Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Funders' friend - Third Sector
Funders' friend - Third Sector
Funders' friend
By Andy Ricketts, Third Sector, 14 March 2007
Swain: 'Charities must respond to stakeholders' (Credit: Newscast)
Jeremy Swain, chief executive of Thames Reach, takes issue with Charity Commission's warning about risks to independence.
Jeremy Swain has some real scars to show for his time working in the homelessness sector. Early in his career, the chief executive of the London-based homelessness charity Thames Reach was assaulted by a man in the hostel in King's Cross, central London, where he worked.
A heroin addict who couldn't find a hostel resident he wanted to beat up took out his frustration on Swain's face. Four stitches, a broken nose and a few less teeth later, Swain had learned a tough lesson about life on the front line.
SWAIN CV
2001 Chief executive, Thames Reach
1988 Housing services manager, Thames Reach
1984 Street outreach worker, Thames Reach
1981 Hostel worker, Intake Hostel, King's Cross, London
1980 Full-time volunteer, Cyrenians
But that incident doesn't appear to have dulled Swain's appetite for speaking his mind. He is forthright in his criticism of the speech by Charity Commission chair Dame Suzi Leather last month, in which she warned that charities risked losing their independence from their funders (Third Sector, 21 February).
"It is quite dangerous if organisations don't respond to stakeholders," says Swain, whose charity receives 71 per cent of its £18m income from statutory sources. "The danger of what she is saying is that it suggests you have all the answers and no one can challenge that. But funders have some very good ideas. The sector often starts with the assumption, which we know in our hearts is wrong, that we always know what is best for our beneficiaries."
Bitter experience has taught Swain the perils of organisations not listening to outside advice: he points to the example of two charities that Thames Reach has taken over. "The governing boards had cut themselves off from outside criticism," he says. "They put themselves in a bunker and the organisations began to spiral down.
"Of course the board should take the final decision. But it has to make sure the organisation is financially viable, and it has to do that with funders."
Leather's warning, a reaction to a commission survey of 3,800 charities, was billed as a "wake-up call" to the sector, but Swain fears it could have the opposite effect on some charities.
"Only 26 per cent feel free from pressure from funders," he says. "Far from picking out that 26 per cent as angels, I think they need to shape up.
"Suggesting they need to maintain their independence is music to their ears. That is so far away from the reality of where we are now. Rather than being a wake-up call, it is a call to roll over and have another lie-in."
Swain is also unhappy with the methodology used by the commission for the survey. "It is one of the most flawed reports I have seen for a long time," he says.
The conclusions drawn from the survey are unsound, he claims. One - about board members' involvement in operational decisions - particularly concerns him.
He says: "Do boards want to get involved in areas of activity that are quite small? No. From this, the commission extrapolated that it's the big organisations that are at most risk of mission drift and losing their independence. That is a completely biased way of looking at the question."
Swain says charities should focus on getting funding on a mainstream footing, and points to the success of homelessness charities in securing funding to tackle rough sleeping.
"We got government to accept that these were public services in need of funding," he says. And that, he insists, should be celebrated.
Swain is philosophical about how to manage relationships with funders.
"Let's ask funders some simple questions," he says. "What do you like about what we are doing? What can we do differently? We do not have to use that, but we think the people that fund us have a pretty good idea of how to meet the needs of those people we are supporting."
Funders' friend
By Andy Ricketts, Third Sector, 14 March 2007
Swain: 'Charities must respond to stakeholders' (Credit: Newscast)
Jeremy Swain, chief executive of Thames Reach, takes issue with Charity Commission's warning about risks to independence.
Jeremy Swain has some real scars to show for his time working in the homelessness sector. Early in his career, the chief executive of the London-based homelessness charity Thames Reach was assaulted by a man in the hostel in King's Cross, central London, where he worked.
A heroin addict who couldn't find a hostel resident he wanted to beat up took out his frustration on Swain's face. Four stitches, a broken nose and a few less teeth later, Swain had learned a tough lesson about life on the front line.
SWAIN CV
2001 Chief executive, Thames Reach
1988 Housing services manager, Thames Reach
1984 Street outreach worker, Thames Reach
1981 Hostel worker, Intake Hostel, King's Cross, London
1980 Full-time volunteer, Cyrenians
But that incident doesn't appear to have dulled Swain's appetite for speaking his mind. He is forthright in his criticism of the speech by Charity Commission chair Dame Suzi Leather last month, in which she warned that charities risked losing their independence from their funders (Third Sector, 21 February).
"It is quite dangerous if organisations don't respond to stakeholders," says Swain, whose charity receives 71 per cent of its £18m income from statutory sources. "The danger of what she is saying is that it suggests you have all the answers and no one can challenge that. But funders have some very good ideas. The sector often starts with the assumption, which we know in our hearts is wrong, that we always know what is best for our beneficiaries."
Bitter experience has taught Swain the perils of organisations not listening to outside advice: he points to the example of two charities that Thames Reach has taken over. "The governing boards had cut themselves off from outside criticism," he says. "They put themselves in a bunker and the organisations began to spiral down.
"Of course the board should take the final decision. But it has to make sure the organisation is financially viable, and it has to do that with funders."
Leather's warning, a reaction to a commission survey of 3,800 charities, was billed as a "wake-up call" to the sector, but Swain fears it could have the opposite effect on some charities.
"Only 26 per cent feel free from pressure from funders," he says. "Far from picking out that 26 per cent as angels, I think they need to shape up.
"Suggesting they need to maintain their independence is music to their ears. That is so far away from the reality of where we are now. Rather than being a wake-up call, it is a call to roll over and have another lie-in."
Swain is also unhappy with the methodology used by the commission for the survey. "It is one of the most flawed reports I have seen for a long time," he says.
The conclusions drawn from the survey are unsound, he claims. One - about board members' involvement in operational decisions - particularly concerns him.
He says: "Do boards want to get involved in areas of activity that are quite small? No. From this, the commission extrapolated that it's the big organisations that are at most risk of mission drift and losing their independence. That is a completely biased way of looking at the question."
Swain says charities should focus on getting funding on a mainstream footing, and points to the success of homelessness charities in securing funding to tackle rough sleeping.
"We got government to accept that these were public services in need of funding," he says. And that, he insists, should be celebrated.
Swain is philosophical about how to manage relationships with funders.
"Let's ask funders some simple questions," he says. "What do you like about what we are doing? What can we do differently? We do not have to use that, but we think the people that fund us have a pretty good idea of how to meet the needs of those people we are supporting."
what people in Islington want has changed
Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
A decade ago, the major political issues were interest rates, unemployment and economic chaos. People wanted us to fix it and to get a grip, and we have. We have changed the country—fundamentally and for the better—but in doing so we have changed what people want from their Government. I can tell the House that what people in Islington want has changed. I want to talk about some of the new priorities inmy constituency—climate change, affordable housing, child poverty, and treatment of the marginalised. Although my constituents' priorities have changed, what has not changed is their belief that the problems that we face can be tackled only by radical, collective action.
Only the most ridiculously partisan observers would deny that one of the greatest achievements of this Labour Government over the past 10 years has been economic growth and stability. Looking back to the time before 1997, it is difficult to believe that before we introduced spending reviews with their three-year rolling programmes, Government Departments knew only from year to year what funding they were going to get. They lurched around between lean and fat years. They were dependent on boom and bust, and on whether their Department was fashionable or their Minister was in favour with the Prime Minister. It must have been a nightmare to plan anything. We have changed all that and allowed for the planning ofgood and stable government. Because of Labour, the British Government are well placed to take a stableand strategic view of what they are going to do domestically to tackle the biggest challenge of our generation—climate change—and able to take a lead in the world.
The draft Climate Change Bill will introduce radical change in the way that Governments work. It is based on the principles in the Climate Change Bill that I was proud to sponsor and promote. When introduced, the Bill will be the first example of its kind. It will have legally binding targets for carbon emissions. It anticipates the first carbon budget period being between 2008 and 2012, which is roughly concurrent with the comprehensive spending review and its parallel public spending agreements. The Government now have an opportunity to tie together their investment and activity with our obligations to cut emissions under Kyoto and our own self-imposed obligations under the draft Bill.
However, we need to be brave and bold and to geton with it. I hope that this will mean that evengreater improvements are made to public transport infrastructure in London and that Londoners will be able to look forward to increased investment in that infrastructure, with projects such as Crossrail and the continuing refurbishment of tube lines and stations, including the hugely welcome rebirth of St. Pancras. We will get the joining up of the East London line with Highbury and Islington and the breathing of new life into the tragically neglected North London line. We will get hybrid buses introduced across London—first, I hope, on to Islington's badly polluted streets. We will get continuing investment in the network of cyclepaths and facilities that are so encouraging cyclists in London. I speak as chair of the all-party group on cycling. All that will allow the powerhouse of the British economy—London—to cut its carbon emissions while allowing our economy to continue to grow.
While on the subject of climate change and the support given to environmental policies by the Budget, let me take this opportunity to welcome the increase in vehicle excise duty on the most polluting vehicles—up from £210 last year to £300 this year and £400 in 2008-09. When I was a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, we called for the top band—band G— to be "significantly raised", and I am pleased that in the two years since our report was published the tax on gas guzzlers will have doubled. Let me put it another way. By 2009, the cost of road tax for the biggest and most excessive Chelsea tractor—a Range Rover with a 4.4 litre Jaguar-sourced V8 engine—will be more than 10 times that of a Toyota Prius, and soit should be. The hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) seemed to commit the Conservative party to a much higher band G for 4x4s in cities. I agree. I hope that the Government listen and go further. However, I should say to the hon. Gentleman that the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands), who was sitting behind him, did not look the slightest bit happy about the Conservatives seeming to make that commitment.
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Brooks Newmark (Braintree, Conservative) Link to this | Hansard source
The hon. Lady has talked about how much tax will be raised and how much more is raised by one vehicle versus another, but she has not addressed the real issue—taxing in order to change behaviour. What does the Chancellor's Budget contain in that regard?
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
I agree that the purpose of green taxes should always be to change behaviour and I believe that we should do it progressively so that, if behaviour changes and, for example, people buy a smaller car, they do not need to pay so much tax. In that way, we can change behaviour and say to people, "Go this way and we will help you." However, that is not the Liberal Democrats' approach, which is to set green taxes simply to raise revenue. It is interesting that their documents do not mention the amount of carbon emissions that will be saved by their green taxes.
The changes in vehicle excise duty, combined with the planned increases in fuel duty in the next three years, show the direction of Government policy. Thatis the sort of large, brightly lit—solar powered, of course—road sign that shows the Government's direction and where we expect to go together. Those of us who are alarmed by global warming should stand and applaud the Government for their lead. However, while encouraging them, we should also urge them to go further.
Our homes produce one third of the UK's carbon emissions and we cannot rely on enlightened self-interest to solve the problem by erecting a windmill here and changing a car there. We must work collectively and we need a Government who will step in to bring people together. I welcome the way in which the Budget does that.
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Photo of David Taylor David Taylor (North West Leicestershire, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, visited Freiburg in south-west Germany, near the Black forest, only a few weeks ago to ascertain the reason for its reputation for leading local authorities in Germany on renewable energy and energy efficiency. My hon. Friend mentioned her local authority at the start of her speech. Does she believe that local authorities such as Islington, which is probably a similar size to Freiburg, as well as the Government, should take a lead, and revert to the principles of Agenda 21? They were laid down many years ago and some local authorities appear to have abandoned them.
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
Yes. A Liberal Democrat Member launched my local authority's new policies on the environment. From what I understand of the new policy, it appears to subsidise putting windmills on top of houses and other such high-profile matters. Such attention-grabbing behaviour does not, in the end, save the planet. There is no point in putting a windmill on top of a house if it is not insulated and the boiler has not been changed. One does not save the planet through the equivalent of buying a different sort of car. One has to do much more—and be much more fundamental—than that. I am greatly saddened bymy local authority's attitude to its so-called green initiatives because I believe that they constitute a certain frippery.
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Photo of Christopher Huhne Christopher Huhne (Eastleigh, Liberal Democrat) Link to this | Hansard source
I am sorry that the hon. Lady has not taken the opportunity of welcoming her local council's initiative, which is the first of its kind in the countryto get the private sector in a borough to commit to greenhouse gas reductions. That is a worthwhile initiative and she runs the risk of appearing a little sour if she does not welcome it.
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
Many private industries are interested in cutting their emissions and work with local government and national Government to do that. I assure the hon. Gentleman that Islington council did not think of that first.
It is important to cut the carbon emissions of our homes, and we have already done that. We startedwith Labour priorities through the decent homes programme, which, to many council tenants means new kitchens and bathrooms, but is much more than that. It is about ensuring that our social and affordable housing is up to decent homes standards. That means making sure that they are properly and fully insulated and energy-efficient. We have begun with social housing, so that those who are most vulnerable and in most need are literally insulated against the cold. When we came to power in 1997, only one in four homes in Islington were at decent homes standard, but by 2010, every single one will have reached that standard, thanks to a Labour Government. That is progressive politicsin action and an achievement of which we should be immensely proud.
I also welcome the initiatives in the Budget to take the next step in our comprehensive action of ensuring that owner occupiers and private rented homes are brought up to the mark. The energy-efficient commitment will continue to force energy suppliersto improve energy efficiency in the homes that they serve. The Warm Front programme gives low income households grants of up to £4,000 to improve their energy efficiency. Pensioners who do not have central heating can receive a £300 discount when installing a new system. To tackle the biggest market failure of all—in the private rented sector—the Budget extends and expands the landlords energy savings allowance, which gives an allowance of up to £1,500 to landlords who invest in cavity wall and loft insulation. However, we could and should do more, although we are going in the right direction.
I also greatly welcome the kick start that the Budget gives to the Government's goal to make all new builds zero carbon by 2016. The Budget has changed the stamp duty rules so that no stamp duty will be payable on the first sale of zero carbon homes of up to £500,000. Homes costing more than that will get a reduction of £15,000. I have a special interest in that aspect of financial incentives because, when I was a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, we made recommendations in our sustainable homes report of 21 March 2006.
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Photo of Graham Stuart Graham Stuart (Beverley & Holderness, Conservative) Link to this | Hansard source
Will the hon. Lady give way?
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
Of course I shall give way to another member of the Environmental Audit Committee. I am sure that he can tell us more about the sustainable homes report.
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Photo of Graham Stuart Graham Stuart (Beverley & Holderness, Conservative) Link to this | Hansard source
How many homes does the hon. Lady believe will benefit in the next year or two from the change that the Budget announced?
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
The answer is many but not enough—we can always do more. Our ambition is clear and we are moving in the right direction. No British Government have previously introduced financial incentives to ensure that people insulate their homes. We are introducing those green incentives, in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee on which the hon. Gentleman served with me.
The Committee recommended that the Treasury consider reducing stamp duty for green homes. Exactly a year after the publication of the report, the 2007 Budget delivered the recommendation. Various groups that put pressure on the Environmental Audit Committee and gave evidence at its meetings shouldbe acknowledged. They include WWF and its"One Million Sustainable Homes Campaign", the Association for the Conservation of Energy, and the Energy Savings Trust. They have been working hard on the issue for many years and I hope that they will continue to work with us to ensure that we move forward.
The Government now need to build on their progress and develop a comprehensive set of fiscal incentives linked to the code for sustainable homes. The Budget will ensure that no home is left behind and that, by the end of the next decade, all existing and new homes will have the highest standard of energy efficiency. As we proved with social housing, that will not happen as result of market forces alone. We can achieve our goal only by stepping in as a Government commitment to working together. We cannot simply leave matters to the market. When Labour Members talk about housing, we know that it is a priority for our houses to be green, but that we also desperately need more of them and that they must be affordable.
We need more affordable housing for people such as Ms A, who came to my surgery recently asking for help. She is married with four children. She lives in a two-bedroom flat and has been on the waiting list for a transfer for several years. Her parents have died and she took on responsibility for her teenage sister, so there are seven people in a two-bedroom flat. Ms A's oldest child is eight and autistic. Her second child is five, has severe language delay and may also be autistic. Her third child is three, has language and learning delay and behavioural problems. Her fourth child has asthma.
Ms A lives in fear that her three-year-old, who was rolling on the table moaning while Ms A was trying to talk to me at my surgery, may fall out of the window as she has no idea of danger, cannot communicate and climbs a lot. Ms A has back pain and cannot sleep at night because the eight-year-old and the three-year-old keep her awake. She is worried about her orphaned sister, who has to share her bedroom with her two nieces and has nowhere to study. Ms A suffers from depression—and no wonder. She urgently needs a four-bedroom home.
Islington council runs what is laughably called a choice-based lettings system, which means no choice and precious few lettings. One needs a certain number of points to have a chance of getting rehoused. Getting the points depends on how desperate one is compared with everyone else, who is also desperate. Ms A has 202 points and she needs about 350 to stand a chance of getting the sort of accommodation that she needs.
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Greg Hands (Hammersmith & Fulham, Conservative) Link to this | Hansard source
Will the hon. Lady give way?
