Are the Lib Dems broken.

[James Barber]

Hi DJ,

The thread is "Are the Lib Dems broken". I'm sorry for you that after so much debate on this topic its been repeatedly shown they're not.

I'm happy to continue debating particular of thread topics but would hope at some point you'd just accept different people have different views.

Today's Southwark News yet again has an article with Southwark Labour leader Peter John sating numerous services are up for being merged with Lambeth and Lewisham.

66% of Southwark council housing is reported as meeting Decent Homes standards - the reaearch fo this was compelted last March. That's still many houses to be brought up to that standard. The change in govnerment makes this slightly easier in that council housing can now apply for government grants to complete Decent Homes works whereas under Labour national government they weren't allowed to. Hopefully Labour Southwark will submit a really good application.

False housing repairs stats - I'm delighted that the cross party Housing Scrutiny report has been finally completed having been started under the previous administration. A lot of effort by councilors from all parties has gone into this along with council officers support. The report certainly resonates with the dramatic drop in council housing casework for councillors. So the service certainly made a step improvement but still has a long way to go.

I think it was MORI that produced a recent report showing that non Labour voters views of the Lib Dems haven't changed much but that Labour voters are really angry with the Lib Dems.

Is this the cause of your angst?

[pk]

James Barber Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Hi DJ,

> The thread is "Are the Lib Dems broken". I'm sorry

> for you that after so much debate on this topic

> its been repeatedly shown they're not.

>

i don't think that it has, but as i know that you think that the by-election result provided the definitive answer - would you say that your partners in coalition certainly are broken?

[DJKillaQueen]

I have angst towards ALL politicians who mislead, and blow their own trumpets knowing full well they haven't delivered good service when their party has been in power. You are selective in what you answer too just like most politicians.

66% of Southwark council housing is reported as meeting Decent Homes standards -

This isn't exactly a glowing reflection of your previous council is it either? In fact an initial report in 2003 estimated that at least 38% of council homes in Southwark required work to bring them up to decent homes standard. Based on that, means that only 4% of homes were done under your councils watch. That's terrible stat. Now that same report said that tenants believe that 50% of homes needed work (the difference being in what the council considered a decent home and what a tenant considered to be a decent home). But even taking that, means that only 16% were done, again a poor figure of less than a third.

And in respect to decent homes, there are people employed by the coucil managing contracts and who are not fit for purpose. A report into the Larkenhall fire is going to show that alterations made to the building by the council reduced it's fire safety impact. Funding for all decent homes was pulled in order to bring all buildings up to minimum fire saftey standards. Someone in the council is responsible for those works on Larkenhall. Gross incompetance that cost lives under a Lib Dem led council.

I will contuinue with the help of my local councilloers (who have been on board since their election) to expose those people, the mistakes they make, the money wasted and poor quality of work delivered. It's just not good enough.

Hopefully Labour Southwark will submit a really good application.

I am sure they will but please aknowledge too, that under the coalition, the money available for decent homes is woefully inadaquate, and that 80% of homes will not be done accross the country. YOUR coalition is responsible for that.

So the service certainly made a step improvement but still has a long way to go.

You are hilarious,. Contractors reporting they've caried out or completed repairs when they haven't is a step forward? The system of allowing contractors to electronically sign off jobs was something the Lib Dem council introduced. That same council then boasted 99% satisfaction stats which were nonsense all along.

The call centre, a gross waste of money and only handling 20% of calls to the coucil, has driven many reseidents insane. Many residents have had real problems getting repairs done. Made worse by taking away the power of Housing Officers to raise repair requests on behalf of the residents they serve. Again something YOUR Lib Dem led council did.

I can go on with many examples of where things have led to a nothing but a poorer delivery of service.

[DJKillaQueen]

Decent homes are funded by central government but what also has to be remembered is that from all the rents collected, central government creams off a percentage (just like tax). In other words, councils do not get to keep all of the rent they collect.

In Southwark's case, if it were allowed to keep all the revenue, it would have enough to cover the running and repair of it's housing stock (repair being maintenance not major renoonvation).

Previously the government then gave part of that money creamed off back, as housing subsidy - 'subsidy' being misleading as it is money originally collected as part of the rent (hence my point in another thread that low rent in social housing is NOT subsidised at all), and kept the rest.

That is going to change into a system of loans (rather than subsidy) whilst the government will still cream of rents. And to be fair the change is something drawn up by the previous Labour government, being adopted by the new coalition government.

[James Barber]

Hi pk,

the last 10 local council by elections have had one swing from tories to Lab, 1 x indie hold and remainder tory holds. So no the Tories are fine. We've had no Lib Dem seats come up for by elections.

