In addition to the major policy statements coming out on a weekly basis, promising radical change to avert a doomed debt-spiral, there are indications of the age of austerity closer to home.
Last week a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses handed me a leaflet about how Jesus can help you through unemployment. It contained an incongruous mixture of budgeting tips and bible quotes. My bank has ceased the barrage of letters begging me to take out a loan. I applaud the saving of paper, but assume that 25 year olds don't get loans anymore. My union dues have suddenly gone up. A recent update email from my alma mater dwelt at length on its financial position, relegating exam results and sports teams to short mentions at the end.
Students are protesting, rioting even, out of anger at the betrayal by the government of all that they held certain. I can well understand their rage. If tuition fees had been anything like £9,000 when I was a student, I would have been priced out of the better universities. Including the one I attended.
Conversations at work increasingly focus on what we plan to do after March 31st next year, when the funding for our jobs evaporates. We've been told that the redundancy 'consultation process' takes six months, and are therefore a little confused that it hasn't started yet. It's less than six months until the 31st March, after all. Be that as it may, we're all looking at our options. Some are considering teacher training, others opening a B&B, still others going over to the Dark Side (private sector consultancy). I am set on doing a Masters degree, and intend to bridge the gap between the end of my job and the start of a course with whatever work I can get, to keep me in rent and spaghetti. It seems clear that the longer I wait to go back to unversity, the more the cost will rise.
Everyone at work is reconsidering what they want from a career, what they enjoy, what they can afford, where they want their work-life balance to be. I'm very lucky to have no dependents or mortgage to support, and in any case would want to change jobs sooner or later in order to keep learning and climbing the ladder. It obviously concerns me how little work will be available before and after a Masters (during which I would rely on my savings, funding being non-existent). There just seems no point in worrying about it right now.
At the moment I'm young, well-educated, healthy, and living in an area of the country that's coped relatively well with the recession so far. Millions of people are going to be worse off when the cuts to tax credits, housing benefit, job seeker's allowance, and child benefit arrive. Never mind inflation on the rise, VAT rising to 20%, and public services being dismantled and sold off. When those millions start protesting, I'll be there too. Complete with a witty placard.
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
Tower Blocks
When I was about to fall asleep last night, it occurred to me that the best metaphor for the planning system is a game of jenga. (I can't recall my subsequent dreams, so can only hope that they were equally fascinating in content.) The UK planning system consists of multifarious and lengthy pieces of legislation, statutory instruments, and policy documents. Since planning began, a few of these have been removed but more piled on the top. The whole thing has therefore become increasingly voluminous, complex, and unstable.
This is due to the strange fact the governments are unable to leave planning well alone. Although widely ignored, misunderstood, and marginalised, planning is an important conduit of power between local and central government. Moreover, it has a not insignificant role - mediating between different interests to decide how land is used. During the Blair years, a whole regional layer of planning was added between the national and local, requiring decisions on each individual planning application to take account of a seemingly endless amount of policy.
The coalition government does not approve of the word 'regional', and to be quite honest I can see why. Regional planning suffered a democratic deficit, as John Prescott's regional assemblies never took off as they were meant to. It also spawned a horrifying level of jargon and TLAs (three letter acronyms). I once read a regional planning document that proposed to monitor 'synergy' and 'leverage' on an annual basis, which very nearly made me cry. That said, regional structures did bring a lot of funding into planning, infrastructure and economic development. And naturally the people working for these regional structures meant well and did their best with the powers and resources they had.
No longer, though. The abolition of Regional Development Agencies and their planning duties has been repeatedly announced since Eric Pickles become Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. This sudden wholesale removal of an entire tier of planning has caused considerable confusion, making the whole jenga stack wobble. However the government does not intend to leave planning with just local and national tiers. The recent CLG Business Plan confirmed the introduction of a new concept: the Neighbourhood Plan.
The idea of setting out planning policies, by each neighbourhood for each neighbourhood, comes from the Conservative planning Green Paper, titled Open Source Planning. This was released back in February, and at the time was widely derided by planners as unworkable, whilst horrified developers claimed it would end housebuilding. Apparently, the Conservatives didn't listen. I can see what they're trying to do: replace a distant and seemingly unaccountable layer of planning with a hyper-local and responsive one. That's laudible, until you consider the sheer magnitude of the problems that the planning system is expected to tackle. To name but the two I know most about:
The housing shortage; regional plans set targets for house-building, which often caused local controversy. Despite these targets, not enough homes were built. Thus, house prices remain stubbornly high despite the lack of first time buyers and the housing benefit bill climbed inexorably. The planning system is one of the biggest determinants of the quantity and quality of housing being built at any given time.
Environmental sustainability; the planning system must somehow reconcile interdependent and sometimes conflicting environmental objectives. Flood risk, air quality, biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions, and waste reduction must all be considered and balanced when putting a plan together. Renewable energy is a particularly fraught topic - how can you reconcile national targets for renewable energy generation with rampant anti-wind turbine NIMBYism?
