Examples of work
FROM THE GUARDIAN
After the riots: is poor parenting a local government issue?
With thousands of young people arrested for causing disorder across the UK, communities are asking what role councils should play in parenting the next generation
Ben Cook
Friday 9 September 2011
After the outbreak of rioting in towns and cities across England, and following the arrest of thousands of young people, former prime minister Tony Blair called for intervention "family by family" to tackle the problem of what he described as group of "alienated, disaffected youth who are outside the social mainstream". But is it the responsibility of local authorities to carry out these interventions?
At a time when the coalition government is advocating the principles of the "big society", in which families are supposed to take more responsibility, shouldn't local government step back, allowing parents to solve their own problems? Councils may argue that they have an obligation to help families to improve their parenting skills - but is this at odds with wider government plans for communities?
Barnet council argues says it has "long been recognised both nationally and locally" that councils should help parents to improve their parenting skills. "Barnet recognises the role parents play in influencing and shaping the lives of their children in order to bring them up as responsible members of society," explains Robert McCulloch-Graham, director of children's services. The local authority believes it has an obligation to offer advice and mediation to parents, children and young people to improve family relationships, to better understand each others' needs and resolve conflict during "transitional changes and development stages" in family life.
The last government introduced a mandatory requirement for all councils to have a parenting strategy and appoint a parenting commissioner. Barnet has also introduced parenting support through local schools and children's centres.
"Through the delivery of appropriately targeted support, parents develop the skills and knowledge necessary to build positive, influential and lasting relationships with their children," McCulloch-Graham says. This can help prevent the anti-social behaviour and criminal activity. But how does the Barnet philosophy work in practice?
The council currently employs eight family intervention programme (FIP) workers and is in the process of recruiting two more. The programme works intensively with families for a period of 18 months and then begins a "staged exit", during which there is a further 12 months contact via telephone. The FIP workers help parents to set boundaries, such as rules about what time their children need to be home, as well as working with schools to reduce truancy ratest. "They also work to find positive role models, both within the family and without, for example finding male mentors for young boys in the community".
Funding for Barnet Council's FIPs comes from the council's community budget. Information from the project is collated and processed through a "family savings calculator", which generates an estimated cost saving per family to the public purse, through fewer contacts with police, courts and social services. The highest saving so far has been £604,000 for a family of seven.
McCulloch-Graham believes that, in the case of parenting, direct intervenion actually fits in to the government's big society ethos. Parents who have received support and attended parenting programmes become facilitators and mentors in turn, teaching other parents to improve their skills.
In south London, Southwark council considers support for parenting a "very high priority". Advice and guidance is provided by in-house staff, as well as charities and voluntary organisations commissioned by the council. Its "incredible years" programme helps parents to support the social and emotional development of their children by learning how to play with them, praise and reward them, set limits and handle misbehaviour. "
"We believe that the most effective way of supporting parenting skills is to identify the need as early in parenthood as possible and offer evidence-based interventions," a spokeswoman explains. One of the schemes run by Southwark is called "mellow parenting"; participants meet once a week for 14 weeks and work to improve their relationship with their children through games, songs, family mealtimes and homework help.
The programme includes games and songs to promote mutual enjoyment, video analysis of family mealtimes, and homework to practice new skills. An evaluation of the scheme carried out by the Department of Health found that it improved child behaviour problems, the wellbeing of the mother and children's language skills. But, unlike Brent, Southwark council acknowledges these programmes may seem at odds with the principles of the big society.
Though local authorities such as Barnet advocate the use of FIPs as a means of reducing troubled families' involvement with the police, courts and social services, doubts have been cast on whether they are successful in improving parenting. Studies into the issue have produced mixed results. Shortly after it took office last year, the coalition govenrment commissioned MP Graham Allen to carry out a review of early intervention in families. The interim findings of the Allen Review – announced in January this year – recommended that the most effective early intervention programmes should be expanded.
Yet a report published last year by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies concluded that, while 80% of families that attended family intervention projects exhibited "poor parenting", it was "surprising that only 35% attended parenting classes and that only half of these were delivered by professional agencies".
Despite questions over the effectiveness of council initiatives, David Simmonds, deputy leader of the London Borough of Hillingdon and cabinet member for education and children's services, argues that councils do have a responsibility to help families boost their parenting skills. "Councils do have a role, whether with the support of voluntary organisations or through direct intervention", he says.
But Simmonds accepts that council's success in intervening in troubled families can be limited. He claims that though a "mixed economy" of support can prove helpful, local authorities are sometimes better off leaving interventions to voluntary organisations to especially in cases where councils "have struggled to get the traction" to alter the behaviour of troubled families.
FROM THE GUARDIAN
Congestion charge: driving partnerships
TfL's outsourcing agreements must be flexible enough to cope with their technology refreshment programme
Ben Cook
Wednesday 20 July 2011
Transport for London (TfL) outsources several elements of its congestion charging scheme. IBM is the prime contractor, running payment processing, customer support, enforcement (with NSL as the sub-contractor) and IT operations. Siemens runs the camera network and Easynet manages the communication network linking the cameras.
Paul Cowperthwaite, head of contracted services for congestion charging and traffic enforcement at TfL, warns that keeping up to date with technological developments can lead to an increase in costs and, therefore, outsourcing agreements must be flexible enough to adapt. "Change can make costs escalate," he says.
So how can public sector managers counter this threat? "Most [outsourcing] contracts include technology refreshment programmes, which means that the technology should always be up to date," says Cowperthwaite.
The idea is that, with a technology refreshment programme, the onus is on the contractor to keep updating the technology being used without the public sector body incurring further expense. "You have to build flexibility into the contract so changes can be made without additional cost," explains Cowperthwaite. He highlights how, under such arrangements, IBM introduced an "autopay" system for the congestion charge, while Siemens is currently updating the cameras.
He adds that including performance targets in outsourcing agreements can also help to keep costs down. "We have performance targets relating to how quickly phones are answered in the contact centre, for example," he says. "This helps ensure we are getting value for money."
However, Cowperthwaite says the caveat that performance targets must be realistic to be effective – if they are too stringent, they can actually lead to an increase in costs. He uses the example of the contact centre to illustrate the point. "If you're asking people to answer the phone in two seconds, they may have to employ 50 more people," he says.
