Homes for Islington dumps chair

Homes for Islington has dumped the chair of its board in a behind-the-scenes coup orchestrated by the Labour Party.

Anne Lucas, who has been chair since 2003, lost a vote of confidence at the board meeting on Monday, 17 December. Mr Adam Borrie, who only joined the board this year, takes over. Borrie received just one more vote than Lucas at the meeting.

She could have survived if councillor Richard Greening, a long-term supporter, had turned up to vote.

Lucas, a public sector-trained accountant who is well-connected in the higher echelons of social sector housing, is thought to have paid the price for seeking to close down the Federation of Islington Tenants Association (Fita). 

The Audit Commission virtually ordered HFI to close down this failing tenant activist organisation in a report early in 2007. It said the organisation which receives funds of £100,000 produced “no outputs”.

Lucas was in favour of carrying out the Audit Commission’s advice.

However, she was opposed by other board members, tenant activists aligned to the Labour Party and unions, closely associated with with Fita. These include Barbara Coventry, Eddie Niles, Jessie White and Theresa Coyle, generally regarded as primitively tribal in their ideology.

Labour Party members of the board Claudia Webbe and Councillor Barbara Sidnell inevitably voted against Lucas because they believed she was too close to the Liberal Democrat party, which holds a one-seat majority on the council.

The directors who supported the putsch could also have been emboldened to take action by the Audit Commission criticising the lack of independence of the Almo board from the council in the same report which was critical of Fita.

HFI does not disclose publicly who voted for and against Lucas. It is unlikely that Lucas would want to stay on as a mere board member. She clearly has the most relevant housing experience of any member of the board. Indeed, that she was clearly head and torso above board members, in terms of professional experience, may well have contributed to her removal. God knows, how she tolerated for so long almost all of the numpties she was sitting beside.

Her removal, however, creates a tricky political problem for Terry “El Tel” Stacey, Liberal Democrat deputy leader of the council and executive member for housing.

He has become accustomed to his decisions being loyally executed by a compliant board. He has also attempted to use housing issues to prop up the Liberal Democrat’s fragile hold on power as evidenced in the ill-fated initiative to charge for a leaseholders’ association.

Albeit preoccupied with a barely concealed attempt to unseat the leader of the council, the weak and air-headed James Kempton, Stacey could find an aggressively independent board with a Labour Party agenda an awkward problem.

He will be perceived as not having basic raw political skills in having lost control of a useful party tool.  More importantly, the new board might well choose to act counter to his interests just to be seen to assert their independence and marginally tilt the political balance in favour of the Labour Party. 

The alliance which removed Lucas can now be expected to play a role in undermining and attacking the Liberal Democrats.

HFI’s chief executive Eamon McGoldrick is safe. In his 30-year rise up the greasy pole of housing management, he has become an artiste of the ingratiating and obsequious grovel. 

McGoldrick inevitably worked closely with Lucas but was savvy enough to adopt a schizophrenic AC-DC personna which is vital for any CE in local government housing to survive.

Operationally, HFI might be a disaster – the top quartile of London almos in terms of management costs but the lowest quartile for service delivery – but McGoldrick has covered his back. 

At a recent do, he was seen deep in ernest and obviously affectionate conversation for an inordinate amount of time with Councillor Catherine West, the leader of the Labour group on Islington Council.

A more demanding political master might have insisted that he cut staff at a stroke to bring down costs or else be shown the door. But he’ll win plaudits from West for his lack of decisiveness in private sector terms, which is regarded as thoughtful, perceptive and strategic in the public sector.

On paper, Borrie has few qualifications for the job. A lowly systems analyst at the Peabody Trust he has no serious experience of senior housing management issues. He looks like a boy geek, even more so because he is surrounded by an almost complete set of geriatrics.  He can only be seen as the Trojan horse for a plan hatched by the Labour Party.

Stacey can only hope he doesn’t get ideas above his station and that he wants to prove he’s a player. This means you don’t upset those who count and who counts can change rather quickly. The Lib-Dems might  be hanging on by their fingernails to power but the Labour Party are deep in the doo-doo too. Anything is possible.

Ironically, Peabody itself is currently under something of a cloud. Its management was heavily criticised in a recent debate in the House of Commons over the Housing and Regeneration Bill. Local MP Emily Thornberry has called for the housing association to be stripped of its management functions on several problem estates including some in Islington.

As for leaseholders, it means no change. The coalition of the “tribals” and the Labour idealogues will promise things.  But it will be a form of words with a built-in escape hatch should power ever be achieved. Any party which selects that implausible haircut called Gerry Doolan as a councillor is not taking itself seriously. Our best bet is the Housing and Regeneration Bill which on paper, at least, has a full set of canines in the shape of Oftenant.

Then we pass to Mr Brian Potter.  Without this diversion he would have been down the tubes, forced to choose between the chairs of Fita and the Islington Leaseholder Forum. In the new new HFI, he’s a mushroom which will be allowed to mature disgracefully. Lots of the brown stuff every day, mind you. At this rate, the useless ressot  is going to be allowed to die of natural causes in his bed.

Homes for Islington has just been inspected by the Audit Commission and is hoping to gain three-stars to enable it to resume a building programme. The report is expected after Christmas.

Additional note: Lucas will remembered in Islington housing history for the “Endless Snog”. At a Christmas party past, she was spotted in a 10-minute French marathon with fellow HFI board member and Liberal Democrat councillor Euan McCameron. A poignant note was added to proceedings by the fact that chain-smoking Lucas was dressed in trousers, while McCameron was turned out in his national dress – sporon, kilt and no knickers.  The Wee Yin emerged from the encounter with a nicotine moustache. It proved to be an encounter with a Black Widow. McCameron lost his seat three months later.