Collaboration between local authority stakeholders can help address health quality determinants and result in improved health outcomes, according to a new report.
Read more about this from Local Government news:
http://www.localgov.co.uk/Research-shows-impact-of-health-determinants/39809
A report published by the Commission on the Future of Health and Social Care in England said it welcomed the creation of several new models of care which will help close the gap in health spending.
Have a look at this article from Local government news:
http://www.localgov.co.uk/Commission-blasts-lack-of-strategy-to-tackle-health-crisis/39808
“Every region of the UK will become more ethnically diverse and see more migration in the coming decades. Record migration and higher birth rates among ethnic minority groups mean that this trend towards greater diversity will happen more rapidly than ever before. History tells us that this transition can challenge the resilience of communities: it can test local institutions and services, and cause understandable anxiety among settled residents.
This report presents original research conducted in areas of the UK that have high rates of migration, examining how diversity and migration are ‘normalised’ over time, and how recent trends are driving greater transience in migration and thereby placing new strains on communities.
Crucially, it finds that policy decisions that explicitly set out to ensure that ‘coming to the UK does not mean settling in the UK’ are counterproductive and shortsighted because they inhibit integration. They prevent migrants from forming relationships, make it harder for them to thrive in our labour market and make an active contribution to our economy, and create a considerable cost for public services. Migrant children are particularly badly affected, as delaying their entrance to the UK education system stymies their chances of thriving academically.
We therefore propose a series of measures aimed at central government, local authorities and other important non-state bodies (particularly universities) to alleviate local pressures caused by migration and ethnic diversity and to reduce transience. These measures include a four-step action plan for local authorities to ensure that they reap the benefits of a more diverse future, and a greater focus on areas that have recently undergone rapid demographic change, particularly those that are characterised by a history of low-level migration and high levels of transience or ‘churn’. Our findings, backed by electoral results, show that these areas are particularly vulnerable to heightened anti-immigration sentiments and social tensions, and low levels of integration.
At the core of our recommendations are three essential objectives.
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is delighted to have been awarded £565,000 by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) for a three-year programme to investigate the links between poverty and inequalities
The partnership was announced by LSE alumna Ms Julia Unwin CBE, Chief Executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, at an LSE public lecture to launch a new book Social Class in the 21st Century.
The donation establishes a new early career fellowship within the LSE International Inequalities Institute (III) as well as a programme of research on the connections between inequality, diversity and poverty which will be led by LSE’s Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE).
This is good news and these are very respected institutiions to be completing this study.
According to their website:
“The research aims to review the relationships between inequalities of various kinds and poverty. It will investigate areas such as the consequences of living in an unequal society for the lives of those in poverty; how people’s prospects of social mobility are affected if parental resources are unequally distributed between families; the links between poverty, inequality and geographical and neighbourhood segregation; how inequality affects risks of poverty for different groups, such as by ethnicity, gender, disability and migration status; and the political and attitudinal effects of inequality for support (or otherwise) for effective collective action against poverty.
The funding will also ensure a programme of practitioner visitors to the III and a public engagement programme of events and publications to support the research.”
A government trial that protects social landlords’ rent accounts against the impact of Universal Credit is to be piloted by 20 councils and housing associations.
In its first public statement on the scheme, the Department for Work and Pensions yesterday said it would run the ‘trusted partner pilot’ to help “vulnerable tenants who may struggle” with the government’s flagship welfare reform.
Under Universal Credit, the government pays the housing cost of the benefit to tenants instead of their landlord. This has triggered concerns in the social housing sector that people may fail to pay their rent as a result.
The trusted partner pilot makes it easier for landlords to receive benefit payments direct instead of tenants deemed at risk of missing their rent.
Currently, social landlords can ask the DWP to direct Universal Credit housing costs direct to them, known as an ‘alternative payment arrangement’ (APA), if their tenant is in two months of arrears.
Under the trusted partner pilot, the social landlord identifies vulnerable tenants who they believe will be unable to manage their money.
Once identified, the DWP gives the tenant an APA automatically without the need for an application process. Crucially, this intervention can come before the tenant falls into arrears.
The DWP has invited social landlords to apply to become involved in the trial.
It says it will select 20 housing associations, councils and arm’s-length management organisations (ALMOs) across England, Scotland and Wales as participants. Landlords must apply by 13 November.
Measures to extend the Right to Buy and force councils to sell their expensive homes have been voted through in the House of Commons. Yesterday, MPs voted in favour of the Housing and Planning Bill at its second reading, by 306 to 215 votes.