FROM THE GUARDIAN
Effective collaboration: top tips
Two men involved with the outsourcing of Sheffield city council's services offer their advice on how to do it efficiently
Ben Cook
Wednesday 20 July 2011
Sheffield city council has outsourced a number of services, including repairs and maintenance, to the building management firm Kier Sheffield. Barry Mellor is the commercial services director at the council. Simon George is the director of corporate finance and audit at Ealing council, which has outsourced services including refuse and recycling, street cleaning and parks maintenance. Both men have been closely involved with the outsourcing process. So, what tips do they have about outsourcing services successfully?
Document all processes
"When services are operated in-house, customs, practices and internal networking mean that these processes usually work fairly informally," says Mellor. "When services are outsourced, all processes have to be formal and well documented," he adds.
Involve trade unions early in the process
"This ensures that they are part of the procurement/evaluation process when staff transfers are involved," says Mellor. "Staff transfers have to be managed sensitively and in accordance with trade union agreements and transfer of undertakings legislation."
The competitive dialogue procurement process is effective, but use it wisely
"Competitive dialogue enables details to be worked out independently with each bidder, and is used where a creative or innovative change in service provision is required," says Mellor. "While it worked for us, it is complex and can be time-consuming and costly, so it should be used with care."
Communication is key
"It's really important to have set up and tested the interface between the two organisations," George. "It's vital that staff in both organisations understand all the new processes and what their role is."
Be explicit about the need for savings
"A lot of organisations will be looking to outsource to drive down costs, but that is something that should not be just assumed," says George. "If year-on-year efficiency savings are required, that needs to be specified in the contract."
Measure performance
"Some argue that accountability for performance does not sit with the ethos of partnership," says Mellor. "We do not agree. The definition of partnership we use is that of a relationship with a strong performance management culture at its foundation."
An outsourcing agreement must be lengthy but flexible
"There is a balance between making the contract long enough to justify making any required infrastructure investments and having sufficient break clauses to be able to get out if the service no longer meets requirements," says George.
Poor planning can prove costly
"The real danger is that the need for rapid change and financial cutbacks may lead to a poorly planned process that is rushed and under-resourced," says Mellor. "The client will then have a very long, and expensive, time to regret this."
He adds: "If the process is not absolutely robust, or if some very detailed changes are needed after the contract has been awarded, then other unsuccessful bidders can challenge the process and cause the initiative to be frozen until the challenge has been resolved."
FROM THE GUARDIAN
In the zone: attracting investors into the housing market
Housing zones could stimulate new development and boost local housing markets. But how would the policy work? Ben Cook finds out
Friday 8 July 2011
Creating a wave of 'housing zones' across the UK could boost the nation's housing stock by around 20,000 homes per year, according to proposals put forward by the British Property Federation.
The BPF says the prototype for the housing zones should be the government's enterprise zones. Chancellor George Osborne announced plans earlier this year to establish 21 enterprise zones in England that will seek to stimulate the economies of selected areas through tax breaks, reduced planning restrictions and the introduction of superfast broadband.
The BPF argues that, as with enterprise zones, investors could also benefit from a range of planning and long-term fiscal incentives in new housing zones. But the social housing sector has greeted the proposals with some scepticism, with doubts over whether they could attract the necessary cash.
Attracting investment
Why does the BPF believe housing zones would succeed? Ian Fletcher, director of real estate policy, claims individual investors have been among the most significant sources of investment in the housing market over the last decade. They have attracted £150bn of mortgage finance, and a similar amount in equity investment. "Although buy-to-let investors have struggled to access debt finance during the recession, there are signs that the buy-to-let mortgage market is starting to provide finance again and will recover more quickly than the lending market to first-time buyers", he says. "This is because investors will usually have some equity, and therefore require lower loan-to-values, than those trying to buy for the first time".
Fletcher says the government could do more to channel this funding into boosting housing supply. Housing zones, he explains, would "reward long term investment and avoid supporting speculation". The zones could allow future capital gain tax relief for investors, taking just 10% of any gains after five years (the tax is currently levied at 28%). "This reflects the social good that results from the provision of housing. Applying the rate in five years' time would have the added advantage of representing no cost to the exchequer until that time."
Benefits
Another perk could be an exemption from income tax on rental income for the first five years, up to an investment limit of £10,680 (as with ISA). The zones should not discriminate between direct and indirect investment, Fletcher says. "Companies investing in zones should have their shares and dividends treated in the same way so far as pay outs to the individual investor are concerned."
Planning incentives could also prove popular. Local authorities, in return for having their zones approved by the Treasury, could be obliged to make the areas a "planning priority", providing a fast-track planning service.
Criticisms
But the proposals have already raised concerns. Hugh Owen, director of policy and communications at social landlord Riverside, says the zones should also consider the need to attract the right type of investors. "Any proposal should be aimed at encouraging professional landlords, rather than individuals with some cash to spare who are likely to be in it for the short term or the wrong reasons", he says. "Some sort of size [and] track record threshold might help." Owen also warns that, for housing zones to work in "harder pressed" housing markets, a significant level of pre-sales will have to be agreed to encourage investors.
Owen doubts whether the benefits would be considered sufficient to overcome the economic disadvantages of becoming a private landlord. Meanwhile rents in struggling housing markets are often dictated by housing benefit regulations, currently clouded in uncertainty. "I would expect the investor to be looking for a lease arrangement which transferred the risk of rent collection rates to a managing institution", he says. "If the worst performing markets were picked as housing zones this may not prove practical unless some underwriting or public sharing of risks was given - which is unlikely to be acceptable."
As a result, the housing zones would be likely to be located in areas which weren't the most challenging but that need some help, Owen says.
Rob Pratt, project director in the business development team at the Hyde Group, says while the concept of housing zones is simple enough to implement, there are doubts about whether they would offer the necessary returns. "Institutional investors want to see a guaranteed, index-linked return on their investment", he says but believes the zones could indirectly boost the supply of new housing.
"I'm assuming the tax breaks would apply to buying existing as well as new properties - this might stimulate transactions in the second hand market, which could increase liquidity in the new build sector as demand increases," he says.
