Lambeth Housing: the truth

Full extent of the crisis created by Lambeth's former Lib Dem & Tory housing bosses

The full extent of the crisis created by Lambeth’s former Lib Dem and Tory Housing bosses has been revealed in a briefing to the new Administration. The scale of the mismanagement is truly staggering.
The briefing confirms that in the final year of the Lib Dem and Tory administration Lambeth’s Housing department overspent on their budget by an incredible £9million. It goes on to say that £5 million worth of savings which was supposed to be made as a result of a reframing exercise “appear not to have been delivered.”

The newly released information makes clear the true level of incompetence of former Lib Dem Housing boss Keith Fitchett and his Deputy Bernard Gentry. Labour Councillors, who were elected to run the council in May, are now putting in place measures to deal with the financial mess for the benefit of tenants and leaseholders

The document shows under the Lib Dems, repairs were not being properly managed and that localised repair teams were not delivering for tenants. It states: “Repairs spending is generally much higher than budgeted. Local services teams have not achieved significant volumes of repairs.”

The briefing goes on to say that, pending any recovery, money from the £2.8 million housing fraud will be borne by Lambeth Council. In 2005, poor management and lack of financial checking in Housing lead to a fraudster stealing £2.8 million from the council, leading to cancelled repairs and the resignation of the Lib Dem Housing boss.

Councillor Jim Dickson, Lambeth’s Labour Finance Spokesperson said:

“We are now uncovering the full extent to which Lambeth tenants and leaseholders’ money has been mismanaged by the now departed Lib Dem-Tory administration. The figures show a department left in financial meltdown with repairs and other vital services suffering the consequences of fraud and the reframing fiasco.

“Labour has identified these problems straight away and is now putting things right. Labour’s Housing Cabinet Member, John Kazantzis, has made it clear that he will not tolerate financial mismanagement in the housing department.”

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