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
No, I will not.
What chance do Ms A and her children have? What chance does her sister have? This case is not an isolated one. I hear stories like it every day, which break my heart. They are just one of 13,000 families languishing on the council waiting list in Islington. Many Labour Members, particularly those who represent inner-London constituencies, will recognise this story. There are many Ms As who need bold and radical action from our Labour Government.
There is a chronic housing problem in many areas and there are many thousands of people on waiting lists. Unfortunately, the problem in my constituency is exacerbated by the actions of the Liberal Democrat council. My council has for the last six years presided over planning controls that allow six out of every seven new homes to be luxury flats.
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Photo of Martin Horwood Martin Horwood (Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat) Link to this | Hansard source
rose—
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
It seems that the Liberal Democrat council cares more about investment bankers who want to live in luxury flats near the City than the needs of our own overcrowded families, who are in desperate need of rehousing in a decent manner. In the face of this terrible crisis, we were heartened to hear my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary, in a debate on the London economy in Westminster Hall on 20 March 2007, say:
"Building more social housing must be a priority for the spending review."—[ Official Report, Westminster Hall, 20 March 2007; Vol. 458, c. 232WH.]
The mobile phones of London Members started humming, expectations were raised and many of us sit and hold our breath—and we wait.
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Greg Hands (Hammersmith & Fulham, Conservative) Link to this | Hansard source
rose—
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Photo of Martin Horwood Martin Horwood (Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat) Link to this | Hansard source
rose—
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
I want to move on to deal with child poverty, of which the lack of affordable housing, particularly in inner London, is a major cause. Indeed, 35 per cent. of children in inner London live in poverty, even before housing costs are taken into account, but once those costs are included, it jumps up to 52 per cent. There is no other part of the country where housing costs have such a huge effect on child poverty. As a result, my constituency, on some counts, has the 16th highest level of child poverty in the UK.
This morning, I visited Winton primary school to discuss the marine Bill. I have been to 25 primary schools in my constituency to promote the importance of that Bill and they are all writing to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. At Winton school, 69 per cent. of the children get free school meals, 74 per cent. speak English as a second language and 93 per cent. do not come from a white British background.
The Government's efforts to tackle child poverty have been unparalleled. Under the Tories, child poverty doubled, but now, because of sound economic management, more people are in work with their pay topped up by tax credits— [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) should listen, as there is very little understanding among Conservative Members of what tax credits are or how they work. Those of us who work in the inner cities, where there are high levels of child poverty, understand the importance of tax credits very well. As a result, 700,000 children have been lifted out of relative poverty, giving them a chance and giving them hope.
Tax credits may not be as flash as putting a windmill on your house, but they have worked. A recent report by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies found that the fall in child poverty has been the result of more parents being in work and fewer people in work being in poverty. The report said:
"The government can take considerable credit for this: the reduction in the risk of poverty amongst these groups is due at least in part to new spending directed towards families, through tax credits. The reduction in the number of children in workless families is also due, at least in part, to government policies that have helped previously non-working parents (particularly lone parents) move into work."
In Islington, South and Finsbury that means that, whereas unemployment was up at 5,319 when Labour came to power in 1997, it has now more than halved to 2,386.
Here is an example of where our policies have helped one of my constituents. Ms B is a single parent who works about 20 hours a week as a nursery nurse. Her net wages—the Liberal Democrats should listen to this; I urge them to change their ideas on tax credits—are only £127 a week, which is about the same amount that she would get if she stayed at home on benefits. However, working tax credit, child tax credit and child benefit together contribute another £123 a week, bringing her total to £250 a week. Now that really is making work pay.
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David Howarth (Cambridge, Liberal Democrat) Link to this | Hansard source
Does the hon. Lady recognise that the Chancellor's abolition of the 10p tax band will mean that her constituent's tax bill will rise?
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
No, because the whole point is that tax credits will take people up to a certain limit and will guarantee a certain income. This woman, working the hours and getting the tax credits that she does, will receive a guaranteed income. That is the difference. That is why we are bringing in progressive taxation and benefits and helping women exactly like this. These are the sort of people who are our people, who we are looking after— [Interruption.]—and I am proud to sit on the Government Back Benches when my Government do things like that. We had a progressive Budget that is doing the right thing for poor working families, for single parents like Ms B. They are now able to work because of the Budget and other Labour initiatives, which were done in spite of the Opposition. We need more single parents like Ms B to feel they can afford to do vital jobs like working in child care.
The fall in unemployment over the last decade in Islington, South and Finsbury has made a real difference to— [Interruption.]
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Photo of Sylvia Heal Sylvia Heal (Halesowen & Rowley Regis, Deputy-Speaker) Link to this | Hansard source
Order. There are far too many conversations going on in the Chamber.
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
The fall in unemployment over the last decade in Islington, South and Finsbury has made a real difference to people's lives. If we are to cut child poverty further, we need to help more parents into work and ensure that it pays to be in work. Two fifths of children in the constituency get free school meals, which means that neither of their parents are in full-time work. Another measure of child poverty—based on children in families on benefits—makes my constituency the sixth poorest in the UK.
The new measures in the Budget are therefore welcome, as they will directly help those families. They include significant increases in the threshold for full working tax credit and in the child element of the child tax credit, which will help incentives to work. Perhaps most welcome though is the— [Interruption.]
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Photo of Graham Stuart Graham Stuart (Beverley & Holderness, Conservative) Link to this | Hansard source
Will the hon. Lady give way?
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
No. I am coming on to a very important point for poor families in London—and it is a change in Government policy for which we are very grateful. We are perhaps as grateful as we feel it was overdue. The change in policy is extra specific help for London's single parents returning to work. There will be an extra credit of £60 a week for the first year compared with £40 for parents in other parts of the UK. Some parents in London who do not go to work currently feel that they cannot afford it because of the high costs of housing and child care. We are really pleased that the Government have recognised that and increased the tax credits.
Another of my constituents wrote to me today to say:
"There should be help for people who want to work, even if I decide to stay off work to claim full benefit I will die of not working, I want more out of life."
Women like that should be and are being helped by us. I am glad that the Budget recognises the higher costs that single parents face in London. On top of that, child benefit for the first child will rise to £20 a week by 2010, and we will continue our investment in education across the board from early years through primary to secondary schools. Taken together, it is estimated that those measures will take a further 200,000 children out of poverty—another important step towards our goal of ending child poverty by 2020.
Along with children living in poverty, children with disabilities are one of the most vulnerable groups in society, so we must make sure that we support them. I am glad that the Government have already initiated a review covering the needs of disabled children. It is especially welcome that the Chancellor mentioned the review in his Budget speech as well as his commitment to consult widely on its findings in the run-up to the comprehensive spending review.
I am glad to note that the review has already identified speech and language therapy as an area in which services may not be sufficiently responsive to need. The Michael Palin centre for stammering children, which is based in my constituency, is an NHS centre of excellence for treatment of children who stammer. It is helping thousands of children from across the country. The centre deals with a complicated and distressing disability. The effect of a stammer on children is more than just a health issue. It affects their educational opportunities, social confidence and many other areas of life. A child who stammers may find involvement in class more difficult or suffer bullying at school.
Labour Members and the Government are very serious about tackling social exclusion, so we must make sure that children's lives are not blighted by being unable to communicate properly when it is possible, with the right intervention, to really help them. The Michael Palin centre is facing problems getting its services commissioned by some primary care trusts, but I am glad to say that Islington PCT's commissioning ensures that Islington's children get a first-class service from the Michael Palin centre. However, we need to make sure that all children across London and the rest of the UK can get the help they need from the centreas well. The patchiness of response from PCTs and strategic health authorities has been recognised in the review and I hope that the upcoming comprehensive spending review ensures that there is dedicated funding for children with communication difficulties and disabilities in general. We also need to make sure that the needs of that group are reflected in the next round of public service agreements.
Let us contrast that with the Liberal Democratand Tory priorities. Every time that tax credits are mentioned in Parliament, they attack them. We know the Tory approach: record pensioner poverty, record child poverty and record levels of unemployment. They will not spell out their policy positions because they know that they are unpopular. The Lib Dems, on the other hand, have never had to take responsibility for anything, so they have no track record. In their 36-page paper on tax policy, child poverty is not mentioned once. They should be ashamed. The Lib Dem tax plans hardly mention tax credits, which is not much of an assurance for those hard-working families who rely on them. They voted with the Tories against tax credits in 1999, and they have made no commitment to keeping them.
Under the Budget, by October 2007, a couple or lone parent in full-time work with one child will have a guaranteed minimum income of £276 a week. The Tories and Lib Dems have shown no commitment to supporting Labour's guarantee to parents in work. I am proud that Labour is ready to guarantee a decent income to families. It is a pity that the Liberal Democrats and Tories will not join me.
I have spoken about some of the top priorities of people in Islington. Compared with 10 years ago, people's priorities have changed, because the country has changed. The Labour Government have made the country better and more stable by putting progressive politics into action. The solutions, however, are based on a set of values that have not changed. The values that we have in 2007 are the same as those that we had in 1997, and the solutions are progressive, radical and collective. As we face the new problems and priorities of the future, it is as clear as ever that we can only tackle the problems that we share by working together for the common good.
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6:42 pm
A decade ago, the major political issues were interest rates, unemployment and economic chaos. People wanted us to fix it and to get a grip, and we have. We have changed the country—fundamentally and for the better—but in doing so we have changed what people want from their Government. I can tell the House that what people in Islington want has changed. I want to talk about some of the new priorities inmy constituency—climate change, affordable housing, child poverty, and treatment of the marginalised. Although my constituents' priorities have changed, what has not changed is their belief that the problems that we face can be tackled only by radical, collective action.
Only the most ridiculously partisan observers would deny that one of the greatest achievements of this Labour Government over the past 10 years has been economic growth and stability. Looking back to the time before 1997, it is difficult to believe that before we introduced spending reviews with their three-year rolling programmes, Government Departments knew only from year to year what funding they were going to get. They lurched around between lean and fat years. They were dependent on boom and bust, and on whether their Department was fashionable or their Minister was in favour with the Prime Minister. It must have been a nightmare to plan anything. We have changed all that and allowed for the planning ofgood and stable government. Because of Labour, the British Government are well placed to take a stableand strategic view of what they are going to do domestically to tackle the biggest challenge of our generation—climate change—and able to take a lead in the world.
The draft Climate Change Bill will introduce radical change in the way that Governments work. It is based on the principles in the Climate Change Bill that I was proud to sponsor and promote. When introduced, the Bill will be the first example of its kind. It will have legally binding targets for carbon emissions. It anticipates the first carbon budget period being between 2008 and 2012, which is roughly concurrent with the comprehensive spending review and its parallel public spending agreements. The Government now have an opportunity to tie together their investment and activity with our obligations to cut emissions under Kyoto and our own self-imposed obligations under the draft Bill.
However, we need to be brave and bold and to geton with it. I hope that this will mean that evengreater improvements are made to public transport infrastructure in London and that Londoners will be able to look forward to increased investment in that infrastructure, with projects such as Crossrail and the continuing refurbishment of tube lines and stations, including the hugely welcome rebirth of St. Pancras. We will get the joining up of the East London line with Highbury and Islington and the breathing of new life into the tragically neglected North London line. We will get hybrid buses introduced across London—first, I hope, on to Islington's badly polluted streets. We will get continuing investment in the network of cyclepaths and facilities that are so encouraging cyclists in London. I speak as chair of the all-party group on cycling. All that will allow the powerhouse of the British economy—London—to cut its carbon emissions while allowing our economy to continue to grow.
While on the subject of climate change and the support given to environmental policies by the Budget, let me take this opportunity to welcome the increase in vehicle excise duty on the most polluting vehicles—up from £210 last year to £300 this year and £400 in 2008-09. When I was a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, we called for the top band—band G— to be "significantly raised", and I am pleased that in the two years since our report was published the tax on gas guzzlers will have doubled. Let me put it another way. By 2009, the cost of road tax for the biggest and most excessive Chelsea tractor—a Range Rover with a 4.4 litre Jaguar-sourced V8 engine—will be more than 10 times that of a Toyota Prius, and soit should be. The hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) seemed to commit the Conservative party to a much higher band G for 4x4s in cities. I agree. I hope that the Government listen and go further. However, I should say to the hon. Gentleman that the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands), who was sitting behind him, did not look the slightest bit happy about the Conservatives seeming to make that commitment.
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Brooks Newmark (Braintree, Conservative) Link to this | Hansard source
The hon. Lady has talked about how much tax will be raised and how much more is raised by one vehicle versus another, but she has not addressed the real issue—taxing in order to change behaviour. What does the Chancellor's Budget contain in that regard?
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
I agree that the purpose of green taxes should always be to change behaviour and I believe that we should do it progressively so that, if behaviour changes and, for example, people buy a smaller car, they do not need to pay so much tax. In that way, we can change behaviour and say to people, "Go this way and we will help you." However, that is not the Liberal Democrats' approach, which is to set green taxes simply to raise revenue. It is interesting that their documents do not mention the amount of carbon emissions that will be saved by their green taxes.
The changes in vehicle excise duty, combined with the planned increases in fuel duty in the next three years, show the direction of Government policy. Thatis the sort of large, brightly lit—solar powered, of course—road sign that shows the Government's direction and where we expect to go together. Those of us who are alarmed by global warming should stand and applaud the Government for their lead. However, while encouraging them, we should also urge them to go further.
Our homes produce one third of the UK's carbon emissions and we cannot rely on enlightened self-interest to solve the problem by erecting a windmill here and changing a car there. We must work collectively and we need a Government who will step in to bring people together. I welcome the way in which the Budget does that.
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Photo of David Taylor David Taylor (North West Leicestershire, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, visited Freiburg in south-west Germany, near the Black forest, only a few weeks ago to ascertain the reason for its reputation for leading local authorities in Germany on renewable energy and energy efficiency. My hon. Friend mentioned her local authority at the start of her speech. Does she believe that local authorities such as Islington, which is probably a similar size to Freiburg, as well as the Government, should take a lead, and revert to the principles of Agenda 21? They were laid down many years ago and some local authorities appear to have abandoned them.
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
Yes. A Liberal Democrat Member launched my local authority's new policies on the environment. From what I understand of the new policy, it appears to subsidise putting windmills on top of houses and other such high-profile matters. Such attention-grabbing behaviour does not, in the end, save the planet. There is no point in putting a windmill on top of a house if it is not insulated and the boiler has not been changed. One does not save the planet through the equivalent of buying a different sort of car. One has to do much more—and be much more fundamental—than that. I am greatly saddened bymy local authority's attitude to its so-called green initiatives because I believe that they constitute a certain frippery.
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Photo of Christopher Huhne Christopher Huhne (Eastleigh, Liberal Democrat) Link to this | Hansard source
I am sorry that the hon. Lady has not taken the opportunity of welcoming her local council's initiative, which is the first of its kind in the countryto get the private sector in a borough to commit to greenhouse gas reductions. That is a worthwhile initiative and she runs the risk of appearing a little sour if she does not welcome it.
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
Many private industries are interested in cutting their emissions and work with local government and national Government to do that. I assure the hon. Gentleman that Islington council did not think of that first.
It is important to cut the carbon emissions of our homes, and we have already done that. We startedwith Labour priorities through the decent homes programme, which, to many council tenants means new kitchens and bathrooms, but is much more than that. It is about ensuring that our social and affordable housing is up to decent homes standards. That means making sure that they are properly and fully insulated and energy-efficient. We have begun with social housing, so that those who are most vulnerable and in most need are literally insulated against the cold. When we came to power in 1997, only one in four homes in Islington were at decent homes standard, but by 2010, every single one will have reached that standard, thanks to a Labour Government. That is progressive politicsin action and an achievement of which we should be immensely proud.
I also welcome the initiatives in the Budget to take the next step in our comprehensive action of ensuring that owner occupiers and private rented homes are brought up to the mark. The energy-efficient commitment will continue to force energy suppliersto improve energy efficiency in the homes that they serve. The Warm Front programme gives low income households grants of up to £4,000 to improve their energy efficiency. Pensioners who do not have central heating can receive a £300 discount when installing a new system. To tackle the biggest market failure of all—in the private rented sector—the Budget extends and expands the landlords energy savings allowance, which gives an allowance of up to £1,500 to landlords who invest in cavity wall and loft insulation. However, we could and should do more, although we are going in the right direction.
I also greatly welcome the kick start that the Budget gives to the Government's goal to make all new builds zero carbon by 2016. The Budget has changed the stamp duty rules so that no stamp duty will be payable on the first sale of zero carbon homes of up to £500,000. Homes costing more than that will get a reduction of £15,000. I have a special interest in that aspect of financial incentives because, when I was a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, we made recommendations in our sustainable homes report of 21 March 2006.
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Photo of Graham Stuart Graham Stuart (Beverley & Holderness, Conservative) Link to this | Hansard source
Will the hon. Lady give way?
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
Of course I shall give way to another member of the Environmental Audit Committee. I am sure that he can tell us more about the sustainable homes report.
