End of the line for Second Stage Transfer of Glasgow Housing Association

After all the blood, tears, and squealing: "should we support SST, should we oppose SST" - even, curiously when no details were published and so none of us knew what SST actually meant beyond being a vague slogan - it turns out it is not now going to be proposed. And, looking back at the history of the authorities ducking and diving on SST, it looks suspicously like it was never going to be proposed even from the first, from before the transfer ballot itself.

I guess it suited some activists with agendas and egos to raise SST as some scary gotterdamerung that we all had to fight against. That was a lot more exciting than working for ordinary day to day housing improvements, at least if you're that way inclined - the Glasgow housing activist version of George Sorel's "energising myth". But really all it turned out to be was a trap to lead us astray from the immediate task by mirages of what might or not might be in the distant future, and, worse, to artificially divide the tenants movement to the great benefit of the authorities.

Here's the relevant exerpts from the just issued Communities Scotland (=Scottish Government) Report on Glasgow Housing Association:


And below is how this got reported in the press:

1) Scotsman http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1499392007
Tenant-power housing plan faces the axe
PETER MACMAHON

AN AMBITIOUS plan to break up Scotland's largest block of former council homes into small, tenant-run associations is set to founder because of a lack of resources and lukewarm support from ministers.

The blueprint to transfer 80,000 local authority properties first to the Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) and then on to more than 60 local groups was drawn up by Labour ministers in the previous Scottish Executive.

However, a report from Communities Scotland, the housing watchdog, yesterday found there was now "strong evidence" the plan will not happen because of a lack of money.

The report warned the GHA that it has just eight weeks to produce a "fundamental review of its purpose and future direction" including on the transfer to smaller associations, known as the second stage transfer( SST).

According to the report "there is now a broader understanding about the difficulties in achieving" the second stage transfer and "the financial barriers to progress".

It added that there was "strong evidence that SST, as originally envisaged, is not possible".

The GHA is planning to spend £10.5 billion - including money from rental income, grants and private funding - over the next three decades.

Karen Watt, director of Regulation and Inspection at Communities Scotland, said: "We found that the onward transfer of its houses to local organisations has been a major challenge. GHA should now lead a fundamental review of its purpose and future direction, including the future of SST."

Taroub Zahran, the chief executive of the GHA, said: "The report says that we have done everything we could possibly do to deliver the second stage transfer but the evidence is that the finances are not enough to deliver that." She added that differences of opinion over the second stage transfers amongst the tenants would have to be taken into account.

Stewart Maxwell, the housing minister, said the second stage transfers would now only take place where they could "be sensibly achieved", effectively ruling out most of them.

Mr Maxwell, whose party opposed the transfer from Glasgow city council to the GHA, added: "It is immediately clear that the previous administration failed to put in place a coherent long-term plan when the GHA was created.

"What's important now is that the interests of tenants are safeguarded. The clock is ticking - GHA now has eight weeks to produce a comprehensive improvement plan that addresses the concerns highlighted in the report."

Bill Aitken, a Tory MSP for Glasgow, said: "We supported the transfer of housing stock to the GHA on the basis it would be transferred efficiently and rapidly to local housing associations. This report confirms the urgent need for that still to happen."

• The Communities Scotland report graded the GHA's performance as only "fair", third place on a four-point scale which runs from "excellent" to "poor". Ms Zahran said fair was "good enough".

2. BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7000699.stm
GHA 'must hold review on future'

The organisation behind the transfer of Glasgow council houses to a private landlord must hold a full review on its future, a regulator has said.

Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) took ownership of 80,000 homes four years ago, but drew some criticism over its handling of the deal.

Communities Scotland has rated its performance as "fair" and said GHA had kept most of its promises to tenants.

The association said it had already made significant changes.

Communities Scotland's regulation director, Karen Watt, said the onward transfer of houses to local organisations - known as second stage transfer - had been a "major challenge" and had yet to happen.

"GHA should now lead a fundamental review of its purpose and future direction, including the future of second stage transfer, " she said.