Both of these issues, and many others, are far, far bigger than a neighbourhood. I am all for people having a say in what happens where they live, but that isn't a new idea. Neighbourhoods elect local councillors, who decide whether or not to give planning permissions. Local councils put together local plans (noticing the many uses of the word 'local' here?), which people are encouraged to comment on. Most don't bother, unless something particularly controversial is at stake - like a wind turbine or a site for gypsies and travellers.
What the government's proposing is, like the Big Society, a much larger role for the community whether they like it or not. As the concept of neighbourhood plans remains hazy, I have a number of questions.
Funnily enough, planning is not a particularly popular or desirable profession. I toyed with and then decided against becoming a planner, on the grounds that the devil was in the really dull detail, like kerb heights and child yields. Being dragged into writing a plan for the community isn't terribly enticing when you've seen how difficult it can be. Moreover, the points in my Big Society post also apply here; the life of a private renter doesn't really encourage long-term thinking about where I live right now.
There are undoubtedly problems with the planning system, which I won't go into at length due to their utter tedium. Planning is in need of reform to address the challenges of climate change, housing shortage, and austerity. People are disconnected from planning, which I think is largely due to its over-complexity and incomprehensible language. There is a lot that could be done to simplify local plans and put them into plain English, without radically changing the whole system. That should at least be tried before putting precious time and money into more reorganisation. It strikes me that neighbourhood plans could be the final block that knocks the whole tower over into chaos.
* BANANA = Build Absolutely Nothing Absolutely Nowhere near Anything.
This is due to the strange fact the governments are unable to leave planning well alone. Although widely ignored, misunderstood, and marginalised, planning is an important conduit of power between local and central government. Moreover, it has a not insignificant role - mediating between different interests to decide how land is used. During the Blair years, a whole regional layer of planning was added between the national and local, requiring decisions on each individual planning application to take account of a seemingly endless amount of policy.
The coalition government does not approve of the word 'regional', and to be quite honest I can see why. Regional planning suffered a democratic deficit, as John Prescott's regional assemblies never took off as they were meant to. It also spawned a horrifying level of jargon and TLAs (three letter acronyms). I once read a regional planning document that proposed to monitor 'synergy' and 'leverage' on an annual basis, which very nearly made me cry. That said, regional structures did bring a lot of funding into planning, infrastructure and economic development. And naturally the people working for these regional structures meant well and did their best with the powers and resources they had.
No longer, though. The abolition of Regional Development Agencies and their planning duties has been repeatedly announced since Eric Pickles become Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. This sudden wholesale removal of an entire tier of planning has caused considerable confusion, making the whole jenga stack wobble. However the government does not intend to leave planning with just local and national tiers. The recent CLG Business Plan confirmed the introduction of a new concept: the Neighbourhood Plan.
The idea of setting out planning policies, by each neighbourhood for each neighbourhood, comes from the Conservative planning Green Paper, titled Open Source Planning. This was released back in February, and at the time was widely derided by planners as unworkable, whilst horrified developers claimed it would end housebuilding. Apparently, the Conservatives didn't listen. I can see what they're trying to do: replace a distant and seemingly unaccountable layer of planning with a hyper-local and responsive one. That's laudible, until you consider the sheer magnitude of the problems that the planning system is expected to tackle. To name but the two I know most about:
The housing shortage; regional plans set targets for house-building, which often caused local controversy. Despite these targets, not enough homes were built. Thus, house prices remain stubbornly high despite the lack of first time buyers and the housing benefit bill climbed inexorably. The planning system is one of the biggest determinants of the quantity and quality of housing being built at any given time.
Environmental sustainability; the planning system must somehow reconcile interdependent and sometimes conflicting environmental objectives. Flood risk, air quality, biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions, and waste reduction must all be considered and balanced when putting a plan together. Renewable energy is a particularly fraught topic - how can you reconcile national targets for renewable energy generation with rampant anti-wind turbine NIMBYism?
Both of these issues, and many others, are far, far bigger than a neighbourhood. I am all for people having a say in what happens where they live, but that isn't a new idea. Neighbourhoods elect local councillors, who decide whether or not to give planning permissions. Local councils put together local plans (noticing the many uses of the word 'local' here?), which people are encouraged to comment on. Most don't bother, unless something particularly controversial is at stake - like a wind turbine or a site for gypsies and travellers.
What the government's proposing is, like the Big Society, a much larger role for the community whether they like it or not. As the concept of neighbourhood plans remains hazy, I have a number of questions.
- What is a 'neighbourhood'? In rural areas, parishes are a helpful existing designation and have established Parish Councils to lead the process. But in towns and cities, is a neighbourhood a set area, a set population, or are the boundaries to be chosen by the inhabitants themselves?
- In order for a neighbourhood plan to have legitimacy, what proportion of the population need to be involved? Or indeed need to agree it? Will this agreement be through a mini referendum?
