Responsible business has to start with responsible employment

This week is Business in the Community’s ‘Responsible Business Week’ and we’re very pleased to be able to help report that one large employer in the North East shares our view that responsible business practice has to start with the treatment of employees, including their pay.

Fabrick Housing Group, which manages 14,000 properties and is based in the Tees Valley but covers an area from North Tyneside to York, have recently decided to become a Living Wage employer and are pursuing accreditation for this as well. They have also been keen to promote this decision and managed to get an article in Inside Housing magazine, highlighting that other housing providers could also make the pledge. A press release from Fabrick states that they are now encouraging their suppliers to join up and sign up to become Living Wage employers

Heather Ashton, Group Director of Finance and Corporate Services for Fabrick, who recently led a BitC ‘Seeing is Believing’ visit on in-work poverty in the North East said: “This is really important to us as an employer and we want the living wage to become a real consideration for businesses that become our suppliers too. We work very closely with local suppliers and when we award a contract, we will offer them a fair price to make sure they can provide the living wage” and “Offering the living wage helps tackle poverty and reduce the massive inequalities in our society.”

The decision to become a Living Wage employer has meant that 29 people received a pay increase of around ten per cent, but the decision to apply for accreditation and to encourage suppliers to sign up as well will bring benefits to a far larger number of low paid workers.

And, we also found out that Aquila Way, another housing provider in the North East have also just become accredited Living Wage employers and we’re sure that others are about to follow as well. This means that we now have more housing providers than local authorities in the North East paying the Living Wage…

For more information about Fabrick Housing Group, contact Helen Sturdy, Communications and Media Officer, on 01642 773616.

If you’d like to know more about how to become a Living Wage employer, please click here

“Erring on the side of kindness…”

Yesterday, along with Sara Bryson from Children North East, I presented at a FUSE / ASO conference on school meals, inequality and obesity. The event was called ‘Could I have some more please, sir?’ and the focus of our presentation, which can be found by clicking the image below, was on the administration of Free School Meals (FSM) within the school environment.

The main part of the presentation focused on Sara’s work with children and young people, staff and parents from four schools in the North East as part of the ‘poverty proofing the school day’ project they are currently carrying out, with support from the North East Child Poverty Commission. This work has highlighted how children are generally very easily able to identify who receives FSM as a result of the way in which they are administered: some schools administer cash-less systems but when these break down, children receiving FSM are identified by being given a different coloured ticket to their friends who pay for their meals; some schools still collect dinner money with register at the start of the week (those receiving FSM stay in their seats while those that pay give their money to the teacher); and some schools have separate tills for FSM pupils despite having cash-less systems.

The presentation focused on the stigmatizing effect that this has on the children. These are, after all, the children of ‘scroungers’ or ‘shirkers’, the children whose parents are probably still in bed by the time school starts, still ‘sleeping off a life on benefits’. Children in receipt of FSM are easily identifiable as a result of a stigmatizing, discriminatory and divisive national policy which is often implemented in a stigmatizing, discriminatory and divisive fashion at the school level. Sara’s findings highlight the role of street-level bureaucrats as the ‘ultimate policy makers’. The work with children, involving them in the design and the carrying out of the research, has also highlighted how children are able to negotiate and resist nutritional standards in schools through the provision of alternatives, with a thriving ‘black market’ in ‘non-permitted items’ a consistent feature in secondary schools.

What is unsurprising is that this stigma is nothing new. Other presenters highlighted that the provision of FSM to certain sections of the school population pre-dates the turn of the last century and one of the slides we used in the presentation contained a quote from a study carried out by John Veit-Wilson in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1971:

‘There is no doubt that this stigma is both ascribed by widespread public values and experienced by recipients. It is bad enough to have to admit that one cannot feed one’s own children by one’s own labour – but that indignity can be kept within the family. It is worse to have to apply for public assistance in feeding them – but that indignity could perhaps be kept a secret between the family and the Local Education Authority. However, the greatest indignity is when one’s children are publicly displayed in the classroom or dining room as the children of a financial incompetent – one who cannot even earn enough to pay for their food’

And stigmatisation within public programmes has consequences. Professor Mike Miller, writing in the introduction to a book on Richard Titmuss writes:

‘Stigma threatens the person stimgatized, the programme, and the society which condones stigmatization. The stigmatized person experiences the fact of being separated from the rest of society, of being treated as someone different, marginalized, as less than others, as not worthy of the everyday exchanges and transactions that make up the community. This experience often produces a ‘spoiled identity’, a self-image which is damaged and diminished, impeding the autonomous actions of the individual.’