The independent report gave the not-for-profit association - the UK's largest registered social landlord - the second-from-bottom rating for its performance as a social landlord.

It said the organisation's poor rent collection record was getting worse and criticised its performance on letting empty houses and complaint handling.

Despite the concerns, Ms Watt added: "Our inspectors found that GHA has met most of the promises it made to tenants at the time of the transfer ballot.

"Many thousands of tenants now have better homes as a result and many have been actively involved in decisions that affect their homes and neighbourhoods."

GHA tenant chair Sandra Forsythe said the association took its responsibilities seriously, adding: "The inspectors acknowledge that GHA has shown a strong willingness to improve and we've already made a number of significant changes as a result of the inspection process."

3. Herald Editorial http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/editorial/display.var.1697850.0.0.php
Holyrood and housing

The report published yesterday on Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) by Communities Scotland, the social housing regulator, is disappointing on several fronts. For GHA itself, the regulator's assessment of performance in the first four years of its existence does not amount to a ringing endorsement. There are four ratings and GHA managed only the third grade, C, equating to a fair performance. Given the role GHA was expected to play in transforming Glasgow's crumbling public housing stock - improving quality of life and opening the door on opportunity in the city's deprived areas in the process - the assessment is unsatisfactory.

This does not necessarily mean GHA has been a failure and should be abolished. As Karen Watt, a senior figure in Communities Scotland, explained yesterday, many thousands of tenants have better homes as a result of the stock transfer (the biggest in western Europe) from the city council and have taken the opportunity to influence decisions that affect them and the areas where they live. Even criticism in the report that GHA has a poor and worsening rent collection rate has to be put in perspective. The scale of the challenge on this front is illustrated by two facts: only 15% of tenant households have someone in work while 68% of tenants are on full or partial housing benefit.

The campaign to win the ballot on stock transfer was based on providing tenants with better life chances by giving them a full say in the type of homes they wanted to live in, with the Treasury writing off Glasgow's near-£1bn housing debt freeing up GHA to refurbish and rebuild. Significant improvements to the stock have been made but progress has been limited on devolving decision-making to local level. Figures show that GHA continues to own some 90% of the houses inherited from the city council. Yet so-called second stage transfer (SST) - the process by which local housing associations would become landlords in their own right and take ownership of the stock in their area - was made fundamental to the success or otherwise of the exercise. Little has been achieved on that score, as the figures confirm, and tenants who voted for stock transfer have been left frustrated by the lack of progress. SST is like the leak in the roof that will not be fixed.
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It has hobbled GHA, which now has its third chief executive since 2003. The language is careful, but the report appears to endorse the case made by GHA for funding to deliver SST by concluding that the process, as originallly envisaged, is not possible under existing financial arrangements. There is implicit criticism of the previous Scottish executives, not just on funding SST but on framing a strategy to make it work. But is it fair to call on GHA to review its purpose and long-term role when, as matters stand, its job is to deliver SST and manage itself out of existence as a consequence? Or does the SNP government have a different plan? If so, what is it and what are the funding implications?

The first two Holyrood administrations did not cover themselves in glory over housing stock transfer, handing GHA what has become the poisoned chalice of SST in the process. The failure of ministers to take responsibility at the funding and strategic levels helps explain many of the criticisms in yesterday's report. Can the SNP administration do any better? Is it clearer and bolder in its goals on affordable housing? If stock transfer is to succeed in Glasgow and elsewhere, it had better be.

4. Herald http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.1697910.0.0.php
Homes agency told to put its house in order
GERRY BRAIDEN    September 19 2007

Ministers are promising to map out a new future for public housing next week, in the wake of the publication of the first in-depth assessment of Glasgow Housing Association's performance.

The Communities Scotland report, which followed a two-month evaluation of GHA, said that it had accomplished enough in its four-year history to label its performance "fair", third place on a four-point scale which runs from "excellent" to "poor".

