WELFARE REFORM – A TRAIN CRASH HEADING THIS WAY

                    

The growth of Food Banks is a shocking symptom of the Coalition Government’s attack on people low incomes, through their welfare reforms which started last year, and worse to come in April 2013. Whilst we don't have a food bank yet in Hounslow, I know it is only a matter of time, and I know that the Gurdwaras and other places of worship are feeding more people every day. As the Cabinet Member tasked with addressing Hounslow's response to the Welfare Benefit changes, I am having to develop a strategy and find resources to do this.  In researching the issue I am really angry at the impact these changes are going to have on the most vulnerable in our communities, for no obvious benefit to the national economy.

 

The changes don’t even serve the policy aims of deficit reduction and getting people into work  that they were supposed to address.  Furthermore they don’t address the real cause of the high benefit bill - low wages and the rising  cost of housing - 80% of new housing benefit claimants are in work.  The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has reported that the new Universal credit will trap people in poverty, as there will be little incentive to work.  And the National Audit Office (NAO) has warned that the government's plans to cut the annual housing benefit bill by £2.3bn by 2015 will lead to around two million of the poorest households receiving lower benefits. The NAO predicted that within five years 48% of England's 275 local authorities would have more than twice as many benefit claimants as two-bedroom dwellings, the most popular housing stock, available to rent.

Those most affected are families where the parents are on a low-wage, disabled adults and children.  In outer London the reforms go alongside a collapse in construction of new affordable homes and rising private sector rents.                                                          

 In Hounslow borough;

-   600 households will be affected by the Universal credit cap of which 400 will lose more than £50 per week

-   the Council Tax Support scheme will affect 9,000 local families who will lose around £7 per month.

-   1160 children are in lone parent families that will lose over £50 per week

-   at lease £7m will be lost from the local economy from the total of reduced benefit payments

 And the costs are running away –  as the Work Programme scheme has failed, the Government has had to increase spending on Jobseekers allowance and housing benefit by £9bn nationally, and the IT costs have soared by £100m as the changes have been rushed through before the IT systems can be adapted. Local Councils’ costs are rising too ;  In Hounslow:

-           £2.5m more than planned will be needed to pay for temporary housing for the increased homeless   families

-           there will be additional demand for social Services for children in particular

-           a new hardship fund will have to be set up to replace the DWP Social Fund

-           more welfare benefit and debt advisors will be needed to deal with the rising tide of problems

-           we'll need to provide on-line access with human support for those now required to access the benefits system via internet, as all other communication channels are closed down.

 The Labour Party front bench are demanding that the Government gets a grip on spending, get people who can back to work, and to address runaway rent levels.  Ed Milliband is championing the Living Wage, assessed as the lowest income that enable to the basics in life to be affordable – and Hounslow Council agreed in early October to adopt the London Living Wage for all Council staff and contractors.

What we need is a fair benefits system that allows those who cannot work or need extra help, to live in dignity, fair rent levels, massive increase in affordable housing, and jobs for those who can work paid at rates that allow for a decent standard of living.                      

Labour doorstep

On the Doorstep in Boston Manor

For the last two Saturdays we've been meeting residents in and around Boston Manor Road and have had a very good reception.  Key issues that we have been asked to take up are; fly-tipping in the back alleys, overgrown street trees, parking and speed, the potential impact of being under the landing path of a third runway, and the fear of the Reynard Mills development getting the go ahead from Eric Pickles.

None are straightforward - the alleys aren't public highway, but are private paths jointly owned by the freeholders of the houses that have access rights, which means cleaning an maintaining them is technically the responsibility of householders.    However as the alleys are long, and have several access paths, it is very difficult to for residents to agree who would be responsible for what stretch the alley.  I am going to see whether the Council could run an alley-gate scheme, where the Council identified places that gates could go, and then help to set up an agreement between householders for the cost of the gates and access arrangements.  In less financially stretched times, I know that Hounslow and Ealing has contributed to the costs in the past, but this could be difficult with budgets being slashed..

We all love trees, and know what they contribute to the environment, but right outside your door rising above the height of the house, splattering sap on your car and potentially uprooting garden walls or worse?  I've put in several requests for local trees that are causing problems to be pollarded and for the roots to be looked at.

Parking is one of those tricky issues - some people want a residents parking scheme to ensure residents can park outside their homes during the day, but others resent having to pay for a permit they see as having little benefit.  We only support new ResPark Schemes where a majority of people in a road want one following a consultation, and we only initiate that consultation when there is a clearly demonstrated demand, such as from a petition.  As to reducing speed in local roads - we have some funding and will ask officers to look at options for reducing vehicle speeds in Boston Manor Road, Swyncombe Avenue and (surprisingly) Boston Gardens.

If Runway 3 were built then Boston Manor would suffer the fate of much of the rest of the borough, being under the landing path and having flights overhead every minute or so.  We will follow the work of the Davies Commission on Aviation Capacity with interest, and indeed will be submitting evidence!