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Photo of Graham Stuart Graham Stuart (Beverley & Holderness, Conservative) Link to this | Hansard source
How many homes does the hon. Lady believe will benefit in the next year or two from the change that the Budget announced?
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
The answer is many but not enough—we can always do more. Our ambition is clear and we are moving in the right direction. No British Government have previously introduced financial incentives to ensure that people insulate their homes. We are introducing those green incentives, in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee on which the hon. Gentleman served with me.
The Committee recommended that the Treasury consider reducing stamp duty for green homes. Exactly a year after the publication of the report, the 2007 Budget delivered the recommendation. Various groups that put pressure on the Environmental Audit Committee and gave evidence at its meetings shouldbe acknowledged. They include WWF and its"One Million Sustainable Homes Campaign", the Association for the Conservation of Energy, and the Energy Savings Trust. They have been working hard on the issue for many years and I hope that they will continue to work with us to ensure that we move forward.
The Government now need to build on their progress and develop a comprehensive set of fiscal incentives linked to the code for sustainable homes. The Budget will ensure that no home is left behind and that, by the end of the next decade, all existing and new homes will have the highest standard of energy efficiency. As we proved with social housing, that will not happen as result of market forces alone. We can achieve our goal only by stepping in as a Government commitment to working together. We cannot simply leave matters to the market. When Labour Members talk about housing, we know that it is a priority for our houses to be green, but that we also desperately need more of them and that they must be affordable.
We need more affordable housing for people such as Ms A, who came to my surgery recently asking for help. She is married with four children. She lives in a two-bedroom flat and has been on the waiting list for a transfer for several years. Her parents have died and she took on responsibility for her teenage sister, so there are seven people in a two-bedroom flat. Ms A's oldest child is eight and autistic. Her second child is five, has severe language delay and may also be autistic. Her third child is three, has language and learning delay and behavioural problems. Her fourth child has asthma.
Ms A lives in fear that her three-year-old, who was rolling on the table moaning while Ms A was trying to talk to me at my surgery, may fall out of the window as she has no idea of danger, cannot communicate and climbs a lot. Ms A has back pain and cannot sleep at night because the eight-year-old and the three-year-old keep her awake. She is worried about her orphaned sister, who has to share her bedroom with her two nieces and has nowhere to study. Ms A suffers from depression—and no wonder. She urgently needs a four-bedroom home.
Islington council runs what is laughably called a choice-based lettings system, which means no choice and precious few lettings. One needs a certain number of points to have a chance of getting rehoused. Getting the points depends on how desperate one is compared with everyone else, who is also desperate. Ms A has 202 points and she needs about 350 to stand a chance of getting the sort of accommodation that she needs.
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Greg Hands (Hammersmith & Fulham, Conservative) Link to this | Hansard source
Will the hon. Lady give way?
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
No, I will not.
What chance do Ms A and her children have? What chance does her sister have? This case is not an isolated one. I hear stories like it every day, which break my heart. They are just one of 13,000 families languishing on the council waiting list in Islington. Many Labour Members, particularly those who represent inner-London constituencies, will recognise this story. There are many Ms As who need bold and radical action from our Labour Government.
There is a chronic housing problem in many areas and there are many thousands of people on waiting lists. Unfortunately, the problem in my constituency is exacerbated by the actions of the Liberal Democrat council. My council has for the last six years presided over planning controls that allow six out of every seven new homes to be luxury flats.
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Photo of Martin Horwood Martin Horwood (Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat) Link to this | Hansard source
rose—
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
It seems that the Liberal Democrat council cares more about investment bankers who want to live in luxury flats near the City than the needs of our own overcrowded families, who are in desperate need of rehousing in a decent manner. In the face of this terrible crisis, we were heartened to hear my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary, in a debate on the London economy in Westminster Hall on 20 March 2007, say:
"Building more social housing must be a priority for the spending review."—[ Official Report, Westminster Hall, 20 March 2007; Vol. 458, c. 232WH.]
The mobile phones of London Members started humming, expectations were raised and many of us sit and hold our breath—and we wait.
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Greg Hands (Hammersmith & Fulham, Conservative) Link to this | Hansard source
rose—
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Photo of Martin Horwood Martin Horwood (Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat) Link to this | Hansard source
rose—
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
I want to move on to deal with child poverty, of which the lack of affordable housing, particularly in inner London, is a major cause. Indeed, 35 per cent. of children in inner London live in poverty, even before housing costs are taken into account, but once those costs are included, it jumps up to 52 per cent. There is no other part of the country where housing costs have such a huge effect on child poverty. As a result, my constituency, on some counts, has the 16th highest level of child poverty in the UK.
This morning, I visited Winton primary school to discuss the marine Bill. I have been to 25 primary schools in my constituency to promote the importance of that Bill and they are all writing to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. At Winton school, 69 per cent. of the children get free school meals, 74 per cent. speak English as a second language and 93 per cent. do not come from a white British background.
The Government's efforts to tackle child poverty have been unparalleled. Under the Tories, child poverty doubled, but now, because of sound economic management, more people are in work with their pay topped up by tax credits— [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) should listen, as there is very little understanding among Conservative Members of what tax credits are or how they work. Those of us who work in the inner cities, where there are high levels of child poverty, understand the importance of tax credits very well. As a result, 700,000 children have been lifted out of relative poverty, giving them a chance and giving them hope.
Tax credits may not be as flash as putting a windmill on your house, but they have worked. A recent report by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies found that the fall in child poverty has been the result of more parents being in work and fewer people in work being in poverty. The report said:
"The government can take considerable credit for this: the reduction in the risk of poverty amongst these groups is due at least in part to new spending directed towards families, through tax credits. The reduction in the number of children in workless families is also due, at least in part, to government policies that have helped previously non-working parents (particularly lone parents) move into work."
In Islington, South and Finsbury that means that, whereas unemployment was up at 5,319 when Labour came to power in 1997, it has now more than halved to 2,386.
Here is an example of where our policies have helped one of my constituents. Ms B is a single parent who works about 20 hours a week as a nursery nurse. Her net wages—the Liberal Democrats should listen to this; I urge them to change their ideas on tax credits—are only £127 a week, which is about the same amount that she would get if she stayed at home on benefits. However, working tax credit, child tax credit and child benefit together contribute another £123 a week, bringing her total to £250 a week. Now that really is making work pay.
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David Howarth (Cambridge, Liberal Democrat) Link to this | Hansard source
Does the hon. Lady recognise that the Chancellor's abolition of the 10p tax band will mean that her constituent's tax bill will rise?
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
No, because the whole point is that tax credits will take people up to a certain limit and will guarantee a certain income. This woman, working the hours and getting the tax credits that she does, will receive a guaranteed income. That is the difference. That is why we are bringing in progressive taxation and benefits and helping women exactly like this. These are the sort of people who are our people, who we are looking after— [Interruption.]—and I am proud to sit on the Government Back Benches when my Government do things like that. We had a progressive Budget that is doing the right thing for poor working families, for single parents like Ms B. They are now able to work because of the Budget and other Labour initiatives, which were done in spite of the Opposition. We need more single parents like Ms B to feel they can afford to do vital jobs like working in child care.
The fall in unemployment over the last decade in Islington, South and Finsbury has made a real difference to— [Interruption.]
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Photo of Sylvia Heal Sylvia Heal (Halesowen & Rowley Regis, Deputy-Speaker) Link to this | Hansard source
Order. There are far too many conversations going on in the Chamber.
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
The fall in unemployment over the last decade in Islington, South and Finsbury has made a real difference to people's lives. If we are to cut child poverty further, we need to help more parents into work and ensure that it pays to be in work. Two fifths of children in the constituency get free school meals, which means that neither of their parents are in full-time work. Another measure of child poverty—based on children in families on benefits—makes my constituency the sixth poorest in the UK.
The new measures in the Budget are therefore welcome, as they will directly help those families. They include significant increases in the threshold for full working tax credit and in the child element of the child tax credit, which will help incentives to work. Perhaps most welcome though is the— [Interruption.]
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Photo of Graham Stuart Graham Stuart (Beverley & Holderness, Conservative) Link to this | Hansard source
Will the hon. Lady give way?
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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
No. I am coming on to a very important point for poor families in London—and it is a change in Government policy for which we are very grateful. We are perhaps as grateful as we feel it was overdue. The change in policy is extra specific help for London's single parents returning to work. There will be an extra credit of £60 a week for the first year compared with £40 for parents in other parts of the UK. Some parents in London who do not go to work currently feel that they cannot afford it because of the high costs of housing and child care. We are really pleased that the Government have recognised that and increased the tax credits.
Another of my constituents wrote to me today to say:
"There should be help for people who want to work, even if I decide to stay off work to claim full benefit I will die of not working, I want more out of life."
Women like that should be and are being helped by us. I am glad that the Budget recognises the higher costs that single parents face in London. On top of that, child benefit for the first child will rise to £20 a week by 2010, and we will continue our investment in education across the board from early years through primary to secondary schools. Taken together, it is estimated that those measures will take a further 200,000 children out of poverty—another important step towards our goal of ending child poverty by 2020.
Along with children living in poverty, children with disabilities are one of the most vulnerable groups in society, so we must make sure that we support them. I am glad that the Government have already initiated a review covering the needs of disabled children. It is especially welcome that the Chancellor mentioned the review in his Budget speech as well as his commitment to consult widely on its findings in the run-up to the comprehensive spending review.
I am glad to note that the review has already identified speech and language therapy as an area in which services may not be sufficiently responsive to need. The Michael Palin centre for stammering children, which is based in my constituency, is an NHS centre of excellence for treatment of children who stammer. It is helping thousands of children from across the country. The centre deals with a complicated and distressing disability. The effect of a stammer on children is more than just a health issue. It affects their educational opportunities, social confidence and many other areas of life. A child who stammers may find involvement in class more difficult or suffer bullying at school.
Labour Members and the Government are very serious about tackling social exclusion, so we must make sure that children's lives are not blighted by being unable to communicate properly when it is possible, with the right intervention, to really help them. The Michael Palin centre is facing problems getting its services commissioned by some primary care trusts, but I am glad to say that Islington PCT's commissioning ensures that Islington's children get a first-class service from the Michael Palin centre. However, we need to make sure that all children across London and the rest of the UK can get the help they need from the centreas well. The patchiness of response from PCTs and strategic health authorities has been recognised in the review and I hope that the upcoming comprehensive spending review ensures that there is dedicated funding for children with communication difficulties and disabilities in general. We also need to make sure that the needs of that group are reflected in the next round of public service agreements.
Let us contrast that with the Liberal Democratand Tory priorities. Every time that tax credits are mentioned in Parliament, they attack them. We know the Tory approach: record pensioner poverty, record child poverty and record levels of unemployment. They will not spell out their policy positions because they know that they are unpopular. The Lib Dems, on the other hand, have never had to take responsibility for anything, so they have no track record. In their 36-page paper on tax policy, child poverty is not mentioned once. They should be ashamed. The Lib Dem tax plans hardly mention tax credits, which is not much of an assurance for those hard-working families who rely on them. They voted with the Tories against tax credits in 1999, and they have made no commitment to keeping them.
Under the Budget, by October 2007, a couple or lone parent in full-time work with one child will have a guaranteed minimum income of £276 a week. The Tories and Lib Dems have shown no commitment to supporting Labour's guarantee to parents in work. I am proud that Labour is ready to guarantee a decent income to families. It is a pity that the Liberal Democrats and Tories will not join me.
I have spoken about some of the top priorities of people in Islington. Compared with 10 years ago, people's priorities have changed, because the country has changed. The Labour Government have made the country better and more stable by putting progressive politics into action. The solutions, however, are based on a set of values that have not changed. The values that we have in 2007 are the same as those that we had in 1997, and the solutions are progressive, radical and collective. As we face the new problems and priorities of the future, it is as clear as ever that we can only tackle the problems that we share by working together for the common good.
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6:42 pm
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
"Not in my back yard"
DRUGS: A BLESSED RELIEF
By Kim Church with substantial advice from Jo Weir, Chair CGCA
For years, the beleaguered residents and businesspeople of the northern third of Covent Garden and St Giles have borne the brunt of a disastrous lack of responsibility in managing the influx of drug addicts; many of whom were dwelling in the Endell Street hostel. Far from providing a conduit by which resident inmates are rehabilitated and returned into society, in the hostel they became institutionalised with little prospect of “moving on”. Some residents have been stranded there for over 10 years as prey to addiction, despair and easy access to the drugs which destroy lives.
While sinister and ruthless dealers get rich at the expense of the wretched addicts (some of whom are destined to die in the ‘care’ of the hostels), the uncontrolled drugs market flourishes. Far from being a safe haven for its charges, allegedly, the Endell Street hostel even harboured a number of dealers amongst the residents who were identified by the police and subsequently arrested and removed.
The result of the police and local government’s failure to address this urgent issue was that the community as a whole was blighted. The hostel made life hell for locals with the menace of drug addicts’ extreme antisocial behaviour: they will stop at nothing to get the next fix, intimidating, aggressive begging had become the norm and shoplifting here is higher than almost anywhere else. The vulnerable smaller shops are targeted and shopkeepers have been powerless to prevent the epidemic as knives have been brandished and physical and verbal threats made. Break ins had also become a major problem alongside the hazard of theft of phones, wallets, handbags and property from cars. This all created a bleak scenario and one which had been resignedly endured by long-suffering locals.
Police Action
However we have had a glimpse of how pleasant our area can be since the Endell Street hostel closed for refurbishment in December. Many of our problems have all-but gone and we are staggered to realise just how much negative impact can stem from a single hostel. We congratulate the police who have, at last, been handed a realistic chance to tackle the lawlessness which had beset our area. Our compliments to Sergeant Iain Petrie and his south Camden Safer Neighbourhoods team who have seized this opportunity to clean up the area. There is still much to be done; this district to the east of Seven Dials has developed such a reputation as a junkie destination that it will take a concentrated effort if we are to eradicate the dealer network and concerted work to stay on top of the problem. Alain Lhermitte, proprietor of Mon Plaisir, who had been forthright in his criticism both of Camden council and its police for their impotence in this area has been quick to add his commendation on the recent success. Alain tells us that “The closure of the Endell Street hostel has cut down the drugs and associated problems by 60%, police action has further reduced this figure and once the promised clean-up of Neal’s Yard is complete we will have a decent situation.”
CGCA
The Covent Garden Community Association is proposing to lobby Camden to oppose the reopening of the Endell Street hostel; in view of the unprecedented reduction of the impact of drugs, crime and aggressive antisocial misbehaviour they will urge them to reconsider the use of this very prominent site and likewise its unsuitability for helping those with addiction. IAACG will lend its support to their campaign and will jointly commission research into the impacts which the hostel has had on our community.
The gist of the initial representation (which the CGCA will send to the Leader, Chief Executive of London Borough of Camden and St Mungo’s Hostels) is as follows:
Drug dealers can and do prevail, and with such a ready market, the possibility of a cure is highly unlikely, since temptation surrounds them on all sides. It is not believed that concentrating addicts in an area in which they can be such easy prey for drug dealers, and where they can reliably get money from questionable practices, is a suitable climate in which to embrace successful, and effective treatment and
rehabilitation.
However, as a former school, it is believed that a better use for this site would be for elderly and infirm residents (many of whom live in sheltered housing opposite this site) to have access to some nursing/rest/care home facilities rather than being subjected to the persistent and frightening menace that the drug dealers and addicts created.
With two other hostels working in Covent Garden it is surely not unreasonable to propose that the reopening of Endell Street is very hard to justify, when such a negative impact has been created within the local community.
By Kim Church with substantial advice from Jo Weir, Chair CGCA
For years, the beleaguered residents and businesspeople of the northern third of Covent Garden and St Giles have borne the brunt of a disastrous lack of responsibility in managing the influx of drug addicts; many of whom were dwelling in the Endell Street hostel. Far from providing a conduit by which resident inmates are rehabilitated and returned into society, in the hostel they became institutionalised with little prospect of “moving on”. Some residents have been stranded there for over 10 years as prey to addiction, despair and easy access to the drugs which destroy lives.
While sinister and ruthless dealers get rich at the expense of the wretched addicts (some of whom are destined to die in the ‘care’ of the hostels), the uncontrolled drugs market flourishes. Far from being a safe haven for its charges, allegedly, the Endell Street hostel even harboured a number of dealers amongst the residents who were identified by the police and subsequently arrested and removed.
The result of the police and local government’s failure to address this urgent issue was that the community as a whole was blighted. The hostel made life hell for locals with the menace of drug addicts’ extreme antisocial behaviour: they will stop at nothing to get the next fix, intimidating, aggressive begging had become the norm and shoplifting here is higher than almost anywhere else. The vulnerable smaller shops are targeted and shopkeepers have been powerless to prevent the epidemic as knives have been brandished and physical and verbal threats made. Break ins had also become a major problem alongside the hazard of theft of phones, wallets, handbags and property from cars. This all created a bleak scenario and one which had been resignedly endured by long-suffering locals.
