The Councillors Commission, launched by the Local Government Research Unit in partnership with the De Montfort University and the Municipal Journal, has produced an interim report on the role of councillors based on the 20 round tables and 147 written submissions.

Here is the report followed by the CfPS interim summary:

CC-Interim-Report-OCT-16

“The report identifies the constant themes with which councillors are continually engaging, such as their political and policy roles, relationships with constituents, tasks at the council, time commitments and the various pressures generated by both the wards they represent and the broader council of which they are members.

“The report also highlights new challenges to the councillors traditional roles and work – such as austerity, devolution, government policy change, and the demands on councillors to engage in various partnerships are reshaping expectations on councillors.

Based on the interim findings, councillors do not expect adoration from the public, the media, or the government, but would like those bodies to understand councillors’ roles, powers, functions, and tasks along with the limited nature of the resources available to them. The report strongly argues that providing councillors with enough support and resources is a vital component in assuring that councillors are able to meet the current challenges, and that reducing the amount of the available support would constitute a “false economy”.

The Councillors Commission will continue to receive written evidence and is expected to conduct several more round tables prior to publishing the final report at the end of January 2017.”

‘Open workspaces’ allow small and micro-businesses to share space and resources on a flexible basis. They offer spaces that are suitable for the needs of micro- and growing businesses, alongside business support and a collaborative environment for peer-to-peer collaboration. At their best, open workspaces support economic growth and the regeneration of neighbourhoods, help address disadvantage, and offer a lifeline to the city’s creative sector. They are key to maintaining the dynamism and inclusivity of London’s economy and cultural life.

Following the UK’s vote in favour of leaving the European Union, London’s small businesses, entrepreneurs and creative sector face a period of uncertainty. In challenging economic times, it is more important than ever that small businesses can access affordable space on a flexible basis. Even before the referendum vote, however, open workspaces faced the prospect of higher rents, business rate rises and the increasing loss of office space to residential use.

Where London’s property market is not sustaining open workspaces, the mayor and local authorities should act. We recommend that the following actions are taken.

• London’s mayor should be granted new powers over ‘permitted development rights’, which put open workspaces at risk of residential development.
• The mayor should launch a new fund for open workspaces in London’s growing town centres, leveraging funding from the private sector and local business community.
• Local authorities should use the planning system as well as their own surplus assets to create open workspaces in areas of employment growth.
• Providers should use the ‘impact matrix’ we develop in this report to gather the evidence to support the case for public as well as private investment in open workspaces.

KEY FINDINGS

London’s small and microbusinesses, as well as artists and community organisations, rely on shared and flexible offices and studios, referred to in this report as ‘open workspaces’. By flexibly sharing space and resources, users of open workspaces can pay lower commercial rents and reduce the risks of starting a business, as well as work alongside and collaborate with peers.

Incubators, accelerators, coworking spaces, makerspaces and artists’ studios are all open workspaces. The main users of these spaces are businesses in London’s thriving creative economy; one in four of all London’s small and medium-sized enterprises working in digital and creative sectors have used an incubator, accelerator or coworking space. Open workspaces also bring together professionals working in diverse sectors, including biotech, business services and the charity sector. Most users are microbusinesses – which make up 96 per cent of all businesses in London and provide employment for 1.45 million Londoners.

Coworking spaces in particular have grown as a result of global workplace changes, but also in response to London-specific trends. Technology has made it easier for employees and the self-employed to work from anywhere with a strong internet connection, and London’s entrepreneurial creative and digital sectors have seen healthy growth since the financial crisis: 17.6 per cent of the London workforce is self-employed, up from 15.9 per cent in 2008 and compared to 14.7 per cent nationally. Established businesses have also sought to use space efficiently as prices and demand for office space has risen.

Despite this recent growth, open workspaces face a range of threats, with sustainability a primary concern for many providers.

• London’s booming property market is pushing up rents for workspaces and their tenants. Prime rents in the West End have risen by up to 70 per cent since 2009, and 35 per cent in the City of London. The effect of ‘Brexit’ is uncertain; while prime commercial property may become cheaper as business investment falters, this may lead to more employment space being converted to residential use, which property owners can receive a higher rate for.
• Employment space outside London’s most central economic area is being lost through permitted development rights, which allow the conversion of office space to residential use with minimal planning requirements. Since 2013, 1.47 million square metres of office space has been given prior approval for development to residential use.
• Businesses face a revaluation of business rates in 2017. For instance, open workspaces in Shoreditch could see their notional rate liability double from about £12 to £29 per square foot.
• Decreased local authority funding has led to sharp rent increases for council-owned property.

