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Archive for June, 2010

The impact of the emergency budget on Newham

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

Emergency Budget There has been so much macro-analysis of the emergency budget this week that we wanted to see how it will impact on local people in the London borough of Newham where we work. It’s difficult to analyse the changes as they are going to be introduced over the next few years, and we won’t see the detail until the 20th October when the Comprehensive Spending Review is published.

Newham has worked hard to get off the bottom of the league tables when it comes to multiple deprivation, but we have seen the consequences of the recession over the last two years as demand for our services has soared – those seeking debt advice have doubled, and those seeking employment support have tripled in last 18 months.

So here’s a snapshot of what these changes mean for local people in east London.

Benefits and Tax Credits

  • The three year freeze (should read ‘cut in real terms’) of Child Benefit will affect 41,035 families in Newham who receive Child Benefit (a total of 79,320 children), a powerful tool in the fight against child poverty. Newham has one of the youngest populations in the country so we will be affected disproportionately.
  • We welcome the increase of Child Tax Credit by an extra £150 per year. This will help the 38,600 Newham families who are currently in receipt of Child or Working Tax Credits (highest take-up in London) offset the cuts of their Child Benefit.
  • Even though the government cut the free schools initiative being trialled (very successfully) in Newham and other boroughs, we are heartened to hear of Newham Council’s commitment to continue with it anyway.
  • A total of 1,910 people (18.8% of those on JSA) have been claiming JSA for longer than 12 months in Newham, many of whom we help back into work through our very successful employment programmes. We recently submitted a paper to DWP proposing how the new Work Programme must be designed so that it doesn’t leave behind those who most need its support – read a copy here.
  • We are concerned about the Housing Benefit being withdrawn from people on Jobseekers Allowance after 12 months. Particularly if at this point they have to go on the compulsory Work Programme. It’s contradictory and may lead to a massive increase in homelessness, debt or cash-in-hand work.
  • Key out-of-work benefits are claimed by 30,440 residents   (18.3% of the local population). Through delivering an advice service to 9,000 people each year and our research and campaigning work we know that fundamental reform of the benefit system is an absolute imperative. So we were heartened to hear that changes are underway, including work incentives which we’ve been lobbying for. We look forward to working with DWP over the summer as it prepares a new Welfare Reform Bill.

Housing
Current LHA rates for Newham top out at £350 for a 5-bedroom house, so Newham residents won’t be affected by the cap.

Tax
We welcome the government following up on one of our policy recommendations to increase the personal tax allowance threshold. This latest increase to £7,475 will take about 10,500 local residents out of the tax system (15.8% of Newham’s working age population), putting more money into the pockets of those who need it most.

However the VAT increases will adversely affect those poorest in our society. The richest 10% spend £1 in every £25 of their income on VAT. The poorest 10% spend £1 in £7.

Jobs
Where are the jobs? The assumption in the budget is that the private sector will fill the deficit by providing more jobs. And that it will be easier for people on benefits to move into work. But again where are the jobs now?

  • In Newham there are 46 jobs for every 100 people of working age. Compared to 94 for London, and 83 nationally. In other words, people either don’t work, or have to travel outside the borough for work.
  • Nine JSA claimants are competing for each unfilled job vacancy in Newham, compared with a national average of 5:1. And there are 10,196 people are claiming JSA in Newham. That’s an awful lot of competition from just one of the 33 boroughs in London.
  • The types of work available to people in Newham are in the service sector (representing 89.9% of all jobs in the borough). Often insecure and temporary (32% are part time), low paid (21% get paid less than £7 an hour) and low skilled (24.2% fail to reach level 4 at Key Stage 2 – average of English and Maths).

Public Sector
Newham residents rely more heavily upon their public services than other more affluent areas. Some local services are already at bursting point as demand outstrips supply. When these are cut where will local people turn to?

  • 36% of jobs in Newham are in the public sector (top 10% in the country). Newham Council has already had to cut £30million (c.7%) from this year’s budget. However if we are to see departmental cuts of 25% over the course of this parliament and a council tax freeze, how may of these jobs will go in Newham? Public sector funding also supports a diverse voluntary sector, delivering a wide range of services. The prospect of 25% cuts is not good for those who work in the sector, or for those they support.

It’s early days to see how this budget will actually impact on local people in east London. But we do know that as belts have tightened in the past it has often been those with least that suffer most. Let’s hope this coalition government’s rhetoric of fairness and support for the most vulnerable actually plays out into reality.

