Time to get all fired up

Whilst the recent media attention has been about which animal should be listed on the contents of beef-burgers and lasagne, the government has quietly taken the first steps in its proposals to privatise the fire services.

A letter from fire minister Brandon Lewis to the chair of the House of Commons Regulatory Reform Committee has revealed that the government is set to put forward proposals “that would enable fire and rescue authorities in England to contract out their full range of services to a suitable provider.”

This would mean that fire stations in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire and their control staff and firefighters could be employed and run by a private company. All services, including special rescue work, could be outsourced or privatized.

The minister is seeking to push the changes through the little-known Regulatory Reform Committee, which means that the proposals would avoid full Parliamentary scrutiny.

I have to say that I firmly oppose these proposals and the way in which the government is trying to slip them through without having to answer some difficult questions. Fire and rescue is an essential service which we all depend on for our safety and, sometimes, our lives. Private sector obligations to deliver profits for shareholders are completely incompatible with the ethos of the Fire and Rescue Service, which puts public safety first.

Local people need to have confidence that fire-fighting in our area is being run for public protection, not company profit. The Olympics provided a forceful lesson that private firms often cost more and deliver less than promised when they bid to take over public services.

How happy would you be to learn that your fire service had been outsourced to G4S, which had then sub-contracted the supplies of ladders to Bob’s Window Cleaners, fire engines to Kerbside Motors, and fire-fighters to ATOS?

Not a sure start

The last Labour government implemented a programme to try to ensure that every child gets the best start in life. More than 3,600 Sure Start Children’s Centres were developed offering permanent universal provision in every area in the country. Nearly 3 million young children and their families currently use these Centres, which include integrated early education and childcare, child and family health and support services, and links to employment services such as Jobcentre Plus and training providers.

Before the last general election, serious questions were raised about the political parties’ commitments to the Sure Start programme.

When challenged, David Cameron, Conservative Party Leader and now Prime Minister, said he was affronted that it was being suggested that the Conservatives didn’t support Sure Start and said “I want not just to repeat our commitment to keep Sure Start, but to set out how we will improve Sure Start.”

Liberal Democrat Leader, and now Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg said: “Sure Start is a really important programme that has made a real difference to millions of parents. Difficult decisions are going to have to be made in public spending, but Sure Start is one of the best things the last government has done and I want all these centres to stay open.”

Last month, the House of Commons Library confirmed that, since 2010, the Early Intervention Grant, which supports the funding of Sure Start had been cut by more than 40%. The cuts for each council range from 33% to 48%.

Councils with the highest levels of deprivation have already suffered the biggest cuts, and will suffer even bigger cuts over the next 3 years. Locally, the Early Intervention Grant allocation cuts between 2010/11 and 2013/14 are Barnsley – 45.6%, Doncaster - 46%, Rotherham - 46.4%, Sheffield -45.6%, Nottinghamshire – 42.8%, Derbyshire – 38.3%.

As a result, more than 400 Sure Start centres have already closed. Many more face closure or being required to make significant cuts in provision over the next year. 55% of centres already report that they have stopped providing on-site daycare.

When the coalition government is cutting Sure Start – in direct contradiction to the promises made – at the same time as it is giving millionaires a £100,000 tax cut, it is difficult to believe that it has its priorities right.

It’s a Smaller Society

We haven’t heard much from David Cameron recently about his flagship Big Society policy. Launched in 2009, and then a centre-piece of the Conservative 2010 general election manifesto, Big Society was meant to re-frame the relationship between the state, local communities and individuals.

Last month, Sir Stephen Bubb, speaking for the heads of Britain’s biggest charities, said that the Big Society idea was “effectively dead”. Actually, it’s even worse than that. Cameron’s coalition government seems to have been relentlessly pursuing policies that mean we’ll have a much smaller society than the one they inherited.

The government’s Work Programme was meant to be a shining example of the new type of relationship between the government and the voluntary sector. .As well as failing to meet any of its objectives, Bubb described it as a scheme where “reality is divorced from the rhetoric”.

The government promised that it would speed up payments to small businesses (SMEs) and charities. Yet, the latest data shows that late payments and the average time to pay against invoices have both increased.

Far from increasing support to charities and voluntary organizations, the government is planning massive cuts in financial support. Government spending on the sector will fall by £3.3bn between 2010 and 2015. The biggest fall will occur in 2015, when expenditure from local and central government sources is expected drop by almost £1.3bn in real terms compared with 2010 levels. Little wonder that about a half of all charities are predicting significant cuts in the services they provide and the number of employees and volunteers they have to deliver them.

The UK Giving Report, published in November, found that donations to charity have fallen to £9.3bn, down £1.7bn on 2010/11 (£11bn) in cash terms. That’s about a 20% cut in real terms. And the survey found that the proportion of people donating to charity is also falling.

