed by.

Included in the Final Draft of the 2008 - 2010 plan pages 44 and 45 titled A leading council delivering efficient and and responsive services

Areas of focus and key actions
Providing better opportunities for residents to influence decision-making

• Developing and implementing new mechanisms to consult council tenants and leaseholders that are more inclusive and effective
  

Timescale - 2008-10

Leads - Housing and Adult Social Care: David Padfield

However, in the corporate plan update - annex two: Performance indicator digest 2008 - 1012 the indicator relating to the above for the years 2007/8 onwards says this indicator is to be deleted - the only indicator in the plan to be deleted. Not sure why it is being deleted or has already been deleted or even if it can legitimately deleted but the deletion of this indication would explain a lot in regards to why Tenant Participation in Camden is worse now than it has ever been - under the 'leadership' of David Padfield and Cllr James King.

Local tenant groups are being shut down and new ones are not being allowed to be set up whereas corrupt and failing borough wide groups are being heavily supported and financed by the 'council'. The 'tenant participation' area of resident involvement is beyond a joke now with council officers being instructed to tell lies about and intimidate certain tenants into not attending public meetings they are democratically entitled to attend. What is going on?

NB David Padfield the ASSISTANT director of housing management recently signed himself as DIRECTOR of Housing in a report dated 14 Oct 2009. Jim Wintour is the (new) DIRECTOR of housing not David Padfield. Most odd. Is Padfield a Common Purpose 'graduate' I wonder?

Vendetta

David Padfield the AD of housing management and Lib Dem James King job- share executive member for Housing, Adult Social Care and Community Safety are embarking on what appears to be a vendetta against myself and other residents.

This appears to have started back in late 2008 when a CASP committee member turned up uninvited at the Gospel Oak DMC Xmas party and caused a lot of trouble. then spread lies about people who attended the party. CASP committee members also made complaints to the police about me. The CASP committee are 'working' closely with David Padfield and Cllr James King. Their true colours are being shown for all to see.

This lot are also embarking on a farcical campaign of pretending to care about Code of Conducts and anti-social behaviour and are trying to vilify certain residents who they don't like whilst parading the real villains as holier than thou Gandi/ Luther King/Mother Theresa types who are above reproach. Fine thespians they be - bravo bravo encore encore.

Padfield was formerly the head of Home Ownership/Leaseholder Services who was surprisingly promoted to AD Housing Management. Padfield I hear was/is very friendly with the previous housing director Neil Litherland who the council had to 'let go' because of his appalling management of Housing.

Some concerned residents say that Padfield was only promoted to AD because of his 'friendship' with Neil Litherland. Allegedly the post he presently occupies wasn't advertised as it should have been and some council members thought he was the 'right choice'. Hmmm right choice for what thought - to maintain the rotten status quo?

Cllr James King in his other life out in the real world is allegedly a 'corporate governance consultant'. I wonder if the advice he gives to those who pay him for it in any way reassembles what he practices as an 'executive' council member?

What advice does he give them I wonder and is it actually any good?

Does he advise them to break the law and engage in witch hunts against anyone who poses a threat to them?

Does he advise them to intimidate witnesses who are party to an on-going court case?

Scare Tactics

I don't believe the council will or can 'shut down' the DMCs simply because the members won't do as the council unfairly demands they do. The council knows they can't shut the DMC's down and this is why in my view the bullies use treacherous politically motivated tenant 'leaders' from the CFTRA to put pressure on DMC members.

The dmcs are the vehicle for which the council allocates funding to estates for environmental works and Tenant hall upgrades and gaining revenue from the halls, as well as now being the vehicle for allocating the running costs of TRA's.

The threat the council uses that the dmcs will be 'shut down' if they do not comply is in my view simply a scare tactic and nothing else.

CASP leaseholders

I hear rumblings that council street property leaseholders are no longer being 'represented' by the Camden Association of Street Properties? This should mean that CASP no longer has leaseholders on its committee. This should also mean that the CASP Constitution was changed at the last CASP AGM by a general members vote ..... as far as I am aware this didn't happen.

Leaseholders shouldn't have been included within the CASP membership to start with as the borough wide Leaseholders Forum (that was already in place when CASP was officially set up in 2004) represents ALL council leaseholders in the borough, plus leaseholders also have the option of joining the borough wide Association of Camden Council Leaseholders.

NB other rumblings say that certain CASP committee members have been helping a few 'new best friends' to get housing transfers etc - little do these new best friends know that certain useful council members get these sort of things done and not the CASP committee!

Tenant Participation Funds

Word is that the senior council officers from Moira Gibbs office have admitted that the Housing Directorate has not done an audit of the Tenant Participation funds since 2005 - The Housing Directorate haven't bothered to collect the accounts so that millions of pounds of public money can be 'accounted' for.

The last officers report of the TP funds in 2005 reported that £2-3m had been spent on TP in a year. This report was not however a detailed report and left the TP funds and the accounting of these fund open to scrutiny.

It could well be that at least £10m has been spent on TP since 2005 and has not been accounted for.

UPDATE 9 Sept 09
The councils 'central' complaints unit have deemed me 'repetitive and vexatious' because I dared to make a complaint about the Housing Directorate and their apparent lack of control and accounting of the 'tenant participation' funds they have access to. Vexatious means unfounded/baseless and does not apply to my complaint and this unfair label is used by the housing directorate and the central complaints head to disallow valid complaints from being processed through the complaints system. Repetitive means repeatedly making the same complaint - which didn't apply to me.

Cllr James King (lib-dem) is supposed to be in charge of the TP funds but appears to turn a blind eye to what is going on.

