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Today's top SocietyGuardian stories
• Former care homes inspector arrested over bribery allegations
• Local elections: Labour aims to regain ground in Wales
• What can the north expect in next week's elections?
• Local elections vs coping with the cuts
• Drug company attacks Nice for rejecting new lupus treatment
• MoD workers to join civil servants and health workers in 10 May strike
• A new legal high goes on sale every week, says EU drugs agency
• Diary: Who's funding the independent inquiry into the future of social
care? Private insurers. Who else?
• Shelter launches 'Rotten Homes Liverpool' campaign
All today's SocietyGuardian stories
On the Guardian Professional Networks
• Live discussion from noon: social care and social media
• Liza Ramrayka reports on how many charities are rethinking their financial model and exploring more sustainable options, such as earned income or loans
• The NHS should employ social anthropologists to make sure policy changes don't have an undesired result, writes Sean Carey
• Celia Richardson from Social Enterprise UK discusses how many local authorities are working with social enterprises to benefit the communities they serve
On my radar ...
• Continuing reaction to the Newham housing story. On Comment is free, blogger Dave Hill writes that the saga is just the latest episode in a larger London story:
House of Commons figures show huge rises in the numbers of Londoners qualifying for small – and therefore uncapped – amounts of housing benefit despite being in work. While rents have been rising, wages have been stagnating. The taxpayer is now making up the difference.
Logic argues that this collectively enlarging welfare bill would be smaller were more public money invested in housing that more Londoners could afford, but austerity ideology forbids use of the brain. Cuts in funding to housing associations mean that a new generation of "affordable" homes for rent will be little cheaper than their market counterparts. Meanwhile, the price of buying has soared beyond the stratosphere. Young Londoners with average incomes clinging to the home-ownership dream will be middle-aged before they've saved up a deposit.
Hill's points are echoed on the New Policy Institute blog, Hannah Aldridge and Anushree Parekh explain why moving people to Stoke won't be enough to cut the housing benefit bill, and challenge some of housing minister Grant Shapps' comments this week:
There was another quote from the minister that really stood out. He said, "It can't be right to have people able on housing benefit to live on streets and homes that hardworking people are unable to live in themselves."
But this misrepresents what housing benefits are for – they are paid to those in work as well as those out of work. The reason that a household is entitled to housing benefit is because the housing is unaffordable, the benefit is provided to cover for the cost of housing and legally has to be paid to the landlord. This is as true for those in work as it is those out of work.
This is important when understanding the rising total Housing Benefits bill. A recent report by BHSF found that working households account for 93% of the increase in housing benefit claimants between 2010 and 2011. Around one in six housing benefit claimants are in work, and one in four working households in rented accommodation claim housing benefit.
The minister pointed to the huge rise in the HB bill over the last decade (from £16bn to £25bn as we pointed out here ), but misses one of the main reasons why it is rising.
In the last year, the number of claimants of Local Housing Allowance (LHA, the housing benefit paid to tenants in private rented accommodation) rose by 6% nationwide. If we focus on London, the numbers of housing benefit claimants are rising there also. Our recent work on London's Poverty Profile looked specifically at claims for LHA in London's boroughs, and how they had changed in the last year. The expectation was that the introduction of the LHA cap would reduce claims in expensive areas and lead to increases in more affordable parts of the capital.
(thanks to Nancy Kelley for the link)
• A post I missed last week from the ever excellent Flip Chart Fairy Tales blog, which deserves re-airing in the light of the warning by the Local Government Association that unless care for the elderly is reformed, councils could be forced to the close parks, libraries and public toilets as resources are diverted to "plug the gap" in care funding. Blogger Rick predicts that the pressure of supporting the ageing population will lead to the end of the state as we know it:
Government planners have known for years that they were going to have to face increased ageing costs at some point but few, if any, factored the impact of a massive global recession into their calculations. They knew pressures on spending would increase towards the end of the 2010s but they didn't expect to be facing it with public debts approaching 100 percent of GDP.
The already high levels of debt give governments very little room to manoeuvre. Of course, right-wingers will say that there are massive efficiencies to be made in the public sector because there is so much waste. Left-wingers will say that there are loads of rich people hiding their money who could easily be taxed to pay for all this. Both may be right up to a point. Well, actually, not much of a point. The amounts of 'waste' identified by blustering politicians usually turn out to be comically small. And even if the £42bn tax gap could be collected, which a glance at the eye-watering detail in this paper shows to be damn near impossible, it still wouldn't cover the extra costs of ageing. No matter how hard we squeeze rich tax-dodgers or lazy bureaucrats, we won't get an extra 4% of GDP in revenue or savings.
Which means that the government's response will have to be simultaneous tax increases and spending cuts. People will pay more and get less. The pressure to reduce the cost of public services won't go away. Even when the economy improves, the drive for efficiency and cost cutting in the public sector will continue.
• A recommended post by Abe Laurens on the Not So Big Society blog, asking are too many children being taken into care?
The balance between the intervention of the state and the freedom of the individual in regard to child care is fundamental to every household with children. Until this is clarified, social work will flounder at the mercy of shifting tides of opinion and will not be able to protect the children who need to be safe. Never mind the controversy in the Mail or elsewhere about where the threshold lies, we need to know that a threshold exists.
