RoFTRA crisis meeting with Council

RoFTRA Logo

Members of the Board of Directors of Rochdale Federation of Tenants and Residents Association (RoFTRA), including the recently reclusive chairman Clint Street, who has ignored all Rochdale Online’s attempts to contact him, met with Rochdale Council Chief Executive Roger Ellis yesterday to discuss the current controversy surrounding RoFTRA.

As Rochdale Online revealed exclusively last week, in an extraordinary sequence of events, Steve Sharples, Chief Officer of  RoFTRA, found himself ‘sacked’ by the RoFTRA Board following his sacking of former Chief Officer David Bartlett.

• www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/community-news/24392/whistleblower-sacked-as-roftra-chief

Isle of Wight resident Mr Bartlett did not travel to Rochdale to be part of the delegation at the meeting, a decision welcomed by tenants groups following the revelation that tenants have effectively been paying for Mr Bartlett’s travel from the Isle of Wight to Rochdale and back!

The meeting is said to have been “cordial” and it is believed the RoFTRA board are seeking to persuade the council to release money needed to pay staff wages – both Rochdale Council and Rochdale Boroughwide Housing have suspended funding to RoFTRA whilst they investigate a number of allegations, including that of a ‘redundancy’ pay out to Mr Bartlett of over £10,000 despite his continued employment by RoFTRA.

A spokeswoman for local tenants expressed her concern that RoFTRA will be “allowed to continue” adding that tenants groups have complained for many years that RoFTRA does not represent tenants and residents in the way it should. The spokeswoman said she felt the only way forward is for a new organisation to be set up to represent tenants but tenants groups feel a crucial tenet must be that none of the current board members, or Mr Bartlett, be allowed to be involved with the new organisation.

Jennie Morton, former PA to both Mr Bartlett and Mr Sharples, has hit out at Mr Sharples accusation that she was “spying” on him and that her reporting his movements to Mr Bartlett could be construed as “gross misconduct”. Ms Morton says she did not commit gross misconduct nor was her behaviour disloyal or unacceptable, she maintains her concerns were “registered with David Bartlett” as she was “seeking advice from him in his role as Policy and Performance Advisor”.