- Who will have the most influence over a neighbourhood plan? Will only those who have lived in the area for a certain period of time be able to speak up? Isn't it likely that those with the most time on their hands (the retired, I expect) will be most heavily involved?
- Regional and local plans were legally required to be consistent, or at least not conflict. Will it be the same for local and neighbourhood plans? If there is dissention between the two about how land is to be used, which would prevail?
- Local plans require a mass of evidence to back them up - data on infrastructure, housing need, and environmental constraints, for example. Will neighbourhood plans also need to be evidence-based? If not then they are bound to become unrealistic, but what safeguards will prevent this?
- A patchwork of neighbourhood plans, possibly overlapping and inevitably conflicting, will create huge complexity for the development industry. Will developers be given the chance to comment on neighbourhood plans? How will planning decisions be made when sites cross the boundary between two or more neighbourhoods?
- Neighbourhood plans will only be able to reflect the wishes of current residents of an area, not future generations or those wishing to move into the neighbourhood. How will the system safeguard against NIMBY enclaves, which further entrench inequality by safeguarding their patches against anyone new? What about often-excluded groups like the disabled and gypsies & travellers, how will their housing needs be taken into account?
- How will conflicts of interest be managed? Suppose someone with a large garden wants to put it in the plan for redevelopment but their neighbour objects. Who mediates in this situation?
- Putting together neighbourhood plans will require training, local government officer time and expertise, as well as funding. Local councils are facing 30% cuts over the next three years, how are they expected to cope with this additional resource-intensive requirement?
- What use will neighbourhood plans really be to communities? The frustrating nature of the planning system is that it only reacts; it can't proactively cause things to be built. Putting together a lovely plan for their neighbourhood will be a waste of people's time, if it is full of aspirations that will never be met as public funding is tightly squeezed.
- Let's be honest. Can you really imagine neighbourhood plans welcoming new housing and infrastructure like recycling centres and bus depots? These things are necessary, but will the vociferous members of communities really be able to make the most considered decisions about where they should go? What about the BANANAs*?
Funnily enough, planning is not a particularly popular or desirable profession. I toyed with and then decided against becoming a planner, on the grounds that the devil was in the really dull detail, like kerb heights and child yields. Being dragged into writing a plan for the community isn't terribly enticing when you've seen how difficult it can be. Moreover, the points in my Big Society post also apply here; the life of a private renter doesn't really encourage long-term thinking about where I live right now.
There are undoubtedly problems with the planning system, which I won't go into at length due to their utter tedium. Planning is in need of reform to address the challenges of climate change, housing shortage, and austerity. People are disconnected from planning, which I think is largely due to its over-complexity and incomprehensible language. There is a lot that could be done to simplify local plans and put them into plain English, without radically changing the whole system. That should at least be tried before putting precious time and money into more reorganisation. It strikes me that neighbourhood plans could be the final block that knocks the whole tower over into chaos.
* BANANA = Build Absolutely Nothing Absolutely Nowhere near Anything.
Friday, 5 November 2010
This society ain't big enough for both of us
The New Economics Foundation have just released an excellent report on the Big Society. After explaining what in fact the Big Society is, which is more than the government have managed, it comprehensively examines the aims, advantages, drawbacks, and risks involved. It's only 32 pages and a really good read - I thoroughly recommend it. There is no point in just restating the whole thing, so I'll give my personal perspective instead.
The NEF report identifies three key determinants of involvement in the Big Society: access, capacity, and time.
Access really depends on networks, and the strength of community bonds. I live in a rented house, in an urban neighbourhood that mixes student houseshares, young professional houseshares, and families. I've only lived in this house for a few months, don't know the names of my neighbours, and don't feel part of the community as such. The insecure nature of private renting means that I've lived in six different places since graduating four years ago, and thus not put down roots in any neighbourhood. I don't even know how I'd go about getting involved in the community; I don't go to church, have no children to take to playgroup/school, and don't belong to a political party or pressure group. I'm very familiar with and fond of where I live, but transient young professionals like me struggle to really engage with our communities. Apart from anything else, I don't know how long I'll be living in this house, but based on past experience, a few years at the very most.
The way around this might be to use the main community resource where all the young professionals can at some point be found - the local food shop. If you were going to pounce on me and ask if I'd like to get involved in the Big Society, it'd be easiest to do whilst I was staring at shelves of yogurt.
Capacity relates to what anyone can usefully do. Hopefully I've got some experience and skills that would be useful to the Big Society - like project management, diplomacy, and procurement. I'm also quite energetic and not easily bored. At risk of sounding like a CV, I think I've got things to offer. Most twentisomething graduate professionals would probably say the same.
The third factor is the one gives me the most pause: time. I work full-time, at least forty hours a week. Being single, I also do my own food-shopping, cooking, laundry, and housework (although the chore-sharing aspect of shared living is a great boon in this respect). This doesn't leave me with an awful lot of spare hours, or indeed a great deal of spare energy. Obviously there are weekends, but I probably spend less than half of them in Cambridge, as my family and plenty of my friends live elsewhere.