Aiding and abetting?

Perhaps he's worried he will be summoned to wee Moiras office for a 'telling off ' if he doesn't bend to the bad will of the housing 'mafia'?

AD Housing Management

Word through the gripevine is that the Assistant Director of Housing Management David Padfield publicly named me at a DMC meeting held on 26 Aug 2009 - hes alleged to have said I have been 'dealt with by the courts'.

The court case is still on-going.

It is highly improper for an officer of our council to malign a resident at a public meeting especially so when the resident he has maligned is involved in an ongoing court case to which the council is party to, especially so that I wasn't given the opportunity to defend myself.

Does he intend on attending all DMC meetings naming me as 'being dealt with'.

Why is he doing it?

He is digging himself quite a big hole to which he will surely fall into and hopefully disappear never to be seen or heard of again.

Biennial Review

Camden council are late in publishing the biennial review of the Community Strategy but should be publishing it within the next few months.

The Housing Strategy Forum is part of the Community Strategy and somewhere within the housing strategy sits the Camden Federation of Tenants and Residents Associations (CFTRA) and the Camden Association of Street Properties (CASP). Both funded by public money to provide a service to council tenants.

What these two bodies have supposed to have achieved as part of the community strategy is still very unclear so it will be interesting to see whether they will even get a mention in the upcoming but late review.

I suspect the housing directorate and the two executive housing members will conveniently omit them from being mentioned and if they are mentioned council officers will lie through their teeth about 'how much they have achieved and how beneficial they are to the community'.

They will I'm sure conveniently omit how the CFTRA mis-manages the huge amounts of public cash they are given, how they send into the dmcs quarterly reports that don't tally up with the reports they send into Companies Hse, how the CFTRA don't follow their own Constitution. How the CFTRA membership has dropped by over 2/3's. How the CFTRA only pushes forward Labour party issues and how the CFTRA in collusion with the housing directorates tenant participation team (a small and absurd group of council officers headed by the head of housing management David Padfield) refuses to help set up new tenant associations. The tp team don't seem to know what they are doing despite a change around of staff.

Why didn't they keep Catherine Illingsworth in the post as she was much better and did send out a stern letter to the CASP committee warning them about their behaviour.

Either way the upcoming but late biennial community strategy review will be interesting.

NB the much snickered at CASP 'compact' agreement with the council comes to an end in Dec- I suspect the CASP committee and the Housing Directorate will spin how great CASP is and how many 'registered' members they have and how hard working they are and bring so much benefit to us street property tenants so much that you won't recognise CASP at all.

Do watch out for the 100 page long annual casp report that is doing the rounds, that tell its readers (if one doesn't fall asleep after the first paragraph) how utterly fantastic CASP is and how bloody hard they work on behalf of street property tenants, how they are super fantastic marvelous. Trying to justify the £6000 plus a year they as a TRA/super group get given by the housing directorate from tenants rent money to spend on taxi's costing over £400 and stuffing their faces at secret casp committee meetings - held at the Town Hall.

History of the DMC's

Up until 2006 the labour party had been the ruling party on Camden council. They held this position for around 30 years. Because the labour party depends on the support and votes of council tenants and use tenant groups as a stepping stone up the political career path for many of their members and supporters, they allowed certain political ambitious tenants a great deal of say and influence in housing related matters - via the DMC's and the CFTRA.

Until around 2002/3 the DMC's were council member lead advisory bodies to the now defunct Housing Committee. Prior to the change of governance structures that occurred through a change in the law, that meant that DMC's where to lose their influence and official council body status, council members allowed certain politically ambitous tenants to chair the DMC meetings.

They where paid £10 per DMC meeting for doing so. The fact that they where paid a fee made them council employees and not volunteers, as volunteers can only claim 'out of pocket expenses' such as fares to meetings etc. Because these politically ambitious tenants still think they are 'on the council' abet by sneaky means that not many tenants are aware of, they are not very keen on letting go of their once imagined importance.

They have no official status on the council and never really did other than what the council members improperly gave them - to pacify them.

In relation to housing officers, because many of these officers are union members/labour supporters, these political ambitious tenants had and still have a great deal of support and could easily manipulate them. This has meant that most tenants do not get properly represented by the DMC's and the CFTRA and do not have the same level of influence with housing officers. This means that tenants as a whole do not get a decent service from housing officers because these so-called tenant 'reps' are conflicted and will not speak out against them - they may do so privately but not publically.

Most of these politically ambitious tenants are white 'working class' and in my view as rough as old boots, and seek to exclude all others who do not share their views and ways of doing things. As a white 'working class' person myself I distance myself from them totally and am ashamed of them thoroughly. I may not have had the greatest of upbringing but I do have standards and values that I see are sadly lacking within these types. They give all tenants a bad name.

As far as I am concerned Moira Gibb the CEO of Camden council is wrong to even give these types the time of day let alone suck up to them by pretending they are of some kind of 'value' to the council and the community. Perhaps she is trying to justify the huge amounts of public funding the council gives them when the council is cutting funding to other more deserving groups?

They do try

It does appear that certain third rate tenant reps of the criminal kind have been trying their utmost to get Moira Gibb CEO of Camden Council 'on board' their campaign to portray me and others who scrutinise their crooked ways as 'anti-social criminals'. They are trying to bring us down to their level in the minds of everyone they come across. Rumour has it - though its yet to be confirmed, the council leader views them as idiots. Blimey keith steady on you might start doing something about it next.

I make this assumption from reading a letter sent to the CFTRA aka DMC chairs and vice-chairs from Ms Gibb that has been put up on the councils website in time for upcoming Sept round of DMC meetings.

