Once upon a time in the west: the history of KCTMO

A day later, Elizabeth Campbell, the recently installed leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) went further. “Public trust has been broken,” she said. “There is no future role for the KCTMO.”

There are those in the social housing sector who feel a degree of sympathy for the now infamous organisation. While the cladding installed on Grenfell Tower was clearly – and catastrophically – far from safe, the scores of other landlords currently scrambling to remove similar insulation products from buildings shows that KCTMO was not alone in making this mistake.

“I’m feeling quite sore for them actually,” says one sector source, following the prime minister’s comments. “It could have been any one of a hundred bodies. They followed the rules, used reputable people. The system failed them. But they are at the bottom of the food chain and they are a popular target, which is why the PM feels she can throw them under the bus.”

KCTMO is and always has been a unique outfit – a curiosity in the social housing sector. Tenant management organisations are commonplace but are usually set up to cover a single estate, or even just a single block.

KCTMO, however, ruled over an empire. It is still responsible for 9,000 homes stretching across some of the most prosperous, deprived and iconic parts of west London – from the World’s End Estate on the banks of the Thames to Notting Hill, Portobello Road and Erno Goldfinger’s Trellick Tower.

On paper, at least, KCTMO is empowering – tenants hold the majority vote on its board and it was set up to hand power over to residents. But its history, particularly the relationship with some of these tenants, was at times a troubled one – long before flames took hold on the fourth floor of Grenfell Tower. As the organisation’s final chapter looms, Inside Housing takes a look back at some of its difficulties.

Avoiding transfer

When KCTMO launched in 1996, it was considered pioneering. “It was seen as quite radical for a true blue Tory council to be setting up a tenant management body,” one housing figure recalls.

The rationale for this move was economics and politics.

In 1994 the waning Conservative government was pushing a new policy: Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT). It intended that all councils contract out management of their housing stock by 1999. In many cases this led to stock transfer, but this was a result Kensington and Chelsea Council was desperate to avoid. The council feared a stock transfer would eventually spell the end for social housing in the borough.

There was one loophole in the regulations. A 1994 Parliamentary briefing into CCT notes tenant management organisations would be exempt. This had in mind the small estate-wide organisations characteristic of most TMOs. A borough-wide TMO was a bold and unique way round this. It was also a flagrant subversion of the Conservative government’s policy aim.

“It was a wheeze the council came up [with] because it was very worried about losing social housing in the borough,” says one lawyer, familiar with the operation of KCTMO. “Because of where they are, these properties are just incredibly valuable assets. If it had transferred its stock, there wouldn’t be anything to stop a housing association selling the homes as they become vacant and using the receipt to build four homes elsewhere.”

Indeed, this practice is not uncommon among large London housing associations – and may yet be the fate of the council homes in Kensington and Chelsea if the council goes ahead with its promise to scrap KCTMO.

Another housing figure, involved in council housing at the time, recalls resentment in the sector that flagship Tory borough Kensington and Chelsea was able to evade the tendering process others were forced to go through.

“It was seen as radical for a Tory council to be setting up a tenant management body.”

According to historic council papers, held in the dusty archives of Kensington Library, a ballot of tenants took place in February 1994 with all tenants and leaseholders asked to vote on a deceptively simple question: “Are you in favour of increasing tenant and leaseholder control of council housing in Kensington and Chelsea by developing a tenant management organisation?”

Perhaps unsurprisingly – given its wording – the response to the ballot was conclusive. In total 5,663 residents voted yes, accounting for 93% of all votes cast.

Divided responsibility

It took a further two years for the organisation to get off the ground, but it finally launched on 1 April 1996, operating under a management agreement drawn up by the council with 20 board members – 13 of whom were tenants, voted in via an electoral college of residents.

Under the original management agreement, also available in historic council papers, monitoring the performance of KCTMO fell to the council. Notably, given what happened two decades later, the agreement states that there should be “divided responsibility” for contracts on works worth more than £400,000, which the council must be allowed to approve. This means that, in the event of problems with major works, both the council and KCTMO would be liable – a clause which may well raise its head as the fallout from Grenfell develops.

The agreement also notes that the Lancaster West Estate was already managed by residents through an estate management board set up years earlier. The agreement promises to “maintain the independence” of this smaller body – more on which later.

This was how KCTMO was created and how it took over management of the council’s housing stock. But six years later, in 2002, its legal status changed.

It became an arm’s-length management organisation – a mechanism commonly used by councils to manage their stock – which was a move necessary to allow it to access New Labour’s Decent Homes funding. The number of tenants on its board was also reduced, although they remained a majority.

During this time KCTMO had some success. In 2006 it was given an ‘excellent’ three star rating with excellent prospects for improvement by the Audit Commission – the body responsible for inspecting local public bodies. But relations with many tenants were strained.

Chances to improve

Matters came to a head in 2008. In March, KCTMO held an extraordinary general meeting – partly in response to longstanding concerns over repairs. Following this, Fiona Buxton, then-cabinet member for housing at RBKC, said the council would “clear the air” by appointing an independent adjudicator to investigate complaints.

“The TMO has been subject to a drip-drip of allegations and complaints which has dented the confidence of some tenants and leaseholders and lowered staff morale,” she said.

After spending months reviewing documents and emails and speaking to tenants, adjudicator Maria Memoli’s report was published in April 2009. It reveals an organisation with serious problems.

“There was a general feeling among residents (leaseholders and tenants alike) that the quality of cyclical repairs and major works were sub-standard,” wrote Ms Memoli at the time.

“The council was very worried about losing social housing in the borough.”

She gives a number of examples, which include contractors breaking down a door to the wrong flat to make a repair, a tenant waiting for 20 years for a leak to be fixed before she was decanted due to the damage it caused, and central heating systems being fitted so badly the resulting noise damaged residents’ health. “The TMO has ruined my life,” one resident told the adjudicator.

Ms Memoli made a number of recommendations for tighter oversight of KCTMO by the council. This included – poignantly, in the light of what we already know about the Grenfell refurbishment – a requirement that the council “take more of a proactive role in the monitoring of major works contracts” and KCTMO “take a more robust monitoring role of major works contracts”.

But this was not to be taken on board. In its April 2009 response, KCTMO said: “The council believes the TMO overall has in place effective contract management… [and] the TMO is satisfied current arrangements are compliant with best practice.”