Is the future flat-pack?

School buildings should be more uniform and funding to rebuild and maintain them, allocated to councils, rather than direct to schools.

These are the main findings of a government-backed report into the use of capital funding for schools, including Building Schools for the Future (BSF).

The report was written by Sebastian James, a long-standing friend of David Cameron and a former  member of the Bullingdon Club, who is now Group Operations Director of Dixons Retail plc.

The report claims that BSF was bureaucratic and costly.

Designs were sometimes inadequate and funding decisions were made on the basis of deprivation and attainment, rather than the condition of the buildings.

The authors say there should be a sharp move away from “iconic buildings and structures to buildings that are fit-for-purpose, efficient to run” and manageable.

They argue a standard design spec should be developed centrally to act as a blueprint for future projects.

The report cites the Flexible School Project in Swindon as an example of good practice.

Here schools will be built to a timber frame modular system in future.

This will consist of a teaching block, which can be adapted to form classrooms or any public facilities, and a link block containing wet facilities such as toilets and showers.

Ruth Reed, president of the Royal Institute of Business Architects (RIBA), dismissed this as a “flat-pack” approach to building schools.

She said the report overemphasised the role of standardisation.

Mrs Reed pointed out that housing minister Grant Shapps had recently condemned an identikit approach to house building. 

“Schools work best when they respond to the needs of pupils, teachers and the context of a site,” she said.

But Paul Carter, leader of Kent County Council, one of six authorities that sued the government over the halting of the BSF programme, expected that standardisation would only apply to larger projects.

“We shouldn’t over-estimate the massive backlog in maintenance and repair that is still needed”, he said. 

But he believed that BSF was overly grandiose.

Given the right freedoms Kent could achieve the same projects for 40% less.

“You don’t need a different architect designing every school in the country, you can still have buildings of architectural merit and cut down on consultancy” said Mr Carter.

But fellow litigant, Sandwell council leader Darren Cooper, claimed the government was planning to use prefabricated buildings, which would get us by in the short term, but in 20 years time would leave us in the same position as before.

Mr Cooper said his council was still waiting to hear about the nine schools that had their funding frozen when secretary of state for education Michael Gove called a halt to BSF last July. 

“You can always do things differently but these schools were being built in line with the needs of the areas they were built for.

“One size fits all is not good enough”, he said.

“This is an idea from America where schools are shipped over at a standardised cost of so many pounds per unit”, Mr Cooper added.

He believed that BSF projects had transformed the education of children in Sandwell and contributed towards the regeneration of the local area.

Dr Neil Bently, deputy general secretary of the CBI, said: “A set of centrally-approved designs is a sure fire way to make significant savings”.

He urged the government to respond swiftly to the recommendations.

Disability organisations were keen to ensure that the new designs did not exclude disabled children.

Marc Bush, head of research and public policy at disability charity Scope, said: “Regardless of who has the responsibility for designing the schools, we believe that all contractors must adhere to the principles of inclusive design, if we ever want our schools to be accessible and give disabled children the same educational opportunities as their non disabled peers.”

Simone Aspis, campaigns and policy co-ordinator at the Alliance for Inclusive Education (ALFIE), was concerned that the government’s drive towards deregulation, and the creation of Free Schools in particular, would lead to lower standards in building design for disabled children.  

A spokesman at the Department for Education said the buildings would be fully compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act.

The report also recommends that local authorities draw up and agree a short Local investment Plan with the government, so that funding for rebuilding and renovation can be prioritised in line with need.

It is hoped that greater economies of scale will be achieved by procuring projects together rather than one by one.

Funding for Free Schools and Academies will be allocated centrally.

The report suggests that a number of building and maintenance contacts are agreed centrally, an approach that may also be applied to the purchase of insurance and information technology.

The report also calls for the simplification of planning regulations relating to school design.

 

Shadow education secretary Andy Burnham said: “School building and repairs are in complete chaos thanks to Michael Gove.

