Ipswich Borough Council’s ruling Conservative and Liberal Democrat Executive has been told to rethink its plans to shut local area housing offices.

The council’s Overview and Scrutiny voted to refer the matter back to the Executive after hearing that:

•  The Executive had not considered alternative options to closing the area housing offices.

•  The council appeared to have gone out of its way to get a poor response to its consultation on the closure of area housing offices by:

o  Launching the consultation just before Christmas,

o  Designing the consultation questionnaire to obscure the fact that it was about the closure of housing offices, and

o  Not allowing copies of the questionnaire to be displayed at housing offices nor allow tenants to return their questionnaires there because “people who use housing offices might be biased”.

•  The Executive had ignored the results of the consultation on the closing of area housing offices:

o  90% of tenants who responded to consultation (by filling in the questionnaire, signing a petition or returning other forms) were opposed to the closure of housing offices, and

o  Only 1% of council tenants had expressed a positive preference to close the housing offices.

•  Despite the fact that housing offices are due to be closed on 19th March, key details of their replacement had not been worked out:

o  Details of replacement surgeries have not been agreed,

o  Opening hours of the replacement call centre have not been decided,

o  How appointments will be scheduled has not been decided,

o  How tenants without phones will access services has not been decided, and

o  The IT required for mobile working is not ready.

A tenant representative also addressed the meeting confirming tenants’ opposition to the housing closure and frustration at the way the consultation had been handled.

Both Labour and Conservative councillors expressed concerns at the way this issue had been handled and voted to ask the Executive to look again at the housing office closures.  The only councillor not to support referring the matter back was the Liberal Democrat chair of the committee.

Councillor John Mowles, Labour’s housing spokesperson said:

”There is widespread concern about the closure of the housing offices.  I am glad that the Executive has been told they need to rethink these ill-thought out plans.”

top

Delicious

Digg

Reddit

Facebook

StumbleUpon