However, the report said the public housing body should carry out a fundamental rethink of its purpose, including an attempt to better understand the views of tenants.
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The report was accepted by ministers, but it was made clear that there would be a change in approach next week. "This report looks back at stock transfer and draws a line under that policy," said a spokesman. "Next week we will look forward to dealing with the bigger issue."

Communities Minister Stewart Maxwell said: "I welcome this thorough and impartial report. We will be studying it in detail over the coming weeks."

He added: "However, it is immediately clear the previous administration failed to put in place a coherent long-term plan when the GHA was created."

It is understood Mr Maxwell, Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Colin Deans, Glasgow City Council's SNP group spokesman on housing, met on Monday to discuss how the party would react to the report, with the role of Wendy Alexander in the setting up of the GHA the main topic of conversation.

There has also been speculation the report was made public earlier than originally intended to coincide with next week's housing debate and as a potential dampen on Ms Alexander's honeymoon period.

One window into the thinking of the SNP government on breaking the impasse on second stage transfer (SST) was provided by Alex Neil MSP, a long-term watcher of housing issues in Glasgow. He blamed Communities Scotland and the previous coalition administration for failing to fund SST, and said the deadlock may be broken by a trade-off.

Mr Neil said: "The government has little option but to intervene in Glasgow's housing problems. But it may come down to funding either secondary transfer or more investment in housing stock. With the tight spending review it is unlikely to be both."

Mr Maxwell added: "The clock is ticking - GHA now has eight weeks to produce a comprehensive improvement plan that addresses the concerns highlighted in the report.

"I will ensure MSPs have an early opportunity to give this important issue the prominence it deserves."

Shadow communities minister Johann Lamont said: "The SNP now has a responsibility to take that work forward, to find solutions to the challenges and to insist that the GHA shift from using all its energy to explaining why nothing can be done - despite record investment and real talent and expertise across Glasgow - to being an organisation that will work with others to act and think creatively in the interests of Glasgow tenants and communities."

Frank McAveety, the Glasgow Labour MSP and now shadow sports minister, said: "As an advocate of community ownership I want to get to second stage transfer as soon as possible. "

Bill Aitken, Conservative MSP for Glasgow, said: "We supported the transfer of housing stock to the GHA on the basis it would be transferred efficiently and rapidly to local housing associations. This report confirms the urgent need for that still to happen."

GHA chief executive Taroub Zahran declined to comment on the housing minister's views but said: "The purpose of GHA is to serve the tenants of Glasgow, to ensure they have warm, dry and secure homes. This is what we've worked tirelessly for, it has always been our focus and I don't expect that to change."

5. Herald http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/other/display.var.1697811.0.0.php
‘The ceiling fell on my head after I complained … It’s a disgrace’
MARTIN WILLIAMS    September 19 2007

Andrew Tutty is not surprised that Glasgow Housing Association received a less than flattering inspection report in its performance as a social landlord.

After he moved in to his two- bedroomed GHA tenement flat three years ago, he complained about a damp stain in the hallway after having to clear away piles of pigeon droppings from his balcony.

A few weeks later a large part of the ceiling fell down on his head. He escaped serious injury.

He has since complained of damp stains in a bedroom but his complaints, he says, have fallen on deaf ears. He has been told that the stains will dry out.

His story is typical of tenants The Herald spoke to in the Wilverton Road area of Knightswood who were less than complimentary about the association's public persona. Many believed Glasgow City Council was a more reasonable landlord.

It was in November, 2006, that Mary McDonald, one of the few owner-occupiers in the area, won a Sheriff Court fight over her refusal to pay a £277 repair bill in one of the Wilverton Road tenement blocks that is regularly vandalised.

She and her supporters argued that the association had "failed its duty of care" by delaying work that would have stopped vandals getting in.

The 87-year-old had initially paid for repairs when asked, but put her foot down when GHA maintenance workers delayed jobs allowing vandals to damage property.

Mr Tutty, 39, who lives with his girlfriend, Deborah, also 39, and other residents said that despite this, the level of service still leaves a lot to be desired.