The right developments
To work, housing zones must be designated by local authorities; one of the major criticisms levelled at the buy-to-let market during the boom years was that it led to investment in the wrong developments. At the BPF, Fletcher believes the combination of local authority designation and Treasury approval would ensure that the zones would provide affordable housing to meet demand, not new luxury homes for the richest.
And if taken up by the government, the policy could breathe new life into areas hit hardest by the recession. "Such zones could cover a neighbourhood, or perhaps even a development site that was stalled or lay redundant because of current economic conditions", he says.
FROM THE GUARDIAN
Councils need a new style of leadership
Local authorities face a challenging future and require leaders that can manage change creatively and inspire staff
Friday 10 June 2011
Ben Cook
It's time for a new era in council management. With local authority budgets slashed and council staff becoming increasingly demoralised, the managers of the future need to learn a new set of leadership skills. Expertise in commissioning private and voluntary sector organisations, as well as the ability to think creatively about what's best for the local area will be of paramount importance.
But that's not enough: council leaders will also need to be kinder, more considerate and better listeners.
Stephen Hughes, chief executive of Birmingham city council, says the local authority leaders of the future will be involved in commissioning "non-public bodies" to provide outcomes - and paying them by results. The approach mirrors the Department for Work and Pensions' 'work programme', which employs contractors to get people into employment by paying them a retainer, and only rewarding the company with a larger sum of money when its job hunters are shown to have retained work.
"It's about getting out of direct provision, and this model is appropriate to a lot of areas", says Hughes. "For example,
it's relevant to the work Graham Allen MP is doing looking at what we should invest in young people at a young age to stop them becoming delinquent."
The corporate view
How should council leaders and managers foster this new approach to service provision? "It involves influencing skills and taking a corporate view", says Hughes. "People tend to take a professional view of their job from their perspective as lawyers or teachers, for example, but their needs to be a focus on outcomes."
Hughes uses the example of libraries. "We have to think innovatively about services and consider what is the purpose of a service", he says. "Look at what it is seeking to achieve, not what it does – we know libraries lend books, but why are they lending books?" He says that by taking this approach, council leaders and managers will be able to think more creatively about how they deliver services.
With a view to getting its staff to adopt this mindset, Birmingham developed workshop programme BEST (which stands for 'belief, excellence, success, trust'), which involves groups of staff coming up with suggestions to improve customer service, partnerships or team work.
John Mothersole, chief executive of Sheffield city council, says managers are potentially the greatest source of inspiration for staff or, conversely, the main cause of anxiety. "The bottom line is balancing the budget, but keeping organisational stability, in terms of mood, is also important. We don't want any great industrial action or marching in the streets."
Council managers leading on "thinking, rather than just delivery" is vital. "We want managers to think in terms of the outcome for the city rather than just delivery of the service." This involves allowing managers to adopt strategies that may not save money in the short term, but will provide benefits in the medium term. "Managers need permission and space to think," he says.
To get both public and private sector managers together to focus on outcomes for the city, the council set up the City Region Leadership Programme with Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Sheffield. "One of the groups on the programme is focussing on increasing smoking cessation – it includes a lawyer, as well as representatives from the voluntary and community sectors, the NHS, and a financial controller", says Mothersole.
Boosting morale
Kieron Brennan, head of business development for the public sector at management outsourcing company Vertex, says one of the key challenges facing council managers is keeping up the spirits of staff. "It's about maintaining morale among those who are staying and who have seen colleagues leave", he says.
Reacting to reports of possible redundancies also consumes a lot of Mothersole's time. "It's a case of not committing to a number [for redundancies] until you know what it is", he says. "It's about honesty in saying 'I don't know', the humility of management is important."
In light of the scaling back of the National Graduate Development Programme, Brennan advocates the use of apprenticeships to develop skills for senior managers in local government. "We need to create a best practice mechanism for a career development path and mentoring, and this is relatively inexpensive."
Meanwhile, despite the popularity of The Apprentice, council leaders are advised against adopting the overbearing management style of business guru Lord Sugar. According to Jo Ellen Grzyb, founding partner of Impact Factory which has provided leadership training for staff at Barnet, Lewisham and Tower Hamlets councils the "rude bullying style" of management is going out of fashion.
"The type of management attributes that will make a difference in future are kindness, consideration and good listening skills – it's not about putting people down or criticising them for what they've done wrong", she says. "The majority of people spend a lot of hours at work and they need to feel valued and have hope for the future."
Case study: The City Region Leadership Programme Developed by Sheffield Council in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Sheffield, the City Region Leadership Programme aims to help public and private sector leaders and managers:
- learn how to deliver more with fewer resources
- develop the ability to work collaboratively with peers in other organisations with a view to joining up services around user needs
- develop the skills to tackle challenges without the need for outside consultants
- become part of a leadership group that can provide "better outcomes" for South Yorkshire
Participants need to be educated to degree level or have equivalent work experience. They attend eight days of formal study workshops, delivered in four blocks of two days. There are also four masterclasses and four half days of group work, supplemented by independent study. The "non-traditional" methods of assessment include presentations, interviews and strategies that are jointly appraised by university staff and the employer.
Course modules include leadership and coaching; initiating, adapting to, and managing change; building a culture of innovation and improvement; developing customer-centric services; and business focus underpinning service planning and control.
FROM INSURANCE TIMES:
The fine art of stress management
23 February, 2011
By Ben Cook
With the financial sector particularly exposed to the fragile economy, it’s not surprising that many employees are suffering from stress. What is to be done?
Is your work making you feel irritable? Is one of your colleagues starting to look a bit dishevelled and spending a bit too much time in the pub? If the answer is ‘yes’, you or your workmate may be suffering from workplace stress.
You are not alone. According to recent research by recruitment company Michael Page, four out of 10 insurance professionals answered that they “often feel stressed at work”. The same survey also reveals that nearly half of those working in the insurance industry had felt so stressed that they had “called in sick to work just to avoid going in”.
The question is: why are people employed in the insurance industry getting so stressed out? And what can employers do to reduce the risk of staff becoming stressed?
