Haringey Lib Dems in Meltdown

As reported by the local newspaper the Ham and High almost two thirds (12 out of 21) of the Lib Dem councillors on Haringey Council are stepping down at the London council elections in May.

The departing councillors rather skirt around the reasons for taking this decision now, and the Lib Dem Group Leader cllr Richard Wilson even suggests that this is all part of natural process. Come off it mate, I’ve never known so many serving councillors quitting at the same time, and the reason is plainly obvious.

The Lib Dems in Haringey and much of London (and the north of England) are a toxic brand. People in these areas voted Lib Dem because they were unhappy with Labour in 2010, but are horrified by the subsequent ConDem government’s attack on the welfare state. These councillors know full well that they are highly unlikely to retain their seats and have no doubt been making alternative plans for some time. Rats leaving a sinking ship, you might reasonably conclude, rather than some natural turn over of personnel.

A brief look at the results of the GLA elections in 2012 paints the picture perfectly if you are in any doubt about the Lib Dems prospects at this year’s local elections. Labour won comfortably in every ward in Haringey, and in 18 of the 19 wards in the borough, the Green party beat the Lib Dems. I said at the time, that the writing was on the wall for Lib Dem councillors and sure enough they have just been marking time for the last two years. Some of them have no doubt tried to do their best, but such is the impossibility of providing good quality local public services, whilst central government funding for local authorities is slashed, have decided to jump rather than wait to be pushed.   

But what of our MP and junior Coalition Government Minister, Lynne Featherstone? Well she’s got another year to think about it, since she is not up for re election until 2015, but she is showing no sign of throwing in the towel like fellow north London MP Lib Dem Sarah Teather (Brent central). No, Featherstone seems to think she can win, because she is ‘personally popular’ unlike her party.

There is a great myth spread around by Featherstone and her supporters that she is a ‘good constituency MP’. We are bombarded in Hornsey and Wood Green (Featherstone’s Parliamentary seat) with leaflets telling us what a good constituency MP she is, a case of if you say something often enough, people will eventually believe it.

Well, I’m not buying it. I admit she is very good at self publicity, but that is all. She recently tried to take credit for the halting of plans to build a huge waste plant at Pinkham Way, for instance, but this was all the work of the residents in the Pinkham Way Alliance. This is only one example of Featherstone shamelessly claiming the credit for some achievement, when she’s done nothing but write the odd letter about it.

What’s more, she is an embarrassment in Parliament where she is commonly referred to as ‘Featherhead’ by other MPs (including some in her own party). But the main thing is, as the dozen departing Lib Dem councillors realise, personal reputation, whether real or otherwise, is not enough to save Lib Dem politicians. Featherstone will be unceremoniously booted out in 2015, for the part her party has played in propping up this deeply unpopular Tory led government.   

Close the door on the way out please Lynne, but make sure it doesn’t hit you in the face.        

Statement on Local Authority Cuts

The Green party of England and Wales fought the 2010 general election in opposition to the savage public service cuts supported by the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. The Green party offered a different approach to reducing the country’s debts, which included making the wealthy (people and corporations) pay their fair share of tax, investing in the economy to produce sustainable growth through the Green New Deal, some cuts for example to Trident and pledging to protect public services particularly for the most vulnerable in our society.

Unfortunately, we did not win the general election and so are unable to put these policies into practice, although Caroline Lucas has almost single handedly taken the opposition to the Coalition government cuts agenda. The ideologically driven shrink the state policies of the Coalition government aim to reduce public spending and turn most of the public services over to private corporations. 

Our elected representatives in local government are on the front line in the assault on public spending, with local authorities having their funding from central government cut by around a third since 2010. Councils of all political stripes are hurting and they worry about whether they will even be able to fund their statutory duties in the future. Local government is under serious threat and everyone involved in it knows this to be true, despite the blithe statements about local authorities making efficiency savings and encouraging local business growth to pay for services, trumpeted by the Coalition central government. All the easy savings and many not so easy have been made now, and a future of even more of the same is daunting.

Haringey Green Party would continue to look for better and more effective ways of doing things in Council budgets especially on energy, transport, supplies, consultancy, and agency fees, whilst avoiding cuts in services, jobs, or wages and whilst recognising the importance of all sub-contractors’ staff (as well as Council employees) being paid a London living wage.  We would oppose any salaries in new appointments being over ten times the lowest full time wage.

Haringey Green party supports Green councillors who refuse to participate in or support an administration that implements any further cuts; and recognises that Green councillors may better represent the interests of their constituents by remaining in opposition at this time.

Haringey Green Party supports popular mobilisation against the cuts through demonstrations and where necessary direct action, in coordination with local, regional and national anti-cuts movements such as the People’s Assembly. HGP would welcome coordinated actions between Green and left councillors in different areas to resist cuts in services. 

HGP would welcome a national campaign for reform of local taxation and/or Council or GLA charges to make them more progressive and to capture more of the profits of developers to support local services, and would encourage and support any Green councillors elected here to pursue these aims as well as to campaign for local eco-taxes like levies on commercial packaging.

Haringey Green Party believes that Green Councillors, whenever faced with a need to make instant decisions about budgets in the Council chamber and whenever consultation with supporters and allies is not possible within the permitted time frame, should do whatever they judge to be in the best interests of the local population and consistent with Green Party policy.

This perverse Mark Duggan verdict will ruin our relations with the police

After hearing the verdict in the Mark Duggan inquest I went with his family and friends to a local church in Tottenham where we tried to share a private moment before facing the media. A range of emotions was on display, but it is fair to say that stunned disbelief and anger dominated.

Having attended the inquest for three months, and having heard or read all of the testimony given, this was the last verdict that I or the family was expecting. The question on everyone's lips was, how could they come up with a verdict like that? The police have been quick to herald the verdict as a vindication of their flawed operation. But they too must realise that the verdict leaves many questions still to be answered.

