Izal Medicated

Day 655
Now 327 days after Thistle’s E.ON contract failed on 30/11/16

You’ll have had yer tea? Or rather, your copy of Thistle’s “Scottish Social Housing Charter and Annual Report 2016/17”

Wiping away the tears of disbelief, what a load of waffle, selected items and, most importantly, ‘Aren’t we just so bloody GOOD‘.

Slippy, glossy, horrible stuff, hated by one and all, used for only one purpose.

All those figures and ever so wonderful percentages and other rather tasty things but absolutely no explanation of how they were arrived at and, of course, no explanation, details, update or even an informative insert of you know what. If the Major Works Programme is such a success, why was that tattered flag not hauled up Thistle’s greasy flagpole too?

But and alas, only relating to 948 tenants. Little to nothing for the 785 owners who form more than 45% of Toryglen residents and, in this failed Major Works Programme, by far and away, the vast majority, although generally, everyone is in the same holed boat whether they be tenants or owners.

 Dare it be asked, all those surveys and figures of sheer delight Thistle have mentioned…

• Who carried out all the surveys?
• Was it based on a paper form, a telephone call or just a bump into in the street? Certainly couldn’t have been web based as Toryglen residents are, apparently, extremely broadband illiterate (but not so illiterate that they can’t do a blog site). See below*.
• What and in what way were questions asked?
• How many different residents were asked and in what circumstances?
• How many replied?
• When did these surveys take place?
• Where did the surveys take place?
• Were there in any way, any free prizes offered at any time to ‘stimulate’ responses?

Have you ever been asked to answer or complete a poll or a survey? Eleven different residents who have been asked at random and who have lived in Toryglen for more than fifty years each have never seen one. Ever.

Figures, percentages and results are no more than manipulated propaganda unless it is clearly seen exactly from where and how statistics are derived, how the questions were framed, what they are based on and how they are calculated. In Thistle’s glossy booklet, there is no indication of any kind or of the methodology used. Without detailing this information, Thistle’s results remain meaningless.

Thistle management seem to suffer from some form of tunnel vision. Whilst they breathlessly pat themselves on their own backs before a grateful cast of as many as they would like you to believe, they should look around at the upheaval they have caused then talk with residents who are, apparently, delirious with delight at Thistle’s successful management of their Major Works Programme now only 327 days late. Must be all those ‘Thank You’ cards which seemingly, as Thistle management brags to residents, pour through the door of their office Maybe from people who suffer from Stockholm Syndrome?

Unfortunately, under no circumstances will Thistle management hold any form of open meeting for residents. What would it take? They wouldn’t have to arrange a bingo nite complete with loads of lovely prizes or even have to pay any accommodation fees as, apparently, they have now bought the church hall in Glenmore Avenue and surely residents would lob in a couple of shillings for the extra light bill. If that is indeed correct, do residents know that? Were shareholders informed? Where did the cash come from? Thistle, unlike many housing associations, has never built as much as a shed (other than their own gruesome and grimily roughcasted HQ), if true, has stayed silent, very silent on that one.

Above, another clip from the glossy booklet. *If so many, i.e. 47%, of Toryglen residents have no internet access, which would be a figure less than an undeveloped African dictatorship, why is Thistle management so afraid of comments on Facebook and this hated blog? Who did they ask?

The vast majority of housing associations in Scotland offer their customers a comprehensive web service, the ability to be kept immediately up to date, pay rents, bills, log faults, read minutes of meetings, see what’s planned for the future, appreciate exactly who is who and what they do, register complaints, etc, etc. This includes the two housing associations who have now entered the fray after being secretly, and with no explanation, co-opted to the failed Management Committee, here and here. Look at their websites. Maybe their surveys were done in another way? What makes Thistle so different?

All other housing associations are wrong and Thistle is right? Is it as a result of their unqualified and unexplained survey where “100%” of  respondents stated that they would not use a Thistle hosted website? What, ALL of them? Every single one? How feasible would that be? Who and how many were asked?

It’s beginning to look as though these ‘surveys’ might well have been taken during the Thistle paid for pensioners’ Bingo Nites and freebie away days after the lights were switched off. Anyone for another sherry and free bingo prizes and while yer at it, just tick this form here?

Scottish Housing Regulator. See here

Figures, figures, figures. Well, here’s another one or rather, a situation. The Scottish Housing Regulator has now elevated its Regulatory Engagement level of Thistle Housing to “medium”, meaning, of course, they have been forced to keep a closer eye on them. Not a good position to be in.  (Anecdotally, not for the first time). See here.

Here are some examples of the many emails which have, one way or another, wound up being despatched to this site plus a few blog comments. They speak for themselves.

An email
“I thought I would share the attached letters with you as a means of providing collective evidence that Thistle have no communication strategy or care to deal with resident complaints, concerns regarding this major works saga. It will come as no surprise to you that I have not received a response from Thistle or any follow up whatsoever!! I will forward on to Caroline Scott too. I feel I am banging my head against a brick wall 😡😡. I hope you find it useful.

I did attend the AGM; however, this too was pointless as it was obviously engineered by Thistle to ensure they would not be challenged on issues of concern. I concur, it was simply a Bingo night. Looking through the recent glossy annual report issues have clearly been omitted with deadline still reported as the end of October 2017…yes no chance given I have not even had a response regarding my concerns on the work quality. No idea who has been taking these home owner surveys either in my xx years here we have never been surveyed!!”