The letter can be found HERE.

I don't know the full background to the letter but rest assured CASP committee members have had their hand in it. They are now trying to pretend they are terribly outraged at the awfully ruff tenants who abuse other tenants at public meetings and they want to 'stamp it out'. This is a classic!

Many people know the truth about these thugs and their frightened weak 'supporters' who I suspect have had blackmail and threats used against them to subdue and bend them to the bad will of the CASP mcnasties.

If they think for a second that I will be bowing down to them they can think again.

Try and shut this blog down and another 20 will replace it.

UPDATE
Odd letter sent to Ms Gibb from some peculiar group calling themselves 'CFTRA' who are making outrageous claims that they are some kind of 'advisers' to the council. Apparently they help the council. Are they paid consultants I wonder? This money should be paid back to the councils coffers and I suspect if the audit commission properly audits the council as they are supposed to be doing they will find a great big significant hole in the housing revenue accounts.

But hey whats a few million here and there. Peanuts to the council and probably within their limits of what they allow to be stolen.

This rather odd tenants group is also claiming they have been sent 'streams' of abusive emails - now where have I heard that lie before? Desperate measures me thinks of 'someone' who is desperate?

I did mention that another elderly resident was verbally abused at a public meeting by another ruff tenant 'rep' called jackie holloway - a Camden Town DMC 'rep' - didn't I? cllr james king the 'executive' council member allegedly 'in charge of' tenant particiation was at this meeting and is alleged to have given his backing to this foul mouthed tenant who likes to pick on elderly people. Who in their right mind would vote for someone who encourages nasty tenants to abuse elderly people? He as an executive member of the council has a duty of care to all vulnerable residents in the borough yet putting this duty into actual practice is possibly too much like hard work.

Lets hope the poor old lady who was subjected to the foul mouth of this 'rep' wasn't subjected to 'you need a good fucking shag' screamed at her! Martin Davies executive member for adult social care and head of Westminster Age Concern would I'm sure be horrified and want to do all he could to put a stop to this disgraceful elder abuse that is going on by these trailer park inhabitants.

It looks to me that these foul mouthed thugs parading themselves as tenant 'reps' are the ones who are running tenant participation and not the executive member james king - they tell him what to do I suspect.

They do seem to have the TP team and david padfield the assistant director of housing management in their pockets, possibly sharon calvey as well who was 'rewarded' with a council 'non-job' and who entered into an illegal funding contract with the CFTRA. From what I've heard Ms calvey also likes to stitch tenants up to the police. Nice bunch eh?

Disgusting state of affairs.

Youth Projects Funding

What I don't understand in relation to tenants and council members - who are complaining in the local rag about the council not funding specific youth projects - is this: Why haven't they looked at the huge amounts of wasted funds the council wilfully hands out via the 'tenant participation' funds? This 'pot' of money is afterall tenants money paid to the council via revenue they collect in rents.

If estates agree then why shouldn't funding via the dmc's be allocated to youth projects?

What about the funds the CFTRA receives from the 'tenant participation fund' couldn't that be re-directed to youth projects instead of being wasted on this Labour party political organisation? I'm sure the CFTRA funding of over a £100, 000 a year could solve many of the funding problems.

The council could even afford to not 'delete' 5 caretaker posts by re-directing the CFTRA funding.

As I see it in the dirty game of politics these types of people are not prepared to give and take.

They want it all. They are not prepared to 'sacrifice' the selfish wants of their self indulgent, inward looking selfs - for the good of the needy kids they claim to care about. Charlatans.

CASP 2008/9 Accounts

As usual the 2008/9 CASP accounts show an excessive amount of spending on catering for casps secret committee meetings and AGM.

Included in the accounts are taxi fares worth over £400 that just don't make sense.

When was the last time you ordered a private hire car and they charged you a 'meter' fare? Usually they have set prices for fares say £10, £20 etc not £10.20 or £20.40 etc.

Why was CASP given funding worth £150 from the KT DMC budget and why is this funding omitted from the quarterly reports given to the DMC's?

Some of the dates of the entries don't add up either. The CASP AGM was in Sept 08 but is inputted as flyers etc being sent out in March 2008.

There is also a charge on the use of council chamber for a casp general meeting despite CASP being on the list of 'exempt' from charge voluntary groups.

Does the CASP committee have access to the councils computers so that they can input accounts data onto it - or are housing staff deliberately making dubious entries on the CASP accounts?

Either way since 2004 when CASP was 'officially' set up by the council, housing officers who are supposed to be responsible for the good management of public funds do appear to have allowed certain CASP committee members to mis-use these funds. This has happened year in year out for the last five years. This being the 'nuts and bolts' of how the council operates.

Its not their money so why should they care how much is used on 'bribes' and favours to dimwits they are in 'partnership' with as long as the council gets something out of it.

The public sector = thieves paradise.

HRA

The Human Rights Act 1998 has two 'rights' that are being tested to limit of late. The first of the two is Article 8 Right to Respect for Presonal and Family Life that says:

1 Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

2 There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

The other is Article 10 Freedom of Expression:

1 Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

2 The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

In regards to my situation where the CASP mcnasties in collusion with others in the council hatched a plan to get me arrested and hopefully imprisoned because I'm a thorn in their sides with my websites that expose their dirty goings on: these people put themselves into the public domain and public scrutiny by their own doings, by the fact they put themselves up as 'representatives' of other people.

They are in essence public property (to a degree) whether they like it or not. The same way if I put myself up for being a 'rep' I would be and rightly so wide open to public scrutiny, especially so if I was also in receipt of public funding (which I'm not) as this lot are.