Locally Labour have two councillors whose membership of the Labour party has been suspended. One for benefits fraud (second offence) and the other mysteriously no one quite knows.

Hopefully one will result in a by election and that WOULD end the argument "are the Lib dem finished?" unless of course it proves we're not in which I'm sure we'll all return to this thread....

Hi DJ,

Sadly that's not entirely how council rents work.

Central government pays the interest on the monies councils have borrowed to build that housing. so yes they cream money of but return it by paying the interest.

It is proposed to net of these loans and leave the council rents with local authorities. Those calculations are on going and should result in an overal simpler system and one where councils could choose to pay debt earleir to reduce interest payments to have more in thep ot for repairs etc. ie. be completely responsible for their housing affairs. Long overdue.

One of the big problems with Decent homes is that when a kitchen or bathroom goes beyond a certain number of years its then officially not decent. Majority of Southwark ocuncil housing was built such that those homes have been going indecent. So a huge moving target. The recent report stated 2/3rd decent. The previous reports stated just over half decent.

By my calculations it will take around another 8 years to truly make Southwarks housing decent including working lifts, security etc.

Housing repairs. 120,000 made a year. One measurement of how successful this is, is how many councillors raise casework and how many people complain - effectively an issue being escalated. They tend to be complicated and really painful issued. The cross part scurtiny report highlighted in 2007 - 3234, 2008 - 2347, 2009 - 2500, 2010 - 2413 up until July but an election year.

So undoubteldy the report has shown the call centre was around 15% out with its stats. Amazed the checks and balances not in place to detect this. But the number of complaints and councillor case work related to housing had a big reduction.

[expat]

so in the recent by-election the lib-dem went from coming seond by just over 100 votes to coming second by over 4000 votes. Some victory

[DJKillaQueen]

Yeah but James it never actually cancels each other out. I attended a lecture by AWICS on this recently in fact where there was a detailed account in pounds and pence of just what the council loses in terms of what it will be allowed to borrow. It doesn't get everything back. And I will try and find my paperwork on that to give you some figures.

Personally I'm happy to see the end of something called a 'subsidy' when it's not, but the calculations given by AWICS showed that Southwark would lose millions in available revenue from the new system.

And what happens if the government gets the calculations wrong? that was a question no one could answer.

On decent homes, I absolutely agree with you that homes that are considered decent now, may no longer be so in ten years, but that is all the more reason to keep the programme adaquately funded and to keep the work going. In the worst cases, we are talking about homes that have had no internal refit in 30 years, with poor central heating, outdated electrics and so on. Some buildings are 80 years old and have never had any improvements made to them internally.

Whether it takes five years, eight years, twenty years,.....it won't change the fact that money needs to be found to do the work. We have a government (the Tory part of it) that has no interest in social housing, so I think your eight years may well be dependent on a change of government next time round.

On housing repairs....the important thing is that the system is now changed to make sure that all the problems are eradicated and that work is done to a good standard as well. It's not something that you as a councillor can be blamed for but the quality of workmanship from some contractors or some employees of contractors the council uses is awful and in plain terms is money down the drain.

There needs to be a much higher level of quality control from the council and contractors that don't deliver to a standard need to be held to account. And also those managing contracts need to be better qualified and held accountable too. What I have found is that when something goes wrong with a major project, the council employee is moved to another department (doing the same job) and replaced by someone else in their former department, with no means for redress. Anyone trying to find out what has gone wrong and why is always met with the reply 'I can't answer for what has happened previously as I'm new'. All of these things are part of the same problem and it's something I've raised with my local councillors too.

By the way, did you see the cover of Southwark News? It's that call centre again ;-)

[Loz]

expat Wrote:

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> so in the recent by-election the lib-dem went from

> coming seond by just over 100 votes to coming

> second by over 4000 votes. Some victory

Who said the word 'victory'? Oh, that'd be just 'expat' then...

The point is that many were predicting that the Lib Dems were finished - thus the name of this thread. Some even said there was a chance they'd lose their deposit in the recent by-election. In truth, they not only held their vote share, but raised it ever so slightly. Lots of talk about Tory tactical voting but, in reality, I doubt that was a whole lot.

So no victory, but since by-elections are generally not good for parties in government, it's not bad news. Not bad news at all.

[DJKillaQueen]

The ridiculous thing though is that we are talking about a party that are never going to win an general election...a party that came THIRD but somehow think they have a right to be part of government...and a party that delude themselves that being part of government will somehow change anything for them. To pretend that issues such as tuition fees haven't damaged the image of the Lib Dems as a party is fantasy. They are a non entity in the landscapes of Brtish politics.