And, despite the massive tax cuts being given to the highest earners, there’s no evidence to show that they are giving some of that to charity. In fact, the number of big charitable donations has fallen to the lowest level in 5 years.

We have a smaller society, and it’s getting smaller every day.

What has the government got against parents and children?

Changes to tax credits, maternity grants and child benefit this April and next mean that parents with 2 children will face a £1,700 cut in income – that’s about £33 a week.

Then, last week, despite David Cameron’s pre-election promise to “back Sure Start”, it was revealed that more than 400 Sure Start Children’s Centres have closed since 2010.It looks as though many more will close this year as the government’s cuts to local council finance start to bite.

There has already been a 40 per cent cut in the budget to train nursery staff, and more cuts are to come.

Now the government is proposing that the childcare staff:child ratios for two-year-olds be increased from 1:4 to 1:6, while the ratio for under-twos will rise from 1:3 to 1:4 in nurseries. The government’s own experts have said that the plans will threaten the quality of childcare, but not reduce costs or charges.

The government minister has been quoting the arrangements in France with approval. However, France spends proportionately more than the UK on childcare, and female employment is lower than in here. A recent study rated France lower than the UK for affordability, quality and availability of childcare. Further, standards of care in France have caused controversy with “young children often cared for by a rotating cast of characters and institutions within the same day.”

The vast majority of childminders have said that, if ratios were increased, the safety of children in their care would be compromised. They also said they would not charge parents less per hour.

When a similar plan was tried in Holland, it caused costs to rise both to parents and taxpayers – the government bill went up by a third - and quality fell.

It’s not surprising that just about every childcare organisation and expert has spoken out against these proposals.

Make sure you have your say, before it’s too late.

Going spare!

The government has decided to press ahead with its policy of cutting the housing benefit of any household deemed to have one or more spare bedrooms.

Most of the households who are going to be penalised are working households on low incomes. Typically, they will be families who occupy two- or three-bedroom homes but whose children have grown up and left home. Many of the families will have lived in their homes for many years, and it is the home to which their children and grand-children return on a regular basis.

Now, if they are deemed to be under-occupying, they are going to lose a fixed percentage of their Housing Benefit – 14% for one extra bedroom and 25% for two or more extra bedrooms.  The Government’s impact assessment shows that those affected will lose an average of £14 a week. Housing association tenants are expected to lose £16 a week on average.

More than 660,000 households are set to lose out from this measure across the UK.  The Government admits that many of the tenants who will lose out stand no chance of moving to a smaller home, because there isn’t one available. Even where one is available, the likelihood is that it will be miles from the current home.

There is likely to be a massive impact on the social support networks that families, friends and neighbours currently have. I well remember that when the then Conservative government forced up bus-fares in the 1980s, there was a huge increase in demand for home and social care – particularly for the elderly – as people found themselves unable to pay for the increased costs of visiting elderly relatives, often on a daily basis.

Many councils have had good schemes to help households who want to move to a smaller home to do so – some have even included incentives. But what the government is doing is miles away from this good practice. Expect increased arrears, increased homelessness, and a reduction in family and social care.

Protection not red tape

We face the biggest housing crisis in a generation.

House building is down. Homelessness is up. People struggle to get mortgages. We have a rapidly-growing private rented sector where too many lack security, have to pay ever-increasing rents, now at a record high, and suffer poor quality accommodation. Yet, the budget for affordable homes has been cut by 60%.

As a result of the growing housing crisis more and more people are locked out of home ownership and are coming to live in the private rented sector. Last year the private rented sector overtook the social rented sector for the first time in nearly half a century. There are now 3.6 million households in the private rented sector, including more than one million families with children.

Now the government is failing to protect tenants and landlords alike from unscrupulous letting agents. It has rescinded the plans for regulation which were backed by tenants, landlords and responsible agents. It is failing to tackle the confusing, inconsistent and opaque fees charged to tenants and landlords by letting and management agents. It is failing to protect tenants from rogue landlords and raise standards in the sector by not implementing the plans for compulsory written tenancy agreements and a national register for landlords.

There are more than 4,000 managing and letting agents that are entirely unregulated - in that they don’t even belong to voluntary bodies which encourage a responsible approach to letting and management practice. And, bizarrely, while estate agents, who hold very little money on behalf of their clients, are regulated, letting agents who hold significant sums on behalf of landlords and tenants are not.

Citizens Advice Bureaux found that 73 per cent of tenants they surveyed were dissatisfied with the service provided by their letting agent, and that a significant number of people have difficulties contacting agents, and suffer serious delays in getting repairs.

A report by Which?, “Renting Roulette”, letting agents ranked second from bottom across 50 consumer markets.