I have never infringed on their personal life's, their property or their privacy. I write about them thats all - 0kay I send them the occasion non-threatening non-abusive email in relation to their public roles but thats it.

In contrast they have infringed on my person life, my property and my privacy on quite a few occasions. I have received threatening and nuisance phone calls to my home, I have received abusive disgusting emails, have had them come to my home to make contact with my neighbour to stir up trouble and I have had them manipulate camden police into arresting me and then breaking into my home and stealing my property.

Where is the harassment that I am supposed to have committed?

These cry babies can dish it out but they can't take it when its dished back at them.

http://www.camden.gov.uk/ccm/content/press/2009/july/new-cleaning-arrangements-for-camdens-estates.en

New cleaning arrangements for Camden's estates

Date: 23/07/09

Camden’s estates will benefit from new cleaning arrangements after a trial of the scheme in three wards proved successful.

The new arrangements involve using the Council’s street cleansing contractor Veolia to clean the outside communal areas on estates.

This frees up caretakers to focus on their core caretaking duties such as cleaning of internal communal areas, removing graffiti and supporting elderly and vulnerable residents.

When the scheme is rolled out borough wide it is estimated there will be savings in the total cost of the service of £145,000 a year.

Residents on estates in Kilburn, West Hampstead and Swiss Cottage wards have been trialling the new arrangements since October.

Results of a survey in those areas found that 69 percent of residents were satisfied with the caretaking and cleaning services now being provided through the pilot scheme. Nearly 40 percent of residents felt that the overall service had improved in the last six months, against only 18 percent who felt it had deteriorated.

Cllr James King, Executive Member, Housing Services, Camden Council, said:

"This scheme has been shown to deliver high quality, good value caretaking and cleaning services to residents on estates in the pilot areas, which has been reflected in the positive survey results. In rolling the project out to the rest of the borough our caretakers will remain at the core of the service providing support to Camden tenants and leaseholders."

Veolia has been providing cleaning services to Camden Council for more than six years. Their services have led to Camden maintaining its status as one of London’s five cleanest boroughs¹, and in a 2009 residents’ survey showed Camden residents were more satisfied with levels of litter and rubbish collection than in other London boroughs.

Ref Code:

PR 862

Contact:

0207 974 5717

pressoffice@camden.gov.uk

_______________________________

What concerns me about the new 'caretaking' arrangement is the potential for rogue caretakers to take advantage of the elderly and vulnerable residents they will be working with.

Will CRB checks be carried out on caretakers before they are allowed to work so closely with elderly and vulnerable residents?

Dare I mention the 'duty of care' camden council has to these groups of residents.

NB The estimated saving to the council and tenants who pay for the cleaning service is £145,000 a year. This decrease should be reflected in the cost to tenants but the savings may well go on yet more increases in the number of council officers who earn over £50,000 per year. Perhaps even pay for an even greater and more vulgar increase to CEO moira gibbs £320,000 plus salary (up £100,000 on last year). What does ms gibb actually do?

Unprofessional

Earlier this month I emailed the Camden Federation of Tenants and Residents office to request a copy of the register of its members. As a now general member of cftra (street property tenants weren't consulted by the CASP committee as to whether or not we wanted to affiliate with the cftra) I have the right in law to have this information.

12 days later after receiving no response from the cftra office I emailed again reminding the cftra that they had broken company law by failing to respond to my request. The law in question is Companies Act 2006 Part 8 section 117 .

The following day I received a response from the cftra office by someone who didn't put their name to the email.

The anonymous sender informed me that the law in question has been rescinded (their word) in 2008 - this claim is a lie.

The sender also tried to cover the cftra's back by including in the email a fake email as 'evidence' that the cftra office had responded to my original email. Devious and unprofessional or what?

This is the private company that camden council keeps giving large amounts of public funding to to provide camden tenants with a service. By right the council should have ceased funding this sloppy and unprofessional company years ago due to the number of complaints the council received from tenants about how badly this company operates - yet earlier this year the cftra received further funding of over £100,000!

Many more deserving voluntary groups are missing out of the funding this useless company receives and I believe the reason for this is improper pressure from the labour party members who sit on the council.

NB
It appears that being a registered cftra member has no baring whatsoever on being a DMC registered member - in theory this means that tenant associations don't have to register with the cftra for any reason whatsoever other than to bump up the cftra's ever declining membership numbers. The last few years has seen cftra membership decline by over 2/3. The £1.5m that the housing department has wasted on this company since 2002 when the council contracted cftra to provide (poor) services to tenants could have been put to better use.

As a body the cftra has no influence over DMC's - other than what individual 'directors' may or may not try to force upon DMC's. The CFTRA has now been reduced to being the lackies of labour leaning housing officers and labour leaning extremists on the CASP committee. The council shouldn't be funding these two groups at all because they are political groups.

As far as I can tell three out of five DMC's have not accepted CASP as a member (well done to them) and the two DMC's that have - Kentish Town and Camden Town are a disgrace. At least Gospel Oak DMC have put up a half decent fight. At the last round of DMC's unanimously voted against CASP becoming a member.

As a borough wide group I imagine that CASP needs to become an accepted member of all 5 DMC's before CASP can start enjoying the benefits of any of the DMC's membership - such as voting rights and putting in bids for funding..... but wait!..... housing officers have already given CASP £150 from the KT DMC but kept it of the last spending report they sent into DMC's.

Can't get it right

Cllr james king (executive member allegedly 'in charge of' tenant participation) and housing officers are not happy that Gospel Oak DMC won't accept CASP with open arms.