Firstly the family is struggling to understand how the shooting of an unarmed man can still be deemed a lawful act. The "safety net" for police officers in such circumstances is that the killing is lawful if the officer has an "honestly held belief" that he or others are in imminent danger. But in this case the jury themselves stated it was their belief that Duggan had thrown the gun before being fatally shot, so where was the immediate, clear and present danger?

At the inquest, V53 – the officer who fired the fatal shots – said that he definitely saw the sock-covered gun and was even able to describe seeing the barrel of the gun sticking out of the hole in the sock. He also gave this sworn testimony in the two trials of the alleged gun supplier, Kevin Hutchinson Foster. On each of these occasions he stated he was positive that Mark had the gun in his hand when he shot him the first and second time. Each time he described it as a "freeze frame" moment, adding: "This is something that you do not forget." He further justified the need for shooting Duggan twice by describing how the first shot spun Duggan around so that the gun was pointing directly at him when he shot him the second time.

The jury appears to have put this evidence to one side, along with the fact that two other officers also testified on the same three occasions that they had seen the gun drawn and in Duggan's hand. It seems that the jury has delivered a verdict that neither fits the known facts nor chimes with the testimony of the independent witnesses.

Further, in coming to the conclusion that Duggan had thrown the gun before or on exiting the mini-cab the jury disregarded the scientific evidence as no traces of his DNA was found on the sock or the gun although his fingerprints were found on the lid of the box that the gun was allegedly being transported in. They also appear to have disregarded the evidence of the taxi driver, who said that he had not seen Duggan open the box during the journey or once the police had forced his vehicle to stop.

In fact there were no witnesses who saw the gun being thrown. A few police officers inferred that it was possible, but none of the 11 highly trained officers claimed to see Duggan making any movement that could have resembled him throwing away the firearm. Most surprisingly for the family was the jury's apparent ability to totally disregard the evidence of Witness B, the only independent witness to see the shooting. He was an extremely reluctant witness, who had to be tracked down by the coroner's team. He had filmed the aftermath of the shooting; the footage was later sold to the BBC. He has no historical links to Tottenham and no links to Duggan or his family. He was adamant that Duggan had a BlackBerry in one hand, and that both of his hands were held above head height in a gesture of surrender as he was gunned down.

The family, their supporters and friends believe the jury has got the verdict terribly wrong. But then we also believe this inquest was lost long before it even began. It was lost on the evening that Duggan was slain, as immediately after the shooting the police and the Independent Police Complaints Commission began to brief the media with inaccurate and misleading information that ensured that Duggan was demonised, even before his body had turned cold. The headlines declared him a gangster who was on a mission to avenge the killing of his cousin, Kelvin Easton.

However, during the inquest no evidence was offered in support of this claim. It was further alleged that he was a large-scale drugs dealer, but yet again not a shred of evidence was provided to substantiate these allegations. But that did not matter, the mud had been slung and it clearly stuck as it was designed to. Even now most people still do not realise that he was only ever convicted for two relatively minor offences – one count of cannabis possession, and one count of receiving stolen goods.

So now the family is expected to put its faith in the IPCC. But few people in Tottenham, black or white, have any faith in this organisation's ability to be thorough, fair and impartial. The IPCC has faced much criticism during the inquest and the family believe that this criticism has been well-earned. During the inquest the IPCC's mishandling of the crime scene was revealed, including the fact that it gave permission for the mini-cab to be removed before investigating officers had even looked at it or had it forensically searched for evidence. It further transpired that the IPCC failed to respond to crucial independent witnesses, even those who tried to respond to their own urgent witness appeals.

The IPCC has chosen not to explore the possibility that the gun was planted at the spot it was found, even though it was 7m from his body and two independent witness gave the IPCC statements – and later testified – that they had seen an officer remove a gun from the mini-cab some minutes after Duggan had been killed. But the most crucial reason why the family and local community will have no faith in the IPCC's investigation is that its lead investigator, Colin Sparrow, revealed to the inquest that he knew Duggan had not fired any gun long before the IPCC began briefing the media that he had shot at police first. It is one thing for the IPCC to have made the mistake, but it still took three weeks to correct a "fact" it knew to be false; and in those intervening days Tottenham, and many other areas, burned.

This verdict will have a long-lasting and negative impact on police and community relations. Tottenham's black community will not view this judgment in isolation. For us, a lack of justice has become par for the course; Duggan's name now joins those of Cynthia Jarrett, Joy Gardner and Roger Sylvester who have all died at the hands of the police and have not received anything that resembles justice.

It feels as though we are living in a parallel universe from mainstream society – for what is seen as justice by the mainstream is experienced as an injustice by the marginalised. This perverse and contradictory verdict will only add to the sense of injustice and hopelessness that has long been felt in disadvantaged and marginalised areas such as Tottenham.

Written by Stafford Scott and first published at The Guardian

Sharon Shoesmith was unfairly dismissed – so she deserves a payout

The precipitous sacking of Haringey's former children's services chief over Baby P silenced debate over what went wrong. £600k is the price for that silence

Describe a successful outcome for a social services department trying to protect a child. I cannot. Every possible solution can legitimately be criticised. Only last month a senior family court judge criticised adoption and social services reforms as encouraging a propensity to remove children too quickly. On the other hand, if a child is not removed soon enough, the risk is a repeat of a tragic case like the death of Peter Connelly.

That is the tightrope that social services work walks on a daily basis, in the field of child protection and most other work. It is work which is de facto defined by its failure, as it can only be judged against totally unquantifiable alternatives. The death of any child in the hands of abusive adults is nothing short of a catastrophe. How many deaths are avoided each year by the removal of children from such situations cannot be quantified. The former is highly publicised, because – let's face it – dead children sell newspapers. The latter can never be reported.

