Glasgow transfer faces delay as tenants find training tough

Britain's biggest stock transfer to date may be held up after being hit with a double blow: delayed funding documents and claims that tenant representatives are unprepared for a housing management role.

The financial blueprint for Glasgow's housing stock transfer is nearly three months behind schedule.

No release date has been confirmed as yet, and opponents have cited the delay as grounds for challenging the legitimacy of stock transfer.

Members of Glasgow Housing Association's 78 local housing organisations have warned they are unlikely to be ready to take over management of the council's 82,000 council homes by the November deadline. Tenants, now being trained to manage hundreds of homes, said the workload and September deadline for training were too great a burden.

Cathie Vernel, chairwoman of a local housing organisation in the Springboig area, said: "We may well get all the modules done before September, but we won't be ready to start management. It'll take longer for everything to sink in. It feels as though we are being rushed to meet the transfer date."

Winnie McCallum, a member of would-be housing organisation Clydeside Tenants for Tenants, warned the workload is proving particularly heavy for older volunteers.

It feels like we are being rushed to meet the transfer date

Cathie Vernal, Springboig LHO

"Most of the people involved are pensioners, and I'm not sure they are taking any of the training in," she explained.

John Goldie, secretary of the citywide tenants' forum, said many local housing organisations would fail to meet the training standards required for them to gain registration from regulator Communities Scotland. Without registration, the organisations cannot start managing housing.

GHA has acknowledged stock transfer may have to go ahead without the local organisations. It "envisages taking over management of homes in some areas, on a temporary and consultative basis", a spokeswoman said. She added: "Tenant training is an evolving process and management responsibilities would be handed over to the organisation when it is fully ready."

GHA-tenant relations have been strained. Last month the Househillwood tenants' and residents' association, from the Pollok area of the city, severed contact with the association and its local housing organisation, Rosehill Co-op, after an apparent personality clash between tenants and officials.