Why is housing boss still in £185,000 job?
After case of the two-year-old killed by mould in flat, critics ask...
CALLS were mounting last night for the resignation of the £185,000-a-year boss of the housing association which left a toddler to die in a mould-infested flat.
Gareth Swarbrick, whose failure to quit over two-year- old Awaab Ishak’s avoidable death ‘beggars belief’, according to Housing Secretary Michael Gove, is clinging to his post as pressure intensifies.
The 55-year-old chief executive of Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) – whose pay package has increased by more than a quarter in the past three years – has yet to apologise for the ‘degrading’ conditions Awaab’s family were living in.
After a coroner said the tragedy in one of the richest nations on earth should be a ‘defining moment’ for the housing sector, Mr Gove yesterday accused Mr Swarbrick’s organisation of a ‘terrible dereliction of duty’.
The Housing Secretary told Parliament that the housing association’s failures were ‘rooted in prejudice’ and Awaab and his family ‘deserved better’.
One MP suggested the landlord could even be prosecuted for corporate manslaughter.
Tenants’ groups called for Mr Swarbrick to be sacked, branding his pay package a ‘disgusting’ reward for failure.
The damning comments came as the Housing Ombudsman for England launched an investigation into whether there had been a ‘wider failure’ at RBH.
From as early as 2017, Awaab’s parents repeatedly begged officials at RBH for help with the appalling mould problem spreading across the walls and ceilings of their flat in the Greater Manchester town. But through a mixture of bureaucracy and communication breakdown, and ‘ cultural assumptions’ about the family, who were asylum seekers from Sudan, nothing was done.
The youngster suffered increasingly severe coughing fits, and on December 21, 2020 he went into cardiac arrest and died while being transferred to Royal Oldham Hospital. Fungus was found in his blood and lungs.
Mr Swarbrick’s annual pay package, including pension contributions, has swollen from £144,000 the year before Awaab’s death to £185,000. The beleaguered executive, whose salary has enabled him to privately educate at least two of his four children, lives in a modest £270,000 semi-detached home on the outskirts of Bolton, and drives a luxury SUV.
The Housing Ombudsman for England, Richard Blakeway, said he would use new powers to interview staff at RBH directly as part of an urgent investigation.
In a letter to Mr Swarbrick published online, he said his team was examining three complaints about damp and mould and would look at whether they were ‘indicative of wider failure within the landlord’.
RBH currently has 108 ‘live’ complaints about damp and mould from tenants. The housing association said the figure was down from 600 in 2019.
Greater Manchester Tenants Union said: ‘The rot starts at the top – Mr Swarbrick must go.’
Mr Gove said bosses at RBH who ‘earn well in excess’ of the Prime Minister must ‘take the consequences’ of their record.
Awaab’s parents, Faisal Abdullah and Aisha Amin, are planning legal action over their son’s death. RBH was approached for comment.
‘A terrible dereliction of duty’