A rise in the number of children removed from their families is also seen as a measure of failure to support. All this means that the relative "success" of such work is necessarily judged by the number of human lives it sought to make better, and did not. It is against this backdrop that I find the hysteria with which the Sharon Shoesmith settlement has been met deeply unhelpful and counterproductive. Tim Loughton, the former children's minister says it "stinks". Former children's secretary Ed Balls says it "sticks in the craw".

The underlying conclusion, explicitly stated by some newspapers, is that Shoesmith was ultimately rewarded for her failure. The court of appeal, however, decided that there is a process of natural justice for arriving at such a conclusion and that the process was circumvented. She was scapegoated for the sake of political expediency. For politicians to persist with trotting out that she had failed at her job, is to continue with precisely the same sort of conduct. Shoesmith was never afforded the chance of responding to the criticism in the report. Instead, she found out that she had been fired by watching a hastily convened press conference on television.

You may agree with that way of doing things or not. You may find it swift and decisive rather than precipitous. But the undeniable legal fact is that it was unlawful. And the penalty for the state acting unlawfully as an employer is compensation. It reflects the fact that, not only was Shoesmith's life destroyed without due process, but also that a proper conclusion about what happened around the case of that poor child's death cannot, and will never, be properly reached.

That compensation, the precise level of which we don't actually know but which is reported to be about £600,000, will include significant legal costs accrued during a lengthy battle and roughly £300,000 in salary, since this was a judicial review decision in which she was adjudged not to have been properly dismissed for the two years while the fight went on. Both those elements, which make up the bulk of her settlement, could have been avoided by the state acting properly.

The easy conclusion is to say that a woman directly responsible for a child's death has been rewarded with what Newsnight described as "a small fortune". The more difficult discussion is that perhaps, just perhaps, the death of children in the hands of cruel and evil parents can never be absolutely prevented within the current framework. This is the discussion that was denied a public forum by the government's actions. What is more, tragically, the way this case has been handled makes future tragedies more, not less, likely. It makes social work even more risk averse and focused on covering one's own back with paperwork, rather than helping people. It makes bright candidates, well suited to the field, less likely to choose it as a career.

The buck must stop with Shoesmith, pronounced assorted pundits. Why is that? That line is convenient, but rather arbitrary. Why must the buck stop with the head of a particular social services and not, for instance, the head of the local authority who allocated the budget and had oversight, or Ofsted which gave the services in question a good rating just before the circumstances of this case came to light, or the minister responsible at the time? It may well have been that through the proper process Shoesmith would be judged to have failed and to be the person ultimately responsible. We will never know. The debate has been silenced and £600k is the price for that silence.

There is another, perhaps more fundamental, tension that receives no attention. Many of the same commentators, who rightly tear their garments over every tragic incident, are precisely the same ones who want government to shrink, rail against the interventionist "nanny state", condemn local authorities for what they pay to senior staff and feel taxation – at whatever level – is too high. The positions are mutually exclusive. Well-funded, well-trained social workers and their managers cost money, which many are not willing to pay. A shrunken, non-interventionist, poorly funded state lacks the capacity to stand in the corner of every living room in the country, observe what people get up to and always intervene at precisely the right moment. So, which is it?


Written by Alex Andreou and first published at The Guardian

Migrant Political Activists Support Reverend Paul Nicolson's Anti-Benefit Cuts Stance in Haringey

 

On Thursday 1 August I operated as Secretary of the non-party-political Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group that benefits Brent & Camden & Beyond, as we say in the KUWG. On Friday I was in Haringey Green Party branding, supporting council tax protester Revd Paul Nicolson of Tottenham outside Tottenham Magistrates Court. Clarence was the face of the KUWG for the photo-shoot attended by a photographer from the Haringey Independent and others — including Tottenham's post thundery shower midges that left me with souvenirs of the occasion today!

The police objected to the idea of people being photographed against the backdrop of the Magistrates Court, and so we had to be photographed with our backs to the main road.

Among those who attended, there was a family from Derbyshire who read of Paul Nicolson's stand in Wednesday's Daily Mirror: “Reverend Paul Nicolson: Retired Anglican vicar ready to go to jail in his battle for poor”. Paul was also supported by Haringey Housing Action/Haringey Solidarity Group people, Claire Glasman and Petra Dando of Camden United for Benefit Justice. Clarence of KUWG was also one of those who went into the court with Paul and Paul's son and daughter. Paul's son joked with me that he had come along to disown his father when Paul gets sent down. (I had told Paul's son that it was great that he was there in support of his father, in contrast with the way that one of Mahatma Gandhi's sons was so disgusted with his own upbringing that he became a Muslim.)

Before going into the court, Paul gave a great speech that follows in the pattern of Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech 50 years ago this 28 August, updating and relocating it to mention wiping out the meanness of sanctions, £71.60 a week JSA and low birth weight futures. (There is currently a low birth weight rate in parts of Tottenham that is higher than Turkey's.) Paul concluded by saying that he is prepared to go to prison or to only pay his Council Tax when Haringey Council start using it to genuinely help Haringey residents stay in Haringey. I summarised, "So you are keen to pay for Council services but not Council disservices.

"Absolutely!" he affirmed.

Epilogue: For information regarding what went on in the court, see Jaber Mohamed's report, “Reverend Paul Nicolson uses appearance at Enfield and Haringey Magistrates Court to appeal for leniency for victims of benefit cuts.” And more information regarding , what the Chairperson of Taxpayers Against Poverty's very public stance is about than Chairman of the bench Freddy Lawson could tolerate, go to the Taxpayers Against Poverty website.