He goes on to argue that ‘programmes aimed at stigmatized people tend to be of low quality’ and that funding is often inadequate. We know this to be the case for FSM as many children who are living in poverty (including some who, by the DWP’s own estimates, are in the ‘deepest’ poverty) are prevented from receiving FSM as a result of the criteria which largely excludes children who have a working parent in the household. Miller argues that, in cases such as this, ‘Inhumanity becomes a social policy because it keeps the costs down.’ (p16) One might think, as Titmuss himself argued, that ‘the primary purpose of the system and the method of discrimination was, therefore deterrence (it was also an effective rationing device)’ (p153).

We ended the presentation by suggesting that the best way of addressing this situation was by providing Universal Free School Meals and Universal Breakfast Clubs. Campaigns such as the current Children’s Society ‘Fair and Square’  which aim to extend FSM to all children living in poverty run the risk of simply giving all poor children the opportunity to be singled out and stigmatized at school. Universal Free School Meal pilot projects, started by the last government, in Durham and Cornwall (with an extended FSM programme running in Newham) have suggested that the provision resulted in an increase in uptake of school meals across the board. Evidence from the qualitative case studies indicated that ‘this may be because universal provision decreases the stigma attached to taking free school meals’ (p11). There was also an increase in attainment across the board, with the largest increases being seen by children who would were previously eligible for FSM. The Impact report for the pilot project suggested that, as attendance at the schools had not been affected, ‘the increases in attainment evident in the universal pilot areas must arise as a result of improvements in productivity whilst at school’ (p9) which highlights the crucial role of food in ensuring that children are ready and able to learn.

Titmuss argued that there could be ’no answer to the problems of poverty, ethic integration, and social and educational inequalities without an infrastructure of universalist services. These are the essential foundations’ (p139) Of course, universal FSM provision would also benefit the ‘hard working families’ that the government is fond of talking about and it may also help the ‘welfare system’, which currently divides, become more binding, something which David Cameron has (sort of) expressed concern about in recent days. Universal services may also be the most efficient and cost-effective way of targeting services at those most in need. In a book entitled ‘Not Only the Poor: The Middle Classes and the Welfare State’, Goodin & Le Grand make the point that:

‘If our concern is primarily with reducing poverty and making sure everyone achieves certain minimum standards, then targeting might simply not be worth the cost. From that perspective, there would be nothing fundamentally wrong with ‘erring on the side of kindness’ and paying benefits to some people who do not strictly need them, if that is the least cost way of guaranteeing that they reach everyone who does need them.’ (pp217-218)

The philosophy of welfare : selected writings of Richard M. Titmuss, London: Allen & Unwin

Goodin, R.E. & LeGrand, J. (1987) Not Only the Poor: The Middle Classes and The Welfare State, London: Unwin Hyman

Those of you on Twitter can see some of the audience comments by searching for clicking here or searching, on Twitter, for #schoolfoodchat

We will provide a link to the FUSE website were all of the presentations can be found once they are uploaded.

We’ll also provide a link to the digital story that one of the young people involved in the project produced, exploring the entreprenurial side of food of schools.

“The first line of defence…..”

“Local government (is) in essence the first line of defence thrown up by the community against our common enemies – poverty, sickness, ignorance, isolation, mental derangement and social maladjustment”

I sometimes use the above quote from Winifred Holtby in presentations to local authorities. One local authority director appreciated the quote but stated that, at the present time, it felt like they were fighting with one arm tied behind their back. He obviously wasn’t feeling the ‘freedoms’ that central government have promised to local authorities in the name of localism and de-centralisation.

Last week, we saw evidence of what this ‘first line of defence’ could look like in the region when the Leader of Darlington Borough Council, Bill Dixon, declared that there would be no evictions in Darlington as a result of the bedroom tax’ and he warned that the tax – or spare room subsidy – was ‘in danger of destroying families’. Other local authorities across the country, including Islington and Brighton and Hove have made similar commitments and a campaign group called No Bedroom Tax NE are calling for other local authorities in the region to make similar pledges.