The consultation process for the Comprehensive Spending Review should be launched today (24th June) and the timetable runs through to the autumn – so get involved, we will be.

Note: Current data sources have been used where possible, and can be provided upon request.

Posted in Benefits, Child Poverty, General, Housing, Informal Economy, Welfare, Working age poverty, debt, employment | 2 Comments »

Refugee and Migrant Justice – a dangerous sign of things to come in welfare reform?

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Tuesday’s news that Refugee and Migrant Justice has gone into administration is devastating for tens of thousands of asylum seekers and vulnerable migrants who rely on their expert services every year, and a chilling taste of what might be to come, unless the new government quickly learns some lessons.

Under reforms introduced to the legal aid system, providers are not fully paid until a case is closed. In complex asylum cases this can take several years, but in the meantime charities like Refugee and Migrant Justice still have to pay their 300 expert staff, cover their rent, and keep going. Since charities rarely have assets, they find it very hard to secure commercial bridging loans in the way a business might, leaving them incredibly vulnerable.

RMJ says they are owed over £2m by the Ministry of Justice, £2m that they cannot find from other sources, and £2m that has forced them into administration. They are the largest supplier of vital legal assistance to asylum seekers and vulnerable migrants, they have done excellent work, they’re just not getting paid for it in time. And the victims, alongside RMJ’s staff, will be those who have already suffered the most, those who are often fleeing victimisation in other countries, the most vulnerable. The most vulnerable, who all governments pledge to protect, but who are often those most cruelly let down.

Fast forward 2 years, and there is a dangerously similar story emerging in welfare reform. Government is planning to move to a ‘payment by results’ model whereby providers of back-to-work services are only paid in full once someone has in a job for a year. Community Links is the most successful back-to-work provider in London and the South East, but we certainly couldn’t afford to be £2m out of pocket. We specialise in helping those who have been out of work for a long time, often among the most vulnerable, those who government has pledged to protect.

Iain Duncan Smith has indicated that he’s aware of the importance of ensuring charities like ours can take part in the new system, but until we see the details of how that will happen, we remain worried. That’s why earlier this week we sent this short briefing paper to Duncan Smith and others, outlining how we felt the new Work Programme should be structured.

RMJ’s plight is a disgrace, and government should be doing all it can to ensure RMJ can continue its vital work. But as importantly, government must learn from the experience, so other charities are not forced into the same situation in the future.

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Posted in General, Welfare, employment | No Comments »

How to run a farm, according to Community Links

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

Click to enlarge

There’s a simple formula running through the diversity of projects we run at Community Links. Whether it’s young people making music videos or playing football, pensioners enjoying a game of bingo, or most recently families looking round a farm, that common theme is that we’re building communities. Bringing people together to enjoy an activity, but perhaps more importantly, providing the space, the time, and the encouragement for people to meet and get on, for community to grow and society to become richer.

That was the theory behind us taking on, at the start of the year, responsibility for Newham City Farm. For the next 20 years it is ours to develop into a true community hub. Yes, part of the aim is to give children the chance to see where milk comes from. But even more important, to us, is the chance to strengthen a local community. And if it takes some piglets and horses to get people together, that’s absolutely fine.

We already run a children’s playscheme and part of our school provision from there, and farm manager Theresa regularly hosts Community Links volunteers who help out around the place, most recently by building the beginnings of a market garden, with which we hope to raise money for Community Links.

But we have ambitious plans. If you click on the picture above, you should find a large map of the current site, with all the changes we’re proposing. Please do let us know what you think, or if you can help. They are only provisional, but they do begin to give an idea of the scale of our ambition.

There’s a simple formula running through the diversity of projects we run at Community Links. Whether it’s young people making music videos or playing football, pensioners enjoying a game of bingo, or most recently families looking round a farm, that common theme is that we’re building communities. Bringing people together to enjoy an activity, but perhaps more importantly, providing the space, the time, and the encouragement for people to meet and get on, for community to grow and society to become richer.

That was the theory behind us taking on, at the start of the year, responsibility for Newham City Farm. For the next 20 years it is ours to develop into a true community hub. Yes, part of the aim is to give children the chance to see where milk comes from. But even more important, to us, is the chance to strengthen a local community. And if it takes some piglets and horses to get people together, that’s absolutely fine.

We already run a children’s playscheme and part of our school provision from there, and farm manager Theresa regularly hosts Community Links volunteers who help out around the place, most recently by building the beginnings of a market garden, with which we hope to raise money for Community Links.