Police Action
However we have had a glimpse of how pleasant our area can be since the Endell Street hostel closed for refurbishment in December. Many of our problems have all-but gone and we are staggered to realise just how much negative impact can stem from a single hostel. We congratulate the police who have, at last, been handed a realistic chance to tackle the lawlessness which had beset our area. Our compliments to Sergeant Iain Petrie and his south Camden Safer Neighbourhoods team who have seized this opportunity to clean up the area. There is still much to be done; this district to the east of Seven Dials has developed such a reputation as a junkie destination that it will take a concentrated effort if we are to eradicate the dealer network and concerted work to stay on top of the problem. Alain Lhermitte, proprietor of Mon Plaisir, who had been forthright in his criticism both of Camden council and its police for their impotence in this area has been quick to add his commendation on the recent success. Alain tells us that “The closure of the Endell Street hostel has cut down the drugs and associated problems by 60%, police action has further reduced this figure and once the promised clean-up of Neal’s Yard is complete we will have a decent situation.”
CGCA
The Covent Garden Community Association is proposing to lobby Camden to oppose the reopening of the Endell Street hostel; in view of the unprecedented reduction of the impact of drugs, crime and aggressive antisocial misbehaviour they will urge them to reconsider the use of this very prominent site and likewise its unsuitability for helping those with addiction. IAACG will lend its support to their campaign and will jointly commission research into the impacts which the hostel has had on our community.
The gist of the initial representation (which the CGCA will send to the Leader, Chief Executive of London Borough of Camden and St Mungo’s Hostels) is as follows:
Drug dealers can and do prevail, and with such a ready market, the possibility of a cure is highly unlikely, since temptation surrounds them on all sides. It is not believed that concentrating addicts in an area in which they can be such easy prey for drug dealers, and where they can reliably get money from questionable practices, is a suitable climate in which to embrace successful, and effective treatment and
rehabilitation.
However, as a former school, it is believed that a better use for this site would be for elderly and infirm residents (many of whom live in sheltered housing opposite this site) to have access to some nursing/rest/care home facilities rather than being subjected to the persistent and frightening menace that the drug dealers and addicts created.
With two other hostels working in Covent Garden it is surely not unreasonable to propose that the reopening of Endell Street is very hard to justify, when such a negative impact has been created within the local community.
Soup kitchens? Not in my back yard says Tory peer
Soup kitchens? Not in my back yard says Tory peer
By Francis Elliot, Whitehall Editor
Published: 25 March 2007
John Patten, a housing minister under Margaret Thatcher, is pressing for the closure of soup kitchens run for the homeless near his London flat.
The Conservative peer and former cabinet minister is demanding action against the mainly Christian charities that offer free food to hundreds of homeless and destitute people every night in Westminster.
The demand for their charity has grown sharply in recent years as crackdowns on illegal migrants forbid the local council from providing help. Complaints about noise last summer led to threats by the local council to begin issuing Asbos to those offering charity in designated areas.
Lord Patten, who condemned the "appalling scandal" of homelessness as a housing minister in the late 1980s, now appears to have taken up the cause and is waging a parliamentary campaign to force the Home Office to take action against the charities.
In January, he asked whether the soup runs had led to more people sleeping rough. Last week, he demanded to know whether ministers had asked the charities to "desist" from providing "nightly soup runs in Howick Place".
The former Oxford MP, who rose to become Secretary of State for Education under John Major, lives in Ashley Gardens, a nearby private estate in which two-bedroom flats sell for £800,000.
Contacted by The Independent on Sunday, Lord Patten agreed he had tabled questions on the soup runs but hung up when asked whether his intervention may be regarded as an example of "nimbyism".
Alistair Murray, the chairman of the Soup Run Forum, a body that represents the charities, said: "I am surprised that John Patten has joined the hardliners. What does he propose that we do, starve people into submission?"
The provision of free food for people sleeping rough is becoming increasingly controversial. John Bird, the founder of the Big Issue, is among those who believe that, in some cases, handouts are doing more harm than good.
Some have even suggested that some of the free food is being handed to migrants who are not homeless but are simply saving cash.
But Mark Palframan, of the Simon Community, has said: "It is quite offensive that senior figures within local authorities and in the homeless industry are quite openly espousing a policy that uses hunger as a coercive tool.
"We too want to encourage people off the streets and to take up the services and support available, but this cannot, and should not, be done through the politics of hunger. Some people still need free food, and we will continue to provide this."
By Francis Elliot, Whitehall Editor
Published: 25 March 2007
John Patten, a housing minister under Margaret Thatcher, is pressing for the closure of soup kitchens run for the homeless near his London flat.
The Conservative peer and former cabinet minister is demanding action against the mainly Christian charities that offer free food to hundreds of homeless and destitute people every night in Westminster.
The demand for their charity has grown sharply in recent years as crackdowns on illegal migrants forbid the local council from providing help. Complaints about noise last summer led to threats by the local council to begin issuing Asbos to those offering charity in designated areas.
Lord Patten, who condemned the "appalling scandal" of homelessness as a housing minister in the late 1980s, now appears to have taken up the cause and is waging a parliamentary campaign to force the Home Office to take action against the charities.
In January, he asked whether the soup runs had led to more people sleeping rough. Last week, he demanded to know whether ministers had asked the charities to "desist" from providing "nightly soup runs in Howick Place".
The former Oxford MP, who rose to become Secretary of State for Education under John Major, lives in Ashley Gardens, a nearby private estate in which two-bedroom flats sell for £800,000.
Contacted by The Independent on Sunday, Lord Patten agreed he had tabled questions on the soup runs but hung up when asked whether his intervention may be regarded as an example of "nimbyism".
Alistair Murray, the chairman of the Soup Run Forum, a body that represents the charities, said: "I am surprised that John Patten has joined the hardliners. What does he propose that we do, starve people into submission?"
The provision of free food for people sleeping rough is becoming increasingly controversial. John Bird, the founder of the Big Issue, is among those who believe that, in some cases, handouts are doing more harm than good.
Some have even suggested that some of the free food is being handed to migrants who are not homeless but are simply saving cash.
But Mark Palframan, of the Simon Community, has said: "It is quite offensive that senior figures within local authorities and in the homeless industry are quite openly espousing a policy that uses hunger as a coercive tool.
"We too want to encourage people off the streets and to take up the services and support available, but this cannot, and should not, be done through the politics of hunger. Some people still need free food, and we will continue to provide this."
Saturday, March 24, 2007
John Bird is set to run for the Mayor of London
Homelessness charity 'interested' in Bird's London Mayor's bid
Back to Social Housing
Publisher: Ian Morgan
Published: 23/03/2007 - 09:02:52 AM print version Printable version
email article to a friend Send to a friend
John Bird is set to run for the Mayor of London
John Bird is set to run for
the Mayor of London
A homelessness charity says it is 'interested' to learn of the Big Issue founder's decision to run for the Mayor of London.
But St Mungo's says John Bird's condemnation of the role of hostels fails to address the realities of London's homeless men and women.
A St Mungo's spokesman said: "Whilst St Mungo's believe it is vital that the next mayor has the interests of the most socially excluded population in London at the top of their agenda, we feel Mr Bird's condemnation of the role of hostels fails to address the realities facing thousands of London's homeless men and women every year.
"St Mungo's help more than 10,000 homeless and vulnerable people every year to find responsive and integrated solutions for problems with housing, employment, training and health. We work with men and women who have complex and overlapping needs that often exclude them from mainstream services.
"We are concerned that whilst, Mr Bird is passionate about the issues surrounding homelessness, he is detached from the realities of 21st century provision for the homeless and the work being done to improve their life chances.
"St Mungo's believe safe and secure housing is one of the first steps to tackling homelessness. Only then can people begin to address their substance use, mental and physical health as well as their employment and training needs.
"St Mungo's agree that more needs to be done to end the cycle of homelessness. We are always asking for further support for the men and women living in our hostels. And we too want to see better and more integrated services for the homeless. However, hostels are no longer just a shelter from the cold, they are spring boards for change."Homelessness charity 'interested' in Bird's London Mayor's bid
Back to Social Housing
Publisher: Ian Morgan
Published: 23/03/2007 - 09:02:52 AM print version Printable version
email article to a friend Send to a friend
John Bird is set to run for the Mayor of London
John Bird is set to run for
the Mayor of London
Relevant News
1. Big Issue founder John Bird set to run for Mayor of London
2. Forty-eight teams set to challenge for Homeless World Cup
3. Kate tips England for 'possible' World Cup success!
4. Kate stars in Homeless World Cup documentary
5. Homeless charities refute John Bird's hostel claims
6. Foyer features in homelessness documentary
7. First glimpse of world's first tourist spaceship
8. Cardboard Citizens to celebrate its 15th year helping the homeless
A homelessness charity says it is 'interested' to learn of the Big Issue founder's decision to run for the Mayor of London.
But St Mungo's says John Bird's condemnation of the role of hostels fails to address the realities of London's homeless men and women.
A St Mungo's spokesman said: "Whilst St Mungo's believe it is vital that the next mayor has the interests of the most socially excluded population in London at the top of their agenda, we feel Mr Bird's condemnation of the role of hostels fails to address the realities facing thousands of London's homeless men and women every year.
"St Mungo's help more than 10,000 homeless and vulnerable people every year to find responsive and integrated solutions for problems with housing, employment, training and health. We work with men and women who have complex and overlapping needs that often exclude them from mainstream services.
"We are concerned that whilst, Mr Bird is passionate about the issues surrounding homelessness, he is detached from the realities of 21st century provision for the homeless and the work being done to improve their life chances.
"St Mungo's believe safe and secure housing is one of the first steps to tackling homelessness. Only then can people begin to address their substance use, mental and physical health as well as their employment and training needs.
"St Mungo's agree that more needs to be done to end the cycle of homelessness. We are always asking for further support for the men and women living in our hostels. And we too want to see better and more integrated services for the homeless. However, hostels are no longer just a shelter from the cold, they are spring boards for change."
Back to Social Housing
Publisher: Ian Morgan
Published: 23/03/2007 - 09:02:52 AM print version Printable version
email article to a friend Send to a friend
John Bird is set to run for the Mayor of London
John Bird is set to run for
the Mayor of London
A homelessness charity says it is 'interested' to learn of the Big Issue founder's decision to run for the Mayor of London.
But St Mungo's says John Bird's condemnation of the role of hostels fails to address the realities of London's homeless men and women.
A St Mungo's spokesman said: "Whilst St Mungo's believe it is vital that the next mayor has the interests of the most socially excluded population in London at the top of their agenda, we feel Mr Bird's condemnation of the role of hostels fails to address the realities facing thousands of London's homeless men and women every year.
"St Mungo's help more than 10,000 homeless and vulnerable people every year to find responsive and integrated solutions for problems with housing, employment, training and health. We work with men and women who have complex and overlapping needs that often exclude them from mainstream services.
"We are concerned that whilst, Mr Bird is passionate about the issues surrounding homelessness, he is detached from the realities of 21st century provision for the homeless and the work being done to improve their life chances.
"St Mungo's believe safe and secure housing is one of the first steps to tackling homelessness. Only then can people begin to address their substance use, mental and physical health as well as their employment and training needs.
"St Mungo's agree that more needs to be done to end the cycle of homelessness. We are always asking for further support for the men and women living in our hostels. And we too want to see better and more integrated services for the homeless. However, hostels are no longer just a shelter from the cold, they are spring boards for change."Homelessness charity 'interested' in Bird's London Mayor's bid
Back to Social Housing
Publisher: Ian Morgan
Published: 23/03/2007 - 09:02:52 AM print version Printable version
email article to a friend Send to a friend
John Bird is set to run for the Mayor of London
John Bird is set to run for
the Mayor of London
Relevant News
1. Big Issue founder John Bird set to run for Mayor of London
2. Forty-eight teams set to challenge for Homeless World Cup
3. Kate tips England for 'possible' World Cup success!
4. Kate stars in Homeless World Cup documentary
5. Homeless charities refute John Bird's hostel claims
6. Foyer features in homelessness documentary
7. First glimpse of world's first tourist spaceship
8. Cardboard Citizens to celebrate its 15th year helping the homeless
A homelessness charity says it is 'interested' to learn of the Big Issue founder's decision to run for the Mayor of London.
But St Mungo's says John Bird's condemnation of the role of hostels fails to address the realities of London's homeless men and women.
A St Mungo's spokesman said: "Whilst St Mungo's believe it is vital that the next mayor has the interests of the most socially excluded population in London at the top of their agenda, we feel Mr Bird's condemnation of the role of hostels fails to address the realities facing thousands of London's homeless men and women every year.
"St Mungo's help more than 10,000 homeless and vulnerable people every year to find responsive and integrated solutions for problems with housing, employment, training and health. We work with men and women who have complex and overlapping needs that often exclude them from mainstream services.
"We are concerned that whilst, Mr Bird is passionate about the issues surrounding homelessness, he is detached from the realities of 21st century provision for the homeless and the work being done to improve their life chances.
"St Mungo's believe safe and secure housing is one of the first steps to tackling homelessness. Only then can people begin to address their substance use, mental and physical health as well as their employment and training needs.
"St Mungo's agree that more needs to be done to end the cycle of homelessness. We are always asking for further support for the men and women living in our hostels. And we too want to see better and more integrated services for the homeless. However, hostels are no longer just a shelter from the cold, they are spring boards for change."
Friday, March 23, 2007
Social housing pension scheme reviewed
Social housing pension scheme reviewed
11-Jan-07
New arrangements for the Social Housing Pension Scheme (SHPS) are due to come into effect in April this year.
Following a two-year review and consultation with both employers and employees, employers offering staff access to the industry scheme, could select which of three benefits structures they wished to apply to their organisation. These consisted of the existing final salary scheme with 1/60th accrual rate, a final salary plan with 1/70th accruals and career average revalued earnings (Care) scheme with a 1/60th accruals structure. Employers will be able to operate different benefit structures for existing and new employees.
The 700 housing groups, which are served by the scheme, had until October last year to make their selection, before the changes come into effect in April.
The numerous reasons behind the changes include counteracting the high cost of providing the current level of benefits, rising costs for employers who participate in SHPS and financial pressure within the Social Housing Sector due to a number of government efficiency initiatives. The scheme also has a £283m deficit.
All employers chose to retain defined benefit pension arrangements for existing members, with 92% retaining final salary schemes with a 1/60th accrual rate. Nearly all (99.2%) of employers will also†continue to offer defined benefit pension arrangements to new employees. Of these, 56.5% will offer final salary with 1/60th accruals, 9.6% will offer a final salary plan with 1/70th accruals and 33.1% will provide a Care scheme for staff. Just 0.8% of employers have closed SHPS arrangements to new employees.
No employer has closed the scheme to future accruals for the existing members of SHPS and pension benefits earned up to April 2007 are safeguarded.
Social Housing Pension Scheme - Review of Pensions Strategy 10/01/2007
Gissings recently conducted a survey on employee benefit provision amongst Housing Associations in England. A total of 37 Associations responded, thank you. A summary of the response can be found in the attached report.
It would appear that the changes to Social Housing Pension Scheme (SHPS) have prompted many Housing Associations to investigate the appropriateness of their present arrangements in helping to meet their current objectives and suitability for the future.
We understand the pressures and requirements involved with multi-employer schemes and are ideally placed to provide you with a single source of pensions expertise offering tangible business solutions.
To find out more about Gissings' solutions for Housing Associations, please contact Simon Holt at Gissings on 020 7711 1702 or via email at: pensions@gissings.co.uk
SHPS Survey
11-Jan-07
New arrangements for the Social Housing Pension Scheme (SHPS) are due to come into effect in April this year.
Following a two-year review and consultation with both employers and employees, employers offering staff access to the industry scheme, could select which of three benefits structures they wished to apply to their organisation. These consisted of the existing final salary scheme with 1/60th accrual rate, a final salary plan with 1/70th accruals and career average revalued earnings (Care) scheme with a 1/60th accruals structure. Employers will be able to operate different benefit structures for existing and new employees.
The 700 housing groups, which are served by the scheme, had until October last year to make their selection, before the changes come into effect in April.
The numerous reasons behind the changes include counteracting the high cost of providing the current level of benefits, rising costs for employers who participate in SHPS and financial pressure within the Social Housing Sector due to a number of government efficiency initiatives. The scheme also has a £283m deficit.
All employers chose to retain defined benefit pension arrangements for existing members, with 92% retaining final salary schemes with a 1/60th accrual rate. Nearly all (99.2%) of employers will also†continue to offer defined benefit pension arrangements to new employees. Of these, 56.5% will offer final salary with 1/60th accruals, 9.6% will offer a final salary plan with 1/70th accruals and 33.1% will provide a Care scheme for staff. Just 0.8% of employers have closed SHPS arrangements to new employees.
No employer has closed the scheme to future accruals for the existing members of SHPS and pension benefits earned up to April 2007 are safeguarded.
Social Housing Pension Scheme - Review of Pensions Strategy 10/01/2007
Gissings recently conducted a survey on employee benefit provision amongst Housing Associations in England. A total of 37 Associations responded, thank you. A summary of the response can be found in the attached report.
