SCA appoints complaints tsar but the lies persist

Strata Community Association has announced the appointment of an independent complaints tsar, in the wake of the scandal over Netstrata’s exposure for charging secret commissions for insurance policies.

But, despite the recently exposed shameful exploitation of unwary strata owners through undeclared insurance commissions, and its claims that it’s cleaning up its act, SCA still carries the fundamental misinformation on its website that it is the main organisation representing strata owners and tenants.

“Strata Community Association (SCA) is the peak body in Australia and New Zealand for … Lot Owners, Tenants and Stakeholders living in Strata Title, Body Corporate, Community Title or Owners Corporations,” (our emphasis) it says at the top of its home page. 

This is simply not true, as the Netstrata scandal has proved (if proof were required).  Yet SCA persists in this calumny despite numerous complaints and its claimed new-found fervour for honesty, integrity and transparency.

The peak body for owners in NSW and Victoria is the Owners Corporation Network  (OCN) and in Queensland it’s the Unit Owners Association (UOAQ).  The peak body for tenants across the states is the Tenants Union.

All that aside, coinciding with NSW Fair Trading’s announcement of proposed laws to crack down on errant strata managers, their professional body has announced the appointment Stephen Phillips as the new independent chair of the committee handling complaints against SCA members.

“Mr Phillips appointment delivers in a very timely fashion one of SCA’s steps in its Six Steps to Ensure Confidence, underlining the commitment SCA has to improving practice and outcomes in the strata sector,’ SCA said in a press release.

‘With over two decades of distinguished experience as a Non-Executive Director and Senior Executive, including CEO roles, Stephen brings an unparalleled wealth of expertise in leadership, governance, and strategic oversight across various sectors,” the SCA said.

SCA Australasia CEO Alisha Fisher said Mr Philips’ appointment reinforced SCA Australasia’s commitment to raising standards and improving practices among its members and delivering on its Six-Step Plan commitment.

“The appointment of Stephen Phillips realises one of the goals of our Six Step Plan to Ensure Confidence – giving consumers and members more faith in the robustness of our member Code of Conduct and complaints process,” she said.

“Any person at any time can contact SCA through our process and make a complaint against an SCA member and know that an independent person will evaluate and action their complaint as appropriate.

“SCA has taken the ABC media coverage of Netstrata and the subsequent criticisms of the strata sector very seriously, and we’ve engaged with the overwhelming majority of stakeholders both within and outside the sector in the time since the report,” said Ms Fisher.

“We know how many great strata managers and strata industry professionals are out there, working hard for their committees and delivering brilliant outcomes to the strata communities they manage year after year.

“But what we also know is that there are some strata professionals falling short of that mark, which is why we formulated our six-step plan for reinforce confidence in the industry.

“We’ve been incredibly busy over the past three or so months implementing our plan and have made significant progress, or fulfilled each of the six steps.

“Our hope is that consumers can gain confidence by seeing that SCA members are held to a higher standards through an enforceable Code of Conduct with an independent Chair, through levels of disclosure and transparency that go beyond state and territory legislation and by taking advantage of SCA advice, training and best practice resources.

“We want to see our actions lifting standards throughout the industry, not just to the SCA members that these steps apply to,” Ms Fisher said.

SCA Australasia’s “Six Steps to Ensure Confidence” include:

• Fast-tracking the date for SCA members to implement the mandatory Insurance Disclosure Guide to June 30.
• Appointing the independent Chair for the SCA Australasia complaints and conduct panel.
• Allocating additional resources and improved accessibility to the SCA Australasia complaints process.
• Producing a rigorous best practice guideline that clearly addresses conflicts of interest in the strata sector and other disclosures, outside of insurance.
• Offering additional support for SCA member businesses to have access to appropriate resources, advice and training to improve practice where identified.
• Supporting the SCA (NSW)  independent review g. SCA Australasia is supporting SCA (NSW) with their initiatives.

SCA Australasia says it encourage members and strata committees to visit its website, review the Code of Conduct and its independent complaints management process, and reach out with any enquiries by contacting admin@strata.community.

All of which is fine and dandy until you go to the website and discover that they are still falsely claiming to be the peak body representing owners and tenants.

They may be putting their house in order now that they’ve been caught with their pants down, but with friends like the SCA, strata owners and residents don’t need any enemies.