From day one it's been pretty obvious that the Defend Council Housing campaign has been a Swoppie front organisation. I remember the same set up in Bridgend - with one fundamental difference - in Bridge it was to transfer to a housing association, in Swansea it was a Community Mutual or Housing Co-operative, which was designed by the Welsh Assembly in response to the straitjacketing of local authority finances by the UK Treasury.

This would have given an opportunity for tenants to run their own estates in Swansea, but the dogmatic left continue to patronise ordinary people by challenging their right to self-management. What we've got instead is a symbolic victory for dogmatic lefties, and more of the same for council tenants, who will now see their housing stock sold off piecemeal to housing associations.

It's pretty obvious from the piece above also that the whole campaign has been used as a platform to try and launch "Respect" into the Welsh Assembly with their predictable 2% of the vote, rather than a genuine attempt to answer the persistent social and housing problems of council tenants.

I look forward to the day when council tenants in Swansea launch their own campaign to demand tenant control of estates, rather than leaving their management in the hands of bent local councillors.

A Community Mutual is privatisation in a fancy wrapper, it was designed by the Welsh Assembly in to give tenants the impression of tenant involvement. However in reality it is a fig leaf to hide the fact that the real power would lay with the banks and lenders (Read the ‘Community Mutual Model Rule set by Cobbets solicitors in 2003’).

By the way, I am not now nor have I ever been a member of the SWP. I am a traditional Labour voter, only, like millions of others in this country, I can’t vote Labour anymore because they have gone over to the right.

I was strongly opposed to Blair’s wars even before they started. That’s why I became involved with Stop The War Coalition. And like millions of others I also want to defend our public services from Gordon Brown. That’s why I became chairman of Swansea Defend Council Housing and have pledged to continue campaigning to defend our public services.

I have just led a very successful campaign to stop the privatisation of council housing in Swansea. 72.1% of tenants have said a ‘resounding’ NO to stock transfer. This outcome will make other councils in Wales think twice about going down the stock transfer route, which in turn will have its ramification for the a New Labour Treasury. But you “Jim” apparently don’t like that…

Which begs the question: When you say “Red”, are you sure you don’t mean “Brown…”?

Respectfully,

Jim,

About the only thing you say that is partially correct is that this is only the first step. Defending existing council housing is the first (but totally necessary) step to pressing for the government to build MORE cheap, affordable & sustainable council housing for all. As Paul Lynch writes above, while tenants have little say in how their estates are run now, they would have even less if council housing is privatised. Because the end result of privatisation is that utilities and services are not accountable to democratically elected bodies but to banks, private companies and corporations. And even if the council were to give tenants the most democracy in running their estate ever seen, if housing isn't run by the council it would mean that at any moment the private companies could overturn "democracy".

Why can't the housing remain council housing but the council give tenants more say in how they are run? Why do they have to be taken out of public ownership?

If Swansea Council had won, it would have made it far harder to press for further change. Every small victory of this kind, helps take the struggle for a different and more just society forward.

I think people like Paul Lynch and the other people in Swansea DCH need to give more information for the benefit of other campaingers of how they won and built this succesful campaign . Their were ballots in Torfaen and Rhondda this year that went the other way.

I wasn't involved in this campaign, I live in Cardiff, but as I understand things, the campaign was supported by a wide range of groups, including members of mainstream political parties & trade unions. If it was just a front for a far left group, or just a campaign being used cynically by a poltical party, I doubt that 3/4 residents would have supported it.

It is also important to note that the LibDem council in Swansea spent £1.4 million on its POLITICAL campaign to sell off council houses.

Working class activists responded by organising a series of DCH public meetings on council estates bringing people together to fight back. The support they recruited from the organised labour movement is inspiring and shows an alternative vision of "Fighting Unions" to the sight of the sychophantic new labour trade union bureaucracy. I heard that UNISON funded the sending of letters to every house and a 1/2 page advert in the local paper.

Predictable answers.

A community Mutual is not privatisation, and as I seem to recall Paul the council owes money to the big banks and moneylenders anyways, which is why a proportion of council tenants rent money goes to pay off debt. (Correct me if I'm wrong...).

If you're seriously trying to suggest that a co-operative is privatisation then you obviously don't understand how co-ops work or are structured. Is Tower Colliery privatisation too, because obviously public (i.e. state) control of the pits worked a real treat, didn't it?