“His decision-making over the scrapping of 700 Building Schools for the Future projects was described by a High Court judge as an “abuse of power”.

“And as if this wasn't bad enough, he has made matters worse by prioritising pet projects from the shrunken capital budget.

“With mainstream schools facing harsh cuts, he must set out how he intends to fund his free schools programme so that local communities can judge whether this is the most effective use of scarce resources.”

A spokesman for the Department for Education said: “This is an independent report and ministers will now look at the report in detail and respond later on in the year.”

He said that there would be a lot of debate with schools and the construction sector, but could not say when or how further consultation would take place.

This article appeared in the June edition of Local Government News magazine.

Renewable incentives: Back to basics

Governments of all persuasions have been trying to encourage individuals, public bodies and businesses to generate their own energy and save power.

Rachel Salmon investigates some of the current initiatives and the controversies surrounding them.

There are two main schemes for energy generation, Feed in Tariffs (FITs) and the Renewable Heat Initiative (RHI)

Feed in Tariffs were launched in April 2010.

They allow individuals and organisations to generate their own electricity using wind turbines, solar panels, river hydro and anaerobic digesters, which burn organic waste.

Under the scheme the generator receives a ‘tariff’ for each kilowatt-hour (KWh) of power produced, this is usually paid as a rebate on the electricity bill.

The level of tariff depends on the amount of electricity generated.

A typical householder, generating two-and-a-half kilowatts, currently receives 36.1p for each KWh produced.

This is considerably higher than the 10-13 pence the companies normally charge domestic customers for electricity.

The government makes up the balance and larger generators receive a lower tariff.

FITs have been very popular, with over 27,000 installations approved in the first year, 92 per cent of which are for singe households.

But the government cut funding for FITs by £40m in the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review.

On March 18, Gregory Barker, minister of state at the Department for Energy and Climate Change, launched a “fast track review” of FITs, and is proposing to cut tariffs for larger generators from July.

The consultation closed on May 6 but, if the proposals are implemented, those generating between 50 and 100 KW will see their tariffs fall from 31.4 pence to 19 pence per KWh.

Those generating between 250 KW and 5 megawatts (MW) will see their tariff fall from 29.3 pence per KWh now to eight-and-a-half pence.

The government insists these changes have been brought about by the larger than expected number of applications for commercial solar farms.

The lower tariffs will only apply to installations completed after July 2011.

The government originally estimated that 40MW of solar power would be generated in the UK by 2015.

But the solar industry now estimates that as much as 1,470MW of solar power could be generated by then.

The government said it is implementing the higher charges for larger generators to ensure enough funding is available to support smaller generators, particularly householders.

The move has provoked anger from councils, housing organisations and commercial solar energy companies.

On April 18, eleven companies filed a claim in the High Court seeking a judicial review against energy secretary Chris Hulme for “reneging on previous commitments not to cut Feed in Tariffs until 2012 and failing to adhere to its previously stated processes for reviewing the incentives”.

In April, the BusinessGreen website reported that the government had “quietly dropped” plans to fit solar panels on buildings across its estate because of the new tariffs.

A spokeswoman for government procurement agency Buying Solutions said that they had undertaken an exploratory exercise, but early indications suggested it was not viable so the plans were put on hold.

Cornwall Council is planning to develop a large-scale solar farm outside Newquay airport.

It has also received numerous applications for solar farms from commercial developers.

Tim German, renewable energy and partnerships manager at Cornwall Council, said: “When Chris Hulme bought in the new act last August, which allowed local authorities to sell renewable energy and generate income from it, we went full steam ahead.” 

It was informed of the 10 per cent spending cut at meetings with energy minister Gregg Barker earlier this year.

Mr German said the government wanted communities, rather than councils and large companies, to take the lead in solar power generation.

“We think communities would benefit more from large-scale solar parks,,we want to get community gain from these large scale projects,” he said.

The council established a special planning team to assess applications for large-scale renewable installations which also include wind, wave and geo-thermal projects.

The team has developed supplementary planning guidance for solar farms.

Developers pay an average £5,000 a year into a community fund for each megawatt generated.

“The community can re-invest the money in putting solar panels on schools or do whatever they want to do, it’s all part of the big society,” said Mr German. 

A 5MW solar farm has the potential to generate as much as £1m for community projects over its lifetime.

According to Mr German, a recent meeting to establish a Renewable Energy Network in Waybridge attracted 600 people.

A number of communities were looking to develop similar bodies and the council was talking to the government about replicating the model nationally.

Mr German said the planned tariff changes had left them stranded, although some developers were racing to complete their solar farms by July.

He insisted that the council would continue working with government, but expressed frustration at the constant change in policy.

“It is a problem for local government when legislation keeps changing, how can you set up consistent delivery plans to support renewable energy,” he said.

In a separate move, the Homes and Communities Agency announced in March that the Affordable Homes Programme would not fund the installation of renewable power generators if they can generate income from FITs.

Andrew McNeil, energy efficiency manager at Derby Homes, said: “Derby City Council has a 90KW system that it was proposing to put in place.

“If these figures do go through we may have to re-tailor it to ensure it is under 50KW.  50KW is not big enough it would only power 25 homes.”.

Whilst the cost of solar panels had come down the cost of installation had not.

It still took the same amount of time to put them up and whilst they were getting some savings they were ‘nowhere near enough to support the figures that the government has proposed,” added Mr McNeil.

Leone Greene, head of external affairs at the Renewable Energy Association, which represents renewable energy producers, said: “We are very worried about proposed reductions for solar power which was extremely popular.” 

She said there were particular concerns for urban authorities, which have less option to use other renewable sources such as wind and hydro.

“50KW is quite small. Anyone doing a leisure centre, council offices, any interesting community scheme is in trouble.

“Solar power is not something that should be marginalised to the domestic sector.

“Authorities like Cornwall, Sheffield and Birmingham have integrated plans for solar power into their regional economic development strategies,” she said.

But a spokesman for Birmingham City Council, which plans to install solar panels on the homes of 100,000 residents, said the new tariffs would have no impact as households would register for FITs individually and would therefore benefit from the higher tariffs.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Energy and Climate Change, said: “The fast-track consultation will conclude on May 6, 2011 and we will be taking views expressed as part of the consultation into account in finalising the policy.”

In March the government launched the Renewable Heat Initiative (RHI), under which local authorities and businesses will be able to bid into a £860m fund from July to help install renewable heat pumps, biomass (wood burning) boilers and solar panels for heat generation.

It is hoped the scheme will increase renewable fuel investment to £4.4bn by 2020, safeguarding 150,000 jobs

RHI tariffs for industry, commercial and public sector generators will be agreed soon and the government hopes these will stimulate up to 13,000 industrial scale heat installations by 2020.

It expects tariffs for new installations to fall over time as costs decline.

A quarter of the first year’s budget will be used to make “premium payments” to 25,000 households to fund the installation of equipment for renewable heat and encourage take up.  Tariff payments will start from 2012.

Mr German said: “We want to tap into RHI in the same way as we tapped into FITs.  We hope we do not have the same problems with this as we have with FITs.”

Jaryn Bradford, senior technical manager at the Energy Saving Trust (EST), which advises businesses and consumers on renewable energy, said: “Local Authorities have been particularly interested in generating solar power for heating rather than electricity.

“The main interest has been to power swimming pools and local recreation centres.”

He said he thought the tariffs for RHI would be more adequate than the previous Low Carbon Building Programme and should allow a payback of ten years or less with a revenue stream thereafter.

He expected the tariffs would be announced this October.

Mr Bradford admitted that the number of low carbon schemes was confusing, particularly to householders.

He said the EST was working with government to simplify procedures.

Part of the remit of the EST is to promote low carbon schemes to the right audiences.

This article appeared in the May 2011 edition of Local Government News magazine.