Thinking this through produces an ethical dilemma - assuming I continue to work full-time, in order to get involved in the Big Society I'd have to sacrifice seeing my friends and family so often. The selfish part of me resents that prospect. If I'm already working five days a week in the public sector, surely that's my bit done for society? Obviously I'm paid for that time, but I'm also paying taxes like everyone else. On the other hand, I think participation in society is really important and see the utopian appeal of local areas transforming themselves. What volunteering I've done has been really satisfying and rewarding, always temporary though.
I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but suspect that my generation have become accustomed to the simple social contract of paying taxes in return for having public services provided. The more complex level of involvement required by the Big Society is something I find hard to imagine fitting into my life. I was born in the eighties, and despite a left wing upbringing have internalised the individualist message that working is the most important thing. The current government is if anything strengthening that message, whilst stacking involvement with the Big Society on top of it. They have so far ignored that gap that this opens up between many people's expectations of society and the new reality. Whatever good intentions I might have towards the community, earning money to ensure my own independence and taking care of my family are my priorities.
On the other hand, if I was working three or four days a week, or even not at all, there wouldn't be a dilemma. I'd have spare time and energy to spend volunteering at a library, community centre, or similar. This assumes that I could earn enough to live on working part-time - which I'm certain I could, as my lifestyle isn't costly. That's the optimistic view, but at the moment wages are flat, inflation is rising, and jobs (full- or part-time) are scarce. Moreover, if unemployed you have to spend all your time searching for a full-time job in order to qualify for Job Seeker's Allowance.
I honestly don't know how lifestyles like mine can be reconciled with localism and the Big Society. I don't feel bound to my neighbourhood by residence (short-term renting), by employment (threatened by cuts), or by family (no relatives here, don't have children), or by friends (an urban tribe with much the same transience as me). I am accustomed to working five days a week then having total flexibility as to how I spend the rest of my time. I have the vague idea that I'd like to contribute to society, but no idea how to practically do so. And I very much doubt that I'm the only one who feels this way.
The NEF report identifies three key determinants of involvement in the Big Society: access, capacity, and time.
Access really depends on networks, and the strength of community bonds. I live in a rented house, in an urban neighbourhood that mixes student houseshares, young professional houseshares, and families. I've only lived in this house for a few months, don't know the names of my neighbours, and don't feel part of the community as such. The insecure nature of private renting means that I've lived in six different places since graduating four years ago, and thus not put down roots in any neighbourhood. I don't even know how I'd go about getting involved in the community; I don't go to church, have no children to take to playgroup/school, and don't belong to a political party or pressure group. I'm very familiar with and fond of where I live, but transient young professionals like me struggle to really engage with our communities. Apart from anything else, I don't know how long I'll be living in this house, but based on past experience, a few years at the very most.
The way around this might be to use the main community resource where all the young professionals can at some point be found - the local food shop. If you were going to pounce on me and ask if I'd like to get involved in the Big Society, it'd be easiest to do whilst I was staring at shelves of yogurt.
Capacity relates to what anyone can usefully do. Hopefully I've got some experience and skills that would be useful to the Big Society - like project management, diplomacy, and procurement. I'm also quite energetic and not easily bored. At risk of sounding like a CV, I think I've got things to offer. Most twentisomething graduate professionals would probably say the same.
The third factor is the one gives me the most pause: time. I work full-time, at least forty hours a week. Being single, I also do my own food-shopping, cooking, laundry, and housework (although the chore-sharing aspect of shared living is a great boon in this respect). This doesn't leave me with an awful lot of spare hours, or indeed a great deal of spare energy. Obviously there are weekends, but I probably spend less than half of them in Cambridge, as my family and plenty of my friends live elsewhere.
Thinking this through produces an ethical dilemma - assuming I continue to work full-time, in order to get involved in the Big Society I'd have to sacrifice seeing my friends and family so often. The selfish part of me resents that prospect. If I'm already working five days a week in the public sector, surely that's my bit done for society? Obviously I'm paid for that time, but I'm also paying taxes like everyone else. On the other hand, I think participation in society is really important and see the utopian appeal of local areas transforming themselves. What volunteering I've done has been really satisfying and rewarding, always temporary though.
I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but suspect that my generation have become accustomed to the simple social contract of paying taxes in return for having public services provided. The more complex level of involvement required by the Big Society is something I find hard to imagine fitting into my life. I was born in the eighties, and despite a left wing upbringing have internalised the individualist message that working is the most important thing. The current government is if anything strengthening that message, whilst stacking involvement with the Big Society on top of it. They have so far ignored that gap that this opens up between many people's expectations of society and the new reality. Whatever good intentions I might have towards the community, earning money to ensure my own independence and taking care of my family are my priorities.
On the other hand, if I was working three or four days a week, or even not at all, there wouldn't be a dilemma. I'd have spare time and energy to spend volunteering at a library, community centre, or similar. This assumes that I could earn enough to live on working part-time - which I'm certain I could, as my lifestyle isn't costly. That's the optimistic view, but at the moment wages are flat, inflation is rising, and jobs (full- or part-time) are scarce. Moreover, if unemployed you have to spend all your time searching for a full-time job in order to qualify for Job Seeker's Allowance.