"For the ceiling to come down on my head after me complaining is a disgrace," he said. "Even now we want something done about the vandalism and to have a secure outdoor drying area which would help prevent kids from pulling washing off the line, but it just doesn't happen.

"The landlords cannot stop vandalism, of course, but they can help prevent it by carrying out the necessary work."

Robert McRae, 48, and his wife Elaine, 34, believe GHA has a "duty of care" to residents which it is failing to meet.

"It surprises me that the report is not more critical," said Mr McRae, an engineer. "To me if they have been give a C grade, that is a pass. There is no way residents here feel the GHA are doing their jobs as our landlords."

6. Herald http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/focus/display.var.1697814.0.0.php
A far from glowing report card
GERRY BRAIDEN    September 19 2007

IN the education system of yesteryear it would constitute a pass - just. Nothing to crow about, but the student who received a C grade would be comforted in the knowledge he had not been damned by failure.

In the first in-depth, independent assessment of its performance in its four years in existence, Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) has received that C.

Communities Scotland, the housing regulator, in its two-month evaluation, felt the organisation had done enough since it inherited 80,559 houses and 1610 employees from Glasgow City Council in 2003 to have its performance labelled "fair".

As the report dropped yesterday morning, there is little doubt GHA staff were underlining paragraphs noting how it was delivering on the promises made to tenants four years ago, that it is still a young organisation operating in challenging circumstances and that it has shown a strong commitment to improving.

There will also be few in the organisation who would quibble with the view they are constantly working in an atmosphere of "lingering bitterness" over the failure so far to break up GHA into dozens of smaller bodies.

And there will be a fair amount of glee that, despite the lack of even any sign of a break-up and the insistence that resolution of the issue is core to finding the way forward, Communities Scotland insists "all parties need to move away from a rigid understanding of how this can happen".

But outside of GHA there is no shortage of alternative interpretations of the report, ranging from "a wake-up call" to "damning" to "a fudge".

Anything above a failure (and intervention by the government or Communities Scotland, whose chief executive Angiolina Foster once headed the association) was, some claim, a result for GHA.

It is also not just the conspiracy theorists who say it was convenient that an often harshly critical report did not call for draconian intervention. Most observers of GHA over the years accept no-one has a cost-effective solution to its problems. The expectation now is that it will be used to bait Wendy Alexander, one of GHA's architects and now Labour leader at Holyrood, with all blame for any mess laid at her party's door. Beyond that, few are prepared to guess.

Crucially, it has been claimed, the key recommendation of "a fundamental review of GHA's purpose and onward business strategy" suggests failure in all but words.

GHA's top tier of management, whenever the vexed issue of its promised break-up is raised, are quick to point out that the vast majority of tenants do not care one iota who actually manages their homes. Warm, comfortable and safe housing are their primary concerns.

So-called second stage transfer (SST), they insist, is only of importance to a handful of politically motivated agitators and empire builders within smaller housing organisations.

Indeed, the report says that GHA's success is too often measured solely against whatever commitment there has been to supporting these LHOs becoming landlords in their own right "at the exclusion of all else".

That being the case, its critics claim GHA must be seriously concerned that one of the main failings uncovered is the failure to "meet all its statutory and regulatory requirements on gas safety and managing asbestos".

It is also considered "poor" at handling complaints from its dissatisfied tenants, was slow to understand the issues facing homeowners sharing closes with GHA tenants, has a poor "and worsening" rent collection rate, shoddy performance in letting empty houses and "must act quickly to establish strong and effective control of its response repairs service".

Chief executive Taroub Zahran would also have difficulty in blaming external factors for GHA's failure to achieve "value for money" or its "capacity and ability to improve significantly in all areas" where weaknesses were uncovered.

Last night, she was understandably accentuating the positives. She said: "Most importantly, this report says we're delivering on our promises to tenants and tenant participation. We've been getting feedback on the inspection and are already working on its recommendations. Staff and tenants have all been involved in this and will continue to be.

"The report recognises we are a young organisation, meeting huge challenges but delivering. This is a solid foundation.