In any case, do you honestly think that the running of Swansea's housing stock is best left in the hands of Swansea councillors? How many of them still live in council housing and therefore know the score? Can you give me names?

I read the Community Mutual Rules years ago (back in 2002 as it happens) so I'm intimately acquainted with them. Under the Mutual model tenants collectively own the housing stock (and all the land and green spaces associated with the estates) and in the interim control is vested in a board (the mutual in Swansea already had a shadow board) which is responsible for the day to day running of the organisation. Control over individual estates and their budgets can be decentralised down to those individual estates.

It's true that the board is only a third tenants, but those tenants were democratically elected in a careful process of consultation, and tenants have the power under the rules to change the composition of the board completely to tenants, if they so wish.

The Mutual also has the power to set up a community fund, and support social enterprises and tap regeneration money, where the authority does not. It could have tapped money to pay for apprenticeships to train a whole new generation of youth on the estates, where local authorities have cut apprenticeships to the bone.

It's a unique model which only exists in Wales, but obviously DCH (controlled as it is from London) has taken the dead-end route of trying to put an English template on a uniquely Welsh situation. It's a sad state of affairs.

The Treasury (not the banks…) steals almost a quarter of rent money because they say councils make a surplus (See: ‘Daylight Robbery’). On top of that the council pay a portion of the rent money to the Treasury (not the banks…) to pay off the council’s historic debt. Although the Treasury were prepared to allow the transfer landlord to keep all the money from rent and provide it with extra public subsidy (i.e. taxpayers money). Why can't they give local authorities a level playing field? It all taxpayers money. What right have they to steal 1/4 of the rent money in the first place? The rent money should be ringfenced for improvments.

Councils claim that transfer is ‘nothing to do with privatisation’ because Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) are ‘non-profit making’ organisations (i.e. housing association). But because RSLs borrow on the private market, transfer means that banks make a profit out of what used to be a public service. Housing associations behave like any other private company – increasingly commercialised, they are under pressure to make surpluses and many of them are aggressively expanding into the private marketplace.

“housing associations, and particularly stock transfer associations, are increasingly consumerist in their practice and their language. … Walker (2000) characterises housing associations as behaving increasingly like private sector organisations ‘property-driven’ and managing stock as an asset to maximise returns” (‘Changing Boards, Emerging Tensions’, Liz Cairncross, Oxford Brookes University, Spring 2004)

“The non-profit housing association sector makes a surplus, even after tax, of just under half a billion pounds a year, and has non-earmarked surpluses of over 4 billion. That’s one heck of a non-profit.” Jeff Zitron, Tribal Consulting (Inside Housing, 11 August 2006)

Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) are classified under law as private companies. “Large Scale Voluntary Transfer is a private-sector landlord in legal terms” (Gwynneth Taylor, then Head of Housing at the Local Government Association, 2002). A recent attempt to classify them as public companies under European law lead to outrage from RSLs, the Housing Corporation and the British government. RSLs borrow directly from private lenders at higher costs than councils. They function increasingly like businesses, with mergers, takeovers and lenders in the driving seat. The biggest run more homes than most councils, and are keen to become ‘for profit’ landlords. Acton Homes has already transferred the ‘security’ of some tenants’ homes to the Prudential!

The Housing Corporation, watchdog over RSLs, actively encourages mergers and takeovers (Rationalisation and Restructuring, Housing Corporation Nov 2002). John Belcher, chief executive of £185.8 million turnover Anchor Trust, says ‘We’re a business and all our divisions are expected to make a surplus’ (Guardian 8.1.03) They make it at our expense. David Cowans, chief executive of Britain’s largest housing association, Places for People group (turnover £164.5 million) says he would consider converting to a plc (Inside Housing 20.12.02)

Registered Social Landlords are required by law to make their primary object the provision of social rented housing at “affordable” levels. This means that they are allowed to devote up to 49% of their business activities to market renting, property development and other speculative schemes typical of private sector businesses.

