Agenda item

Bedroom tax and Council tax changes

 

Councillor Steve Battlemuch asked the following question of the Portfolio Holder for Community Safety, Housing and Voluntary Sector:

 

Can the Portfolio Holder for Housing and the Voluntary Sector give a report on the effects of the Bedroom Tax and the changes to council tax benefit a year on from their introduction? Could the Portfolio Holder explain the position on DHP, stating how much of this budget has been spent and what more can be done to alleviate hardship of Nottingham residents. Finally, can the Portfolio Holder explain what the Council has done to support those calling for changes to these schemes?

 

Councillor Dave Liversidge replied as follows:

 

Following the Welfare Reform Act 2012, people on benefits have had the following slashed from their budgets. Firstly, with the abolition of Council Tax Benefit and the localisation of Council tax support, people of working age are being faced with a massive increase in Council tax. For example, a person living in a Band A property had a new charge last year of £1.79 per week which this year rises to £8.59 per week. This is affecting 25,600 households. The minimum charge is currently set at 20% reduced by using Council resources. If this continues these figures will continue to rise exponentially. Just to make things worse, in April 2014, the Government introduced changes to bailiff fees. Citizens will now expected to pay £75 once a liability order has been issued and at least a further £200 if an enforcement agent visits them.

 

Just to remind everyone that since April 2013, Housing Benefit for working age tenants in social housing has been limited to help them afford a property judged to be appropriate to their family size. Housing benefit is now reduced by 14% of the eligible rent, which is about £11 if there is one spare bedroom or 25% (£22 per week) of the eligible rent if there are 2 or more spare bedrooms.

 

So, how is this impacting on citizens? Last year we identified that 5,000 households were affected by both deductions, with some having a reduction in their income of £30 per week but averaging £14.50 per week which is £3.8 million taken from the Nottingham economy. With Bedroom tax this time last year there were 6,000 households affected which has been reduced to just less than 4,000 by measures we have put into place.

 

First of all, we have set up an evictions prevention protocol, with Nottingham City Homes and Nottingham Community Housing Association to ensure that tenants who are affected by under occupancy are given support and advice before court action is taken which may result in them being evicted. This includes requesting a Discretionary Housing Payment for every tenant suffering financial hardship and who engages with tenancy sustainment teams.

 

Nottingham City Homes and Nottingham City Council have also had an initiative from a wide range of social housing organisations. Its aim is to tackle both overcrowding and under occupation in social housing across Nottingham. The two main purposes of ‘right size’ are to help reduce overcrowding and to help people who live in homes too big for their needs.

 

Council tax arrears – The Council are engaging with citizens to offer help and support to those people who are experiencing genuine financial or other difficulties at each stage of the Council tax recovery process. The aim of this engagement is to avoid, wherever possible, the use of Bailiff Recovery action, to recover payment by negotiating an appropriate payment method and to achieve a sustainable payment solution for the citizen.

 

The Council submitted a detailed response to the CLG Select Committee inquiry on the implementation of welfare reform by local authorities. The response highlighted the significant resources that the Council has invested to initiate activities (policy development work, consultation exercises, briefing sessions and written communication to citizens) in preparation for the implementation of these measures. It also noted the broader concerns and risks faced by local authorities in implementing the reforms.

 

The Welfare Reforms Impact Task and Finish Group was set and chaired by Carole Mills and was tasked to identify and shape responses to the individual and combined emerging and future impacts of the welfare changes on Nottingham’s citizens, as well as on the City Council and our partners. The work of this group has highlighted the need for a more integrated advice and support service to enable Nottingham citizens to respond to the changes to benefits and welfare support. To ensure communities become more resilient, the Council have set up an employment and welfare support programme. The primary objectives are to support those who can work get into work and in better paid work, support those who cannot work to enjoy the best quality of life they can and to make a contribution to the life of the city, improve the level of financial capability with our communities and reduce dependency on crisis, irresponsible and expensive lenders. This programme is in the early stages of development and there are no outcomes to report at this stage.