District (housing) Management Committee's were at one time advisory council bodies - council member bodies that happened to include tenants. This is no longer the case despite what some delusional tenant 'reps' say and are now classed as 'outside bodies' - tenant lead bodies who are serviced by the council.

Camden council is still trying to dictate and exert pressure onto DMC's to accept the Camden Association of Street Properties despite at least three of the DMC's having grave concerns over how CASP is managed and constituted, as well as the disgusting behaviour of some CASP committee members. Camden council uses politically ambitious council tenant 'ten hats' meric apak the cftra 'controlling mind' to put pressure on DMC's to accept CASP.

Word through the grapevine is that casp committee members are running around crying and sobbing (ever acting the innocent victim) about how they can't understand why other tenants don't like them and are so 'nasty' to them. DUR I would have thought it was obvious why many tenants and council members alike are against them - something to do with their twisted and persistant habit of causing as much trouble as possible for others.

Cllr king and others in the council who keep pushing casp forward as a genuine representative body to thousands of street property residents that other tenant structures such as the dmc's should accept, conveniently overlook that casp is anything but representative and inclusive of its own general members - as is evidence in the fact that casp deliberately excludes non 'registered' members from their 'district meetings'. If the DMC's or other tenants bodies funded by the council did this there would be a big fuss made about it, but casp is allowed to operate in this way.

CASP is allowed to get away with witholding their annual accounts at AGM's. The corrupt tenant participation team allegedly tell porkies and claim the accounts have been produced.

The CASP committee pushes forward issues that general members haven't been consulted on such as housing sell offs.

Contrary to the spin you read in the local press, most tenants aren't bothered one way or the other about the council selling off a few council dwellings to pay for much needed repairs to council homes. Its a bandwagon that a minority of lefty commies have jumped on because it gives them a 'power' base with the labour party and trade unions and others with 'influence'.

CASP is supposed to be a borough wide body that represents the interests of ALL sections of the boroughs 7,500 plus street property households it is given public funding to represent - like the cftra, casp only represents and pushes forward the commy left issues.

After nearly 5 years of being up and running casp is a failure and anyone with half a brain cell could have predicted that from the offset. In the meantime street property tenants are continuing to miss out on public funding that the DMC's administer for environmental improvements and community activities that estates have access to.

What should be in place is a council street property body that has bodies (tra's/committees) in place at local level that streets or groups of street (properties) have easy access to, to be able to access the funds council estates have access to - this hasn't happened. What should also be in place is small local level committees belonging to streets who will monitor the capital works - this isn't in place.

CASP has been too busy over the last 5 years fcuking over other residents and playing dirty politics to get these structures in place - well done to CASP! This is what happens when the council makes the mistake (and they make many such mistakes) of 'entrusting' the good management of a project such as casp into the hands of dimwits.

Paddington Churches Housing Association (PCHA)

"We provide homes and services to over 10,000 households across London and other parts of the south east.

As a member of Genesis Housing Group we dedicate our expertise to providing quality, affordable rented homes to those most in need, together with housing and community services."

"Our first and foremost commitment is to our tenants in the homes we own or manage. We are a listening, responsive organisation, dedicated to providing excellent service delivery and effective, good value management.

As a non-profit making organisation with charitable status, any surplus we make is re-invested in homes, ensuring they remain of the highest standard, for this generation and the next."

http://www.pcha.org.uk/About+us/

Ask tenants who have the misfortune to have this HA as landlord and they will tell you a completely different story to what is claimed on the PCHA website.

They will tell you of housing officers refusing to carry out repairs, even repairs that pose a hazard to the health and safety of tenants. They will tell you of housing staff lying about them and targeting them for harassment.

They will tell you of the raw human sewage leaking into the home of a mother and her two children and PCHA refusing to sort the problem out. The PCHA telling this mother that they will not be sorting out the much needed repairs to her 'home'.

The history of the block of flats is this: Camden council built it in 1993/4, using the Thornsett Group (cowboy builders?), then passed it onto the PCHA to manage. Camden council then denies it was a 'new build' and says it was a house conversion.

At one point - due to tenants complaining bitterly about the poor state of the building and repairs to their homes - Camden councils environmental department pays lip service to these tenants and issues a building repair enforcement notice against PCHA - but then refuses to enforce the notice.

In the meantime tenants are living in homes where the floors are sinking, the windows don't open or when they do open come crashing down, and the ultimate insult to tenants dignity and quality of life - RAW HUMAN SEWAGE LEAKING INTO THEIR HOMES.

So much for PCHA being a 'char-ity' - where 'charity begins at home' but in PCHA case 'charity' means paying themselves huge salaries and pensions (no doubt lots of bonus's) whilst the housing stock goes to pot (or was 'pot' to start with and wasn't improved upon) and tenants lives are made a misery.

Harassment of tenants

Interesting agenda item (below) for the cftra 13 July 09 management committee meeting.

e. Harassment of Tenant Reps

Update – future plans to combat harassment of tenant reps by other tenants. (Verbal)

All

This should be a 'interesting' and somewhat farcical 'discussion' considering that the two CASP committee members who have positioned themselves on the CFTRA committee are well known for their trouble making and harassment of other residents.

I predict this agenda item will be very uncomfortable for all and the truth of who is behind most of the harassment of other tenants will be brushed under the carpet. They will sit there all polite and proper and not one will dare to challenge the offenders.

________________________

The compact monitoring board is in crisis following the disgusting behaviour of some bullying tenants.

The last cmb meeting descended into mayhem when a Camden Town dmc member launched a unprovoked and vicious verbal attack on an elderly tenant who was in attendance at the meeting.

