Communities Working Together

Do empty homes affect your community? Are you struggling to get your communities to work together? Andrew Stunnel, the Communities Minister, has announced that some of the ‘Empty Homes Fund’ will be available for community groups to help bring empty homes back into use again. There are 720,000 empty properties in England according to the campaign group Empty Homes, a lot of work could be done to make a dent in this number.

The allocation fund of £100 million was open to housing providers for a period of time and the bidding closed yesterday. As a result of this, community groups will benefit from anything between 10 and 30% of the total fund over a three-year period. Community groups do not have to become registered providers to be allocated the money; this is part of The Community Grant Programme, which will allow groups to apply.

If you are thinking of helping community groups and feel there is a need to get empty houses back up and running, this could be something to apply for. It is thought that the bidding will run up until the end of March; the exact funding will not be decided until the demand is seen.

Here’s a tip to think about – if you or anyone around you is thinking of bidding, those who offer training and employment opportunities within the local community (or can make a good case for overall benefit to the community) will be favourable candidates.

Good luck to all those who are thinking of bidding, it could make a real difference.

For more information on the above article, please visit http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/repairs/minister-to-reveal-empty-homes-fund/6520092.article

A new criminal offence: tenancy fraud

The government is proposing to create a new criminal offence of tenancy fraud to crack down on the subletting of social housing.

Under plans unveiled today subletting tenants could face two years in prison or a fine of up to £50,000.

Ministers hope the move will act as a deterrent to sub letting. Any proceeds of fraud recovered will be handed to the landlord, rather than being confiscated by the state, and councils will be given better access to financial and utility company data to help them find tenancy fraud.

Currently subletting is not a criminal offence, so although tenants can be evicted for breaching their tenancy agreement they are unlikely to receive further sanction unless they are prosecuted for another offence, such as fraud.

The government believes between 50,000 and 160,000 social homes could be unlawfully sublet across England.

Housing minister Grant Shapps said: ‘Tenancy cheats are taking advantage of a vital support system for some of the most vulnerable people in our society and getting away with a slap on the wrist while our waiting lists continue to grow’.

‘It’s time for these swindlers to pay the price. It would cost us billions of pounds to replace the huge number of unlawfully occupied social homes across the country.’

Some would argue that Sub-letting is already a criminal offence under the Fraud Act 2006; however if up to 160,000 social homes are sub let, where will these 100,000+ offenders be imprisoned if convicted?

Britain’s jails are overcrowded and ‘very volatile’. Prisons are built, but not as quickly as needed. In a recent letter to Prisons Minister Crispin Blunt, the Prison Officers Association said it was only a matter of time before the Government would have to resort to holding inmates in police cells – a hugely expensive policy known as Operation Safeguard.

Two days before Christmas the total prison population in England and Wales hit an all-time high of 87,960. This is 1,522 short of the maximum capacity and certainly doubling this figure would make the jail terms for sub-letters an impossible task to undertake!

Will there be a crisis, well it certainly will if the government aims to fulfill their promise of tackling the issue with imprisonment!?

Handing out hefty fines and once recovered given to the landlords certainly seems a more plausible punishment, and would certainly offer an extra incentive for landlords to be pro-active in dealing with the problem,.

Extracts taken from Inside Housing and The Daily Mail

2011: The year in ASB

2011 was busy year for anti-social behaviour news, from police reform to the Respect Charter. The fall-out from Fiona Pilkington’s case put ASB firmly on the agenda for the year, whilst the August riots made it a priority. Sadly, despite the blizzard of legislation, the year ended with news from another ASB-related death with the corona’s findings on David Askew. It seems we still have a lot of work ahead, both to protect victims and tackle anti-social behaviour.

January:

• New complaint handling procedures trialled for ASB in eight police forces.
• CSP publishes new paper, looking at ASB and learning disabilities.

February:

• Anti-social Behaviour Consultation launched. The Government wants to reform ASB tools and powers, making it less bureaucratic and costly to deal with ASB.
• Home Secretary announces 18 million pounds of funding to tackle knife, gun and crime, following Brooke Kinsella’s investigation into knife crime.

Tackling knife crime together – a review of local anti-knife crime projects (executive summary) (PDF file – 127kb)

March:

• Police reform announced in England and Wales, with 28,000 job losses predicted.
• Consultation opens on the revised Respect standard

April:

• Community Budgets rolled out across 16 test areas, covering 31 different councils.