 

By Alan Wheatley of Haringey Green Party and Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group

Benefits cap leads to eviction notices in Haringey trial area

Tenants participating in a trial of the government's controversial benefit cap are being sent eviction letters because the welfare changes mean they "may not be able to afford the rent" and they may have to leave their homes within 14 days, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.

In the first tangible proof that the cap would lead to rising levels of homelessness, one of Britain's biggest social landlords, Genesis, has issued a warning to tenants in Haringey – a London borough chosen by ministers to test plans to limit benefit payments to £26,000 a year – saying that it will now need to start legal proceedings to "terminate our lease".

The letter from Genesis says it has been forced into taking these steps because of the "significant changes being currently introduced to the welfare benefit system". The letter warns that, if the tenants do not offer a defence, a court can force eviction within 14 days.

The overall benefit cap set at £500 per week, or £350 for single people, was introduced in four London local authorities – Enfield, Bromley, Croydon and Haringey – in mid-April, and will be rolled out nationally later in the year. The Department for Work and Pensions has estimated that 56,000 households will be hit, with an average weekly loss of £93. The majority will be families with children.

Haringey council says it is "astonished by the premature threat" of eviction – which raised the possibility that scores of families may end up on the streets. It has 660 households who face an average £50-a-week loss because of the cap – and is spending £1.5m over three months to offer them homes within 1.5 miles of the borough.

Claire Kober, the Labour leader of Haringey council, said she knew of a number of social landlords using the threat of eviction since the benefit cap was introduced. "This behaviour of housing associations is completely unacceptable, especially given their stated social mission," she said. "But this underlines to me that the fears that we expressed to government about the consequences of the benefit cap are coming true. The benefit cap is not addressing the cause of the rising housing benefit bill – just the symptoms."

The government, wary of how councils would cope, deliberately slowed the implementation of the benefit cap, with councils applying the cash limits to just 60 claimants a week.
Duncan Shrubsole, policy director at the charity Crisis, said: "What's happening in Haringey is an example of how brutal it is out there. Enfield council is considering moving 330 people out to places like Birmingham and Bradford. Every council testing this benefit cap has teams of housing officers warning tenants that they face some stark choices."

In February, the Guardian revealed that Camden council in north London said 700 families faced being moved up to 200 miles away because the coalition's benefit cap would mean they would be unable to afford their current accommodation or any other home in south-east England.

A spokesperson for Genesis at first denied that letters had been sent out. When confronted with the text of the letter, the social landlord, which manages about 30,000 homes across London and south-east England, said there had been a "cack-handed attempt" to explain the situation in Haringey to "some clients". "That letter should not have been written that way. We are working with tenants in Haringey to help them out of arrears."

Last month, the government was accused of misrepresenting statistics to claim that the cap on benefits had driven 8,000 people to find work.

The Department for Work and Pensions said: "We have been working hard over the last 12 months to support claimants who might be affected by the benefit cap – with Jobcentre Plus, councils and housing associations providing practical help, such as training to get into work and advice over housing options."

The letter available for download has been altered at Genesis' request to protect the privacy of a
junior member of staff

First published at The Guardian

Haringey at the end of the welfare state

You may have seen the Guardian’s two-pager on poverty and homelessness on 19 Nov. The New Economics Foundation’s (NEF) report ; Everyday Austerity; life at the end of the welfare state looks at the impact of the ConDems’ myriad benefit cuts in Haringey – and Birmingham. It details the local effects of cuts in tax credits, housing benefits, benefits for disabled people – and the horrendous prospect of more to come, with £28 billion to be stripped out of the national welfare budget by 2017. Haringey Citizen’sAdvice Bureau has estimated that the ‘benefits cap’ of £500 per week being introduced by the ConDems in April 2013 will hit around 1100 families in the borough, with 600 of them losing over £100 a week.

There are now at least four food banks in Haringey, serving those hit by cuts and increasingly by the new sanctions regime which, since October, allows job centres to deny people benefits for up to three years if they offend against the very rigid jobseeker rules.

The NEF report reveals:-

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      Drastic effects of the limits on housing benefit/local housing allowance which were introduced in January this year, placing 6900 Haringey homes that were affordable for people claiming these benefits now out of their reach. Up to 1100 families are expected to become homeless as a result –plus over 800 single people who are ineligible for local authority rehousing and are already cramming into church-run night shelters.

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      A mounting personal debt crisis, with three and a half times as many applications for ‘crisis loans’ in 2009/10 compared to 2005/6. (The Social Fund which provided “crisis loans” will close and the responsibility for making them devolved to local councils in April 2013 – it’s not yet clear what Haringey will do about this).

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      A huge overload for the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, which now sees queues from dawn onwards of people needing debt advice, help with appeals against benefit cuts and withdrawal of benefits due to sanctions and the much-criticised ATOS medical tests. (These tests have re-classified many disabled people – often inappropriately- as ‘fit for work’ in the worst job market for decades).

All this comes as Paul Nicholson, of Taxpayers against Poverty (TAP), has begun a campaign against cuts in Council Tax Benefit (see earlier post on this blog and the Haringey Independent). From April 2013, central government money for this benefit will be reduced, and councils will have to either source more of its cost themselves, or devise their own local schemes at lower rates. Haringey’s consultation about this ended on November 19th, with TAP and many others arguing that it is both unjust and unrealistic to expect people already facing benefit cuts, to pay 20% of their council tax when previously all of it had been paid for them.  Whilst rich councils like Westminster can afford to fill the gap and maintain CTB levels, Haringey cannot. Its main solution must be to lobby central government against the change with other similarly affected councils.

Likewise London-wide is needed to secure more affordable housing and challenge Tory policies. Mayor Johnson recently announced that he would no longer fund any new social-rented housing. He said the 50,000 target for new ‘affordable’ homes over the next four years would mean rents at between 60 and 80% of the market rate – well above the levels that housing benefit will now pay.  Unless Haringey acts with other councils to demand the reinstatement and increase of genuine ‘affordable homes’ targets, and to demand the reintroduction of rent control, low waged and disabled people will basically be driven out of London.