 

Now, the Discretionary Housing Payments – since we set up the protocol nobody has been eviction by Nottingham City Homes and despite all their difficulties, 55% of tenants have paid full rent, 44% have partially paid and 1% have paid nothing. Some of this payment is by way of DHP. In 2013, Nottingham’s total allocation of £696,000, plus £500,000 additional funding received in February 2014 and next year we have got £966,000. The Council have used the DHP allocation to focus on supporting households affected by the welfare reforms by excluding Disability Living Allowance from DHP income calculations for disabled households, increasing the length of award periods, taking into account individual circumstances and performing quality checks on all refused claims.

 

One hundred percent of the initial money has now been allocated and spent. The number of claims increased by 148% in 2013/14 compared to 2012/13. The Council have received 2929 DHP applications since 1 April 2013 and the number of DHPs awarded has increased by 569% from 2012/13 to 2013/14. Eighty percent of successful DHP awards go to tenants who are under occupying.

 

In January 2014, the Council was successful in a bid for an additional £500,000 DHP funding which has been spent already. This additional Government funding has enabled it to help citizens in priority groups who are the least likely to be able to find suitable alternative accommodation or improve their individual circumstances. Since April 2013, the Council and partners have actively promoted the availability of DHPs to help alleviate the impact of the under occupancy rules.

 

The Council tax changes have had the following impact on the Council, overall the Council has collected 93.2% of all Council tax. The Council’s collection rate is down by 0.3% on 2012/13 and the Council has collected 76% of Council tax from people affected by the changes to Council tax support. The Housing and Homelessness Services have been working with partners on the frontline to get clients experiences of the welfare reforms and the feedback suggests that in the private rented sector there is a lack of suitable, affordable accommodation. Tenants are experiencing additional stress and there has been a significant increase in the number of tenants who wish to down-size. Those with unmanageable debt are turning to friends or family, pay day lenders or loan sharks.

 

In the recent report, ‘Children in the age of austerity’, the Advice Nottingham consortium presented an evaluation of the effects of the welfare reform on children in Nottingham. Headline findings include, families deemed to be under occupying their accommodation are experiencing financial hardship and face either increased costs or potentially moving home. Children may have to change schools or move homes to different parts of the city and non-resident parents and carers face financial penalties. Are these achieving their objectives? Certainly not, social housing is not achieving its objectives for policy at all. Three percent of Nottingham City Homes tenants who were affected by the under occupancy rules have successfully moved to more appropriate sized properties.

 

Nottingham City Council have tried as far as possible, to balance the significant cut to the Council’s budget for Council tax support but we are struggling. There have been and still are significant financial risks for the Council and partners. Support and advice agencies across the city have reported an increase in demand for advice about changes to benefits and debt. How are we trying to change the system? We have been lobbying on Council tax support and bedroom tax, we have petitioned on bedroom tax, Core Cities met with shadow cabinet with calls to repeal the Bedroom tax, Lord Freud met with Graham Allen MP, Leader and Deputy Leader and TRA representatives, Council motion and press calls. In my view, the only way to alleviate the poverty that these measures are creating for Nottingham people is to elect a Labour government next year, a government set on reducing the price of housing by new build and regulations that will prevent the escalation of housing benefit without hurting the ordinary citizen.

 

Mental health amongst students

 

Councillor Sarah Piper asked the following question of the Portfolio Holder for Adults, Commissioning and Health:

 

Could the Portfolio Holder for Adults, Commissioning and Health tell Council what is being done to help promote good mental health amongst students in the city?

 

Councillor Alex Norris replied as follows:

 

Thank you very much Lord Mayor and can I thank Councillor Piper for her very timely question. It is a timely question because we are at that point of the annual calendar where our young people are likely to be doing their exams and being examined, and we as a nation do poke and prod our children during various stages during their education, at ages 7 and 11 and then every year right through to when they finish their education which could be well in to their 20’s. That provides real challenges and has a lasting impact on our young people. One of my memories of childhood was that, I come from a borough of Greater Manchester called Trafford which is one of the few oddities that still has grammar schools and still therefore, has the 11+ system. A rather perverse and pernicious way of those with most value and those with least value at the age of 11. I remember clearly at the age of 11 where I went into the stream that could go to grammar school but my sister hadn’t and not really being able to understand that. I don’t think we think enough about the impact on the way we examine children has for their wider health and their wider prospects going forwards. Regrettably, the trend seems to be going closer to that, to a more high wire approach to evaluation, I know that UKIP would certainly like more grammar schools but Michael Gove thinks that coursework of graduate approaches towards learning are less valuable than doing them all in finals, as if the true way to measure a child or young persons ability is in a one-off test in a dusty school hall. I think we put a lot of stresses on our young people and sometimes we don’t actually put the systems in place to support them.

