Ascham Homes is a 'not-for-profit' company set up in May 2003 to deliver housing services to all council tenants and leaseholders in the Borough. It is wholly owned by Waltham Forest Council. According to the Council website, it aims to provide one of the "best housing services in the country".

Its directors comprise three councillors: Naz Sarkar, Eric Williams, Chair of the Resources sub committee and Peter Woollcott, four 'Independent' Directors - Wendy Wilson, Mark Boisson, Nicola Bastin and Saiyyidah Zaidi and some 'Resident' Directors, Rothstien Williams, Ron Tamcken, Barry Coppock, Barbara Gilmore, Annie Niner and Paul Olford, who is Chair of the Ascham Homes Board. The names rotate a lot - of the 15 Board members listed as being on the Board for the last published Annual Financial report on their website for the year ended March 2007, only 6 remain today. How capable they are of scrutinising the organisation they are directors of has to be seriously questioned.

The company is actually run by a Chief Executive, Hassett Auguste. Janet Wilson, the Director of Operations is also a big cheese. She remains from the last Annual report, but there are two interim directors: David Errington, Interim Director of Resources, Administration & Legal and Jan Taranczuk, Interim Director of Property and Investment. These last four are 'solely responsible for the day-to-day operations of Ascham Homes, and provide professional advice to the Board' according to the Ascham Website.

These operational responsibilities were delegated to Ascham Homes Limited under section 27 of the Housing Act 1985 (as amended by the Housing and Urban Development Act 1993). Under the delegation the company is responsible for the following functions:
• Maintenance of the Council's residential stock including carrying out major works;
planned maintenance and responsive repairs and developing partnering arrangements.
• Housing management of the Council's residential stock including estate management,
enforcement of tenancy conditions, leasehold management and repairs ordering;
Financial management including collection of rent and service charges; and
• Tenant involvement and community development.

For some reason, despite their noble aims, I have heard that the organisation is not well liked by many people locally. This is not just by their tenants (the Chairman of the Board thinks they are improving but I have seen some appalling cases of damp), or people who rely on them to maintain their properties as the management company for council-owned freeholds, but ordinary people, who have no business relationship with them but have to pass by some of their shabby, run down and poorly maintained properties. It seems that many people who share a neighbourhood with properties which Ascham are involved with invariably find their area looking down at heel. This is shameful for everyone, including those who try to do things for themselves to give their homes and environment a boost.

People have been known to mutter about Ascham's incompetence and mismanagement. Now they will be muttering about their lack of integrity. As reported and discussed in the Waltham Forest Guardian, the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal has issued a ruling that Ascham Homes has been misleading council leaseholders and wasting their money.

Ascham failed to let leaseholders know about estimated costs to work being carried out after letters were sent to numerous householders with 'the wrong information'. Personally I think the phrase 'the wrong information' is putting it mildly. During the hearing it emerged that in 2005, the company sent out letters to leaseholders saying that their homes were to be improved through the council's ten-year capital plan. No such a plan exists. Someone somewhere went out of their way to make things up about what the company was up to, or at the most charitable was utterly incompetent and out of their depth. These letters were basically part of a process to get money off the leaseholders.

A Ms Murphie, Head of the right to buy and leasehold services team since 1994, said to the Tribunal she was given the letters' wording by the Building Consultancy Services Ltd (BCS) but signed them without being sure whether or not the proposals existed. What is it about the word 'consultancy' that tells me we are in for trouble? Quite apart from wondering how the Head of such an important part of the organisation could be so ignorant and cavalier about her job, I would love to know what BCS were paid for the services she claims she was reliant upon, who decided to use them, and why? I am sure that the tenants themselves would also be interested to know who was getting the contracts for the building works they were to be asked to pay for, and how and why were such contractors involved?

Ascham was also found to have 'became aware' of a failure to consult leaseholders properly in 2005 but failed to act until November 2007. This lead to an official reprimand by the Tribunal.

How much money has been wasted is unclear. How much this is costing everyone is unclear. Who ultimately benefited from this 'mismanagement' is also unclear. We do know who is suffering - the tenants, taxpayers and residents of Waltham Forest. There are many unanswered questions about Ascham Homes, not least, what on earth their Board think they are doing employing these people to run such an important organisation when their defense in court is, basically, that they don't know their arses from their elbows. But then again, there are many similar unanswered questions about the London Borough of Waltham Forest under the leadership of Clyde Loakes.