Lambeth Labour manifesto threatens to sack ALMO

"We will give Lambeth Living 12 months tp improve quality of repairs , reduce the time taken to re-let empty homes , keep rent rises down and improve the service to leaseholders or we will sack them and put the service under new management."

This comes from an administration which told us that ALMOs bring a more efficient service than in directly managed authorities!

It is not clear whether this means bringing the housing managment back in-house under direct council control or whether it means continuing with the partially privatised arrangement under a new leadership.

Get your fellow tenants and election candidates to sign up to the Manifesto for Council Housing launched at the recent Defend Council Housing conference - go to www.defendcouncilhousing.org.uk for more details.

Sharing the sacrifice?

This comes from a poster in the 1930s, but how much have things really changed? Don’t let management keep treading us down. Join UNISON and get active to protect staff and services.

Together we can make a difference!

MEETING - STOP THE CUTS OF JOBS AND SERVICES!

Date: 19 May 09

Time: 6.30pm

Venue: St Matthew’s Tenant Hall, Brixton

“We take pride in our work and many of us have to do difficult jobs on low wages. We didn’t get Lambeth Living and the Council into this mess yet we pay the price with job cuts. But at the same time Lambeth Living and the council spend millions of pounds on consultants, the very people who got us into this mess in the first place. Hopefully we can build a campaign to give staff, tenants and leaseholders the respect that they deserve.” Employee of Lambeth Living

Are you fed up with:
• Rent rises? – Up 17%, on average £12 a week, £50 a month

• Council houses sold off? – Lambeth is auctioning off its huge stock of empty houses, while 16,000 on waiting list

• Over a fifth of Lambeth Living jobs to go and a third of jobs in some departments?– The former Housing Dept, now a separate company, says it has no money to keep staff on: experienced workers on the dole, more work for the rest, a worse service

• Wasted money? – Housing has a hole of millions of pounds in council funding, Home Office enquiry into lost refugee housing allocation… meanwhile consultants earn up to £1000 a day!

• Privatisation? – First Call emergency repairs service, concierge service and North Lambeth Cleaning to be privatised, even though existing contractors do an unsatisfactory job

At a time when unemployment is rising and many people are made redundant, this is a scandal. Lambeth Council is using the recession to destroy what remains of publicly accountable and halfway decent housing estate and squeeze housing staff and tenants as hard as they can.

We don’t have to put up with this. We can fight back. Come to a borough wide tenants, leaseholders and staff meeting, Lambeth Housing in Crisis. Speakers from Defend Council Housing, Unison, Tenants Council, LamPAG and speakers from local Trade Unions. But most of all YOU! Come and tell us what it’s like in your area. Let’s talk about what we can do to defend our homes and our jobs and build a campaign to take action!

Date: 19 May 09

Time: 6.30pm

Venue: St Matthew’s Tenant Hall, Brixton