Donkeys Led By Donkeys

1,409 DAYS – 3 YEARS + 10 MONTHS +9 DAYS
since Thistle’s mismanaged Major Works Programme started on 7th January 2016
1,081 DAYS – 35 MONTHS + 17 DAYS
since 30th November 2016 when “all of the works to all of the houses in Toryglen will be complete“. Today, 16th November 2019, still incomplete, work proven to be shoddy and more importantly, dangerous and now possibly hazardous to life and limb

It is understood that the management of Thistle Housing Association is currently attempting to have this blog site taken down

Why would that be, you may wonder. The answer to that is that Thistle and The Truth don’t comfortably sit at the same table.

By its very covert nature, Thistle Housing has always demanded, and hitherto achieved, full secretive control of its business and functions, only publishing manipulated and out of order selected facts on its ‘Thistle News’ propaganda magazine (with no right of reply) which can be read below:

Spring 2017  Summer 2017  Winter 2017
Spring 2018  Summer 2018  Winter 2018
Spring 2019  Summer 2019   Winter 2019

This residents’ blog site started in March 2017 only as a means of recording the facts (as opposed to Thistle’s versions in ‘Thistle News’) of their dismally failed Major Works Programme. Residents had little other easy way of disseminating information as they were up against Thistle, a multimillion pound company, which spends any amount of money (residents’ money!) to defend its now proven multiple failures.

Other than accidental errors and sometimes a bit of sheer cheek, this site had never knowingly published anything but the truth and, of course, Thistle Housing hates the truth. That’s the reason why posts on this site sometimes appear a wee bit long winded as it can take more than a few lines to expose the truth. Apologies for that but everything has to be explained.

The very idea of a website, a blog site or even a Facebook page, was anathema to Thistle Housing, so much so that its previous and now mysteriously gone Director, Grace McColgan, was always adamant that there would be no website and that any information to Toryglen residents would be only via its own propaganda handouts thus controlling the release of all information to residents. Thistle Housing having no website, or any internet presence at all, was an exception amongst housing associations, Thistle being the only one without a site. That has now very recently changed (even although a bit late and only immediately after Mrs McColgan’s unexplained departure) following heavy pressure from residents and others, although in the usual Thistle way, the so called information on it is not fully correct, without context and reflects only Thistle’s opinion. Like everything else touched by Thistle, they made an ass of that too!

Thistle management’s bullying pronouncements

Following the receipt of emails from various sources, it has been discovered that Thistle management have now made unfounded and unprovable allegations against two of a group of residents who have been active in challenging Thistle’s mismanagement, and have, for a second time, been banned from Thistle’s offices, with Thistle management’s bullying directive that they and their staff will be refusing to accept telephone calls, emails and hand delivered letters (no change there then!). One resident has even been accused of being the author of this blog site. They will be surprised, if not horrified, if and when the truth of that eventually comes out.

Over the past three years or so, the same “determined group of residents” (Thistle’s words) throughout Toryglen has challenged Thistle Housing on many fronts, in particular the shoddy and dangerous results of its yet to be explained  and completed Major Works Fiasco, now almost three years late.

Each and every time, residents have been proven to be correct.

Each and every time, Thistle Housing has been proven to be wrong.

Each and every time, Thistle has sunk further into its devious mire of threats of legal action, deception, lies and self interest.

Thistle’s actions have been proven to be against the expectations and requirements of Toryglen residents. They have lied, twisted facts, reported false statistics to the Scottish Housing Regulator, failed on every quality and performance aspect demanded of a housing association, indulged in multi million pound contracts of which they had no technical ability to agree.

See the latest Scottish Housing Regulator Engagement Plan regarding Thistle’s many and serious long term shortfalls here.

They have defied the Regulator’s requirements, they arrogantly appealed against the Regulator’s findings and lost, they have broken the law. They have consumed Thistle Housing Association in long term and very expensive debt, increasing by millions after millions of pounds, all with no explanation at all. They have hawked their properties in Toryglen to a group of financial speculators in London as the regular banks and lenders would have nothing to do with them. They have weighed down the association with a requirement to find many more millions of pounds to remedy the shockingly poor workmanship to more than 600 homes blighted by the Major Works Programme. They have wasted so much of the association’s funds in a vain effort to hide their breath taking shortcomings, money which was not theirs to waste.

All of this to protect their own skins and without the merest consideration for residents.

They have attempted to rig, manipulate and fiddle the Management Committee, the body which ultimately controls Thistle Housing Association, by refusing residents’ applications for shareholding and election to the committee whilst filling the never changing committee with their friends and allies, always the same people, always with the same controllable chairperson and vice chairperson. That has now ended as a result of the Regulator’s intervention.