It would appear that the changes to Social Housing Pension Scheme (SHPS) have prompted many Housing Associations to investigate the appropriateness of their present arrangements in helping to meet their current objectives and suitability for the future.
We understand the pressures and requirements involved with multi-employer schemes and are ideally placed to provide you with a single source of pensions expertise offering tangible business solutions.
To find out more about Gissings' solutions for Housing Associations, please contact Simon Holt at Gissings on 020 7711 1702 or via email at: pensions@gissings.co.uk
SHPS Survey
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Women in Prison - Home
Women in Prison - Home: "Women in Prison (WIP) is a charity working with women at risk of going to prison, in prison and after release to promote their resettlement, personal development, education and training.
We educate the public and policy makers about women in the criminal justice system and we promote alternatives to custody.
Prison causes damage and disruption to the lives of vulnerable women, most of whom pose no risk to the public.
* 70% of women prisoners have mental health problems.
* 37% have attempted suicide.
* 20% have been in the care system as children compared to 2% of the general population.
* At least 50% report being victims of childhood abuse or domestic violence.
Prison is often a very expensive way of making bad situations worse.
* Nearly 40% of women prisoners lose their homes as a result of imprisonment.
* 65% re-offend on release.
* A prison bed costs between £25,000 and £45,000 a year.
* The most common offences for which women are sent to prison are theft and handling stolen goods.
* The women’s prison population went up by 173% in the decade to 2004.
Prison does not work. The best way to cut women’s offending is to deal with its root causes."
We educate the public and policy makers about women in the criminal justice system and we promote alternatives to custody.
Prison causes damage and disruption to the lives of vulnerable women, most of whom pose no risk to the public.
* 70% of women prisoners have mental health problems.
* 37% have attempted suicide.
* 20% have been in the care system as children compared to 2% of the general population.
* At least 50% report being victims of childhood abuse or domestic violence.
Prison is often a very expensive way of making bad situations worse.
* Nearly 40% of women prisoners lose their homes as a result of imprisonment.
* 65% re-offend on release.
* A prison bed costs between £25,000 and £45,000 a year.
* The most common offences for which women are sent to prison are theft and handling stolen goods.
* The women’s prison population went up by 173% in the decade to 2004.
Prison does not work. The best way to cut women’s offending is to deal with its root causes."
Petition
Petition: "We strongly believe:
*
For most women who offend, prison does not work; it is inappropriate, unnecessary, and damaging.
*
Women offenders and those at risk of offending need local community-based provision based on women's centre models such as the Asha Centre and the Calderdale Women's Centre, which are close to families and networked into local services.
*
To reduce crime and improve women's lives it is crucial to address women's complex needs, including poverty and debt, mental health problems, abuse and domestic violence, addictions, and housing.
*
A national cross-departmental properly resourced body must be set up with power to develop and enforce policy on women offenders and those at risk of offending and to commission services.
These measures will reduce crime and benefit women, their families, and the wider society.
The Review report must not be left on the shelf. It must be a catalyst for action on the points above.
To support the campaign sign our petition.
Read more about the background to the Review
View the list of signatories"
*
For most women who offend, prison does not work; it is inappropriate, unnecessary, and damaging.
*
Women offenders and those at risk of offending need local community-based provision based on women's centre models such as the Asha Centre and the Calderdale Women's Centre, which are close to families and networked into local services.
*
To reduce crime and improve women's lives it is crucial to address women's complex needs, including poverty and debt, mental health problems, abuse and domestic violence, addictions, and housing.
*
A national cross-departmental properly resourced body must be set up with power to develop and enforce policy on women offenders and those at risk of offending and to commission services.
These measures will reduce crime and benefit women, their families, and the wider society.
The Review report must not be left on the shelf. It must be a catalyst for action on the points above.
To support the campaign sign our petition.
Read more about the background to the Review
View the list of signatories"
Report into deaths in jail calls for women's prisons to be closed | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited
Report into deaths in jail calls for women's prisons to be closed | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited: "Report into deaths in jail calls for women's prisons to be closed
Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Wednesday March 14, 2007
The Guardian
Ministers should set up a timetable within six months to close down existing women's prisons and replace them with a local network of small custodial units reserved only for those who are a danger to the public, according to a Home Office-commissioned report published yesterday.
The radical approach is recommended as a result of a nine-month review of the position of vulnerable women in the criminal justice system carried out by the Labour baroness Jean Corston. It was ordered by the former home secretary Charles Clarke in the face of demands for a public inquiry following the deaths of six women at Styal prison in Cheshire."
Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Wednesday March 14, 2007
The Guardian
Ministers should set up a timetable within six months to close down existing women's prisons and replace them with a local network of small custodial units reserved only for those who are a danger to the public, according to a Home Office-commissioned report published yesterday.
The radical approach is recommended as a result of a nine-month review of the position of vulnerable women in the criminal justice system carried out by the Labour baroness Jean Corston. It was ordered by the former home secretary Charles Clarke in the face of demands for a public inquiry following the deaths of six women at Styal prison in Cheshire."
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Council Housing: Greater London: 19 Mar 2007: Written answers (TheyWorkForYou.com)
Council Housing: Greater London: 19 Mar 2007: Written answers (TheyWorkForYou.com)
Council Housing: Greater LondonAll Written Answers on 19 Mar 2007
« Previous answer Next answer »
Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) | Hansard source
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many tenants in (a) arms length management organisation, (b) council managed and (c) housing association managed properties there are in London in each borough.
Yvette Cooper (Minister of State (Housing and Planning), Department for Communities and Local Government) | Hansard source
The Department does not collect the number of tenants in the properties my hon. Friend refers to. However, it has collected on a provisional basis the numbers of rented dwellings which those organisations manage on 1 April 2006, which the following table shows:
Authority Number of dwellings managed directly by local authority( 1) Number of dwellings managed by arms length management organisations (ALMOs)( 1) Number of dwellings managed by housing associations or registered social landlords (RSLs)( 2)
Barking 19,985 0 2,494
Barnet 0 11,106 6,588
Bexley 0 0 11,766
Brent 0 9,608 13,827
Bromley 0 0 15,403
Camden 24,581 0 10,840
Croydon 14,159 0 9,117
Ealing 0 13,874 10,945
Enfield 11,956 0 6,675
Greenwich 25,024 0 9,568
Hackney 0 (4)21,324 21,927
Hammersmith 0 13,261 12,151
Haringey 0 16,431 12,738
Harrow 5,089 0 3,683
Havering 0 10,411 2,619
Hillingdon 0 10,838 5,958
Hounslow 0 13,649 6,751
Islington 0 25,189 1 1,934
Kensington 0 6,961 12,114
Kingston upon Thames 4,863 0 2,355
Lambeth (3)26,758 (3)3,189 19,005
Lewisham (3)13,321 (3)12,642 8,588
London (City of) 1,897 0 249
Merton 6,609 0 4,461
Newham 0 (4)17,814 11,524
Redbridge 4,741 0 4,112
Richmond-upon-Thames 0 0 9,473
Southwark 41,482 0 14,043
Sutton 0 6,897 4,397
Tower Hamlets 17,647 0 20,519
Waltham Forest 0 10,671 10,211
Wandsworth 17,296 0 9,971
Westminster 0 12,335 12,934
Total 235,408 216,200 318,940
(1) Figures in these two columns exclude shared ownership dwellings and dwellings managed under the private finance initiative (PFI). They are derived from the Housing Revenue Account Base Data Return 2007-08 submitted by local authorities to the Department in October 2006, and are subject to what is said in notes 3 and 4.
(2) Figures in this column were collected from local authorities by the 2006 Housing Strategy Statistical Appendix. They include dwellings owned or leased by landlords registered with the Housing Corporation, local authority dwellings leased exclusively by an RSL, and housing association dwellings that are not registered with the Housing Corporation. They exclude dwellings managed but not owned by RSLs and any dwellings sold under shared ownership or rents to mortgage schemes.
(3) Figures for Lambeth and Lewisham in these two columns are derived from the number of tenanted dwellings in their ALMOs at the time of their establishment in 2005 and 2007 respectively. In practice, Right to Buy sales (RTB) since then are likely to mean that the number of ALMO tenanted dwellings and dwellings managed directly the local authority are slightly different.
(4) Number of dwellings at the time of the establishment of the ALMO in 2005. In practice RTB sales are likely to mean that dwellings are slightly fewer.
Council Housing: Greater LondonAll Written Answers on 19 Mar 2007
« Previous answer Next answer »
Emily Thornberry (Islington South & Finsbury, Labour) | Hansard source
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many tenants in (a) arms length management organisation, (b) council managed and (c) housing association managed properties there are in London in each borough.
Yvette Cooper (Minister of State (Housing and Planning), Department for Communities and Local Government) | Hansard source
The Department does not collect the number of tenants in the properties my hon. Friend refers to. However, it has collected on a provisional basis the numbers of rented dwellings which those organisations manage on 1 April 2006, which the following table shows:
Authority Number of dwellings managed directly by local authority( 1) Number of dwellings managed by arms length management organisations (ALMOs)( 1) Number of dwellings managed by housing associations or registered social landlords (RSLs)( 2)
Barking 19,985 0 2,494
Barnet 0 11,106 6,588
Bexley 0 0 11,766
Brent 0 9,608 13,827
Bromley 0 0 15,403
Camden 24,581 0 10,840
Croydon 14,159 0 9,117
Ealing 0 13,874 10,945
Enfield 11,956 0 6,675
Greenwich 25,024 0 9,568
Hackney 0 (4)21,324 21,927
Hammersmith 0 13,261 12,151
Haringey 0 16,431 12,738
Harrow 5,089 0 3,683
Havering 0 10,411 2,619
Hillingdon 0 10,838 5,958
Hounslow 0 13,649 6,751
Islington 0 25,189 1 1,934
Kensington 0 6,961 12,114
Kingston upon Thames 4,863 0 2,355
Lambeth (3)26,758 (3)3,189 19,005
Lewisham (3)13,321 (3)12,642 8,588
London (City of) 1,897 0 249
Merton 6,609 0 4,461
Newham 0 (4)17,814 11,524
Redbridge 4,741 0 4,112
Richmond-upon-Thames 0 0 9,473
Southwark 41,482 0 14,043
Sutton 0 6,897 4,397
Tower Hamlets 17,647 0 20,519
Waltham Forest 0 10,671 10,211
Wandsworth 17,296 0 9,971
Westminster 0 12,335 12,934
Total 235,408 216,200 318,940
(1) Figures in these two columns exclude shared ownership dwellings and dwellings managed under the private finance initiative (PFI). They are derived from the Housing Revenue Account Base Data Return 2007-08 submitted by local authorities to the Department in October 2006, and are subject to what is said in notes 3 and 4.
(2) Figures in this column were collected from local authorities by the 2006 Housing Strategy Statistical Appendix. They include dwellings owned or leased by landlords registered with the Housing Corporation, local authority dwellings leased exclusively by an RSL, and housing association dwellings that are not registered with the Housing Corporation. They exclude dwellings managed but not owned by RSLs and any dwellings sold under shared ownership or rents to mortgage schemes.
(3) Figures for Lambeth and Lewisham in these two columns are derived from the number of tenanted dwellings in their ALMOs at the time of their establishment in 2005 and 2007 respectively. In practice, Right to Buy sales (RTB) since then are likely to mean that the number of ALMO tenanted dwellings and dwellings managed directly the local authority are slightly different.
(4) Number of dwellings at the time of the establishment of the ALMO in 2005. In practice RTB sales are likely to mean that dwellings are slightly fewer.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Market-driven 'social housing' threatens tenants | The Socialist 15 March 2007
Market-driven 'social housing' threatens tenants | The Socialist 15 March 2007
The Socialist 15 March 2007 | Join the Socialist Party
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Market-driven 'social housing' threatens tenants
THE GOVERNMENT recently launched a new report into the future of social housing. New Labour Minister Ruth Kelly welcomed it as 'essential thinking' and congratulated the report's author Professor Hills on his acute analysis and deep commitment to social justice.
Holly Eaton
The Minister tried to reassure tenants who may worry about the review that she would do nothing to undermine their security of tenure. Far from being a threat, she claimed, the review was about making social housing "work better" for the four million households to whom it is vital.
So what is the review all about and why has it provoked so much controversy? Last summer, Professor John Hills, director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion, was asked to look into social housing's role in the 21st century. In particular, he was asked what were the best ways that social housing could create 'mixed communities' and help people to get on in their lives.
Did Hills spend his time gathering the views and experiences of those who live in social housing? Did he speak to some of the 1.5 million people on waiting lists up and down the country desperate to be allocated a council or housing association property? No.
Hills was appointed by and was accountable to the government, not to any residents of social housing, current or future. His review was carried out pretty much behind closed doors. There was no public consultation or opportunity to feed into the review. Instead a few 'stakeholders' were hand-picked to meet Hills and express their views to him privately.
The report essentially looked at whether there is a case for having social housing at all within a market-based system for providing and allocating housing. After all, if housing is a commodity to be bought and sold, a means first and foremost of making profit, why would you provide someone with a stable home for life on a low rent?
Hills responds to those calling for an end to life-time tenure and for the introduction of market rents for council and housing association tenants. He speaks of social housing being 'flexible' to people's needs, about it acting as a springboard from which people can progress in other walks of life, getting a foot on the "ownership ladder".
He talks of social mobility and being able to move to find work. Behind all these words are hard-hitting proposals which signal a definite shift in the direction of ending life-time tenure and restricted rents.
Higher rents
THE RENT restrictions are to be lifted in the north first, where housing costs are generally lower than in the south; the ending of lifetime tenure will be targeted at young people going into social housing, giving them shorter-term tenancies. Ruth Kelly commented, as she launched the report, that rarely will a young person's housing problems be solved by a lifetime tenancy.
Hills does not ignore the deep inequalities of the market-driven system. He acknowledges that there are wide variations but asserts that it cannot be called a general housing crisis.
Yes, he says, there are those who are overcrowded and living in cramped conditions, there are those unable to buy or rent affordably, who are trapped in poverty due to high rents. However, there are also many who have done very nicely out of the current system.
On this, he is spot on! The astronomical profits made by those who trade in other people's homes, leaves a very definite picture of winners and losers.
Surely this is a reason in itself to build more homes for low-cost renting, rather than for home ownership. It is also good grounds to protect security of tenure in social housing and bring tenure in the private sector up to the same standard.
Stable and affordable housing options are needed by our young people. It is necessary to remove the profit motive and make housing publicly funded and publicly run. But none of these options are on the cards as long as this government stays in power.
The Socialist 15 March 2007 | Join the Socialist Party
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Market-driven 'social housing' threatens tenants
THE GOVERNMENT recently launched a new report into the future of social housing. New Labour Minister Ruth Kelly welcomed it as 'essential thinking' and congratulated the report's author Professor Hills on his acute analysis and deep commitment to social justice.
Holly Eaton
The Minister tried to reassure tenants who may worry about the review that she would do nothing to undermine their security of tenure. Far from being a threat, she claimed, the review was about making social housing "work better" for the four million households to whom it is vital.
So what is the review all about and why has it provoked so much controversy? Last summer, Professor John Hills, director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion, was asked to look into social housing's role in the 21st century. In particular, he was asked what were the best ways that social housing could create 'mixed communities' and help people to get on in their lives.
Did Hills spend his time gathering the views and experiences of those who live in social housing? Did he speak to some of the 1.5 million people on waiting lists up and down the country desperate to be allocated a council or housing association property? No.
Hills was appointed by and was accountable to the government, not to any residents of social housing, current or future. His review was carried out pretty much behind closed doors. There was no public consultation or opportunity to feed into the review. Instead a few 'stakeholders' were hand-picked to meet Hills and express their views to him privately.
The report essentially looked at whether there is a case for having social housing at all within a market-based system for providing and allocating housing. After all, if housing is a commodity to be bought and sold, a means first and foremost of making profit, why would you provide someone with a stable home for life on a low rent?
Hills responds to those calling for an end to life-time tenure and for the introduction of market rents for council and housing association tenants. He speaks of social housing being 'flexible' to people's needs, about it acting as a springboard from which people can progress in other walks of life, getting a foot on the "ownership ladder".
He talks of social mobility and being able to move to find work. Behind all these words are hard-hitting proposals which signal a definite shift in the direction of ending life-time tenure and restricted rents.
Higher rents
THE RENT restrictions are to be lifted in the north first, where housing costs are generally lower than in the south; the ending of lifetime tenure will be targeted at young people going into social housing, giving them shorter-term tenancies. Ruth Kelly commented, as she launched the report, that rarely will a young person's housing problems be solved by a lifetime tenancy.
Hills does not ignore the deep inequalities of the market-driven system. He acknowledges that there are wide variations but asserts that it cannot be called a general housing crisis.
Yes, he says, there are those who are overcrowded and living in cramped conditions, there are those unable to buy or rent affordably, who are trapped in poverty due to high rents. However, there are also many who have done very nicely out of the current system.