[expat]

>So no victory, but since by-elections are generally not good for parties in government, it's not bad news. Not bad news at >all.

I am sure loz can supply the voting details of the previous election as well as this one....for all prties

[Loz]

DJKillaQueen Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> To pretend that issues such as

> tuition fees haven't damaged the image of the Lib

> Dems as a party is fantasy. They are a non entity

> in the landscapes of Brtish politics.

How do you damage a non-entity?

[Loz]

expat Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> > So no victory, but since by-elections are

> > generally not good for parties in government, it's

> > not bad news. Not bad news at all.

>

> I am sure loz can supply the voting details of the

> previous election as well as this one....for all

> prties

expat, what *are* you wittering about? Can anyone explain? Anyone?

[expat]

simple really: supply the recent by-election and eclection reults in question for all parties

[Loz]

You really should learn how to use google, you know. But, as you wish...

[pre]

Name Party Vote Share

Debbie Abrahams Labour 42.1%

Elwyn Watkins Liberal Democrat 31.9%

Kashif Ali Conservative 12.8%

Paul Nuttall UKIP 5.8%

Derek Adams BNP 4.5%

Peter Allen Green 1.5%

Nick Delves Monster Raving Loony 0.4%

Stephen Morris English Democrats 0.4%

Loz Kaye Pirate 0.3%

David Bishop Bus-Pass Elvis 0.1%

[/pre]

[DJKillaQueen]

How do you damage a non-entity?

Ha ha.....good point...lol

[Huguenot]

What I don't understand DJKQ, is that if the Lib Dems are a non-entity, why you expend so much energy attacking them?

There's an inconsistency between your disdainful assertions that the Lib Dems are not important, and your relentless harangues.

[DJKillaQueen]

I refer you to the title of the thread.

You are hardly devoid of energy yourself in attacking people in debates and are the 'king' of disdain on this forum (you really must get over this obseesion you have with me).

I have very right to point out the poor service given by the previous Lib Dem council, and the money wasted.....and when a Lib Dem councillor makes points that are not the whole story then I think it's a good thing that he is challenged...don't you?

It's called right to reply and democracy!

Besides I think James is more than capable of holding his own.

[SeanMacGabhann]

way to prove a point DJKQ

[DJKillaQueen]

;-)

[Huguenot]

Eh? Prove what point?

I'm not suggesting that DJKQ isn't entitled to be either disdainful or critical of the Lib Dems.

What I'm saying is that the energy with which she attacks the Lib Dems contradicts her assertions that the Lib Dems are a spent force.

If as she claims the Lib Dems aren't important, then surely she wouldn't waste the time criticising them?

I don't have any obsession with you DJKQ, I treat all our forumites equally. Not commenting on contradictions in your posts would be to treat you unequally.

[SeanMacGabhann]

hmm - I think my sarcasm was lost. I saw DJ's riposte as proving your (H's) point

[DJKillaQueen]

I beg to differ ;-)

[DJKillaQueen]

And back on topic...I found my notes James.

According to AWICS....southwark will lose around ?6 million per year under the new system but it also has to remembered that as part of the new system ?307 million of Southwark's ?775 debt will be written off.

[James Barber]

Hi DJ,

Writing of the Southwark housing debt - or at least a good slab and no longer sending council rent to the treasury and getting around 80% of Southwark housing debt interest paid for centrally is a good thing in principle. The precise negotiation on what this will finally result in terms of debt reductino have yet to be negotiated and of equal importance will be the ability to refinance the remaining debt to market rates. Currently LA's have to go via a treasury quango that often sets artifially high interest rates.

Today's Oberserver carries an interesting peice by Peter PReston about right wing press boosting circulation when Labour in power and vice versa. He suggests that all the papers see the coalition as great opportunity to protect thier market shares.

[DJKillaQueen]

Yes, and of course central government will need to get their calculations right when deciding what the rental income vs debt should be. Whilst there is protection in place for the rate of rise of rents for existing tenants, there will be none for new tenants (until convergence in 2015) which is where the proposal to allow authorities to charge up to 80% of market rents for new tenants might come into play if those calculations of rental income are higher than what the council already presently brings in.

Councils will have to choose either to live with a shortfall or increase rents (above average) for new tenants (although where councils are forced to do that I expect it will be applied to new builds). You can't have a situation where two neighbours living in identical homes are paying different amounts of rent because one is a new tenant and the other an exisitng one imo.

I'll take a look at that article. Sounds interesting.