Availability of affordable and flexible office space is vital for innovation and growth. It helps generate economic growth and jobs, by supporting entrepreneurs in the early stages of their businesses. Studios and makerspaces sustain London’s cultural life and creative economy, and workspaces with a social purpose support the capital’s community organisations, as well as helping disadvantaged people access employment. The Open Workspace Providers Group estimates that London’s open workspaces host 31,000 people, generating £1.7 billion in GVA. In some cases, open workspaces have generated an additional £40.80 for every £1 invested – far higher than DCLG’s guidance of £5.80 per £1 of regeneration investment.

The challenges facing open workspaces must be addressed; otherwise, London risks losing out on the economic, social and cultural benefits they offer. One in three businesses report that the lack of affordable office space is damaging their business – with microbusinesses facing the greatest challenges.

London’s new mayor Sadiq Khan has announced that he will put in place new measures to help, protect and expand workspace for small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs in London (Mayor of London 2016). The mayor should consider introducing a number of specific measures in order to make this commitment a reality.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE MAYOR

• The mayor of London should lobby for full flexibility over permitted development rights, including the power to set the exemption for the central activities zone (CAZ), Canary Wharf and Tech City, to set article 4 directions on local areas, and the power, in consultation with the boroughs, to charge the community infrastructure levy (CIL) on developments where they will put pressure on local infrastructure.
• The mayor should launch a new fund to support open workspacesthat accelerate the growth of clusters in town centres outside the CAZ. This fund should leverage additional investment from local business communities, and encourage growth in opportunity areas (OAs).
• The mayor should work with Transport for London (TfL) to ensure that developments on TfL’s 5,700 acres of land include open workspaces, particularly in new town centres near transport hubs.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO LOCAL AUTHORITIES

• Local authorities (LAs) should work with providers to turn unused spaces into open workspaces. The Greater London authority should host an online directory of available spaces, such as in town halls and libraries, that workspace providers can bid for.
• Local authorities should apply for article 4 directions to exempt from permitted development rights key employment growth areas not in the CAZ.
• Local authorities should use section 106 negotiations to secure spaces in new developments. Where the site is not suitable for an open workspace given market conditions, LAs should require a section 106 payment to fund open workspace elsewhere.
• Local authorities should consider additional density in mixed-use schemes if the development includes commercial space including open workspace, which complements strategic priorities, as part of planning negotiations.
• The current business rate system penalises small businesses that share space flexibly, as the provider is liable for the business rate on the whole property, and therefore must charge higher rates to cover costs. To encourage growth, local authorities should remove this penalty, by recognising the small business using the space as the ratepayer and calculating rateable value as a proportion of space used. Alternatively, LAs should use existing discretionary powers to reduce business rates for open workspaces that deliver the greatest benefits.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

• National government should devolve control over business rate exemptions to the mayor of London through the local growth and jobs bill. In addition, DCLG should issue guidance on how local authorities can use discretionary powers from 2017 to offer business rate reductions to open workspaces. Local authorities should be encouraged to do so where evidence of benefits is strong, particularly in cases where sharing facilities means small businesses effectively pay rates (as they are passed on through rent).
• National government should devolve to the mayor full flexibility over permitted development rights, including powers to set the exemption for the CAZ, Canary Wharf and Tech City, to set article 4 directions on local areas, and the power, in consultation with the boroughs, to charge CIL on developments where they will put pressure on local infrastructure. As a minimum, national government should extend the exemption for the CAZ, Canary Wharf and Tech City past 2019.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO DEVELOPERS

• Include open workspaces in mixed-use and commercial developments. Open workspaces can increase the financial and community value of development through placemaking, cultural, social and economic benefits. For successful workspaces, developers should work closely with workspace providers early on in the development process.
• Encourage ‘meanwhile’ (temporary) open workspaces prior to development, to test the concept and viability of workspace, and to maintain activity in the area during redevelopment.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO OPEN WORKSPACE PROVIDERS

• In order to demonstrate value as a sector, it is important that open workspace providers consistently measure the same outcomes. Providers should measure their impact using our key metrics.
• The Open Workspace Providers Group, which was created as a subcommittee of the London Enterprise Panel, should promote adoption of our key metrics, and gather annually.”

DWP needs a wide ranging review of benefit sanctions to end ‘pot luck’ punishments inflicted by management focus and work coach distraction, a key report has found.