International Stress Management Association director Jenny Edwards says insurance professionals are getting stressed because the financial sector as a whole is “under huge pressure”. “The financial crisis means that the financial sector is struggling with the fear of redundancy,” she adds. The fact that some companies in the financial sector have said redundancies will be spread out over a number of years – and that in some cases they will include not replacing people who retire or choose to leave – does not make it any easier for staff, says Edwards. “The feeling is the axe is hovering and people are thinking their time is up.”
Risk factors
According to the Health & Safety Executive, there are six factors that can lead to work-related stress, which resulted in 9.8 million working days being lost in the UK in 2009/10. These involve staff:
• feeling unable to cope with the demands of their job;
• not having a say in the way they do their work;
• not receiving adequate support from colleagues and superiors;
• being subjected to unacceptable behaviour, such as bullying;
• not understanding their role and responsibilities; and
• not being engaged when an organisation is undergoing change.
According to Edwards, change in particular is handled badly by the financial sector. “People feel disempowered and poorly communicated with, and feel that change is foisted upon them,” she says. She adds that redundancies can also result in the demands of an employee’s job increasing beyond their ability to meet them, as “work is distributed among less and less people”.
Edwards highlights the following as symptoms of stress: minor ailments, irritability, poor memory, dishevelled appearance, drinking more or a change in eating habits. In addition, “presenteeism” is another stress-related phenomenon. “This is when people turn up for work but are ineffective because they are stressed,” explains Edwards.
Productivity and morale are affected by presenteeism she says and, consequently, it “costs one and a half times more than absenteeism”. She explains that people will come to work even when they are ill because “they fear poor attendance could count against them when decisions are made on redundancies – this has an effect on colleagues who may have to pick up the slack”.
Unite’s national officer for the finance sector, Dave Fleming, says finance is a stressful place to work at the moment because it has a bad reputation. “It’s fat cats with huge bonuses that have caused the problem, but it’s people on the front line – such as those working in call centres – who are being vilified and getting abuse because the [public’s] instinct is to rant and rave at them. But the people doing this work are citizens like you and me; they’re not the guardians of the economy,” he says.
Fleming says employers could do more to help staff working in financial sector call centres. “A lot of these calls are monitored, so there could be more sensitivity and protection [for call centre workers],” he says.
According to Doug Russell, health and safety officer at union USDAW, the tighter regulation of the insurance sector in recent years has added to employees’ stress. “Stress levels are partly due to job insecurity, but this is compounded by stricter regulation – there’s more pressure on employees to pass exams,” he says.
What can insurance brokers do to reduce the risk of their staff suffering from stress? Dundee-based broker Clark Thomson works in conjunction with Working Health Services Dundee to offer occupational health services for employees. Clark Thomson staff suffering from stress, or any other ailment, can refer themselves, or be referred by a manager, to the service, which offers confidential stress counselling in addition to physiotherapy. Clark Thompson’s group health and safety adviser Stewart Falconer says that, without the service, a number of staff would have had to take time off. “The service enables a quicker return to work, and I’ve had a lot of supportive emails [from staff],” he says.
Duty of care
Broker Eastwood & Partners’ health and safety adviser, John Jones, says employers should monitor their staff and check whether they are having to take on heavier workloads. “If the firm is cutting the number of employees, check if this is resulting in people having to do more – also check if employees are bringing in stresses from home.”
Edwards points out that, under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, employers have a duty to assess the risk of “stress-related ill health arising from work activities”. She says it is important to train managers to “promote a management style of participation, delegation, constructive feedback, mentoring and coaching”. She adds: “It needs
to come from the top down. It needs to be recognised that we need to manage stress, as it’s expensive when people are off because of it.” IT
Case study: broker under stress One insurance broker began suffering from stress after a new computer system was introduced at the firm where he worked. Not long after the new system was implemented, a manager at the firm noticed that one of the employees had become “quiet and uncommunicative”. The manager spoke to him and asked if there were any problems that may be affecting his performance.
The employee – whose case is cited in the ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) guide entitled Stress at Work – had not got to grips with the new software. Further discussions revealed that the employee had particular difficulties with some applications that only he, and a small number of other staff, were required to use.
Furthermore, it transpired that the applications in question had not been covered in the firm’s training programme. Despite this, the employee said he “hadn’t wished to make a fuss” as he felt he was “just being a bit slower than the others to pick things up”.
The employer provided further training for staff using the new system and this solved the problem.
FROM THIRD SECTOR:
A portrait of a charity in crisis: National Trust for Scotland Third Sector, 27 September 2010
Following a strategic review last month that concluded the charity was 'unsustainable as presently organised', Ben Cook analyses the trust's difficulties and hears from a former senior insider
The National Trust for Scotland has come in for some stern criticism in recent months. A strategic review of the charity, carried out by George Reid, the former presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament, was scathing in its assessment of how the organisation was run.
Reid's report said the NTS was "not sustainable as presently organised" and hampered by "byzantine" governance structures. The charity, he added, needed a strategic plan because it lacked a "common purpose".
Reid also highlighted the large number of trustees - it has 87 in total - as a barrier to effective management of the organisation. "Its decision-making is largely gridlocked," the report said. "We have been unable to find any other charity with such inflated governance structures - we believe they prevent the trust tackling issues and setting strategic direction."
It was pretty damning stuff. But how did the NTS get itself into this predicament? Why does it have so many trustees and why are its governance structures so complex? And why did the charity develop in such a way that it prompted Reid to accuse it of lacking direction and advise it to sell some of its properties?
One former member of staff who worked in a senior role at the NTS says a number of factors have contributed to the organisation's problems. The ex-staff member, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, says one of the main difficulties is that the NTS's council - consisting of 87 members who are, in effect, trustees, though the Reid report said it was not clear who the NTS trustees were "in practice" - has failed to successfully delegate responsibility for the day-to-day running of the charity to the organisation's board, which consists of 10 non-executives and 4 staff directors. "The council should devolve decisions," the informant says, "but power remains with the council."
Key recommendations
The separation of the roles of the NTS council and its board had been one of the key recommendations made in a review of the organisation's governance by Lord Mackay of Clashfern in 2003. As the Reid report noted, Mackay had "attempted to create a clear division between an executive role for the board and a policy role for the council". To this end, after the Mackay review the NTS board was "specifically entrusted" with the operational management of the trust, the Reid report said. But while the board was responsible for the charity's day-to-day operations in theory, the reality was somewhat different.
