WHO KILLED BAMBI – REVISED AND EXPANDED

In the early nineteen nineties the residents of Lancaster West Estate voted to use powers available through right-to-manage legislation to set up a local estate management board. This decision once taken the Council were obliged to concur, and a management agreement was duly signed by both parties in 1993 which empowered the EMB to manage this estate on behalf of the Council, who retained ownership of the properties and remained as landlords. This was, and remains, a legally binding agreement approved by and underwritten by the Secretary of State. Under the terms of the agreement the Council would retain it’s responsibility to manage the estate during the first year, while the new EMB bedded in, and was trained and familiarised with the powers and responsibilities it was about to assume. After that year the EMB was to assume full responsibility for repairs and maintenance, negotiate year on year with the Council for the capital funding needed for the necessary capital projects, and have control of the budgets it needed to discharge its’ responsibilities for the general management, maintenance and upkeep of the estate.

The handover of power never happened. Instead the Council began planning, from 1994 onwards, to create a monolithic Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) responsible for all social housing in the borough. The TMO Management Agreement was duly signed in 1996, and the Council delegated all management functions to the new body, along with the whole system of repairs and maintenance contracts that currently existed, and the property management staff and staffing structure that had formerly administered the system directly from the Town Hall. The EMB Management Agreement still existed, and the Council had no power to dissolve it, but they chose regardless to delegate all management functions to the TMO in defiance of the EMB agreement. The Lancaster West community refused to capitulate, even though the EMB had been left powerless and dependent on the TMO for the services the EMB should have been empowered to provide.

For a number of years, right through into the early noughties, the EMB continued to resist despite being constantly undermined, marginalised, and disempowered by both RBKC and TMO. They held monthly board meetings and annual general meetings at which they regularly elected volunteer board members. They were determined to hold the TMO accountable for the quality of the services they were delivering, and they succeeded to some extent, but over time the morale of individual board members was gradually eroded, as well as the morale of the Lancaster West community.

The 2005 Review and the 2006 Modular Management Agreement

In 2005 the EMB entered into a year long review with the Council of the 1993 agreement. Towards the end of this process the Council suddenly and unexpectedly re-introduced a document that the EMB had previously rejected  – a Modular Management Agreement, the format of which was favoured by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the inimitable John Prescott MP. The MMA was a far weightier and more complex document than the original agreement and there was no time left to study or properly review it. Nonetheless the EMB  was  pressured into signing it, although they were given both verbal and written guarantees that the LWMA’s existing rights would not be compromised and the MMA would itself be reviewed at the earliest opportunity. This review never happened.

It was only later that EMB members came to realise the full implications of a crucial clause that had been inserted into the MMA which contradicted and fundamentally compromised the rights guaranteed by the original agreement.

Chapter 1 Clause 6.3  of the MMA stated that:

“Either party may, with the consent of the other, appoint another person to carry out management functions which are their responsibility under the Agreement and the parties have agreed to appoint the TMO to carry out the majority of the EMB’s functions”

This was a direct contradiction of the 1993 agreement which stated at clause 2.5.c that:

“The LWMA shall not delegate or assign any of the responsibilities or rights granted by this Agreement to any other organisation.”  LINK –  Principles of LWMA Agreement

Clearly Clause 6.3 in the new MMA was completely at odds with the fundamentals of the 1993 agreement.  However, the MMA did, in fact, contain a ‘safety clause’ that guaranteed that existing rights and responsibilities would not be compromised under the new agreement, and would remain unaffected: The ‘safety clause’ in the preamble to the 2006 MMA stated:

“This MMA supersedes a property management agreement made between the parties dated 1 May 1993 for the management and maintenance of the Lancaster West Estate (The EMB FOUNDING MMA).  This MMA takes effect on the date that both parties sign it but the parties’ existing rights and liabilities under The EMB FOUNDING MMA remain unaffected.”

Nonetheless the Council and TMO were determined to fully implement Clause 6.3.  They ignored the ‘safety clause’ and colluded in asserting and implementing a hardline interpretation of the MMA whereby the last vestiges of any power or influence were stripped from the EMB, leaving it completely eviscerated. Given their continual refusal over time to honour the 1993 Agreement we can only conclude that the Council never intended to empower the EMB and had signed the 1993 agreement in bad faith. This would also suggest that Clause 6.3 may have been deliberately inserted into the 2006 MMA in an attempt to legitimise that history of bad faith, disempowerment and marginalisation.

