Sheltered housing wardens: the campaign is just beginning!

You still have until 5pm today to fill in the consultation on the proposal to cut sheltered housing wardens! You can do it online here.

I would urge you to look at the consultation document, even if you are not going to fill in the questionnaire, in order to familiarise yourself with the proposals and the council's arguments. Because... the campaign to save the warden service does not end here!

The responses to the consultation have to be compiled and then, according to the consultation document:

"A detailed report of the responses to the consultation will be considered by the council's cabinet, which will have the first decision on whether or not the proposals should be accepted. The Cabinet's decision will be reported to all organisations and individuals affected by the proposals, and the decision will then be referred to the full council."

The Cabinet will take a decision at their meeting on 8 June. I am trying to get clarification of whether or not the full council will afterwards vote on this proposal as it suggests here, because some people think it won't. In any case, you would think it should, rather than the Cabinet taking such a potentially controversial decision all by themselves.

Of course, it would be a strange world indeed if the Cabinet were only guided by the results of the consultation. (As it happens, I have a strange inkling the consultation will show an overwhelming thumbs-down from Barnet residents to the proposals.)

What else could help the Cabinet to make up their minds against the proposal?

1. They have already agreed a provision in the budget to plug any gap should the cuts not go ahead: they'll offset the gap by the fact that there is lower than expected inflation this year. So even from the narrowly financial point of view they do not need to make this cut.

2. Barnet residents can and should continue to express their opinion on this matter, to elected councillors in the first place. Find your councillors and their details here.

Other things you can do

Sign the online petition at 10 Downing Street, begun by a resident in one of Barnet's sheltered housing schemes.

The cuts proposed by Barnet are only part of a wider picture of such cuts around the country. Read about the campaign against this here.

Put People First tomorrow (or today, if you're reading this on Saturday morning)

The papers are filled with 'news' of the 'riots' being 'planned' for next week around the G20 meeting taking place in London. There are always some protestors who want to lob a brick through a window, and even worse, I know, but I am convinced that most of the people who will descend on the City on Financial Fools' Day are no more dangerous anarchists than the bankers they seek to pillory (whoops!).

In any case, tomorrow, Saturday 28 March, a perfectly peaceful programme of events has been organised by unions and campaigning and religious organisations, called Put People First. I encourage everyone who can to join in. There will be something for almost everyone, including at Central Hall, Westminster a joint church action service at 11am (with music and worship from 10.30am). That means not a lot to me, and I have a down on the Central Hall since I ate a costly and dodgy sandwich in their Wesley's Cafe. But it might be some people's cup of tea...

I will certainly, however, be at at Cleopatra's Needle, Victoria Embankment, at 10.30am, assembling with comrades (if I can use that word) from Barnet trades council and the Barnet Community Campaign, for the march to Hyde Park where we will be richly (if not royally - though by tomorrow who knows) entertained.

I know most Barnet residents put people first every day of their lives - that's normal isn't it? What else would we put first? Profit... (if I can use that word)? But let's make a show of our humanity tomorrow before everything is forgotten in next week's hysteria.

Barnet Tories too cowardly to attend sheltered housing meetings

Barnet's Tory councillors have been invited to at least one of the meetings held to consult sheltered housing scheme residents over the proposed axing of the warden service.

Brian Coleman, Richard Cornelius and soon-to-be-ex councillor Caroline Margo are all invited to the consultation meeting on Wednesday night, 25 March, at St Johnstone House. But the indications are they will not take up the invitation. I wonder why that is...

Barnet's Tory councillors should be facing the wrath of the elderly residents in the sheltered housing schemes who are worried about losing their onsite warden service. Instead, they are leaving it to council staff to explain the cuts to residents. It's plain cowardly - if you think this scheme is such a good idea, make the case for it publicly to those who it will affect the most.

Council tells residents about Future Shape at long last

I like to think that it is a sort of reward for hard work, hassling Barnet council to provide some readily understandable information about the Future Shape programme. I've raised this at two residents' forums and other people have chipped away in various ways. At last there is something on Barnet council's website that isn't all consultant speak, and more is promised. Read it here.

I found out about this in a reply to a petition I sent to the last Hendon residents' forum.

Petition:

The Council’s Future Shape programme is likely to have profound effects on the way council services are delivered in future. So far, however, the information available to residents about the programme has been too little and what has been available has been difficult to understand.

The Plain English Campaign described the Future Shape report passed at the Cabinet meeting on 3 December 2008 thus: “From a plain English point of view, it is an awful document”. We are petitioning the Council to make a clear, plain English version of the Future Shape programme available to the public so that residents can judge for themselves what they think of it.

Response:

A plain English outline of the future shape programme is available on Barnet Online at http://www.barnet.gov.uk/future-shape-of-barnet-council. As well as this article, which we will update periodically, articles have been included on the future shape programme in recent editions of Barnet First, delivered to all residents. There will be further Barnet First coverage of the programme as it progresses.

