CEO should resign and be charged with corporate manslaughter

[Istheworldreallydonefor]

It’s time senior management event their pay or faced the consequences
.
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

Can you really not understand it?
That’s shortsighted of you.
CEOs set the culture of an organisation and ultimately the resources available.

How do you stop mould from lack of ventilation though. It required the people living in the property to actually use extraction fans and open windows, to not dry washing inside etc.

poor little lad should of never been in that situation but the report I read said lack of ventilation not some fundamental issue with the actual property going unfixed by the housing company.

YADNBU - the running of the organisation is the responsibility of the CEO - That is why they are paid so highly.

You want proper procedures and reporting levels in place @silverclock222
The person accountable for those is… the CEO.

I agree

That doesn't mean individuals who contributed to this death by negligence or racism shouldn't be investigated, and charged

@Istheworldreallydonefor

You seem to know an awful lot of "facts" about this case that are not in the public domain.

As far as individual cases go, it is impossible on the information available to ascribe unlawful behaviour on the part of anyone. But on a collective basis it is easy for a coroner to say that a set of circumstances led to a death - which is certainly something that in this case should never have been the case - because they don't have to work with the resources and policies that social housing has to deal with. There has been a total lack of investment in social housing over the last 20 years whilst demand has grown exponentially. Housing stock is getting older and the resource to modernise it isn't there. Many of the flats were built to standards in the 50's - 70's that would never be accepted today (and probably shouldn't have been when they were built, but they met housing standards that were extant then). And waiting lists are over-subscribed so there is little or no accommodation to move people to whether they need a home or need re-homing to better housing than they are already in.

If you are looking for someone to blame, then blame those who, since the late 1970's, have:

• pursued a policy of selling off social housing without replacing stock,
• failed to invest in social housing stock both new and existing,
• have encouraged the idea that home ownership should be the gold standard and that social housing is for the inadequate and feckless causing sink estates
• fostered a climate of demand for tax cuts to reduce social spend and a brodly "I'm alright Jack" society that prioritises pennies in the pocket rather that social responsibility, capping public sector revenues at significantly lower than need / demand

This is a tragic death yes, and one that should have been avoided. But wouldn't it be lovely if it was an isolated case? Instead the poor, vulnerable and disadvantaged are quietly dying (figuratively and literally) in inadequate housing, poor quality care systems for the young and old alike, amongst overburdened systems that are supposed to protect them but have no resource to do so.

If you want to hang someone, I'd suggest starting a lot higher up the tree than the CEO of Rochdale Council. And if you think it's bad now, just wait until tomorrow....

I agree OP.

However it’s all a bit “after the event”. If we had decent regulation in place for housing providers to ensure properties were up to scratch then it wouldn’t take the death of a toddler to get stuff done.

otherwise the bar being set is “preventing death”, which is a low fucking bar.

The property appears to have been badly designed, with not enough windows in key areas, and no extractor fan

They might have been ventilating. They might not have been. It could be that they come from a hot dry climate, and no one explained to them what was needed. They might simply not have understood

Yes and no. As I recall, MPs voted down measures to ensure that homes were fit for human inhabitation. Including Michael Gove.

so the CEO will operate within the legal framework that is in place. Until that is tightened, you’ll get Grenfell, mouldy homes and kids dying. Because without proper regulations, something is only done when things get bad which is a low bar.

Regulations keeps homes to a decent standard.

The bottom line is the mould problems are probably due to the way the building the property is in was built back in the 60's and the only way of sorting this out once and for all is to demolish and rebuild. Then add to this the housing shortage and the Social Landlord aspect of local authority/HA housing and their duty to house vulnerable tenants which includes refugees. There aren't enough properties to go round as it is. Where's the money going to come from to rebuild? Where are they going to be rehoused whilst the building works are in progress?
I do think there is room for improvement in the way some housing officers speak to the tenants, but some of the tenants can be hard work with unreasonable expectations and I think they have a difficult job to do.

The tragedy in all of this is that when housing people do try to improve conditions in these non traditional construction properties (Grenfell Tower anyone) - insulation and cladding on the outside, better windows and installation of gas heating and hot water - all of which go a long way to reduce the condensation that's such a problem in these concrete buildings (I lived in a tower block myself for a few years)
It can be a disaster waiting to happen.
The culture of years of crap repairs and maintenance/bodging by tradesmen who couldnt give a damn is what needs to change and hopefully the standard of social housing will improve then.
It's not down to racism at all and I think they're wrong to say it is. This is a nationwide problem.

As others say corporate manslaughter charge for the ceo isn't helpful. This is more about lack of government funding. I also wonder whether the mould could have been cleaned off more.

The inquest didn’t blame that though did it?

For mould to be that bad, something must have been seriously wrong with the fabric of the building. Which is the housing associations responsibility.