The failure of other boroughs to provide sufficient low cost housing also impacts on Haringey. Families hit by the housing benefits cuts are moving to Haringey to escape high rents closer to the centre. Other boroughs are also renting private landlords' here for 'their' homeless - between June and September 2012, 258 homeless households were housed by other boroughs in Haringey, amongst them 27 'vulnerable' needing social work support, whilst Haringey council had to place 105 of its own homeless applicants out of the borough. With other London boroughs, by last month it was looking for homeless accommodation outside of London.     

But on affordable homes, Haringey’s own policies need a re-think.  The new “Plan for Tottenham” with its promise to increase the proportion of owner-occupied housing in Tottenham and restrict conversion of existing buildings to bedsits (“HMOs” or “houses in multiple occupation”) makes one wonder where more badly needed low-cost housing is going to come from.

We need some Green Councillors to stand up for the low-paid, disabled and unemployed people of Tottenham, to secure adequate housing for them, more jobs and a London living wage level.

Written by Anne Gray

Haringey Council Tax Benefit Reductions to Cause Increase in Poverty

A local activist writes an open letter to Haringey council opposing their proposed reductions to Council Tax Benefit:

I am a resident of Tottenham, living at 93 Campbell Road, N17 0BF; I pay the full rate of Council Tax (CT) for this property. I am responding to the Haringey Council's consultation about the abolition of the national council tax benefit (CTB), and about Haringey’s proposals to replace it with their local scheme.

I write to oppose your proposals on the grounds that the 25,560 households, who now pay no council tax will have to pay 20%, or around £300pa, from April 2013.

It is irrational on three grounds;

•benefits are paid by the Department of Work and Pensions to our poorest fellow citizens to provide the necessities of life; they are already inadequate in work and out of work and the benefit claimants' health and well being will put at risk, as will their children's education, by taxing those benefit incomes. 

 •there are so many cuts to benefits being made by the Department of Work and Pensions to the already inadequate benefit incomes that the risks of ill-health mentioned in (1) are multiplied.

•the stress of enforcement in families who cannot pay places expensive demands on the mental and physical health services and the schools

 •no account has been taken of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation minimum income standards which underline the inadequacy of the benefits before they are taxed.

•the increasing number of calls on the three food banks in the Borough are further evidence that benefit claimants will not be able to pay the council tax

Haringey is also abolishing the CTB for an unspecified number of people whose level of savings is currently over £10,000 by cutting the level of entitlement from £16,000. The council has not provided enough information to enable anyone to make a decision about whether this policy is rational or not; this is not a valid consultation.

The council says it is consulting all residents; how is the council ensuring that commitment is being kept?

In 1989 the Thatcher government added an amount to unemployment benefit to help them pay the poll tax; there is no sign of that in Haringey today.

Haringey has not carried out an assessment of the cumulative impact of the measures taken by the DWP to cut the benefits of 25,560 Haringey residents they now propose to tax; the measures impacting on the income of benefit claimants are;

1. The rate of increase of already inadequate benefits has been reduced by the move of uprating from RPI to CPI in April 2011, while prices of food and fuel escalate,

2. Housing benefit caps,

3. Bedroom tax,

4. £500 cap on all benefits.

5. Nationally sanctions now stop or reduce benefit payments for between 2 weeks and six months. 508,000 benefit sanctions were handed out in 2011, a rise from the 139,000 imposed in 2009. Many sanctions have been applied in the borough of Haringey.

6. The social fund has been abolished.

The local authorities will charge inevitable defaulters around £70 for a liability order from the magistrate’s courts, on top of the CT arrears, they and the advice sector, already overwhelmed will be swamped. The bailiffs charge defaulters up to £400 more.

Written by Rev Paul Nicolson, a local non party political aligned Haringey activist.

Tory tax on the poor – coming to a council near you

Once upon a time, there were 20 people living in King Tory‘s Mansion, 10 of whom were assessed as ‘unable’ to pay for their Council Tax for various reasons ranging from old age, disabilities, mental illness or lowly paid. The total amount of Council Tax for all 20 people was £2,000, or £100 per a person. The 10 that could pay, did directly and the 10 that could not had their Council Tax paid for by King Tory, totalling £1,000.

One day King Tory says to the 10 who can’t pay: “We are only going to pay £900 towards your Council Tax”, or a 10% cut. The 10 would need to find £10 each to top up the amount needed for Council Tax.

King Tory has a condition: he will give £900 but the pensioners will be protected 100% from paying any Council Tax. As 5 of the 10 are pensioners, £500 of the £900 is spent on them. This means the remaining 5 only have £400 between them, and now need to find £20 each. So the cut for them is 20% even though the pot is only 10% smaller.

The central government is imposing an ideology many of us would remember as the ‘Poll Tax’ where everyone must pay something. What they have done is fired a shot, and handed the gun to Local Councils to take the rap. We must not be fooled by this, even though some Councils appear to be taking the blame for the shot fired.

Who gets shot next is up to us, it’s called ‘Localism’, through the ‘consultations’.

Central Government have asked Local Councils to undertake, we decide who pays and who does not, whether everyone outside the protected pensioners pay 20% or whether we also protect low income families with Children, thus increasing the percentage for the rest.

We are being forced to choose one vulnerable group over another, groups that probably will already be facing cuts in Working Tax Credits, Housing Benefit, Disability Allowance and anything else from the ‘Overall Benefit Cap (OBC) etc.

This also creates a ‘postcode lottery’ as People with Disabilities could win the X-Factor style choice in one borough but in a neighbouring borough People with Disabilities have not won the popularity contest to be chosen. Therefore, many Local Councils are proposing a blanket ‘they all pay the same percentage regardless of circumstances’ roll out.