"We want to improve upon a C, but it is a good start. It's helpful the report recognises the difficulties in SST and we will move on that as quickly as is possible."

She added: "Since the inspection we've made the gas and asbestos safety issues a priority. We've brought in specialist staff and reduced the number of properties affected."

Karen Watt, director of regulation and inspection at Communities Scotland, said: "Set against its strengths, GHA also has a number of areas, some significant, where it must improve."

Glasgow SNP MSP Sandra White, a long-standing opponent of GHA, asked: "How, on one hand, can GHA be delivering to tenants, yet not on repairs, asbestos or gas safety? That makes little sense. There should be government intervention to look at ways of going forward. On the basis of this report GHA shouldn't be trusted to do that alone."

Her fellow Glasgow SNP MSP, Bob Doris, said: "This is a wake-up call for GHA with regard to how it treats complaints and deals with owner occupiers struggling to pay huge bills dumped on them by the GHA."

Fraser Stewart, of the New Gorbals Housing Association, has been one of the most vocal critics of the failure to move on SST. He said: "I'm obviously disappointed. This review should lead to a serious consideration of community ownership."

Recommendations

• GHA should initiate and lead a fundamental review of its purpose and onward business strategy. This review should include considering the future of second stage transfer. In doing this, it must better understand the views of its tenants and build on the level of engagement it has had with in decisions about homes and communities. It must involve stakeholders.
• Once it has determined its longer-term business strategy, GHA should comprehensively review its governance arrangements to ensure that they support the organisation's emerging direction and future business strategy.
• GHA should develop its capacity to manage its investment programmes, get the most from its partnering arrangements and ensure it is always clear and open when procuring investment and contracts.
• GHA must act quickly to establish strong and effective control of its response repairs service and to meet all its legal responsibilities for gas safety and managing asbestos.
• GHA needs to ensure that its budgets are realistic and that it focuses much more on value for money and identifying real savings.
• GHA should develop a clear and realistic strategy for improving its performance in collecting rent and letting empty properties.
• GHA should ensure that the current review of its work with owners delivers real improvements in services.

7 Herald http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/featuresopinon/display.var.1701065.0.0.php
Glasgow’s long-suffering tenants deserve better
ANNE JOHNSTONE    September 20 2007

Deserts wi windaes. The 25,000 council houses constructed around the fringes of Glasgow between 1965 and 1970 were intended as a solution to the worst housing conditions in Britain. Two decades after 1945, two in five Glasgow homes had no bath and one in five no inside toilet. But, as Billy Connolly's blunt description reminds us, the solution was merely the start of a new problem. In fact, a major national housing study in 1971 concluded that, despite the high-rise blocks and system-built estates that had mushroomed in the previous few years, Glasgow still possessed Britain's worst housing. The city learned the hard way that big is not beautiful. Now it seems to have forgotten.

Unbelievably, between then and now, Glasgow has become something of a place of pilgrimage for people from all over the world who are interested in housing regeneration. They come to look at a phenomenon that took root in the city almost by accident. Nicola Sturgeon, whose huge brief includes housing among her 23 responsibilities, knows all about this good-news story because it happened right on what is now her patch.

The Central Govan Housing Association was a bold experiment, set up to purchase and improve tenement flats in a way that gave residents a say in how the work was carried out and the option of moving back there after renovation. It was a great success and the 1974 Housing Act introduced grants for a new breed of community-based democratically-run housing associations. Over the next few years, dozens of housing associations and housing co-operatives took on not just "patch and repair" work but major renovation and new-build as well. The lesson was that communities offer a resource, rather than a liability. The housing association movement was key to the Arts Council's nomination of Glasgow as "UK City of Architecture and Design" in 1999.
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But Glasgow had remained a tale of two cities on more than one level: not just the stark interface between the municipal "deserts wi windaes" and leafy suburbs but, increasingly, between the tenants of housing associations and those of the council. In Easterhouse, for instance, council tenants in Rogerfield would look across longingly at the high-quality housing association stock in nearby Blairtummock.