May

• Oxford University publishes research, examining the “community justice” model.

June

• Tougher checks on known sex offenders are proposed
• Respect: the ASB Charter for Social Housing launched by CIH.

July

• 30 million pounds of funding is allocated to charities helping victims of crime.

August

• The Scottish Government opens consultation on its Social Housing Charter.
• Shapps proposes a new mandatory power for possession to help housing associations evict “neighbours from hell”
• The Department for Justice confirms tougher community sentences, with a 16-hour day curfew limit.
• Rioting breaks out across English cities, leaving 5 dead, 16 injured and over 3,000 people arrested. Widespread looting and arson lead to an estimated £200 million of property damage. Parliment is recalled to deal with the disturbances.
  

  Hackney riots © BBC

• The Respect Charter celebrates its 100th signatory.
• Riot Payback scheme suggested.
• Surrey police introduce an ASB smartphone app.
• Social Impact Bonds trialled

September

• Fiona Pilkington police officers cleared of misconduct
• Lord Henley replaces Baroness Browning as the minister for ASB
• Welsh Government announces funding for an extra 500 community support officers
• Launch of React 4

October

• Neural brain study shows that the threat of punishment deters bad behaviour
• A fifth of people polled would back a “trick or treat ban” to prevent criminal damage during Halloween

November

• Social Landlords Crime & Nuisance Group Award winners announced.
• Public poll lists ASB as a top priority for the 2013 elected Police Commissioners
• The Scottish Government considers ways to reform its criminal law
• Local reoffending information published online
• Forced marriage law introduced into Scotland

December

• David Askew’s death is ruled as unlawful killing by the coroner. He was subject to anti-social behaviour ten minutes before his collapse, by a gang of youths.
• The Welsh Assembly releases new legislation notes for Welsh landlords

What were your key moments from 2011? What do you think will be carried forward into 2012?

With thanks and acknowledgements to the SLCNG and HouseMark.

By Natalie Phillips

Planning ahead for ASB: the multi-agency approach in Scotland

As you know working with partner agencies is the key to making changes.  Scottish organisations agencies are doing precisely this, with results are already emerging from their joined-up approach.

 Hawick is a prime example of what can be achieved by putting an ASB action plan in place. After an alarming number of ASB incidents in the Scottish Boarders town, council, police and housing staff  went door-to-door, to visit residents. The purpose of the visit was to reassure victims of ASB that help was at hand. Each household was given an information guide on how to report and deal with nuisance behaviour.  Anti-social behaviour traditionally rises over the Christmas period and Hawick’s organisations hope that more ASB will be reported and dealt with, as a result of the planning.

Throughout the town, agencies are urging communities to speak up about their problems. By reporting people or addresses, social landlords can address the issue with support from the police and council, where necessary.

Multi agency working is a key part of ReACT’s strategy for the New Year. Having launched a fantastic pilot in Northern Ireland, we are keen to support more partnership work between social landlords, councils and police. (If you are wondering how this is possible, please call Kate Hill or Paul Johns on 0121 384 2513 for more information).

Communication is vital to make partnership working effective and we can see from Hawick that combined action on  ASB really can help. Tenants also get to hear about the efforts being made on their behalf, from extra patrols to the enforcement of by-laws on drinking. (Lothian Police ASB campaign)  

 A final note to say, thank you all for supporting the ReACT blog throughout the year, it has been a great year, full of news and stories. From all the team, we wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

By Kate Hill

Related articles

• Can you fight ASB with a DVD or a tweet? (reactasb.wordpress.com)
• Partnership Working (reactasb.wordpress.com)

Christmas training with ReACT

Hello – are we all looking forward to Christmas? I know we are here in the offices of ReACT. In the run up to Christmas some people are out getting their gifts, others are frantically writing cards; we at ReACT are out and about installing and training on ReACT 4.

Recently we have been rolling out the Implementation and Training on ReACT 4. This is generally a two-day process. On the first day, we are working remotely on the customer’s server to implement ReACT 4 into a full TEST environment using a copy of the latest LIVE database. These have gone well and now that we are gaining more experience of issues that differing server environments can throw at us, we are managing to complete upgrades comfortably within the scheduled time slot. The biggest stumbling block we are getting is servers meeting the pre-requirements to the upgrade – it might be worth double checking your server to make sure you meet it too!

