News has reached me this evening via two constituents that Reading Borough Council's housing department in it's wisdom has written to all tenants just DAYS before Christmas to seek views on it's plans to vary all RBC tenancy agreements to pave the way for the introduction of service charges.
The letter says:
"We are writing to let you know that the council would like to change the terms of its standard secure tenancy agreement...the way in which the council would like to change your tenancy agreement is by adding the following additional clause: -
Section 2, the Council’s responsibilities, additional clause 2.4:
‘We can introduce service charges for services that you already receive, for example the cleaning and lighting of the common parts of council blocks of accommodation (‘common parts’ means those pats of the block that are used by all occupiers an visitors, such as entrance halls and stairwells), window cleaning in common parts, installation and replacement or repair or door entry systems, maintenance and repair of lifts, and grass and hedge cutting. These service charges will be charged as additional rent and collected as part of your rent. We must tell you in writing at least 2 weeks before we introduce a new service charge."
The letter gives tenants until 15 Jan to respond - less than 4 weeks to consider what is a very important change to their tenancies.
Councillors were not informed that these letters were due to be sent out by RBC.
Ironic, after I chaired a meeting of tenants and councillors a few weeks ago looking to establish a protocol for 'estate-based consultations'.
We didn't need a meeting about it - just an email saying it was going out would have been nice (so that we can respond to queries).
There is no mention of this consultation in the Winter Edition of "Housing News" which was sent out to all tenants earlier this month.
These charges were mooted earlier this year but when I pressed officers and the Labour Lead Member for Housing, Deborah Edwards about when the authority planned to introduce service charges for cleaning and lighting (at the last meeting of HHCC Scrutiny Panel) it seemed they had got cold feet.
The answer then came back "at some point in 2010/11" They did not seem to be in a particular hurry to do it.
At no point did officers or Cllr Edwards make it clear that RBC was planning to give formal notice to tenants.
And nowhere in the letter sent out on 21 December is there any information about when the Council actually plans to start charging tenants.
The onset of local elections in spring 2010 and fact that a recent survey of tenants revealed that 40% of tenants rated RBC cleaning services as less than excellent surely made the introduction of these charges even less politically palatable to the Labour administration.
Council tenants will not thank Labour for this extra "tax" on the working poor.
Cllr Edwards and I have already crossed swords publicly about the need to introduce service charges.
She argues they are necessary - to be fair the decision to charge pre-dates her time on the Cabinet: it was taken in 2006 to plug an expected hole in the Council's housing finances.
We have argued consistently that charging would not be necessary if were it not for the fact that because of the hopelessly inequitable Housing Revenue Account system (that the Labour government failed to reform ) and the so-called system of 'negative subsidy' (which sees RBC tenants' rent sucked back into Whitehall to subsidise Treasury spending elsewhere in the UK) RBC is left with a hole in it's housing budget.
Nationally the Local Government Association and other organisations ran a high-profile campaign entitled 'my rent to Whitehall'.
In the last year alone RBC was forced to give £5.5 million pounds of council tenants' rent to the Treasury in negative subsidy.
This money was not spent in Reading. So why should tenants be forced to pay more?
The Lib Dems in Reading have led the local campaign to end the hated so-called "Tenant Tax".
We won cross-party support for our campaign earlier this year but local Labour politicians have failed to deliver and change to housing finance has not come quick enough at a national level.
We have also expressed concerns about the timing of the introduction of charges - in the middle of a recession which has seen the number of people claiming benefits in Reading steadily increase this year.
It is true that service charges will not affect tenants who receive Housing Benefit (around 65-70% of RBC tenants) but they will undoubtedly hit the remaining 30% of tenants, many of whom are currently struggling as it is on low incomes.
So this announcement is a concern.
The letter continues:
"We would be grateful for any comments that you may have on the proposed variation, whether you agree to the variation or you object to it. If you wish to make comments you can do so in one of the following ways: -
(by completing tear off slip, e-mail or phoning Income Recovery Team etc.)
Please provide your comments to us by no later than 15th January 2010. Once this date has passed, we will consider all of the comments that we receive. If we decide to go ahead with the proposed change to your tenancy agreement, we will then send you a formal notice known as the notice of variation"
I have written to senior officers in RBC's housing department to express concerns at the way that this consultation has been handled and to seek clarification as to the Council's timetable for charging tenants.
We speak often in Council meetings about 'consultation fatigue' - RBC tenants have been surveyed to death recently on issues from estate improvement plans, to cleaning and anti-social behaviour.
I am concerned that some tenants may miss this letter or worse ignore it thinking it's not important.
Also, as I said earlier this month,the RBC survey of cleaning services provided to RBC tenants raised serious questions about the quality of services some tenants receive. And as I said then:
"it would be entirely wrong for the Labour administration to press ahead with introducing extra charges for cleaning until these basic issues are sorted out to Council tenants' satisfication"
I wonder whether Cllr Edwards and her team have thought all these issues through?
I hope they have, because I predict the Labour administration os opening a real can of worms here.
UPDATE:
A constituent and Council tenant has just sent me the following message via email:
"Just read your blog on Facebook about the RBC letter, absolutely brilliant, let's hope this plus your letter gets a response from RBC, who should be ashamed of themselves.
I believe that Councillor Edwards should resign, in view of her deceitful behaviour about this issue plus the offensive comments in Housing News that you have highlighted. She is clearly totally out of touch with the real world."