Support Through Austerity

 

Councillor Wendy Smith asked the following question of the Deputy Leader/ Portfolio Holder for Resources and Neighbourhood Regeneration:

 

Could the deputy leader tell the Council how we intend to support our residents through the next period of austerity?

 

Councillor Graham Chapman replied as follows:

 

Thank you for the question. I do not need to remind Councillors of the current situation facing Local Government, which has faced 40% cuts since 2010. Indeed, the government itself has been reminded only this week, by a letter signed by every council in England, protesting about the level of reductions. That is Labour, the odd Liberal, and Conservative councils, they all signed this letter. Nor do I have to remind council about the disproportionate level suffered by Nottingham, the Midlands, and the northern cities over this period. £100 million plus has been taken from our grants in Nottingham alone.

 

And that is the present. As for the future, many of the cuts to government spending to the city have not yet filtered through. Moreover, there is a promise of a further £27 billion worth of cuts to public spending by 2019. Moreover still, we are told that the health service, schools, overseas development, and possibly even defence, are likely to be ring fenced. This means that there are a few areas left in order to bear the burden of those cuts, and local government is one of them. The police is probably another. Then we have the promise and the potential threat of devolution.

 

Devolution can be a good thing, but I suspect that the devolved responsibilities will not come with the commensurate budget. Indeed, it could well be a mask for reductions. For example, by giving us a total control over the business rates, we would lose the cross subsidy we currently get from places like the City of Westminster. Then outside the council budget there will be an additional £12 billion worth of cuts in welfare, mostly directed at the young, the vulnerable, and the disabled. The consequences of this will fall on the council, because we are the safety net. So prospects for large sections of our population are actually quite bleak.

 

That's not to say that we will not act, or that we are not already acting to help those affected. I have four pages of examples, but I'll quote just a few, which I’m sure you’ll be relieved about.

 

Welfare Hardship Support Scheme – to help people in emergencies. Government funding for this was withdrawn in April this year. Yet without good management over the last few years we’d not be able to extend the service over the next 2, which we can do. That is because we made provision for the continuation of a Conservative government. I didn’t, in fact, share the optimism of some of my colleagues.

 

Welfare Partnership - working with charities, housing associations, and churches to support food banks, debt management, homelessness, and those sanctioned by the DWP. Also helping to prepare people for the complexities of Universal Credit, which by the way, will lead to a reduction in benefits, despite the rhetoric of the Minister in charge.

 

Building new homes – particularly council homes, and working to redirect Housing Allowance, which is currently going to private landlords, into repurchase and new build to reduce the cost of rental for people on low incomes.

 

Robin Hood Energy – we are creating an energy company to sell electricity at cheaper rates, especially to those people who are on pre-pay meters, who are amongst the worst off, yet paradoxically they have to pay the most for their power.  A further programme added to this is for solar panels for people on low incomes, mainly in council housing.

 

Welfare Advice Service is being maintained, which many councils have abandoned, but which has managed to restrict homelessness and repossession and indebtedness. Indebtedness is rife in the city.

 

Providing support for people to get into work – the final example, and perhaps the most important, because it is the best way out of poverty and actually both parties agree on this, all parties agree. Our employee hub has supported over 2,000 people over the last 5 years. We have a jobs fair; the last one provided 570 jobs. We have a Jobs Fund, which is a continuation of the Labour scheme abandoned by the last government, which we are paying for out of our own surplus; 224 young people helped into work. And then we have Step Into Work for 18-24 year olds. Added to this we have apprenticeship schemes, trainee schemes, and very important pre-employment support in order to get some of the hardest to reach on the employment ladder.

 

I will finish on this: there is a limit to what any council can do to cushion the effects of a government determined to make the worst off pay for the recession, and one which uses divide and rule as a means of government. Nevertheless, we must try. We should not be on the defensive; the economic growth over the last 5 years in the UK has been on the back of low productivity, weak long-term investment particular with things like research and development and infrastructure, low wages, and a large balance of trade deficit. This is not the economy we want for Nottingham. We also have a plan, therefore, to improve skills, to select growth sectors of business; because without business development you do not get jobs, and to help modernise our economy and businesses in order to help them compete and spread fairly the benefits of growth. So those are our 2 tasks, and I believe for this group, which by the way, and I have lots of experience with this, is one of the strongest in the UK, and I really mean that because I deal with large numbers of other authorities, I think this group is up to that task.