That is why, encouraged by the Evening Times and The Herald, council tenants voted in favour of the council transferring its entire housing stock of 80,000 homes in 2003 to Glasgow Housing Association, on the back of a government undertaking to write off the city's £1bn housing debt. Implicit in the deal was the undertaking that GHA would bundle up the stock and transfer it on to local housing associations and co-ops.

Four years later not one house has been transferred and Communities Scotland, the regulatory authority that came up with the original structure, looks set to abandon these second-stage transfers altogether. The SNP-led Scottish Government has so far sat on its hands.

This week finally saw the publication of a report commissioned by the regulatory body, Communities Scotland, into the performance of GHA. The Herald's headline yesterday sums it up well, A far from glowing report card. In fact, it summarises many of the criticisms voiced by its critics since 2003: poor and worsening rent collection rates, a poor record at re-letting empty homes, poor control over its repairs service, failure to meet legal responsibilities for gas safety checks and managing the issue of asbestos, lavish expenditure on consultants, high management costs, poor handling of complaints. A £20m kitchen contract was let without being put out to tender.

Since the report was concluded in May there have been more problems, including a large overspend on a computer project and an EC investigation into the awarding of multi-million-pound contracts. It is hard to see how this catalogue of failure can be construed as earning them a "C" (fair), as opposed to a "D" (poor), or how the association's recently appointed chief executive can call it "a solid foundation" on which to build.

The fact we must not lose sight of is that in the 21st century too many Glaswegians are living in poor, cold, tatty, damp homes that affect everything from their health to their school exam results. GHA claims correctly that it has invested many millions in upgrading thousands of homes. A couple of years ago it even took out billboard adverts to trumpet how it had spent the grant money allocated to it. The question we need to ask is whether tenants would have been better served either by staying with Glasgow City Council or under the wing of a community-based housing association.

From the outside, GHA looks remarkably like a rebadged version of the council-housing department, with many of the same personnel but an expensive management tier bolted on top. The council's last housing director earned £80,000 a year, compared with the previous chief executive of GHA who collected a tidy £240,000 per annum. The report bears out the notion that this is an inflexible bureaucratic organisation that is not giving its tenants the best value for money.

Much of the blame for this must lie not with GHA but the civil servants at Communities Scotland who approved its structure, including the chief executive, Angiolina Foster, a former head of GHA. But instead of taking GHA to task and admitting its own role in its failure, the regulatory body is now asking GHA to come up with its own template for the future and, on GHA's say so, implying that second-stage transfer is unworkable.

This comes as a shock to the community bodies that have spent five years putting together plans to take over blocks of former council housing and incorporate them into their own stock. By later today GHA will have 37 business plans for SSTs. There is now a real danger that all this work will have been wasted or, at best, GHA will agree to a small number of token transfers then slam down the shutters.

The excuse is that there is a multi-million-pound "black hole" in the figures, an assumption that is disputed. It can be argued that the valuation put on stock by GHA is based on an unrealistic model that allows it to retain a huge contingency fund, which may amount to at least £150m, while divesting itself of some of the worst stock on its books. As GHA has increased the number of houses it plans to demolish, delayed investment and, unlike its predecessor, has no debt, it is hard to see why it cannot afford to fund transfers.

The basic assumption behind this week's report is that second-stage transfer is part of the problem. On the contrary, I believe it is part of the solution and always has been, though Communities Scotland is too intent on sparing its own blushes to admit it, and since its election, Mr Salmond's government has shown little interest in using this saga as anything more than a handy stick to beat the opposition. He should ask Audit Scotland to have a good look at the figures.

Some 72,000 tenants, some of them still living in some of the worst housing in Britain, deserve better than this.

8. Herald Letters http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/letters/display.var.1707580.0.0.php
Glasgow Housing Association has failed to deliver core promise

Anne Johnstone has hit the nail on the head (The Herald, September 20) when she states unequivocally that second-stage transfer is the solution to Glasgow Housing Association's systemic problems, not just another issue which GHA has failed to grasp, as Communities Scotland now appear to believe.