On this, he is spot on! The astronomical profits made by those who trade in other people's homes, leaves a very definite picture of winners and losers.
Surely this is a reason in itself to build more homes for low-cost renting, rather than for home ownership. It is also good grounds to protect security of tenure in social housing and bring tenure in the private sector up to the same standard.
Stable and affordable housing options are needed by our young people. It is necessary to remove the profit motive and make housing publicly funded and publicly run. But none of these options are on the cards as long as this government stays in power.
Respect - Members - Louise Casey biography
Respect - Members - Louise Casey biography: "Louise Casey biography of a bossy pisshead
Louise Casey is the Government’s co-ordinator for Respect, heading up the cross-government Respect Task Force based in the Home Office. The Task Force, established in September 2005 by the Prime Minister, builds on the drive to tackle anti-social behaviour by getting to its causes through programmes such as parenting and intervention and support for problematic families.
Louise was formerly the National Director of the Government’s Anti-social Behaviour Unit, also based in the Home Office.
Before that Louise led the successful strategy to reduce the number of people sleeping rough and established the Homelessness Directorate in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
Between 1992 and 1999, Louise was Deputy Director of Homelessness Charity Shelter and, prior to that, held a number of posts in the social welfare sector.
ARTICLE LAST UPDATED: 14/12/2006"
Louise Casey is the Government’s co-ordinator for Respect, heading up the cross-government Respect Task Force based in the Home Office. The Task Force, established in September 2005 by the Prime Minister, builds on the drive to tackle anti-social behaviour by getting to its causes through programmes such as parenting and intervention and support for problematic families.
Louise was formerly the National Director of the Government’s Anti-social Behaviour Unit, also based in the Home Office.
Before that Louise led the successful strategy to reduce the number of people sleeping rough and established the Homelessness Directorate in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
Between 1992 and 1999, Louise was Deputy Director of Homelessness Charity Shelter and, prior to that, held a number of posts in the social welfare sector.
ARTICLE LAST UPDATED: 14/12/2006"
Government By Gameshow
Look what they have done to my town | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics: "All the people of this country want from the government, via their taxes, are decent public services: schools, hospitals and transport; this is the covenant that has served us well, in our modest way, since the end of the war. But even as taxes continue to rise, a lower proportion than ever goes on these essentials. Instead, it goes on bailing out the private companies that screw up our utilities and on lame 'initiatives'. Where are drug tsar Keith Halliwell and homelessness tsarina Louise Casey now, one wonders?
Government By Gameshow, you could call it; the rubbish lies uncollected and the trains won't work when the weather is 'wrong', but look on the bright side: you can always divert yourself with a council-lent camcorder for a few weeks."
Government By Gameshow, you could call it; the rubbish lies uncollected and the trains won't work when the weather is 'wrong', but look on the bright side: you can always divert yourself with a council-lent camcorder for a few weeks."
Friday, March 16, 2007
Inside Housing
Inside Housing: "Success in preventing homelessness across the south east should bolster the case....
Success in preventing homelessness across the south east should bolster the case for housing in the forthcoming comprehensive spending review, according to a government advisor.
Bob Lawrence, a specialist advisor to the Communities and Local Government department’s homelessness directorate, told the conference that councils’ homelessness prevention strategies had ‘re-anchored homelessness in the town halls’.
There have been ‘profound improvements’ in the way homelessness was being tackled, he added.
‘We are going to the comprehensive spending review in 2007 with a good story to tell,’ he said. ‘When the Treasury asks, “what has the extra money achieved?”, we can show them examples of your good work.’
It was ‘almost a given’ that the government’s target of halving the number of households in temporary accommodation by 2010 would be hit, Mr Lawrence said.
‘What is interesting to me is that acceptances per thousand households, which used to be around 1.2 per cent, have now fallen to 0.5 per cent,’ he said.
Caroline Davey, deputy director at homelessness charity Shelter, called on delegates to increase outreach work to people at risk of homelessness, including young people and people on assured shorthold tenancies.
Housing officers needed to give more advice to other groups such as pregnant mothers in antenatal clinics because of the links between pregnancy, birth and domestic violence, she added."
Success in preventing homelessness across the south east should bolster the case for housing in the forthcoming comprehensive spending review, according to a government advisor.
Bob Lawrence, a specialist advisor to the Communities and Local Government department’s homelessness directorate, told the conference that councils’ homelessness prevention strategies had ‘re-anchored homelessness in the town halls’.
There have been ‘profound improvements’ in the way homelessness was being tackled, he added.
‘We are going to the comprehensive spending review in 2007 with a good story to tell,’ he said. ‘When the Treasury asks, “what has the extra money achieved?”, we can show them examples of your good work.’
It was ‘almost a given’ that the government’s target of halving the number of households in temporary accommodation by 2010 would be hit, Mr Lawrence said.
‘What is interesting to me is that acceptances per thousand households, which used to be around 1.2 per cent, have now fallen to 0.5 per cent,’ he said.
Caroline Davey, deputy director at homelessness charity Shelter, called on delegates to increase outreach work to people at risk of homelessness, including young people and people on assured shorthold tenancies.
Housing officers needed to give more advice to other groups such as pregnant mothers in antenatal clinics because of the links between pregnancy, birth and domestic violence, she added."
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Sprawl plugs
Sprawl plugs
The only sustainable solution to the housing crisis lies in 'recycling' cities, not building on the greenbelt. Anne Power and John Houghton make the case for 'smart growth'
Wednesday March 14, 2007
The Guardian
Britain has never truly loved its industrial cities. They have been fixed in the collective psyche as a place of danger, dirt and disorder, in stark contrast to the order and calm that we associate with life in the country, small towns and cathedral cities.
England is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Nearly half the population lives in suburbs and urban flight is continuing. The perimeters of our urban jigsaw are constantly being stretched outward, loosening the connections between inner and outer neighbourhoods, leaving gaps where there should be linked communities. There are those who proclaim that the city of the smokestack industries is dead, an industrial "outcrop" that has no place in a post-industrial society; that in our age of knowledge-based economies, IT and instantaneous worldwide communication, there is no economic need for or social benefit from forcing people to group together in large numbers if they would prefer to live outside the big city.
The doomsayers and utopians have got it wrong. But there are many things to be fixed before we can attract people back to cities in significant numbers. In survey after survey, the same concerns are cited by people of all ages and from all walks of life: too much pollution and dirt; transport connections within and between cities are too slow and unreliable, too disjointed and overstretched; too much vandalism and crime. The dream of a continental cafe culture has taken off in city centres, but there are weakening communal bonds and shrunken civic pride. The frayed and fragmented pieces that make up today's complex, multi-layered urban centres must be made to fit together.
In response to these problems, many people, particularly families, continue to decide that city life is not for them and opt for the peaceful suburbs or the countryside. When households with money and choice leave a city, their skills, their spending power and their involvement in civic life goes with them, and economic growth eventually moves to suburbs and smaller towns too. As people depart, informal city boundaries sprawl outwards, and roads are widened, extended or built anew to carry the extra traffic that sprawl generates. Leftover parcels of "degraded" green belt land become incorporated, and the physical size of cities spreads inexorably.
Sprawl is a damaging reality. Britain has doubled the number of homes since the second world war, but the cores of all our cities have smaller populations than they had at its outset. The biggest problem of city growth and decline is density. In 1900, we built - by law - terraced houses at 250 homes to the hectare. By 2000, density had dropped to 25 properties to the hectare. Land is being released for new developments to house the projected increase in households at unsustainably low densities. Given the current average of around 2.3 people per household, and the predominance of single-person households in new household projections (70% of the total), we need at least 50 homes (120 people) per hectare just to keep a regular bus going.
Shrinking household size and lower density have played havoc with land use and urban form. Many suburbs of family homes struggle to generate a sense of activity and neighbourliness; they gain a reputation for soullessness because the population is too thin to sustain local facilities and other infrastructure. Many inner cities feel deserted. Car-borne suburbanites drive into city centres for the new cultural and commercial attractions, but inner cities, increasingly traffic jammed, become a knot of clogged arteries with a still pumping heart at the centre.
Vital infrastructure
It does not have to be like this. The government has grand designs for British cities. The 2003 Sustainable Communities Plan proposes mixed communities that will house people in neighbourhoods of lasting quality and protect the countryside from suburban sprawl. But this ambition may be thwarted by the political imperative to build quickly and cheaply, and the developer imperative to make a profit. Instead of slowly strengthening our cities by rebuilding within existing communities where there are almost infinite small sites and many larger brownfield sites, we still turn to grand plans that quickly run out of funding, undermining both community viability and historic value.
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's 2005 five-year plan proposes that 1.1m extra homes will be built across the wider south-east region by 2016. In theory, new communities can be well-planned, well-designed, well-connected, eco-friendly neighbourhoods, offering high-quality facilities and services, housing a balance of households and services. If its intent converted readily into reality, it would create the kind of communities everyone dreams of. But there are many hurdles in the way, not least the sheer scale of public investment required to service these communities with public transport and other crucial infrastructure. With the private sector driving profits and the government driving numbers and lower costs, we are more likely to end up with the lowest common denominator.
Alarming examples are already appearing in the Thames Gateway, and in Kent and Essex, of poorly designed, poorly connected, largely private estates with few services, little vitality and "dumbed down" design, condemned even by developers. Far from creating "sustainable communities", the government's ambitious building targets threaten the urban and rural environment by making it too easy to build for demand outside the main cities rather than looking at how demand could be met and managed in favour of more sustainable existing communities.
The future of cities lies in what we call "smart growth". This means containing the expansion of cities, by creating a fixed urban growth boundary, and intensively regenerating existing neighbourhoods to reverse the flight of people, jobs and investment into land gobbling, congestion generating and environmentally damaging urban extensions. Cities have a pulse, a biorhythm based on their resource use, waste and dependence on natural capital. When they grow outwards, these patterns become overstretched.
We can expand our housing supply virtually without touching new greenfield land and almost entirely within the framework of existing communities by reusing buildings, reusing infill sites and operating at a density that will sustain the services we want. Some places are already doing this. Given that at least 70% of the homes and urban infrastructure that we will have in 2050 already exist, it is crucial that we make what is already there work better.
The smart growth approach works best by engaging residents to develop specific improvement plans that include changing the use of some buildings, mixing tenures, nurturing small businesses and revitalising social spaces, particularly parks. By revitalising social and physical infrastructure, a critical mass of people large enough to sustain local services and compact enough to retain a sense of community can be created. As much as any financial or physical improvement, it is a sense of community that makes a neighbourhood successful and liveable.
Smart growth works because it offers people something that dull, predictable, out-of-town housing developments and shopping complexes can't: the buzz that goes with variety in condensed, worn-in spaces. If we apply the smart growth principle to our cities, we neither need as many new houses as the Sustainable Communities Plan assumes, nor do we need the vast growth areas covering virtually the entire southern part of the country.
Only a smart growth approach to accommodating the continuing increase in households, particularly in London and the south-east, can subvert the return to the discredited policy of "predicting" the number of homes we need and simply "providing" them. The government's restrictions on extremely low density, limiting new building increasingly to brownfield sites, has begun to create a smart growth attitude. If pushed, these powerful planning levers could gradually help repopulate the existing urban communities that have halved in population over the last 50 years. Taking 50 homes per hectare - around 115 people - as our viable baseline for a regular bus service and a local school, we need to jump from 40 homes per hectare on average, a 30% improvement on the government minimum density guideline in 2000, to 50 homes per hectare very quickly. Greater density reduces land use and therefore the cost of each home as land makes up about 60% of the cost. It supports public transport that reduces the need for multiple cars per household, and even a car at all.
There is a danger in idealising dense city centre life. Living among large numbers of strangers can be noisy, alienating and sometimes lonely, even threatening. Noise between flats, maintenance of common areas and the integration of families with different incomes and cultural backgrounds are all major hurdles in the pursuit of a viable city. It is hard to get the balance right between the "24-hour city" and people's desire for "peaceful occupation of the home". New growth in city centres almost entirely excludes families, who have a humanising influence on social relations and community conditions. There is a lot more to do before we make our cities smart.
Unless cities consume a small fraction of today's energy and recycle virtually everything, they will never be sustainable. Whereas we dump most of our waste, we could compost half our rubbish, to feed our parks, gardens, urban forests and street planters. Some councils have pushed their recycling up to 50% but many cities only reach 15%. Neglect of neighbourhood environments drives people to spread out, use more land, drive more cars and destroy more essential environmental goods. Thus the social and economic problems of cities have to be addressed as part of a bigger environmental strategy. The environmental damage cities have wrought over vast tracts of land for the past two centuries has to be made good.
The critical challenges within existing communities are threefold: to upgrade homes and environments to the point where they counter the attraction of new-build communities; to add with immense care the buildings and spaces we now need within the spaces that are bare; and to make each existing and new home into a highly insulated, energy efficient micro-generator and recycler.
This is easier said than done but the Sustainable Development Commission, the Building Research Establishment and English Heritage have all conducted in-depth research to show that in practice existing homes can be made as energy efficient as the average new-build home; using one sixth of the energy, their inputs of materials and waste are far lower, they last longer and they are cheaper to maintain.
The Oxford University environmental research unit has now shown that with micro-generation using proven local technologies, existing houses can be made as eco-sustainable as new. This is crucial evidence and it requires a different approach to planning. It does not mean "no" to new-build; it means building in ways that enhance existing communities and cities. Applying this knowledge with the right incentives, cities can help our life and death battle against environmental destruction.
It is unsurprising that so many communities up and down the country are concerned about the future. The government's almost frenetic desire to relax planning and release land for development will unleash more and more overdevelopment. Involving local people in upgrading their communities will encourage upgrading and infill to make them more sustainable.
Slash and burn
Many people think that we have built an urban jungle from which we must escape, destroying all in our path. But this "urban jungle" is not tamed by clear felling, slash and burn; for it creates a wealth of diversity that keeps us alive. If we think of cities as "rainforests" instead of urban jungles, we will recognise their immense potential value as richly diverse, crowded and intense medleys of colour, sound and constant renewal to be harvested and protected simultaneously.
Cities, large, difficult and ambitious, stretch human capacity to its limit, yet within their small crowded spaces we find myriad signs of regrowth. In this lies our hope for the future.
· To order a copy of Jigsaw Cities for £21.99 (RRP £23.99) with free UK p&p call 0870 836 0875 or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop
· Email your comments to society@guardian.co.uk. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication"
The only sustainable solution to the housing crisis lies in 'recycling' cities, not building on the greenbelt. Anne Power and John Houghton make the case for 'smart growth'
Wednesday March 14, 2007
The Guardian
Britain has never truly loved its industrial cities. They have been fixed in the collective psyche as a place of danger, dirt and disorder, in stark contrast to the order and calm that we associate with life in the country, small towns and cathedral cities.
England is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Nearly half the population lives in suburbs and urban flight is continuing. The perimeters of our urban jigsaw are constantly being stretched outward, loosening the connections between inner and outer neighbourhoods, leaving gaps where there should be linked communities. There are those who proclaim that the city of the smokestack industries is dead, an industrial "outcrop" that has no place in a post-industrial society; that in our age of knowledge-based economies, IT and instantaneous worldwide communication, there is no economic need for or social benefit from forcing people to group together in large numbers if they would prefer to live outside the big city.
The doomsayers and utopians have got it wrong. But there are many things to be fixed before we can attract people back to cities in significant numbers. In survey after survey, the same concerns are cited by people of all ages and from all walks of life: too much pollution and dirt; transport connections within and between cities are too slow and unreliable, too disjointed and overstretched; too much vandalism and crime. The dream of a continental cafe culture has taken off in city centres, but there are weakening communal bonds and shrunken civic pride. The frayed and fragmented pieces that make up today's complex, multi-layered urban centres must be made to fit together.
In response to these problems, many people, particularly families, continue to decide that city life is not for them and opt for the peaceful suburbs or the countryside. When households with money and choice leave a city, their skills, their spending power and their involvement in civic life goes with them, and economic growth eventually moves to suburbs and smaller towns too. As people depart, informal city boundaries sprawl outwards, and roads are widened, extended or built anew to carry the extra traffic that sprawl generates. Leftover parcels of "degraded" green belt land become incorporated, and the physical size of cities spreads inexorably.
Sprawl is a damaging reality. Britain has doubled the number of homes since the second world war, but the cores of all our cities have smaller populations than they had at its outset. The biggest problem of city growth and decline is density. In 1900, we built - by law - terraced houses at 250 homes to the hectare. By 2000, density had dropped to 25 properties to the hectare. Land is being released for new developments to house the projected increase in households at unsustainably low densities. Given the current average of around 2.3 people per household, and the predominance of single-person households in new household projections (70% of the total), we need at least 50 homes (120 people) per hectare just to keep a regular bus going.