The report from the National Audit Office (NAO) says the DWP is not doing enough to find out how sanctions affect benefit recipients.

Summarising the report, 24 Housing says:

“The report cites statistics showing that jobcentres’ monthly sanction referral rate for Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants rose to 11% in March 2011 then fell to 3% in December 2015.

While reasons can be found this variation the report finds it cannot be fully explained by changes in claimant behaviour and concludes it is likely that management focus and local work coach discretion have had a substantial influence on whether or not people are sanctioned.

A benefit sanction is a penalty imposed on a claimant meaning a loss of income when someone does not meet conditions like attending jobcentre appointments.

Sanctions are not rare: 24% of Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants received at least one between 2010 and 2015. Use of sanctions varies substantially, with some Work Programme providers referring twice as many people for sanctions as other providers in the same area.

Already, the Employment Related Services Association’s (ERSA) has said the report reflects its call for fundamental reform of the conditionality system.

The report recommends the DWP carries out a wide-ranging review of benefit sanctions, particularly as it introduces further changes to labour market support such as Universal Credit.

Several independent reviews have been commissioned by the DWP to improve processes but previous calls for a wider review have been rejected.

The NAO found the previous government increased the scope and severity of sanctions in 2012, and recognised these changes would affect claimants’ behaviour in ways that were difficult to predict.

Though the DWP is acknowledged as meeting target timescales for most sanction decisions, it is missing its Universal Credit targets.

In August this year 2016, 42% of decisions about Universal Credit sanctions took longer than 28 working days.

International studies show recipients who receive sanctions are more likely to get work, but the effect can be short-lived, lead to lower wages and increase the number of people moving off benefits into inactivity.

The DWP has not used its own data to evaluate the impact of sanctions in the UK, the NAO undertook preliminary analysis of the impact of Work Programme sanctions on employment, inactivity and earnings with the results showing the Department should do more to understand these sanctions outcomes.

The Department does not track the costs and benefits of sanctions, but estimates that it spends £30-50m a year applying sanctions, and around £200m monitoring the conditions it sets for claimants.

By NAO estimates, the Department withheld £132m from claimants due to sanctions in 2015, and paid them £35m in hardship payments – but the overall impact of sanctions on wider public spending is unknown.

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said sanctions on benefits have a high opportunity cost, not only for those who are dependent on those benefits if sanctions are applied, but for the efficient use of public resources.

“We acknowledge the department’s effort to reduce its error rate on sanctions, but we think there is more to do in terms of reducing them further, and in reducing the notable differences in sanctions applications between comparable localities,” she said.

The NAO report adds to the growing weight of support for overhauling the current sanction regime

Key facts

Segregation is on the rise and fuelling inequality in some areas of Britain, causing a new report to say levels have now reached “worrying”.

Dame Louise Casey, who has written the new report, has found there are public bodies ignoring or condoning harmful religious practice for fear of being called racist.

The review into the integration of minorities was commissioned by former prime minister David Cameron.

Here is the report:

The_Casey_Review_Report

It forms part of the wider effort from the government to tackle extremism, following on from the Prevent strategy.

The report has focused on 12 recommendations, with only one looking at the role housing can play in helping the issue says 24 Housing:.

“The recommendations include:

• A programme of cohesion projects, including IT courses and sports for children
• Government and councils should share their approaches to tackling segregation
• Councils should investigate whether their housing policies help or hinder integration

As well as findings on social segregation, the report also found schools struggling to deal with an influx of different nationalities and “persistent disadvantages” for black men at work.”

The government has set up a working group of 20 councils to look at how to implement fixed-term tenancies, a key plank of the Housing and Planning Act. The working group will help develop regulations and guidance on fixed-term tenancies.

While other high-profile aspects of the Housing and Planning Act have either been dropped or delayed by the government, fixed-term tenancies legislation is still expected to be introduced from April 2017.

Under the act councils will be required to review tenancies every five years, rather than granting a lifetime tenancy, with extensions for tenants with a disability or with children. Peers opposed the move to fixed-term tenancies because they said it could be damaging to family life.

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, a junior minister at the DCLG, recently said in the Lords that the government is looking at “restricting” lifetime tenancies and 20 councils across the country “are looking at how we proceed with this”.

This is the warning that has come from credit ratings agency Moody’s in its report English Housing Associations 2017 Outlook: Adverse Policy Changes Drive Negative Outlook – to buy this or download it – its expensive

Moody’s said the policy environment was challenging for associations, with social rent income levelling off until April 2020 under the impact of the enforced rent reduction, driving them to greater dependence on sales receipts to fund development.