This may appear to be a political (or moral?) position but one could also mount a fairly strong case for adopting this position on financial grounds as well. Evicting people for arrears, especially families, is rarely a progressive or helpful stage in their lives, it isn’t cheap and it can be a fairly lengthy process, with few benefits for anyone. If the tenants evicted are made homeless, the local authority still has certain responsibilities and (re)housing people in temporary accommodation is a lot more expensive each week than the cost of an unpaid ‘spare room subsidy’. Pledging not to evict people because of arrears relating to the ‘bedroom tax’ could even be construed as an ‘efficiency saving’…..

 

 

“People where I live want to work….”

A couple of weeks ago we highlighted the discussions that had taken place in the House of Lords concerning the benefits up-rating bill and the strength of feeling around it. Yesterday, in discussions about the Jobseekers (Back to work schemes) Bill – more commonly understood as being about the ‘Poundland case’ - it was the turn of the MPs. The discussion based around the government’s proposal to introduce emergency legislation which would mean that they would not have to re-pay £130,000,000 that had been withheld  from people whose benefits had been sanctioned illegally.

Two of the strongest interventions came from MPs from the North East – Ian Lavery of Wansbeck and Grahame Morris from Easington. Below are some of the comments that they made in opposing the bill, which went against the wishes and official position of the Labour leadership. Politicians often get a hard time in our country at the present time and are often accused of being ‘out of touch’ with what is happening in ‘real life’. The comments below suggest that this might well be an unfair accusation in some cases. I appreciate that I could be accused of regional – or indeed political – bias in highlighting these contributions to the debate. I fully accept the regional bias charge and would also remind readers that the official Labour position was to abstain from the bill. (For info, 6 North East MPs voted against the bill – the two below, Ian Mearns, Dave Anderson, Mary Glindon & Nick Brown, three voted for the Bill – Guy Opperman, James Wharton and Ian Swales – but I couldn’t find contributions form them. The rest didn’t vote, from what I can gather). However, in order to redress the potential political bias somewhat, I have given the final word to Iain Duncan Smith, and have emphasised some of his comments  as they may be of particular interest….

Ian Lavery

The Bill is being introduced to save the taxpayer up to £130 million, yet it deprives the most vulnerable people who have been on workfare and are looking to better themselves in employment. It has been introduced to deny £130 million compensation to 300,000 people who would like decent employment with decent wages, terms and conditions. The Government have introduced emergency legislation to prevent those people from getting only what the Court of Appeal says they deserve. That is an absolute outrage.

I am certain that the 300,000 people the Court says have a claim because of the illegal actions of the Minister’s Department should receive it—there is no doubt about it. The Bill is being introduced by the DWP and the Government to deprive many hard-working people, and many people who want to be hard-working, of any finance whatever. Is that in the best interests of the economy? It is an absolute disgrace. Those people will spend money in the economy. They might get £50, £100 or £72 a week, but they will spend it, because it is the only money they have. The Minister should not seek to deprive those people and leave them with no finances whatever.

The Bill turns my stomach. The impact assessment states: “A retrospective transfer of public money to this group of claimants would represent poor value to the taxpayer”.

What a disgrace to say such a thing in Government documents with reference to the people I have mentioned 10, 15 or 20 times previously. That will not give them self-esteem. They are doing their very best.

Members of Parliament discuss with constituents, and often people away from the constituency, the merits and otherwise of policies. I often meet people with a very different view from the people the hon. Gentleman has met. That is not to say that that has not been said, but the people I meet want decent jobs. They want the opportunity to get up in the morning and  go to work for a decent wage. They would accept the minimum wage even though, at this point in time, it is not high enough. Where I live, 25 people are after every single job in the jobcentre. That means that 24 are not getting employment for every single opportunity. People want to work for the best intentions and the right reasons. They want self-esteem and finances. People where I live want to work—I am sure that extends throughout the country.

Saying that paying claimants the money that the Court says they should be paid—the result of the ruling means that the £130 million can be paid—does not represent good value for the taxpayer is an absolute disgrace. It is not the type of language we would expect from any Government. It is not right to talk about people as, “This group of claimants.” They are ordinary people with feelings, and many of them want to get on in life.