It seems that the council and the board had a poor working relationship, and one of the events that played a key role in inflaming the existing tensions between the two bodies was the decision - made in 2008 - to sell the charity's historic headquarters, Wemyss House. The Reid report concluded that the decision to sell the Edinburgh property had been made "without adequate consultation". As a result, this had "enraged" a number of representatives on the council and also upset many of the charity's members, who wanted to have their say on the matter.
The trust had bought Wemyss House in 1996 for £5m and then spent a further £7m of grant funding refurbishing the property. Wemyss was finally sold in 2010 for £8.7m so, as the Reid report highlighted, the cost of the refurbishment had not translated into "market value". A survey of more than 9,000 NTS members carried out as part of the Reid review revealed that many had "expressed sadness" about the sale of Wemyss House and said that decisions of this magnitude should in future be announced to members in advance so that they could make their views known.
The Reid report also acknowledged that the charity's management team struggled to keep the council abreast of important issues affecting the charity. "Senior management staff have a wide range of operational duties and are hard pressed to provide a steady flow of papers to inform debate," the report concluded. According to our informant, this led to the council being wary of endorsing decisions made by the board: "The council nitpicked - it was a case of 'we don't know what your decisions are, so we can't ratify them'."
The lack of a proper inventory of NTS assets was highlighted in the Reid report as another of the main issues facing the charity. According to the informant, this is partly a legacy of the trust's former management structure, which involved its portfolio being divided up into initially six, then five and subsequently four regions, with different management in each region: "If you asked people who worked for the NTS how many properties there were, you'd get different answers from different people."
The lack of a suitable inventory of the trust's assets is also explained by the fact that part of the property portfolio was acquired before the charity's systems were computerised, according to the informant. Even when IT systems were in place, the charity lacked the funding to meet the costs of staff needed to manage them.
Sizeable property portfolio
Another recommendation made in the report was that the trust should consider reducing its property portfolio. The former senior staff member says the need for the trust to sell off some of its properties has arisen because too many properties - some of which were of questionable historical value - were, in effect, foisted on the organisation with little accompanying financial support.
The properties were often acquired without a significant endowment, the informant says, and this - coupled with the fact that Scotland is a small country that doesn't generate significant visitor numbers or members for the NTS - means the trust has struggled: "The NTS was seen as a last resort. A multitude of properties were left to the trust in people's wills, despite not being hugely significant, because who else would look after them?"
A spokesman for the NTS says the charity is to conduct an audit of the 1,500 buildings and "scraps of land" it owns, as well as the 130 "significant historical properties" in its portfolio, to assess which are not of historical significance and can therefore be sold.
So why does the charity have so many trustees? The NTS spokesman says the charity's large council was "established in the trust's governing statutes" in 1935, but that the organisation's members were due to vote on proposals to reduce the number of trustees at the charity's AGM on 25 September.
Vital economic contribution
Despite the problems that are faced by the National Trust for Scotland, the informant says that the charity, as well as being responsible for the nation's "fantastic heritage", makes a vital contribution to Scotland's economy and cultural life and that extra funding should therefore come from the Scottish government.
The ex-employee says: "The NTS does a fantastic job - it provides employment in areas with high levels of worklessness and its volunteer base gives people something to do in areas where there isn't a lot to do. "But the Scottish government needs to take on a more financially supportive role."
FROM INSIDE HOUSING:
When landlords step in 09/10/2009
Gordon Brown’s a fan. The figures - a halving of targeted families facing anti-social behaviour sanctions - speak for themselves. And now they are backed by special tenancies. So why are landlords reluctant to use family intervention projects? Ben Cook finds out.
Family intervention projects work’ was Gordon Brown’s unequivocal verdict in his speech to the Labour Party conference in Brighton last week. He pledged that the 50,000 ‘most chaotic families’ in Britain would be placed in these schemes, designed to tackle the anti-social behaviour of and help society’s most challenging residents.
FIPs produce results - a 2008 study found the projects halved the proportion of targeted families facing sanctions for anti-social behaviour. But despite the prime minister’s belief that FIPs are the key to tackling extreme anti-social behaviour, local authorities have failed to implement them to the degree the government had hoped when it began promoting them in January 2006 as part of its flagship respect agenda.
Earlier this year, the then health, now home secretary Alan Johnson and children’s secretary Ed Balls wrote to every English council asking them to ‘expand and accelerate’ FIPs.
This followed the introduction in January of new family intervention tenancies intended to remove confusion over the type of tenancy the projects require. These are offered to tenants facing possession proceedings in their existing home due to bad behaviour. Under the tenancies, residents move to dispersed or purpose-built homes, where they are given support to help them change their behaviour.
Despite government estimates that 600 family intervention tenancies per year would be used by social landlords, research carried out by Inside Housing earlier this year revealed that as few as six had been used (14 August).
According to the Department for Children, Schools and Families, around 100 FIPs have been set up across England to date and they will help ‘up to 5,000’ families this year. Their prime objective is to stop anti-social behaviour and end the cycle of homelessness in cases where families have been evicted from their homes.
FIPs can take several forms: outreach support to families in their own home; support in a non-secure tenancy in the local community; or 24-hour support in a residential unit where families live with project staff.
Caroline Davey, director of policy and campaigns at Shelter, supports the projects. ‘FIPs are an important way of tackling the root causes [of anti-social behaviour],’ she says. ‘The philosophy of going to the heart of the problem is absolutely the right way to go about it.’
But if FIPs are as effective as everyone says they are, why have social landlords been reluctant to implement them? It appears that a lack of resources, funding methods, and the voluntary, rather than compulsory, nature of family intervention tenancies have all played a part.
Abigail Davies, head of policy at the Chartered Institute of Housing, says that although FIPs are effective, they are resource-intensive and require highly skilled staff to meet the challenge of getting families to change their behaviour. ‘It’s not easy,’ she says. ‘You need a specialised building and specialised onsite 24-hour staff. It’s a lot of money spent on a small amount of people.’
Value for money?