SUMMARY

Last year’s State of the North report was full of confident projections of northern powerhouse potential. In substantive terms, little has changed: this year the northern economy has passed the £300 billion mark, jobs growth has motored on, and northern regions topped this year’s EY Attractiveness Survey for foreign investment.

However, dark clouds are gathering on the horizon following the events of the past six months that have engendered more than a wobble – uncertainty now pervades the northern mood. Regardless of current quarter on quarter national GDP growth, the decision to leave the EU will have a profound effect on the northern economy. Whether in terms of trade, access to skilled labour or EU funding programmes, the implications of Brexit on the North will be profound. There will be upsides of course but for the time being business is cautious and concerned.

The political fallout from the Brexit vote has also been severe. The champions for the northern powerhouse in the national government – former chancellor George Osborne and financial secretary Jim O’Neill – have both departed the main stage. Meanwhile, devolution deals appear to have stalled, and the focus on regional rebalancing has now been subsumed into a wider initiative to develop an industrial strategy.

All this, however, presents new opportunities. While Osborne’s approach was always too partial, piecemeal and parochial, Greg Clark’s ambition to create a ‘place-based industrial strategy’ led by the powerful new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has the potential to ignite a new era of economic activism around some of the North’s major economic strengths.

Such developments are timely. Following on from IPPR North’s Blueprint for a Great North Plan in January 2016, which set out a framework for a modern industrial strategy, Transport for the North unveiled in June the results of the Northern Powerhouse Independent Economic Review. The review identified four ‘primary economic capabilities’ where the North has been shown to have world-class assets and a further three ‘enabling capabilities’ that will underpin this potential.

Add to this the excellent progress being made in building powerhouse capacity in relation to transport infrastructure, finance, trade and investment; the northern powerhouse strategy and northern powerhouse schools strategy published alongside the chancellor’s autumn statement; and there should be cause for cautious optimism. Instead though, wider events mean that business confidence is weak and once again, the prospects of inclusive growth in the North are looking as distant as ever.

Our State of the North 2016 report focuses on three key issues that will build business confidence in an era of increasing uncertainty.

1. SECURING A UNITED NORTHERN VOICE AT THE BREXIT NEGOTIATING TABLE

The North has distinct economic assets and interests that present both opportunities and threats as the UK prepares to leave the European Union. However, the fledgling and patchy development of combined authorities, metro mayors and devolution deals in the North means that the region is not well placed to formulate a coherent response to Brexit. It will therefore struggle to match the response of the devolved administrations for Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales, or of the mayor of London or other well-established lobbying groups.

Recommendation 1: IPPR North calls for the formation of a Northern Brexit Negotiating Committee to determine the type of Brexit that would best suit the North, to speak with one voice in the negotiations, and to build direct relationships with regions and nations within and beyond the EU in order to develop and enhance its particular trade interests.

2. ESTABLISHING CLEAR PRINCIPLES FOR A PLACE-BASED INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY

The government’s industrial strategy represents an opportunity not only to address the implications of Brexit but also to take a more proactive approach to many of the structural challenges facing the UK economy, not least regional rebalancing. There are numerous ‘types’ of industrial strategy with varying degrees of intervention. IPPR has set out four clear ‘objectives’ that any new approach must address including the need to develop a strong spatial dimension to enable all parts of the country to contribute to its prosperity, but IPPR North believes that industrial strategy must adopt three ‘place-based principles’.

Regional differentiation: Develop a more sophisticated understanding of what drives growth in different types of region rather than the hitherto insufficient account of growth focused on urban agglomeration.

Co-ordinated investment: Drive up public investment in infrastructure, research and development and other economic assets to match private sector investment and act as a catalyst for business innovation and smart specialisation.

Devolution: Develop and enhance its approach to devolution both to regional and local tiers of government with a much greater emphasis on fiscal powers to enable subnational bodies to direct investment on local economic opportunities.

Recommendation 2: IPPR North calls upon government to adopt a place-based approach to industrial strategy with the three core principles of regional differentiation, coordinated investment and devolution as its foundation.

3. FOCUSING ON LOCAL ECONOMIC RESILIENCE ALONGSIDE GROWTH AND DEVOLUTION

The large majority of our State of the North 2016 report focuses on the importance of building local economic resilience. As with industrial strategy, there is a rich literature on how local economies resist and recover from economic shocks. Building on the work of Martin and Sunley (2014), IPPR North has developed a resilience framework consisting of four factors, each with a set of key indicators, and has used these to profile each of the 11 local enterprise partnership (LEP) areas across the North of England.