Over the next couple of years as the more competent and experienced board members resigned to move on with their lives, they were invariably replaced by inexperienced, untrained and less competent new members. Inevitably the board became demoralised and fractious and began to disintegrate.

The Arvinda Gohil Affair

In the Spring of 2009 after the EMB had effectively imploded and had not met for several months, board members were summoned to a crisis meeting with senior RBKC officers. The solution demanded by Council officers was to impose a temporary chair (a professional management consultant) to sort out the mess and supposedly oversee the reform of the EMB by means of a recruitment drive to strengthen the Management Association, new board elections to strengthen the Board, a revised constitution and code of conduct, and a well attended AGM to cap it all off.

Arvinda Gohil was appointed as interim Chair of the EMB on 1st September 2009.  According to the available documentation her appointment was for a period of six months, but invoices reveal that she was actually paid for a period of ten months, from July 2009 until April 2010. What board members didn’t realise and apparently were never told, was that Gohil was paid £500 a day (plus expenses) for chairing the Board, and she submittted invoices for several days worked each month.  Such payments were strictly forbidden by the EMB constitution under which board members are allowed to claim expenses, but may not be paid, and so a convoluted system of payments was devised by RBKC and TMO officers working in secret.  Invoices were addressed to Pam Sedgwick, the Housing Clientside Manager at RBKC. They were then passed to Tony O’Hara, the TMO manager at Lancaster West, who approved the payments, which were then paid by TMO accountants from EMB budgets over which they had complete control. There is no documentary evidence to indicate that EMB members had any knowledge of the payments, were ever informed about them, participated in any discussions about them, or gave their consent to them.

A number of criminal offences appear to have been involved in this leger-de-main. Sedgwick, to whom the invoices were addressed, subsequently denied any knowledge of, or involvement in, the payment arrangements.  She said in a formal complaint response to our whistleblower dated 29th April 2010:

“I am not aware that any Council officer has instructed payments to Ms Gohil out of EMB funds although I did seek a legal view from the Council’s legal services at the request of the meeting in April as to whether it would be possible to pay an EMB Board member. The advice which was not, unfortunately, in writing was that there was nothing that precluded payment to Board Members. In terms of the EMB’s process in agreeing remuneration for Ms Gohil that is not something over which I had any influence or control.”

This statement is directly contradicted by internal email exchanges involving Ms Sedgwick during July 2009.  One of the  emails, authored by Sedgwick herself on 14th July 2009, is particularly damning in our view.  LINK – Sedgwick emails  Furthermore, the vast majority of the invoices for the Gohil payments were addressed to Sedgwick personally. In our view these details, taken together, strongly suggest that she had full knowledge and was actively involved in arranging the payments. It would be hard therefore not to conclude that she breached the Freedom of Information Act by providing information which we believe she knew to be false, and which was intended to mislead and deceive. Her claim to have received legal advice indicating that there would be no legal impediment to making such payments is also contradicted in the emails, as it is in a later report dated 20th December 2010 from the Head of Internal Audit, Moyra Mc Garvey, which stated that the payments were made against legal advice:

“Payments were made to HQN for the services of Ms. Gohil to act as Chair of LWEMB against legal advice.  The payment of a Chair on LWEMB constitutes a breach of the constitution.”

The Mc Garvey letter also strongly suggests that Gohil had a conflict of interest as she was Chair of the EMB while apparently under contract to RBKC, to which all her invoices were addressed:  LINK – sample invoice

“The information on file suggests that the contract for the appointment of Ms Gohil was between the Council and HQN, which may be viewed as a conflict of interest, although no signed contract was in evidence.”

We have evidence from EMB minutes indicating that Gohil never once declared any conflict of interest to the EMB – It appears therefore that she may have repeatedly breached the Companies Act under which all potential conflicts of interest must be declared at board meetings.

Lastly, Tony O’Hara authorised the payments from EMB budgets. It appears that he also may have breached the Companies Act by authorising payments, without the Board’s consent, which were beyond the limits of his authority as defined in the Financial Regulations of the Lancaster West Management Association.  LINK – LWMA Financial Regulations  The evidence supporting this view is once again in EMB minutes which indicate that he never once informed the Board, nor sought its’ permission to make the payments.