The bill will now go to the committee stage, where MPs will discuss amendments to the proposed legislation.
On Friday, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) said its reclassification was based on measures in Labour’s 2008 Housing and Regeneration Act and the coalition government’s 2011 Localism Act.
This is useful table from Inside Housing on the bill:
Greg Clark will work with the housing association sector to create a “package” of deregulatory measures to bring associations back off the national balance sheet.
The communities secretary set out his intention to reverse the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reclassification through deregulation in a written statement earlier this week.
Speaking at the Placeshapers Annual Conference on 5th November, the minister said “a package” of measures would be developed to achieve this, in co-operation with housing association leaders.
Young people choosing between food or paying rent and ending up getting into heavy arrears: that’s just one of the consequences of welfare cuts that have also seen an alarming surge in the number of young renters losing their homes.
Thsi excelelnt initiative was reporting in the Guardian.
According to the Guardian on line:
“Research by Riverside, one of England’s largest social landlords, shows that of 3,803 tenancies terminated by the association in 2014-15, a quarter were held by people aged between 16 and 30. That’s up from one in five of the 4,195 tenancies ended in 2012-13.
Cuts and curbs on social security have restricted young renters’ route out of arrears and many abandon their homes without seeking help, according to Riverside employee Peter Gallagher, who has switched from a role supporting older tenants to one supporting younger residents, as part of the association’s initiative to help young renters keep their homes and also reduce its own £13m annual bill for re-letting property.
The association ran a pilot scheme in Cumbria last year and is now recruiting four more officers, employed by its charitable arm, the Riverside Foundation, to focus on intensive intervention with younger tenants.
Gallagher says young people in particular fail to prioritise rent payments. “They can get into heavy arrears quite quickly,” he says. “Some are not eating very well because they can’t deal with money, or haven’t got it.”
Riverside is not the only association to rethink its approach to tenancy support. Other tactics include tougher financial checks before agreeing tenancies. “Some landlords have expressed concern that people don’t have the income to pay,” says John Wickenden, data analysis manager at consultancy HouseMark. He says he expects more associations, like Riverside, to establish in-house support as external help from charities and community groups reduces due to public funding cuts.
Riverside’s own estates are dotted with empty units, previously occupied by such organisations, points out Paul Booth, its community engagement manager, who says there used to be a lot of outreach for local residents from other support groups that simply now no longer exists.
Riverside’s intensive intervention officers aim to close the gap left by the loss of such outside support, Booth says. To give them time to offer intensive assistance, their caseloads are limited to 30 households, fewer than the hundreds managed by most housing officers.
Every tenancy that comes to an end costs money that could be spent on new homes. Before being re-let, homes must be repaired and their gas and electrics checked.
Riverside’s annual bill for relets runs at £13m. “If we could reduce that by 1% you would get a decent saving,” Booth says. “I’m not saying this project will definitely do that; it is part of the work.”
In the longer run, the intensification project may help the association pinpoint which tenants will struggle before reaching crisis point, Booth adds. “We should be able to increase tenants’ capacity to tackle whatever life throws at them.”
That includes tenants of all ages. One of Gallagher’s first cases was a 34-year-old tenant who began to self-harm after being the victim of severe anti-social behaviour. Gallagher helped the resident move into emergency accommodation and then find a permanent home. He also helped her furnish her new flat and navigate the benefits regime, and now meets her at her home every week. “This job is a lot about life coaching but doesn’t have a strict remit,” he says. “It’s a blank page.” ”
The Department for Communities and Local Government is one of four departments to have agreed to average savings in budgets today.
The departments has agreed provisional settlements, which will apply to resource spending and not capital expenditure.The resource spending – that is the day to day spending is expected to be cut by, on average, 8% a year for the next four years.
Inside Housing reported that savings will be made through a combination of further efficiencies in departments, closing low value programmes, and focusing on our priorities as a country.
Although these savings will not hit capital expenditure, inside hosuing has reported that the DCLG is expected to “refocus” its housing budget towards home ownership as part of the Spending Review.
Watch this space for updates and more information.
The Spending review will be annouced on 25th November.
Many of the 2 million adults in the UK without a bank account are in a financially precarious situation, often lacking savings and reliant on short-term loans. But the introduction of universal credit, which will require welfare recipients to have a bank account into which benefits can be paid, has given the problem of financial exclusion a new urgency, says a report in the Guardian on line.