Shrinking household size and lower density have played havoc with land use and urban form. Many suburbs of family homes struggle to generate a sense of activity and neighbourliness; they gain a reputation for soullessness because the population is too thin to sustain local facilities and other infrastructure. Many inner cities feel deserted. Car-borne suburbanites drive into city centres for the new cultural and commercial attractions, but inner cities, increasingly traffic jammed, become a knot of clogged arteries with a still pumping heart at the centre.
Vital infrastructure
It does not have to be like this. The government has grand designs for British cities. The 2003 Sustainable Communities Plan proposes mixed communities that will house people in neighbourhoods of lasting quality and protect the countryside from suburban sprawl. But this ambition may be thwarted by the political imperative to build quickly and cheaply, and the developer imperative to make a profit. Instead of slowly strengthening our cities by rebuilding within existing communities where there are almost infinite small sites and many larger brownfield sites, we still turn to grand plans that quickly run out of funding, undermining both community viability and historic value.
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's 2005 five-year plan proposes that 1.1m extra homes will be built across the wider south-east region by 2016. In theory, new communities can be well-planned, well-designed, well-connected, eco-friendly neighbourhoods, offering high-quality facilities and services, housing a balance of households and services. If its intent converted readily into reality, it would create the kind of communities everyone dreams of. But there are many hurdles in the way, not least the sheer scale of public investment required to service these communities with public transport and other crucial infrastructure. With the private sector driving profits and the government driving numbers and lower costs, we are more likely to end up with the lowest common denominator.
Alarming examples are already appearing in the Thames Gateway, and in Kent and Essex, of poorly designed, poorly connected, largely private estates with few services, little vitality and "dumbed down" design, condemned even by developers. Far from creating "sustainable communities", the government's ambitious building targets threaten the urban and rural environment by making it too easy to build for demand outside the main cities rather than looking at how demand could be met and managed in favour of more sustainable existing communities.
The future of cities lies in what we call "smart growth". This means containing the expansion of cities, by creating a fixed urban growth boundary, and intensively regenerating existing neighbourhoods to reverse the flight of people, jobs and investment into land gobbling, congestion generating and environmentally damaging urban extensions. Cities have a pulse, a biorhythm based on their resource use, waste and dependence on natural capital. When they grow outwards, these patterns become overstretched.
We can expand our housing supply virtually without touching new greenfield land and almost entirely within the framework of existing communities by reusing buildings, reusing infill sites and operating at a density that will sustain the services we want. Some places are already doing this. Given that at least 70% of the homes and urban infrastructure that we will have in 2050 already exist, it is crucial that we make what is already there work better.
The smart growth approach works best by engaging residents to develop specific improvement plans that include changing the use of some buildings, mixing tenures, nurturing small businesses and revitalising social spaces, particularly parks. By revitalising social and physical infrastructure, a critical mass of people large enough to sustain local services and compact enough to retain a sense of community can be created. As much as any financial or physical improvement, it is a sense of community that makes a neighbourhood successful and liveable.
Smart growth works because it offers people something that dull, predictable, out-of-town housing developments and shopping complexes can't: the buzz that goes with variety in condensed, worn-in spaces. If we apply the smart growth principle to our cities, we neither need as many new houses as the Sustainable Communities Plan assumes, nor do we need the vast growth areas covering virtually the entire southern part of the country.
Only a smart growth approach to accommodating the continuing increase in households, particularly in London and the south-east, can subvert the return to the discredited policy of "predicting" the number of homes we need and simply "providing" them. The government's restrictions on extremely low density, limiting new building increasingly to brownfield sites, has begun to create a smart growth attitude. If pushed, these powerful planning levers could gradually help repopulate the existing urban communities that have halved in population over the last 50 years. Taking 50 homes per hectare - around 115 people - as our viable baseline for a regular bus service and a local school, we need to jump from 40 homes per hectare on average, a 30% improvement on the government minimum density guideline in 2000, to 50 homes per hectare very quickly. Greater density reduces land use and therefore the cost of each home as land makes up about 60% of the cost. It supports public transport that reduces the need for multiple cars per household, and even a car at all.
There is a danger in idealising dense city centre life. Living among large numbers of strangers can be noisy, alienating and sometimes lonely, even threatening. Noise between flats, maintenance of common areas and the integration of families with different incomes and cultural backgrounds are all major hurdles in the pursuit of a viable city. It is hard to get the balance right between the "24-hour city" and people's desire for "peaceful occupation of the home". New growth in city centres almost entirely excludes families, who have a humanising influence on social relations and community conditions. There is a lot more to do before we make our cities smart.
Unless cities consume a small fraction of today's energy and recycle virtually everything, they will never be sustainable. Whereas we dump most of our waste, we could compost half our rubbish, to feed our parks, gardens, urban forests and street planters. Some councils have pushed their recycling up to 50% but many cities only reach 15%. Neglect of neighbourhood environments drives people to spread out, use more land, drive more cars and destroy more essential environmental goods. Thus the social and economic problems of cities have to be addressed as part of a bigger environmental strategy. The environmental damage cities have wrought over vast tracts of land for the past two centuries has to be made good.
The critical challenges within existing communities are threefold: to upgrade homes and environments to the point where they counter the attraction of new-build communities; to add with immense care the buildings and spaces we now need within the spaces that are bare; and to make each existing and new home into a highly insulated, energy efficient micro-generator and recycler.
This is easier said than done but the Sustainable Development Commission, the Building Research Establishment and English Heritage have all conducted in-depth research to show that in practice existing homes can be made as energy efficient as the average new-build home; using one sixth of the energy, their inputs of materials and waste are far lower, they last longer and they are cheaper to maintain.
The Oxford University environmental research unit has now shown that with micro-generation using proven local technologies, existing houses can be made as eco-sustainable as new. This is crucial evidence and it requires a different approach to planning. It does not mean "no" to new-build; it means building in ways that enhance existing communities and cities. Applying this knowledge with the right incentives, cities can help our life and death battle against environmental destruction.
It is unsurprising that so many communities up and down the country are concerned about the future. The government's almost frenetic desire to relax planning and release land for development will unleash more and more overdevelopment. Involving local people in upgrading their communities will encourage upgrading and infill to make them more sustainable.
Slash and burn
Many people think that we have built an urban jungle from which we must escape, destroying all in our path. But this "urban jungle" is not tamed by clear felling, slash and burn; for it creates a wealth of diversity that keeps us alive. If we think of cities as "rainforests" instead of urban jungles, we will recognise their immense potential value as richly diverse, crowded and intense medleys of colour, sound and constant renewal to be harvested and protected simultaneously.
Cities, large, difficult and ambitious, stretch human capacity to its limit, yet within their small crowded spaces we find myriad signs of regrowth. In this lies our hope for the future.
· To order a copy of Jigsaw Cities for £21.99 (RRP £23.99) with free UK p&p call 0870 836 0875 or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop
· Email your comments to society@guardian.co.uk. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication"
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
John Bird is not a man of few words.
You recently published a
manifesto called ‘A Rolls Royce
service for the homeless, please’.
“We’re making a programme with
Channel 4 all about this. Nobody
really wants to bite the bullet over
the issue of homelessness, so people
get a shoddy service. Some of my
friends and family – because they
can afford it – have had what I
would call a Rolls Royce service to
help them out of their addictions or
whatever it was that lead them to ill
health or homelessness. They go to
places like the Priory for help.
“Then there are others who
have no money, have gone
through the state system and have
never changed. They have been
continually homeless, and often
continuously in and out of the
prison system. A mate of mine died
recently at 49 years of age. He was
a London-Irish lad I’d known since I
was about 15. For the last 26 years
of his life, he had social security, he
got a flat, and he was supported in
and out of the prison system and in
and out of long-term hostels. But in
the end, he was killed by the system
because nobody ever did a fucking
thing for him, other than maintain
him.
“What homeless people with
deep problems need is intensive
care. They need to come out the
other side, recovered and
independent.”
How much would it cost to provide
a Rolls Royce service?
“On average it costs £60,000 per
year to maintain a homeless person
in a hostel, so holding their hands
for 10 years costs £600,000. And
there are many, many homeless
people who have been in the homeless
sector for longer than that.
“Why not spend more money
on them now in order to save later?
If we were to spend £30,000 a
year for two years – £60,000 – on
bespoke treatment, plus intensive
care and counselling, we would save
£540,000.
“Spend a couple of years on
rebuilding someone’s life, and you
give them what the upper and
middle classes give their families.
Just give them what they really
need, whatever it is, whether it’s
dance lessons or detox, and they will
start to get better.
“And I’ve seen this work again
and again in the lives of people I
know.”
Why do hostels fail to help in
the recovery process of someone
homeless?
“On the whole, hostels should not be
called hostels: they should be called
hostiles, because hostels are largely
hostile to the needs of homeless
people.
“Certainly, homeless people
need to be lifted off the streets
because they are destroying
themselves. They need to be given
places of safety in therapeutic communities
whether they like it or not,
because often their mental health
problems do not allow them to
make decisions by themselves. But
this just has to be one of a number
of stages in getting the homeless
off the streets.
“If you go into the homeless
system, it’s a bit like going into
hospital. You see the doctor, who
tells you you’re very ill and that you
need to go to hospital. You go to
hospital, and they say you need a
major operation and a long recovery.
They show you where the TV is,
the remote control, the bed. They
give you a library book and ask you
what you want for tea tomorrow
night. That’s your first day of hospitalisation.
The second, third and
fourth day are just the same. But
on the fifth day, the nurse comes
in and tells you that you’re going
home tomorrow. “But I thought I
was really ill – I haven’t even had
my operation!” you say. And that
is what generally happens to the
homeless within hostels.
“95% of all money in this sector
goes into emergency or stabilisation,
and only five per cent into
cure. If you’ve been fucked over or
abused as a child, will a big house
with a café area, dorms, toilets and
a consulting room (where you can
see your key worker for two hours
a week or get a couple of hours
a month of psychological help or
some career advice) really change
your situation? A lot of these people
are well over the top, as I was when
I was young. They need what,
unfortunately, nobody gave me
either: deep and intense psychological
help.”
With an emphasis on cure not
maintenance, how could a Rolls
Royce service for the homeless
come about in the UK?
“For me, the future of the world
The interview
John Bird is not a man of few words. Famed for founding The Big Issue and – more recently
– for speaking out about the vulnerably housed, Bird is seen in equal measures
as a hero and a villain, with a talent for contraversy. In his own words, he tells Naomi
Glass his (Bird’s eye) views on what lies in store for those with no fixed abode
14 / The Pavement, February 2007
Photography by Rufus Exton © 2007
“…they are always demanding
things as if they were
children, because no one has
allowed them to grow up”
The Pavement, February 2007 / 15
is about participatory and not
representational democracy: I
don’t want you to represent me
– I want you to represent yourself.
It’s about getting the people with
the problems involved in the solutions.
Homeless people have to be
involved in the solution, which is just
what we did with the Big Issue. The
solutions should not be left just to
experts and trained professionals.
“If you look at homeless people,
they are always demanding things
as if they were children, because
no one has allowed them to grow
up. They are kept as eight-yearolds.
Eight-year-olds put their hand
out for money, for sweets, for the
clothes they want… and Mummy
and Daddy put something in it.
Homeless people should be given
the freedom to make their own
choices.
“You can’t leave all problems to
government or to your MP to solve. I
want people to be trained to understand
government budgets so they
can vote on how the budget’s going
to be spent because they know how
it works.
“The world trains us to be children
because the people in power
treat us like children, so a change
could come about if we recaptured
the heights of politics. We have
to start with a revolution where
we make the decisions based on
knowing where the wealth goes.”
Have you been in conversation
with the British government over
the issues of homelessness?
“I have been in conversation with
them over the years, but they have
never listened to me. I’m probably
going to stand for the Mayor
of London in 2008 and I shall be
making a lot of noise about why it
is that London is full of homeless
people and why they’re warehoused.
“Why is it that there are 16
prisons in the London area which
are a kind of social machine for
creating homelessness, poverty
and crime? I’ll be telling the Home
Office that I don’t want them
polluting my London any more and
getting them to tell me how they
plan to stop the creation of crime,
homelessness and social abuse. I
don’t tolerate the indifference that
society has towards the homeless. I
don’t want London to be like Lagos,
and I don’t want London to turn
into a Third World city where people
can live and die in the streets and
you don’t care. “
“I don’t want
London to turn into
a city where people
can live and die
in the streets and
you don’t care”
How does life for the vulnerably
housed differ from what it was like
when you were on the streets as a
young man?
“The homeless used to work for a
living – they didn’t get things for
free. They weren’t allowed to beg
because if they did, they got done
under the Vagrancy Act. If they
slept rough, they got done under
the No Fixed Abode Act. The laws
are still there; we just don’t use
them. Forty or 50 years ago, the
homeless would have to live in
a place like a roundhouse or the
Salvation Army. Then they’d have
to work, which they could because
hundreds of businesses employed
people on a day-to-day basis, on a
casual list which paid around five
shillings a day.
“Now the homeless are sitting
in hospitals or are being paid to do
nothing and not to be responsible.
They need a chance to grow up.
They just live on state benefits and
their minds are being destroyed by
well-intentioned do-gooders who
think they’re helping when all they
are doing is creating dependency
rather than independence in the
people they are trying to help.”
What does the future hold for
UK’s homeless and vulnerably
housed?
“There will come a time when the
industry will lose its support because
more money is being spent and
fewer people are coming out the
other end. In the same way that
climate change is having enormous
and increasing effects, the problems
of homelessness are rising. More
and more people are getting more
and more desperate. Unless we pass
our buck to the people, we’re lost.”
John Bird’s views are sure to raise
some comment from readers, so
do write in to let us know your
thoughts. Is he calling for a fairer
world or a class war? Are his comments
accurate? Is he in touch
with today’s homeless?
Saturday, March 10, 2007
The dapper godfather who ran his empire like a blue-chip company-News-UK-Crime-TimesOnline
The godfather who ran his empire like a blue-chip company-News-UK-Crime-TimesOnline: " From The Times
March 10, 2007
The dapper godfather who ran his empire like a blue-chip company
Terry Adams made so much money he was able to retire at the age of 35. In the end he was trapped, like Al Capone, by the taxman
undefined
Stewart Tendler and Alan Hamilton
He looks like an ageing dandy, a cross between Liberace and Peter Stringfellow, but he was at the top of his profession and controlled his empire with such ruthless efficiency that he could have run BP or ICI. He even claimed that by the time he was 35 he had made enough to retire from the sharp end of the business.
Yet Terry Adams’s profession was organised crime, murder and drugs. He was godfather of the nearest underworld network Britain had to the Mafia. He was the Capone of his time and, like Capone, it was the taxman who finally nailed him.
Yesterday at the Old Bailey, Adams was sentenced to seven years in jail for money laundering.
Adams had so much money he did not know where it all was, and merely summoned an underling when he needed cash. In luxurious retirement he told associates that he wanted to “kosher up” — go straight — and swore to his own mother that he had left a life of crime behind.
Related Links
* Loophole may let him start again after prison
He was ever the dapper gent in his velvet-collared overcoats. He lived in a £2 million house in North London crammed with stolen antiques, a far cry from his upbringing on the rough Barnsbury estate in Islington. His family and close associates are reputedly worth about £200 million and are feared far more than the Krays ever were. Adams was so proud of it all, and he guarded his criminal reputation as a board of directors would guard a trademark.
It has taken a decade, and many millions of public money, to bring Adams to justice. He admitted a £1 million money scam in an effort to hide his ill-gotten gains from HM Inspector of Taxes, one of the lesser of his multifarious crimes. But charges against his wife Ruth were droppd and yesterday he waved to her in the public gallery. Joanna Barnes, the widow of his murdered financial adviser, was fined for after confessing to fraud involving a £15,000 loan.
Adams had thought himself untouchable, until the Revenue began to wonder how he managed to live so well. They investigated how a man with no employment or national insurance record could live so well for 15 years. He claimed he only had £50 in cash but settled his tax debts for £95,000. He then claimed to be a £200-a-week consultant working in general PR and as a minder. “I can consult about anything you want to,” he once told a friend. But he never knew the address of the firms he was supposed to own which were used to fool the Inland Revenue into believing that he had a legitimate income.
When police raided his home in 2003 they found £500,000 of antiques, mostly stolen, nearly £60,000 in cash hidden in the attic and £48,000 worth of jewellery — all loose change to a villain of Adams’s magnitude.
In fact, he had made so much money that he boasted of retiring from active crime 20 years ago. He just took his cut while others did the dirty work. And it was very dirty indeed. He flew first class, stayed at the best hotels, indulged a passion for expensive jewellery and sent his daughter, Skye, to private school and then to drama school.
Armed robbery, drug dealing on a huige scale and terrifying intimidation were how he achieved such a lifestyle. His henchmen are thought to have been responsible for about 30 deaths.
Detectives with the help of MI5 had bugged his house and been listening in for 18 months. One senior detective who heard the tapes said it was like listening to The Sopranos. On one occasion Adams was recorded boasting: “When I hit someone with something, I do them damage. On my baby’s life, his kneecap came right out . . . all white, all bone.”
Ordering a henchman to deal with a recalcitrant debtor he told him: “You have got to liven him up, put the fear of God into him, mate, so he knows it’s only down to you that he’s walking about and breathing fresh air.”
As Adams stood in the dock yesterday, Andrew Mitchell, QC, prosecuting, told a packed court: “It is suggested that Terrence Adams was one of the country’s most feared and revered organised criminals. He comes with a pedigree as one of a family whose name had a currency all of its own in the underworld.”
He had managed to avoid conviction by keeping away from the dirty end of the business and had, Mr Mitchell said, taken the same attitude to the court case, employing delaying tactics and even consulting psychiatrists about his mental health before finally deciding to plead guilty.
His gang, which his brothers, Patsy and Tommy, allegedly ran with him, is heavily involved in the London drugs scene. Dealers would even boast that they were working for the fearsome Adams family — the “A-Team” — to bolster their credibility.
The gang also owned clubs and discos in North London, were silent partners in clubs in the West End and Soho, ran protection rackets and reportedly commissioned armed robberies from which they took a cut. One detective on the case said: “Never get carried away with the idea that organised criminals focus on one thing. They will try anything that will make a lot of money.”
At one stage the brothers tried to invest in the London Arena and Tottenham Hotspur, although they are said to be Arsenal fans. Adams ran his business like a modern-day multinational company. It is said the gang even imported to London the Mafia assassination trick of gunmen travelling as pillion passengers on motorbikes.
Such was the gang’s power and reputation that it even ran a franchise operation, allowing other gangs to use its name at a cost of £250,000 per operation. The condition: pay within a week, or else.
Adams cut his teeth in crime early, running protection rackets with Patsy and Tommy in the local markets before moving into armed robbery. Hatton Garden became a base and at one time Tommy ran a jewellery shop there. Saul Nahome, one of the Garden’s jewel dealers, was recruited to become a highly trusted financial adviser to the family. He was later murdered.
By the Nineties the gang was very powerful. As the drug markets grew, so did the Adams’s wealth as the gang built up contacts with the South American cartels.
Its reputation for violence was also embellished. In the Eighties it provoked a shoot-out with the Reillys, a rival Islington gang. Remarkably, no one was killed. In 1989 Terry Gooderham, a club auditor, and his girlfriend were killed and dumped in Epping Forest, Essex. Mr Gooderham allegedly crossed the gang over cash.
In 1991 later “Mad” Frankie Fraser, a gangland veteran, was shot in the head outside a London club in another attack attributed to Adams’s gang. Claude Moseley, a former British high jump champion and an associate of Adams, was stabbed with a samurai sword by Gilbert Wynter, one of Adams’s enforcers. It was claimed that Mr Moseley had short-changed the family. Mr Wynter was acquitted at the Old Bailey in 1994 when the prosecution’s chief witness refused to testify. The hitman later disappeared, possibly concreted into the foundations of the Millennium Dome.
David McKenzie, a Mayfair financier, paid a high price for losing £1.5 million for Adams. He was summoned to the godfather’s house to explain. “Everyone stood up when he walked in. He looked like a star; he was immaculately dressed in a long black coat and white frilly shirt. He was totally in command,” he said.
Several days later Mr McKenzie was savagely beaten. The man accused of the attack stood trial at the Old Bailey in 1999, but the jury accepted his version that he had broken up a fight between McKenzie and another man.
The Adams brothers were gaining a Teflon reputation; no accusation would stick. Tommy was acquitted in 1985 of acting as a courier, moving gold bullion stolen in the £26 million Brinks-Mat robbery out of London. Patsy, who had been jailed for armed robbery, was acquitted of importing three tons of cannabis.
With the managing director now in jail and both brothers in Spain, there is speculation about the future of the firm. But the Adams family long ago learnt the art of survival.
Hunting for the hidden asstes
—Special investigators are launching a worldwide hunt for the assets of Terry Adams in order to pay a multimillion-pound defence bill after Judge Pontious said that the gang leader had to pay the “colossal and perhaps unprecedented” legal bill
—Throughout the four years that Adams was awaiting trial he refused to give the legal-aid authorities any details of his income and assets Judge Pontious said Adams had also constantly delayed his prosecution and had sacked two teams of QCs and solicitors The judge said the public would be “shocked and greatly concerned” that Adams and his wife, against whom charges were dropped, should have had their defence wholly funded by the taxpayers
—After more than a decade of investigation by police, Customs, the Revenue and MI5, Adams’s millions are still hidden
—He is known to have a North London house worth at least £750,000; £50,000 in cash seized when he was arrested; an interest in a villa in Cyprus; an interest in a yacht, also in Cyprus; an arts and antiques collection worth £500,000, which includes stolen works; and jewellery worth £48,000 which was found in his home "
March 10, 2007
The dapper godfather who ran his empire like a blue-chip company
Terry Adams made so much money he was able to retire at the age of 35. In the end he was trapped, like Al Capone, by the taxman
undefined
Stewart Tendler and Alan Hamilton
He looks like an ageing dandy, a cross between Liberace and Peter Stringfellow, but he was at the top of his profession and controlled his empire with such ruthless efficiency that he could have run BP or ICI. He even claimed that by the time he was 35 he had made enough to retire from the sharp end of the business.
Yet Terry Adams’s profession was organised crime, murder and drugs. He was godfather of the nearest underworld network Britain had to the Mafia. He was the Capone of his time and, like Capone, it was the taxman who finally nailed him.
Yesterday at the Old Bailey, Adams was sentenced to seven years in jail for money laundering.
Adams had so much money he did not know where it all was, and merely summoned an underling when he needed cash. In luxurious retirement he told associates that he wanted to “kosher up” — go straight — and swore to his own mother that he had left a life of crime behind.
Related Links
* Loophole may let him start again after prison
He was ever the dapper gent in his velvet-collared overcoats. He lived in a £2 million house in North London crammed with stolen antiques, a far cry from his upbringing on the rough Barnsbury estate in Islington. His family and close associates are reputedly worth about £200 million and are feared far more than the Krays ever were. Adams was so proud of it all, and he guarded his criminal reputation as a board of directors would guard a trademark.
It has taken a decade, and many millions of public money, to bring Adams to justice. He admitted a £1 million money scam in an effort to hide his ill-gotten gains from HM Inspector of Taxes, one of the lesser of his multifarious crimes. But charges against his wife Ruth were droppd and yesterday he waved to her in the public gallery. Joanna Barnes, the widow of his murdered financial adviser, was fined for after confessing to fraud involving a £15,000 loan.
Adams had thought himself untouchable, until the Revenue began to wonder how he managed to live so well. They investigated how a man with no employment or national insurance record could live so well for 15 years. He claimed he only had £50 in cash but settled his tax debts for £95,000. He then claimed to be a £200-a-week consultant working in general PR and as a minder. “I can consult about anything you want to,” he once told a friend. But he never knew the address of the firms he was supposed to own which were used to fool the Inland Revenue into believing that he had a legitimate income.
When police raided his home in 2003 they found £500,000 of antiques, mostly stolen, nearly £60,000 in cash hidden in the attic and £48,000 worth of jewellery — all loose change to a villain of Adams’s magnitude.
In fact, he had made so much money that he boasted of retiring from active crime 20 years ago. He just took his cut while others did the dirty work. And it was very dirty indeed. He flew first class, stayed at the best hotels, indulged a passion for expensive jewellery and sent his daughter, Skye, to private school and then to drama school.
Armed robbery, drug dealing on a huige scale and terrifying intimidation were how he achieved such a lifestyle. His henchmen are thought to have been responsible for about 30 deaths.
Detectives with the help of MI5 had bugged his house and been listening in for 18 months. One senior detective who heard the tapes said it was like listening to The Sopranos. On one occasion Adams was recorded boasting: “When I hit someone with something, I do them damage. On my baby’s life, his kneecap came right out . . . all white, all bone.”
Ordering a henchman to deal with a recalcitrant debtor he told him: “You have got to liven him up, put the fear of God into him, mate, so he knows it’s only down to you that he’s walking about and breathing fresh air.”
As Adams stood in the dock yesterday, Andrew Mitchell, QC, prosecuting, told a packed court: “It is suggested that Terrence Adams was one of the country’s most feared and revered organised criminals. He comes with a pedigree as one of a family whose name had a currency all of its own in the underworld.”
He had managed to avoid conviction by keeping away from the dirty end of the business and had, Mr Mitchell said, taken the same attitude to the court case, employing delaying tactics and even consulting psychiatrists about his mental health before finally deciding to plead guilty.
His gang, which his brothers, Patsy and Tommy, allegedly ran with him, is heavily involved in the London drugs scene. Dealers would even boast that they were working for the fearsome Adams family — the “A-Team” — to bolster their credibility.
The gang also owned clubs and discos in North London, were silent partners in clubs in the West End and Soho, ran protection rackets and reportedly commissioned armed robberies from which they took a cut. One detective on the case said: “Never get carried away with the idea that organised criminals focus on one thing. They will try anything that will make a lot of money.”
At one stage the brothers tried to invest in the London Arena and Tottenham Hotspur, although they are said to be Arsenal fans. Adams ran his business like a modern-day multinational company. It is said the gang even imported to London the Mafia assassination trick of gunmen travelling as pillion passengers on motorbikes.
Such was the gang’s power and reputation that it even ran a franchise operation, allowing other gangs to use its name at a cost of £250,000 per operation. The condition: pay within a week, or else.
Adams cut his teeth in crime early, running protection rackets with Patsy and Tommy in the local markets before moving into armed robbery. Hatton Garden became a base and at one time Tommy ran a jewellery shop there. Saul Nahome, one of the Garden’s jewel dealers, was recruited to become a highly trusted financial adviser to the family. He was later murdered.
By the Nineties the gang was very powerful. As the drug markets grew, so did the Adams’s wealth as the gang built up contacts with the South American cartels.
Its reputation for violence was also embellished. In the Eighties it provoked a shoot-out with the Reillys, a rival Islington gang. Remarkably, no one was killed. In 1989 Terry Gooderham, a club auditor, and his girlfriend were killed and dumped in Epping Forest, Essex. Mr Gooderham allegedly crossed the gang over cash.
In 1991 later “Mad” Frankie Fraser, a gangland veteran, was shot in the head outside a London club in another attack attributed to Adams’s gang. Claude Moseley, a former British high jump champion and an associate of Adams, was stabbed with a samurai sword by Gilbert Wynter, one of Adams’s enforcers. It was claimed that Mr Moseley had short-changed the family. Mr Wynter was acquitted at the Old Bailey in 1994 when the prosecution’s chief witness refused to testify. The hitman later disappeared, possibly concreted into the foundations of the Millennium Dome.
David McKenzie, a Mayfair financier, paid a high price for losing £1.5 million for Adams. He was summoned to the godfather’s house to explain. “Everyone stood up when he walked in. He looked like a star; he was immaculately dressed in a long black coat and white frilly shirt. He was totally in command,” he said.
Several days later Mr McKenzie was savagely beaten. The man accused of the attack stood trial at the Old Bailey in 1999, but the jury accepted his version that he had broken up a fight between McKenzie and another man.
The Adams brothers were gaining a Teflon reputation; no accusation would stick. Tommy was acquitted in 1985 of acting as a courier, moving gold bullion stolen in the £26 million Brinks-Mat robbery out of London. Patsy, who had been jailed for armed robbery, was acquitted of importing three tons of cannabis.
With the managing director now in jail and both brothers in Spain, there is speculation about the future of the firm. But the Adams family long ago learnt the art of survival.
Hunting for the hidden asstes
—Special investigators are launching a worldwide hunt for the assets of Terry Adams in order to pay a multimillion-pound defence bill after Judge Pontious said that the gang leader had to pay the “colossal and perhaps unprecedented” legal bill
—Throughout the four years that Adams was awaiting trial he refused to give the legal-aid authorities any details of his income and assets Judge Pontious said Adams had also constantly delayed his prosecution and had sacked two teams of QCs and solicitors The judge said the public would be “shocked and greatly concerned” that Adams and his wife, against whom charges were dropped, should have had their defence wholly funded by the taxpayers
—After more than a decade of investigation by police, Customs, the Revenue and MI5, Adams’s millions are still hidden
—He is known to have a North London house worth at least £750,000; £50,000 in cash seized when he was arrested; an interest in a villa in Cyprus; an interest in a yacht, also in Cyprus; an arts and antiques collection worth £500,000, which includes stolen works; and jewellery worth £48,000 which was found in his home "
Friday, March 09, 2007
Pensioner's horrific death leads to call for social services overhaul
Pensioner's horrific death leads to call for social services overhaul
editorial@hamhigh.co.uk14 February 2007
By Ed ThomasAN OVERHAUL of Westminster's social services is needed to avoid another gruesome death like one in Maida Vale last year, a coroner has said.Donald Naylor, 69, was found alone and seriously ill in a block of flats run by the St Mungo's charity in Shirland Road. He was rushed to hospital where doctors found maggots burrowing into the pungent ulcers covering his legs. The pensioner later died from malnutrition and infection.When the inquest was opened at Christmas time, Westminster coroner Dr Paul Knapman said he was "unimpressed" with the situation and demanded answers from the social services team which had apparently neglected Mr Naylor.This week, at the conclusion of the inquest, senior social services officials admitted blunders had taken place and announced an action plan for improvements."It is very regrettable that anyone should die in these circumstances," said William Davis, Westminster's service manager for older and disabled people."We want to make sure any improvements that can be made to ensure this doesn't happen again, are made."Mr Davis said his department has drawn up a six-point list of recommendations with emphasis on better communication between social services and other partners such as St Mungo's.The inquest heard how an emergency fax was sent by care providers to the council at 5.50pm on Friday October 20, when Mr Naylor's horrific state was noticed in his Maida Vale flat. However, the fax was not picked up until the following Monday morning.A GP appointment was arranged for the Tuesday but Mr Naylor couldn't made it. On the Wednesday a meals-on-wheels worker sent another fax to social services after seeing Mr Naylor "in a bad way and in need of urgent attention."Mr Naylor was not seen by a medical professional until Tuesday October 31 when he was rushed to St Mary's Hospital, by which time it was too late."The bottom line is that in the 11 days from the first fax being sent to when Mr Naylor went into hospital, no-one in your department had been to see him," said the coroner. Mr Davis agreed.The coroner added: "We heard from the doctor at the hospital and he gave us a graphic account of his condition and treatment."He had terrible ulcers on his legs which ultimately led to his death. When he came in, his legs and shins were infected with maggots. This came as a surprise to the hospital."The coroner said the situation was aggravated by neglect, but admitted a proportion of that neglect was down to Mr Naylor himself.After welcoming the news that social services guidelines are being tightened up, he recorded that the death was from natural causes aggravated by neglect. Mr Naylor died of septicaemia, cellulitis, chronic leg ulcers, malnutrition and renal failure.
editorial@hamhigh.co.uk14 February 2007
By Ed ThomasAN OVERHAUL of Westminster's social services is needed to avoid another gruesome death like one in Maida Vale last year, a coroner has said.Donald Naylor, 69, was found alone and seriously ill in a block of flats run by the St Mungo's charity in Shirland Road. He was rushed to hospital where doctors found maggots burrowing into the pungent ulcers covering his legs. The pensioner later died from malnutrition and infection.When the inquest was opened at Christmas time, Westminster coroner Dr Paul Knapman said he was "unimpressed" with the situation and demanded answers from the social services team which had apparently neglected Mr Naylor.This week, at the conclusion of the inquest, senior social services officials admitted blunders had taken place and announced an action plan for improvements."It is very regrettable that anyone should die in these circumstances," said William Davis, Westminster's service manager for older and disabled people."We want to make sure any improvements that can be made to ensure this doesn't happen again, are made."Mr Davis said his department has drawn up a six-point list of recommendations with emphasis on better communication between social services and other partners such as St Mungo's.The inquest heard how an emergency fax was sent by care providers to the council at 5.50pm on Friday October 20, when Mr Naylor's horrific state was noticed in his Maida Vale flat. However, the fax was not picked up until the following Monday morning.A GP appointment was arranged for the Tuesday but Mr Naylor couldn't made it. On the Wednesday a meals-on-wheels worker sent another fax to social services after seeing Mr Naylor "in a bad way and in need of urgent attention."Mr Naylor was not seen by a medical professional until Tuesday October 31 when he was rushed to St Mary's Hospital, by which time it was too late."The bottom line is that in the 11 days from the first fax being sent to when Mr Naylor went into hospital, no-one in your department had been to see him," said the coroner. Mr Davis agreed.The coroner added: "We heard from the doctor at the hospital and he gave us a graphic account of his condition and treatment."He had terrible ulcers on his legs which ultimately led to his death. When he came in, his legs and shins were infected with maggots. This came as a surprise to the hospital."The coroner said the situation was aggravated by neglect, but admitted a proportion of that neglect was down to Mr Naylor himself.After welcoming the news that social services guidelines are being tightened up, he recorded that the death was from natural causes aggravated by neglect. Mr Naylor died of septicaemia, cellulitis, chronic leg ulcers, malnutrition and renal failure.