| AdminHistory | The first Corporation built houses were occupied by tenants in 1964, with the Dedridge, Craigshill and Knightsridge areas of Livingston the first to be occupied. By 1994 the had Corporation built just over 12000 residential properties. For the majority of the lifetime of the Corporation, housing in the town was predominately owned by the Corporation and rented to tenants. In 1980 the Corporation owned 90% of the town's housing stock. Through the 1980s there was a drive to diversify tenure and, as with the Right to Buy scheme of the Conservative government, the encouragement of the purchasing of social housing by tenants. By the time of Wind-Up the Corporation owned and managed 6300 properties, whilst home ownership had risen from 10% to 60%.
The Housing and Social Relations Department was formed in the mid-1960s. In 1983, the department was reorganized and became the Housing and Community Development Department. Despite attempts to draw the two sections closer together, Community Development and the Housing Department operated largely independently from one another until they formally separated in 1989. From 1991 those functions relating to Housing were incorporated into the new Property Services Directorate. As such the Head of Housing was no longer a Chief Officer, but instead reported to the Director of Property Services who was also responsible for the Direct Labour Organisation, the Landscape and Forestry Section, and, from 1993, the Client Services section. There were only two heads of the Housing Department, Leslie Higgs from 1963-1982 as Housing and Social Relations Manager, and David Kelly from 1982-1991 as Chief Officer of Housing and Community Development.
When the Property Services Directorate was formed, David Kelly became its Director. Management of the Housing Department was then divided between George Webster, who was Head of Housing Development, and John Reid, who was Head of Housing Management.
Housing Development was responsible for the development of polices, the provision of briefs to the Corporation on modernisation and new build projects; the attraction of investment into private housing; the development of tenant participation strategies; the provision of advice to staff on the impact of new legislation, and to provide staff training; the monitoring of customer satisfaction; administrating and developing computer systems; and the provision of an advice service to tenants.
Housing Management provided face-to-face contact with tenants and were, in effect, estate managers. They managed the landlord-tenant relationship; allocated tenancies, managed transfers and maintained waiting lists; organised minor repairs to housing stock; investigated cases of arrears in rent payment, and gave advice about welfare and benefits.
When there was a focus on building new housing stock in the 1960s and early 1970s, the Housing Department was to advise the Corporation on street layouts and maintenance. When this focus changed to refurbishment and modernization in the 1980s, the department acted as a liaison point between the Corporation and residents' associations, so that residents' views on the necessary changes to the areas, especially in Knightsridge and Craigshill, were heard. .
In 1982, the Scottish Executive decided that there was an over-assignment of resources to tenancy management within Scottish Development Corporations as a whole. A report and White Paper followed in 1983. As a result there was a drive to diversify tenures within Scottish New Towns and to sell off housing stock to tenants, thus relieving the burden on housing staff. The Eliburn Tenant Management Co-operative is the primary example of this tenure diversification within the Livingston Development Corporation, but it did not affect the size of the department - employment in the Housing and Community Development Department rose from 32 in 1973, to 43 in 1980, to 64 in 1988, before declining towards the Wind-Up of the Corporation.
In 1994 Housing Associations were invited to run the Corporation's housing stock, supported by staff from the Housing Department, and using Corporation resources. This signalled the end of the housing Department as a significant housing management entity, instead it was to focus on monitoring the work of the Housing Associaitons.
When Property Services, and Housing, transferred to West Lothian Council in 1996, there was a ballot of housing tenants in order to determine their wishes as to the management of their properties: the tenants of Craighill, Howden and of sheltered housing opted to transfer to private landlords, whilst the rest chose West Lothian Council as their landlord. |
| ScopeandContent | All papers concerning the management of Corporation housing stock and the tenant-landlord relationship from the Corporation's inception in 1962, until its Wind-Up in 1997, arranged in the following 11 series:
1. The Department Management series comprises Annual Reports of the Housing and Social Relations mangers; minutes of senior staff meetings; correspondence with the Scottish Office; minutes of New Towns Housing Managers' Meetings; Housing Stock Development files; papers on the adminstrative organisation of the Housing Department; files on police liaison; files on legal issues relating to the housing department, that were ongoing at the time of Wind-Up, and some miscellaneous managment files on minor issues.
2. The Tenancy Management series comprises all policy, procedural and operational files relating to the management of Corporation tenants including: allocation of tenancies; the collection of rent; adminstration of housing benefit; samples of evictions; transfers and mutual exchanges; files concerning supported housing; files relating to the administration of the housing offices and housing visitors; and samples of forms and letters used by the housing department.
3. The Tenant Participation series comprises all files relating to the drive for tenure diversification within the New Town; the creation of residents and tenants associations; and the management of mixed tenure stock including all files relating to the Eliburn Tenant Management Co-operative, and all files relating to the Livingston Federation of Residents/Tenants' Associations.
4. The Sales of Property series comprises all files that concern the sales of housing property, which was not related to the Wind-Up of the corporation.
5. The Housing stock, Repairs and Refurbishment series comprises all files that detail the Housing Departments' involvement in maintaining and refurbishing Corporation housing stock, including the major refubrishment schemes of Craigshill and Knightsridge in the 1980s; issues related to condensation in houses, and kitchen refurbishment.
6. The Wind up of Housing Stock series comprises all papers relating to the strategy and disposal of Corporation housing assets prior to its effective Wind-Up in December 1996, including papers relating to the Housing Ballot held to determine who would replace the Corporation as landlord.
7. Housing Department adminstration contains files on the running of the housing department, and papers created by the planning and implementatation of a new computer system in the 1980s to help manage the housing stock.
8. The Local Authorities series comprises papers that were created by liaison between the Corporation's Housing Department and Lothian Regional Council and Lothian Distric Council on various issues, such as social work, and the Care in the Community Scheme.
9. The Street Naming and Numbering series comprises all papers relating to the Housing Department's involvement in the naming and numbering of streets in Livingston.
10. The Surveys and Audits series comprises the papers of Image Monitoring Group, and a miscellany of audits and surveys relating to housing and tenants' issues in Livingston
11. The Old houses acquired by the Livingston Development Corporation series comprises all files relating to the adminstration and maintenance of the old housing stock (i.e., houses not built by the corporation) acquired by the Development Corporation on its designation. |