The impact assessment states: “If the Department cannot make these retrospective changes, then further reductions in benefits might be required in order to find the money to repay the sanctions.”

That is blackmail of the highest order—I make no apology for the strength of my feeling on that. If people are due finances, they should get them, particularly following a court ruling, but the Government are saying, “If we pay these people, we might have to cut benefits for other people as a result because that is where we have to find the money.” That is emotional blackmail. It is totally and utterly bang out of order. They are trying to set people who are looking for work and on benefits against each other. That is absolutely unacceptable.

Some 300,000 people will be denied their legal rights if the Bill is passed. This is just another ideological attack on the unemployed and the less well-off, despite a High Court judgment. Why does the Minister not just accept the court of law? Give these people what they are entitled to. It is the Minister’s mess. Why should they suffer?

Grahame Morris

Members on both sides of the House by saying that, if the funds are not recovered from those who were incorrectly sanctioned, they will have to be recovered from elsewhere in the welfare budget. That is outrageous blackmail; I am sorry if that is not parliamentary language, but I find that deeply offensive. It goes against every grain of fairness in Members on both sides of the House. The view I am expressing is the view that has been unanimously expressed to me. I have received numerous e-mails and messages from my constituents over the past 48 hours, all of them asking me to vote against this Bill as it is unfair and unjust.

The Government, and especially Government Back Benchers, have characterised jobseekers who have been sanctioned as workshy and feckless—the sentiment expressed was “Are you really suggesting these people shouldn’t be sanctioned?” Let us have a look at the Work programme, however. It has gone from chaos to farce. We talk about “workshy”, but what about wage-shy employers who exploit the unemployed, with the connivance, approval and funding of the Government?

I oppose the concept of two nations, as does my party, but what will the consequences of these measures be? The Government are creating two nations. They are seeking to penalise and punish the poor for the mistakes of the rich and powerful, in part of a continuing series of policies that are badged as “austerity”. Those policies are pushing the poorest in society further into poverty.

We need to look at the situation we are in now. This is the wrong thing to do: it is unjust and unfair to give millionaires a £2,000 a week tax cut, at the same time as the right hon. Gentleman’s Government propose to deprive some of the poorest people, who have been illegally sanctioned, of large chunks of their income. It is outrageous, and it is rank hypocrisy for anyone to talk about rights with the emphasis on responsibility when it comes to workfare. If they are willing to undermine the judiciary and the rule of law, and vote for retrospective legislation to cover up the mistakes and failings of the Minister, who is asking that we legislate to place him above the law, that is a dangerous precedent to establish.

I cannot, in all conscience, support this desperate Bill, put forward by a desperate Government who have broken their own laws and now wish to forgo their legal obligations and withhold social security payments of £130 million to some of the poorest people in the country. Why do we not apply that method across the board? If the national emergency is such that it is right to deny access to social security to those who are entitled to it in order to safeguard the national economy, why do we not chase the tax exiles—those powerful individuals who own newspapers and luxury hotels, who pay no corporation tax and who have laid siege to a small Channel Island?

We are in the sorry situation of the Minister blackmailing hon. Members by threatening a collective punishment for all those in receipt of social security and welfare benefits if these changes do not go through, because the Department might have to find the money through further reductions elsewhere in its budget. I thought that it was the Secretary of State for Education and his advisers who were the bullies. It is now obvious that the Department for Work and Pensions has decided to sink to those standards by threatening Members of the House in this way, which is below what we would expect of a responsible Government and a responsible Minister.

 I did not come into Parliament to penalise and punish the vulnerable and the poor for the mistakes of the Government. The Department for Work and Pensions seems to be in a state of chaos. It is trying to save money by issuing unlawful sanctions for a Work programme that is not fit for purpose. It is making arbitrary cuts to disability living allowance and employment and support allowance, and is seeking to reduce the case load by 20%. Through the bedroom tax, it is cutting the incomes of disabled people and families with children. The welfare state under this coalition Government in 2013 is failing at every turn.

What we are seeing today is an abuse of power. This is an appalling Bill. I urge the Minister to take responsibility for his actions, even at this late stage, to put a stop to the Bill and to pay those who were unlawfully sanctioned because of his failings. I will vote against the Bill and I urge other hon. Members to do the same.