Thistle’s interim director, Bob McGuire, hired from Savills, has undertaken to “share” the outcomes of all investigations with residents. These include:

• An investigation into the thus far unexplained Thistle contract with E.ON for the Major Works Programme, including costings, especially where Glasgow City Council advised residents that the wall insulation would be “at no cost to owners” and the charges for the now faulty roofs which were priced at approximately twice the figures per close quoted by other roofing contractors
• Included in the above, an investigation into the hundreds of thousands of pounds paid to Gas Cats Limited, a one man company, the one man being Jeff Poulter, a heating engineer falsely claiming to be a Clerk of Works, who certainly did not carry out his vastly overpaid function of overseeing and rectifying the shambles and proven shoddy work undertaken by the foreign, untrained labour gangs and why he was retained after the contract was supposed to end on 30 November 2016
• An investigation into the faulty chimneys (supposedly overseen by Jeff Poulter which had been notified to Thistle by residents in September 2016 and ignored)
• An investigation into the faulty and potentially dangerous roofs (supposedly overseen by Jeff Poulter which had been notified to Thistle by residents in September 2016 but ignored)
• An investigation into the faulty rendering/roughcast/insulation (supposedly overseen by Jeff Poulter and which had been notified to Thistle by residents in September 2016 and many times thereafter but ignored)
• An investigation into the misplaced gutters allowing rainwater to cascade down building elevations, as highlighted by the independent BBA report and ignored by Thistle management as only “advisory” on the word of a painter, Paul Nolan, another self titled but fake Clerk of Works 
• An investigation into the substandard window sills, which are merely bits of flimsy plastic, the original sills having, mostly, been removed by the unskilled labour gangs and supposedly overseen by Jeff Poulter. Thistle denied all of this but retained somewhere between £200,000 to £300,000 from E.ON to rectify faults, money which seemingly has disappeared and certainly was not highlighted in the latest Summary of Accounts
• An investigation into the £560,000 supposedly spent rectifying 300 gardens, at an average of £1,867 per mythical garden, when few gardens were touched and where there is not even 300 gardens existing
• The residents’ opinion survey undertaken by Arneil Johnston which, it is understood, does not ‘favour’ Thistle Housing

Thistle management scream they have done nothing wrong.

• Why, therefore, have all these investigations been necessary?
• Why has the Regulator been conducting investigations since 23 August 2018?
• Why have millions of pounds vanished?
• Why was the director booted out? Why is the committee gutted of its comfy same pals group and now being run by statutory appointees?
• Why has the remedial work not started never mind finished when the Major Works Fiasco is almost three years late?
• Why was Thistle Housing forced to issue an apology to residents? As in here.

The answer to all of that is obvious

The results of these investigations were supposed to be available by mid September but definitely by the end of October. Here we are, now into mid November and silence. Nothing at all and so far, certainly no sharing.

Mr Maguire, apparently with a lifelong experience in housing but strangely, details of whom cannot be found on any internet search and does not appear on Savills’ list of staff and personnel on their websites, undertook to respond to questions put by residents to Thistle as long ago as March 2017 but now, without explanation and although promised, refuses to so do.

This, and for many other reasons, has resulted in the impending demise of Thistle Housing Association as so much more has been revealed by the Regulator’s investigations, stretching back years before the current and failed Major Works Programme. A long history of mismanagement, rule breaking, fiddled figures, double dealing and lies. All of this caused by Thistle management and their allies who have attempted to shift the blame onto residents. Yes, like other crooks, they certainly did it their way!

These people were (and are) paid huge salary packages certainly not equal to the success of their actions and with such remuneration comes responsibility for performance or in Thistle’s case, the lack of performance. A situation whereby millions of pounds have been lost and wasted with many more millions required to rectify failures of which they were well aware and these people still hold their well paid positions? In any other business, that would be unacceptable and the culprits, at the very least, would be suspended pending investigation but these people, with the exception of Grace McColgan, remain. Why? What is so different about Thistle Housing as they simply refuse to accept the blame for their extremely and unnecessary failures?

There are lots more details to be revealed but meantime, as mentioned above, Thistle management are doing their best to have this blog site removed  so that the truth of their endless list of corrupt failures is hidden from view.

Thistle management and their malleable committee were offered a way out. They could have had a partnership with residents. They only way to build a new road is to walk it. Drunk with their own arrogance and secrecy, they refused. Such a shame, a lost opportunity. Alas, Thistle’s insular and self interested management simply will not learn from their many failures which has brought the association to its soon to be realised downfall.

Let’s see how all of this works out. 

For a very basic profile of Thistle’s current senior management, click here