In Opposition the current Housing Minister, Mark Prisk, backed regulating letting agents. Now he calls basic protections for tenants and landlords “bureaucracy and red-tape”...

It’s time for action to protect good tenants, agents and landlords and to drive out the rogues.

Waiting, waiting……..

People are entitled to make their own judgement on David Cameron’s assertion that the NHS is safe with the Conservatives. However, his government’s mid-term review confirmed, as a matter of fact, that he had broken his promise to maintain the NHS budget.

The uncomfortable reality is that thousands of patients in England are being denied treatment and kept off NHS waiting lists because of new government restrictions on cataracts, hip and knee surgery and other serious treatments. Astonishingly, Ministers have boasted of lower waiting lists for these treatments, but neglect to say that this is because they have stopped people getting on the waiting lists in the first place.

Since 2010, there has been a 20% increase in the number of people waiting more than 18 weeks for treatment, and the number of people waiting more than 4 hours for treatment in Accident and Emergency departments has doubled. Unsurprisingly, the NHS has now missed its A&E target for 15 weeks in a row.

The 7000 fewer nurses has undoubtedly contributed to the increasing numbers of both cancelled operations and postponed outpatient appointments. Nearly a quarter of outpatient appointments are now being cancelled and changed to a later date.

After a decade of progress and investment in cancer care, there was a decrease in spending on cancer services last year with further decreases this year and next. Just as worrying is that the collaboration between all parts of the NHS, essential to tackling cancer, is now being fragmented under the government’s massive top-down reorganization. Yes, another broken promise.

Unfortunately for Mr Cameron, he can’t increase the length of pregnancies. So his failure to keep another promise – to recruit 3000 more midwives – has meant that midwives are now delivering more, rather than fewer, babies than they were in 2010.

In all areas of public service, we are seeing massive transfers of funds from the poorest to the wealthiest parts of England; this is most obvious in the local government finance settlement. The government also wanted to do this with NHS funds. Fortunately, in December, the NHS Commissioning Board refused to comply, saying “this would have moved resources from areas where people sadly have worse health outcomes to those where people have much better outcomes. It’s hard to see how that fits with our mission.”

But watch this space. The government isn’t giving up.

The Sontaran

I was delighted by the Dr Who Christmas episode.

The Sontaran reminded me of Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. I’m not referring to his appearance – it’s the way he responds to questions.

A Sontaran's weak spot is the "probic vent" at the back of the neck, through which they draw nutrition. Mr Pickles’s behaviour seems to be driven by a similar weak spot - he doesn’t want facts to get in the way of the story. However, no-one should under-estimate how he can whip up the tabloid media to believe that, if only council officers travelled 2^nd class on the train, there would be no need for any service cuts.

When the Secretary of State, and his Ministers, appeared in front of the CLG Select Committee recently, I asked him ‘How many [councils] actually are moving back from an alternate weekly collection of general household refuse to a weekly collection?’

He took us on a long journey through his views on the issue without answering the question. It took a series of supplementaries before we got to the answer. From a fund of £250m, removed from the revenue support grant for all authorities, just one council is moving back from alternate collection to the weekly collection of general household refuse.

So, not only is there a complete failure in his stated policy objective – ‘it’s everyone’s human right to have their bin collected weekly’ - but it will be at the expense of local services which are valued much higher.

When I asked him whether he joined ‘with your Permanent Secretary in being what the Local Government Chronicle called a "doom denier"?’, his response was to suggest that ‘given that you are quoting from the Local Government Chronicle, that is almost like quoting from a Labour press release and that the ‘graph of doom’ was a ‘Malthusian fantasy.’

All good knock-about stuff – conveniently ignoring the fact that ‘doom-denier’ was coined by a Liberal Democrat and the ‘graph of gloom’ came from a Conservative London Borough. More worrying, of course, was his view that his ‘modest changes’ will have little impact upon local government services and local communities.

Perhaps it’s that disregard for the facts which allowed him to assert, in his statement on the Local Government Settlement, that ‘councils’ spending power would be cut by 1.7%’ * when the reality is that council funding will be cut 4% next year ands 9% in 2014/15, and that local government will be cut by more than 33% in the current spending review compared to the promised 28%.

Unfortunately, Mr Pickles’ approach has also been adopted by his Ministers. Last year, the then Minister of Housing, Grant Shapps, told us that this government should be judged by whether it achieved building 200,000+ homes a year.

As the number of new housing starts has fallen again, the new Housing Minister, Mark Prisk, simply recast the 200,000+ homes as an aspiration, saying that ‘we have no intention of having the old Soviet-style central targets.’

I’m now totally lost as to whether this government is in favour of targets or not, and I rather suspect that it doesn’t know either.