So how much are we talking about? Landlord Charter Housing has drawn up proposals for a FIP that would work with eight to 10 families at a cost of £200,000 per year. For Charter, up to £25,000 per family represents good value. A spokesperson says that the usual cost - to agencies such as the police, education and housing - of dealing with one problem family can amount to nearly £153,000 per year. Mr Brown’s conference pledge to spend £36 million on FIPs up to 2012 should sweeten the deal further.
The same cannot be said for family intervention tenancies, according to Ms Davies. ‘Making it a specialist tenancy is a technical issue - I don’t see how it helps families. You could bolt support on top of a normal tenancy,’ she says. ‘It can also become difficult for an organisation to manage people on different tenancies.’
Others suggest the tenancies could be acting as a barrier to the projects. Andrew Oates, assistant director of neighbourhoods and customers at Liverpool Mutual Homes - which has successfully used one such tenancy - says social housing providers are hamstrung by the fact that tenants are not obliged to accept the special tenancies.
‘Currently, the family intervention tenancy is optional - if a family needs to be relocated, we have to serve notice that they are losing security of tenure and we have to tell them to get legal advice,’ he explains. ‘But the legal advice they’re given is not to sign anything.’
Mr Oates argues that, if the government wants to increase the use of family intervention tenancies - and so too the projects they are designed to facilitate - it must make them compulsory.
Landlords’ fear of the tenancies doesn’t stop there, he adds. ‘You have to do a risk assessment of the area you’re moving them to - there is some concern that you’re just moving the problem from one area to another. There is the risk that the same thing will happen in another neighbourhood.’
But Mr Oates is a fan of the general concept of FIPs. ‘The ideas behind FIPs are the way forward - the earlier you get in the better.’
Indeed, several FIPs have proved successful. A Nottingham Council-run FIP was established in early 2008 and is already starting to produce positive results that have been recognised by the prime minister.
For landlords that don’t want to step in with an FIP, however, there are alternative methods of tackling anti-social behaviour. Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, for example, is planning to run a series of workshops aimed at 13 to 14-year-olds that seek to convey the reality of life in prison. The workshops will be run in partnership with the No Way Trust, an educational charity set up by prison officers who want to turn people away from crime.
Sue Kershaw, communities first co-ordinator at Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, which also uses FIPs, says: ‘FIPs target specific families but the workshops are open to all young people - we give them a real view of what it’s like to be sent down. They see the inside of a police van and the lack of dignity involved in being in prison.’
Meanwhile, Circle 33 Housing leads the Holly Street Children and Young People’s Partnership, which incorporates a youth centre, a youth committee and a dedicated youth partnership manager. In the last year and a half, the partnership - which is run by Circle 33 on behalf of housing associations Kush (part of Places for People), North London Muslim, and Newlon, as well as Hackney Council - has provided 200 young people with a range of sporting and social activities, in addition to opportunities for personal development such as IT training and music sessions.
According to Circle 33, 15 young people have been placed in employment and 75 have completed various accredited courses. Meanwhile, the housing association says crime in the Holly Street area of Hackney has dropped by around 26 per cent.
Bina Omare, community development and growth assistant director at Circle Anglia, says: ‘It’s been successful - we made sure it wasn’t about addressing anti-social behaviour and made it about helping young people into training, education and employment.’
Budget restrictions
Although other methods of combating anti-social behaviour can be successful, there is still a widely held belief that FIPs - despite the reluctance of some social landlords to implement them - do work.
Anna Dent, policy officer at the National Housing Federation, argues that the lower than anticipated take-up of FIPs is not due to a ‘lack of recognition that they are effective’. She adds: ‘It’s quite intensive in terms of staffing and resources, but I would expect our members to be involved where there is a need for FIPs.’
But a source close to the Local Government Association argues that the way in which FIPs are funded makes it difficult for councils to get them up and running. ‘The number of FIPs being established has been limited for the simple reason that it’s ring-fenced money,’ the source says. ‘The government provides a ring-fenced budget to children’s services which then has to leverage in support from health and adult services. This can be difficult if budgets have already been set by those services.’
Whether the prime minister’s multimillion pound cash pledge and promotion of FIPs is enough to overcome the barriers to implementation remains to be seen.
Success story A family intervention project in action Police, social care and education services referred a Nottingham family to the local family intervention project, run by the council, following reports of anti-social behaviour and school non-attendance, as well as concerns about child neglect. The family consisted of six children, a father with mental health problems and a mother who appeared alcohol dependent and depressed.
Six months before the family was referred to the FIP, they were living in local authority housing. But when they were served a notice to quit, the family abandoned the tenancy and sought private rented accommodation. The FIP team engaged with the private landlord as well as the family during its time in private housing. The private landlord had intended to evict the family but agreed to wait while the FIP was under way.
FIP staff visited at midnight and at 7am to ensure children went to bed and got up at appropriate times. The parents were subject to parenting contracts, while acceptable behaviour contracts were served on the children. The mother was supported to access alcohol counselling services.
There have been no complaints of anti-social behaviour in the last nine months. All the school-age children are now in full-time education, attending more than 90 per cent of the time.
Their mother has benefited from the specialist counselling support: her confidence has grown and she has attended employment training. Her family has now exited the FIP.
The family was engaged with the FIP team between June 2008 and February 2009. The council estimates that the cost of engaging a member of staff with the family was around £12,000. In return the intervention saved the costs of three of the children potentially being taken into care. If the family had been rehoused following enforcement action and care proceedings the cost to local agencies would have been between £250,000 and £350,000 in a single year, the council says.
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FROM REGENERATION & RENEWAL:
The cost of defeat
Monday, 08 June 2009
When a Premier League football club gets relegated, it's a disaster for the fans, but what about for the community as a whole? Ben Cook reports.
It's only a game." That's the line that people with no fondness for football often trot out to admonish sobbing supporters who have just seen their team relegated.
But is it only a game? Tom Cannon, professor of strategic development at Liverpool University's Management School and a football finance specialist, estimates that the three football clubs who dropped out of the Premier League last month - Middlesbrough, Newcastle United and West Bromwich Albion - will each lose an estimated £30 million to £50 million next season due to a fall in TV revenue, advertising and ticket sales.
However, it seems it is not just the clubs that lose out. Cannon claims the dramatic loss of income has a knock-on effect on local communities, resulting in firms suffering and jobs being lost.