The boundaries are being established not by evidence, policy or government initiative but by the reactions of local authorities to two developments: baby Peter and the cuts. As a professional this makes me profoundly uneasy. I want to know what to do, how to apply the law together with my training and expertise. This has diminished value if the threshold for care is dictated primarily by factors that have nothing to do with these fundamentals, let alone the actual level of need.
• A great new word that might just catch on - nonsultation. On the Directory of Social Change site, Dr Catherine Walker writes about the time and energy wasted on government 'nonsultation' with the voluntary sector:
We believe consultation is an incredibly important way of engaging in the politicies which may affect not just us but the whole of the voluntary sector. And because of our particular stance we feel very strongly that our duty to respond extends to speaking up for the myriad of smaller charitable organisations who may not have that capacity. So we take it all very seriously. Which is why it is particularly galling when government appears to then ignore our responses.
Actually, not just ours but others' too! We keep a very close eye on what people say and whether or not anything changes as a result. So recently we've begun to seriously question whether the Government genuinely amends it's thinking on the basis of its consultations.
Our Director of Policy, Publications and Research - Ben Wittenberg - wrote in e-news recently that the timetables for feedback and action from recent consultations have come and gone without a hint of anything happening. And we're not the only ones who've noticed. Richard Caulfield, Chief Executive of Voluntary Sector North West (VSNW) has also 'had a go' (external website) about what we call 'nonsultation' on issues ranging from The Compact, and Modernising Commissioning to the most recent Charities Act Review to which we have just put together our considered response.
(thanks to Mike Chitty for sharing the link)
• Charity 4Children, which has launched a mayoral manifesto for families. Ahead of the London mayoral election last week, 4Children set out 10 things they say families want their mayor to deliver for them, including a test to ensure all policies from City Hall are family friendly; tackling the capital's housing crisis; and developing more flexible childcare. The charity looked at the candidates' manifestos to see who comes closest to fulfilling the pledges - and found that the most family-friendly candidates are the Green Party's Jenny Jones and independent Siobhan Benita.
• No mention of family friendly policies in this very funny animation from my colleague Paul Owen. Which condenses the mayoral election - well Boris vs Ken - into two and a half minutes.
• National Autistic Society, which has launched a new online community for professionals. Network Autism was launched following research that found they wanted a space to network, share and learn. Members already signed up range from forensic psychiatrists to support workers.
Other news
• BBC: Vote fraud claims sent to police
• Children & Young People Now: Baroness Ritchie's legacy praised by sector colleagues
• Independent: Osborne will struggle to cut another £77bn, warn MPs
• Inside Housing: Shapps challenged to prove rent claim
• Public Finance: Councils bid for extra care money
• Telegraph: Elderly care funding will force closure of libraries, councils warn
• Third Sector: Voluntary sector culture is predatory, charity independence campaign group says
Awards
Is your organisation using technology to revolutionise frontline services? Have you implemented a shared service that improves efficiency and saves money?
Enter the Innovation Nation awards – deadline for entries is 30 April.
Innovation Nation, in partnership with Virgin Media Business, is an initiative to uncover the most innovative organisations and chief information officers in the UK.
Events and seminars
Managing volunteers
Tuesday 15 May, Kings Cross, London
Engaging with volunteers is an increasingly challenging task. This half-day seminar will help you explore what 21st century volunteers want and what you need to do to involve them effectively. Delivered by leading expert Rob Jackson, this session is a must for anyone building a long-term volunteer engagement strategy.
Digital engagement surgery
Thursday 17 May, Kings Cross, London
This engaging and participatory workshop will look at real-life scenarios and how charities are using digital techniques to collaborate and communicate. Attendees will be asked bring challenges in with them (submitted advance), which will be shared in a workshop format to collectively tackle common themes running through the sector.
Successful bid writing
Friday 18 May, Kings Cross, London
Bid writing is an essential skill in voluntary sector organisations. This interactive seminar will help you create applications and bids that demonstrate your organisation's strengths and priorities, how you differ from other projects, what the benefits are for your clients and the community and how you'll be able to measure them.
Social media for health and social care
Thursday 31 May, Kings Cross, London
With massive changes facing health and social care provision the need for clear, open and accessible communication channels is greater than ever. Whether you are looking to improve engagement with patients, clients and peers, promote your services or increase media coverage, this practical, interactive seminar tailored for health professionals will show you how social media can help you do it.
Identifying, measuring and demonstrating social value
Tuesday 12 June, Kings Cross, London
The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 highlights the need for the public sector to ensure suppliers can demonstrate social, economic and environmental concerns are at the heart of public sector contracts.This seminar looks at the importance of measurement and assessment techniques, embedding social values through tendering and contract management, and a variety of evaluation and monitoring tools.
Scrutiny: making an impact
Tuesday 26 June, Kings Cross, London
This interactive seminar challenges traditional approaches to scrutiny, demonstrating in-depth questioning techniques and exploring the use of video evidence. It also considers the difference between a finding and a recommendation, how to word recommendations so they can't be ignored and work through good practice to evaluate each scrutiny process.
Making the most of social media for social housing
Friday 29 June, Kings Cross, London
This overview of social media channels will show you how to use them to maximum effect, with clear, practical examples of ways to save money, improve your communications and form a social media campaign
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