Protest outside Olympic park over blacklisting claims

Angry construction workers demonstrated outside the Olympics Media Centre on March 1 2011, over claims of sackings, bullying and victimisation of union members.

Frank Morris, an electrician from Enfield, North London, said he was overjoyed last August when he landed a job on the Olympics site.

Mr Morris was working for Daletch, a sub-contractor for Skanska, one of the main companies building at the Olympic Media Centre

But he said his joy turned to disbelief when a fellow worker with an ‘impeccable work record’ was sacked.

Mr Morris said his boss told him his colleague was “dismissed because his name has come up on a list.

“He was a union man and a known troublemaker.”

Mr Morris passed this information to the union and to his sacked colleague.

This later emerged at an appeal and Mr Morris was sent to work on the Bellmarsh Prison extension, where he said he was forced to work in isolation.

Mr Morris claimed he had to call the police in December, when a senior engineer threatened him with violence.

On February 14, he was sacked.

In 2009 an investigation by the Information Commission found that Skanska paid £28,000 to the Consulting Association who compiled illegal blacklists of union members in the construction industry.

Mr Morris and his friends aim to prove that Skanska is passing this information to its sub-contractors and encouraging them to sack those on the list.

Mr Morris believes that “a lot of fellows were blocked before they even got on” to the site.

Steve Kelley, Branch Secretary of construction union UNITE, said: “Frank Morris is one of many who have been stopped from getting onto big sites.“We must stop this once and for all.”

A spokesman for the Olympic Delivery Authority said: “All our contractors are required to operate within the law.

“We have positive working relations with construction unions on the Olympic Park, including a site-wide agreement on minimum pay, health and safety and union recognition and are not aware of any blacklisting on the Olympic Park.”

 A spokesman for Skanska said: “Skanska takes such allegations very seriously.

”We are not involved in the use of blacklists on these or any of our operations.

“We do not support or condone such behaviour, which is against the values and behaviours of our company.

“We work in accordance with the Joint Industry Board (JIB) Working Rule Agreement and to the Memorandum of Agreement between the Trade Unions and the Olympic Delivery Authority.

“We also work with our subcontractors to ensure they comply with these agreements."

A spokesman for Daletech said: “Daletech take this accusation very seriously and categorically deny the use of blacklists within our business.

“We are unable to comment on the particulars of an individual case, as this continues through our disciplinary procedures.

“Daletech are a member of the JIB and work closely with the trade unions to ensure compliance with the JIB working rule agreement and terms and conditions.”

Lambeth housing boss tops pay league

Last week Lambeth council met to pass £37m cuts with up to 1,000 staff facing the sack.

 But Inside Housing can reveal that its chief housing officer, Sue Foster, earns £9,690 more than Prime Minister David Cameron, £17,625 more than Communities Secretary Eric Pickles and £53,450 more than Housing Minister Grant Shapps.

Ms Foster received the highest pay of all senior housing officers across 20 English councils surveyed by Inside Housing.

We also found that senior housing officers pay has increased at a faster rate since 2009, than their junior colleagues.

The survey followed Mr Pickles’ announcement that he would force local authorities to publish the salaries of all staff earning over £81,000

Inside Housing conducted the survey, to find out how many councils already publish the data.

We also wanted to find out whether the pay of senior housing officers has increased since 2009 when the Taxpayers Alliance published its Rich List of council employees earning over £100,000.

Over half the councils surveyed already publish details of their senor staff pay online.

St Helens Council publishes the full job description, budget and staffing responsibilities of Bob Hepworth, its director of regeneration and housing.

Mr Hepworth said:  “This news comes as no surprise. 

“For years the council has been transparent and open in all of its services.  

“As a top rated authority we are proud to deliver excellent services underpinned by a value for money ethos,” he said.

The survey found that there are a third fewer senior housing officers now than in 2009.

But more have responsibility for departments beyond housing, such as social services, environment and planning.

Average pay for senior housing officers has increased by 3.7% since 2009, compared with a maximum 1.25% increase for most local government workers in that time.

