Opposition Criticises 5-year Deal for 'Failing' Housing Contractor

Council leader counters 'firefighters don't take lessons from arsonists'

Coalo is part of Lampton Community Services. Picture: Lampton

June 19, 2025

The Conservative opposition on Hounslow Council has fixed its sights on the borough’s housing repairs contractor after an increase in the number of complaints about Coalo.

The Labour administration was accused of financial mismanagement after an update for the cabinet meeting this Wednesday (18 June) revealed a £14.8million overspend last year and a £60million reduction in reserves to cover a shortfall in the budget. The council leader robustly defended his record adding he wasn’t going to pay any regard to questions from the opposition on financial competency as “firefighters don’t take lessons from arsonists.”

The Conservatives pointed out that dissatisfaction with repairs and maintenance of council housing stock has risen at the same time as losses within council-owned companies, which reached £6.1 million.

Complaints surged by 67% in a single year, up from 608 to over 1,000 and just 59% were answered on time, a sharp fall from the previous level of 82%. The majority of these complaints were about housing repairs.

Despite this, the council has awarded a new 5-year contract to Coalo which the opposition says, given the performance of the company, should have been put out to competitive tender.

Coalo is one of the three operational divisions (alongside Greenspace 360 and Recycle 360) within Lampton Services. Lampton Services is itself part of the Lampton Group, a local authority trading company wholly owned by London Borough of Hounslow.

The Council commissions Coalo (and the other divisions) to deliver core services—like home repairs, waste collection, parks upkeep—for residents. In early 2025, Coalo, Greenspace 360 and Recycle 360 united under the new brand “Lampton Community Services” (LCS) with the aim of enhancing service quality. Hounslow Council’s Shareholder Committee regularly reviews the performance of its wholly owned companies, including Coalo.

Speaking after the meeting, Opposition Leader Cllr Peter Thompson said, “This is a Council spinning out of control. They’ve blown a £14.8 million hole in the budget, lost £6 million through their own companies and now they want to lock in another 5 years for a failing contractor that’s at the heart of residents’ complaints. Yes, all councils face challenges, but not all councils lose control of their finances, fail to deliver promised savings, and hand out multi-million pound deals to underperforming companies. That is a failure of leadership, not just circumstance.

“Labour is rewarding failure. Repairs are the top source of complaints. The budget is overspent. Delivery is collapsing. And the response from this Cabinet? Hand out another multi-year contract to the same underperforming company. Residents deserve better and the Conservative Group will keep fighting for financial control and value for money.”

In response to these criticisms, the Labour group defended the administration’s record on financial management saying that Hounslow’s position is much stronger than most other London Councils and that the Conservatives are presenting a distorted view of the figures.

It pointed out that a new Complaint Handling Code had been adopted in April 2024 which mean that comparison with previous years was meaningless. There were also changes to the way that response times were measured for instance the measured time for stage 1 complaints was reduced from 15 working days to 10. The council says that in the last quarter of the financial year the number of cases answered on time under the new system rose to 88%

Coalo's record on repairs was also defended by pointing to the latest Quarterly Performance Report which shows that tenant satisfaction with responsive repairs is currently at over 93% for Q4 - well above the 85% target.

Cllr Shantanu Rajawat, Leader of Hounslow Council and Cabinet Member for Finance said of the opposition’s claims, " The figures they have chosen are a deliberate misreading of the Cabinet Report. The renewed contract with Coalo requires the submission of an annual delivery plan to demonstrate continued value for money. That will always be our focus."

He added that the council is reducing the amount of overspend which is below the level projected in the previous quarter by £1.3mn and pointed out that most of the amount comes from statutory services like adult and children's social care where the council is legally obliged to meet rising demand from the borough’s most vulnerable residents. This has pushed most councils to overspend and the average amount for all for all London councils (including Lib Dem and Conservative controlled councils) was £20.9 million in the most recent quarter.

Cllr Shantanu Rajawat added, "We know that secure finances mean continuing to be able to provide security for our residents. Our delivery plan is monitored within an inch of its life, and we know where every penny gets spent.

"In previous budgets, the Hounslow Conservatives have urged us to spend our reserves. This administration has protected, defended and invested those reserves in order to maintain our relatively strong position. To put it simply, if we'd trusted the Tories with our rainy day fund, there wouldn't be one today.

"During 14 years of Tory austerity, Hounslow Council’s government settlement funding was cut by 70% in real terms. Most of our spend goes on statutory services, which are services we have a legal (and moral) duty to provide. When Liz Truss crashed the economy and sent prices spiralling, those services also became more expensive. Demand has risen and so have prices.

"This administration has invested to make our borough a better place to live for all our residents. The Tories cut Local Government more than any other area of government. They cut the services directly affecting the most vulnerable and left local authorities like ours to pick up the bill.

"We won’t take lessons from the Tories on financial competency. Firefighters don’t take lessons from arsonists."