In Haringey where I live the shortfall is £5.7m this year and it is not 10 people affected, it is 36,000 in our borough alone. Some families are looking at a loss of a variety of benefits, including Council Tax to equate a weekly shortfall of up to £246.33.

Haringey is one of the cheapest places in London to live, so if families are unable to live here then social cleansing from more affluent areas is most definitely going to be taking place, if not already.

There are options, the Local Authority could use money from another budget to pay for this shortfall, but in Haringey that budget is already being cut by £86m just like many boroughs in England. Even if the Local Council decided to sell an ‘Old Peoples Home’ this year, what are they selling next year or the year after?

Whilst communities up and down the country figure out how this can all be paid for, ‘King Tory’ and his friends are enjoying their Income Tax Cut and some are not even paying any taxes.

Written by Seema Chandwani and first published at Liberal Conspiracy

Healthwatch Haringey - Have Your Say

On http://www.haringey.gov.uk/www.haringey.gov.uk/healthwatch-haringey you will find a publicity brochure about a new organisation, Healthwatch Haringey, which is supposed to be 'your local health and social care watchdog'. On behalf of the Defend Haringey Health Services Coalition, I am writing to organisations who may be concerned about the following facts:-

1) Haringey Healthwatch will apparently replace 'Link', which has recently been the patients' representation body. It's being set up at a time when new laws and structures are changing the health service drastically. In particular, the new Commissioning Boards (to 'buy' hospital, etc  services on behalf of local doctors) and orders from central government to put many parts of the NHS out to tender to 'any willing provider'

2) The brochure contains a 'have your say' questionnaire and an invitation to any reader to 'get involved' presumably so that the Council and the NHS can choose who will be members of the new body and continue to represent patients. No elections, just volunteers - and they choose who to have.

3) This is apparently being distributed through Morrison’s supermarket (and some libraries); it has just been noticed in the last few days and we don't know where else it can be obtained except the website given above.

4) The brochure says 'our consultation so far has been with the following voluntary and community sector groups', then mentions a list of 22 local organisations. There are some MAJOR omissions in this list:-

NO consultation with residents' association or their Haringey Federation

NO consultation with trade unions

Two Christian groups mentioned, but no other faith groups

NO reference to Age UK or the Haringey Older People's Forum

Patchy and limited coverage of ethnic minority groups - have a look at the list

5) 'Decisions about what Healthwatch Haringey will look like will be made in consultation with local people, stakeholders and Haringey residents'. One might ask, how ?  and which residents ?

Please circulate this message and encourage the un-consulted people and organisations to come forward!

You may also wish to write to any of the Councillors who are cabinet members for relevant policy areas, to ask them how Healthwatch members are going to be chosen and how the population are supposed to find out they can put themselves forward:- 

Cabinet Member for Health and Adult Services – Cllr Dilek Dogus

Cabinet Member for Social Inclusion (and Economic Development, but it's inclusion that's relevant here) – Cllr Alan Strickland

Cabinet Member for Communities – Cllr Bernice Vanier

HEALTH OVERVIEW AND  SCRUTINY COMMITTEE:

Councillor Reg Rice(Chair) , 225 High Road, Wood Green, London, , N22 8HQ, , reg.rice@haringey.gov.uk

Councillor David Winskill,(Vice Chair) River Park House, 225 High Road, Wood Green, London, N22 8HQ, 020 8374 5650, david.winskill@haringey.gov.uk.

Written by Anne Gray, Haringey Green Party

Mark Duggan: the lessons the police haven't learned

Last week I attended the funeral of Bruno Hall. It is a year since his son, Mark Duggan (pictured), was shot and killed by police officers on the streets of Tottenham. Bruno was given his send-off in the same church as Mark, and buried in the same plot. For the hundreds of mourners, it felt like we were reliving the trauma and emotion of Mark's death all over again.

Bruno passed away not knowing why his son had been killed. One of the last things he said to me was that he had more unanswered questions than he had on the day of Mark's death. Much has been written about Mark's killing and the subsequent disorder that spread across the country. However, it would appear that very little has been learnt about its root causes, especially by those in positions of power.

The riots that took place in Tottenham did not happen because of the shooting of Mark Duggan: if this was the case the rioting would have started on 4 August, the day he was slain. The rioting was sparked by the inadequate response to demonstrators who had gathered outside Tottenham police station two days later to voice their unhappiness over the treatment of Mark's parents. This is important and must be acknowledged if we are to avoid future outbreaks of social unrest.

The Metropolitan Police Service has clearly not learned this. It was forced to apologise publicly to Mark's parents, after failing in its legal requirement to inform them of their son's death. But it still doesn't understand that had it performed its basic duties, demonstrators need never have gone to the police station. And if we hadn't attended there would have been no rioting that evening. It is that simple. Yet, even after having apologised, the Met still compiled a report, Four Days in August, that sought to lay the blame for the riots on those who led the peaceful protest. Clearly they should be focusing on improving the way they respond to such incidents – or, better still, trying to ensure such incidents do not arise in the first place.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission's investigation into the operation that led to Mark's death is another great concern to the family. The IPCC meets regularly with family members in what they call "update meetings", but actually tell them very little.

The whole issue of disclosure of information, or the lack of it, has become a significant feature of this investigation, with the inquest coroner having to demand that the IPCC hands over all its evidence for him to examine. But it's hard to know what this evidence amounts to, as the officers involved in the shooting still refuse to give statements or to be questioned directly by the IPCC. There is also the suggestion that the laws that keep secret any telephone-tapping activity by the security services may be enacted in this case – meaning that an open inquest, where all the evidence is presented to a coroner and a jury, might never take place. It's as though a veil of secrecy has been thrown over the entire investigation. This clearly undermines the confidence that the family, and many within the community, have in the IPPC's ability to conduct a thorough, transparent and robust investigation.