Many transfer associations, not long after they are formed, set up a group structure of their own, so they can enter the world of non-social housing – market renting, buying, building and selling houses on the private market. So for example, Somer Community Housing Trust, a new organisation set up to take over stock from Bath and North East Somerset council, set up a related but profit-making company, SOMACO Ltd, so that as well as managing the homes of transferred tenants it could also develop “new and diverse activities including shortlife leasing; market and sub market renting; care services and repairs contracting.” (Housing Corporation Assessment: Somer Housing Group)

In the same way, Irwell Valley Housing Association began life taking on the transfer of 1600 properties from Manchester City Council. It has now set up a group which owns New Quarter, “an unregistered subsidiary which markets shared ownership properties and homes for market rent”. The group has grown until it owns 5,700 homes, and as well as shared ownership it also “provides homes for outright sale”. 6

Sunderland Housing Group, which was formed to take the transfer of Sunderland’s housing in 2001, set up a profit-making subsidiary called Emperor Properties, which builds new homes for sale on the private market. The amount of affordable housing in Sunderland is being massively reduced, and widespread demolition in the name of ‘regeneration’ has devastated the city, as the recent MPs enquiry heard. In the lead up to transfer, SHG claimed they would build 4,000 new affordable homes in five years. They say they have actually built 26. At the same time landlord management costs in Sunderland have shot up. While homelessness grows, SHG has built itself new headquarters called Emperor House, and former housing director Peter Walls has seen his salary double to over £140,000 since he became chief executive.

With board members now being paid in many RSLs, fat-cat salaries for senior executives, and banks and lenders in the driving seat, it is easy to see why transfer is the privatisation of council housing.

At the time of transfer, tenants are often led to believe that they will have an explicit role in representing the interest of their fellow tenants on the board. This is not compatible with the accepted principle that dictates that as a board member they have to work for the interest of the organisation.’ (Housing: Improving services through resident involvement, Audit Commission, June 2004)

The Council claim that Tawe Housing would be more accountable because they would have tenants on the boards. But research for the Housing Corporation shows the role of tenant board members is “primarily symbolic, providing a fig leaf to cover the unpalatable fact that the real power lies elsewhere.” (‘Changing Boards, Emerging Tensions’, Liz Cairncross, Oxford Brookes University, Spring 2004)

The government had developed three privatisation options of stock transfer, PFI or arms length management organisations (ALMO’s). But these options have become discredited. Subsequently the concept of a community housing mutual model was touted as a substitute option.

A Community Mutual has some token involvement from selected tenants but even so is privatisation in a fancy wrapper. Ultimately, the transfer of council housing to a Community Mutual is privatisation in everything but name.

Tenants in a Community Mutual will only have the right to elect the tenant board members; won’t be able to amend the constitution; and no resolution can be passed by a majority of tenant board members. (CHMM rule set, Cobbetts Solicitors 2002).

A report into Community Mutual for the Welsh Assembly Government found that CHM organisations differed from genuine housing co-operatives in three key ways:

1. Community Mutuals will be much larger

2. Most decisions in the CHM will be made by senior managers, so “the CHM may not offer significantly greater participation for tenants”.

3. real co-operatives emerge from the ‘bottom up’ not the ‘top down’. The CHM, on the other hand, is imposed by national policy

(Housing, Mutuality and Community Renewal: a review of the evidence and its relevance to stock transfer in Wales, Sept 2004)

A so-called ‘Community Mutual’ is a façade to con unsuspecting tenants into privatisation. But we won’t stand for it.

Tenants in Wales pay £450 million a year in rent. We expect that that money will be spent on our homes, but in fact only £250 million is allowed for management and maintenance and £100 million for major repairs. This means that nearly £100 million pounds is robbed by the government every year.

The UK treasury is prepared to spend millions of pounds to write off housing debt if tenants agree to transfer, and on top of this the Welsh Assembly Government is prepared to make ‘dowry’ payments to the new landlords as well.

The Government are effectively bullying and blackmailing tenants by saying they will provide the money to improve homes and estates but only if tenants agree to privatisation. This is outrageous. We demand that the government listen to what tenants, unions and elected politicians are all saying: give councils a level playing field and funding to provide decent, affordable, secure and accountable council housing.