Officers will report back to the Council on the current feasibility work in the summer, detailing proposals about where savings and improvements can be made and their long-term implications for the borough. This report will be available to the public. Should the Council decide after that to change how services are provided or who supplies them, more detailed work will be carried out on a business case by business case basis, taking full account of the likely impact on residents and staff, and the risks involved. This is in line with the way that previous decisions of this type have been made.

I'll reserve comment for now on the political content of the response... It would be churlish not to celebrate, for a moment, the appearance of any information at all.

I'm not impressed, however, by the coverage in Barnet First, the colour mag with news (propaganda) about Barnet council that is delivered to every home... er, is meant to be delivered to every home. Checking past issues on the website I discovered that Barnet First is published bimonthly. I don't think I've had one delivered for months, years possibly! Checking online, I'm not impressed by its coverage of Future Shape. Any mention at all is very oblique and doesn't amount to the comprehensive discussion that Barnet residents need. Must try harder.

Barnet councillors: go and hear for yourselves what elderly residents think about ending wardens for sheltered housing

I was privileged this evening to attend a consultation meeting in one of the elderly sheltered housing schemes threatened with losing their onsite warden. Barnet council wants to save about 75% of the money they currently spend on such wardens, and instead spend £300k on a floating warden scheme, that people can phone up when they have a problem. Gone will be the system where each morning an onsite warden goes around to check on all the residents in their scheme.

There are 1,500 residents in about 50 schemes in Barnet. The new proposals would mean the number of wardens dropping from about 40 to perhaps less than 10 - in any case, only as many staff as could cover 150-200 people at any one time: 10% of the coverage there is at present.

There are also proposals regarding provision of alarms. Residents pay a fee for the equipment, and a separate fee for the monitoring service - someone centrally who could answer an alarm call. There are proposals to means-test the provision of alarms and to provide it only to those who pass a medical test that says they need it, ignoring the fact that elderly people's needs change - usually they require more help as time passes, not less!

The format of the meeting was that for one hour council staff from the Supporting People Team were given the poisoned chalice of attempting to loyally represent the wishes of the council to cut the service at the same time as trying to organise a consultation process that fairly reflects the views of the residents.

For the second half of the meeting - I couldn't stay for this - an outside consultant worked at recording residents' views.

The biggest demand I can think of immediately with regard to the proposed warden cuts is that councillors themselves should turn up to the consultation meetings and hear residents and their friends and relatives talking about what having wardens means to them. And if they then want to go ahead and cut the service, councillors themselves should explain it to residents. It's outrageous making council staff do this dirty work for them.

Most of the residents had turned up to the consultation meeting. They were mostly very articulate. Many had come armed with arguments about where the money could better be saved from: councillors' own allowances, Icelandic bank deposits...

They talked about how just knowing there was an onsite warden lessened their need for other services; some talked about falls they had suffered or witnessed where the warden being available saved them further distress. They talked about how the warden saw to it that there was a social life in the scheme, parties and so on. The warden knew all the residents...

I could go on and on about their testimony - but it would be best if Barnet residents go themselves to visit these places and get in touch with the residents to hear it. This can't be left to be a paper consultation alone that touches the lives of only those immediately affected, and is sifted through by council officials alone, before the councillors inevitably wield the axe at their meeting in June. This is an issue and a fight for the whole community...

The council is trying to make propaganda out of the fact that 2% of Barnet's elderly are living in these schemes, and implying that they are somehow privileged over other elderly Barnet residents.

It almost certainly is the case that more money should be spent on other elderly Barnet residents. However, as a representative from the housing scheme I visited tonight said, the people accommodated in these schemes have been assessed as needing the services they provide. No amount of a desire to save money on the part of the council can change that fact, and no amount of shabbily playing off one needy group against another.

The six-week consultation period for this proposal ends on 31 March 2009. See the documents online here. Get involved in the campaign to stop the axing of the warden service. How do you do that? Well, sign this petition begun by Barnet residents, for starters. And watch this space...

Barnet in focus (1) Community, people and events

These are a few of the people I snapped on the 3 December rally outside Barnet House, called to protest against Barnet council's mass privatisation plan 'Future Shape'. I'll try submitting some of these pictures to the council's 'Barnet in Focus' competition, but I'm guessing they won't get me a sniff of that first prize of an iPod Touch.

Barnet council attempts to bribe residents: Barnet in soft focus

So far Barnet residents have shown little interest in contributing to council social media sites like whereilive.org, so now they are being induced by a competition, with an iPod Touch as first prize. Read a local Times report about the council's new photo competition here.

I for one will be happy to contribute some pictures that

'...capture the people, places and images that make the borough unique... in three different categories: community, people and events; landscape, urban images and green spaces; and “what I like about Barnet”.'