 

Particularly, I want to talk about further and higher education, because I think that’s what Councillor Piper is talking about and we know these to be very challenging periods in a young persons life. There is an expectation, particularly when you go away to study, that life is one long happy party with like-minded folk doing what you want with money in your pocket and for many people, it is certainly the case that university years are amongst the best in their lives. Actually, there are many for whom this is not the case and have very different experiences of higher and further education and, as we know, to suffer from mental ill health when you’re expected to be having the time of your life can be an extraordinary isolating experience. It is vital therefore, in a city as young as Nottingham, with vibrant universities and colleges, it is critical therefore, that we support all of our student population and make sure those suffering from mental ill health can reach their potential.

Now, as I have spoken about before in this chamber, we as a nation and a city are in a period of transition for tackling mental ill health. We are getting to that critical mass nationally of acceptance that it is a health issue, acceptance that it is a perfectly natural issue and acceptance that it is an issue that we would expect to identify in quite a lot of people in our population. That is an enormous critical mass which is forming and we are nearly there on the national stage. It helps when the odd celebrity and sports star is prepared to be candid about it too. So, we are getting there which is a start, but once you have got that acceptance, then you move forward into having the understanding of what the problems are and what they manifest, what to do about them and then you get through the understanding phase and you deliver your actions, strategy and plans to alleviate the impact of mental ill health.

 

I think in this city we are a long way pass the acceptance point and we are well on the way to understanding the challenge. I am please that we put a question into the Citizen Survey which measures the mental goof health of our young people in full time education because we can track that now to see if the interventions we put in work or whether we need to do things differently. Similarly, we have developed a chapter in our Joint Strategic Needs Assessment, the bible that we base our health interventions on, has a detailed section on student mental health that should provide use with a road map for improving services.

 

SO, now we’re in that implementation phase of making that real. Members will know that early interventions into mental ill health is one of the four key priorities for the Health and Wellbeing Board. In order to deliver on this we have consulted far and wide, including with our universities and our young people in further education  to talk about what they need. We will be launching a Mental Health Strategy later this year and this will be a document action-focussed, very clear on what we will achieve and by when so, I think at that point we will be on our strongest footing to make a real step forward. This will cover experiences of young people for both their time in Nottingham in education, but also critically, how we’re going to make sure that we continue the care that young people may be getting from where they originally come from before they come to Nottingham because we know that that continuity is critical to their ongoing chances.

 

However, whilst we finish this work we need to make sure we are doing everything we can for current students. As an authority we have signed up to the Mental Health Challenge to ensure our services are as accessible as possible. We are working with both universities and supporting the University of Nottingham’s HealthyU project. Our public health consultants have been liaising closely with student mental health groups who have been an invaluable resource to us to make sure we get our policies right and the policies we develop are inform the work of the Clinical Commissioning Group to make sure we are commissioning the right services for our young people.

 

So, in conclusion, as with much of the nation and the city’s response to mental ill health there’s plenty done but plenty more to do. We understand it’s an issue in the student population and we’re committed to getting it right.

 

Commitment to clean neighbourhoods

 

Councillor Cat Arnold asked the following question of the Portfolio Holder for Community Services:

 

Could the Portfolio Holder for Community Services update Council on progress towards the commitment made at the last election to make our neighbourhoods as clean as the city centre?

 

Councillor Nicola Heaton replied as follows:

 

Thank you very much for the question Councillor Arnold, I would also like to add my congratulations to you Lord Mayor on your elevation. I am delighted to inform Council that we have made great progress on the cleanliness of our neighbourhoods, all of our wards have achieved the cleansing index target of 86 based on the previous 12 months average. This demonstrates sustained high levels of cleanliness in every neighbourhood and meets Nottingham Labour’s manifesto pledge to make all of our neighbourhoods as clean as the city centre. Our progress has also gone a long way to improve what people think about the cleanliness of their neighbourhoods as well and the recent Citizen Survey showed 74% and were satisfied with the cleanliness of their local area. This is a massive improvement but of course, the challenge isn’t over, we cannot be complacent because the data is only as good as the day in question and while the cleansing index measure focuses on litter and detritus, we all know that we have other challenges in respect of graffiti, fly tipping, fly posting and dog fouling. The volume of such reported incidents has levelled out, but we have significantly improved the clearance rates, with 93% of reported graffiti being removed within 48 hours, and 96% of reported dog fouling cleared up within 48 hours. In 2013/14, there were 7,450 pieces of graffiti removed by this Council