But we have ambitious plans. If you click on the picture above, you should find a large map of the current site, with all the changes we’re proposing. Please do let us know what you think, or if you can help. They are only provisional, but they do begin to give an idea of the scale of our ambition.

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Posted in General | No Comments »

Being Poor and Being Powerless

Monday, June 14th, 2010

Henry Tam Henry Tam is Visiting Professor at Birkbeck College, University of London. He has written extensively on the subject of democratic citizenship, and actively championed the development of inclusive communities. In this guest blog post he outlines the analysis from his recent book Against Power Inequalities.

If in the land of the blind, the one-eye man is king, then in the realm of trillionaires, even those with merely a millionaire status would languish at the bottom of the heap. Power – visual power, purchasing power, military power – whatever form it takes, is inherently relative. It makes no sense to talk about someone being powerful or not without making a comparison with someone else’s ability to make things happen. And since poverty is in essence about the lack of power, we should never lose sight of the need to combat it by limiting the concentration of power in those who can already pretty much do what they want.

Yet, it is not an uncommon suggestion that people should not worry about what others have got. Perhaps the visibly wretched should be given clothes, shelter and food. But beyond that, we are often told; people should look after their own needs and leave others to get on with their lives. Where they have a common interest in cooperating, they can voluntarily do so; otherwise just let people mind their own business. This sanguine outlook has one critical flaw. It ignores what entrepreneurs have tirelessly demanded as the level playing field, or diplomats have for centuries sought as the balance of power – in short, a power structure where no one has a predominant capacity to subdue, intimidate, marginalise, or take unfair advantage over others.

If we really care about helping the poor, the powerless, all those who are vulnerable to the whims and commands of others, then we need to make sure they can stand up to the powerful. In my new book, Against Power Inequalities, I look back on history and find that over centuries, across the world, a similar pattern emerges with those in powerful positions seeking to strengthen their grip even further by constantly changing the rules in their favour, and progress in making communities more inclusive only achieved when reformists and citizens have managed to redistribute power more fairly. Along the way, there are of course many twists and turns. Some claim to fight for the powerless and end up just grabbing power for themselves. Others express deep concern for the poor while they consolidate economic arrangements which will continue to benefit the rich at the expense of everyone else. But sustained change for the better is possible.

We are not talking about some utopian end point, but a constant effort to moderate excesses. The civil service has now been told that its highest earners should not be earning 20 times or more than the lowest. The same message needs to be repeated for society at large – at present, the top 10% in the UK have 100 times more wealth than the bottom 10%. At the global level, the challenge is even more severe. The richest 1% of adults own 40% of the world’s assets, while the bottom 50% barely own 1% of the world’s wealth.

To adapt the homily about not just giving a hungry man a fish, but teaching him the art of fishing, there is no point in teaching him how to fish if he is unable to stop the multinational fleet of trawlers taking away the entire fish stock.

Henry Tam’s new book, Against Power Inequalities, provides a short guide to the contest for power redistribution across the centuries, and draws out the underlying causes of disempowerment which are still with us today.  It is available for  free download from the Equality Trust, or from Henry Tam’s own blog Question the Powerful.

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Posted in Community Engagement, Research | No Comments »

The Big Society in poor communities

Monday, June 7th, 2010

A year or so ago I was travelling around the country interviewing people to feature in an Oxfam report looking at the vital and overlooked contributions people on low incomes make to society (I was so impressed by one of my visits, to Community Links, that I soon applied for a job here).

It has finally made its way to publication, and is well worth a read. As I’ve said in a blog post for Oxfam, it takes on the myth that low income equals low contribution, that benefit claimant equals scrounger. It shows that the Big Society is flourishing in some of the poorest communities, something we know to our advantage at Community Links. In the last three years we have benefited from 82,000 hours of volunteering, most of it from local residents.

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Posted in Attitudes, Volunteering | No Comments »

First thoughts on Frank Field’s review on poverty and life chances

Monday, June 7th, 2010

http://comlinks.beepweb.co.uk/linksuk/wp-content/images/FrankFieldMP.jpgWe were  pleased to hear the PM announce plans for a new review on poverty and life chances, led by Frank Field, and considering, amongst other aims how to develop services that “nurture children”.

He will:

  • examine the case for reforms to poverty measures, in particular for the inclusion of non-financial elements
  • generate a broader debate about the nature and extent of poverty in the UK
  • explore the effect of a child’s home environment
  • recommend potential action by government and other institutions to reduce poverty and enhance life chances for the least advantaged.

