Hasta la vista, bushbaby
The last inspection hero
With the new single inspectorate swinging into action last week, housing association readers may be interested to get to grips with a piece of inspectors' jargon that is already familiar to a few local authorities.

According to Audit Commission action hero Martin Palmer, departments that require re-inspection are put in the "Arnold Schwarzenegger" category. This is not, Palmer adds, because of any requirement for a high body count to bring things up to scratch, but because "we'll be back". So, can consistently poor performers expect to be "terminated"? Or are they simply forced to sit through back-to-back repeats of Twins until they cooperate?

Ministry of disinformation
I was interested to note the inclusion of several measures aimed at curbing the right to buy in last week's draft Housing Bill. It must have been a hectic last few days for officials preparing the bill, as only three weeks previously housing minister Lord Rooker had promised Housing Today that there would be no further changes to the right to buy "for at least three years".

And what about the low-cost homeownership taskforce headed by Baroness Dean? Its remit specifically includes a pledge to examine the issues surrounding the right to buy. Shame nobody mentioned this to the ODPM spokesman who stated last week that there would be no further changes to the controversial policy.

Ludlow welcomes asylum
This week's good news story comes from the picturesque Shropshire town of Ludlow, where residents have set up a scheme to offer weekend breaks to refugees and asylum seekers. So far 25 families, from as far away as Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa, have temporarily swapped central Birmingham for the peace and tranquillity of rural England. As one of the scheme's coordinators points out, the breaks help the participants, many who have been subjected to torture, to "feel like normal human beings again". And there's even better news: the idea has proved so popular that villages in Herefordshire and Worcestershire are considering doing the same.

Planning? Meaningless? Never!
It seems the social housing sector is not immune to April Fool's Day mischief makers, as Kelvin MacDonald, director of policy and research at the Royal Town Planning Institute discovered. Speaking at the Future Housing conference on Tuesday, MacDonald was beset by a Powerpoint presentation disaster when reams of text became meaningless symbols. "It only happens when I try to quote from government bills," a flummoxed MacDonald announced. "Maybe Bill Gates knows something we don't about New Labour housing policy."

Louise Cursey

Louise Casey kicked off her tenure as head of the government’s Antisocial Behaviour Unit in typically upfront style. Her maiden speech at the Social Landlords Crime and Nuisance Group conference might best be described as “earthy” and delighted antisocial behaviour officers more accustomed to having such language directed at them from tenants. The highlight came when Casey pledged to make unhelpful magistrates aware of the problem to put an end to the “usual shite” of unruly tenants let off with a tiny fine in the courts.

Source

Housing Today