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Council’s response to FACTS newsletter ‘unprecedented’

13 March 2005

FOLLOWING delivery of the IWCA’s first FACTS newsletter, Oxford City Council has put out a leaflet entitled ‘The real FACTS about the options’, with the sub-heading: ‘a message from Caroline Bull, Chief Executive of Oxford City Council.’

With its clear ‘FACTS’ reference (in capital letters) in the title, IWCA councillors see the leaflet as a thinly-disguised party-political attack on the IWCA’s campaign to inform tenants about aspects of the stock options process that the council is keeping quiet about.

An email sent to council members confirms that the Strategic Director of Housing, Health and Community, in consultation with Labour Leader Alex Hollingsworth and his colleague Ed Turner, bypassed the usual procedures followed for stock options communications to produce and distribute the ‘Real FACTS’ leaflet.

As with other council stock options publications, this was done using public funds.

Stuart Craft, the leader of the IWCA group on the council said, ‘The people involved in producing the council leaflet seem to have felt it was so sensitive that it had to be written, printed and delivered before councillors, apart from Labour ones, could even be told about its existence. In my experience this is unprecedented.’

Michael Lawrence, the Strategic Director who helped to put the ‘Real FACTS’ leaflet together argued that it was ‘prepared on advice from the Government Office for the South East (GOSE) that we have to counter any incorrect information published by other organisations.’

‘I took the decision to issue this document without involving the project team in order to differentiate it from our mainstream communication process and to avoid it being wordsmithed by all the political parties.’

However, it appears that the leaflet has been “wordsmithed” by the Labour Party alone.

IWCA housing adviser and parliamentary candidate Maurice Leen commented, ‘Leaving aside the extremely dubious implications of a government department acting as the arbiter of truth in these matters, the council’s leaflet actually distorts the arguments made in the FACTS newsletter so as to be able to claim they are inaccurate.

On the other hand, if it is another publication being referred to then why is the “FACTS” name so clearly highlighted? I don’t believe that council tax payers would be very impressed that their money is being spent producing and distributing a propaganda document, especially when the justification for it seems so flimsy.’

The Chief Executive, Caroline Bull, would not confirm whether or not the council was responding to the IWCA’s newsletter but has suggested that other publications were considered too.

At the 7 March full council meeting Labour’s Ed Turner, after admitting he and council leader Alex Hollingsworth had gone through the ‘Real FACTS’ leaflet before publication, heaped the blame on the Strategic Director, Michael Lawrence. Questions remain about the true role of this council director in the affair.

Is Labour planning to go against tenants’ wishes to stay with the council?

THE curious manoeuvrings over the ‘Real FACTS’ leaflet have reinforced concerns that the council’s controlling Labour group may be planning to ditch its promises to follow tenants’ wishes regarding the options for council housing.

Results of a survey of council tenants were published last month, showing that almost 90% are in favour of retaining the council as their landlord. Labour has stated that it will support tenants in this decision.

But, said Maurice Leen, ‘The lengths that council and Labour Party bigwigs have just gone to in response to our FACTS campaign—which is a pro-council housing campaign—beg the question as to why they feel the need to attack it. We can only assume Labour now wishes to prevent additional arguments being heard that might harden tenants’ support for staying with the council.

‘The final recommendations from the stock options appraisal are due to come out at the end of May, after the local elections on 5 May. Is Labour just staying its hand before announcing in favour of privatising Oxford’s council housing when the elections are over?’

Interestingly, the council’s latest stock options newsletter, which appeared after the survey results were published, contained warnings that services could suffer and some improvement programmes could be delayed if tenants opted to stay with the council.

Tenants penalised for opting to stay with the council

NEARLY 90% of Oxford council tenants who were surveyed as part of the stock options appraisal have made it clear they want their housing to stay under the control of the city council rather than transfer to a housing association or an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO).

Unfortunately, while tenants have chosen the option that offers the best prospects for democratic control and accountability over their homes they may well be penalised for this decision by a government that is totally hostile to council housing. Before the last General Election, New Labour announced the aim of selling off the bulk of council housing by 2010.

Arbitrary government rules ensure the amount of investment allowed for social housing depends on the extent to which tenants are prepared to accept the privatisation of their homes. The highest level of funding is promised if tenants vote for their homes to be sold off to a housing association, while some government money may be provided if they choose an ALMO—a halfway house to privatisation.

If tenants decide to stay with the council then there is no extra money. With this option they can expect only minimal improvements to meet the ‘decent homes standard’—a basic level that doesn’t even include secure front and back doors or improvements to bathrooms under 30 years old.

These rules aren’t, however, based on any financial logic. Council housing in England alone actually generates a surplus of £1.5 billion a year, which goes into government coffers to subsidise other expenditure. It is New Labour’s ideological preference for privatisation that is the driving force behind this.

Last year a parliamentary select committee looking into the stock options process said, ‘We believe that the target of achieving Decent Homes in the social housing sector is being used as a Trojan horse by the government in a dogmatic quest to minimise the proportion of housing stock managed by local authorities. The government must put its money where its mouth is and leave it up to tenants to decide who should own and manage their homes,’

IWCA only party to support right-to-buy discount

At the January council meeting the Lib Dems, supported by Labour and the Greens, put forward a motion to cut the right-to-buy discount for council tenants in Oxford. The move followed a recent government initiative to allow councils in other areas to reduce the discount. Only the IWCA voted against the motion.

IWCA Councillor Claire Kent said, ‘After continuing the Tory policy of running down council housing, New Labour now wants to penalise those who, rightly fearing for the security of their tenure, feel compelled to take on a mortgage. Many longstanding tenants have already payed for their homes several times over in rent.’

Stuart Craft, leader of the IWCA group on the council, commented: ‘If receipts from council house sales under right-to-buy were actually kept by local authorities, in full, to build new housing then we wouldn’t have such a desparate shortage of council housing now. However, this money has been siphoned off, first by the Tories and then by New Labour, presumably with the deliberate intention of bringing an end to council housing as a viable form of rented accomodation available to the working class majority in this country.

‘Now this aim is close to being achieved, the government is trying to end the discount which makes it feasible at present for many working class people to buy their own homes. With Oxford City Council’s stock options appraisal in full swing—part of the New Labour-driven process of selling off the majority of council housing by 2010—the future of council housing looks increasingly uncertain. In these circumstances it makes more sense than ever for people to look to take on a mortgage.’