 

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP)

 

Councillor Michael Edwards asked the following question of the Portfolio Holder for Development and Growth:

 

Is the portfolio holder surprised to hear that the DWP was described as “wonderful” in a recent political hustings in Nottingham? Just what has to be done to make the DWP truly wonderful and fit for purpose?

 

Councillor Nick McDonald replied as follows:

 

Like Councillor Edwards, I was indeed a little surprised to hear that the DWP was recently described as “wonderful” in a political hustings. Councillor Edwards may elaborate on who made this rather extraordinary claim, but my guess is that it wasn’t a Labour candidate. And quite a claim it is, given the litany of failures the DWP and its Secretary of State, Ian Duncan Smith, has presided since 2010. And the failings are many.

 

So let’s first take the DWP’s flagship employment support programmes, the Work Programme and the Youth Contract, introduced with much fanfare shortly after the Tory-led coalition government came to power. Work Programme is a £1.2 billion programme. Its stated aim when introduced was to provide more cost effective alternatives to the last Labour government’s Future Jobs Fund.  And it has been an abject failure.

 

The 2015 report, “10 Policies for 10 People” stated as follows, this is not me, this is an independent report: “the Work Programme has been the coalition government’s flagship programme. Overall, 1 in 4 participants achieved sustainable employment. Young people on Job Seeker’s Allowance have been the most successful, however only 10% of Employment and Support Allowance claimants found and kept work. There are also signs that the more disadvantaged claimants have lost out: older people, prison leavers, and all disabled participants, have lower than average job outcomes. Overall, investment for disadvantaged groups is lower than planned, not higher”.

 

Locally, of the 11,230 people who completed the Work Programme, 76.1% returned back to the Job Centre. Again, absolutely abject. Let’s look at the Youth Contract: a report in 2013 from the Local Government Association stated that only 27% of 16-17 year olds starting the government’s Youth Contract were helped. Where the scheme was run by local councils, in Leeds, Wakefield, Bradford, Newcastle and Gateshead, the participants gained much higher results: 57% in Leeds and almost half in Newcastle.

 

And of course, locally in Nottingham, we have other examples of how local authorities can deliver better outcomes. Young people supported into work through the Nottingham Jobs Fund have achieved over 70% sustained job outcomes, and that’s been the case throughout the time we’ve had that policy in place. Our Step Into Work programme which was introduced using underspend from the Youth Contract because it is failing, has so far produced job outcomes of 60%.

 

So Lord Mayor, there is a pattern, and if we want to make the DWP, or at least what the DWP does work better, it’s a clear pattern. The DWP tries to implement policy, it fails both on the policy and the implementation, but where local authorities do it the performance is stronger.

 

But since I’m on my feet, I won’t take too long, but let’s talk about a couple of other areas in which the DWP has been meddling in the last couple of years, because these are important issues that will affect the people in our city, and they affect the most vulnerable the most.

 

Firstly, let’s look at Incapacity Benefit. Shortly after 2010, the Tory-led coalition government decided to re-categorise Incapacity Benefit, because a certain minister, I won’t say who, but the name has the same acronym as Incompetent Disgraceful Shambles, felt that too many people were wrongly claiming Incapacity Benefit and could in fact find work. Hundreds of thousands of people were re-assessed; benefits were reduced or removed for many. The predictable result was tens of thousands of appeals, many of them successful, considerable hardship, administrative chaos, and eventually the collapse of DWP’s contract with ATOS.

 

It doesn’t end there. Perhaps the greatest failure of the last 5 years, in terms of administration if nothing else, is Universal Credit. The biggest single example of failure. Ministerial hubris, civil service weakness, and administrative incompetence. The vision was of a single benefit supported by a single system that simplifies and rationalises payments. The reality is a god-awful mess, with an IT system that doesn’t work, a rollout that has been delayed again and again. Now this policy has not just affected people and damaged people’s lives, it’s also cost an enormous amount of money. £2 billion per year is the upward revision in terms of the cost of Universal Credit. £2 billion per year, a system that most independent assessors say isn’t working, won’t work, and ultimately will need to be abandoned.

 

So no wonder the Tories have committed to finding £12 billion in additional welfare savings; they need them just to get back to square one. No wonder also that the difference between the track record locally and the DWP means that we’re now pushing to have those powers devolved down to us. The power to run the Work Programme and the Youth Contract as other cities have done, the power to run Job Centres, the power to set local skills budgets, the power to manage employment related benefits. If we have these powers, I’m confident that we can deliver support at a better quality, at less cost, with less bureaucracy, to more people in this city.