Our analysis finds that the North’s resilience is as varied as its geography, but we have been able to group the North’s LEP areas into the following categories.

Resilient or prosperous: areas that are relatively well prepared, with a diverse economy and strong labour market

Dynamic but vulnerable: areas where there is a diverse or diversifying economic base, but have some structural flaws, especially compared to similar city-regions in the EU

Dependent or vulnerable: areas that are reliant on a single industry or small group of industries, and have significant structural issues to overcome.

Recommendation 3: IPPR North recommends conducting LEP resilience audits. The North’s LEPs, working closely with relevant local and combined authorities, should each conduct a resilience audit that sets out in detail the threats to their economy in the wake of Brexit. This audit should then be used to inform a strategic response, and a set of asks from the government that are tailored to acting on this strategy as part of a new round of devolution deals with each LEP area.

According to IPPR, London’s housing crisis is the result of failure to build enough homes to keep pace with growing demand, as the IPPR London Housing Commission demonstrated earlier this year. Rising unaffordability is the result, with many families priced out of the market. At the same time, tourism in the capital is booming, with a record 31.5 million visitors in 2015 alone. This has helped to drive up the use of homesharing platforms, which provide accommodation within Londoners’ own homes.

Here is the report:

homesharing-and-london-housing-market-dec16

Some of the benefits of homesharing are obvious: hosts receive additional income, which helps with the cost of living; assets are better used and more productive; and parts of London outside the city centre benefit from tourists who might not ordinarily visit them.

However, the rise of homesharing also presents a concern: if landlords are removing homes from the private rented sector in order to offer them for short-term let, and are doing so in sufficient numbers, homesharing could be exacerbating London’s housing shortage.

Using data from Airbnb – the capital’s biggest homesharing website – we have assessed the impact of homesharing activity on London’s housing market. Our analysis, the first of its kind to use actual bookings data, finds that, given both the number of homes currently being offered for short-term let and the proportion of those homes likely to be suitable for long-term let, homesharing’s impact on housing supply in London is currently negligible.

Building too few homes remains the core cause of the capital’s housing crisis. The prime concern and focus of politicians, policymakers and the public should therefore continue to be the longstanding drivers of that crisis: the undersupply of land, the complexity of the planning process, lack of investment and capacity challenges in construction.

Nonetheless, we do not believe that policymakers should be complacent about homesharing and there are some areas in which pre-emptive action would be desirable in order to ensure that the phenomenon does not contribute to the housing crisis in the future. In some high-pressure markets such as Camden and Islington there is potential for homesharing to worsen the situation.

Sensible regulation is already in place that permits casual lets for up to 90 days of a given year, but which also requires change-of-use planning permission for properties let for more than 90 days. The main issue, therefore, is one of the enforcement of existing rules, not the creation of new ones. We argue that policymakers, working with homesharing platforms, should act now to develop a sector-wide solution, and to better enforce existing rules on the commercial letting of property that specify that 90-day limit.

A sector-wide solution is essential: otherwise, there is a risk that if one platform were to act, the affected hosts would simply switch between platforms. More leadership from the sector is necessary in this regard, and would be welcome.

Research by Airbnb suggests that homesharing makes positive contributions to London’s economy. This view has been supported by the government, for example their recent decision to offer tax relief for micro-entrepreneurs and referencing online homesharing, and is echoed by wider research into the benefits of the sharing economy, so supporting the sector is important. Through the measures we recommend, that support can be provided in such a way that helps the capital to succeed and thrive – as well as to remain a good place for its residents to call home.

This excellent CfPS pulication explores some of the common challenges around governance and devolution and how a number of areas have tried to resolve them.

CfPS-Charting-The-Way-v4-WEB

The research highlights a number of key issues for devolved areas – principally the need for a clear sense for each local area to understand the rational underpinning devolution, and the existence of a “sequence” for the devolution process, at each point of which a space has to be found for scrutiny by the public and by elected members.

Health and social care are urgent public policy priorities. Councils, through their social care, public health and scrutiny roles are central to tackling local challenges and ensuring that services are operating effectively, working with other health and care system leaders.

Here is a report frm CfPS with 3 case studies which reflects on the insights gained from three case studies across England and sets out opportunities and steps to improving scrutiny’s role in the healthcare sector.

CfPS-Scrutiny-Inquiry-Days-v2