Forum Topic

Council is 'sued' for £11m damages by CIP

It seems the fallout over the decision not too put forward CIP as one of the prefered tenders for leisure provision within the borough continues with the B & C Times reprting that "A claim of more than £11 million has been made against Hounslow Council by Community Interactive Partnerships (CiP), the group of companies that lost the contract to provide the borough's leisure and cultural services".CIP is also threatening to walk away from the remaining few months of the current contract.

Neil Chippendale ● 6649d7 Comments

DaveYet again you attempt to give users of this forum false information.The "budget" you are referring to, one must assume, is the annual funding which comes via the Area Housing Forums for small projects.  Invariably under Labour they came with the usual strings attached, and in my view were used as a vehicle through which to consolidate the party's stranglehold over our tenants.  However, whether that is a view you share or not, the fact is that these monies were miniscule in comparison with what has just made available.The one-off recommendation approved by the Executive last Tuesday was for the release of up to £1,500,000 from Housing Revenue Account reserves for specifically tenant-led projects.  This is both massive by comparison with the qualified grant funding to which you refer, and totally unprecedented.This project is simply the first of what will be many major initiatives to empower our communities and to help remove their dependence (i.e. as opposed to increasing it David) on their landlord.As for your final question, I do not share your sense of inevitability that the next government will be a Conservative one but I can confirm that whether it is or not I will always be an advocate of council housing.

Phil Andrews ● 6647d

There are lots of new assets that CIP purchased ie the tractors and grass cutting machines, investments into the buildings..It looks like pay day for the lawyers on this one, once they get going.

Dave Hughes ● 6647d

Its good that the residents use this money but the have allways been a budget for this so its nothing new.No doubt we will now get the rant about new labour blah blah blah..At the end of the day the budget was already there its just that The ICG never attended the meeting to discuss how it was to be spent..We also have to take into account that with the Tories there will be no council homes soon, so what are you going to do about that.

Dave Hughes ● 6647d

It would be interesting to know what actual assests CIP have or is everything on lease from LBH?

Neil Chippendale ● 6648d

Nothing to say about the empowerment project on our housing estates Dave?  I thought you'd be dead chuffed!

Phil Andrews ● 6648d

There are number of problems that are not being reported such as CIP is a charity, now when a Charity winds up under charity commision rules the charity can only gives its assets to another charity, so I very much doubt that private companies can take over the assets, (No doubt we will get another load Bull from Phil "Iam not a tory Rent boy" Andrews) now this becomes interesting as the books in Feltham libary being new stock supplied by CIP and as an asset of CIP what will happen?????It may mean the private sector having to re-buy the stock and sticking the residents of Hounslow with the bill??

Dave Hughes ● 6648d

The reasons why the Executive decided not to follow scrutiny advice on CIP (as reported in the report Neil is citing) were never made clear on grounds of confidentiality. Personally, I doubt that the CIP claim against the council will ever make it to court. However, it will be interesting to see what the eventually costs will be in severing the connections and whether additional council funds may need to be given to CIP to ensure that operations continue till June. After all, there is no legal option for the council other than to ensure the library service is maintained.

John Connelly ● 6648d