Ms Foster was the highest paid housing executive surveyed, earning £152,190 a year since her appointment as executive director of housing, regeneration and environment by Lambeth Council last November.

This places her ahead of David Cameron, Eric Pickles, Grant Shapps and the other most senior housing officers in the councils we surveyed, who averaged £131,865.

When asked to comment, a Lambeth Council spokesman said: “We pay the going rate for that post, in line with other inner London boroughs”. 

He said we would need to know the salaries of all executive directors in inner London, their responsibilities and salary bands, to make an accurate comparison.. 

“People are paid according to experience.

“You are trying to compare apples with pears”, he said.

Heather Wakefield, head of local government at UNISON, said: “People have a right to know what those at the top are earning at all councils, from both a staff and local democracy point of view.

“Transparency is especially vital at a time when low paid local government workers are being hit by pay freezes and job cuts.”

Emma Boon, campaign director of the Taxpayers Alliance, said: “Local councils should now be publishing details of all staff earning six figure sums or more. 

“Taxpayers have a right to know how their money is being spent and more transparency will enable residents to hold local authorities to account. 

“It is a real shame that it looks like some councils aren’t being open and publishing pay as they should be.

“They should change this as soon as possible.”

 

This article appeared in Inside Housing magazine on Thursday, March 3, 2011.

An unfair incentive

Politicians from all sides, house-builders and campaigners have raised serious concerns that the New Homes Bonus (NHB) will penalise the North, provide little incentive to build new homes and encourage the wrong kind of housing.

On April 4, housing minister Grant Shapps announced NHB allocations to local authorities worth £250m

The bonus rewards councils for the number of net additional homes built during the previous financial year.

The government pays the average council tax rate for that home for six years after it has been built.

A home in band D would generate £9,000 in bonuses,

Thirty six per cent or £350 extra is available each year for each extra social rented home built.

The government is providing £1bn for the scheme from 2011 - 2014.

Any extra funding will have to come from councils’ formula grant.

The scheme will be funded entirely from formula grant from 2014.

Opposition politicians are concerned that the system will favour councils which build higher-value homes and penalise councils in the North and Midlands where demand for housing is low and where most of the homes built are smaller houses or flats in lower council tax bands.

Shadow housing minister, Alison Seabeck, called it “expensive, ineffective and unfair”, she claimed it would only support an additional 14,000 homes.

Ms Seabeck said that Richmondshire in Yorkshire, where Foreign Secretary William Hague has his constituency, received £6,272 per home, while Scarborough, a borough with high levels of deprivation and lower housing demand, got just £294.

She believed that the scheme would encourage the development of larger properties on greenfield sites.

Kate Houghton, planning officer at the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), said: “We would have supported bonus payments for development on brownfield land which meet standards of density and sustainability.

“But under this scheme authorities will get the same funding for poor-quality greenfield sites as they would for schemes that are better thought through on brownfield land.

“There are lots of councils struggling for cash and there may be a temptation for councils to approve applications which might otherwise have been deemed un-acceptable.”

Abigail Davies, assistant director of policy and practice at the Chartered Institute of Housing said that Whitehall was sending mixed messages about how the money should be spent.

“Government is saying you can do what you like with it but the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) is saying it has to go on affordable rents,” she said.

“The wealthier regions are getting more per capita than those who are not as economically buoyant.

The highest per capita award is in London,” she said.

Labour MP Graham Jones, who represents the northern constituency of Haslingden and Hyndburn, shares these concerns.

“If we look at individual district councils the losers fall into two categories either the super wealthym who do not want new housebuilding in their borough, or the poorest, where developers don’t want to build,” he said.

He released figures that suggest Knowsley Council could claw back five pence for every pound lost in formula grant and Gateshead and Scarborough Councils would recoup seven pence.

“This policy was drawn up by the South for the South.

“It was drawn up to meet the problems of under-supply.

The North is over supplied so this policy fails to deal with the oversupply of housing in deprived areas,” said Mr Jones.