 

To tackle this, Community Services also work hand in hand with the enforcement arm of Community Protection on these problems for example, in 2013/14 there were 3,212 fines for litter, 77 dog fouling fines and 1,420 dog fouling operations. There were 1,080 bin fines and 308 environmental prosecutions, but I know we can do more and in the coming year we will look to make neighbourhoods evens cleaner.

 

Finally, I would just like to thank our staff in this area for their hard work and dedication for making neighbourhoods cleaner than ever, as well as councillors for their constant championing of their wards and for citizens for reporting problems for keeping their neighbourhoods clean.

 

Quality new homes in Nottingham

 

Councillor Toby Neal asked the following question of the Portfolio Holder for Community Safety, Housing and Voluntary Sector:

 

Could the Portfolio Holder tell Council what is being done to support the building of high quality new homes in Nottingham and explain how the buildings of new homes can have a positive impact on the lives of Nottingham citizens?

 

Councillor Dave Liversidge replied as follows:

 

Thank you Lord Mayor. What is being done to support the building of high quality new homes? Nottingham City Council recognises that providing a good quality housing offer which meets the needs of existing residents whilst attracting aspirational new residents is integral to the successful development of the city. We believe that the long term benefits arising from this provision will provide better life outcomes and opportunities for all residents.

Nottingham City Council and Nottingham City Homes are providing over 350 new social and affordable rented homes as part of the first phase of the Council house development programme. Also, we have submitted a bid to the National Affordable Homes Programme for funding to support the delivery of other additional sites. All of these new homes will be built to high quality and energy efficient standards meaning that they are built to need only 10% of the space heating required by a standard property.

 

The Council is also working with Registered Providers and private sector development partners on a range of sites to bring forward additional housing, both open market and affordable. This includes the recent completion of over 350 enabled homes (268 of which were affordable homes) on sites such as Gainsford Close in Bestwood, Highbury Road in Bulwell, and Green Street in the Meadows. An additional 210 homes are on site through schemes actively brought forward through Council intervention at Stonebridge phase 3, 4 and 6 in St Ann’s, Rosecroft Drive in Sherwood and Duffield Court in Top Valley. A further 210 enabled homes have either recently started on site at Radford Mill, Pitcairn Close in the Meadows and Kingsthorpe Close in Mapperley ward.

Additionally, to support the building of high quality new homes in Nottingham, the Council is progressing the disposal and development of larger Council owned land sites for housing development. Nottingham City Council supports high quality private housing developments by including s.106 affordable housing waiver to promote exclusivity and by encouraging key private sector sites to come forward, for example Chalfront Drive. As well as delivering new housing, the Council and NCH are working to rejuvenate existing housing so that it too can provide good quality, suitable and sustainable housing for Nottingham’s citizens. Examples of this include, the NCH Decent Homes Programme, improving Private Rented Sector standards through the Nottingham Standard (landlord accreditation), HMO licensing, the promotion of energy efficiency schemes to landlords, bringing empty homes back into use through HCA empty homes programme and bringing 30 plus long term vacant homes back into use and up to the decency standard by spring 2015.

 

How the building of new homes can have a positive impact on the lives of Nottingham citizens? I believe that the delivery of high quality new housing can have both direct and secondary positive impacts for the citizens of Nottingham because housing sits at the crux of financial considerations and health and wellbeing outcomes. New homes are energy efficient meaning that heating them becomes more affordable therefore reducing fuel poverty and preventing the poor health outcomes associated with excess cold and/or damp and mould formation. New homes are designed to meet or be readily adapted to meet more diverse household needs and therefore prevent poor health outcomes arising from inaccessibility of amenities, trip/falls or other domestic accidents.

