‘Musical chairs’ reveals extent of Lambeth Housing shambles
January 2005

One of the 'part time' Area Housing Office's

The chaos at the heart of Lambeth’s housing policies was unwittingly revealed when it emerged that three of the new Area Housing managers are swapping jobs – with each other! Clapham and Stockwell’s manager, only appointed to the post in September, is now going to Streatham. Streatham’s manager – who never actually took up the post – is now off to Norwood. And Norwood’s manager, also only in post a matter of weeks, is to start again at Clapham and Stockwell.

The moves are just the latest in a series of changes that have undermined Lambeth’s housing service over the last year. As part of the so-called ‘reframing’ process, the 5 Area Housing Offices have recently replaced the 15 Neighbourhood Offices, much-preferred by tenants and leaseholders alike. Reframing was also opposed by 98.7% of housing staff.

Cllr John Kazantzis, Labour’s housing spokesperson said:

“This surely demonstrates how desperate the Liberal Democrat/Tory Administration is to pretend that reframing is working. I have no doubt that the Area Managers are all dedicated staff, but it will take more than a game of musical chairs for the housing service to improve. These changes are being implemented because the Clapham and Stockwell Area is too large, and as a result the whole Borough has to suffer. How many more managers will have to fail before they admit they got it wrong?”

Jean Haley, a Council tenant who lives in the Norwood area, said:

“I am appalled at these changes. We were only just getting to know our new Area Manager, and now the Council has dictated that he must go somewhere else. The Council is totally disregarding the tenants’ compact, and we only found out about these changes by accident. This shambles is all down to reframing. We said reframing wouldn’t work but they just didn’t listen.”

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