This is the sort of behaviour that decent tenants have had to put up with for years when 'participating' in civic life. This is the sort of behaviour that has put many decent tenants off from having anything to do with 'tenant participation'.

This disgusting behaviour towards elderly members of our community is utterly shameful - but has been allowed to carry on for years BY the council and the cftra (as the 'leading' tenants body) who up until now have had their heads buried firmly in the sand but I don't suppose anything is going to change.

Farce

Rumour has it that when the CFTRA AGM took place on 4 June 09 no actual vote was taken to elect the new cftra management committee. Previous directors and a few others simply put themselves up for positions on the committee without a vote being taken.

What should have happened and in accordance with the cftras own Constitition is that all cftra members should have received nomination papers about a month prior to the agm from the cftra secretary and ticked the box for the person of their choice. This didn't happen.

Apparently those in attendance at the agm were to afraid to raise objections - possibly in case they suffered recriminations and targetting.

Dawn aldred the 'new and improved' tenant participation co-ordinator was in attendance at the agm and oversaw this farce.

This is the 'new and improved' tenant participation 'strategy' - the 'new and improved' CFTRA - what a joke!

According to Companies House the CFTRA (since its 4 June 09 agm) has five new directors which brings the total number of CFTRA 'directors' to 13.

I do wonder what experience any of the registered directors have of 'directing' anything in a professional and ethical manner.

This is the same dodgy company that was a few months back awarded a further years grant funding of over £100,000 by the housing department, without it going through the executive committee - the funding agreement that needed two authorised council officer signatures but only had one, and which also needed two authorised cftra signatures but only had one. This is a contract for services aimed at a variety of residents including the young and elderly - awarded to a private company that has a proven record of corruption who has a board of directors - some who are from an association that has an equally awful reputation and is far from ethical in how it treats elderly vulnerable people! It would be laughable if it wasn't so tragic.

I do suspect that this NFA is more about providing public funding for defend council housing/casp campaigns than it is about providing a genuine service and voice for all sections of the community.

New Housing Director

According to the councils website HERE a new (and permanent?) housing (adult social care and community safety) director named Jim Wintour who presently works at Greenwich Council has been appointed to start work at the council in September 2009. Lets hope he's a whole lot better than neil litherland the previous permanent housing director.

Lots of residents feel that the only way to get a senior position in the council is to be as corrupt and unethical as those who want to maintain the status quo - lets hope this new appointment brings with it a new mindset and new working practices within the housing, adult social care and community safety department.

Council housing sell-offs

Since 2001 both labour and the present lib-dem/con run council have sold of council housing and raked in the below from these sales:

L 2001/2 £47.142m
L 2002/3 £45.746m
L 2003/4 £66.698m
L 2004/5 £61. 910m
L 2005/6 £21.462m

LD/C 2006/7 £24.087m
LD/C 2007/8 £40.373m
LD/C 2008/9 £13.561m

My question is this: why are certain labour cllrs and certain council funded tenant groups such as the CFTRA and the CASP making lots of public noises about the sell offs but only since the lib-dems/con took over running the council? They where pretty quiet about the sell-offs when the labour run council was selling off homes, which leads me to believe that all is not what it seems. Perhaps they are trying to divert our attention away from things that have far more serious consequences?

Do not believe for one second that these pariahs will be telling you the truth about anything because they won't be. Their whole existence in the political sphere is built on telling lies, feathering their own nests and on fecking over anyone who threatens to rock the boat. This is camden councils 'way of working'. Personally I don't see any difference in how the council works and how 'normal' criminal gangs work - the behaviour and tactics used are roughly the same. This includes getting to know the 'right' coppers who can be relied on to intimidate and harass anyone who 'rocks the boat'. The 'right' coppers will even go as far as to burgle your home - just to teach you a lesson. Nice eh?

Community Strategy 2007-2012

It will be interesting to find out where public funded 'strategic' groups such as the CASP and the CFTRA fit into the Sustainable Community Strategy - which is being implemented (or not) by the various groups who make up the Local Strategic Partnership.

The April 2009 Audit Commission report 'Working better together? Managing local strategic partnerships says how LSP's should be managed and the legal powers LSP's have at their disposal to work within.

LSP Meetings

Council Housing Finance

May 2009
REVIEW OF THE COUNCIL HOUSING FINANCE SYSTEM

HM Treasury & Department of Communities and Local Government

----------------

Camden council is planning on setting up a 'stinking fund' for council leaseholders to have the option of paying into for future capital works.

Because registered social landlords and local councils cannot lawfully set up a sinking fund (which can generate a large sum of money and can be used to invest to generate further income) under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, they are possibly planning to get around this by way of one of the following options:

1. A council employee trading as a maintenance contractor
   
2. An individual who holds the funds in trust for the council
   
3. A company ie flat management company
   
4. An unincorporated association
   

Whatever the option will be would you trust camden council with your money?

Trial of the Century

A one day trial has been set for 25 Aug 09 at Highbury Corner Magistrates Court - Court 3 for the trial that promises to be rather juicy.

DMC's 2009

The new round of District (housing) Management Committee meetings is upon us and whats interesting is that the some Kentish Town DMC tenants (the usual suspects) still think that the DMC's are council bodies! I think housing officers and council members are to afraid to set the record straight and inform them that DMC's stopped being council bodies years ago. Oh well I suppose their huge ego's need to believe they are important? The KT DMC 'working group' are having trouble with the concept of accountability I think which is no surprise as some of these tenants I suspect think they are the council and above the law. You have to laugh at how ridiculous these politically ambitious tenants are.