Incidentally Council and TMO officers subsequently provided misleading information regarding the source of the payments, claiming they were made from TMO budgets, when in fact they were made under a Consultants Costs budget-head from the Lancaster West Management Fee, over which TMO accountants had full control. The payment code Z03656 4191, which appears next to O’Hara’s signature on the invoices, shows that the payments were debited against the Lancaster West Management Fee. LINK – LW Management Fee statement In recent years the Council has encouraged and enabled the TMO to usurp ownership of HRA budgets, including the Lancaster West Management Fee, intended for use by the EMB under the LWMA Management Agreement. As previously indicated this was routinely justified by asserting a hardline interpretation of Clause 6.3 of the 2006 Agreement which fundamentally contradicted the principles of the original LWMA management agreement, and the rights and responsibilities it conferred on the EMB.  LINK – LWMA Financial Arrangements

This brings us back to Ms Gohil and her £500 a day conflict of interest. On paper she was tasked with chairing the EMB and supporting its’ revival.  LINK – Crisis meeting with Council officers   Given that the majority of board meetings under her stewardship remained inquorate, one might have expected her to immediately initiate a high profile publicity and outreach campaign aimed at informing, educating and engaging the entire resident community, most of whom were, and still are, ignorant of the management arrangements for Lancaster West, and know little or nothing about the Management Agreement, the Service Level Agreements, or any other aspect of how the EMB is supposed to work in relation to the Council and the TMO. There is no evidence in the minutes of the EMB of any discussion of such an outreach programme, nor of any attempt to initiate one. Historically, it has always proved extremely difficult, if not impossible, to hold successful elections that produce a strong and competent board in the abscence of a high profile and dynamic outreach programme and recruitment drive to engage the community and strengthen the Management Association.

Her failure to concentrate her energies in this area is, in our view, her first major failing. The other, which almost certainly arose from her conflict of interest, was her failure to identify the massive imbalance of power and the deliberate disempowerment and marginalisation of the EMB as the chief source of the EMB’s problems. Unless this was confronted, and unless she was prepared to put the interests of the EMB, and of the Lancaster West community, before those of the Council and the TMO, all attempts to stregthen or resuscitate the EMB were doomed to failure. Indeed, one of the more notorious actions of the board under her stewardship was its’ collusion with a TMO downsizing exercise (ie the transfer of the Lancaster West repairs admin staff to TMO headquarters) which  further disempowered the EMB. In our view, because of the conflict of interest inherent in her position she was unable to  respresent the best intersts of Lancaster West residents and this was the decisive factor in her failure to fulfill her brief.

Incidentally, council officers have accused the author of this blog of defaming Ms Gohil. These alllegations are founded in part on the convenient and oft repeated fiction that she was appointed, not by the Council but by the EMB.  This in turn implies that the EMB was competent at the time, which is of course a complete nonsense. Furthermore, the board remained incompetent under her stewardship. Consequently, the argument that the EMB was responsible for decisions taken during her tenure is in our view false, as there was no free democratic process in play at the time and Board members were effectively coerced into aquiescing with whatever recommendation came from Ms Gohil, who was seen as the Council’s enforcer.  Indeed board members believed that Gohil had been appointed by the Council and represented, like a ‘Sword of Damocles’, the vengeful power and authority of the Council. Furthermore, it would appear from the single newsletter that was produced, and which was authored by Gohil herself, that she herself believed she had been appointed by the Council, and not by the EMB. Her alleged appointment by the EMB was therefore, in our opinion, no more than a smoke screen. In reality she was the Council’s enforcer and had a significant conflict of interest.   LINK – Newsletter

In considering this period it is vital to remember that since the signing of the 2006 Modular Management Agreement the process of marginalisation and disempowerment of the EMB, by means of the notorious Clause 6.3,  had been greatly accelerated by RBKC and TMO such that the EMB was rendered completely powerless, had no real function or role, was riven by internal conflicts, and had become totally disorganised and demoralised. This disempowerement is illustrated In a letter dated 16th June 2010 from the Executive Director for Housing at RBKC, Jean Daintith, who quoted Clause 6.3 and stated that:

“The EMB, Council and Kensington and Chelsea TMO has been governed by a modular management agreement since April 2006. Under this agreement the main management function for operating the Lancaster West estate was passed over to the TMO. The effect of this is to transfer the bulk of the operational duties and financial responsibilities to the TMO… and management is not within the locus of the EMB”.

Given the complete disempowerment humiliation and demoralisation of the EMB Gohil was able to persuade them, on behalf of TMO management,  to agree to the transfer of the in-house admin team, who handled repair requests, to TMO headquarters, on the pretence that this would improve efficiency. Most residents would argue that the administration of repairs and other services has become more remote since then with no evidence of any improvement. Finally, in April 2010 a Special General Meeting was called, also allegedly by order of the Board, for the purpose of recommending to the Lancaster West Management Association that they voluntarily dissolve the EMB and invite the TMO to take full control of the management of the estate. There was a massive turnout to the SGM. The assembled Association members refused to recognise Gohil as chair, and overwhelmingly rejected the recommendation to dissolve the Management Agreement.

