On 24th July the LHA committee made representations to Lambeth’s Corporate Committee, which deals at top level with financial matters. Under discussion was the Housing Action Plan (starts at page 10) which address the ‘Leaseholder Billing Internal Audit Report’ issued in April 2025 (we are trying to get hold of that document also).
An AI generated summary of the meeting is here. A video of the meeting is here. LHA’s part starts at 1 hour and 35 minutes and you will see James and then Tracey speaking.
“You can see that Lambeth are aware of a number of problems, but that they fail to address the core of the problem, which is their inability to manage projects properly or to exercise proper cost controls and audit their contractors. We were encouraged to see that the new Independent Member, Paula Mills, asked some searching questions of officials.
The key thing is that Paula Mills has grasped, and we think the Councillors are also getting, is the link between the Leaseholder invoices and the procurement/cost management structures on which those invoices sit, which feels like a breakthrough. In other words, our bills will not be correct until Lambeth reforms its procurement processes, cost controls and project management.
The next thing is that Paula was obviously unimpressed by the quality of the information presented, especially by Housing, and the Corporate Committee has now asked for a full report. The content and format are yet to be decided but we did manage to get in a request that LHA be involved.
We have established a relationship with Lambeth’s internal and external auditors and plan to arrange a full background briefing to the Independent Member and shall now be pushing hard for an LHA presence on the committees considering billing and contract management.“
Many thanks,
Chair, Lambeth Homeowners Association