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Some loose ends were tied up today!
We learned that our estate caretaker had be asked to attend to the "swimming pool" on the roof of Clapham Court.
It was not an easy job ... he had to find some wellington boots before venturing out onto the roof to unblock the drains.
Unblocked they were. He reported a great rush of water cascading down the drainpipes and into the sewage system. Hope Severn Trent were ready for the surge of hundreds of gallons!
In the meantime, we looked up the "contract specification" about the cleaning of drains on the flat roofs.
Yes, it's there! But the Clapham Court roof is not withing the remit of our caretaker.
In fact, the residents in Clapham Court do not pay the caretaking service "levy" on the rent, so they are not supposed to get the caretaker working in there.
Unfortunately, our caretaker is used for all sorts of "odd jobs" in addition to his normal caretaking duties.
Now, when there were two caretakers working on our estate and Clapham Court was included in their work schedule (in the days before conversion to sheltered housing), there was time to do some "odd jobs".
But since Compulsory Competitive Tendering in Housing Management and the enforced cuts in costs to ensure the old housing department won the tendering process, our two caretakers have been reduced to one!
Of course, down these parts, we are still waiting for our rents to be reduced as the costs of providing the caretaking service has been virtually halved!
We worked out a few years ago that some £45,000 was collected on our estate each year from the "caretaking" add-on to the rents. This figure is now over £47,000 with the rent increases of the past two years.
Perhaps a little arithmetic ...
Caretaker gets paid £9,200 a year, so the cost of employment is, say, £13,000. Add another £2,000 for equipment etc. And we are being quite generous here!
So far about £15,000. Yet when we once presented these figures to the Council, we were told that we hadn't taken into account the costs of managing the caretaker.
OK ... to balance the books, we take the difference between the £47,000 collected for caretaking services and the costs we have identified of £15,000 to find the costs of managing one caretaker - now come on, the council would not take liberties with its tenants, would it?
So, £32,000 a year to manage a caretaker.
Now we know why that nice Mr. Blair and the equally nice Mr. Prescott are introducing "Best Value"!
Late this afternoon, the Principal Housing Management Officer telephoned to arrange an appointment to pop down and see us! Tuesday August 31 at 3 p.m.