I strongly urge my many readers to take up this challenge as well. Competition rules can be found here.

The title of Barnet council's competition is 'Barnet in Focus', but I suspect that the council's competition will only show:

- green grass and nodding daffodils
- groups of people with smiles on their faces
- boy scouts helping old people across the road, etc.

In short, 'Barnet in soft focus'. While all of these things exist in Barnet, and I love them too, the reality of Barnet life can be rather more challenging.

Therefore I am announcing my own photo competition, to supplement that of the council's. It will feature a more 'edgy' Barnet. It won't be all droom and gloom - even though it will be hard to take a pretty picture of the Edgware Road, even on the sunniest of days.

No, I mean to show rebellious Barnet: what I value most about Barnet is all the people I have met who are willing to say no to things they don't like, eg, Future Shape or the proposed 'cessation' of wardens for sheltered housing. And I have never seen so many happy, smiling faces as when on a protest or picket - they can be very uplifting places. But I somehow doubt such sights will feature among the council's own competition winners.

Petition to defend wardens for Barnet sheltered housing

Please sign up to the petition set up by a Barnet resident which reads

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Stop the closure of sheltered housing schemes.

And explains further:

More and More Councils are closing sheltered housing Schemes, Barnet being one that is considering it now, It is nothing short of Elder Abuse, Right now we have Laws that Protect our animals, but not our old people, Can this be right?

Sign the petition here.

The wardens for Barnet council's sheltered housing schemes are threatened with removal as part of budget cuts, and replacement by a 'floating' warden scheme, thus effectively ending the sheltered nature of sheltered housing altogether.

One day left to save a vital welfare service?

Barnet council has extended the period for consultation on their proposal for 'cessation' of the Welfare Rights Unit until this Wednesday, 11 March. You can read a hastily assembled Equalities Impact Assessment and other information relating to the proposal and find out how to comment here.

I would urge you also to look at the coverage on the Unison website of this issue. There you can see statements by Barnet council staff and voluntary sector bodies opposing closure and clearly stating that the services they provide and those that the Welfare Rights Unit provides are COMPLEMENTARY. The services to vulnerable people who have difficulties claiming benefits to which they are entitled will suffer if this Unit closes. See coverage here.

If anyone thinks the Welfare Rights Unit is some flabby outfit, I would point out that the staff is 5-6 people and the whole Unit costs £180,000 a year to run, including salaries. The Cabinet members who have just voted themselves big rises in their allowances should reflect on that; Barnet voters certainly will.

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Five days to save a vital welfare service?

Barnet council has extended the period for consultation on their proposal for 'cessation' of the Welfare Rights Unit until this Wednesday, 11 March. You can read a hastily assembled Equalities Impact Assessment and other information relating to the proposal and find out how to comment here.

I would urge you also to look at the coverage on the Unison website of this issue. There you can see statements by Barnet council staff and voluntary sector bodies opposing closure and clearly stating that the services they provide and those that the Welfare Rights Unit provides are COMPLEMENTARY. The services to vulnerable people who have difficulties claiming benefits to which they are entitled will suffer if this Unit closes. See coverage here.

If anyone thinks the Welfare Rights Unit is some flabby outfit, I would point out that the staff is 5-6 people and the whole Unit costs £180,000 a year to run, including salaries. The Cabinet members who have just voted themselves big rises in their allowances should reflect on that; Barnet voters certainly will.

“Assessment is pretty much the same whether you are assessing pot holes or care for the elderly,” says Essex county council leader

National newspapers are covering the clutch of big privatisation moves by local councils. There are several articles in the Times recently. In "Councils poised to hand running of care and education to private firms", Lord Hanningfield, leader of Essex County Council, which offered a contract of £5.4bn to private contractors (shortlisted are IBM and TI Systems), is interviewed:

'...savings could be made by streamlining functions such as assessment, human resources, IT and finance across all services. “Assessment is pretty much the same whether you are assessing pot holes or care for the elderly,” he said. “Local government has to change and do things differently if it is to meet the growing expectations and needs of the people it serves. This is not about reducing services but looking at different ways of delivering them.'

Well, that certainly would be a different approach to elder care.
Lord Hanningfield failed to consult Essex residents or councillors about the tender. In the light of this,

'Unison, the public sector union, is considering bringing a legal challenge against the county, claiming that it has breached EU and domestic law.'

If the Hanningfield vision of assessing the care needs of the elderly like they were holes in the road doesn't appeal, come to the meeting tomorrow to discuss Barnet Future Shape, and the campaign to put public services before private profit.

Wednesday 4 March, 7-9pm, 'Barnet residents: We Shape our own Future', at Barnet Multicultural Community Centre, Algernon Road, NW4 3TA. Map: tinyurl.com/launch4mar