Now that CASP is allegedly a CFTRA member, and alleged member of most DMC's I'm surprised that the CASP minutes haven't been submitted to the DMC's like the Leaseholder Forum submits their minutes, but thats CASP for ya - a public funded unaccountable law until themselves who the fib-dems positioned one of their own as CASP chair!

I suppose it makes sense that the lib-dems and the commies would affiliate - they both pretend to be for democracy and equality and against fascism, discrimination and racism - all the while in reality they practice a totally different philosophy, as I and others have experience of. The KT DMC doesn't to my knowledge have any brown skinned tenants who participate, CASP doesn't to my knowledge have any brown skinned tenants on the committee and the one they did have, they and camden council officers and members treated appallingly and got rid of!

CFTRA Funding 2009-10

I'm quite confused and concerned as to who in camden council gave authorisation to fund the Camden Federation of Tenants and Residents Associations (CFTRA) for a further year to the sum of £97, 677 plus £27, 477 for an 'independent tenant voice'. 'Independent tenant voice' being the voice of unison who have lots of members/supporters who are council tenants and council workers - other tenant voices are not allowed to be heard. Grants over the sum of £25, 000 have to be approved by the executive committee and as far as I can see they haven't agreed this funding.

Not much in the way of any service with most of the funds going on staff wages! What is it that the CFTRA do exactly and why do they have to be funded by tenants rent money when most tenants in Camden don't benefit from the cftra at all?

Out of the £97,677, £75, 784 is to go on office staff - one full time, 2 part-time.

Further funds have been provided for additional staff - 'the tenant voice' to the sum of £21, 512 .

Plus £8, 766 for the lease of office premises.

In total the funding amounts to £133,920 which if the pound sterling wasn't so devalued would be above the EU signed by member states directive threshold of 200, 000 euro's for public service contracts that should be put out to tender. As far as I can see keeping the cftra 'in-house' as the preferred 'supplier' isn't value for money nor does it benefit a significant number of tenants.

How many tenants actually receive the 'tenant voice' publication the CFTRA is supposed to send out to tenants on a quarterly basis? Not many from what I've heard. How many new local tenants associations did the cftra help to set up last year? None as far as I can tell.

How many tenant 'voices' does the cftra promote? Only one.

I wonder why the CFTRA accounts haven't been put up on the councils website as reports for this round of DMC's?

What is going on?

UPDATE
Sharon calvey former district housing manager for Camden Town, now head of (housing) performance and strategy signed the CFTRA NFA - without passing it through the Executive committee for approval. This new post appears to be on the same management level as the two new posts of head of housing services (east and west) that replaced the 5 posts of district housing managers.

Ms Calvey has connections to the Camden labour party, and the chair of the CFTRA is a Camden labour party member, as are a few others on the newly (elected or not) management committee.

According to the councils Contract Standing Orders all contracts between the value of £25,000 - £250,000 must be signed by two authorised officers. All contracts over the value of £100,000 must be subject to competitive tendering.

In regards to CFTRA as a COMPANY - as far as I am aware for a document to be validly executed it has to be either by affixing the common seal of the Company, or signed by two authorised signatories or by one director in the presence of a witness who attests the signature.

Could it be that both the 'council' and the 'cftra' have wilfully entered into invalid/illegal contract?

UPDATE Aug 09
Allegedly the CFTRA contract didn't have to go through the proper channel (the executive committee) because a waiver of the councils contract standing orders was sought and allegedly given.

I was under the impression that waivers of the councils constitution (contracting standing orders being part of the constitution) where sought by council officers at executive committee meetings. Funny how no sight of this alleged waiver can be found in the minutes or reports on the councils website?

UPDATE Aug 09
Apparently waivers for contracts of £500,000 or less may be granted to the relevant Authorised Officer by the director of finance Mike O'Donnell. Waivers for contracts in excess of £2m must be granted by the executive committee.

These waivers are usually only granted when exceptional circumstances apply. Why was this contract waivered in the first place?

We are not talking about peanuts here we are talking about public money totalling around £1.5m, over a timescale of 7 years - and little to show for it.

Tenant Associations

Its interesting that the Peckwater Estate AGM that was recently held was so poorly attended by residents of the estate that the meeting was inquorate and had to be cancelled.

Is this a sign of things to come - that many tenants simply don't want to get involved? and who would blame them! Will it be the case that to continue to tick their boxes and carry out their underhanded schemes camden council will have to bribe tenants from other boroughs as stand ins?

Perhaps the council has an underground laboratory somewhere where the 'right' tenants are invented and in the dead of night these Frankenstein like council creations are moved across the borough to be placed into 'strategic' positions?

Isn't there something disturbing and sinister about certain tenant 'reps' who call the selling off of council homes 'immoral' yet think its perfectly 'moral' to tell disgusting lies about other people to discredit them, make threatening harassing 'anonymous' phone calls to intimidate them, defraud public funds at every chance they get, and who disgustingly of all abuse the elderly and vulnerable they publically claim to be lifelines to? How any decent person can associate with and support these types of 'people' is beyond me.

Fleecing residents

To claw back the millions the housing department has lost through bad-management, general incompetence and skulduggery housing finance officers (and executive members?) have come up with a new way (scam) of fleecing leaseholders - they are saying that leaseholders now have to pay a charge for using credit cards to pay bills! That's right leaseholders now have to pay to pay their bills!

Apparently, this charge was agreed by the full council at a Jan 09 council meeting, but strange thing is there is no mention of this charge in the minutes.

The Local Government Act 2003 Part 8 Chapter 1 charging and trading gives local councils the authority to charge for discretionary (non-statutory) services, that is services that they don't have a legal (statutory) duty to provide but only if the user of these services wants the service and agrees to pay for it.

