Cover up at the Town Hall

http://www.thecnj.co.uk/camden/2008/013108/gulliver013108.html
Camden New Journal - One Week with JOHN GULLIVER

Published: 31 January 2008

Clearing out old folks’ homes is a lot easier than clearing up the scandal
WHY is the Town Hall so desperate to keep a report secret that officials have used the law three times to stop elected councillors and this newspaper from discussing it?

At a late-night meeting on Tuesday, councillors were about to discuss a heavily censored copy of a report behind closed doors when one of my colleagues protested. The ‘Part Two’ exemption – used when councillors have to discuss legally or commercially sensitive material – was invalid and the facts should be heard in the open, he argued.Councillors, including the committee chairman, agreed.

But they were stopped in their tracks by a furious reaction from a senior official in the chief executive’s office, backed up by the duty lawyer.

When the official refused to allow the item to be heard, chairman Chris Philp muttered “We shall not be part of a cover up” and adjourned the hearing.

To understand the full story you need to go back a year, when the New Journal revealed how valuable furniture removed from the council flat of dying 92-year-old Dorothy Robinson ended up on sale in nearby antique shops.

Our investigation showed that out of 1,200 ‘clearances’ carried out on council homes each year, not a penny, not an earring, not a single heirloom, had been recovered from the homes of tenants who had died or been moved into care. Our story prompted a ‘review’, then an ‘investigation’, then a report in August in which the Special Investigations Team – an in-house team – said no crime had been detected. But the August report referred to a second, internal, report “made available to senior managers” – but never seen by councillors.

We applied to see the secret report using the Freedom of Information Act, but were denied. After three months of argument, the cross-party housing and adult social care scrutiny committee won the right to see a heavily censored version of it. So what is in the report?

My sources tell me it reveals that a blind eye was turned at the Town Hall to a suspected racket, and that the internal investigators conclude that because staff were not acting against written rules and no one reported anything as a crime, they can take no action.

Officials would like all this to go away. But it won’t.

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http://www.thecnj.co.uk/camden/2008/022108/news022108_02.html
CNJ 21 Feb 2008

Flat clearances 'systematic theft from dead residents'

Town Hall staff were cleared by bosses to take from ‘void’ homes
THE removal of valuable possessions from the homes of council tenants was branded “systematic theft from dead Camden residents” when a secret Town Hall report was finally disclosed on Tuesday following months of campaigning by councillors and the New Journal.

A year after this newspaper’s investigation into the clearance of the Gospel Oak flat of dying Dorothy Robinson, 92, prompted allegations that her home had been “looted” by council clearance teams and re­vealed that nothing of value had been recovered from the 1,200 council houses similarly cleared every year, councillors called for “heads to roll”.

The report by the council’s internal audit team revealed for the first time that items were routinely taken by members of the Building and Maintenance Division during clearances of properties that became “void” through the abandonment, death, eviction or relocation of tenants, and that this practice was authorised by managers.

It included evidence that 60 staff may have been involved, and that managers obstructed the investigation of the council’s internal team.It went on to claim the New Journal probe into the abuses had “damaged” and “undermined” the council’s own clandestine investigation, an accusation supported by officers and social care chief Cllr Martin Davies.

Other councillors attacked the claims. “This would never have seen the light had it not been published in the CNJ,” said Cllr Keith Sedgwick.

Although two members of BMD staff face disciplinary charges, the evidence that the practice was widespread and condoned was described as “scandalous” by committee chairman Chris Philp, who forced the disclosure of the report after Town Hall lawyers repeatedly blocked its discussion since he first requested it in September last year.

He said: “This report shows that council staff had been systematically stealing property from dead Camden residents for years. It is totally outrageous. I think that it is good my committee has brought this investigation into the public domain to show that these practices will not be tolerated by Camden Council today.”

In a meeting where tension between the council’s staff and elected councillors frequently threatened to bubble over, assistant chief executive Philip Colligan acknowledged that the conduct of house clearances had been deeply flawed and that wide-ranging changes had been put in place.

Pressed on whether the clearances amounted to stealing, he answered: “I am not saying it is not theft.”

He added that discuss­ing the report in public was dangerous and unprecedented and could jeopardise ongoing disciplinary proceedings. He said: “There have been suggestions that officers wanted to cover up elements of that report. That is not true. We now have an unprec­edented release of internal audit material to you, way beyond what we have considered as normal and way beyond what we have advised to you.”

But his comments were questioned by Cllr Sedgwick, who referred to the first, highly selective, report shown to the committee last year. He said: “When we had this report before us originally there was nothing in it which said managers had told their staff they could take things from dead people’s homes – it only comes out in a report that we had to squeeze out of officers. If you take something that doesn’t belong to you, it’s theft. This is to do with the culture of management of housing. This is shocking. Quite frankly someone’s head should be rolling – someone very high up.”

Cllr Philp asked: “Is there any evidence that a director or assistant director knew about these practices or authorised it?”

Mr Colligan replied: “I can’t answer your question about who knew about what.”

The questioning promp­ted protest from several committee members and led the elected chiefs of both housing and adult social care to make highly unusual formal statements of confidence in the council’s highest managers. Social care chief Cllr Martin Davies said: “I am confident that none of the directors or assistant directors had knowledge of or condoned in any way the particular issues here.”