The End Game?

The EMB meeting which followed the Special General Meeting was extremely fractious, with much overt criticism of Gohil and demands for her resignation. At the end of the meeting she stood down and was replaced by the incumbent vice-chair, one of the elected members. Link – EMB meeting notes April 2010 Board member elections followed soon after at an AGM in June 2010. However the new board proved not much better than the board that had collapsed in 2009, and made little attempt to engage with the community. The recruitment drive to the LWMA, which Gohil had failed to deliver, was not delivered by the new board either. They had still not learned the crucial importance of embracing transparency and nurturing close ties with the LWMA and the Lancaster West community. The ‘Peasants Revolt’ at the SGM was thus, in many respects, the last hurrah of the Lancaster West Management Association, after which the EMB became increasingly isolated, secretive, paranoid and self-seeking.

You might wonder why council officers would continue to prop up this arrogant and thoroughly incompetent board despite their continued poor performance and the increasing level of complaints that this engendered during 2011 and 2012. The answer would seem to be that yet another review of both the TMO and EMB management agreements was begun in 2011 and has continued over the last couple of years. Swingeing cuts to the government subsidy that supports the Housing Revenue Account on which both organisations depend, and the recent introduction of a new self-financing regime for local authority housing has further complicated matters and appear to have caused the MMA reviews to drag on and on for much longer than was initially anticipated.

We have no reason to suspect that the TMO review has been improperly conducted, but the EMB review has been quite another story. During the two years during which it has been underway there have been only two review meetings held, and the only representative of the EMB to attend these meetings was the corrupt and thoroughly discredited EMB Chairperson Robert Bryans. The minutes of the review meetings reveal that there was no discussion of the notorious Clause 6.3 referenced above. We have no doubt, therefore, that the Council’s intention is to further consolidate and legitimate the illegal transfer of powers that was the main feature of the 2006 EMB Agreement, and thereby complete the disempowerment and marginalisation of the EMB. Once this is accomplished there would no longer be a valid reason for the EMB’s continued existence. We strongly suspect that the only reason why they continue to prop up the failed board is because they want Bryans’ signature on the new Agreement, and believe they can get it without significant resistance from other EMB members, who know little about the so-called ‘review’ that has been undertaken, and have little understanding of the issues involved, having been kept entirely out of the negotiations.

Bryans is one of those the Council’s solicitors have accused us of defaming. Our response is simply to point out that his misuse of EMB premises at Baseline Studios is a matter of public record. The complaint against him was upheld by an RBKC Property Services investigation and reported in the minutes of the October 2012 EMB meeting, which also recorded the perverse decision of the EMB (despite being inquorate as usual on that occasion) to take no punitive action against him. The  investigating officers later commented that, when confronted with the evidence, Bryans “denied doing anything wrong (but) did not deny that his daughter in-law was using the address. He actually confirmed that this was happening”.

Subsequently the Town Clerk, Nicholas Holgate, in a letter dated 17th December 2012 (yet another formal complaint response) said the following about the Bryans affair and the current state of the Board:

“Given that the complaint against Mr Bryans will be referred back to the Board in early 2013, I am as yet unable to comment on the final outcome. I am however satisfied that the Council carried out a thorough investigation of this matter and have considered all potential sanctions that could be laid against Mr Bryans. It is up to the Board to consider this matter but I do understand your concern that this decision making lies with them when our own investigations have confirmed that the Board, as previously constituted was not operating in accordance with the EMB’s Constitution. We will ensure that Council Officers are present at the Board meeting when the complaint is next discussed to ensure a due process is followed”.

We finally wrote back to Mr Holgate on 23rd July asking why we had still seen no sign of the promised intervention by the Council to clean up the mess of the EMB. We got no response from him. Instead we began receiving heavy handed letters from RBKC Legal Services, accusing us of defaming Bryans, and the several others mentioned above, with implied threats of legal action against us if we didn’t retract and capitulate.

We can’t say whether Holgate himself may have ordered this crackdown on us because Vimal Sarna, the solicitor involved, is still refusing, despite having been repeatedly asked, to reveal who instructed her

Anyway, regardless of whether the intention of the Council is to destroy the EMB completely, or merely to continue to disempower and marginalise it to the point at which it serves no useful function, RBKC is directly responsible for the EMB’s decline and disintegration, and must take responsibility for the rescue and resucitation that is now urgently required. Merely anouncing board elections or general meetings will not suffice. This has been the recent incompetent strategy of the EMB itself, and will almost certainly accomplish nothing.