The following day, one of our ReACT trainers is on-site with the customer to deliver a day of training. The training  typically consists of ReACT 4 Administrative / Configuration session, aimed at the Super-Users and then a session on ReACT 4 New Features aimed at the experienced end users. The Administrative / Configuration sessions are not only helpful to look at the new features we’ve included, but it also gives a chance to look at the current configuration while you have a ReACT Consultant with you. The second, end-user session, gives a chance to not only experience the new features, but also cement the correct usage of ReACT within the organisation.

We have found that the training is well accepted by all end users and each new feature generates interest from the delegates, not to mention any in particular, but the new Additional Notes control gets the biggest smiles!

Have you been using ReACT 4, why don’t you let us know what your favourite feature is so far? Try the Forums or send us a Tweet! @ReACTASB

On behalf of the ReACT Implementation Team, have a Merry Christmas.

Chris Powell.

Independent Riots, Communities & Victims Panel suggests riots could happen again.

“The riots will happen again if urgent action is not taken.”

That is the stark warning from the independent Riots Communities and Victims Panel’s interim report published last week. Following its wide-ranging research the Panel conclude that riots of this nature will happen again, therefore immediate action is needed if this is to be prevented.

Key findings & recommendations

The Panel finds and recommends that:

1. People felt abandoned by the police in many areas.

Recommendation: The Police need to ensure they achieve the right balance in prioritising the protection of people and residential areas over commercial property in tackling riots.

2 Residents were forced into the streets after their homes were set alight. Some people were forced off buses into riot areas.

Recommendation: Local authorities and emergency services should review their processes for how to assist and/or evacuate residents and bystanders caught up in riot areas, including through designating particular sites ‘safe havens’.

3. Many people told the Panel that police stop and search was consistently carried out without courtesy.

Recommendation: Stop and Search needs immediate attention to ensure that community support and confidence is not undermined.

4. The police could not control the disorder in many areas.

Recommendation: Police authorities should immediately review their emergency plans to ensure they properly cover public disorder on the scale of the August riots.

5. Convicted rioters pose a risk of re-offending.

Recommendation: Clear plans from public services, including the probation service, youth offending teams and local government to deal with the return of rioters are needed to cut the potential for re-offending and to safeguard communities.

6. Victims should be able to confront rioters.

Recommendation: Central and local government and the police should make sure all victims who want to face people who committed crimes against them can have the opportunity do so.

7. The Riot Damages Act is not working. The Panel did not hear of anyone who had received a payment under the Act.

Recommendation: Unblock the Riots Damages Act system and make sure that victims of the riots receive compensation quickly.

8. Insurers are letting victims down.

Recommendation: Prompt the insurance industry to root out the cases where service has been poor and to make sure that customers who are facing severe trauma are dealt with effectively.

9. Footfall remains seriously down in some riot hit high streets.

Recommendation: The Government should start a fund to support struggling high streets, including using any potential under spend from the various support schemes to provide extra help.

10. Many emergency service staff risked their lives during the riots.

Recommendation: Honour the service personnel who protected communities at great risk to themselves

Next steps for the Panel

In the next phase of its work the Panel have committed to look more at the role of parenting, how to make young people more resilient and help them back into work, and to explore how brands can contribute to communities.

• All information has been extracted from the SLCNG Bulletin No 379
• Photo courtesy of  Tom Curtis at Digital Photos.net

By Paul Johns

New twist on social housing eviction for ASB

Image by johnmuk via Flickr

The Government has launched its new housing strategy today; a repackaged mix of old measures and new money to get more homes built. The headline-grabbing measures included;

• “pay to stay” proposals for high earners in social housing (an estimated 6,000 tenants earn over £100,000)
• A  400 million pound building fund, to create 16,000 homes
• A 500 million pound infrastructure fund
• A further £50 million to councils to bring more empty homes into use
• Right-to-buy discounts for council tenants, with the money released to be spent on new social housing
• Underwriting first time buyer’s mortgages for up to 95%

Whilst the Government plans for a building boom, they have also found time to tackle badly-behaved social tenants. Buried in the small print of the document, the Coalition plans to “widen the grounds on which landlords can seek to evict tenants, to include where they or members of their household have been convicted of the sort of criminality see in the recent rioting, wherever that took place .”  Up until this point, anti-social behavior outside of the tenant’s local area did not count. Now it does.