Communities with clubs that are relegated from the Premier League suffer due to less money being spent in the local economy, says Cannon. He estimates that, while Middlesbrough and West Bromwich football clubs will lose around £30 million each from lost revenues, Newcastle United - which has the biggest fanbase of the three - will lose around £50 million. Cannon says that around one-and-a-half times a club's income is "spent in the local economy". In effect, this means that if Newcastle United FC loses £50 million in income next season, the local economy will see a £75 million drop in revenue in the same period. In Newcastle's case, Cannon says many people from outside the area travel to the city to watch the game, drinking in bars, eating in restaurants and staying in hotels. "Each match day at Newcastle is worth around £1 million in tourism," he says.
The loss of revenue for three clubs and their communities will lead to redundancies. "There will be immediate job losses," says Cannon, adding that they could come in the local construction industry - for instance, from work on the stadium being cancelled - or among groundsmen or assistants in the club shops. In addition, he says that restaurants, hotels and shops may have to lay off staff.
Global audience
The three clubs' relegation could also have less tangible, but equally damaging effects, Cannon argues. With the Premier League being so widely watched around the world, the presence of a top-flight club can help an area attract foreign investment. "The media coverage raises awareness among potential investors and entrepreneurs," explains Cannon. He highlights Hull and Manchester, where the presence of Premier League clubs has been used by both cities to market themselves to foreign investors. "The Premiership is a global advertising medium. Hull has used it to promote the city: the business community, the city authority and the chamber of commerce have used it effectively," Cannon says. "Similarly, Manchester City Council has used its Premiership clubs to promote the city internationally."
In the case of Newcastle Utd, Cannon also cites the detrimental effect of relegation on the "Geordie Nation" phenomenon. The Geordie Nation was a phrase first used by former Newcastle Utd FC owner Sir John Hall in the early 1990s. It sought to emphasise the separateness of the North-East and encapsulated the concept of Newcastle United acting as the flagship for the revival of a region hit hard by the decline of its mining and ship- building industries. The Geordie Nation concept was seen as a way of attracting investment to the North-East by using the football club as a catalyst. "The Geordie Nation effect was a rallying cry for development in the North-East," says Cannon. "You'd have to go to Barcelona to find something similar to the Geordie Nation phenomenon."
Paul Wales, operations manager at West Middlesbrough Neighbourhood Trust New Deal for Communities, agrees that relegation from the Premiership has negative repercussions that extend beyond football. He fears that Middlesbrough's relegation means the area's profile will diminish. He says that having a Premier League club meant Middlesbrough was an "easily recognisable area", but now "that will be missing".
What's more, local voluntary bodies could lose income due to their team's relegation from the Premier League, according to Dr Anoop Nayak, reader in social and cultural geography at Newcastle University's School of Geography, Politics and Sociology. He cites the example of Newcastle now being certain to lose star players such as Michael Owen. "Clubs do a lot of work with charities and hospitals," Nayak says. "Without high-profile individuals, will charities generate the same amount of income?" He argues that the relegation of Newcastle and Middlesbrough will affect a wider area than that of West Bromwich. "Middlesbrough and Newcastle are one-club cities," he says.
Promotion boost
A spokesman for regional development agency Advantage West Midlands says that the impact of West Bromwich's relegation on the region will be limited. Indeed, he argues that the region could on the whole gain following the promotion of nearby Birmingham City and Wolverhampton Wanderers to the Premier League.
Reassuringly, funding for several community initiatives run by the three relegated clubs will, for the immediate future, be unaffected by their change in league status. These include schemes funded through the Premier League/Professional Footballers' Association Community Fund, which allocates money to club-specific projects; the Premier League 4 Sport initiative, a centrally funded multi-sport community project; and Premier League Health, a men's health initiative. Newcastle, Middlesbrough and West Bromwich all received money from each fund during the 2008/09 season and a Premier League spokesman says that for all three clubs "the projects are guaranteed funding for three years ... and will continue to be funded to the same level at each of the three clubs despite their relegation".
While football clubs' local economic role is often overlooked, it would also be irresponsible to overstate the case. In Newcastle, for instance, there is a view that things aren't quite as bleak as they seem. Brian Hannah, chair of Newcastle New Deal for Communities, says: "It will mostly be the football club that is affected, but then I'd expect nearly 50,000 people to come through the gates for the first game of next season. The area's had bigger knocks." He adds that, while the local economy may suffer to an extent, it is diverse enough to cope. "Hotels may take a hit at the weekends as they haven't got the glamour games, but it's a vibrant city, you still get hen and stag parties."
HOW MUCH DO PREMIERSHIP CLUBS DO LOCALLY?
Regeneration & Renewal contacted the 20 clubs who were in the Premier League during the season that has just ended to find out how much each spent on corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes. Only three clubs responded directly to the request. An Arsenal spokeswoman said: "We are not able to disclose the amount spent on CSR each year by the club as it is not something we specifically categorise in our annual report," while an Everton spokesman commented: "We never discuss what we spend on anything. This is a football club. If we announce we have spent £3 on tea bags the punters slaughter us, insisting the money should have been invested in players." A spokesman for Chelsea was more open, stating that: "Chelsea has one of the most wide-ranging corporate social responsibility programmes in football that sees it invest more than two per cent of its turnover annually - nearly £4.5 million - in community, charity, social inclusion and environmental schemes."
Newcastle United and Wigan Athletic referred Regeneration & Renewal to the Premier League for information, which declined to give a club-by-club breakdown of expenditure. However, a spokesman said the league as a whole invested a total of £125 million in community programmes - including those focusing on health, education and social inclusion - during the 2007/08 season. Examples include Kickz - described by the league as its "flagship community programme" - which uses football-related initiatives to improve relations between the police and young people with the aim of reducing crime and antisocial behaviour. Kickz also works to educate 12- to 18-year-olds about the dangers of gangs, guns, knives, alcohol and drugs.
Brian Hannah, chair of Newcastle New Deal for Communities, reckons that despite the millions invested in local communities by the Premier League, non-Premier League clubs have the most successful community programmes. This, he says, is because they cannot rely on corporate support and therefore have to make more of an effort to woo local people. "Newcastle United has never been great in the community," says Hannah. "The clubs that do best in the communities are outside the Premier League - they don't have what (former Manchester United midfielder) Roy Keane called the prawn sandwich brigade."
