The HLA are very pleased that HFH have reinstated a news item from their August 2016 latest news section of their website. This item clears the HLA of any financial wrong-doing. It states that HFH acknowledges that the HLA  has properly accounted for all the public money it has received from HFH. The link to this item can be found here.

The Leasehold Panel met for only the second time this year on December 5th. At the start of the meeting dissatisfaction with the failure of the panel to meet the requisite four times a year and hold elections for the position of Chair was registered and a vote taken to address these issues before the holding of the next Panel meeting. The vote was passed by 17 votes to zero with a handful of abstentions.

The HLA lodged their submission with the Homes and Communities Agency concerning HFH's new management contract at the beginning of December. Separately a number of tenants raised concerns about the adequacy of tenant consultation involved in the adoption of the new Resident Engagement Strategy.

On 5th August 2016 HFH put up a new page on their website for ‘groups which we acknowledge as representing the varied and / or interests of Haringey residents’.

The HLA is included but, bizarrely, so are HFH consultation panels such as the Leasehold Panel and the Resident Scrutiny Panel. Local groups are also listed so it is not clear whether these groups have also lost their recognition rights. The HLA have asked for clarification but, to date, the implications of ‘acknowledgement’ remain unclear. This page has been retained in the new look HFH website.

After not having met since December 2015 the leasehold panel reconvened in August 2016. The minutes of the previous meeting were passed without some important corrections that had previously been raised by email even apparently being considered. These related to the refusal by the presiding officer to allow the question of the abolition of the Resident Involvement Agreement to be discussed.

Ahead of its Board meeting on 28^th June HFH should have published the minutes of the last one on its website but they didn't. This is what it says on their website about this:

You can attend Homes for Haringey board and committee meetings - they are open to the public. The agenda, past minutes and other papers for meetings are available five days in advance of each meeting on this website in our Board section.

Many thanks to all those who attended our AGM on the 25th of June. Once again we were comfortably quorate after a door-knocking effort at encouraging turn-out and the Association was able to carry out elections for its Chair and officers. Lloyd Grandson has kindly accepted to be Chair for another year as we continue our battle with HFH and seven new committee members came forward.

The HLA wished to raise concerns about the safety of residents under a new 10-year contract with the Council. We got ten signatures for a deputation to the relevant Council meeting on the 15th of March but our deputation was not allowed to go ahead. The reason given was that it contained information ‘relating to an individual’ or ‘likely to reveal the identity of an individual’. Which individual is meant we do not know. Nor was the public interest of the future of over 20,000 residents sufficient to weigh in the balance.

The whole notion that the HLA have been guilty of some alleged (but unspecified) financial impropriety has been hanging over the Association since derecognition in October 2014.

The HLA offered to have its accounts fully audited but that was rejected. In order to prove that there has been no financial wrong-doing the HLA was therefore obliged to take the drastic step of calling in a forensic accountant to go over three years’ accounts with a fine tooth-comb. His report clears the HLA of all blame. In his report he concludes at 5.7 that:

Sue Brown, HLA Vice-Chair, has won strategically important gains in her battle for justice over the way she was removed from the Resident Scrutiny Panel in the wake of the HLA derecognition in 2014.