It is ironic then that, in the time the IPCC has taken to tell us so little, there have been three separate "independent" reviews, published with much fanfare, that are already gathering dust. The Tottenham Community Panel's review, Taking Tottenham Forward, was led by Haringey councillors and their friends. While well-meaning in its focus on the regeneration of the high road, its buzz words and jargon mean little as the report has few measurable targets or milestones. How will the local authority, Haringey, develop training, jobs or opportunities for those who live in its depressed estates that are the breeding grounds for the potential demonstrators and rioters of the future? Added to this is the recent unwarranted involvement of the police, whose interference and intrusive style of policing led to the last-minute cancelling of an event to commemorate Bruno's life and passing. Incidents like this mean there will always be the potential for conflict between those with power and the powerless.

Despite all of the investigations and reviews of the last 12 months, there is a real sense within some sections of the community of not having been involved or listened to by anyone in authority. Things such as this only serve to exacerbate the local people's long-felt and deep sense of marginalisation and injustice. We should have learnt that these are the ingredients for a "perfect storm", which can break out any time.

Written by Stafford Scott and first published in The Guardian

One year on from the riots: could money solve Tottenham’s problems?

Voltaire once said, “When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.” I’m not so sure about that.

Shortly after the riots ended last year, Tottenham has received a wave of investment into its local economy. However, money alone cannot solve the area’s problems and unless they are dealt with head on we run the risk of more civil unrest.

Sir William Castell’s business coalition set up a £1m High Street Fund to support Tottenham’s local business community. The department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) has awarded grants to 150 businesses totalling £365,000 and more than £1m of rate relief has been awarded to date.

Tottenham Hotspur FC has made a decision to remain in the area. The GLA has promised to turn a building damaged in an arson attack last year into a £3m enterprise hub. Tottenham’s local business community have received support by various government bodies.

All of this is needed and welcome. In fact, we need more! And Haringey Council have put together a budget for youth provision this summer. This is a temporary measure, but I hope it will be expanded. The council have committed to fund a new employment and skills programme worth £4.5m which is good. On top of that, their £1.5m One Borough One Fund is great.

But the 80% cut to youth services is still on the minds of young people. Hundreds of businesses’ riots damages claims are yet to be settled. Unemployment levels are still too high. It’s a tough battle.

The riots have spurred new investment into the local community. But we have got to make sure that this isn’t a short-term fix to a long problem. Tottenham has now got two riots bookending a generation and the socio-economic harm caused by these events will not be healed quickly.

The fact that another riot has happened again 20 years after the Broadwater Farm Riots must serve as a pertinent reminder of the problems with short-term thinking.

Money can’t fix everything: it can’t pay people to forget the fact that Mark Duggan’s death has not been properly investigated. It cannot buy a change in law to allow the coroner to interview police officers about what happened minutes before the shooting.

It can’t buy the justice that so many people seek. In the immediate aftermath of the riots, David Lammy MP warned us of the similarities with the Broadwater Farm Riot. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) had to prove its worth. So far, it hasn’t proved to be totally effective.

What money can do, though, is provide opportunities. We could, for example, have big businesses in Tottenham guarantee jobs for local people. Those who have got Olympic jobs could be helped in the post-Olympic transition to long-term jobs. We could maintain the number of police officers in the area, instead of having to cut them. We do need investment: in the right places and for the right reasons.

While the investment is a step in the right direction we must not forget what matters most. The Broadwater Farm Riots taught us that no amount of investment could buy people. In the aftermath, the council invested in the estate that improved the area.

But you can’t pay away anger and resentment. One year on from the riots, let’s not make the mistake of forgetting. We’ve got no excuses. Beneath all the pound signs lies a sometimes silent frustration that only needs another spark.

Written by Alvin Carpio who was the Organiser of the Citizens’ Inquiry into the Tottenham Riots

This piece was first published at Liberal Conspiracy

Council Tax Benefit Changes to cost £38 per household in Haringey

Plans to give local authorities control over council tax rebate at the same time as cutting funding by a tenth could result in the poor driven out by boroughs seeking to save money – and raises the prospect of a replay of the poll tax debacle, a report claims.

A damning assessment by the Institute for Fiscal Studies of the proposed council tax benefit changes, which start next April, says that although the reform's £480m-a-year savings equate to an average £19 per household, the working poor would be hit hardest.

The government proposes to allow councils to design a local benefit system but in return says it will cut funding for it by 10%. With 5.9 million recipients, it is more widely claimed than any other means-tested benefit or tax credit.

The cut in funding will be larger, says the think tank, in areas where council tax benefit spending is highest – the more deprived areas of Britain. It estimates the cut in funding will range from around £5 per dwelling in the wealthy City of London to £38 per household in Haringey, the fourth most deprived borough in the capital.

The report also notes that the requirement to protect pensioners in England means that the cut in funding of a tenth translates into a 19% cut in support for working-age claimants.

Those local authorities where pensioners account for an above-average share of council tax benefit spending would need to make larger percentage cuts to support for working-age recipients. For one in 10 English local authorities it would be more than 25%, with the highest value being 33% in East Dorset and in Craven, North Yorkshire.

The IFS also says cuts to council tax support are bound to hit lower-income households, as 85% of the benefit goes to the lower-income half of households and almost half goes just to the lowest-income fifth.

The report's authors warns that to limit their spending councils will have "an incentive to discourage low-income families from living in the area" and that raises the possibility that councils will – like the ill-fated poll tax of the early 1990s – be left to chase desperately poor people through the courts for small amounts of unpaid tax.