Targets still appear in different ways. On homelessness, David Cameron had said "I think that it is simply a disgrace that in the fifth-biggest economy in the world that we have people homeless, people sleeping on the streets, sofa-surfers, people in hospitals" in 2008.

But, homelessness has risen relentlessly since 2010. Statutory homelessness, where families without a roof over their head are accepted by their local council as homeless, has risen by nearly a third since the general election. There are now more than 75,000 children living in temporary accommodation. There has been a near 200% increase in the number of families in bed and breakfast accommodation for more than 6 weeks.

Yet when asked the direct question ‘can you assure the Committee that these figures are going to start to fall’, Mr Pickles told us that ‘Nobody in modern-day Britain should sleep on the roads or under the arches, and nobody should find themselves exploited in someone’s back-garden potting shed’.

I agree. But I’ve no more confidence that homelessness will fall than I have in promises to ensure that everyone will have their bin collected weekly or that we will see 200,000 homes a year being built by 2015.

The Sontarans are with us.

This article first appeared in the Local Government Chronicle at:

http://www.lgcplus.com/briefings/desperately-seeking-straight-answers/5053216.article?blocktitle=Views-from-the-panel&contentID=2341

* Since I wrote the article, it has been confirmed that the ‘average 1.7% cut in councils’ spending power in 2013/14’ asserted by Eric Pickles, both in Parliament and in the media, considerably understates the cuts because the Department for Communities and Local Government had double-counted some elements of the Local Government Financial Settlement.

It’s criminal

The last Conservative government, under John Major and Michael Howard, cut frontline policing and we had a massive increase in crime.

Tony ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ Blair invested heavily in both increasing the number of police and modernising the way it operated. The Labour government also introduced new laws to tackle anti-social behaviour. The result? Between 1997 and 2010, crime fell by more than 40%.

Six months ago, the government’s own advisers on policing - Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) - published its own assessment of the impact on policing, nationally and locally, of the coalition government’s policies. With a 20% (£2bn) cut in police budgets, it predicted that, nationally, a minimum of 15,000 police officers would be cut by 2015.

7000 frontline police officers have already been lost in the last 2 years. Despite this, David Cameron promised that police would be more visible and more accessible. However, the government’s own statistics show that ‘visibility’ has fallen by 5% over the last year.

As well as the cuts in policing, there are also huge cuts to come in ‘community safety’ – where local communities come together with their local councils, local police and other agencies to work together to cut crime. Bizarrely, the government is also weakening the tools for communities and the police to deal with anti-social behaviour.

The Home Secretary, Theresa May, is proposing to scrap Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) and replace them with a weaker alternative that doesn’t result in a criminal record if the person repeatedly breaches it. She is also proposing that no action should be taken – by the police or by councils – on a complaint about anti-social behaviour until there are 3 separate complaints, or complaints from 5 different households.

This is ridiculous. It’s little wonder that community groups and local police officers despair and describe the government as ‘out of touch’. ASBOs aren’t perfect, but they should be improved, not weakened. People should not have to wait until they have complained 3 times to get a response to an anti-social behaviour complaint – the response needs to be swift to nip it in the bud.

The government’s proposals aren’t just daft; they’re criminal.

Cameron's Big Society and One Nation both dead

This week, the heads of Britain’s biggest charities accused David Cameron of abandoning the voluntary sector he once championed as the heart of his Big Society project. 

They say that they have been left out of policy consultations and had their funding slashed. They say that the vulnerable people for whom they care are having state help eroded and are being labelled as benefit scroungers. 

Their frustration has grown as charities have been left out of the Government’s latest reforms, such as the Work Programme, designed to push those on benefits back into employment. The “payment by results” scheme, which has had disappointing outcomes, is now largely run by the private sector.
So, the Big Society is already dead. But, it’s also clear that Cameron and Clegg’s claim to be adopting a One Nation approach to our economic, environmental and social challenges is also deceased. The Government’s approach on welfare has shown them to be more interested in exploiting the challenges the country faces than solving them.

It has looked to divide the country by dishonestly claiming that their welfare policies are targeting the work-shy and benefit ‘scroungers’. But in the weeks since the Autumn Statement the truth has emerged that it’s striving families doing the right thing that are paying the price of their economic failure. It’s working families that are paying the price of their economic failure. Two-thirds of people hit by the cuts to tax credits and benefits in the Autumn Statement are in work, whereas £3bn is being given in tax cuts to the highest paid.

Perhaps the charities should ask David Cameron to approach each of the 8000+ millionaires, to whom he is giving an average £107,000 tax cut, and request them to donate that towards providing some assistance to the rapidly increasing number of working families who are becoming homeless or visiting food-banks or will simply struggle to pay the bills?