 

New homes are secure helping to prevent crime and alleviate the fear of crime. The construction of new home generates business for local firms and in turn stimulates the availability of employment opportunities in the construction sector. It also presents an opportunity to work with developers and firms to provide apprenticeship schemes for young people locally. Secure and appropriate housing can have a positive impact on the life of outcomes of young people and can positively impact on educational outcomes in particular. A healthy housing environment can provide young people with an appropriate space in which to study and children who are able to remain in their home are much less likely to undergo the disruption of changing schools. New homes can help retain Nottingham’s citizens who might otherwise have looked to move elsewhere. This means that the money is spent in Nottingham, that the services that provide for them continue to be available in the city and the city is seen as able to provide for aspirational groups, including those who wish to move to Nottingham in a professional and business establishment capacity.

 

Bringing land forward for new residential development can benefit neighbourhoods by ensuring greater supply of housing and utilising otherwise derelict land which can attract blight and anti-social behaviour.

 

Lancaster House

 

Councillor Georgina Culley asked the following question of the Leader of the Council:

 

Could the Leader of the Council confirm that Councillor Webster has apologised to the Secretary for Communities and Local Government for his comments in the media about Lancaster House and to the City Council for the public embarrassment caused? If Councillor Webster has not apologised, why not?

 

Councillor Jon Collins replied as follows:

 

Thank you Lord Mayor. Were Councillor Culley to have made an attempt to find out about this issue by, say asking officers about the circumstances in which this notice was served, she would not only have saved herself the embarrassment of asking this question but also realised if any apology was due it was from the secretary of state or his office, rather than from Councillor Webster. Lancaster House in Sherwood Rise is a property effectively abandoned by its landlord, subject to significant fly-tipping and recently a rat infestation. Neighbours rightly raised their concerns with the Community Protection Service who having tried all other means to find the landlord contacted the Land Registry to identify the owners.

 

Current land registry records show that the property was leased to the Department of Communities and Local Government and specifically I quote, “Entry 31/10/2007 Proprietor, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government of the Arbitration Conciliation and Advice Service, Brandon House, 180 Borough High Street, London, SWE1 1LW. So, the responsible individual and department is, according to the Land Registry, the Secretary of State, for Communities and Local Government.

 

Council officers duly served a seven day notice on the Department to clear up the mess and anticipated that the Department would act clearly to do just that. However, nothing happened. So, staff contacted the office of the Secretary of State to ask why no action had been taken, what they were proposing to do and when did they anticipate doing it. The Secretary of State’s office responded by suggesting that the Council serve the notice on the Secretary of State with a copy to the Departments lawyers and this was duly done. It was the Secretary of State’s own office that said serve the notice on the Secretary of State and send us a copy. Only after the seven day warning and the formal notice was served did the Department finally contact the Council to inform officers that the lease had been assigned and the property was no longer the Department’s responsibility.

 

So, the real question I would suggest here is, not as Councillor Culley suggests who should apologise to who, but why have the Department for Communities and Local Government not fulfilled its responsibility to inform the Land Registry of the lease assignment? Why, despite the obvious distress caused to neighbours on Sherwood Rise, was no action taken by the Department for Communities and Local Government on receipt of the original seven day notice and why did the Department for Communities and Local Government waste Council tax and tax payers money initiating a formal legal process instead of telling officers that the lease had been assigned. Our focus has, all along, been to resolve this problem for the neighbours, we have now cleared the fly-tipping, tackled the infestation at Council tax payers expense with a view to trying to subsequently recover those costs from the new leaseholders.

 

However, perhaps Councillor Culley would like to explain why time and again, faced with acting as a councillor interested in Nottingham, or acting as a Conservative politician who’s knee-jerk response is to defend her Government, her focus is to put the interest of her party before the public we’re all here we’re meant to be serving.

 

Safety levels of air pollution

 

Councillor Roger Steel asked the following question of the Portfolio Holder for Energy and Sustainability:

 

Could the Portfolio Holder explain to the Council why Nottingham is breaching World Health Organisation safety levels for air pollution, why it performs so badly compared to other cities in terms of particulate matter, and what this Council is doing to rectify the situation and to protect our residents from airborne pollution?