County councils will take a 20 per cent share of the New Homes Bonus in spite of the fact that they have no responsibility for planning matters.

Mr Jones was worried that county councils in areas of low housing demand could have funding taken from them forcing them to cut funding for services such as social care or education.

Ms Houghton said the CPRE had obtained a legal opinion suggesting the New Homes Bonus could be unlawful as funding from it will not have to be spent within the locality in which the homes are being built.

She believed this could “unduly influence planning decisions”.

“If a planning authority is made up of 6 towns and one of them develops 1,000 homes does that mean the New Homes Bonus will be spent in that town or elsewhere”, added Mr Jones.

He wants housing policies to take account of land values and taxation as well as supply.

Councils in the South say the government is not offering enough money to make new homes attractive to developers or communities.

In December, Dr Andrew Povey, Tory leader of Surrey County Council and chair of South East Strategic Leaders (SESL), which brings together 21 councils in the South East of England, wrote to the DCLG arguing that that the NHB would not provide “enough of an incentive to communities for them to welcome development”.

He said the NHB “will be more effective if it represents additional funding over and above existing sources of revenue.

Top-slicing’ councils’ formula grant to fund tax breaks will result in reduced spending on infrastructure and services for residents”.

SESL also argued for the removal of the 20-80 split in favour of district and borough councils, for funding to be directed towards a planned programme of community priorities and for the bonus to be based on local rather than national council tax rates.

Cameron Watt, head of neighbourhoods at the National Housing Federation, which represents England’s housing associations, said: “Our concerns are like the rest of the development industry, the amount of money on offer from the bonuses is not enough to motivate councils to build significant numbers of new homes.”

A spokesperson from the DCLG, said: "The Government is committed to ensuring communities have strong incentives to support growth.

“The New Homes Bonus will ensure for the first time that local people see the benefits of bringing new housing to their area so developments can go ahead with their backing rather than in the teeth of their opposition” she said.

She said the NHB was fully funded in the first year with three of the five top earners in the North and Midlands.

She added that ministers had protected deprived areas in the local government ginance settlement with a transition grant of £96 million next year to limit reductions for those most dependent on government grant.


This article was published in the June 2011 edition of Local Government News magazine.

Castlebeck abuse case could be 'tip of the iceberg'

Two mental health trainers have warned that the abuse of disabled adults highlighted on Tuesday’s Panorama programme may be the tip of the iceberg.

Connor Kinsella and James Hourihan, who between them have30 years experience as trainers in the management of challenging behaviour, say they have encountered indifference, poor communication and low pay in the private sector.

Mr Kinsella said on one course “there were 30 people in a very small room.  We were doing a course on personality disorder, a very complicated subject, there was standing room only. 

“One chap in charge of a ward was about 70.  He had obviously retired from the NHS some time ago.”

Another organisation he worked for ran a scheme supervising ex-prisoners.  The proprietor had no relevant experience.

“During the training people were checking their e-mails.  When I challenged them, they told me they had to fulfil a quota of tasks during the day,” he said.

“They displayed an appalling us versus them attitude, not collaborative at all,” he said.

Mr Kinsella said he could almost see a Winterbourne View scenario, except this organisation worked with people in their own homes.

“It was if they were saying, we are being paid minimum wage we do not give a toss as long as we get some overtime,” he said.

Mr Kinsella believes that the closure of so many NHS beds has left the market wide open for the private sector.

At another company, which works with people who would previously have been in long-term care, Mr Kinsella found staff fighting and arguing so much that he had to end the session.

“My main concern is money, the slashing of training budgets. 

“Frontline workers are being made redundant.  They are very busy with 7-8 hours a day contact with clients.  Who is going to do their jobs?” he asked.

“I remember Cameron on the TV fighting it out with the others, saying we will look after the vulnerable.  What have we seen of that?  It’s frightening,” he said.

Mr Hourihan said abuse could be unintentional, where staff don’t have clear guidance and don’t really know what they’re doing.

