CEO should resign and be charged with corporate manslaughter

[Istheworldreallydonefor]

It’s time senior management event their pay or faced the consequences
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Rochdale Boroughwide Housing CEO must face the music.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-63641438

AIBU - you think CEO’s should not face the music

AINBU - they should be charged

Yanbu in that there should be prosecution for something.

This is a ' never event' (what hospitals call an entirely unnecessary preventable death if it happens in their service)

That mould is shocking to look at. No landlord should let a property with mould like that. There should be an enquiry into how it became that bad, what was done, what wasn't acted upon and what negligence occurred.
It's truly tragic that this lovely young boy lost his life to a mould triggered respiratory disease from his rented home.

Rochdale Council have repeatedly shown racism towards refugees and hideous bigotry against poor people in general. YANBU

I have voted YABU purely because I never understand why people want the CEO jailed. What needs to happen is an investigation to make sure all the proper procedures and reporting levels are in place and find out who knew and who did nothing. These are the ones should be jailed.

knowing many white British babies living in similar conditions, I really don't think obfuscating the issue with racism allegations is helpful at all.

Yes there needs to be an investigation into the behaviour of individuals, and charges brought, hopefully - I don't think "corporate manslaughter" is the right one.

And if any individual has been racist, then that needs to be investigated separately, and separate charges brought.

We will never get proper legislation to deal with bad landlords while local councils are the worst of them. That poor family. It is just disgusting and utterly tragic. Those poor parents will never recover.

We will never get proper legislation to deal with bad landlords while local councils are the worst of them. That poor family. It is just disgusting and utterly tragic. Those poor parents will never recover.

Rochdale council is a collection of individuals. If there has been racism, those individuals need to be identified and dealt with.

And whose responsibility is it to make sure these ARE in place, IMPLEMENTED, and ACTED on?

It's a very complex situation and I don't think corporate manslaughter charges for the ceo is productive at all, he would have had no part in the decision making in this case nor even known about it most likely.

What is needed is a fundamental review of procedures in housing including crucially teaching tenants how to prevent mould, how to clean mould that appears and when to bring in professional cleaners. I say this as someone who had to manage a flat riddled with mould that had no mould at all when the tenants got the keys (I do not know if this was the case in the tragic situation in the news) - a combination of severe overcrowding (stuff piled up against every wall, drying washing inside everywhere, failing to use the extractor fan in the bathroom and not opening windows to ventilate were the reasons according the the expert we called it. Once mould starts it is very difficult to control unless strong chemicals are used, not ideal with small children

@gogohmm please don't comment in a way that seeks to blame tenants for this. Mould in rented accommodation is primarily caused by damp and lack of ventilation, generally by buildings being cheaply built or in poor condition. Whatever happened with your tenant, it seems particularly crass to comment in that way on this thread. The coroner has been clear the family were not to blame, and they lost their child .

I agree- it is a very complicated situation . It needs to be fully investigated, and not second guessed.

We have no idea where the mould came from, or why the parents hadn't ( or appear not to have) done anything to control it.

I have done a lot of voluntary work in housing. I have seen severe mould, in rented and in owner- occupied properties.

I have known cases where the mould was simply neglect by the residents, not caring for the property to prevent mould, not dealing with it when it appears.

I get mould in my home sometimes - I think most people do. bleach - paint- ventilate- I think thats just part of normal housekeeping

On the other hand, I have known mould that has taken such hold that several hours a day for many weeks cleaning it has not brought it under control. It can regrow very fast

We have no idea, in this case, who was responsible for this mould, or what the parents had done to clean it.

WE really cant speculate

It's not just one though is it?

Thousands of rented homes have seriously bad mould that isn't fixed - DD was told to leave all windows open but funnily enough that didn't help

The state of private rentals is probably worse

Rather than focus on one person we need to have a much stronger set of enforcement / laws across the board

I'm also voting against. I don't know enough about the case. I read, but this may be wrongly reported, that because they started a legal case against the council that the council was unable by their rules to act to resolve the issue until the complaint itself was resolved in the courts. If that is true, I'd want to know who put that rule in place and why as that seems to be a major blocker.

The report I read said it was caused by an absence of ventilation in the bathroom and kitchen. If there were no opening windows or extractor fans, is that a housing regulation issue or did the council ignore housing regulations?