We will be blogging on other aspects of the review in the weeks ahead but note now Fields specific commitments to consider how grass roots groups can transform children’s lives, to learn from others and to producing an action programme.  He told the BBC: “I hope we will have a programme of action, …which the government can actually act on. ……I don’t think we need lots of brilliant new ideas, lots of people have done work, we now need to bring that together and shape it in a way which leads to action.”

With the right community interventions at an early stage we could be doing much more to enable all children to fulfil their potential.   We know some of what works. We do it everyday at Community Links across a network of more than 60 projects in East London and it isn’t rocket science.  Its warm and friendly places where young people can be safe and free to play and learn and grow. Its committed and empathetic staff  that children can trust and respect and it’s the deep value relationships that grow from reliable and constant understanding between service user and provider.

When we were reviewing the Council on Social Action’s unfinished business  before the election we suggested to party leaders  that  a national community support strategy for children and young people, rooted in such approaches,  should be a priority for the new government.  We advised that an effective independent  contribution to developing such a strategy would learn from the successful working process of the Council  and would combine advice and recommendations to government with  concurrent, cross sector action on the ground.  Above all it would seek to understand and, where appropriate, support and develop existing good practice.

The brief for the Field review is not quite the same and as yet we don’t know exactly how it will work but there are clearly many connections. We particularly welcome  the positive commitment to learning from what works and to generating a practical action programme.

We look forward to contributing to the learning and, especially, to the action.

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Posted in Child Poverty, Council on Social Action, Welfare, Working age poverty, debt | 2 Comments »

Volunteers Week: celebrating our volunteering stars.

Friday, June 4th, 2010

This week (June 1-7) is Volunteers Week and provides the perfect opportunity to take time to thank all the wonderful volunteers who give their time to help others.

Community Links provides volunteers with the opportunity to make a meaningful difference for others while gaining practical experience, skills and insights for themselves. This is why hundreds of volunteers get involved in all areas of our work. As a multipurpose organization we have all sorts of volunteering opportunities including activities with children and young people, filling in complex forms with clients of our Welfare Rights Advice team , providing research for our policy and campaigning work and all sorts of tasks alongside Senior Management as well as our Trustee board.

We have individual volunteers coming to work on a specific session, longer term interns working on a particular project and volunteer groups from our corporate supporters. Our friends in the city – our corporate volunteers – may come to us and undertake a volunteering challenge or run a team building workshop or they may engage disadvantaged young people at Community Links and give them the opportunity to visit company offices for extensive workshops on CV, interview and presentation skills, helping to break down barriers and raise aspirations amongst the young people to achieve their full potential.

Whichever way we work together volunteers make an enormous difference to the work we do, over the last three years we have benefited from almost 82,000 hours of volunteer time – that equates to about nine years and four months of one person’s time, 24 hours a day.  But the true value is not measured simply in the hours spent – it is often the one-to-one human contact between someone with the time to spend taking an interest in a person who needs a little support. Sometimes setting up and running a pensioners tea-dance, taking a group of children to the zoo for the first time, mentoring a young person struggling with school – or just having fun together can bring significant brightness to another person’s life.

We believe that everyone has the potential to do great things and that sometimes all people need is a little bit of help to feel empowered to take the next step. We have many members of staff working with us who first began as volunteers and we’d  like to think about how we can progress and develop volunteers over time by referring them to different Community Links projects to gain relevant experience, helping them to gain access to appropriate training and accreditation to gain relevant qualifications and ultimately enable them to secure employment as a result of their valuable volunteer experience.

We are grateful to all the volunteers who support our work and the work of other community groups and voluntary sector agencies. It is heartening to think of so many “willing citizens” volunteering to help others  “not because they are forced from without but because they are compelled from within” as we said in our report on the many forms of community involvement Willing Citizens and the Making of the Good Society.

If  you want to get involved with out work as a volunteer have a look at our website and please get in touch you will be made very welcome.

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Posted in Community Engagement, Inspiration, Volunteering | 1 Comment »

There is no way round it, the Big Society still needs money

Friday, June 4th, 2010

Our CEO Geraldine Blake has written a piece for the Guardian showing that for work like ours, money is going to be just as necessary in an age of cuts, but that we might have to find more innovative ways to get it. The East London Bond, which will benefit Community Links and another outstanding east London organisation, the Bromley by Bow centre, is a great example.

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Posted in News | No Comments »