The Council must now organise and fund a high profile outreach programme to inform, educate and engage the Lancaster West community with a view to reforming the EMB, not as a disempowered and marginalised clone of the current board, but with sufficient power and authority to manage this estate on the Council’s behalf, and to hold the TMO responsible for the services it provides here.

Ideally, the EMB should be directly empowered to mange, and to choose whether or not to commission sevices from the TMO, or from some other source or sources. However, given their long history of witholding power from the EMB and of dishonouring the Management Agreement that obliges them to empowe the EMB, it seems most unlikely that there will be any such change of policy at RBKC.

The only alternative on offer appears to be the use of Service Level Agreements. These are meant to regulate service delivery and make the TMO accountable to the EMB for the quality of the services they deliver. A complete set of SLA’s was prepared prior to the signing of the 2006 MMA. However they were not even mentioned in the Agreement itself and were never implemented – more evidence, if it was needed, of the the Council’s and TMO’s determination to disempower the EMB at every opportunity. In any case, even if they had been included in the Agreement, as they should have been, the SLA’s were completely toothless as they did not enable the EMB to penalise or sanction the TMO in any way for negligence or poor service. The attempt to use SLA’s to resolve the current EMB crisis would therefore be entirely ineffective. The EMB would remain essentially powerless, and as we have already argued, any attempt to reconstitute the EMB in this powerless and marginalised state will be doomed to failure.

In our view, unless there is a radical change of heart and of attitude at RBKC the future of the EMB looks extremely bleak.

It will be , as they say, a cold day in Hell……

NO JUSTICE FOR GRENFELL TOWER POWER SURGE VICTIMS

Grenfell Tower residents were today informed that the Council’s and TMO’s insurers ‘Zurich’ will not be compensating them for damage to electricl appliances suffered by many in the recent power surge debacle. ‘Zurich’ found that the TMO had not been negligent in regard to this incident. They therefore declined to provide compensation in response to residents insurance claims.

This appears to be a classic Catch 22 situation. Residents can’t be compensated unless the TMO admits negligence, and the TMO will never admit negligence for fear of embarrassment, and to avoid any possibility of facing criminal charges for endangering life by negligence.

Following this contemptible decision to deny liability and thereby deny compensation to victims of the Grenfell Tower power surges, residents are strongly urged to attend the EMB Rooms on Thursday evening, 15th August, at 6.30pm to show their displeasure.

(please see attached letter – no compensation )

As if it wasn’t bad enough that our landlords would subject residents to the frightening experience of having electrical appliances blow up and catch fire in their homes – to then refuse to compensate the victims for their losses is just beyond the pale.

Perhaps we should take this opportunity also to thank the members of the RBKC Housing and Property Scrutiny Committee to whom this issue was referred in July,  giving Grenfell Tower residents renewed, but alas false, hope that that they might be fairly treated after all.  Well done guys – we got everything we expected from you.

LIKE SO MUCH THAT GOES ON WITH THE MANAGEMENT OF LANCASTER WEST – THIS STINKS!

STOP PRESS

15th August

Following this evening’s meeting of Grenfell Tower residents with representatives of the TMO to discuss the refusal of the Council’s and TMO’s insurers to compensate victims of the power surge debacle, we have been asked to make available for download a letter template for use by residents, which makes clear that the £200 goodwill payment will be accepted only if it does not prejudice the individual’s right to continue to seek full compensation from the TMO. The letter also requests copies of various documents which will be needed as evidence by the complainant should legal action in pursuit of compensation become necessary. You can download the letter template from the following link:  Grenfell Tower – Letter Before Action

WHO KILLED BAMBI – CENSORED

Under intense pressure from as yet unknown forces at RBKC we have decided to remove the content of the ‘Who Killed Bambi?’ post while we consider how best to respond to a second solicitor’s letter we received from Senior Solicitor Vimal Sarna at RBKC Legal Services on 3rd August.

Some council officers are clearly very uncomfortable with the recent revelations we have been making about the current state of Lancaster West EMB and the Council’s role in undermining and disempowering it, and its’ parent body the Lancaster West Management Association.  Clearly there are details of the history and relationship between RBKC, the TMO and the EMB which they would rather not have known or discussed publicly, and are prepared to go to considerable lengths to suppress our freedom of speech on these issues.