I think that's a bit of a red herring. The social housing is ring fenced if still old school council houses run by the council and they cannot use the rental income to subsidise council tax. If council housing got passed to a housing association then it's entirely separate anyway.

Well as this is the CEOs response -

RBH's chief executive Gareth Swarbrick said Awaab's death should be a "wake
up call for everyone in housing, social care and health"
He said: "We didn't recognise the level of risk to a little boy's health from the
mould in the family's home“

—that they didn’t recognise the risk, I’d say that ‘preventing death’ is exactly where they’ve set their bar. They clearly didn’t seem to think that expecting human beings to live somewhere that, any normal person, would deem not fit for human habitation, was a particular problem.

A little more detail here regarding the inquest verdict for those who have not bothered to read it, and continue instead to post ignorantly trying to lay blame on the family.

www.farleys.com/news/awaab-ishak-inquest-coroner-finds-prolonged-exposure-to-mould-led-entirely-to-death-of-2-year-old/

"The inquest also heard from Professor Malcolm Richardson, who is an expert on moulds and fungi and their effect on health. He examined the family’s flat 10 days after Awaab died and found “extensive mould” on the walls and ceilings of the bathroom and kitchen and also found mould in a cupboard in the bedroom. He told the Court that the flat would have been contaminated “for some considerable time”.

Rochdale Council building surveyor, Daniel McVey, inspected the property two days after Awaab’s death and told the Court that it was not fit for human habitation without repairs being carried out. Despite this, Awaab’s parents had to continue living in the flat following Awaab’s death following unsuccessful requests for rehousing, despite Awaab’s mother being pregnant at the time.

Nadia Khan, Director of Customer and Community at RBH, gave evidence around changes that have been made since Awaab’s death. Ms Khan gave evidence that with the benefit of hindsight, works would have been carried out at the family’s flat sooner. She said that this matter has been a “big learning experience for us to change things for the better”. RBH have no plans to knock down the estate, including the block where Awaab lived, but they have installed additional ventilation to the properties.

The flat Awaab lived in did not have a window in the bathroom and the window in the kitchen led to a communal walk way."

Shall I add more ? The landlord in this case has admitted fault and that they should have done more to repair the home and prevent the mould. The family is not to blame

Social housing is being demolished all over the country but especially in London.

See Carpenters Estate for example.

Yes which is the point I am making. Sacking the CEO is but one step but improving regulation and enforcing it is another.

I used to work in the housing sector and could see that it was only really regulation that got stuff done. Basic maintenance would be allowed to slide and done to a low standard (I remember colleagues saying “they shouldn’t expect to live in a good place” etc and there was definitely a sense that the housing association were doing residents a favour

That poor boy what a beautiful smile

I worked in housing many years ago and while I can’t speak for every HA/council I can say we had a serious stock shortage and were therefore incredibly reliant on (often terrible) private landlords to bridge the gap.
Due to how little stock we had we had people living in properties in an appalling condition or severely overcrowded and we simply had nowhere else to put them as when something came free the priority would be getting someone out of temporary accommodation rather than rehousing someone with a property.
Often the properties in a poor state really needed going back to bare brick but if you can’t rehouse someone how can you do that?

It was thankless and soul destroying.
I don’t think throwing people in jail is the problem fundamentally as long as there is no stock and inadequate funding this will remain an issue. It was AWFUL when I was doing it and there was a lot more money then, i imagine it’s so much worse now.

Why are you continuously blaming the tenants here? It’s very strange

The posters on here trying to lay blame at the feet of the family should be ashamed of themselves.

@silverclock222 but in this case the coroner made it clear RBH was following its own procedures. They initially refused to make the necessary repairs, then when the family engaged solicitors they implemented a policy of not taking any action until their solicitor and the family's solicitors had reached an agreement. The CEO is trying to claim this is standard in the industry, but frankly I don't think that is an excuse. The house was in a disgusting state and RBH don't seem any more interested in change than they were then.

a combination of severe overcrowding (stuff piled up against every wall, drying washing inside everywhere

Lots of tenants aren't allowed to dry their laundry outside. Even if they are, what do you propose they do when it rains?

So whose responsibility is it that none of that has happened already?

Local authorities need proper funding along with proper accountability. They have so many incredibly important functions (housing, social care, education, SEN) at which too many councils regularly fail and quite cynically ignore their legal duties. That happens because it would actually be impossible to comply with their duties with the limited funding available, and far too many get round the problem by throwing the most vulnerable people under the bus. There needs to be a strong message that people who behave like that won't keep their jobs.

Every year our local news covers housing conditions like this and some even worse! but I never see an MP or royalty visit to view, sympathise and promise something will be done which in reality would probably mean funding diverted from another vital area to tackle just one small area of housing so a box can be ticked for a while. Then the news turns to shanty towns overseas to let everyone know the country is not so bad after all!