The Guradian reported:
“It’s an issue of particular concern to housing associations, where an estimated 13% of residents don’t have bank accounts. Most housing associations now have teams of financial inclusion officers, tasked with supporting residents who are financially vulnerable. Matt Earnshaw, group financial inclusion manager at Circle Housing, says that some residents are “only one incident away potentially from being tipped over the edge. They might lose their job, they might go off work sick, they might have a family breakdown, and that can be the point at which problems start to occur”.
Councils want to help people in financial crisis, but reality is bleak – on both sides
Financial exclusion doesn’t exist in isolation, he adds: “Being in debt is a massive barrier to getting back into work, and we know the impact that money has on health as well.”
Often residents have multiple, interconnected financial problems. Paul Langley, head of business development at Community Housing Cymru, which represents housing associations and community mutuals in Wales, says many lack contents insurance or have “multiple insurances linked to the products they’ve purchased like phone insurance or television insurance, as opposed to one blanket policy for everything”, which is more expensive. Others are paying too much for an energy supplier, or have failed to claim benefits to which they are entitled.
Preventing exclusion
Tackling financial exclusion effectively requires a broad range of preventative measures, including encouraging residents to join credit unions. Liverpool Housing Trust, for example, has just invested £50,000 in two credit unions and wants its own staff to join them, enabling the unions to offer as many loans as possible. In south Wales, many housing associations have adopted Moneyline, which offers affordable loans to people on low incomes, as well as basic bank and savings accounts.
Housing associations can also minimise tenants’ outgoings by helping them shop online to find the cheapest energy supplier or, in the case of Golden Gates Housing Trust, introducing solar panels to 1,500 properties to reduce energy costs.
People don’t have the money to heat and eat. We’re moving on from this being about financial exclusion to real poverty
Paul Langley
Frequently they work with partners; Circle, for example, works with the debt charity StepChange and has the charity’s debt tool embedded on its website. John Thorndike, income and financial inclusion manager with Liverpool Housing Trust, says the association and its partners deliver advice on topics such as “opening bank accounts and credit union accounts, accessing low-cost home contents insurance and help getting online and employment and training advice”. That advice is offered in a number of ways: through home visits, over the phone or via the internet.
A more drastic set of challenges
The work can be challenging, however. In rural areas and the south Wales valleys, many bank and post office branches have closed, making it physically difficult for residents to gain access to a bank account, says Langley. Libraries where residents might use computers to access online accounts have also closed down. Some Welsh housing associations have responded by lending residents tablet computers to access the internet. Digital inclusion and financial inclusion are so closely linked, says Langley, that the role of a financial inclusion officer is merging with that of digital inclusion officer.
Many residents are also unwilling to seek advice until they are in financial trouble, and Golden Gates has found that even offering incentives, such as contributing £10 when a resident opens a bank account, doesn’t always work. Bigger problems arise when struggling residents take out high-interest loans to pay off debts. Some residents, says Carmel Morris, senior financial inclusion officer at Golden Gates Housing Trust, will prioritise paying the weekly debt collector over paying their rent: “Someone’s coming to your door, and not paying them can be quite difficult because they’re very clever, and the tactics and they terminology they use are almost like grooming.”
In the worst cases, residents fall prey to loan sharks – which Liverpool Housing Trust treats in the same way as hate crime or safeguarding, says Thorndike. If any employee hears of a loan shark operating in the area, he adds, it’s the whole organisation’s responsibility to deal with it.
It is inevitable that part of housing associations’ work is to support residents when they have reached a financial crisis. Earnshaw cites a resident who had become too ill to work and had slipped into rent arrears of more than £1,000. He was referred to Circle’s financial support service, which helped him claim £3,000 in benefits that he was entitled to as well as a grant from Anglian Water’s assistance fund for his water debts. Now back at work, the resident’s arrears have been reduced by almost £900.
But housing associations face their own financial challenges, following the government decision to reduce the rent of social housing tenants by 1% a year, and the extension of the right to buy. These challenges may put the valuable work associations do in supporting financially excluded tenants under threat.
Meanwhile, the economic climate, the introduction of the bedroom tax, welfare reform and the lack of secure employment are leading to greater financial difficulties for residents. Langley believes that housing associations are changing focus to tackle a more drastic set of challenges: “We find that even if people could access the internet they can’t afford it. They don’t have the money to heat and eat. We’re moving on from just this being about financial inclusion or exclusion to real poverty.” ”
Another excellent insight from the Guardian and great advice on supporting those without a bank account to get one