You can read Ms Sarna’s letter here:     Sarna 2 Aug

Below is a copy of our initial response to this latest missive (missile?) :

Tuesday, August 06, 2013
Re: your letter of 2nd August

Dear Ms Sarna

Once again you have issued an ultimatum (4pm Tuesday) which demands an almost instantaneous response fom me. This is totally unreasonable. I would remind you that you took the best part of a week to reply to my letter of 29th July. I will respond to your five page letter of 2nd August as soon as I am ready to, and not before.

Furthermore, I don’t accept your right to issue any ultimatum to me. I have already told you that I don’t accept that I have defamed any of the persons named, and I have strong documentary evidence to support the claims I made. I offered to share that evidence with you, but you have chosen to ignore that offer. This strongly suggests to me that the real point of this exercise, from the Council’s perspective, is to bully and intimidate the Grenfell Action Group rather than to confront any notional defamation of which you have accused me.

You have demanded that I present my evidence to ‘the appropriate authorities’, but I don’t know who the appropriate authorities would be, under these circumstances, and it is proving far from easy to find out. I don’t believe this is a matter for the Metropolitan Police. I have tried on a number of occasions to persuade RBKC to act on my concerns, but was fobbed off every time. More recently I approached the Audit Commission and the Homes and Communities Agency, but they were uninterested and/or unable to act. I am now seeking legal advice.

In my letter of 29th July I asked if you would explain why RBKC Legal Services consider it appropriate to represent the interests of these individuals, who are not, as far as I am aware, Council employees, at the expense of RBKC resident taxpayers. You chose to ignore that question in your reply of 2nd August and so I repeat it now:

For whom exactly are you acting?

Do you have authority to act on behalf of non RBKC employees?

Finally, I also wish to know what you propose to do if I refuse to accede to your demands.

Yours sincerely,

Francis O’Connor

STOP PRESS

We republished  a revised and expanded version of the ‘Who Killed Bambi’ blog once we had completed the rewrite. This included all the documentary evidence on which the allegations in the original blog were based, and proved beyond doubt that the original piece was in no way defamatory as claimed in the threatening letters from RBKC Legal. You can read this expanded version by visiting the following link;

https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/who-killed-bambi-revised-and-expanded/

Following publication of the expanded version of the ‘Who Killed Bambi’ blog we received no further solicitors letters or veiled threats from RBKC.

THE DISEMPOWERED OF GRENFELL TOWER

The Grenfell Tower power surge issue remains unexplained and unresolved despite the best and constant efforts of ourselves, and especially the dogged leadership of the Grenfell Tower Leaseholders Association who have lobbied and campaigned continuously since the appalling negligence of May 2013 first came to light.

We recently reported on the discussions about the much delayed Grenfell Tower refurbishment project which took place at the RBKC Housing and Property Scrutiny Committee in July. The Report to the Committee also included a section on the power surge issue, but we decided to feedback separately on that, to avoid confusion and because it warranted special attention, but also because the report contained little on the power crisis that was new or informative, and much that was misleading if not thoroughly deceitful. For most of this we can probably thank the TMO officer(s) who provided the briefing for the report.

We believe that the power surges at Grenfell Tower posed a major fire risk to many residents but this is not highlighted in the Committee report. Residents witnessed smoke coming out of light fittings and other electrical appliances, some of which literally exploded. Despite the fact that these dangerous and highly alarming incidents were reported to the TMO on 11th May no serious action was taken until the problems escalated out of control on 29th May 2013.

Rather than highlight the seriousness of the situation the Committee report appears to have been designed to minimise and understate. For instance, at one point it contains the following:

“There has been a considerable volume of communication from a small number of residents in the form of blogs and open “round robin” e-mails, some of which is from people who are not residents of the block. This communication contains a lot of speculation about the cause of the problem. KCTMO has not responded directly to this communication and has focused on keeping residents informed of the facts through direct communication.”

Apart from the fact that the TMO has done anything but focus on “keeping residents informed…by direct communication” this piece of blatant propaganda clearly implies that all the fuss has been created by a ”a small number of residents” some of whom “are not (even) residents of the block”

Actually, the only recent agitator, as far as we are aware, who was not a Grenfell Tower resident, happens to be yours truly, the editor of this blog. We make no apology for this. But in any case the Grenfell Tower Leaseholders Association, who have done most of the lobbying on this issue, had organised, and arranged to have presented to the Committee, a petition signed by no less than 94 Grenfell Tower residents – this represented the vast majority of Grenfell Tower households, thus contradicting the TMO’s pathetic attempts to present this as a minority issue.  Regrettably this kind of detail would appear to be of no interest to TMO propagandists. We are still awaiting the Council’s response to the petition, and whether or not this will satisfy the petitioners remains to be seen.