Iain Duncan Smith

I am listening carefully to what my right hon. Friend has to say. As the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr Hoban), has made clear and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will make clear, all of these things are kept constantly under review. We want to improve them and that is what jobcentre staff do. They are brilliant at that, by the way, and they get better and better. My point on mandatory work activity is that it is not just work experience. It is also about changing culture: finding out whether someone is working and not declaring it; and getting people used to the idea of getting out of bed in the morning and attending somewhere where they do what they have been asked to do, because they have so got out of the habit of doing that, that even attending an interview has become a problem for them. This is not just about training; it is about getting people culturally back in line so that they can then be dealt with by advisers.

The North East Child Poverty Commission in numbers

The Commission in numbers

11 meetings of the Commission in a 20 month period

15 child poverty related events held across the North East with over 400 attendees

92 blog posts with over 14,000 views from 106 different countries

3,227 Tweets to 964 followers

10 Newsletters sent to a mailing list now standing at over 300 people

11 Presentations uploaded onto Slideshare site with over 2083 views

8 free training sessions on ‘Child Poverty & the Pupil Premium’ provided to over 200 school governors on

Helped secure over £100,000 of funding to tackle child poverty related issues in the North East

92.7% of respondents thought that the North East Child Poverty Commission should continue beyond March 2013

Estimated 130,000 children living in poverty in the North East

All of the above achieved with dedicated resources of 1 co-ordinator

For the last 12 months, a dedicated resource of 1 person, 1 day per week, equivalent to 0.2fte to develop the work of the Commission

We are prearing a short summary of the work we have carried out over the last 18 months or so and thought it might be worth sharing some of these figures with you. Correct at the time of going to press!

Best wishes,

Steve

Shocking – but not surprising

Today, the End Child Poverty campaign published their Child Poverty map of the UK and it contained some fairly depressing reading for people across the country, but especially here in the North East. The region was identified as the one place where the ‘situation has deteriorated. We have four local authority areas (Newcastle, Middlesbrough, Hartlepool & South Tyneside) all in the top 20 local authorities nationally and all showing an increase from last years figures, the ONLY areas (with the exception of Strabane) in the top 20 to do so.

There was, predictably, lots of reaction to this and the issue received a lot of press coverage in local newspapers, (one- The Journal – stated that the North East ‘needed help’ after the publication of the figures) on local radio and on local and regional television, with many people asking why the region was faring so badly. On the same day, employment figures released suggested that the numbers of jobs created in the region was cause for celebration – and it is, in part. I can’t do better than this excellent blog by Alex Snowdon in The Guardian last week about why the North East is still struggling – we have been hit particularly hard by the recession and by local authority cuts and our recovery has been slower than some other regions.

The End Child Poverty report suggested that ‘there are three key areas in which Local Authorities should take action on child poverty:

1) Protect families with children in decisisons about local benefits

2) Ensure that in England they are meeting their duties under the Child Poverty Act to publish a child poverty strategy

3) Ensure that child poverty is a priority for health and wellbeing boards in England

I’m not entirely sure how much difference the ‘publishing’ of a strategy can or will make, although I do understand that it is important for the issue of child poverty to be taken seriously by local authorities. We highlighted in a report exploring the approaches of the 12 local authorities in the region that the establishment of Health & Wellbeing Boards was an excellent opportunity to prioritise the health of children and young people. In October of last year, at the launch event of the report, we highlighted three similar ‘small steps’ that local authorities could do to improve their efforts to tackle child poverty. These were:

1). Use – and add to – the evidence base

2) Examine institutional behaviour – ‘do no harm’

3) Give people living in poverty a voice.

So, where do we go from here? If poverty is the result of political and economic decissions (and I, along with the North East Child Poverty Commission, believe it is) then it can be tackled using political and economic decisions. So, employers in the region can pay a Living Wage. And politicians in the region can – and should – do absolutely everything they can to reverse the impact of decisions that are currently being taken in Westminster. And in many cases they are trying to do this. Members of the public – as well as public institutions and media companies – can also ensure that they do add to the stigma or marginalisation of people living in poverty by resorting to cheap stereotypes. But we can always do more, as today’s report shows.