 

So, Councillor Edwards, yes I am a little surprised that the Tories continue to describe the DWP as “wonderful”, against all the evidence, it perhaps shows that they don’t realise or frankly don’t care quite what an awful mess they’ve made of it, and more importantly what an awful mess it has made of the lives of people in this city.

 

Social Housing

 

Councillor Sally Longford asked the following question of the Portfolio Holder for Planning and Housing:

 

Would the portfolio holder for Planning and Housing outline her concerns for the future of social housing in Nottingham over the next 5 years?

 

Councillor Jane Urquhart replied as follows:

 

Thank you Councillor Longford and thank you Lord Mayor. I am of course answering this question in the role that I would anticipate taking on a little later in the meeting, in accordance with the papers that people will have seen. So before I get into the detail of the answer I would first like to pay tribute to my predecessor in this role, Councillor Liversidge. Councillor Liversidge has held this portfolio through some challenging times, and I would like to thank him for the contribution he made to ensuring that we in Nottingham have not had anyone evicted as a result on the bedroom tax, and I would also like to thank him for the impetus behind the Council House building programme, which has seen hundreds of high quality Local Authority homes built over the last 4 years.

 

So, if the challenges have been considerable over the period of a Tory Lib-Dem coalition, the next 5 years of a Tory government will be even more so, in terms of welfare policy, right-to-buy, the role of the private sector, and rented accommodation. Councillor Chapman has talked about some of the general challenges in terms of austerity. I’m not sure that we will have time this afternoon for me to list all of my concerns frankly, but I will highlight a few that come to mind immediately.

 

The bedroom tax. This already adversely affects 3,500 households in our city. We have all heard in our constituencies and in our ward surgeries, the appalling evidence of families forced to move, of people with disabilities fearing for their futures, and of local communities broken up as people have had to move to smaller homes to avoid debt.

 

The rollout of Universal Credit could impact upon 12,000 Nottingham City Homes tenants, who may end up in rent arrears as a result of those changes, and Councillor McDonald has already spoken about the fiasco that is Universal Credit.

 

Add to that the Tory’s proposed attacks on under 25 year olds, to exclude them from housing benefit altogether, which could affect a further 700 households. So young people are added to the list of those who will be punished, mainly for their youth. Young people who may not be able to return to their parents’ homes, perhaps because they need to live elsewhere in order to find work, or perhaps because of family violence or abuse. They will have no ability to claim housing benefit, and are therefore more likely to become homeless; because, of course, not all families are like the families experienced by Tory ministers. Not all families have their wealth, to shield them from such cuts as these. And we know that some people need support to establish themselves as independent, not punishment for being too young.

 

So tens of thousands of people in our city could be affected by the Tory government’s attacks on welfare, and our social housing provision could be adversely affected, as rent arrears lead to reduced rental income for housing providers, therefore making it harder for those social landlords to make improvements to their housing stock, or to invest in building any more new homes.

 

The Tories were clear in their election campaign that they would seek to extend the right to buy. Their housing policy, based on a simplistic notion that property ownership is the only acceptable form of housing tenure. They have not moved on from their Thatcherite policies. Actually, I would suggest they’ve not really moved on from the Victorian period really, when notions of property ownership were the route to an ability in those days to vote; the ability to vote was only conferred by property ownership. Some of these current policies have resonance with that. Their record on this is absolutely clear, and not just from Margaret Thatcher beginning the right-to-buy policy in government from about 1980, but in fact closer to home in our city, in the mid-1970s. During a rare period of Conservative control in this Council, they piloted right-to-buy in our city, spending public money on building houses that were then sold off almost immediately to private owners. So we know from very close to home what’s in store for Nottingham.

 

And of course, during the last parliament in 2012, they made the promise that every house sold would be replaced with a newly built one. So, 25,000 homes have been sold, and fewer than 2,300 have been built: another promise broken. Every home sold off reduces the rental income for social housing landlords, and reduced their ability to improve the quality of their remaining housing stock. In Nottingham, we don’t share that view. By contrast, we are of the view that Council houses are an asset, that they should be held in public ownership, collectively, for the good of our generation and the next. Building new high quality homes, ensuring that that supply can drive down prices, that’s a better way to solve the housing crisis than selling off the precious few assets we have.