A supporting verbal report given on the night, presumably by the same TMO officer(s) who had informed the report, claimed that:

“There was no smoke, it was in fact steam caused by water from a leak dropping on to something hot in the flat below “

In our opinion it is most unlikely that the TMO officer who made this claim actually believed anything of the sort, and this can only have been a crude and disgraceful attempt to discredit reports made by residents that they saw and smelt smoke coming from various electrical appliances on the morning of 29th May. This was the day the whole electrical system went into meltdown, and by the TMO’s own admission, fused several key meters and damaged or destroyed electrical appliances in 40 individual residences. In our opinion this also exemplifies the generally contemptuous attitude the TMO are widely believed to have towards residents, especially those who happen to live at Lancaster West.

Do they really expect anyone to believe this tripe? Do they take us all for fools? – Certainly.

Do they take the Scrutiny Committee members for fools also? – Possibly.

Or maybe they just expect the Committee members to passively collude by pretending to believe this and any other nonsense they cobble together.

Apart from the above there was little else of interest on the power issue. The report stated that it was too early (three months on from the earliest reports of power surges) to say whether the problem had been fully resolved, although they were confident that it had. The TMO also claimed that it was too early to determine where responsibility lay. The cause of the problems was declared to have been arcing in the mains supply cable, but no attempt was made to explain what caused the arcing, and there was still no report of progress on compensation payments, beyond the fact that details of affected residents had been collected, a complete log of all damaged equipment and property had been created, and claim forms had been made available to anyone who wanted them.

Apart from being furious about the delay a number of residents have also expressed dissatisfaction at some of the questions posed on the claim forms, and Councillor Blakeman, who presented the petition to the Chair of the Scrutiny Committee declared that she was;

“…not satisfied that RBKC and the TMO explained adequately about the delay in responding to residents’ initial concerns, nor the delay in compensating them for their losses”.

On the face of it there appears to have been little point in submitting this issue for discussion by the Scrutiny Committee.  As far as we are aware they expressed no opinion, formed no judgement, and made no recommendations on the matter.

SAME OLD.  SAME OLD.

Here’s an interesting footnote to finish on:

The most recent Fire Risk Assessment for Grenfell Tower was conducted in November 2012. We have a copy of the assessment report from which we previously quoted the following passage when we were campaigning on fire safety in Grenfell Tower and the Grenfell Tower area. It said in part:

“RGE Services are under contract to TMO to provide portable fire fighting equipment, testing, servicing and maintenance. The fire extinguisher in this building, the basement boiler room, the lift motor room, the ground floor electrical room plus other areas were out of test date according to the contractors label on the extinguishers. The last test date was on the 8th August 2011. Some located in the roof level areas had “condemned” written on them in large black writing with a last test date of 2009 or 2010”.

Coincidentally, the same company (RGE) are contracted to do electrical wiring safety checks for the TMO and have replaced much of the domestic electrical wiring on Lancaster West Estate. We don’t know for sure whether RGE were responsible for regular inspection and/or maintenance of the mains electrical supply at Grenfell Tower, and so it would be inappropriate for us to suggest negligence by RGE  in this regard.

NONETHELESS THE COINCIDENCE IS STRIKING.

Meanwhile, the long wait for answers, and for compensation, goes on.

Don’t hold your breath people.

A FINAL NOTE: WE DIDN’T USE THE WORDS ‘COVER UP’ ANYWHERE IN THIS PIECE. PERHAPS WE SHOULD HAVE DONE.

STREETS OF SHAME – WORNINGTON GREEN

We strongly recommend to our readers that they immediately visit, if they haven’t already done so, Emma Dent Coad’s blog. Her two most recent postings expose the horrendously poor quality of work and design on the redeveloped Wornington Green Estate, which is located off the upper end of Portobello Road, just a stone’s throw from Lancaster West.

The posts in question are her three most recent –  the first entitled “The Final Betrayal of Wornington Green…”  on 25th July,  followed by a sequel  entitled “The Sheet Of  Shame…” on 30th July,  and a further sequel ” The Pond Of Despond…” on 31th July.

For the benefit of those who didn’t already know, Wornington Green is in the northernmost Golborne Ward that Emma represents as a Labour councillor. Her blog includes lots of pictures of the offending negligent/incompetent workmanship and poor design, and as always, the accompanying text is essential reading also.