The poll tax led to riots and played a part in the downfall of Margaret Thatcher. Recalling these events, the IFS says in 1990 "the perceived unfairness of the tax was associated with non-compliance on a scale rarely seen in the UK".

However, the new scheme replicates some of the worst aspects of the poll tax. "These policies mean that all households, even those on the lowest incomes, would have to pay some council tax. The poll tax experience showed how difficult it can be to collect small amounts of tax from low-income households that are not used to paying it," they say, noting that the poll tax was "quickly replaced".

The proposed scheme also risks "severely undermining" the government's flagship universal credit scheme, which will replace six of the seven main means-tested benefits and tax credits for those of working age with a single benefit. However, the seventh means-tested benefit will be "localised".

James Browne, a senior research economist at the IFS and one of the authors of the report, said: "Cutting support for council tax and localising it are two distinct policy choices: either could have been done without the other. Whether you think that cutting council tax support for low-income families is the best way to reduce government borrowing by £500m will depend on your views about how much redistribution the state ought to do.

"But the advantages of localisation seem to be outweighed by the disadvantages, particularly as it has the potential to undermine many of the positive impacts of universal credit."

A version of this report was first published at The Guardian

Disabled workers strike over closure of Haringey Remploy factory

Disabled workers in Haringey joined a 24-hour nationwide strike last week to protest against government plans to close a string of factories and throw thousands out of work.

Workers from the Remploy factory in Hermitage Road, South Tottenham brandished protest banners outside the premises during industrial action last Thursday.

Strikes took place at all 54 Remploy factories in the UK after employees voted for industrial action in ballots carried out by the GMB and Unite unions.

Strike action was called following the government’s decision earlier this month to close 27 Remploy factories, including the Haringey site, by the end of the year, leading to the loss of 1,700 jobs in total.

Phil Davies, GMB national secretary, said: “Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith is systematically destroying lives by his hard-hearted actions. We will continue our campaign by all means at our disposal.”

Under the plans, a further nine factories face an uncertain future and the remaining 18 sites across the country are due to close or be sold off next year.

Another 24-hour strike by Remploy workers in protest at the closures is due today.

Remploy was set up in 1945 to employ wounded soldiers. The business still provides jobs for disabled workers today.

A version of this article was first published at The Hornsey Journal.

Tottenham Community Rallies to Save Historic Market

On Thursday 26th July the Wards Corner Community Coalition (WCC) launches their exciting community-led plan to regenerate Seven Sisters indoor market in a further show of defiance against Haringey Council and developer Grainger PLC's plans to demolish this much loved community asset.

The Wards Corner market building has been an icon of Seven Sisters since it first opened for business in the early 1900s. The elegant, steel-frame, red-brick structure housed Wards Furnishing Stores, a classic London department store, until it closed in 1972.

Today Wards Corner is the home of a diverse and bustling local market, including London's most vibrant cluster of Latin-American traders.

Dark Clouds over Wards Corner

On 25th June 2012, after years of controversy and community outcry, Haringey Council backed with a 5-4 vote a plan led by one of the UK's biggest landlords, Grainger PLC, to demolish the building and replace it with a residential and commercial development which would be prohibitively expensive for the existing occupants to return to. Haringey Council is a development partner of Grainger on the project, and has been unresponsive to the concerns of local residents.

Mrs Malti Patel has been running a successful shop on West Green Road, part of the coveted development site at Seven Sisters tube for 30 years, but now feels fearful and betrayed. “The council should be protecting hard-working, honest people like me, but I am being ignored. I will lose my business, my job, my friends, my security and my home,” she said.

The Wards Corner Community Coalition (WCC), a campaigning group formed by local residents and traders, has been fighting this one-size-fits-all planning approach since 2007. In an early WCC victory for the community, a judicial review and court of appeals ruling quashed an earlier plan by Grainger in 2010.Then, with huge public support including over 2000 signatures from local traders and residents, and in collaboration with  Planning Aid for London, English Heritage, Friends of the Earth and the Federation of Small Businesses, they managed to see off another version of the same project by the developer in July 2011.

The Community Plan

In defiance of Grainger’s planning approval for demolition, the community proposes an alternative plan based on restoration and developing the area’s existing character and strengths. WCC propose to restore the heritage character of the building and retain the existing market and small businesses whilst providing for new retail and restaurant space, an art gallery, performance space and a community room for events and meetings. WCC also foresees a wider regeneration of the area creating new affordable housing on the site around the market and bringing empty buildings back into use, addressing the goals set out in the original development brief.

Abigail Stevenson, an architectural designer who has worked with the WCC to develop the new Community Plan, stresses the need for planning to engage with and reflect the wishes of the local community. “A community-led alternative would be much better and more appropriate,” says Stevenson. “Architecture is not just about building buildings. You have to engage with people, because if people aren't on board with your ideas, they're not going to work.”

Local resident Candy Amsden, who is a long-time member of the Wards Corner Community Coalition, remembers well her first impressions on entering the Edwardian building:

“I saw this amazing space, and an amazing possibility. There's a set of sky-lights with beautiful cornicing and light just pours in around the pillars inside,” she said.

Amsden sees the Community Plan as a way to foster local enterprise in post-riots Tottenham.

"Small businesses will use other small businesses, they'll use the local accountant, local suppliers. Tesco's and Sainsbury's won't do that," she said.

WCC continues to make their case for community-led development with the plan’s public unveiling this week in Tottenham, which will focus on gathering further feedback and questions from local residents and traders through open small-group discussion.

The Community Plan application has been submitted to the Haringey Council planning authorities, and will be launched publicly at Tottenham Chances at 7pm on Thursday 26th July.

Press:

Email wardscornercommunity@riseup.net

+44 (0)7908 705 377

For info on the community plan including images:

WardsCornerCommunityPlan.wordpress.com