The failings of Glasgow's housing department, which produced a £1bn debt, and a final stock value originally set at minus £380m, were never going to be addressed merely by changing the signboard on the front door. That is why the original proposal, the one supported by parliament, and endorsed by Glasgow's tenants in a democratic ballot, saw SST as a core element in tackling Glasgow's atrocious housing and, crucially, social conditions.

The regulation and inspection report on GHA's performance should come as no surprise, given the quite abysmal landlord performance of its predecessor organisation. The report catalogues systemic failures in all aspects of housing management, and very serious shortcomings in the organisation and management of its multi-million-pound refurbishment projects. What is truly surprising, however, is that such a woeful performance merits a satisfactory grading. I am quite sure other housing organisations graded "C" do not operate at this level. This would imply that the regulator, Communities Scotland, has been compromised in coming to its judgment about GHA's performance. The fact that the chair of GHA has her response to the report posted on the Communities Scotland website suggests there is a close relationship between these two organisations that is unhealthy.

The chief executive of Communities Scotland, who is ultimately responsible for the report, Angelina Foster, was previously the seconded CE of GHA. It was in that capacity that she registered GHA as a housing association. One of the requirements set as part of that registration was to ensure SST was delivered, and give a guarantee that this would have no additional financial repercussions for the then Scottish Executive. So for Communities Scotland - through the regulation process - to question the future of SST is quite outrageous, and steps well outwith its function as the regulator of social housing organisations.

With the Scottish Government currently considering the future of Communities Scotland, given the above evidence, now would be the opportune time to transfer the regulatory function of social housing providers to Audit Scotland, which is at truly arm's length from government and its policy-making ambitions.

In respect of where now for GHA, it is not appropriate for Communities Scotland to suggest that organisation has eight weeks to sort itself out. If it could not do so as the housing department, over 50 years, nor over the past five years as GHA, how on earth can it do it in eight weeks?

The critical issue from the perspective of the Scottish Government is whether SST can be delivered within the GHA envelope, or whether it will find itself exposed yet again for Glasgow's failings. The only credible and independent way to address this is to again engage the services of Audit Scotland.

My understanding is that GHA has a £175m contingency built into its business plan for SST, and since it has not drawn down any of its private lending facilities, why exactly the Scottish Government is paying it £50m is beyond me. The cash is there to deliver SST, but perhaps only a truly independent assessment of the finances will convince some of that.

SST is the only hope for Glasgow tenants, because to leave them in their current predicament, under such poorly performing organisation, would call into question the government's commitment to tacking Glasgow's serious housing and social problems. It would also break the all-party consensus that has existed on this issue over the past five years.

Dr Douglas S Robertson, Head of Applied Social Sciences, University of Stirling.

After four years of failure by the Glasgow Housing Association to meet its own timescales and targets for progressing the second-stage transfer (SST) programme to community ownership in Glasgow, the inspection report by Communities Scotland recommends that this unique housing agency be permitted to review its approach.

While the inspection report was being drafted between May and September 2007, 27 of the city's existing community-based housing associations (CBHAs) and two of the management-only registered social landlords/local housing organisations (RSL/LHOs) have submitted detailed business cases to GHA forming the basis to ballot tenants to take ownership of stock which they currently manage for GHA.

Your columnist, Anne Johnstone, among others, is calling for the intervention of Audit Scotland to resolve the financial issues in setting the price and conditions; these individual transfers will introduce real local accountability and service delivery by community-empowered landlords over fewer than 1000 homes in the majority of initiatives.

To avoid further frustration and delay, CBHAs would go further. The Scottish Parliament should approve legislation that will give communities the right to purchase the stock which is currently the subject of a management agreement approved by ministers under statutory order. The new Scottish Government should sponsor this legislation - which has a real prospect of gaining all-party support - as a matter of urgency.

GHA has made no progress on SST since its formation and Glasgow's communities will continue to be denied the benefits of local ownership - which has been afforded to a number of Scotland's rural communities - until this issue is resolved.

Lyn Ewing, Chair, Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations.