GreenSquareAccord Vs The Elderly!

There is a title I never thought I’d use. Perhaps I hoped I’d never have to. What could this pioneering (their words) housing association possibly have against the elderly? Can GreenSquareAccord really claim (as they do) to be ‘building better lives’ when we have yet another example of them failing yet another section of our society?

Cast your minds back (and for those of you who are new to the site you can bring yourselves up to speed here) to the upset felt by Chippenham residents who were left without hot water and heating, where young families and single parents were told by GreenSquareAccord to ‘boil a kettle’.

Pressure from the MP Michelle Donelan forced GreenSquareAccord to jump into action and install some diesel generators to quell concerns, and provide some level of heating. This was during the winters months while the county was in the grip of a worldwide health pandemic.

Surely GreenSquareAccord (who by now are even further into the Ruth Cooke’s corporate goal of becoming a ‘simply brilliant landlord’) wouldn’t repeat this issue on yet another vulnerable section of our community, and if they did, surely they wouldn’t use the same old tired excuses? Surely not…

Charges increase, service deteriorates

Like so many GreenSquareAccord residents who are struggling with the increase to the cost of living, further pain was inflicted when GreenSquareAccord increased their service charge. I’m not arguing that the service charge shouldn’t be increased, it is only logical that it would and to a certain degree should.

Letters were sent out to all GreenSquareAccord residents with an estimate for how much the charges could (and ultimately will) rise by. One of the more intriguing (and higher) estimates was based around ‘Intelligent Electrics’. This includes emergency lighting, door entry systems, and fire alarms, etc. GreenSquareAccord admitted in a meeting with Oxford residents on 16th May 2022 that they were passing on the costs of providing adequate fire safety in anticipation that there would be costs incurred due to the governments new fire safety bill.

At this meeting, one of the main questions around the increase was - when do we start receiving value for money?

I don’t think I really expect [sic] the premise… I suppose I’d need you to be quite specific about individual items in terms of what you mean really…

Claire Cook (Service Charge and Leasehold Manager)

In an attempt to provide clarification to Claire Cook, who had been on copy on numerous emails, had written to me several times, had issued me with the communication ban, and was clearly in the loop when it came to the ongoing issues surround this block of flats; I reworded my question:

Claire you’ve been well aware that since 2019 there’s been ongoing issues, there is even an email from you where you blame it on building services, so you are well aware of the issues. You’ve come to this meeting to discuss an increase to the service charge, I would have thought that the first thing you should have thought about is how to respond when asked ‘when do we start getting value for money?’

Asked I.

And the response:

When we have contracts in place there’s a procurement process that we go through which ensures that we are getting the best value for money at the time we let that contact and and the amount that the service charge is down to how many visits we have to do or services or whatever.

Said Claire Cook

Knowing that she still hadn’t answered my question and suspecting that she might have again not understood said question, I asked her again.

But we are not getting value for money are we?

So sure was Claire this time that she spoke over me with her third attempt to answer.

…We do have a value for money procurement process and you know charges are based on that.

Again I stated “But we are not getting value for money are we?” After a pause, Claire made her fourth attempt to answer what most of us consider a reasonable question.

I don’t know, you, you, you tell me why you’re not.

It was clear that although Claire was well aware of the issues and why an increased service charge would be considered a slap in the face (as we were already paying for a service we weren’t receiving) she wasn’t going to budge but would continue to employ an evasive response to a very reasonable question.

Do you need me to pinpoint more of them? The bin stores for one. The guttering. [At this point Claire tried to speak over me]

Hang-on, you’ve just asked me to pinpoint some so let me pinpoint some. The bin stores debâcle, the time it takes to get a call back and email responses, lets look at the times the lift keeps failing, the fire alarm systems, the hedge growing issues, many of these issues are on your agenda.

So I’ve clearly established that we aren’t currently receiving value for money, due in part to the reasons just mentioned, and the questions still stood. With an increase to the service charge, when would we start to receive value for money. To which Claire responded:

I can only say to you that it costs us what it costs us to provide those services to you.

To which I replied - I would say you’re not providing them.

Well you’re entitled to your point of view there.

Claire Cook’s final answer.

A meeting arranged in part to discuss an increase to the service charge, a long list of items that should be but aren’t already being covered by the current pricing structure, and the best answer put forward by GreenSquareAccord is; it costs us what it costs us and the residents are entitled to their point of view if we feel we are not receiving these services - which we clearly are not.

Most of these failures to provide their core level of service have been upheld by GreenSquareAccord’s own internal complaint process.

Upsetting the elderly!

We were not the only ones who had a point of view that we weren’t seeing value for money under the current pricing structure, let alone before being hit with an increase. As reported in the Oxford Mail:

Over-55s living in Harris Court and Drew House in Summertown, Oxford, have banded together to address the steep fee rise by their housing association, Green Square Accord (GSA). They say some services, such as ‘intelligent electrics’ have risen in cost by 640 per cent.

An increase of 640%! GreenSquareAccord really are expecting to be hit with a huge cost to provide safe homes when the governments fire safety bill lands.

Worrying for residents as GreenSquareAccord have a poor fire safety history.

In 2019 GreenSquare was severely criticised by the regulator for fire, gas and lift safety failings and again in 2021, lest we forget the heroic actions of Max Ebeling who was awarded for his bravery in saving the lives of his family whose GreenSquareAccord home had caught fire (possibly due to faulty wiring).

These elderly residents were experiencing the same failures in service as other GreenSquareAccord residents in the Oxford area, the ones GreenSquareAccord seemed to be oblivious to:

The problems experienced by tenants include broken boiler, damaged windows and fences, infrequent lawn mowing and hedge-trimming, water leaks from pipes and almost no access to a housing officer. There have also been issues with botched repairs, with maintenance teams returning to the properties up to eight times to fix certain facilities.

And here we link back to the beginning - vulnerable residents left without hot water.

Michael Ryan, a tenant at Harris Court, in Harpes Road, said: “A lot of days we haven’t had hot water. Since September last year we’ve lost around 18 days of hot water. It was six days in a row at one stage. Some people were having to boil kettles to have a bath. It’s not reasonable.”

In conclusion

GreenSquareAccord’s corporate journey towards becoming that ‘Simply Brilliant Landlord’ continues (originally planned for three year, now five years, and currently three years and counting), and while continuing their claims that they are ‘Building Better Lives’, they are still failing the most vulnerable members of our society. While winning awards for their ability to negotiate large and complex finance deals, they are increasing their service charge on those hit hardest by the current hikes in the cost of living.

Whilst being unable to provide their core level of service at the current charge they are happy to increase this charge, in part to make their building safe, prompting the question why are our homes not already safe?

And to add further insult to injury, GreenSquareAccord are confidently telling concerned residents that the corporation’s failure to provide this core level service is just our opinion.

A not-for-profit organisation that continues to waste our service charge on wages for people who fail our elderly, our young, and our most vulnerable members of society.

A simply brilliant landlord building better lives?