I honestly don't know how lifestyles like mine can be reconciled with localism and the Big Society. I don't feel bound to my neighbourhood by residence (short-term renting), by employment (threatened by cuts), or by family (no relatives here, don't have children), or by friends (an urban tribe with much the same transience as me). I am accustomed to working five days a week then having total flexibility as to how I spend the rest of my time. I have the vague idea that I'd like to contribute to society, but no idea how to practically do so. And I very much doubt that I'm the only one who feels this way.
Tuesday, 2 November 2010
La Belle France
The unrelentingly grim tone of political and economic announcements recently led me to read about the French Revolution to cheer myself up. I've always had a fascination with the upheavals of 1789-94. In just five years (the usual gap between elections now) the whole country was turned upside down, torn apart, and built back up by war, terror, and astoundingly prescient ideas. Paris must have been a simultaneously horrifying and astonishing place to be during those years of upheaval.
The tenuous link that this has to UK housing policy is found in the demographic layout of Paris, focal point of the revolution centuries ago. Unlike London, which has pockets of social deprivation in close proximity to the richest areas of the central business district, Paris has a donut of deprived suburbs around a wealthy centre. With housing benefit cuts and changes to social housing, this structure will be rapidly replicated in London. Although given the scale of benefit cuts, those reliant on them in central London may need to move much further afield than the still-costly outskirts, and/or resort to deliberate overcrowding.
Minister of Decentralisation (surely one of the most oxymoronic titles ever) Greg Clark mentioned this in his recent speech to launch the government's White Paper on 'local growth'. He said:
Mr Clark has successfully identified the problem of inequality, which has many complex economic & social causes, and without sustained and significant intervention perpetuates itself. However, he then veers into a character-assassination of Regional Development Agencies followed by a massive plug for their successors, the Local Enterprise Partnerships. Both RDAs and emerging LEPs focus on economic development, and I very much doubt that reducing poverty within areas the size of Tower Hamlets falls within their remit. Which is not to say that the government is doing nothing to tackle poverty in the shadow of Canary Wharf. The changes to benefits and social housing will move this poverty outside central London so that those working in the City won't have to look at it anymore.
You might wonder why London shouldn't become more like Paris. Unfortunately, confining poverty to the outskirts of the city hasn't always worked out well. The 2005 riots were centred on the poor suburbs of Paris, expressing frustration at high levels of unemployment, entrenched poverty, and racial tensions. That unrest had been simmering for decades before violence erupted. In London there will be huge internal migration of those in poverty over the next three years; the low-paid, unemployed, elderly, disabled and carers forced to uproot and resettle elsewhere. This will inevitably cause some tension, although historical comparison suggests that we have a much more sanguine approach to displeasure with the government on this side of the channel.
More seriously, the reason that housing benefit cuts will bite hardest in London is that it's disproportionately economically successful and lacking in housing supply, resulting in extremely high housing costs. The government's rhetoric is entirely focused on reducing the deficit, brushing aside the ideological questions at stake. Should the public sector subsidise people so that they can live in London, or let the market lock all except the highly paid out? What are the social benefits to communities with mixed levels of wealth; economic dynamism due to ease of recruiting for lower paid jobs, less wasted time and energy commuting, improved social cohesion as different groups mix? What are the disadvantages of London as it is; dissatisfaction stemming from the proximity of poverty and wealth, perceived unfairness of housing benefit, potential driving up of rents? Although replicating Paris' donut model would reduce housing benefit costs, would it increase public expenditure in other ways by moving people away from jobs, requiring greater spending on Job Seeker's Allowance and transport?
Have the government silently dropped their responsibility to try and alleviate poverty, or at least not make it worse? It really concerns me that they don't seem to be acknowledging any of these questions, let alone trying to answer them.
Strangely enough, given the choice I'd prefer to live in Paris than London. Not for any rational, statistically-supported reason - I just like it more.
The tenuous link that this has to UK housing policy is found in the demographic layout of Paris, focal point of the revolution centuries ago. Unlike London, which has pockets of social deprivation in close proximity to the richest areas of the central business district, Paris has a donut of deprived suburbs around a wealthy centre. With housing benefit cuts and changes to social housing, this structure will be rapidly replicated in London. Although given the scale of benefit cuts, those reliant on them in central London may need to move much further afield than the still-costly outskirts, and/or resort to deliberate overcrowding.
Minister of Decentralisation (surely one of the most oxymoronic titles ever) Greg Clark mentioned this in his recent speech to launch the government's White Paper on 'local growth'. He said:
'...even in the wealthiest areas, there remain significant pockets of unemployment and deprivation. Whatever the differences in economic performance between broadly defined parts of the country, the differences between different towns and neighbourhoods are also often great. Tower Hamlets, in the shadow of Canary Wharf, has three quarters of children growing up in low-income families.'