 

So we will work hard in Nottingham to continue that house building programme. We have many more houses already in the pipeline, we have plans for thousands over the next 5 years, and we will continue to work hard to put those plans into action, despite the attacks that we know will come. And of course now it’s not only our local authority housing that the Tory government want to sell. They also want to sell other people’s silver, not just ours, but other people’s too. They want to extend the right-to-buy to homes that are owned and rented out by housing associations. These organisations have been set up with charitable purposes, with the charitable purpose of providing housing for those of limited financial means. But the Tories seem to think it’s ok to use our money, public money, to offer subsidies to sell off those homes too, leading still further to reductions in the available housing stock, and pushing even more people into private renting, with less secure tenancies and often poor quality homes.

 

So yes, Councillor Longford, I have considerable concerns for social housing over the next 5 years, and it will be a huge challenge for us to ensure that in Nottingham, renting a good quality home in a decent neighbourhood, is still something that our people can achieve. We have had some success over the last 5 years, in combatting the bedroom tax, in building new high quality homes, and I relish the challenge that we now face. I know that in Nottingham we will fight to make sure that our housing remains of a decent quality, is affordable, and does not simply dwindle to make profits for buy-to-let landlords.

 

Electoral Registration

 

Councillor Mohammed Ibrahim asked the following question of the Deputy Leader/ Portfolio Holder for Resources and Neighbourhood Regeneration:

 

How many extra voters joined this year’s electoral register after its first publication? How many applications failed? How many requests were received from people anxious that they weren’t registered? How many people are qualified to be on the register, but are not?

 

Councillor Graham Chapman replied as follows:

 

Thank you Lord Mayor, and thank you Councillor Ibrahim. Since the first publication of the electoral register on 1 December 2014, the electorate in Nottingham City on the register increased from 191,201 to 205,940, therefore an increase of 14,739 electors, most of whom were added in the last few weeks before the registration deadline, many of whom, Councillor Trimble will be delighted to hear, were students in Radford and Park, because I know how keen he is on student registration in Radford and Park, or whatever his ward is. And this was done at a time when many other Councils’ numbers were static, so that was a very good thing and I congratulate the staff on it.

 

The number of applications which failed when checked against the government records through the new system of individual registration changes on a day-to-day basis, therefore we can only provide the number of electors who are currently pending, and have to provide evidence due to them not matching with government records before they could be registered. This figure is 3,641 people, of which 1,871 people have been sent 2 enquiry letters requesting this information since they made their application.

 

Unfortunately there are no records kept of the number of people who contacted electoral services, anxious that they weren't registered, but obviously the team experienced a high volume of calls, emails and face-to-face contact at reception during the election period.

 

Many people were in fact registered to vote already, but could not remember seeing their polling card, or wanted to double check. This is also evidenced by the large number of duplicate applications processed, people were registering online to vote who were already registered.

 

The electoral register does not hold data on eligible electors who are not registered to vote, just the names of those registered to vote. Electoral Services have used data from Mosaic System through the GIS team to identify demographics in low registration areas, but using census and population data will never accurately pinpoint those individuals who can register to vote, but choose not to. This includes students living in the city who maintain their registration at their home town, and are not interested in voting in Nottingham, or city residents who are not qualified to vote because of their nationality status.

 

What there is no doubt about is the confusion, the duplication and the omissions created by the new system. The number of people consequently disenfranchised, and the amount of resources and effort and resourcefulness applied by the staff to try and maintain registration levels and voter turnout, and I would like publicly to thank those staff, and I know that other members of Council really appreciate what they tried and succeeded in doing.

 

But I also want to repeat concerns about a system which is designed, and I think deliberately designed, not to include, but to eliminate certain groups of people from the register. I have absolutely no doubt that it is a political fix, that it is deliberate, and it is surreptitious gerrymandering.

 

Elected Mayors

 

Councillor Georgina Culley asked the following question of the Deputy Leader/ Portfolio Holder for Resources and Neighbourhood Regeneration:

 

While I am sure he joins me in welcoming the prospect of further powers and influence over transport, housing and skills policy offered by the Chancellor as part of the city devolution plans, could the deputy leader of the council confirm whether or not he will accept the establishment of an elected mayor in order to provide appropriate accountability for these new orders, or will he deny Nottingham residents any say whatsoever on devolved matters?