In one way, the Government’s hard-line approach is welcome. As our hot-spotting tracker on Google Maps can demonstrate, ASB is rarely confined to one street or estate. It’s just as easy to transport bad behavior to the town centre as the local park. In the past, ASB was seen as a civil matter, with little police involvement. However, with increased data sharing and best practice (see Mike’s article on the West Mercia seminar), this is changing. ASB is now seen as a criminal matter, to be dealt with at a local level by the newly elected Police Commissioners.

The danger is that the “fast track” approach does not give problem families enough breathing space to turn over a new leaf. A wayward teenager could quickly see their Friday night activity turn into a criminal conviction and a threat to the family home. (Remember the Government’s consultation on mandatory powers of possession for landlords, when tenants are convicted of ASB?). Turning such behaviour around requires time and energy, as the Family Intervention Project in Sandwell can testify.

Interestingly enough, the Government has not imposed any new regulations on private landlords, citing an 85% satisfaction rate from tenants.

By Natalie Phillips   

Related articles

• Police seminar on ASB trials (reactasb.wordpress.com)

Police seminar on ASB trials

The purpose of this seminar organised and hosted by West Mercia Police in Worcester on 9^th November was to have an update on the police trials involving eight police forces in England and Wales. Around 150 delegates attended, mainly ranking police officers but also representatives from housing associations and local authorities. Simon Edens Assistant Chief Constable of West Mercia Police is the ACPO national lead on ASB so I believe that the force is influential in the future direction of how the police will deal with complaints and incidents in future.

Chief Inspector Jim Baker of West Mercia Police said that “harm” is now the prime criteria for the police; the intention is to simply the reporting process, identify who is best to deal with ASB and importantly to share information. He said there are too many tools, powers and too much bureaucracy. The ideal aim is have “an end to end case management system from initial call to resolution of the case to the victim’s satisfaction”. Not sure if he means nationally or by police force – I assume the latter.

Jim Baker identified the need for better use of technology to share incident and personal profile information using a data platform, a common set of casework principles and an agreed risk assessment matrix with more use of IT systems. He welcomed the move to the three new definitions of ASB of personal, nuisance and environmental.

Peter Alleyne of the Home Office started by saying that a staggering 3.3 million (9,000 per day) ASB incidents had been recorded by police in 2010/11 and that this is considered to be a low figure. It is now recognised that much ASB is actually crime and can cause serious harm to victims and communities. Government’s priority, not withstanding the economic situation, is that police and their partners must deal with ASB. There will be no “directives” from government and no “targets” The expectation is that Police and Crime Commissioners will reflect elector’s priorities with ASB high on their agendas. The next steps are feedback from the police trials, to build on the experiences and share it with others but the underlying message is localism – what works for communities.

Geraldine Brown also from the Home Office presented an overview of the findings to date from the police trials. She identified partnership working as a key element (no surprise there then!) with co-location (police sharing office space with partners, especially housing associations) as being particularly effective. The allocation of responsibility with the police being the lead agency may not always be the best way to deal with incidents e.g. social housing landlords could be better placed in some instances. On risk and the identification of possible harm it should not be the sole responsibility of the police and the matrix must be a guide and talking to victims and making a professional judgement was essential. Data Protection is a barrier with incompatibility of IT systems being common, however workarounds are now being found.

Barriers to better working were given as an embedded culture, police preferring to deal with crime and tending to ignore ASB or give it a low priority, engaging with mental health, bureaucracy, IT (again and again), call centre performance, number of agencies (partners), police force boundaries and the financial climate and staff resources.

Jim Baker talked about the West Mercia trial based on Telford & Wrekin with ASB being dealt with alongside Wrekin Housing Trust. Of 2691 calls received between April and September 2011, 158 were referred to the police. The team achieved a 23% reduction in ASB reporting in one year. They identified, on average, one high risk case per month, 13 medium risk and 38 for the force area. Hate crime was revealed as most the vulnerable group and most reluctant victims to complain. Friction over sharing of information causes delays.