Its true that due to the serious lack of investment in council housing local authorities have cut apprenticeships to the bone. However the much called for 4th option of direct investment would not only improve homes and estates it would also pay for apprenticeships to train a whole new generation of youth on the estates…

Well, I've read Welsh Assembly report, and you've quoted pretty selectively from it. The report suggests POTENTIAL limitations of the Community Mutual model, but also points out the POTENTIAL benefits. Seeing as the model has been designed in Wales, and has never been tried out, there's no way of knowing until tenants in some given area opt for it.

The report also points out that co-operative ownership offers considerable benefits in that the increased tenant participation builds community and confidence. In contrast, Defend Council Housing offers a model which turns tenants into cogs in a beaurocratic machine, rather than offering genuine empowerment.

It seems a bit rich to suggest that the Community Mutual Model is top-down when Defend Council Housing is built on maintaining a top-down model of state control where the UK Treasury holds the purse strings (after all, you're not suggesting that having a UK Treasury at all might be a bit centralised and bureaucratic, just that it loosen those purse strings a little).

Finally, yes it's true that tenants alone cannot change a Mutual's constitution (again, you misquote the report by saying that they can't change the constitution at all!) The board is split 3 ways between tenants/councillors and independents, but there's nothing to stop tenants lobbying the council members to vote to change the constitution, or even tenants to stand themselves for the local council to get on the board!

A simple majority vote is all it would have taken to genuinely empower communities...

At the end of the day, how is DCH proposing to offer council tenants genuine participation and control of the estates?

Your campaign has enabled swansea council to continue it's policy of demolishing council housing, as in the cases of Blaenymaes, Portmead, Clase and Penllergaer. And because they can't rebuild these houses, allowing housing associations to take over these estates by default. If you're not aware of this perhaps you'd like to check with your mate Alan Thompson from Birchgrove (you know, the one who works for Gwalia Housing Association...).

How many more estates will fall into such bad repair whilst waiting for you to convince the UK Treasury to change their current policy?

..but Mr Dunkley you sound pretty sure of yourself… are you now saying after your little moan that you could in fact be wrong? Surely not? Next thing you’ll be saying is that you don’t even live in a council house…

Of course, if anyone reads the Assembly propaganda with rose coloured spectacles it may appear believable but, unlike you (apparently), most of the people in Swansea are not so bloody gullible.

Are you seriously saying New Labour = good, and DCH = bad? Does your mate Jan agree with you, and will he be calling for the privatisation of council housing in his election campaign? Does he want me to mention it for him?

Are you aware that the Labour Party conference voted overwhelmingly for three years running to stop transferring housing stock and to provide direct investment as a matter of urgency? Are you aware that it was only a few narcissistic and dictatorial Blairites, the Tories and the Lib Dems in Swansea that did not support our campaign?

Old Labour supported us – so you not one of them. Plaid supported us - so you not one of them. The Greens suppoted us - so you not one of them. The Socialists supported us - so you not one of them. So where on the political spectrum do you stand? Presumably you’re somewhere to the right…?

“A simple majority vote is all it would have taken to genuinely empower communities...” Yeah right! You sound just like Edwina Heart...!

Swansea council does not have a policy of demolishing council housing. RSLs on the other hand are well known for it.

I would be really interested to know what Jan's opinions are on the fact that the leader of Plaid Cymru said he would be prepared to be first minister in a coalition with the Tories at the conference? Absolutely disgraceful. What was even more telling, is none of the so-called socialists in Plaid broke ranks and spoke out against this. Just as the so-called socialists in Plaid didn't say anything when Plaid FULLY supported the St. Athan's Military academy, a school for training the latest recruits to the "war on terror".

Any people who claim to be socialist in Plaid should get out fast and maybe think about joining a party that isn't just interested in getting into power, but rather about fighting for working people and an alternative to the Neo-liberal consensus that has dominated mainstream politics since the late 70s.

Was it not a little cringeworthy and nauseating to see Adam Price MP and Deputy Leader in the Assembly, Plaid AM Rhodri Glyn Thomas at Plaid's Spring Conference making the case for a Plaid/New Labour coalition.

You can't exactly fight against New Labour and the Tories attacks on working people if you are in bed with them, can you?

Wales needs an alternative to the 4 main parties who are all - to a greater or lesser degree -wedded to neo-liberalism.

If you vote Plaid, you don't know what your getting. Given that Plaid are desperate to get into power at any price and form a coalition with another party, a vote for Plaid could literally be a vote for New Labour or the Tories.