UPDATE 23 June 09
Camden '4 star' council has also been using the same illegal practice on people who pay parking fines using a credit card. Click HERE for full story. I wonder what the monitoring officer/head of legal thinks of this extortion?

Has anyone reported this criminal practice to the police - perhaps Holborn CID (headquarters of Camden police) could investigate, arrest and charge a few senior council officers and members? ok stop laughing! Could it be they are far to busy stitching me up for 'blowing the whistle' via blogging to want to deal with the real criminals (in and connected to the council)?

UPDATE Aug 09
Taken from Camden council website
Suspending credit card charges

Date 04-Aug-2009

Camden Council introduced charges on the 5 January this year to recover costs imposed by credit card companies, which across the Council cost the taxpayer £250,000 a year.

The charge was an administration fee for payments made using a credit card. This was clearly marked on all council invoices and anyone paying by credit card was notified prior to the transaction going through.

How can I apply for a refund of prior credit card administration fees?
We have produced an online form that you can use to apply for a refund for any credit card administration fee payment since 5th January.

You can also apply for the administration refund by writting to:
Cashiers, Room 4, Town Hall, Judd Street, London WC1H 9JE

Falling down around tenants feet

So whats going on with housing management and the 'decent' homes works? Literally falling down around tenants feet comes to mind, and the official line is its only 'teething problems'. The council says it lacks funds yet how much do they think it is going to cost to put right the 'cock-ups'?

Rumour has it that all the decent housing contractors (in the whole world possibly) are working on the much more important, lucrative and hugely expensive 2012 Olympic Project, and other 'important' and lucrative projects around the Capital, and council tenants in Camden are left with the cowboys!

What about the sabotages?

One does have to wonder why some executive members have taken to walking around the town hall clutching tightly at strange transparent plastic looking 'awards'. Most odd.

Recap

Just to recap on why I set this blog up:

Following a disagreement with a elderly, disabled very poorly casp committee member two nasty casp committeee members went to the police and told malicious lies about being harassed by this elderly man.

They had 'befriended' him a few months earlier at a CASP general meeting and the three became very close, so much so that one of them used to kiss elderly man on cheek when he attended casp committee meetings. They spoke on the phone a lot.

However, when this elderly man who they knew was very poorly, disagreed with them about how they behaved and threatened to bring his concerns to the casp committee they immediately sprung into action to discredit and intimidate him. I was also in their bad books' at this time because I dared to complain about their behaviour at a committee meeting where this casp committee member belittled myself and another casp committee member. I was also discredited by these liars to other casp committee members who where their lackies.

These nasties intentionally told malicious lies to the police to intimidate this elderly man and keep him away from the casp committee. They spun such a story of being harassed and afraid for their lifes that two coppers from Holborn went around to the elderly mans home and intimidated him into being silent, and warned him to keep away from the casp committee. They didn't want to hear his side of the story.

He lives alone and has no family living near him and was easy prey for the two casp nasties.

Complaints about this were made to camden council and the police but both choose to look the other way. The elderly mans ward cllr also looked the other way when he went to her for help despite having previously warned him about these CASP committee members. This ward cllr later went on to spread around as if they were truth, more of their lies about this elderly man.

The housing directorate continued to fund these nasties and parades them as genuine caring 'advocates' to thousands of street property households. They have easy access to other elderly and vulnerable residents through CASP.

Camden council and camden borough police think its acceptable to treat elderly and vulnerable people in this way and have gone out of their way to protect them.

I do not think it is acceptable for anyone to treat vulnerable people in this way and I do not find it acceptable that public office holders are protecting devious abusers of elderly people.

Something odd

Cllr chris naylor must be furious by the councils pet project 'CASP' going on TV and exposing him for trying to rent out council properties to the private sector.

He must be even more furious that their 'strategically' placed lackie has betrayed his fellow lib- dims in this way.

However, something just isn't right about this, as why would camden council who are allegedly lead by a lib-dem/tory coalition give public funding and lots of freebees and other perks to a project of theirs for said project members to undermine them in this way? It just doesn't make sense and does now set a precedent for every other body funded by camden council to also undermine the council in this way. Most odd - an illusion perhaps?

The fib-dems ought to know that given a free hand Stalins wife would set out to undermine them at every opportunity and that like-minded housing officers would give her lots of support - the TP team sniffle around certain CASP committee members like pet poodles (talk about un-dig-nified ), and allow them quite a lot of leyway to mis-use public funds.

One would be forgiven for thinking that she was running 'tenant participation' and not cllr james king!

Are we to believe that the new face of 'militant communism' in Camden is now a lib-dem and there was me thinking that 'militants' were ruffty tuffy people who could get out of bed in the morning without crying in case someone calls them a 'bad' name.

All is not what it seems.

Where has the money gone?

In October 2008 I reported that £2.3 - £2.9million pounds per year is spent on tenant participation. (officer report Jan 07)

Some residents are alarmed by such a huge sum being spent on TP and can't see where the money is being spent. They have reported their concerns to cllr james king the executive member responsible for tenant participation but unfortunately cllr king won't respond and say where this money is being spent.

The council has a habit of breaking up its funds into pots of smaller funds which makes it difficult to keep track of where particular funds are being spent. When it comes to the end of the year accounting of these funds they are usually buried somewhere. This does not make for transparent accounting.

Tenants pay into this fund so why are they being excluded from scrutinising it? Why are we being kept in the dark?

UPDATE June 09
I have tracked down the 2005 report on tenant participation costs - click HERE to read.