On the Mayor-making in Camden

The Camden Lib Dems have created another fuss - and a little traction in the press, even an editorial - over their demand, against convention, to nominate a councillor for this year's Mayoralty.

At 13 out of 54 councillors, the Lib Dems are the official opposition over a slightly smaller Conservative Group.

In expectation of their protests in front of the Borough's citizens this evening at the Mayor-making, it's important to set out why - in our local democracy - the Mayoralty is not shared.

As the Lib Dems full well know, the Mayor performs a constitutional role as the borough's first citizen, as well as the ceremonial role they covet.  

The Mayor, for example, has the casting vote in council meetings when Camden's £250m Budget is set.  

If Mayors were just about eating cucumber sandwiches and opening Camden-in-Bloom events they might have a point, but it seems like they intend to play games with those present by confusing the constitutional and ceremonial roles that are both present in the Mayoralty.

While we of course respect Cllr. Rea's long-service, the Liberal Democrats know the Mayoralty is crucial to the functioning of the council, the leadership of which was decided decisively by Camden voters at the last election.

They voters had their say, so perhaps the Lib Dems should respect that?

Update:  Here's the spat, as reported in the New Journal.  Most guests were a bit bemused by this. 

Dodgiest Lib Dem Bar Chart in a while

Camden New Journal blog-man Richard Osley notes the return of the 'dodgy bar chart' in Tory target Hampstead and Kilburn, in 2010 a threeway contest and on paper the most marginal seat in the country.

Of course, everyone knows (even erstwhile candidates) that the Lib Dem vote is getting punished right across north London - making them even more desperate to convince voters that they are still 'neck-and-neck.'

Here's the dodgiest bar chart I've seen in a while - doing the rounds in Swiss Cottage at the moment - with a rather skewed ratio between 30:13:10!

Public wifi network to be established in Camden

Camden council will take a major step forward in enhancing our digital infrastructure for residents through a new deal with Arqiva to deliver public Wi-Fi to streets and open spaces across the borough.  The aim is to make Camden one of the most digitally connected places in Europe.

Camden has led a group of councils across London to secure deals that will provide a wireless network where residents, businesses and visitors will be able to access 30 minutes of free Wi-Fi services every day using registered devices such as smartphones, laptops and tablets.

Participating councils include Hackney, Islington, Brent, Merton, Haringey, Hounslow, Lambeth, Wandsworth, Hammersmith and Fulham and Barnet.

Independent of the 30 free minutes, users of the service will be able to access Camden Council’s online services free of charge 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The contract with Arqiva provides substantial financial incentives for Camden and will help to deliver the objectives of the Camden Plan to make the borough a place where "everyone has a chance to succeed and where nobody gets left behind."  

Income will be generated for the Council over the 10 year life of the contract will be used to support digital innovation in local firms and tackle digital exclusion - 14% of Camden's residents do not use the internet.

The new tech infrastucture will be a substantial boost to local businesses, driving further innovation in advertising and Camden-relevant apps. 

The service will be rolled out across the borough from 1 June 2013 to the end of 2014, covering areas which will have the highest demand first. Phase one will target the South of Camden in areas of high footfall. 

The remaining phases will cover:

*           Camden Town and Kentish Town
*           Kilburn, Finchley, Hampstead and Belsize Park

See report in today's Standard http://www.standard.co.uk/news/techandgadgets/camden-launches-free-onstreet-wifi-8614836.html

QCCA's Older People's Lunch Club Video

Camden hosts 'hackday' to use data for public good

On Friday May 10th Camden participated in our first “hack day” with employees from Google, Barclays, EDF Energy, GlaxoSmithKline, and the Intellectual Property Office - alongside the Big Innovation Centre - all whom brought technical expertise and insights on how to make the most of Camden Council’s data to address common challenges.

Town Hall service staff and data crunchers and coders
from the private sector get down to business 

As part of our Digital Strategy (to be published shortly) Camden has been considering issues around public data – how we can use it more effectively across the council and with residents and businesses to improve transparency and performance.

The public sector holds a lot of data and this hack day explored the issues around unlocking the value it can hold by bringing together interested people to play around with large amounts of data to see what new insights they can glean or tools they can build to help make sense of the huge quantities of information that are around.

The possibilities from public data comes from New York, where the city started using data to 'predict' (a.k.a. take a best guess) where fires and crime might occur.

The event involved a day at Google Campus during which participants examined Camden Council's and other partners’ datasets, linked together different bits of data, and wrote software tools. There were three goals:

• Firstly, deliver some workable tools that allow the Council to make a more efficient use of its data;
• Secondly, allow our partners to identify opportunities for developing innovative services by experimenting with data they usually would not have access to;
• And thirdly, identify practical obstacles in using and sharing public and private data in order to set out sensible policy recommendations for the future.

Teams looked at three areas, using Camden's data (cleaned to ensure data protection) to ask these questions:

• Street presence: how can we use the information and resources we have to better target our efforts to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour?
• Housing: how can we target our repairs budget most effectively?
• Social care: how can we predict who our future clients will be, to prevent them falling into dependency?