“Sometimes institutions naively believe they don’t have a problem, it is then up to the staff to manage the situation,” he said.

He added organisations sometimes have training bought in for them by care managers who are unfamiliar with the field.

“They bring in trainers who are ex-military, police or special hospitals to train care staff working with people who are difficult but not dangerous. 

“This is not done out of malice but out of ignorance,” he said.

But abuse can also be intentional.  Abuse takes place in private away from prying eyes. Weak management allows people who don’t know what they are doing to run the ship, he said.

Mr Kinsella said, “Training is not just about ticking boxes and saying, there’s a CQC inspector coming in next month, let’s get a trainer in, let’s get all staff certificates of training to put in their files.

“Good organisations give staff training because they want to.

“We owe a great debt of gratitude to Panorama,” he said.

This article was published on the Community Care website on Friday, June 3, 2011.
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2011/06/03/116935/Castlebeck-abuse-case-could-be-39tip-of-the-iceberg39.htm

Children's worker suspended after staring at girl's breasts

A social worker has been suspended for 12 months for inappropriate behaviour which included staring at a 16-year-old girl’s breasts and asking her if she had whips and chains hidden in her wardrobe.

The behaviour took place between July 2009 and January 2010 when Christopher Mark Flatman, 50, was employed through an agency as a children’s services social worker at Hillingdon Council in London, the General Social Care Council heard.

Mr Flatman admitted offering to counsel the young woman on a Saturday (outside of normal working hours) and befriending her and a younger sister on Facebook.

At the hearing, Mr Rathod, counsel for Mr Flatman, accused the young woman of lying on behalf of her older brother, who wanted him taken off the case, as he feared being removed from the family home because of his challenging behaviour

But the committee believed the young woman and accepted that Mr Flatman had requested other family members leave the house during counselling, (they refused) and that he offered to take her to a café and for a ride in his car.

Mr Flatman also requested a picture of her in a party dress and advised her to withhold sex from her boyfriend when she told him she was having problems.

He prolonged visits when she was present and asked her to rub off a stain from a chocolate that he had been sitting on, during one of his visits.

When the young woman told him of her fear of needles, Mr Flatman said: “I’ll tie you down and prod it in you”.

These complaints had been investigated by social workers and police but there were no criminal proceedings, but Mr Flatman was prosecuted for using a mobile phone, while transporting a service user in his wife’s car.

The Council found that while most of the disputed behaviour was inappropriate, it was acceptable for Mr Flatman to tell the family that he could counsel the young woman in private and that he did not have to identify her two younger siblings as needing counselling.

They did not believe Mr Flatman’s behaviour was sexually motivated and agreed to a 12-month suspension, as the family acknowledged there had been some positive aspects to his work

Mr Flatman had been a social worker for seven years and intends returning to the profession once his suspension is over.

This article was published on the Community Care website on Tuesday, May 31, 2011.
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2011/05/31/116914/Children39s-worker-suspended-after-staring-at-girl39s.htm

Lawyers argue the public is sick of sham consultations

The public is sick of sham consultations and public bodies must clean out their stables if they want to avoid legal challenges.

These were the conclusions of a conference held today by the Consultation Institute to offer local authorities and other public bodies advice on what they must get right if they want to avoid court action.

The conference heard from lawyers who had successfully brought cases against public bodies including London Councils, the NHS and the Secretary of State for Schools.

Tom Henderson, senior associate at Bircham Dyson Bell said that consultation should take place at an early stage, information should be adequate for the public to make intelligent comments, there should be enough time for meaningful consultation to take place and authorities must show that the information collected had genuinely influenced their decisions

Public bodies should look at past practice if local people have a legitimate expectation that they will be consulted, they should be consulted.

Louise Whitfield, solicitor at Piers Glynn said she saw too many cases where public bodies gave contradictory answers, refused to answer questions or provide documents to the public when requested.

Rosa Curling, solicitor at Leigh Day and Co who has brought a number of cases against the NHS, urged delegates to keep information as simple as possible. 