Mr Clark has successfully identified the problem of inequality, which has many complex economic & social causes, and without sustained and significant intervention perpetuates itself. However, he then veers into a character-assassination of Regional Development Agencies followed by a massive plug for their successors, the Local Enterprise Partnerships. Both RDAs and emerging LEPs focus on economic development, and I very much doubt that reducing poverty within areas the size of Tower Hamlets falls within their remit. Which is not to say that the government is doing nothing to tackle poverty in the shadow of Canary Wharf. The changes to benefits and social housing will move this poverty outside central London so that those working in the City won't have to look at it anymore.
You might wonder why London shouldn't become more like Paris. Unfortunately, confining poverty to the outskirts of the city hasn't always worked out well. The 2005 riots were centred on the poor suburbs of Paris, expressing frustration at high levels of unemployment, entrenched poverty, and racial tensions. That unrest had been simmering for decades before violence erupted. In London there will be huge internal migration of those in poverty over the next three years; the low-paid, unemployed, elderly, disabled and carers forced to uproot and resettle elsewhere. This will inevitably cause some tension, although historical comparison suggests that we have a much more sanguine approach to displeasure with the government on this side of the channel.
More seriously, the reason that housing benefit cuts will bite hardest in London is that it's disproportionately economically successful and lacking in housing supply, resulting in extremely high housing costs. The government's rhetoric is entirely focused on reducing the deficit, brushing aside the ideological questions at stake. Should the public sector subsidise people so that they can live in London, or let the market lock all except the highly paid out? What are the social benefits to communities with mixed levels of wealth; economic dynamism due to ease of recruiting for lower paid jobs, less wasted time and energy commuting, improved social cohesion as different groups mix? What are the disadvantages of London as it is; dissatisfaction stemming from the proximity of poverty and wealth, perceived unfairness of housing benefit, potential driving up of rents? Although replicating Paris' donut model would reduce housing benefit costs, would it increase public expenditure in other ways by moving people away from jobs, requiring greater spending on Job Seeker's Allowance and transport?
Have the government silently dropped their responsibility to try and alleviate poverty, or at least not make it worse? It really concerns me that they don't seem to be acknowledging any of these questions, let alone trying to answer them.
Strangely enough, given the choice I'd prefer to live in Paris than London. Not for any rational, statistically-supported reason - I just like it more.
Friday, 29 October 2010
The End is Nigh
This was not a cheerful way to start the working day:
On my desk I found the latest Inside Housing magazine announcing the death of social housing. The coalition's so-called reforms effectively end social renting as a tenure. Requiring new social tenants to pay 80% of market rents will result in one of two things:
Housing Benefit will have to increase to cover the much more expensive rents, increasing how much is spent on benefits in order to subsidise the provision of new social housing;
Or
Housing Benefit won't increase and will no longer be sufficient to cover social rents, ending the safety net for the vulnerable that social housing was meant to be.
I wonder which will happen? Here's a clue: the government is totally obsessed with reducing the housing benefit bill.
The National Housing Federation are saying that the level of new social rents will be so high that in places like Camden, Hackney and Haringey households would need to earn £54,000 to pay their social rent without housing benefit. David Cameron's defense of this is, '[Are] our constituents working hard to give benefits so people can live in homes they could not even dream of? I don't think that's fair.'
This welfare-scroungers rhetoric, seemingly taken straight from the Daily Mail, makes me incredibly angry. Cameron is ignoring the fact that the housing market is a disaster in this country, supply is inadequate, owned and rented housing is getting less and less affordable, and there is a particularly acute shortage of housing for the most vulnerable. That's why spending on housing benefit has increased. In London and the economically thriving parts of the South, private renting (let alone buying a house) is unaffordable for people on an average wage. It is a barefaced lie that only unemployed 'scroungers' need housing benefit and social housing. It is also a barefaced lie that social housing is in any way mansion-like.
Here are some facts from the government's own housing statistics.
Does it seem like social renters are getting an unfairly good deal here? I think not.
Social housing is allocated to those that most need it - the elderly, disabled, young people who've run away from abusive families, homeless families with children. I'll tell you what's not fair, Cameron: dumping these people on the streets, shunting them between bed & breakfasts, or forcing them into overcrowded accommodation. You don't need me to tell you that this will trap people in poverty.
How can this government have the gall to use the word 'fair' as their mantra whilst callously kicking away the welfare safety net? They have decided that if you can't afford shelter you're just not trying hard enough, whether you're a child, disabled, ill, elderly, or just another victim of the recession. William Beveridge must be spinning in his grave.
On my desk I found the latest Inside Housing magazine announcing the death of social housing. The coalition's so-called reforms effectively end social renting as a tenure. Requiring new social tenants to pay 80% of market rents will result in one of two things:
Housing Benefit will have to increase to cover the much more expensive rents, increasing how much is spent on benefits in order to subsidise the provision of new social housing;
Or
Housing Benefit won't increase and will no longer be sufficient to cover social rents, ending the safety net for the vulnerable that social housing was meant to be.
I wonder which will happen? Here's a clue: the government is totally obsessed with reducing the housing benefit bill.
The National Housing Federation are saying that the level of new social rents will be so high that in places like Camden, Hackney and Haringey households would need to earn £54,000 to pay their social rent without housing benefit. David Cameron's defense of this is, '[Are] our constituents working hard to give benefits so people can live in homes they could not even dream of? I don't think that's fair.'
This welfare-scroungers rhetoric, seemingly taken straight from the Daily Mail, makes me incredibly angry. Cameron is ignoring the fact that the housing market is a disaster in this country, supply is inadequate, owned and rented housing is getting less and less affordable, and there is a particularly acute shortage of housing for the most vulnerable. That's why spending on housing benefit has increased. In London and the economically thriving parts of the South, private renting (let alone buying a house) is unaffordable for people on an average wage. It is a barefaced lie that only unemployed 'scroungers' need housing benefit and social housing. It is also a barefaced lie that social housing is in any way mansion-like.
Here are some facts from the government's own housing statistics.
- The percentage of households who own their home outright and have no
members of the household working (57%) is comparable to that for social
renters. This is because both contain a high proportion of the retired. - 31% of social tenants are retired; only 21% are under 35. Younger people are far more likely to be in private rented accommodation.
- Social housing is more likely to be overcrowded than private rented or owner-occupied. (6.7% of social renters, 5.4% of private renters and 1.6% of owner-occupiers are overcrowded.) A third of all overcrowded households live in London.
- More than a quarter of all children in the social rented sector (25.7%) are living in overcrowded conditions, compared to 5.8% in the owner-occupied sector and 15% in the private rented sector.
- More than a third of social renters work: 24% are in full time work, 10% in part time work. Only 8.4% are unemployed.
Let me reiterate that: eight per cent of social tenants are unemployed. Would you like to see the table I got that number from? Here it is. David Cameron, your claims about unemployed scroungers are simply not true. - 24.5% of social tenants are economically inactive, meaning that they can't work and are not getting Job Seeker's Allowance. These would be the disabled, ill, and full-time carers.
- Not all social renters receive housing benefit at the moment - 59% to be exact.
- Households buying a house with a mortgage had an average income more than three times that of social renters (£47,500 and £14,800 per annum respectively). 65% social renters have incomes of less than £15,000 per year.
Does it seem like social renters are getting an unfairly good deal here? I think not.
Social housing is allocated to those that most need it - the elderly, disabled, young people who've run away from abusive families, homeless families with children. I'll tell you what's not fair, Cameron: dumping these people on the streets, shunting them between bed & breakfasts, or forcing them into overcrowded accommodation. You don't need me to tell you that this will trap people in poverty.
How can this government have the gall to use the word 'fair' as their mantra whilst callously kicking away the welfare safety net? They have decided that if you can't afford shelter you're just not trying hard enough, whether you're a child, disabled, ill, elderly, or just another victim of the recession. William Beveridge must be spinning in his grave.
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Dogbert Government
The Spending Review contains a lot of this sort of thing:
'The CLG settlement includes a 13 per cent real terms reduction to fire resource expenditure. This will require the Fire and Rescue Service to modernise, increase efficiency and deliver workforce reform.'
How this might be achieved without increasing the likelihood of people dying in fires is not stated. Rather, 'It will be for individual fire authorities to decide how to make these savings.'
It's assumed that every public service has a huge amount of waste and spare capacity. For some, this will be the case, but is it really safe to assume it for absolutely everything, including the emergency services?
This Dilbert cartoon sums up being told to cut 10%, or 20%, or 30% by a government with no idea of how this is to be achieved.
Thank you Scott Adams.
Incidentally, it might be an idea to check your smoke alarms.
'The CLG settlement includes a 13 per cent real terms reduction to fire resource expenditure. This will require the Fire and Rescue Service to modernise, increase efficiency and deliver workforce reform.'
How this might be achieved without increasing the likelihood of people dying in fires is not stated. Rather, 'It will be for individual fire authorities to decide how to make these savings.'
It's assumed that every public service has a huge amount of waste and spare capacity. For some, this will be the case, but is it really safe to assume it for absolutely everything, including the emergency services?
This Dilbert cartoon sums up being told to cut 10%, or 20%, or 30% by a government with no idea of how this is to be achieved.
Thank you Scott Adams.
Incidentally, it might be an idea to check your smoke alarms.
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Roof Over Your Head
For context, I have a particular professional and personal interest in housing policy. Previous missives include:
What's Wrong with Private Rental
What's Wrong with Owner Occupation
What's Wrong with Social Housing
Why I Won't to be Able to Buy a Home in the next Decade
The Coalition Don't Get it and the Coalition really don't get it.
A lot of rumours swirled around prior to the spending review about massive cuts to the housing budget. How bad was it? Worse than that.
It remains unclear exactly how much funding for affordable housing has been cut, as it's funded by a confusing patchwork of programmes. Here are the numbers provided in the spending review.
From 2008-11 the government's National Affordable Housing programme had £8.4 billion of funding, with a target of 180,000 new affordable homes a year. (As a result of the credit crunch, I'm pretty sure this target will be missed.) The CSR allocates £4.5 billion to affordable housing over the next three years, with a target of delivering up to 150,000 over the spending review period. This includes existing commitments, and is therefore effectively a four year target. Consequently, the annual target for new affordable homes has gone from 60,000 to 37,500. Of course, high targets are meaningless if you can't meet them. But despite this, CLG's token Liberal Democrat minister Andrew Stunnell is claiming that the current government will provide more affordable housing than Labour did. Given that the budget for affordable housing has been halved and the target cut by more than a third, this claim looks nothing short of delusional. It's based on increasing rents for social housing, which provides homes for the disabled, retired, and vulnerable, whilst reducing housing benefit.
Whilst Mr. Stunell is being mentioned, I should comment on what appears to be his pet project: affordable housing in abandoned farm buildings. Sounds like a bad joke? Here is the 'Homes on the Farm' press release.
Presumably this policy is based on some idea of bucolic country life, or perhaps nostalgia for the feudal system. What it would amount to is isolating those unable to afford market housing from jobs, services, and transport networks. I find it particularly absurd that the press release emphasises young people. Speaking as a genuine young person, most of us live in cities because that's where we can find jobs. Moreover, urban areas offer actual services and leisure activities, as well as not requiring utter dependence on a car. I grew up in the countryside and, frankly, after going to university in a city returning to quiet rural life isn't very attractive. I'm sure some young people do want to live where they grew up, but treating barn conversions as some sort of panacea for rural housing problems is misguided. Quite apart from the fact that this policy isn't supported by any funding or legislation, being merely an exortation to farmers and local authorities.
Once again, this demonstrates the government's failure to look in any way systematically at housing, employment and poverty. I know I say this a lot, but these issues are highly interconnected.
Two brighter notes, though. Firstly, the shadow housing minister Alison Seabeck is horrified by the hatchet taken to spending on housing. Secondly, the cuts to welfare, including housing benefit, will need to go through parliament. There is still time for MPs to wake up and smell the unfairness.
What's Wrong with Private Rental
What's Wrong with Owner Occupation
What's Wrong with Social Housing
Why I Won't to be Able to Buy a Home in the next Decade
The Coalition Don't Get it and the Coalition really don't get it.
A lot of rumours swirled around prior to the spending review about massive cuts to the housing budget. How bad was it? Worse than that.
It remains unclear exactly how much funding for affordable housing has been cut, as it's funded by a confusing patchwork of programmes. Here are the numbers provided in the spending review.
From 2008-11 the government's National Affordable Housing programme had £8.4 billion of funding, with a target of 180,000 new affordable homes a year. (As a result of the credit crunch, I'm pretty sure this target will be missed.) The CSR allocates £4.5 billion to affordable housing over the next three years, with a target of delivering up to 150,000 over the spending review period. This includes existing commitments, and is therefore effectively a four year target. Consequently, the annual target for new affordable homes has gone from 60,000 to 37,500. Of course, high targets are meaningless if you can't meet them. But despite this, CLG's token Liberal Democrat minister Andrew Stunnell is claiming that the current government will provide more affordable housing than Labour did. Given that the budget for affordable housing has been halved and the target cut by more than a third, this claim looks nothing short of delusional. It's based on increasing rents for social housing, which provides homes for the disabled, retired, and vulnerable, whilst reducing housing benefit.
Whilst Mr. Stunell is being mentioned, I should comment on what appears to be his pet project: affordable housing in abandoned farm buildings. Sounds like a bad joke? Here is the 'Homes on the Farm' press release.
Presumably this policy is based on some idea of bucolic country life, or perhaps nostalgia for the feudal system. What it would amount to is isolating those unable to afford market housing from jobs, services, and transport networks. I find it particularly absurd that the press release emphasises young people. Speaking as a genuine young person, most of us live in cities because that's where we can find jobs. Moreover, urban areas offer actual services and leisure activities, as well as not requiring utter dependence on a car. I grew up in the countryside and, frankly, after going to university in a city returning to quiet rural life isn't very attractive. I'm sure some young people do want to live where they grew up, but treating barn conversions as some sort of panacea for rural housing problems is misguided. Quite apart from the fact that this policy isn't supported by any funding or legislation, being merely an exortation to farmers and local authorities.
Once again, this demonstrates the government's failure to look in any way systematically at housing, employment and poverty. I know I say this a lot, but these issues are highly interconnected.
Two brighter notes, though. Firstly, the shadow housing minister Alison Seabeck is horrified by the hatchet taken to spending on housing. Secondly, the cuts to welfare, including housing benefit, will need to go through parliament. There is still time for MPs to wake up and smell the unfairness.
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