Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Wendy Alexander's GHA failure gets a review imposed by housing regulator


Dear All

And the hits just keep on coming!

The Glasgow Housing Association troubles just piling up as a team of the UK's foremost social housing troubleshooters have been drafted in to carry out a review.

The review follows a damning report on the way the GHA operates and serves its customers.

The GHA is to be put under the microscope by Financial Information Company Ltd over the major failure to achieve core objectives.

The firm has been selected and imposed on the GHA by the Scottish Housing Regulator when the business itself should have taken the initiative and launched its own review.

The GHA is headed by Taroub Zahran who is on £180,000 plus; we should all remember that she is the employee of a charity.

Ms. Zahran has come under political heat after her decision to take a second summer holiday in the middle of the biggest crisis faced by the landlord in its seven-year history.

Well Nero fiddled while Rome burned, is it surprising that well paid Ms. Zahran would want to bask in the sun while her properties collapse around her ears?

In a rare move by the Labour Party Anniesland MSP Bill Butler said;

"I'm very surprised that the chief executive would take such an amount of time off away from the front line at this important time for the organisation, given that she's paid top dollar."
Actually Bill; she paid in pounds sterling but we get the jist.

The GHA is very much a Labour Party creation so this intervention is bizarre but given that Wendy Alexander is no longer leader of the Scottish Labour MSP Group at Holyrood; he perhaps feels it is safe to stick his head above the parapet and find a voice.

A mistake was made by transferring Glasgow City Council housing to the GHA, it was badly devised and badly thought-out but the mistake can be rectified by returning social housing back to the City Council.

Perhaps everyone should think the unthinkable and do the right thing!
Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

No comments: