Child Poverty in London

This is from a hard hitting report by the Child Poverty Action Group. 37% of children in London (700,000 kids) live in poverty. It is projected to rise 2019-2021 to 41.5%. What a shameful statistic for one of the richest cities in the world. 2/3rds of such children live in families where at least one parent works#.

You can download a London borough specific report here.

Newham has the highest child poverty numbers in London at 36,780 affecting 43% of all our children.

The reasons for this must be linked to fact we have the highest level of low paid residents at 36% (London average is 21%) as well as exorbitant housing costs. The average rent of the bottom 25% of Newham properties is a staggering £1200 per month and the lowest paid 25% of Newham residents spend 72% of their gross income on rent.

All this is a major reason why we in Newham have (arguably) the worst homelessness crisis in England.

#"A child is living in relative poverty if living in a household with below 60 per cent of contemporary median income, according to government measurements".

While I am convinced that the new Labour administration in Newham (I declare an interest) can make a huge transformational difference to many people's lives.  For example by building a 1000 Council homes at a social rent, community wealth building or tackling violence amongst young people by increasing the number of youth hubs. The sheer numbers mean that we will only be able to defeat child poverty in London by a change in Government.

We need a government in power that will tax those who can afford it to really provide for all our children in need. 

Too Poor to Pay? Is this really the New Poll Tax?

This report is very disturbing. I have asked the Council for a response and agreed to meet with CPAG and Z2K. I will encourage other Councillors to do so as well. By coincidence I have just been to a Unison seminar where the practice of trying to force poor residents to pay Council tax was compared to the Poll Tax of the 1990s. Also, the dreadful practices of so many bailiffs was exposed. 

"New CPAG and Z2K report on council tax support in London

Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) and Zacchaeus 2000 Trust (Z2K) today release STILL TOO POOR TO PAY: three years of localised council tax support in London.

This is our third report looking at council tax support in London. It examines how London schemes have changed over the past three years and analyses the impact on claimants. The report has found that in 2015/16, over 98,000 low income Londoners were sent a court summons for non-payment of council tax and 19,000 were referred to bailiffs, a 51 per cent increase on the previous year.

Download STILL TOO POOR TO PAY

As you probably know, Newham is among those local authorities who have decided to charge claimants 20 per cent. Our report finds that this is having a serious impact on low income residents in the borough:

·         8949 Newham residents on the Council Tax Support Scheme were in arrears as of April 2016

·         4808 Newham residents have had additional ‘legal costs’ added to their bills

·         1,560 residents were referred to bailiffs in 2015/16.

CPAG and Z2K appreciate that the 10 per cent cut in council tax support funding in April 2013 came at a time when local authorities were already struggling with deep cuts to their budgets, and that the requirement to exempt pensioners from any new charges has added to the burden on working age claimants. We continue to call for a return to a fully funded, national system, or, at a minimum, that central government provides local authorities with 100 per cent subsidy.

However, in the event that council tax support remains localised, we call on Newham’s leadership to abolish your authority’s minimum payment and introduce 100 per cent support. We note that Camden council is currently consulting on doing just this. The falling number of council tax claimants in Camden, something common to your authority, has reduced the cost of its scheme, allowing the council to make this proposal. Camden also estimates that the proposal will reduce administration costs related to recovering relatively small debts from council tax support claimants and free up resources to pursue larger debts.

Despite the financial pressures Newham continues to face, we hope that you will work with your cabinet colleagues to follow the example of Camden and the six London boroughs who continue to provide 100 per cent support. The alternative is that your poorest residents will continue to experience the very real financial hardship, as outlined in our report.

We would welcome the opportunity to discuss the findings of our report and how to strengthen the support for Newham’s poorest residents. To arrange a meeting, please contact Alice Woudhuysen, London Campaign Manager at CPAG

Kind regards,

Alison Garnham| Chief Executive | Child Poverty Action Group
http://www.cpag.org.uk   

Joanna Kennedy, Chief Executive, Zacchaeus 2000 Trust (Z2K)
www.z2k.org

"Housing Voice" - for Affordable Housing in Britain

On Thursday I went to the Parliamentary launch of Housing Voice the Affordable Homes Alliance
in the Jubilee Room of the House of Commons.

The meeting was hosted by it's Chair - Lord Whitty (2nd right). This cross Party campaign has been formed to raise awareness of the lack of affordable homes across the UK and the need for
urgent government action. Lord Whitty also spoke at last week's UNISON housing fringe.

David Orr, the Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation, Shadow Housing Minister Alison Seabeck MP (speaking) , Alison Graham of Child Poverty Action Group, Roger McKenzie, Assistant General Secretary, UNISON and Stephen Gilbert, the Liberal Democrat Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Housing spoke at the launch.

UNISON sponsored the launch and YouGov research which has showed that:-

• 71% of the public do not think the Coalition Government is giving much attention to affordable housing
• For those in private rented accommodation affordable housing is their biggest concern after the economy – 40% compared to 28% for health and 18% for education
• Building more homes for rent would be a very popular policy with 70% support - including a majority of supporters of the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats or Labour
• Given a list of possible policies, less than half (40%) supported the idea of increasing supply by moving people from their council or housing association homes once their incomes rise above a certain limit
• A massive 18% - almost 1 in 5 – always or often struggle to pay their rent or mortgage

"The Housing Voice campaign aims to become a forum for ideas and a vehicle for action in order to build public awareness and push for urgent Government action to deliver more affordable housing"

So all good stuff. What I found interesting was:- Lib Dem Stephen Gilbert MP recognising that we have 250k new households per year but we are only building 125k new homes per year; Alison Seabeck MP thinks that there are votes to be won in planning but too many MPs think it will lose them votes.

David Orr pointed out that countries such as Finland and Norway plan to build 7 homes per 1,000 population to adequately house their people. This would have meant the equivalent of 420k new homes in the UK. We only built 100k last year - the smallest number since 1923 - when our population was half it is now.

Former Housing officer, now an Assistant General Sectary of UNISON, Roger McKenzie, reminded everyone that we we do live in one of the richest countries on the planet but if people do not have dignity, jobs and homes then life becomes intolerable.

Alison Graham of CPAG pointed out how can children who live in awful housing succeed in education if they smell of damp. (Which as a housing officer I know what she means) Toby Lloyd of Shelter was really pleased that at this launch that there was a wide spread of players and not the usual "housing suspects".

  

Finally, in the Q&A I mentioned that there seems to be a clear connection between countries cited in the debate who have good housing policies for all and are also those countries who are more successful because they are more equal. This would seem to support the arguments put forward in "The Spirit Level" book that societies that are more equal are simply better for everyone - rich and poor.

Update: forgot to add that Alison Seabeck MP had previously agreed to be a guest speaker at a UNISON Housing Association Branch Labour Link meeting, which we now hope will take place early September.