FROM BUILDING:
The rake’s progress: housebuilders
18 July 2008 | By Ben Cook
Housebuilders don’t like to get tied down. As soon as a scheme’s built and sold, they move on. So why are they suddenly forming longer-term attachments? Ben Cook finds out what it’s all about
The housebuilder has always been the love-them-and-leave-them type. His traditional method of going about things has been to buy land, develop on it, sell it outright and move on to the next conquest. But times change, and with his glory days seemingly behind him, the cad of the construction industry is settling down:
to survive the current economic climate, housebuilders are having to take longer-term attachments to developments by getting involved in shared-ownership schemes or the social rented sector.
There’s plenty of evidence to show that in the current climate, the housebuilders’ traditional business model isn’t working. Listed builders’ shares have lost about 90% of their value in the past year, with two of the largest, Barratt and Taylor Wimpey, in serious danger of financial collapse. Add to that the fact that the industry is building at half the rate it was last year – National House Building Council figures record that just 9,589 homes were started on site in May, compared with 20,019 the previous May – while government targets are calling for the industry to raise production by a third, and it’s clear there’s a problem.
Yolande Barnes, director of Savills Research, says the current trader model, as it is known, is no longer an effective way of doing business. “It’s inadequate in delivering mixed-use, mixed-tenure, eco-design sites. Mass housebuilders will have to change fundamentally,” she says. “Placemaking requires a different business model and takes more than just the skills of a housebuilder.”
Barnes adds that, while housebuilders are good at short-term development, commercial developers are used to developing “complex urban land”, where the returns may come over a 10-15 year period. Consequently, she says, the most successful housebuilders of tomorrow will be those that retain an interest in a development for a sustained period. This will mean that mixed-use developers like Land Securities become the “largest delivers of housing”.
Another problem with the traditional business model is that banks are reluctant to lend money to fund developments while people are struggling to get mortgages. In addition, the prices paid for land by builders at the top of the market make it impossible to reduce sale prices without making a loss. That’s why Taylor Wimpey has had to write down £550m and Barratt’s balance sheet bears an £85m accounting loss.
Clive Wilding, project director of Barking Riverside, which will be the biggest housing development in the Thames Gateway when its 10,800 homes are completed, says the industry ignores these signals at its peril: “If the downturn gets worse, the market will change to a more investment-led form of housing.”
Because of this he says Barking Riverside is being developed as a flexible, affordable housing vehicle, which will allow homes for private sale, shared ownership and rent to be added and changes to the tenure of homes to be made over time. It will be focused on yield over a longer period.
Wilding’s view has high-profile support. John Callcutt, the former chief executive of housebuilder Crest Nicholson and author of the Callcutt Review into housing delivery commissioned by the communities department, says that while the current trader business model will still be effective in prime areas and edge-of-town sites, “large urban regeneration projects will have to look at a new model as there is no demand and low land values in such areas.”
We’ve been running the same model for 50 to 60 years and we have been through boom and bust during that time
Terry Fuller, HBF
Instead of quick profit, returns will be gained from “high-quality” long-term management of sustainable, mixed-use developments – maintaining good transport links and tackling graffiti, for example – Callcutt says. If done successfully he says the long-term value will outweigh the high-risk returns from the current trader model.
When companies can demonstrate their ability to do this, he says, investment fund managers will suddenly become interested in financing such developments.
Not that most housebuilders agree the death knell has sounded for the traditional business model. Terry Fuller is chairman of the affordable housing group at the Home Builders Federation. “That message is being put about by doom-mongers,” he says. “We’ve been running the same model for 50 to 60 years and we have been through boom and bust during that time.”
Others, such as Alan Cherry, chairman of Countryside Properties, think the model is still “very sound,” despite the fact he has recently cut development in the north by 50%. The problems, he maintains, are more from the mortgage market and planning system.
Fuller argues that the model will persist because many housebuilders have no option. “It’s the model the vast majority use – there is a plethora of small regional housebuilders that don’t have any choice because the landowner requires cash up-front.”
In addition, Fuller adds, any change will require a complete rethink of the way builders are funded – at the moment this is achieved with short-term bank debt and through the issuing of shares. “It requires a different investment model from shareholders who want a dividend every year. You need to be attracting pension fund money, as investors won’t see returns until 20 years later, when the property is sold.”
But Wilding maintains that the market will adjust. “Developers will look at housing over a longer period of time and more asset-backed vehicles will look at doing social rented or shared ownership housing,” he says.
The government is hoping the public sector will fill the current gap in work, but with housebuilders already having laid off thousands of staff it is unclear whether any business model is robust enough to enable building to continue through the current seizure in mortgage supply. However, it does appear that a long-term model could keep businesses big enough to take advantage when the market does finally turn around.
Statistics
In the housebuilder’s current trader business model, small causes can contribute to big effects. For example …
0.26% - Average increase in interest rate charged on fixed mortgages in the 12 months to May
87% - Fall in share price of the top three housebuilders in the 12 months to July
3.2% - Fall in house prices over the past 12 months
52% - Fall in starts on new homes in the 12 months to May
How housebuilders do business
Most housebuilders use a “current trader” business model, under which they buy a few plots of land, build homes and then sell them at a profit. They then use the profit to buy more land. The housebuilder retains no long-term interest in the properties.
The size and quality of housebuilders’ landbanks give a strong indication of how successful they will be in the future. Housebuilders with large landbanks are able to avoid entering the land market if they believe land prices are too high and therefore can mitigate the adverse effects of economic downturns. Small and medium-sized housebuilders that are unable to afford large landbanks and have short-term borrowing arrangements are vulnerable in a downturn.
The Callcutt Review, published last November, said this model was “increasingly under pressure” from land prices and land supply at one end of the process, to a slowing market at the other. It highlighted three alternative business models:
- The investor model, in which developers retain a long-term interest in a developed site, such as housing for rent or shared ownership sales
- The self-build model, in which the individual lays the bricks himself or the plot owner contracts with architects and builders – the contractors in this instance do not take market or planning risks.
- The registered social landlord build-for-sale model, in which social housing providers who build homes for rent also build homes for sale.