Perhaps residents of our own Grenfell Tower may have reason to fear that similar poor workmanship might be in store for them also, when and if the long awaited Grenfell Tower refurbishment finally gets the green light from the Council’s planners.

AN OPEN LETTER TO RBKC LEGAL SERVICES

Dear Ms Sarna,

The Grenfell Action Group blog is by necessity polemical and sometimes lampoons public officials we believe to be remiss or negligent in the discharge their duty of care to the residents of this community. We make no apology for this, but it is not our intention to harass or cause unwarranted upset, alarm, or distress to any individual(s). We are engaged in the serious business of campaigning on behalf of the Lancaster West community for much needed and long overdue improvements to the living environment we all share. We consider the KALC development to be a serious threat to the quality of life of much of our community, both during its demolition and construction phase, and in the future when the site will have been grossly overdeveloped much to the detriment of local residents.

Your letter of 25th July strongly objects to some recent content on our blog but fails to specify precisely which content is considered objectionable. You suggest that we may have defamed a number of individuals, but you have not named these individuals, and have not specified which posts you believe to be defamatory or objectionable, nor which specific portions of these posts you consider to be defamatory or objectionable. Nonetheless you appear to demand that we remove this unspecified material by issuing an ultimatum with a deadline of 29th July for its removal, although your letter is so unclear in its’ detail that you appear at times to be demanding that the entire blog be removed.  In either case I find your demands both threatening and unreasonable.

I do not accept that I have defamed anyone. I would therefore be obliged if you would now clarify this lack of detail and precision by specifying which named individual(s) you are referring to who have allegedly been defamed, which specific portions of our blog you believe to be defamatory, and in what respect you believe this specific content to be defamatory.

Your letter refers to “accusations about unfounded criminal actions” in recent posts on our blog. Please note that any recent allegations that we published against named individuals were by no means “unfounded”.  In our opinion the prima facie evidence makes it very hard to accept that nothing untoward occurred, particularly from the perspective of local residents and members of the Lancaster West Management Association, and I would be glad to provide you with copies of the supporting evidence in my possession if you will identify the person(s) allegedly defamed, the sections of the blog which you believe are inaccurate or untrue, and explain in what respect you consider my allegations to be defamatory and/or inaccurate.

I have addressed my concerns to RBKC in the past through the complaints procedure and via the Internal Audit team and the Standards Committee, but have never received a satisfactory response or resolution. I would welcome, therefore, a full and frank disclosure from RBKC concerning these matters. If I am proven to be wrong, then I will of course take steps to ensure any inaccuracies in the blog are immediately corrected, and will issue an apology; but if allegations are not properly answered and fully and independently investigated, then how can I be expected to accept that there has been no cover-up, and why should I not continue to voice my concerns, present my evidence, and demand that RBKC instigate, and cooperate fully with, a criminal investigation of these matters?

From the tone of your letter it would appear also that some Councillors and/or Council Officers, on whose instructions you appear to be acting, consider our dissenting voice, and our exercise of our right to free speech, to be vexatious and offensive. Consequently you ask us to;

“…immediately confirm that you have removed the offending blog and that you will refrain from making …personal comments about an individual’s performance or actions whilst working on or for the Estate Management Board.”

Please note that this is not a dictatorship. We therefore assert and defend our right to free speech and dissent. We reject the implicit characterisation of our blog as vexatious and/or offensive and defend our right to comment on and/or criticise the performance (and not the person as you allege) of any public servant, regardless of whether they are in the service of RBKC, TMO or EMB.

I would also be obliged if you would explain why RBKC Legal Services consider it appropriate to represent the interests of these accused individuals, who are not, as far as I am aware, Council employees, at the expense of RBKC resident taxpayers. It might be argued that you are thereby misusing your power and position in an apparent attempt to intimidate me, to crush dissent, and to discourage whistle blowing by a small local action group such as we are.  I would therefore ask you to let me know precisely which council officers and/or members have instructed you to pursue this matter. If the costs of your time are being recharged then I would also like to know precisely how much this has cost and who will be paying,

That said, I certainly do not wish to break the law, nor do I wish to be involved in costly libel action as I believe that RBKC have better things to spend their money on, and I have better things to do with my time. I therefore look forward to receiving from you a detailed explanation of precisely which part(s) of the blog you wish to see amended and evidence that any specific or implicit allegations that have been made are inaccurate and/or defamatory.

Given the time constraints you have placed on this matter; I look forward to hearing from you as a matter of great urgency.

Yours sincerely,

Francis O’Connor
Grenfell Action Group