NEW CHARTER TENANT DEMOCRACY, WHAT DEMOCRACY? Involving and Empowering Communities - NOT!

New Charter named as finalist for UK housing awards - 1st September 2011
New Charter 7th in top 100 UK companies - 29th February 2012

I've written a few comments on the 24dash Housing website over the last couple of years in response to New Charter's various press releases. They upload most, if not all, of their press releases to this site. My most recent addition was added Saturday 24th March 2012 and as usual I had to await moderation before it would appear. Fair enough. I expected it would be approved sometime on Monday 26th March 2012, but as I write it has not been approved and the working day has passed. My 24dash dashboard shows it is still awaiting moderation but I've never had to wait this long before! I wonder if I might perhaps have said something controversial! Surely not! I mean, if New Charter wish to prance around on the web and invite comment then they have little to be surprised about. I could be wrong, and I hope I am, but I get the distinct impression it won't appear! So I shall add it here just in case! And if it does I shall add the more complete version below to their more recent press release 'New Charter 7th in top 100 UK companies' as well! Why not!  

This is a corrected and much updated version of what's appeared elsewhere on the web for it contained a number of inaccuracies because written off-the-cuff so to speak!

New Charter named as finalist for UK housing awards

"New Charter Housing Trust Group has been named as a finalist in this year’s UK Housing Awards. It is amongst a shortlist of six in the ‘Involving and Empowering Communities’ category."

My comment:
UNBELIEVABLE really!
They don't deserve this at all!
See my article elsewhere on this blog. 

New Charter do not practice DEMOCRACY! They practice a form of paternalism. "(Government, Politics & Diplomacy) the attitude or policy of a government or other authority that manages the affairs of a country, company, community, etc., in the manner of a father, esp in usurping individual responsibility and the liberty of choice." http://www.thefreedictionary.com/paternalism

For a start Empowering Communities is not the same as Empowering Individuals! And it is my opinion that New Charter only carry-out so-called empowerment objectives in those communities that give them the greatest kudos, ie a lovely photo opportunity to satisfy their 'Good to Great' hubris!

They are a most anti-democratic organisation and I should know for I've been wrestling with them for many years!

I have the right to stand as a TENANT DIRECTOR in the local elections to sit upon the New Charter Homes Board. I am supposed to be judged according to my manifesto by my peer tenants. New Charter has blocked my application for the last 2 years (2010 & 2011) and no doubt it will be the same this year too! They will not accept it and refuse to put my name on the ballot paper!

I made Formal Complaint to New Charter. On the first occasion I escalated my complaint to stage 3, their highest level, where I attended one of their wonderful kangaroo courts where I was judged and the prohibition upheld. On the second occasion when I made complaint they refused to process my complaint referring me to the previous judgment! 

I then made complaint to the Housing Ombudsman (HO) who tell me that I must complete my landlords complaints process first, but this I so often cannot do because New Charter refuse to acknowledge many of my complaints! I was surprised, yet not surprised, that they actually deigned to process my Tenant Director complaint on the first occasion, but then this did relate to the Boards of Directors, and I suspect they had to make quite sure they did things by the book in this case. So often they do not!

Incidentally New Charter ‘cook the books’ on complaints statistics by simply not processing complaints received in the first place! If not recorded/processed they don't exist! Many of my complaints have met with this fate! The HO tells me that New Charter must have a complaints procedure but that they are not obliged to process complaints. Rather strange that! I bet it's all down to self-monitoring and 'trust' by the Government!

Eventually after much struggle the HO respond: 

"we have no powers to act where

  governance matters are concerned"

This is a standard response mantra.

The Tenant Services Authority (TSA) can act where Governance matters are concerned, but they cannot act where individual matters are concerned, and simply redirect me to the HO!

What a lovely fruity loop!

My MP Jonathan Reynolds says he cannot help me if the HO cannot help me. He chose to do nothing!

Visit other pages on this blog to read more about my battles with New Charter. I have yet to write a full account of all this and much else for my blog.