 A blog comment
“I’ve got to say that I agree with all the people here. My wife and I have been told nothing but lies since this program started. They bullied us to get money and gave us only a few days to pay cash to them. Sandra Macgilvrary told us that we would lose grants and that Thistle would take us to court for the money. We had to borrow some money until we could save it up to pay it back. Our house now is a mess and the windows are damaged but those up at Thistle dont listen and just ignore us. These people are just evil and I dont understand how people like that should still be in jobs.”

A blog comment
“These people shiuld be dumped as they are useless. You should see my flat and the black damp spreading up the walls in the back bedrooms. That idiot Sandra Macgilverey told me that Thistle would paint it. What paint black damp? I dont think thatll work to well. Thats the same woman who told us that there was no loan when they came demanding money from us and Ive now found out that was a bloody lie just like all the other lies that lot tell us. My windows all all marked and nothings been done and the ruffcast in breaking at the back and bits are falling off around the windows. Wish this hadn’t started”

 A blog comment
“I canny belive the lies I’ve been told by Thistle all of these months. The garden down the stairs is a pure mess and they did nothing about it. That other story of damaged windows and the stones on the plaster is the same as mine because my windows are all chipped and marked and the white roughcast at the back has gone a brown colour and is cracking with bits falling off showing the plaster beneath it. That Mrs Sprout the Sandra one and the head manager Mcolgan are all pure liars and just cant be bothered. They promise and promise but never phone back. They should be sacked.”

A blog comment
“The PVC window frames are all heavily marked and only installed just over two years ago and the glass is all scratched on three windows. I’ve been promised that it all would be fixed since August last year 2016 but nothings happened. Ive been up at Thistle so many times my husband must think Im addicted to rolls from the pakis. He phones sometimes when hes off work and I phone as well but we get fobbed off all the time. Think we’ll need to go to a lawyer.”

More delighted residents salivating at the thought of Thistle’s unmatched service?

Clip from a letter from Thistle to residents, 6 October 2017

WHERE ARE THE WORKERS?

Into the third week since residents were promised a (laugh!) return to work. OK, where are they? Where are the workers? Where are the “boots on the ground“? Nine days to go until 31 October 2017 when it’ll all be done. (Nurse then walks in with more sedatives.)

Judging by comments (from the occasional worker to be seen), E.ON has been having great difficulty in getting workers as the handling of this farce by them and their now not so chummy pals at Thistle, has caused any would be workforce to shy away. Who could blame them?

More than a year ago!

Remember the one on the left above? Now, on the right above, a clip
from the glossy booklet literally just out from Thistle management.
NINE DAYS TO GO!
Jings, they just can’t help themselves.

• Completion date 30 November 2016
  Failed
• Completion date March 2017
  Failed
• Completion date 31 July 2017
  Failed
• Completion date 12 August 2017
  Failed
• Completion date 31 October 2017
  Ready for a fifth failure in nine days’ time?

How many more dates?

Here’s a wee extra, an image taken yesterday morning, Sunday 22 October 2017, just after 9.30am.

Weather, a bit of light drizzly rain, and to all intents and purposes, no wind, just a light breeze. Visibility might have been 16.1 kilometers but it didn’t take so much to see the above.

Other than the lovely, well planned aesthetic gas pipes carefully tacked on, spot the rainwater gushing down the front (same at the rear) of this block, rainwater not being caught by the gutters but cascading down behind from the white uPVC fascia boards (the same stuff they used to make the sub standard window cills, now quietly admitted by E.ON). Had the rain been heavy, the whole frontage would have been wet, no dry bits under windows and vents but here, it just floods vertically downwards.

During this winter now just about upon residents, if it’s a standard winter, all this freezes. Then what? After two or three years of the same, again, then what? CRACK, CLUNK! E.ON has vanished, you might have a worthless (and so far mythical and unobtainable) twenty five year warranty which covers nothing at all (except papering the cracks in the roughcast?), Thistle management, having admitted to having no technical ability and the result? Well, have a guess. Hardly bears thinking about.

The above is only taken as a sample, as an indication of some if not all of the blocks and even the houses in this Major Works Programme.

Residents have brought this (and many other) issues to the notice of Thistle management since August, not this year but last year, 2016! What’s been done? Nothing.

Other than of course, examinations by the British Board of Agrement, the last being a week ago today, examinations eventually carried out at the request of residents, not Thistle or E.ON. Those results are now awaited.

Meanwhile, Thistle stays silent. 

Let Caroline Know
If you have any complaints regarding the Major Works Programme, you should, in the first instance, contact Thistle Housing. Any verbal discussions should always be confirmed by either an email or by letter as there seem to be too many instances whereby conversations have been ‘forgotten’.
If all else fails and no satisfaction is obtained from Thistle, your local MSP is Nicola Sturgeon whose Constituency Manager has a large and growing list of complaints and images from residents throughout Toryglen. There is no point in moaning about the faults in your house, no point in phoning Thistle as they have simply lost the plot and are panicking.
Have a quick blether with Caroline to discuss the detail of your case already in the hands of Thistle. She’s on the ball on behalf of constituents who feel that they are getting no satisfaction from Thistle Housing.

Her telephone number is 0141 424 1174

More information is available here