The new minister for housing made his first comment on the GHA during a parliamentary debate:

Sandra White: The minister will be aware that Glasgow Housing Association is insisting that owner-occupiers repay moneys for repair within one year. Many people are left in dire financial circumstances as a result. Will he consider that situation, with a view to increasing the time for repayment?

Stewart Maxwell: We have put in place a pilot project in Glasgow through the scheme of assistance, which offers a broad range of financial support to those who are unable to access mainstream lending. I sympathise with the member's comments, but I am sure that she would agree that we want the work to improve properties to go ahead. We must focus on that, as it is the most important issue. As 93 per cent of bills are being paid by owners, it is a relatively small issue, albeit an important one for those who are affected by it.
Scottish Parliament Housing Debate, 21st June 2007.

Oh dear. That's not the kind of thing you want to be saying anywhere there were journalists microphones around, much less official parliamentary recorders. Badly briefed? You'd have to think so, coming as we all are out of an election environment where the press (helpfully for the SNP) ran story after story of homeowners forced into debt, loosing their homes, even in one tragic case an entire family made homeless; all from unwanted bills for GHA's un-improving improvements. Panicky housing professionals have supposedly been falling over themselves to give presentations to the new government before it moves to shut their particular gravy train down - presentations with likely the same concern for fairness and accuracy as the glossy PR propaganda GHA tenants have to periodically suffer through their letterboxes. All the more need for those in the know to counter-lobby in return. But, then again, Nicola Sturgeon is the Cabinet Secretary responsible for Housing, and as a long standing Glasgow MSP she knows what is going on. So, what is going on?

Here's another quote from politicians, Labour ones this time:

The city council's ruling administration has also called on the Scottish Executive to provide the hundreds of millions of pounds believed to be required for the break-up of Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) into dozens of smaller organisations. In a swipe at the executive, the city council said it must "show the colour of its money" and show a commitment to the nation's largest, and some of its most deprived, urban communities by funding what is known as second stage transfer.
Gerry Braiden, Glasgow Herald: "Glasgow housing row over £500m black hole", 28th June 2007.

Shameless? That just laid down the new Scottish benchmark for chutzpah. But, actually, also, Steven Purcell is quite right. Because the GHA is the SNP's mess now. The SNP own it. It has nothing to with the Labour Party anymore. That's because the GHA is a quango operating under the very close control of Communities Scotland, which is a Scottish Executive Agency. Yes, Labour still controls Glasgow City Council, but that has no control, almost no influence even, over the GHA.

[The details for those who are interested: Four out of the GHA's fifteen board members are Glasgow City Councillors. However, the GHA's board, while theoretically (de jure) in a position of control, is in reality (de facto) entirely powerless, and in practice merely serves to rubber stamp previous decisions of GHA's senior officials. The other eleven board members are effectively hand picked by GHA senior officials working under the guidance of Communities Scotland while doing so. Labour Councillors have in the past few years acknowledged the sham nature of the board by almost never attending its meetings. And in any case, two of the four Councillor board members are now from the SNP - a seemingly generous allowance to an opposition party that holds only one quarter of the council seats, until it is remembered how powerless the GHA board is, and how much of a poison chalice being on it will turn out to be.]

The Labour Party have no reason to go easy on the disaster that is the GHA. It's a heaven sent opportunity to them to beat the SNP with from now until the next election. Or rather, its an opportunity of their own making, but no less useful for that. And the Labour Party won't go easy on the SNP over the GHA catastrophe, in the way the SNP did on housing policy when they were in opposition. Why should they? Politics isn't meant to be a pretty business. Serious politicians fight to win.

Right now, the SNP government will get away with blaming Labour for the GHA's actions. Right now - but not in just a few weeks time. Because the SNP will by then be the undisputed policy boss of the GHA, the one responsible for its every actions, right down to every particular repair demand sent to every individual homeowner/constituent/voter. And there will be a sympathetic Labour MSP or Councillor on hand to help every wronged tenant and homeowner in their fight against the evil SNP's evil GHA, and to do so in full view of the media.

During the new governments honeymoon period - which will lets say last for just a little more than the 100 days, maybe to the end of Summer - the SNP will get away with blaming its predecessor. After that, sympathy for the difficulties of office will be in short supply. One of the most pathetic sights of John Major's dying government was watching it still attempting to blame its problems on the difficulties it had inherited from its Labour predecessor of 17 years before. That was met with derision then, and it will be the same with the SNP government in the near future if it has not taken decisive action to fix any inherited problems. Four years from now, no one will care how big a mess Labour had left behind. The SNP will be judged on the then present state of Glasgow housing, as if an earlier government had never existed. Because if a week is a long time in politics, four years is an eon.

They cannot say, "This is a new broom," without producing proposals to address the situation.
Johann Lamont MSP, Scottish Parliament Housing Debate, 21st June 2007.

So lets take some vigorous, decisive action. What would that be?

1) Shut down the GHA. And run it directly as an agency of the Department of Health and Wellbeing. As the Labour Government did with Railtrack, so do now with the GHA. There were howls of protest when Railtrack was dissolved, but it was the right thing to do. The company was mismanaged to such a degree as to be unreformable - just like the GHA. Where Railtrack's failures caused deaths of passengers in rail crashes, meaning every postponement in government action risked more deaths, the GHA's failures cause waste of public investment funds and of homeowners personal money, meaning every postponement in government action causes more public financial waste and racks up homeowner debt.