The event presented valuable insights into the area of Big Data - and is definitely something Camden should explore in more detail as we develop our new outcomes-based (or 'investment') approach to council budgeting for 2014 onwards.

My specific concern about data was this:

In 2010 the shock of front-loaded cuts means that councillors were served up with a range of unpalatable choices.  In our big spending departments, I remember pushing back in particular about cuts to  'low needs' services in adult social care (in Plain English this means luncheon clubs for seniors, still state-supported in Camden).

Officers put a choice to us: cut these popular but non-statutory services and ease pressure on statutory help for people with moderate or high needs (home care, bathing etc).  This made sense at the time from the perspective of having to make a short-term decision, but not a long-term one - because we didn't have the ability to deeper interrogate the data.

Luncheon clubs are for older people, who are well - but they are also linked to other services (e.g. the luncheon club at QCCA has fitness classes afterwards, see this moving video for their fundraising effort).  Removing these services also removes access to preventative help - which in turn might prevent admissions to A&E for trips and falls, which in turn result in people demanding more moderate or high needs care in the end.

Having good data therefore could enable decision-makers to really invest in preventative measures which help people and save money - while challenging services which might be 'gold-plated' because they are protected by statute.

Ultimately, it will enable us to humanise and personalise services - rather than relying on service run solely by state assumptions.

Overall, getting teams from across departments together to explore problems drove real insights - and having a wealth of data to hand meant that sacred cows could really be interrogated by public servant themselves.  There were some really good ideas on targeting housing repairs more accurately, using shared indicators.  How this works with other partners, e.g. NHS, might be more difficult, but also more rewarding in really driving out costs which fall between social care and health and in public health.  Here's my take on the hack day via local net entrepreneur Will Perrin (@willperrin) - mind my grinning face...

A further hack, with an emphasis on civic participation, will be hosted on 16th May - as part of the Camden Challenge.

"How to be a Changemaker"  will teach people about about tools and techniques for problem solving, and hear from innovators in Camden about how to  address the two Camden Challenge questions:

“What can we do to enable people on low incomes in Camden to thrive?”“
"How can we use space better in Camden?”

Young people have also been taking part in a more off-the-shelf interactions via the Camdenville project.

Green Bedroom Tax "no evictions" policy examined

Last week's Brighton Green Party claims to lead the country with a"radical" "no evictions" policy to the Bedroom Tax are set out in a council document on 8th May Housing Committee meeting:

Although it makes for a good headline the "no evictions" policy doesn't guarantee that if Bedroom Tax arrears are a factor people won't be evicted, it says that if Bedroom Tax is "solely due to the under-occupancy penalty" then there will be no evictions. 

Looking at the policy in the cold light of day, the view is that it will be unlikely - due to the range of benefit changes coming in at once - if people are protected.  If they are then, it will only apply to an extremely small group of people.

Camden has contacted a number of authorities reportedly agreeing “no eviction” policies. In all cases we have confirmed that in actual fact their policy is very similar to ours – offer every support possible: income maximisation, incentives to downsize, employment and skills advice and training before considering eviction as a final course of action. Camden's far reaching mitigation package can be viewed here.  

We have yet to have any such cases, and remember - the impact of other changes, especially in the private rented sector is likely to be far higher. 

There are already lots of tenants who were in arrears before the Bedroom Tax came in, such as those people who are already on housing benefit and seeing their housing support go down in really low paid jobs are right up against it.

So we asked ourselves - even if this was legal: is it fair to exempt one group, as opposed to all others? How effective could that be?  Is there a risk of leading people down a blind alley, rather than a workable policy?

According to the latest statistics published on Camden's welfare site: 

Bedroom Tax hit areas of council and social housing in Camden hardest

- 1944 council and social tenant households have been affected. 
- Most council tenants are under-occupying by 1 bedroom, for which average loss in benefit is£16.47/week.
- A further 20% are under-occupying by 2 bedrooms, with an average loss of £31.10/week.

Camden, with a high amount of council and social housing, is right at the front line.

It's clearly not as simple as saying to people that they should downsize - there clearly aren't the properties on the market to do that.  

If a only third of households moved, we would need an 308 one bedroom properties; 153 two beds; 36 three beds and 7 four beds to come onto the market.

The likelihood is that people in this situation will be forced further into poverty and debt, because they can't move to smaller council housing and can't move to the private rented sector locally.  This points to people sinking further into arrears which could culminate in evictions at some point in the future. 

Councils deal with rent arrears all the time.  Camden already has comprehensive policies established on late payment and debt.  

Like other Labour councils in London and across the country, we have said what we think we can deliver for the widest group of people : that eviction is only ever used as a very last resort in rent arrears cases (whether Bedroom Tax or not) and we work with other social and private landlords within the borough to ensure that evictions for rent arrears are prevented wherever possible.  