Regular readers will know that I like a good quote to end with, generally because other people are more articulate and eloquent than I am so, with politicians (local, regional and national) in mind, here are three which seem quite appropriate tonight:

“The real challenge is to look at, and change as necessary, the whole of local authority activity, in direct relation to the needs of the community it is there to serve. With a focus on the community – both the individual and collective needs – it is logical to respond in an integrated (corporate) way … rather than responding in a piecemeal way.” (Local Government Anti Poverty Unit)

“Today’s politicians insistence on massive and rapid reductions in public spending will not be able to claim ignorance about the likely impact of their decisisons…. No scientific or technological breakthroughs are needed to deal with any of the deprivations or domains of poverty … What is lacking (as it has always been) is the necessary political will to prioritise children’s needs and to choose to spend the resources required” (pp 569-570 Minujin, A. & Nandy, S. 2012, Global Child Poverty & Well-being, Bristol: Poverty Press)

“Any political program that fails to take full advantage of the possibilities for action (minimal though they may be) … can be considered guilty of nonassistance to a person in danger” (p629 Bourdieu, P. et al, 1999, The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society, Cambridge: Polity)

Best wishes,

Steve

Westenders

Last week, John Harris from The Guardian visited Newcastle to discuss the impact of the cuts with local people. The video is well worth a watch for anyone with an interest in what is happening in the city – and the region more generally – and some of the interviews with residents take place in Scotswood, in the West End of the city.

Coincidentally, last Saturday I visited the Discovery Museum in Newcastle and stumbled upon an exhibition called West End Stories which chronicles the fortunes of this part of the city over the last 100 years or so. My eye was caught by a number of reports from the Benwell Community Development Project which operated in the 1970′s and early 1980′s. Photographs of/from some of the reports are below

And the thought I was left with, like Edmund Burke, is that if we don’t know history, we’ll be destined to repeat it.

Intergenerational cultures of worklessness

A JRF report exploring the idea of ‘cultures of worklessness’ and whether they are passed down the generations was published today and it has already received a lot of press coverage and comment. The report was produced by researchers from Teesside and Glasgow Universities and involved fieldwork in some of the most deprived areas of Middlesbrough and Glasgow. The research, which found no evidence of ’3 generations of worklessness’ within the same family, suggests that:

Policy-makers and politicians need to abandon theories – and resulting policies – that see worklessness as primarily the outcome of a culture of worklessness, held in families and passed down the generations

I won’t say too much more about the content of the report because it makes sense to encourage people to read it themselves.

I do, however, want to highlight two things which I think are important about the report: the strength of the arguement within in and the importance of it.

The researchers are clear that they made every effort to find families that exhibited a ‘culture of worklessness’ and were very conscious that people would claim that they had not looked hard enough. Indeed, some of the comments on newsapaper websites that have covered the report would suggest that JRF might have been better off asking members of the public to identify such families. Drawing on work by Declan Gaffney (who has published a very interesting blog on the ’invention of worklessness’ ), the report highlights ONS stats which suggest that approximately only 0.5% of workless households ‘could be described as having members across generations who have never worked’, as can be  seen from the infographic below.

In terms of the field work, no interviewees were able to direct the researchers to families that fitted the criteria for 3 generations of worklessnesss and, despite talking to and meeting over 30 practitioners working in the local areas:

none was able to direct us to potential recruits for the study … when pushed to identify families where ‘three generations had never worked’ these practitioners were unable to do so, despite their apparent belief in the existence of such families and their close engagement with local communities.

The approach of the researchers has not yet been challenged and organisations such as the Centre for Social Justice and Policy Exchange who have talked previously about deviant cultures have yet to respond to the report, to the best of my knowledge.

The second point I would like to make about the research is how important it is at the present time. The report contains quotes about worklessness from figures such as Chris Grayling, Gordon Brown and Dame Carol Black, and Iain Duncan Smith frequently uses examples of such behaviour in his speeches:

“And those who have no interest in work … because they have seen their parents, their neighbours and their entire community sit on benefits for life … have simply had their destructive lifestyle confirmed..”

and

“This entrenched culture of  worklessness and dependency is not only the source of soaring welfare bills”

Even the DWP Social Justice Strategy has a section on ‘challenging the culture of worklessness’ . The idea of cultures of worklessness has also permeated down to local authorities and their partners and here are a few examples that I have come across in the North East:

Research carried out in 2010 … revealed low aspiration levels in some areas of the borough, in many cases as a result of second and third generation family unemployment.

