Pureonline News and Assignments – January 2010 (pdf 1MB)
This month:
Modern Warrington is undoubtedly one of the success stories of the New Town Development Corporation. A growing and affluent population based on average incomes above the North West and national averages, a well qualified population, (31% of working-age people are graduates), and various other published statistics provide testimony to this triumph.
Economic success has however by-passed certain parts of the Borough. And now, in common with many other prosperous areas, unemployment is being experienced for the first time by individuals and households which to date “have never had it so good.”
In September 2009 some 5,031 people in Warrington were claiming the main unemployment benefit of Job Seekers Allowance (JSA). This represents a 70% increase in the 12 months from September 2008.
Whilst most new claimants were men, the proportionate increase at 75% is greatest among women. In terms of age the 25-49 age group appears to be suffering the most.
Alarmingly, recessionary unemployment appears to be settling in. Most JSA claimants have been claiming for less than six months, but a growing number have been claiming for 6-12 months and over one year, e.g. the 12 months plus group increased by 98% between September 2008 and September 2009.
Certain areas of Warrington have not shared in the Borough’s economic achievements. Fourteen areas are within the most deprived 10% in England on the Government’s employment deprivation scale – one part of the index of multiple deprivation 2007. This is worse than the position in 2004, when only three areas were in the most deprived 10%. Orford, Bewsey and Whitecross, Poulton, Latchford – the areas are well known and long standing.
In February 2009, 15,160 working age adults were receiving key out-of-work benefits. The bulk of these were 8,210 people claiming Employment Support Allowance and/or Incapacity Benefit (IB). The proportion of IB claimants (7%) is just below the national average but well below that for the region. What is surprising however is the size and proportion of this group given that Warrington has an employment rate of 77%. Other areas with such a high employment rate, e.g. St Albans, have a much smaller proportion of IB claimants (4%).
If the IB patterns are the same as most areas we will find the bulk of claims at over five years with the largest group “signed off” due to mental health related illnesses. It appears that in affluent Warrington there are persistent pockets of long term worklessness and deprivation that share the challenging characteristics of near neighbours like Manchester, Liverpool, Halton and St Helens.
Somewhat aged (2007) job density figures for Warrington are very positive at 0.99 compared to .80 for the region and .83 for Great Britain. What this means of course is that the area attracts many in-commuters to fill the available jobs.
Positive news is that unfilled JobCentre Plus vacancies in Warrington are rising since their low in June 2009. The ratio of unfilled jobcentre vacancies per 10,000 working age population is also very positive compared to the regional and national figures.
The Houghton Review introduced the notion of a “worklessness assessment”, that is now a requirement within economic assessments of areas and within the work and skills plans of those in receipt of Future Jobs Fund. Most Local Area Agreements (LAAs) include national indicators associated with work, skills and benefit claims.
The Improvement and Development Agency (I&DeA) has produced a series of “how to” guides, one of which covers worklessness. It sets out five steps to developing a worklessness strategy for a local area:
This project cycle management approach is a good start, but our experience suggests that there is more to it than this. The problem of worklessness has been analysed and acted upon like this before.
So, what are the issues within the worklessness assessment and action plan that can make a difference? Many years’ experience suggests that there is no formula that will work every time. However, success seems to require the following ingredients:
Guy Lawson blogs for Pureonline…
Social housing is notoriously complex. That may have something to do with why there have been nine different housing ministers in the last ten years; either as a consequence of little ministerial continuity, or the reason ministers have not stayed for long.
For years, a growing array of stakeholders, tenants, regulators, funding bodies, lobby groups, public and third sector partners, together with a bewildering range of jargon and acronyms, have made it increasingly difficult for even the most committed board member, of a housing association or a local authority’s Arm’s Length Management Organisation (ALMO), to keep pace with a better-informed executive.
The arena has latterly become more and more challenging, with the introduction of the Homes & Communities Agency (HCA) and the Tenant Services Authority (TSA), rapid shifts in Government policy resulting from the current state of the economy, and the increased requirement for providers of social housing to address such factors as environmental sustainability, design standards, worklessness, anti-social behaviour and tenant debt, to name but a few.
How many board members can truly claim to be wholly au fait with the Code for Sustainable Homes, opportunities to explore prudential borrowing alongside HCA grants and commercial loan facilities, local authority Section 106 agreements, as well as the day to day operation of a provider of social housing?
Yet, not only that, it is increasingly apparent that the TSA expects boards to be able to demonstrate that they are responsible for and in control of the executive. Their new powers with regard to housing associations, which are scheduled to come into force in April 2010, already talk of ‘increased accountability for Boards and tenants – less reliance on what the regulator or inspector says’.
More dramatically, the TSA is also suggesting that, where it needs to make a remedial or radical intervention, following inspection of a social housing provider, that may result in it appointing a member to the board.
Given that boards tend to be made up of volunteer members, and even those paid board members seldom take on the role for financial reasons, an enormous additional commitment is being demanded of them. There is a limit, after all, to how much training can be provided, and how much board members are able to undertake.
To use a phrase of Gordon Brown’s, one can try to form a board of ‘all the talents’, bringing together members with a breadth of skills and experience to cover the different aspects of the sector. Even assuming it’s possible to do that, there still remain the dangers of the board being overly dependent upon the executive.
More than ever, it is apparent that the relationship between the board and the executive is under the spotlight. The quality of that relationship is critical; the executive must ensure the board is adequately briefed, while board members must be certain of both what to ask of the executive and what the executive asks of them.
But, the problem remains; what do you ask if you don’t know what you don’t know? At the very least, board members must have a clear understanding of their role and responsibilities and what is expected of them. And it is for the executive to support board members to fulfil those obligations.
It sounds simple enough, but the proof of the pudding will be decided by how providers of social housing perform against inspection. Everyone involved with social housing should be monitoring closely the TSA’s current thinking on the new regulatory framework, and preparing accordingly.
Guy Lawson – August 2009