“Judges are very practical people and they will be suspicious of jargon,” she said.

It is important to get the process right as courts are more likely to rule in favour of applicants on these grounds, they are unlikely to want to interfere with political decisions.

Ms Curling said she hoped local authorities would not lose their right to challenge local NHS decisions and that Health Watch, the bodies charged with overseeing public involvement in healthcare, would be properly resourced and should not have to rely on the goodwill of volunteers.

Failure to carry out or undertake adequate Equalities Impact Assessments featured in several cases, six councils won their case against the Secretary of State for Schools when he tried to freeze funding for Building Schools for the Future because he failed to carry out an Equalities Impact Assessment.

The Consultation Institute is to hold a similar event is Manchester on June 8.

For more information contact the Consultation Institute on 01767 318 350, e-mail: info@consultationinstitute.org

This article wa\s published on the Local Government News website on Tuesday, April 19, 2011.
http://www.localgov.co.uk/index.cfm?method=news.detail&id=97927

Fighting the Waltham Forest axe

Over 200 people marched through the rain in Walthamstow on Saturday, protesting against the proposed £65m cuts to council services over the next four years.

Sheila Gladston a wheelchair user from Walthamstow, was there protesting against a proposed £20,000 cut to the Shop Mobility scheme.  “It will be gone in a few years if we don’t stop these cuts” she said.  “The NHS is going back to where it used to be.  They’ve already cut the wardens from the sheltered housing, the residents don’t feel safe.”

Whipps Cross Hospital UNISON Brach Secretary Len Hockey told a rally in the Town Square that “This is not Thatcherism revisited, this is a weak government which can be beaten”. 

Local teacher and National Shop Stewards Network organiser Linda Taaffe was also confident of victory “I remember demos in Walthamstow against the Poll Tax.  They said that there was nothing we could do to defeat the Iron Lady, yet we went on to greater things and won.” 

She drew inspiration from events in the Middle East “it makes your heart sing.  It took the Egyptians 18 days to get rid of a dictator.  How long would it take to get rid of Cameron?”

Next, the Anti Cuts Union plans to demonstrate outside the Waltham Forest Council meeting on 8th March, which could agree up to 600 job losses, on top of the 230 already announced.

 “Let councillors who stood to do good for society refuse to carry out the cuts.

“We will do whatever we have to do, to stop the vote taking place.  If all councils refused to wield the axe, Cameron and Clegg would be faced with a massive problem," said Ms Taaffe.

Axe council tax discount on second homes urges Shelter

The housing charity Shelter is urging the government to scrap the council tax discount enjoyed by owners of England’s 250,000 second homes, which they say could raise up to £42m to build more social housing.

The report called Taking Stock looks at ways of maximising England’s existing housing supply.

Shelter claims this is particularly necessary given the government’s decision to cut funding for the building of new social housing by 60 per cent.

The report suggests councils should be able to a charge a higher rate of council tax on second homeowners.

Local authorities are allowed to reduce council tax for second homes and while most have either scrapped or reduced these discounts to ten per cent, a fifth still cut bills by up to 50 per cent.

Shelter’s chief executive Campbell Robb said the reductions were “effectively a tax break for people with second homes”.

Second home ownership has risen dramatically since the 1990s especially in areas like Cornwall, Norfolk and Cumbria where local people complain that they are being priced out of the market.

Shelter also calls for tougher measures to prevent owners of second homes flipping properties to avoid paying capital gains tax.

The report also lists a range of measures that can be taken to free up space in the 7.8m English homes which have spare rooms.

They suggest that Rent-a-Room tax relief should be up-rated to encourage more people to rent out spare rooms

Introducing incentives to enable under-occupiers, particularly those living in the private sector, to downsize would also help make better use of existing larger properties.

Shelter also wants to see funding for work to reduce empty properties targeted at areas where it can be best used.

They say local people should also be able to monitor their council’s progress in reducing the number of empty properties in their area.

This article was published in the April 2011 edition of Local Government News magazine.