The cultures embedded in second or third generation workless households, including benefit dependency, need to be changed

… highlighted a number of areas of concern, including … the problems of cultures of low aspiration and worklessness in some of our communities,

We will work towards enabling people to break the cycle of benefit dependency; encouraging a culture of work in every household

It will be interesting to see what the response of politicians, policy makers and practitioners is to this report. Let’s keep our eyes and ears peeled for the next mention of 2, 3, 4 or even 5 (yes I have heard it) generations of unemployed. Of course, the best way of proving the existence of intergenerational cultures of worklessness is to find families that fit the bill. And yet, nobody has found any such families – and certainly not in large enough numbers to suggest it is a cultural phenomenon.

N.B. In the interests of full disclosure, two of the authors of the report are colleagues of mine. Professor Tracy Shildrick is a member of the North East Child Poverty Commission and Professor Rob Macdonald is a member of the Institute for Local Governance Management Committee, where I am based.

Steve

Perfect Storms

Guest post by Jeremy Cripps, Chief Executive, Children North East

In the weeks after storm Sandy flooded Manhattan it’s sobering to be reminded of the chaos that turbulent conditions can cause. The same goes for economic weather as meteorology. Children England, the national membership organisation for voluntary organisations working with children, young people and families, have published a report called ‘Perfect Storms’. The report models and provides case studies showing the cumulative impact of the financial crisis and subsequent austerity measures on children’s charities and their statutory partners. It describes two worrying and interrelated ‘perfect storms’ affecting the voluntary and public sectors, and those they support.

First the ‘Business Storm’ threatens the financial survival of charities – individual giving has remained static, the financial crisis reduced investment income, social enterprise income (e.g. running paid training for professionals) has fallen and the deep public sector funding cuts have increased competition for the grants made by trusts, foundations and the national lottery. Costs have risen too due to inflation, higher fuel bills and the costs involved in public fundraising.

Most importantly at the same time demand for services, both in the number of people seeking support and the severity of their problems, has increased dramatically. As a result, staff and volunteer numbers have fallen, reducing service capacity, while those remaining in post are increasingly suffering from burnout.

Second the ‘Locality Storm’ demonstrates these pressures are not isolated, they mirror and interact with pressures on local authority children’s services – both sectors are experiencing higher costs, reduced funding and increased demand.

The consequences are that local support arrangements are starting to break down, threatening the wellbeing of some of the most vulnerable children, young people and families. With many services rationing the support that they provide, principally through waiting lists and raised access thresholds, and others closing altogether, people in need are being pushed towards whatever support they can find. Public sector services and contracts with charities increasingly focus on crisis support at the expense of early intervention, potentially storing up further trouble for the future.

This analysis is based on discussions with Children England member organisations all over the country. It is also a true representation of the circumstances for my organisation, Children North East. Our total income for the year 2011-2012 was 25% less than the previous year, but during the year our services reached 1,033 children, and 5,751 young people, that is 65% more than the previous year. We also worked with adults in 944 families. All this is achieved by 41 part-time, 19 full-time and 6 sessional staff and 111 volunteers.

The children, young people and families coming to or referred to us have more serious difficulties than before, for example we have noticed a marked increase in the number of young people who are self-harming, talking about or attempting suicide. Increasingly it is the norm for our staff to take responsibility to coordinate other services and professionals involved with the child, young person or family. Whilst it might be expected that trained staff take on these roles as part of ‘new ways of working’, there is a serious question to be answered about what it is reasonable to expect of volunteers in these situations.

We are seeing widening gaps in the safety net of public sector provision. For example neither local authority children’s services nor NHS child psychiatry departments have provided an effective service to families of children with behaviour problems, but as both services raise referral thresholds to limit the provision and increase waiting lists to manage demand there is nowhere for those parents to go. Some of them end up with voluntary organisations like Children North East who are not commissioned to provide that type of service but do what they can anyway driven by their charitable objectives such as relief of distress or support for the vulnerable.

In effect our services are taking the place of some of what used to be done by the public sector, but at the same time funding for our services from the public sector is declining. I do not want us to mimic public services and raise our thresholds or create waiting lists because in my opinion the role of the voluntary sector is to stop people falling through the gaps in public sector services. However it is not clear what the solution is.