 

Councillor Graham Chapman replied as follows:

 

I saw this question come in, and it is, inevitably, not about the powers or the opportunities of devolution, about jobs or houses or businesses which come from it, it is, inevitably, about mayors. Reflecting the real danger for the whole of the devolution proposals, that they deteriorate into a dispute about the process of mayoralty, rather than about a collective view of the substance to do with the economy, and jobs, and the prosperity of this city.

 

But let me unpick the assumptions behind the question. The assumption is that the proposal, whatever it is, is for a Nottingham mayor. That is the precise wording of Councillor Culley's question. But is that what the proposal is from the Chancellor? The Manchester proposal is for a metropolitan mayor, so at least we will be talking about a conurbation mayor, not a Nottingham mayor. Moreover, Manchester's metropolis is quite clear, it's got clear boundaries. Nottingham's conurbation is not, where does it start and where does it stop? Halfway through Rushcliffe? Most of Ashfield? Bits of Newark? Bits of Derbyshire? So are we talking about a boundary review, which makes it all more complex? And then there are parts of Nottingham travel-to-work area which are in fact absolutely outside of the shire, are indeed in Derbyshire and would make far more sense than some of the other options we’re pursuing at the moment to do with the county.

 

A further problem is the Local Economic Partnership, the devolution bid, encouraged by the government, that we have put in on behalf of the whole of Nottinghamshire. So you could argue that you have a shire mayor, otherwise, the bid for powers, encouraged by the government, does not make sense. But the shire also includes Mansfield, which already has a mayor, and Bassetlaw which sees itself more as part of Sheffield than it does Nottingham. However, I'm told that there is a long term desire to bring the Derbyshire side of the LEP in, so that you could have a D2N2 mayor. Moreover, we are told that LEP boundaries are going to be re-drawn in order to increase the size to Mancunian scales, so you could actually have Leicestershire included; and Leicester, which also has a mayor. In fact we could have so many damn mayors floating around that we wouldn't know what to do with them. I'll correct that for you Lord Mayor, so many directly elected mayors, floating around that we wouldn't know what to do with them. So you have a dog’s breakfast of options, the one of which that makes the least sense is a mayor for the city boundaries.

 

In addition, you have to deliver consensus, so that Rushcliffe, Bassetlaw, possibly Erewash, the county certainly, possibly 2 or even 3 counties, Derby, possibly Leicester, and Uncle Tom Cobley all agree, and meanwhile the world moves on. Everybody is paralysed by process, and the whole thing becomes a divisive distraction, and that is your problem.

 

Moreover, there is no evidence that mayors make much difference to tell you the truth, the benefits of a good one are marginal. The drawbacks of a bad one can be enormous, so I don't actually see the excitement of a mayor. Finally, there is an interesting phrase in the question: "will he accept the establishment of an elected mayor in order to provide appropriate accountability for these new orders, or will he deny Nottingham residents any say whatsoever on devolved matters". The either/or in this phrase does not make sense. First, having a say over devolution and having a say over mayoralty is not the same thing, but the question assumes it. Second, one of the very things that the people of Nottingham have had a say on over the last few years is whether they want a mayor or not. Perhaps Councillor Culley is suffering from selective amnesia, because the results, they weren't that keen on either a mayor, or even on voting about a mayor, because the turnout was very very low. Thirdly, there is an assumption that she's expressing the views of the people of Nottingham. I don't want to be cruel, but is important to remind her that one of the people in this chamber who has the least right to speak for the people of Nottingham, is herself. She has just overseen the biggest defeat of her values in this city for many many years, at a time when her party was advancing nationally. Indeed, it is a presumption in the extreme to purport to speak on behalf of the people of Nottingham, and she's no longer even the chief spokesperson for the people of Wollaton. Indeed, the chief spokesperson for the people of Wollaton is unfortunately not in this chamber, but I tell you he is certainly not in favour of elected mayors, either for the city, the conurbation, the county, D2N2, Leicestershire, or any other concoction.

 

But back to the substance, and a question for the questioner. Georgina, what sort of mayor are you talking about please? And how are you going to persuade your colleagues in the rest of the shire, and the rest of D2N2 to accept a mayor overseeing their economic policy? And indeed, how are you going to persuade the Nottingham electorate that has already voted against the concept? Because I tell you, I’m not going to do it, and there will be many other members in this Council not going to do it. We are far too interested in the powers, resources and benefits that devolution can bring down for the people of Nottingham, rather than getting bogged down in to some inextricable morass of pointless mayoral process.