And very soon we are going to see the emergence of local TENANT COMPLAINTS PANELS (TCP) as the first port of call for complaint resolution if the matter is not resolved with the landlord first, rather than going direct to the HO as at present. I don't think this will make the slightest difference, especially since there will be Tenant Panel's for every landlord, not one for all of them as I envisaged! In my case it will be a New Charter Tenants Panel run by New Charter, not the tenants! Anyone perceive a possible conflict of interest here? I know one person for a start who will be top of the exclusion list! Even if at a later date it is run by tenants it will be populated by tenants chosen by New Charter who follow the New Charter agenda and they will act to keep me out!

Incidentally TCP (Trichlorophenol) was what my mother used to put on my cuts and abrasions, perhaps to give me something to really complain about apart from the antiseptic qualities!

New Charter pretend the Tenant Director electoral process is democratic because they involve an independent organisation, the Electoral Reform Services, to carry out the election, but New Charter act as censor before passing information on to them! The independent organisation tells me they can only act according to their client’s wishes. They can only do what they are paid to do. There's no real independence at all!

On the 4th August 2010 I received an email from a Ben Lewis of the Electoral Reform Services:

"Thank you for your email. Electoral Reform Services undertake a wide variety of Electoral Services, and in many cases we run the nomination stage process for our clients; as you put it “running the electoral process from start to finish”. With our long experience of running elections and nominations, we can guarantee that we will undertake each such process with integrity and independence.

The conditions under which we run elections vary greatly however and we are often asked to oversee/administrate only small areas of the process. In a case like this, where we have no involvement in earlier stages of the election it is up to the client to ensure that they are conducted in line with law and statute, their own constitution. We are not a monitoring body for elections and therefore we can advise clients on points of best practice, but we cannot get involved further and have no power to do so.

If you do wish to take the matter further, we are unable to assist, but you might consider taking legal advice."

Best regards, Ben Lewis (Consultant Electoral Reform Services, The Election Centre, 33 Clarendon Road, London N8 0NW. Tel: 020 8829 8463; Fax: 020 8365 7013. www.electoralreform.co.uk

Tony Powell said: "We encourage our tenants to be involved in the long term vision and engage them in projects that can be replicated by other neighbourhoods."

No they don't, not at all! All tenants are not encouraged. In fact I would go so far as to say they actively discourage some tenants. I am not the only tenant I know who has been disempowered by New Charter. Tenants get involved and then many leave when they find they are being directed and controlled. Yet enough remain for New Charter to quote statistics of involvement that look good but which do not tell the whole truth!

They only support approved tenants, many of which I categorise as nodding-donkey serfs, and they know exactly who they are! It is an exclusive club and it has now been concretised in the form of the so-called Tenant Management Team (TMT), a tenant quango. My comments are removed from their blogsite.

Again my application for membership of this body has been blocked. I was in the steering group in 2008 before it was set-up, and then I was kicked out just before it formed. TPAS and New Charter acted in cahoots to reject my membership application. In fact I was kept in the dark on when this was happening but I still found out!

I am apparently not of the right 'calibre' or 'quality', but training was not offered later to correct this alleged deficit! Of course not because that's not the real reason at all! At my first and only interview I was told that those who were unsuccessful would be held on a reserve list and would receive any necessary training to bring them up to spec. Not having the requisite skills was itself insufficient reason to reject a tenant. I was 1 of 3 rejected tenants from a total of 13 applicants! To this day I've not been contacted to see if I'm still interested. I even contacted them, ie New Charter and the TMT, and yet still I'm ignored!

Not surprisingly my next application was lost or so I was told because they could not find it. They did not know that I'd applied again. They had no idea I was still interested! Now would you adam and eve it!

These days all my applications are submitted by hand and signed for so I have proof of delivery, and this means I am 'forced' to breach their 'revocation of my license' to enter their buildings! I will not allow that to stop my right to stand as a Tenant Director or apply for membership of the TMT.

On one occasion I said they should call the police to have me removed. They chose not to and signed my application and I kept a duplicate signed copy as proof, and then I left their building peaceably.

I really need to get all of this written up properly and uploaded to my blog!


Love, Light & Laughter

Starlord