Children England found their members thought the scenarios described by Perfect Storms are inevitable but unintentional, they also feel that they are deep-rooted and predate the economic downturn that started in 2008, though have been exacerbated by the recession and austerity measures. They are problems of complex systems and therefore do not have straightforward solutions. Perfect Storms concludes that solutions may be found by questioning what vulnerable children and young people actually need; the role of charities in service provision; priorities for public spending; public accountability and the ownership of risk; the future role of public services as statutory powers are devolved to local levels; and training for the voluntary sector workforce.

Jeremy Cripps

Chief Executive

Children North East

An idea whose time has come….

We, in the North East, are often accused of ‘lagging behind’ other regions in various ways, although I’m not entirely sure how many sleepless nights this causes in the region. One area where it would have been nice to have been leaders rather than followers, however, is in recognising the importance of paying employees a Living Wage. In case you’ve missed it, this week is Living Wage Week in the UK and the new rate of £7.45 per hour was announced by Julia Unwin, the Chief Exec of JRF, on Monday.

The Living Wage Foundation also released a list of accredited Living Wage employers which, unfortunately, did not contain any local or regionally based organisations. However, it is not all bad news (in fact there’s some very good news and reasons to be optimistic about the future pay for the lowest paid employees in the region. Here, then, are some reasons to be cheerful:

• Scotswood Natural Community Garden in the West End of Newcastle are an accredited Living Wage employer (we believe they are the first and only organisation based in the region – although they don’t appear on the list) and, as a small charity reliant on grant funding for most of their income, they deserve praise for taking the step towards being a Living Wage employer. They have chosen to become a Living Wage employer, I understand, because it fits with their aim of promoting sustainable living.
• Newcastle City Council have become the first public sector organisation in the region to commit to being a Living Wage employer, although they have decided not to pursue accreditation at this stage. They are also encouraging other employers in the city to also become Living age employers and one large property development company responsible for the regeneration of a large area of the city centre is exploring the financial implications of paying the Living Wage to staff in a new hotel that is planned.
• Durham University Labour Club have started campaigning on the issue of a Living Wage to get Durham University to become a Living Wage employer. They have written an excellent blog on the subject which highlights that one of a PVC for Durham wrote in a JRF report exploring how universities could help disadvantaged communities that they can ‘also set an example to other employers by promoting good practice, such as ensuring that all employees are paid at least the Living Wage’. They have also set up a petition which will be delivered to the University and I would encourage people to sign it.
• The Northern TUC (who have been quite busy recently with work around regional pay in the public sector) are continuing to work with a number of public sector organisations in the region to encourage them to become Living Wage employers. They are holding what is likely to be an excellent and packed event in Middlesbrough tomorrow (Friday 9th November) to discuss the reality of austerity and what poverty pay means for millions of workers across the UK.
• This post is part of a Blog Action Day, organised in conjunction with VONNE, the umbrella body for the voluntary sector in the North East. Jo Curry, their Chief Exec, recently spoke in favour of the Living Wage at an event where the role of the institutional behaviour of organisations in producing and reproducing poverty was discussed. Carrie Brookes has written an excellent blog summarising some of the issues facing voluntary sector staff here and the issue was also discussed at the Newcastle CVS AGM earlier this week. Jeremy Cripps, the Chief Exec of Children North East is also due to publish a blog about the subject here. In other words, the voluntary sector in the region are now talking about the Living Wage and what it means for them….

So, it is rare that David Cameron and I are in agreement, but on this we are. He said that the Living Wage was ‘an idea whose time has come’ and it appears that us folk in the North East are beginning to think he may just be right.

Unfortunately, the Prime Minister has not felt it unnecessary to act in support of his statement since becoming Prime Minister. We, however, will extend an offer to any representatives from employers in the North East reading this blog. We, the North East Child Poverty Commission, will work with you to provide you with as much information and support as we can possibly can to demonstrate that paying a Living Wage can be a very good, sound business decision. I’m sure the Northern TUC and the Living Wage Foundation will make similar offers, if appropriate.

Kind regards,

Steve

An excellent summary of Living Wage week coverage can be found here and also using the hashtag #Livingwage on Twitter