| The matter was raised by Dundee man Ken MacDougall, who was unhappy with the method by which the council’s Labour/Liberal Democrat administration reached a policy decision not to explore stock transfer.
A survey of tenants was used to gauge their views on the issue but only 3% of the council’s 16,500 householders bothered to respond. Those who did expressed a 2:1 majority against transferring the housing stock to another landlord.
Mr MacDougall, a Labour Party member, claimed the administration’s decision had been politically motivated and accused them of misleading tenants by choosing a non-independent body, the Dundee Federation of Tenants Association, to conduct the poll with the intention of securing the result it desired. He accused the council of maladministration on five points:
*Failure to stay within their bounds of governance
*Misleading council tenants over the time scale for a stock transfer vote which, he says, should have been in two years’ time
*Failure to explore the possibilities of housing associations taking over council stock as laid down by national government
*Using the non-independent DFTA to conduct the survey
*Using the survey for political ends.
The ombudsman’s complaints investigator, Vanessa Spalding, has now ruled that there are insufficient grounds to pursue a case against the council.
She said the Scottish Executive has set out guidance for local authorities on developing proposals for housing transfer which states that, once an authority has made the decision to pursue stock transfer, then a number of stages have to be considered with regard to tenant participation and consultation.
These steps should include informal consultation, two stages of statutory consultation and a full, independent ballot of tenants.
Crucially, however, she said that in determining Mr MacDougall’s complaint, the key factor was that the council has not reached the stages she had outlined.
She added, “It appears DFTA carried out a consultation exercise to ascertain the views of Dundee council tenants on the ‘principle of full stock transfer’.
“No detailed transfer proposal was put to the tenants. It appears the authority are entitled to make a policy decision, at this stage, on whether or not to go forward with a proposal for full stock transfer,” she said. |
