Lambeth Council's housing scandals continue

The saga of fraud, waste and mismanagement of housing at Lambeth Council was chronicled by Inside Housing magazine earlier this year. Not all the problems took place under the current Labour administration which has been in charge since 2006. (In 2005 when the Lib Dems were in charge there was fraud amounting to £2.9 million in payments to a bogus heating company.)

But the problems have certainly continued. Last year it overspent its £11 million homelessness budget by £7.5 million. The Council leased too much private housing stock for temporary accommodation for the homeless with 42% of it sitting empty.

Now we discover that Patricia Hoad, who as Chairman of Lambeth's tenants management organisation should have been keeping a grip of such matters, was convicted of benefit fraud last week amounting to £40,000.