As with other councils, there are already protocols in place for the use of bailiffs for Council Tax (now charged on the poorest) or rent arrears. In all cases we attempt to make arrangements to pay affordable amounts or recover amounts directly from benefit payments rather than use bailiff an further court action. 

After raiding their housing repairs budgets, Brighton Council has set aside £70,000 to cover shortfalls from people "solely" evicted as a result of the Tax, suggesting that they think that a relatively small number of the 1000 impacted will actually fall into this category.  With substantially larger housing stock and repairs backlogs, it is unlikely London or councils with major inner cities will be able to do this.  In any case it appears that any change in Housing Revenue Account (HRA) policy, has to be agreed by the Secretary of State (at 3.11). 

Also I query how it would work - eviction orders I have seen to do with general rents involve individuals with several thousands in arrears who have consistently flouted reasonable repayment orders and not communicated with the council.  Losing £11 a week is just over £600 a year - so it would take several years before the sums added up, and yet the policy set out by Brighton only lasts for a year.

Of course, with other Labour councillors I do sympathise with any council wanting to come up with solutions.   But it’s not fair on every other council or social housing tenant who gets into financial arrears - because they’ve lost a job, or that they have a large family and have been hit by other welfare changes - that one group should be protected.

Exempting various groups from the new Council Tax Reduction Scheme each authority had to put in place last year carried with it quite a rigorous Equality Impact Assessment. Offering a no-eviction guarantee only to a specific group could carry the risk of challenge.  

Knowing this, I do question the motives of the Green's spinning the "no evictions" policy in this way - it does look like posturing, given the similarity with other councils' policies which don't call themselves "no eviction".

The Greens have pointed to the cross-party support for the "no evictions" policy at the housing meeting last week - I suspect faced with an up-or-down vote councillors went with the report.  Indeed Labour's Warren Morgan (@warrenmorgan) has just tweeted "support for report does not mean policy of non eviction effective or realistic." 

But ultimately those of us against the Bedroom Tax shouldn't be trying to jockey for position with faux-radical solutions (evidence from other councils (e.g. Liverpool, Camden, Oxford, Edinburgh) suggests the Bedroom Tax "no evictions" call is a overt tactic to create 'red water' between the Greens and Labour) should be campaigning against the Government which introduced this particularly unfair measure and doing what we can to help people cope.

How the TPA got its sums wrong about Camden senior pay

Debating on ITV Daybreak with TPA Chief Exec

On Friday, in its annual 'Rich List', the Tax Payers Alliance made assertions about senior pay in Camden which are inaccurate and wrong.  Much to the annoyance of the TPA, who seem to be totally intolerant of criticism, we have challenged the report on air.  

From a misreading of our accounts, it claims that Camden variously had 40, or even over 60, employees earning over £100,000 in 2011/12.  This would place Camden as the authority with the most officers earning this salary in the country.  

The TPA seem to have got to their figure(s) by double counting (e.g. saying we have two Chief Execs in one year, which we did but not at the same time!).  They read salary band table and individuals table as separate staff, when they aren't. Sums were also inflated by adding pension contributions to salary, in order to bump as many officials over the £100k threshold as possible.

The TPA's misunderstanding led to strange charts in its report, which should've triggered their researcher to clarify whether they'd got it right before publication.

Nameless bureaucrats stalk Town Hall or TPA double counting?

  
The actual figure is 16 (or 24 however you cut it), substantially lower than other comparable local authorities - it was therefore untrue to say we lead the country in senior pay and we went on air to rebut this.  Here are the accounts.

On air the TPA also stated that salaries and council tax kept going up over the last decade, but performance didn't.  This allegation also misunderstands local government, which is now seen as the most efficient part of government.  

Since 2000 local authorities have had more and more powers and areas of responsibility - childcare, scrutiny, recycling and sustainability, community safety, regeneration and well-being and now public health.  There have also been major structural changes, e.g. in Children's Services and City Deals.  Larger budgets have followed these new responsibilities, and salaries have risen to reflect this.    

Despite facing inner city challenges, Camden is one of the top-rated authorities in the country.  

Where we do pay chief staff high salaries - for example in Children's services-  it is because they manage large budgets and many complex cases.  The Director of CSF deals with many hundreds of vulnerable children and families.  We get results: OFSTED rated our primary schools are the best in the country and childcare and early years second to none.  Our response to the London riots gained national awards.

But the TPA don't care about quality - for them it's impossible for councils to have 'the best' public servants.  

Every year councils like Camden have to correct the poor research carried out by the Tax Payers Alliance.  If they can get our figures so wrong one has to question the veracity of their entire analysis.

Camden is transparent in what it pays senior staff. We have published this information online since 2010, and argued for publication against opposition from the Tories and Lib Dems when not in power.  In Camden we have driven down the cost of senior officers - from 2010-2012 expenditure on chief officer pay reduced by 20%.  Our top to bottom pay ration is 10:1, compared to 262:1 in FTSE 100 company.

Our transparency is more than can be said for the TPA, who themselves are funded by secretive US-style free enterprise groups and pro-private sector outfits who have an axe to grind against the public sector.