There were 4 plenary sessions with presentations from various police forces on:-

1. Risk Assessment.
2. Culture Change -Sussex Police spoke about the need to train front line officers in ASB and to take it much more seriously than they do now.
3. Data Sharing and IT – great interest in this with no recommendations or conclusions other than the urgent need to find a way that is cost effective and “works”and that current DP legislation is a major issue.
4. Partnership Working.

Conclusion:

It was a very worthwhile and informative day. A great deal of progress has been made and the police accept their lead role in tackling ASB but with some reluctance from rank and file police officers. Data protection and sharing of information remains a major problem with most sharing being at the local level, informal and by word of mouth. The chances of an early resolution to data sharing is, in my view very low and for me the catch phrase that sums it up is “Dare to Share”.

Mike Blomer

Related articles

• Tackling ASB: the new reality (reactasb.wordpress.com)

Social housing and worklessness

The Department for Work and Pension published an informative piece of research this week, looking at the link between social housing and unemployed households. The study seeks to understand the impact the sector has on the working lives of its tenants and the barriers to work experienced by social housing communities. The report itself is 150 pages long, but the 6-page summary is well worth a read. The points that stand out include:

•  
• Being a social tenant actually offers work incentives, such as lower rents and tenure security.
• This is counterbalanced by workless tenants personal or family problems, such as mental health issues, childcare or alcohol abuse and a lack of experience or skills.
• Such problems act as a barrier to secure or better paid work. The work that is available is often casual, low paid and offers no incentive to move off benefits.
• Tenants highlighted difficulties in moving between work and benefits. Bureaucratic delays over the payment of Housing Benefits (for example) created rent arrears.
• Tenants in the private sector experienced more barriers to work, higher rents and unsympathetic landlords to the tenant’s changing financial conditions
• Few respondents would move from their area in search of work. The benefits of a secure social network outweighed the potential job prospects

The report goes some way to taking the emotion out of the debate about the long-term unemployed as well as hinting at possible future solutions. Simplifying the benefit system, cutting beauracracy and offering an  immediate support net when jobs end would help dismantle some of the fears about working. This has to be matched by a comprehensive training program, addressing the individual’s problems and giving them the chance to train for higher-paid work.

Whilst the current lack of jobs does not help, there was a stubborn core of workless households even before the recession. Until this group is given the support and skills to make them more employable, every other state action (e.g. reducing benefits) will not succeed.

None of these conclusions are ground-breaking and many social landlords will have already reached them. We would be interested in hearing your stories, from housing benefit bureaucracy to ways you promote work. Do ASBO’s and other court orders  prevent people from working?

The report is available on the DWP website at http://statistics.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/rports2007-2008/rrep521.pdf

By Natalie Phillips

SLCNG Awards 2011

It was another successful conference this year, with a record number of attendees and a great awards dinner at the St John’s Hotel, Solihull.

Mike and Kate attended the two-day conference and were delighted to see so many delegates contributing to the discussions, sharing both concerns and good practice. There was a general feeling of organisations doing so much for communities and applying the localism bill; however, the tools aren’t always available to complete work.

It was disappointing that Minister Grant Shapps was unable to attend at the last hour; delegates were looking forward to getting some answers for some of their long-standing questions. Baroness Helen Newlove proved to be a worthy replacement, speaking of her tragic loss and work she does to help communities tackle anti-social behaviour. However, there was a general feeling that questions couldn’t be asked of Baroness Newlove – landlords want answers and guidance from government about the direction of tackling ASB.

And the winner is…

Powerful video clips were shown of the shortlisted nominees for the SLCNG Awards 2011, prior to the awards ceremony. With 300 people in attending the dinner, there was both passion and interest in the room for the work on display.

• The Team Award, sponsored by ourselves went to North Tyneside Homes Safer Estates Team
• The Residents Award, sponsored by Glasgow Housing Association went to Daniel Lusardi and Rhys Farthing, Homes for Islington.
• The Best Practice Award, sponsored by HouseMark went to Contour Homes, Victims Champion Project.
• And the Tim Winter Award, sponsored by SLCNG went to Linda Alcock New Progress Housing Association.

Congratulations to all four categories and to the runners-up.  The work that is being done is fantastic.

An entertaining after dinner speaker, Chief Political Correspondent for Radio 5 Live, John Pienaar completed a great first day at SLCNG Conference 2011.

 By Kate Hill