 

Councillor Alan Clark replied as follows:

 

Thank you, Lord Mayor, and I thank Cllr Steel for his question. As legally required air quality monitoring is carried out at air pollution sensitive locations across the city. Nottingham has hosted a DEFRA funded air quality monitoring station since 1997. The monitoring station is within a self-contained, air-conditioned housing located in a pedestrianised area, surrounded by 4 storey commercial buildings. Due to implementation of Turning Point North Scheme the nearest main road, Lower Parliament Street, is now not a major through route within the city centre. Traffic flows primarily comprise of buses and taxis. Only authorised traffic, such as: blue badge holders, access for loading and unloading and to off-street car parks which need access to the Turning Point zone is still able to do so.

 

The DEFRA Automatic Urban and Rural Network station monitors a variety of pollutants including particles. The World Health Organisation report details 2011 monitoring data from the DEFRA Automatic Urban and Rural Network station in Nottingham’s City centre, which was significantly higher than the previous years and coincided with a traffic management scheme and construction activity in the vicinity of the AURN station that are likely to have led to the elevated levels of PM10 particles.

 

Since 2011, the monitoring data at the site shows falling levels of PM10 particles. In comparison PM2.5 particle levels peaked at 16 ug/m3 in 2010 and have also been falling (currently there is not an air quality objective in England for PM2.5). The portrayal of Nottingham’s air quality by the media was therefore not accurate and the limitations as to the use of the data and that it might not reflect long term trends was explicitly stated in World Health Organisation report. The hourly monitoring data for all five pollutants monitored for all 130 UK monitoring sites in the scheme along with trend graphs are published on the DEFRA website that also provides an email subscription service for this data.

 

In relation to air quality both nitrogen dioxide and particles (PM2.5 – PM10) are of concern in urban areas. This is largely due to emissions from vehicles but domestic, commercial and industrial heating and energy plants also contribute to urban pollution levels. Nitrogen dioxide levels in most cities breach the annual air quality objective of 40 micrograms ug/m3, and most cities have declared Air Quality Management Areas, and are implementing Air Quality Action Plans in response.

 

Nottingham has two air quality management areas both for Nitrogen Dioxide and both resulting from emissions from vehicles. In an air quality management area there is an action plan in place to address the causative factors. The action plan is primarily linked with activities led by transport planners to reduce traffic and improve traffic flow. There is also work being carried out nationally by DEFRA and locally by the Community Protection – Pollution Control team and Public Health to raise awareness about air quality and to encourage personal responsibility encouraging people to minimise vehicle use, utilise public transport and to achieve added health benefits from increased physical activity such as walking and cycling. For information the air quality management areas are an area covering the city centre and Beeston Road.

 

Particle levels do not currently exceed the national Air Quality Objectives and therefore Nottingham along with most cities does not have Air Quality Management Areas for particles. However, the latest scientific research indicates an adverse impact even at low levels across a large range of particle sizes, encompassing PM2.5-PM10.

 

Monitoring at the AURN site shows that for 1997 to 2008 particle levels were decreasing, falling from 30 ug/m3 in 1997 to 18 ug/m3 in 2008. In 2008 the monitoring unit was modified and only captured sufficient data to determine the annual mean for 2010, 2011 and 2013.  In 2008 a PM2.5 monitoring unit was installed at the station and monitoring data for the period 2009-2013 shows levels at, and usually below, 16 ug/m3 .

 

The information is used to provide regular reports to DEFRA who have recently confirmed satisfaction with Nottingham’s air quality management arrangements. In terms of other actions, Nottingham is rightly proud of its public transport systems and improvements to transport infrastructure which have brought a big reduction in city traffic. We are currently building two additional tram lines to the south of the city to complement the ones to the north, we have five well-used park and ride sites circling the city and more are planned. The city has one of the largest fleets of electric buses in Europe and the City Council has invested in electric vehicles and in cycles and cycle routes, all of which has contributed to a drop in Nottingham’s congestion and air pollution over recent years.

 

Finally, in addition to the transport measures, Nottingham is award-winning for being the most energy self-sufficient city in the UK with over 40,000 social and private homes receiving energy efficiency measures. There has been large scale of investment, including the largest solar panel scheme and the largest district heating scheme. The City has been selected as the Green Deal Low Carbon Pioneer City and Green Deal Go Early Pilot City while the City Council has reduced its carbon emissions by 13.36% (8,305 tonnes of CO2), saving the Council £2.7m.