The GHA could be run with a chief executive appointed by, and responsible to, the Cabinet Secretary. That the GHA currently has a vacancy (of months, with no new hiring in site) for Chief Executive should help ease that transition and appointment. Major decisions could be approved by the Minister before being implemented by that Chief Executive, although as much autonomy as possible should be left in the hands of the new-GHA. If felt necessary, an advisory team or board of politicians (mostly SNP ones) could be set up for the GHA to help advise the Minister on policy direction and smooth over any potential disconnect between the Chief Executive and the government.

Yes, that is radical. But the GHA now is just beyond reforming. We have to admit that fact, and grasp the nettle of restructuring, before the waste of money and opportunity becomes irreversible.

What is the mechanism for this? Communities Scotland has the power to revoke GHAs 'registered social landlord’ status and so manage the stock directly. A less preferred alternative to abolishing the GHA altogether would be to change the members of its board of management to ensure a Chief Executive (currently vacant position) is appointed who will be with the current program and new Scottish Executive policies.

2) Halt most all of the GHA refurbishment programme pending a Spending Review which would:

1. Identify any wasteful, cosmetic, or superfluous proposed spend of funds;
2. Prioritise the most needed investments, on the basis of tenant need;
3. No longer proceed in cases where any substantial votes against from owner-occupiers;
4. Free funds for new-build programmes.

One of the burning questions in my mind is whether we are getting value for the huge sums of taxpayers' money that is being ploughed into housing provision. The increasing cost of subsidy per house that I mentioned a moment ago suggests that we are not. We must get more housing for the public money we spend.
Stewart Maxwell MSP, Scottish Parliament Housing Debate, 21st June 2007.

Slobbering pink roughcast over external walls is an easy way to plough huge sums of taxpayers' (and, worse, homeowners') money into housing provision. But it does not represent value for money. Nor does laying complete new roofs and gutters on houses when they do not need anything more than a clean. There is no reason for this waste other than to show that the money has been consumed. Yet such is commonplace, routine, in Glasgow houses. Surely it has to be stopped - the 'refurbishment' cost on each unit could pay for a third of the cost of a brand new front door social rented house, which would actually be a useful use of public funds. Such houses are in desperately high demand. And not only taxpayers money is being wasted - and by wasted I mean utterly completely wasted, as if flushed down the toilet - homeowners are being forced to pay for work they do not want done.

3) Increase the time for repayment for homeowners from one year to several years.
The GHA, recently joined by a Communities Scotland spokesperson [Gerry Braiden, Glasgow Herald, 31st May 2007], claim charity regulations restrict repayment to one year. But that is not believed to be the case by most all people outside those two organisations. Mike Dailly, principal solicitor at Govan Law Centre says that is not correct: that because the GHA’s constitution says they exist for housing for “necessitous people in Glasgow”, they could cater for owner occupiers also, if they wanted to.

Direction from the minister or cabinet secretary to GHA could be needed here. Legal advice could be sought if there is genuine doubt to the effect of charity regulations.

The suffering being inflicted upon homeowners by this policy is unacceptable.

4) Build New housing
The current mass demolition, clearance, and expensive private housing development programme should be halted. Substantial new housing should be funded and built – but when built on land provided by housing association or local authority then it should be:

• For social rent (mostly);
• And the remainder low cost shared equity ownership, perhaps through community land trust vehicles as in 2007 Scottish Liberal Democrat manifesto – to help alleviate unaffordable house price rises.

Most of the new social rented units should be front door entry houses, not common entry flats.

Monies should be diverted to this from the lower priority elements of GHAs expensive refurbishment programme.

Shelter are calling, quite reasonably, for 30,000 new social rented homes to be built across Scotland. Housing Association waiting lists in Glasgow tend to be closed off now, such is the demand for affordable housing. GHA funds and land could play a massive part in new housing construction - providing both are not wasted on a shocking scale as now, and as will continue to be the case without intervention.

And let us make sure that the masses of new social rented homes are front door entry and of reasonable quality and low density, as tenants and residents want, and that we do not erect any more low lifespan flats. If that means getting fewer units built for the money, so be it. Cheap slum housing is of no long term use to society, and should be a matter for the private sector to provide, where it is provided at all. Taxpayers money should be restricted to encouraging quality desirable housing only.

5) Longer term some or all of the stock may either continue to be managed by the Scottish Executive Department of Health and Wellbeing/GHA or be transferred back to Glasgow City Council, or to community based housing associations, or some mixture of all those options be employed in different areas and for different stock types.

Here the issue of second stage transfer is placed in its proper perspective - as belonging in the long grass of the distant future. A long term in which, according to John Maynard Keynes, we are all dead. Second stage transfer, if it ever happens, will take years, and cost huge sums of money. The £500m price tag for second stage transfer is not an exaggeration, or at least not an outrageous one.

And think of what that means. £500m to effectively change the name plates at the doors of local GHA offices. Local autonomy is all very well, but £500m is the cost of the second half of the infamous Edinburgh tramway. £500m could build 5,000 new houses in Glasgow. What would tenants and those on waiting lists prefer, 5,000 new front door houses, or new name tags at GHA offices?

As time goes on, individual neighbourhoods can be expected to transfer themselves away to more local housing associations, but at a very slow rate. More neighbourhoods will want autonomy within a large scale landlord structure. Innovative structures could be designed and voted on, hopefully making a real difference to the future management of housing and communities. But all that lies years away. Right now tenants and residents want to see the GHAs destructive policies killed and buried. The future will start to take shape once that initial step is taken.

Let us not for now be led astray from the immediate task by mirages of what might or not might be in the distant future.

Andrew Fraser, mail@afraser.com, 29th June 2007.