And finally Reynard Mills - so much for Localism, this development will be determined by Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for the Environment.  Two applications for almost 300 flats on Windmill Road were refused by Hounslow's planners, not on principle, but because of over density and some design concerns.  However , the applicants have appealed and there is a public Inquiry going on now in front of a Government inspector.  Pickles has announced that he will make the final decision - why?  Not because it has any national significance, but because he has announced that he wants to overide local authorities who "drag their feet" on determining applications.  Hounslow has a good record of determining applications, and Brentford is a good illustration of how many new homes have been given planning permission in recent years.  I suspect Pickles is driven more by the opportunity to attack a Labour Council, than any real interest in planning issues round here, and he certainly has no interest in the residents of Manor Vale, Manor Place and Windmill Road whose homes will be towered over by the resulting flats. 

Multi-million street improvement scheme - starts next year.

The list of the of roads to be resurfaced in Hounslow next year is now available.  This is the first stage of the £800m contract signed by between the Council and VInci Ringway in September, which will see all borough roads  improved over the next five years,  starting with those in the worst condition.  The contract  includes resurfacing of roads and footways, new street lights, street cleaning, removing graffiti and flytipping, as well as taking care of trees and verges and winter gritting.   

We have been working on this joint public-private scheme for 10 years now, such is its complexity.  It might have been dropped by the Tory/independent Council leadership when they led  the borough from 2006 - 2010 but to their credit they didn't;  so what we started, we can now roll out.  

Brentford roads due to be resurfaced in the 2013/14 financial year are: Boston Gardens, Boston Manor Road (part), Brentwick Gardens, Carville Crescent, Brook Lane north, Ealing Road, Enfield Road and Walk, Hamilton Road, New Road and the Ride. New footways include Apple Garth, Chestnut Avenue, Carville Crescent (part), Ealing Road (part). Several more roads are getting new street lights in the next year too.

 

The works will mean safer, more accessible streets.  Street clutter will be sorted, and drop kerbs will be installed on all corners where there are none—such as this once being pointed out by Councillor Mel Collins. 

The contract means the environment will be better, particularly for  disabled people and those with buggies.

I have been pressing for the work to be an opportunity to make more significant improvements to roads such as traffic safety schemes, widen some footways, or install in-set parking bays on roads such as Lionel Road where there are wide pavements but not enough space for parking.  And if you think improvements could be made to your street environment through this scheme - please let me know (or your local Councillor if you're not a Brentford ward resident)

For more details of the project in the Isleworth & Brentford Area, see the October 201 agenda for the Isleworth & Brentford Area Forum meeting 30th October 2012 on www.hounslow.gov.uk

Hounslow Citizens Advice Bureau AGM

This week I joined many of our CAB's staff, volunteers and trustees at their AGM where we heard just how busy the CAB service is now, and what the future holds for local people.  Hounslow's CAB, along with all CAB's is going through an unprecedented growth in "business".  Ours is one of the few CAB's that has seen its Council grant increase to meet the challenge, but even so it struggles to keep on top of the problems.

Our 3 bureau at Chiswick Hounslow and Feltham saw over 8000 new clients last year, with 24,000 queries.  The top 3 presenting issues are Benefits & Tax Credits 31%, Debt (25%) followed by Housing (11%).  However many people have more than one interrelated problem they are seeking to solve.  On top of that, an increasing number of clients have mental or physical disabilities, an/or stoical and language isolation. 

Many common themes come up again and again in the casework including DWP repeatedly making wrong assessments or wrongly applying the law, and people with mental health problems struggling to manage finances and claim appropriate benefits, even contemplating suicide as the only way out of their debt problems.

The AGM heard from Christie Silk, of the CAB National office, explaining how the further changes to the Welfare Benefits system will mean two million people in this country will be worse off.   The people with most to fear are severely disabled people living alone, families with high childcare costs, and lone parents with disabled children (a very high proportion of disabled children live with a lone parent).

The AGM was a meeting of mixed emotions for me: anger at what the Government policies are doing to low paid and disabled people in this country, admiration for the work of the CAB staff and volunteers, and determination to do what I can to ensure the limited Council resources are used in the best way to reduce the impact on residents of Hounslow. 

Housing: Fraud Success and Tackling Voids

The current edition of Hounslow Homes News that goes to Council tenants and leaseholders in the borough has two welcome pieces of news.

Over the last two years since the Tenancy Fraud Initiative was launched, 96 Council Homes have been recovered by Hounslow Homes, 18 through the courts and 78 where tenants handed the keys back once proceedings to terminate the tenancy have been started.

It's a good result, and shows that the additional investment in staff to take action has more than paid its way by freeing up more much-needed homes to those in housing need.  Information about suspected fraudulent tenancies come from a variety of sources, but neighbours raising concerns can be key to an investigation being initiated.


Secondly, it's good to see the Void times finally starting to improve.  Lead members, myself and then Steve Curran, have been pushing Hounslow Homes and the Council teams to work more closely together to get systems in place to cut down the time taken to re-let homes.  It's not rocket science, but needed some "lean" thinking to get the avoidable glitches out of the system, and I'm glad that work is now seeing results.