I cannot understand how the mould got that horrific so I would want to wait for a full enquiry first. Is it a problem with the whole building? Should it be condemned?

CEOs are paid an awful lot of money to be ultimately resposible for the services provided by their councils. Yes he probably didnt have day to day dealings with the housing department but he's got overall corporately responsibility for the decisions taken in his departments.
If he had any decency he would resign at least.

@2greenroses it has been thoroughly investigated. What do you think an inquest is? If you've read anything about this case you'd understand what the family did to try to control the mould. Including the poor advice they were given by the landlord, which they followed.
I find it sad that you've volunteered with housing yet even in a clear case like this, where a coroner has ruled the landlord at fault, your instinct is to blame the tenant.

We cannot speculate indeed, but actually no one needs to speculate here - maybe just accept the verdict of the inquest!

Gove says there are 450k rented homes in the UK with damp problems.. he voted against a law making it illegal to rent a home that is unfit for human habitation & he says the Govt has acted too slowly.

We've also had 12 years ongoing of austerity & a policy to privatise social housing.

Yet its the CEO of a HA that should be jailed?

The situation is far too complex to bring it all down to the action (or inaction) of one person.
The lack of investment and priorisation of housing (secure, good quality rented accommodation, whether private or social) from central government is certainly to blame in a big way.
Home ownership is increasingly out of reach for a lot of people, good quality rented accommodation needs to be available.
To me this is more about central government policy.

@silverclock222

why ?

as they take the cash to do a good job, they are ultimately responsible and hence their lack of doing that correctly led to a death

no different than not driving well and killing some one?

so if it was your kid do you think that ok?

ps hope you are enjoying your CEO job.

ps doing this would make a change

While this is clearly awful and should not happen, it is a complex situation for councils.
Where there is far more demand than supply, what do you do with people while you sort such issues? Have more people on the streets?
Because it sadly won't just be this one requiring work. Leaving properties sat empty even if you have the imaginary money to renovate them all causes other issues.
Essentially we don't have enough homes. I don't see how jailing someone will solve that when sadly this case is part of a giant jigsaw where the pieces can't be made to fit

@gogohmm

of course a review but also why are you N apologist ?

if they were not aware they didn’t ensure the right processes are in place

hence they were doing a bad job and hence responsible for a death.

There should definitely be some sort of action against them, but I'm not sure that a corporate manslaughter charge is the way to go.

From what I have read, I'm very unclear as to what this "housing society" actually is. It seems to run like a co-operative, and I have no idea if it's ultimately answerable to the Housing Corporation, the Dept for Housing and Communities (or whatever it's called this week), or any other body.

What it needs is to be put into some sort of special measures and be forced to sort out the way it deals with repairs/maintenance generally and mould issues in particular.

But tbh, I'm surprised that something like this has never happened before. I've worked as the clerk to housing & housing management committees in 2 different councils, and the issue of mould in properties was always coming up. I've also been involved on the other side, in housing advice agencies, working on disrepair cases against councils/HAs. For every expert that reported that mould issues were due to inadequate maintenance, insulation, whatever, there would be another that blamed it on tenants not opening windows, drying washing indoors or not cleaning adequately.

I really hope this is a wake-up call for all landlords, social and private, that they need to take this problem seriously and get it sorted.

And my heart absolutely goes out to this family and their beautiful boy.

I suspect this has happened before, but this is the first time its listed as cause of death, presumably with the aim of getting some attention to the issue.
A bit like the little girl who's asthma attacks were brought on by air pollution in London. First person to have air pollution listed as cause of death in the UK.

Exactly this. Why on earth are you trying to blame the family @2greenroses . The result of the inquest has been more than clear. Shameful!

When you have local authorities publically saying that they will be unable to balance the books for 2023/24 and are threatening to issue s114 notices because of constant underfunding from central government these problems will only worsen and not just in housing.

I don't think this is the council though. The stakeholders appear to be employees and tenants, like some sort of co-operative or mutual society. Admittedly, I only had a quick gander at their website, but I could see no mention of the council or the housing corporation, so I don't think it's a housing association in the normal sense.

Maybe Rochdale generally is a hotbed of racism and bigotry.