Update
- London Tonight 21 Feb 2008 "Camden staff 'raid' homes of the dead" http://www.itvlocal.com/london/ type in 'Camden Council'

- council meeting 5 March 2008
AGENDA ITEM NO. 14
LONDON BOROUGH OF CAMDENCOUNCIL MEETING – 5 MARCH 2008

NOTICE OF MOTIONS
3. To consider the following Motion, notice of which was given by Councillor Theo Blackwell and seconded by Councillor Roger Robinson. This Council notes the unprecedented impasse between the Executive and the Housing and Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee over the issue of removal of dead tenants belongings. In the light of this, it calls for an independent and external enquiry into this distressing issue so lessons can be learnt.

Update: this motion was not heard due to time restraints but was later dismissed by the executive.

POW Trust

The Charity Commission has published a report (March 2011) HERE into the findings of their investigation into a then registered charity called The Peoples Opportunity to Work (POW) Trust.

The investigation began in 2002 and finished in 2005, but due to a criminal investigation by the police the publishing of the report was delayed until the criminal proceedings finished in 2010, with the conviction and imprisonment of three members of the POW trust. Met Police report HERE. Apparently there where 9 defendants, but reports only mention that 3 where convicted.

The Camden Association of Street Properties (CASP) has connections with this dodgy trust through Terence Patrick Ewing who was (still is?) a 'legal executive' for the trust. Mr Ewing is a vexatious litigant and convicted and imprisoned fraudster.

More about T Ewing HERE

DMC Funding Guidelines

 District Management Committee's Funding Guidelines 2015 HERE

"Annually each District Management Committee (DMC) is given a budget to spend in their area" I think this is linked to the Participatory Budgeting  HERE. Draft Strategy 2008 HERE ,  
Possibly even State Aid

The DMC's (there are 5 of them) used to be sub-committees of the councils then Housing Committee who had council tenant reps on as non voting members, but who used to vote. When the council changed its governance structure back in 2001/2 to the executive (now called cabinet) model the dmc's should have been abolished but cllrs allowed them to continue as tenant groups, still funded and administrated by the council.

Dmc's are business ventures whose members carry out works/goods/services on behalf of Camden council. In effect dmc's have taken on Housing Management roles but without having to apply the Housing [Right to Manage] rules HERE.

Public Liability Claim Forms for Internal Decorating

following on from post from 2015 Damp Patch on interior wall and ceiling of Flat HERE

Update 5 April 2016
Plasterer has done the work to the area's needing the work and when I got back to the landlord about the redecorating have since discovered what the "other process" is to do with internal decorations: being sent a public liability claim form to fill in, sign and send to the councils finance department. huh. Apparently one has to prove negligence on the landlords part.

Spend hours going over emails to and from housing repairs and in general gathering evidence to send in to the finance people - realised after I sent the form in with evidence by email, that I had got confused and emailed finance again about it. Waiting for them to get back to me.

Following on from the post HERE  in August 2015 about the water damage to parts of 2 walls and part ceiling in my flat, the council to give them credit after the negative story HERE,  and when I reported the damp, fixed the source of the water damage (as far as I am aware) and re-plastered  the parts of the walls and ceiling affected.

When I mentioned to housing repairs redecorating the areas damaged  I was informed the internal decorating was a different process.

The  process involves being sent a Public Liability Claim Form to fill in that to me isn't very easy to understand, and which I think is badly wrote written out in general - plus one is required to sign it, like in an actual signature, written in ink from a pen. Plus I don't even know what I'm actually supposed to be claiming for. Then send it to the councils Finance department and then who knows what the outcome will be.

 I think i'm supposed to guess that what I am required to claim for may be one of the below, some, all of, or who the fook knows : 
a) money to buy the materials needed to redecorate
b) money to employ someone to carry out the decorations,
c) money to do I want to do with it as no receipts are needed
d) money to do the councils job maybe on the cheap, who knows


note: this blog won't upload the scanned copies I did of the form.

Update 29 March 2016
After a little delay I sent in scanned copy of filled in claim form, plus photos, plus emails to and from housing repairs about the damp - to the councils finance people. Took me hours to do it all.

Update 30 March 2016
Realised I had got quite confused when filling in the form etc - not had to fill in such a form before and gather up all the info that goes with it just to try and get some redecorating following water damage to flat. Hope other tenants who may have to go through this don't get as confused as I did.

Update 18 April 2016
Councils finance department contacted me to say the council has admitted liability for the water damage. Mentioned compensation and  asked that I provide 2 quotes from reputable decorators.

Yes the email and letter where cause of some confusion on my part.

After making a few polite points to finance person I was then informed the councils in house repairs team would be involved in the re-decorating - huh I though, but I don't want them to do it and plus I was asked for 2 estimates.

Anyway, after the finance bloke clarifying that I'm not being forced to contract with the councils in house team to do the re-decorations, and again the 2 quotes request I asked for clarification as to what exactly can be redecorated, meaning is it only the actual area's that where re-plastered or for continuity sake the wall paper from 2 rooms will need to be stripped and wall painted, plus skirting doors, window frames etc.

Have been sent back to housing repairs who contacted me about coming to flat to assess what works need doing. I was none the wiser at the end of phone call and nowt was sorted.

Update 13 May 2016
Has been quiet on the council front since housing  repairs contacted me, staff may be busy/preoccupied  with the restructuring going on.

Update 22 May 2016
Not heard anything back from councils finance person since being passed on to the housing repairs people (which came to nothing), not even to clarify  whether or not finance still wanted 2 estimates from me.

Update 29 May 2016
All stations are go. Think from now on I might only write in code.