ConsultationWatch

Smoke 'em out!

2009-11-06T23:25:00.003Z

The Government has taken a tough line on smoking – banning smoking in public places, and raising to 18 the age at which it is legal to buy tobacco products. In its defence, the Government can point to both success: smoking rates having fallen from 28% to 21% in the decade since 1998; and the ongoing tobacco-induced carnage as a prompt to further action: more than 80,000 die from smoking-related illnesses per year (which according to the Government is "more than alcohol, road traffic and other accidents, suicide, illegal drugs and diabetes combined").

The Health Bill before Parliament contains provision for more anti-smoking measures, and to coincide with it the Department of Health has opened a consultation on the implementation of the main proposals in the Bill: to restrict tobacco displays in shops and the sale of tobacco products in vending machines.

However, a rebel amendment from Ian McCartney MP has somewhat pre-empted half of the consultation's remit by introducing an outright ban of tobacco vending machines – which does seem a logical step, since you can't buy alcohol (also 18-rated) from vending machines, as Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) pointed out. Cancer Research UK also welcomed the move, their Chief Executive Harpal Kumar stating, "removing cigarette vending machines will help reduce the number of young people taking up a lethal addiction: tobacco kills half of all long term users".

Still, for consultation fans, you have until 4th January 2010 to have your say about the display of tobacco products in shops – about which the Government previously consulted in 2008. A YouGov survey at that time on behalf of anti-smoking campaigners ASH found that nearly 60% favoured banning tobacco displays in shops.

However, the plans have lined up another organisation against New Labour – though not necessarily one to join the progressive throng – the National Federation of Retail Newsagents (NFRN), a trade association representing over 32,000 independent newsagents and convenience stores. They are now threatening to boycott Labour at the General Election (join the queue!) unless the legislation is overturned. Just wait until age discrimination legislation stops their "no more than two schoolchildren" signs!

In the consultation document it states: "we firmly believe that small shops are at the heart of our communities and it is vital that we listen to shopkeepers to make sure that the regulations are workable and cost-effective in practice". Perhaps that is why the draft regulations proposed in the consultation to allow for the outlawing of tobacco displays will apply in large shops from October 2011, but newsagents will be given until October 2013.

While previous Governments have focused solely on price – which disproportionately hits the poorest – to deter smoking, this Government has also recognised the importance of changing the smoking culture (by outlawing it in pubs and clubs) and restricting advertisements. As the consultation document states, smoking "is the primary reason for the gap in healthy life expectancy between the rich and poor".

Mother, father, parent.

2009-10-18T19:11:00.004+01:00

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is carrying out a final consultation – having already consulted in 2006 and 2007 – on bringing in additional paternity leave. The proposals in effect make the latter six months of maternity leave into flexible parental leave by allowing mothers to transfer up to 26 weeks’ leave entitlement to fathers after the first 20 weeks.

Although the term "father" is used throughout the consultation paper, additional paternity leave and pay would also be available to partners (of either sex) of mothers and members of adopting couples who are employed and who qualify for statutory adoption leave and pay.

Harriet Harman, Minister for Women and Equality, said last month: "The new rights will give families radically more choice and flexibility in how they balance work and care of children, and enable fathers to play a bigger part in bringing up their children."

While Harman often, and rightly, points out how new Labour has doubled maternity leave from six months to (soon to be) twelve months, and increased maternity pay, this has not challenged gender roles. The EHRC's 'Working Better' report found that, "new parental rights introduced over the past decade are well intentioned but entrench the current unequal division of labour and caring between the sexes and work against gender equality".

The Government's Enterprise tsar, Sir Alan Sugar, made this point all too clearly when he said he would be less likely to hire a woman of child-bearing age. Explaining, he said: "If someone comes into an interview and you think to yourself 'there is a possibility that this woman might have a child and therefore take time off' it is a bit of a psychological negative thought", adding that extended maternity leave was "counter-productive".

Trade unions have welcomed these proposals, while recognising the need for Government to support further changes in working culture. The CWU advocates that "working parents should be allowed to take time off together and that the time off together should not be limited to just the two weeks of Statutory Paternity Leave".

The GMB pointed out in its response to a previous consultation that UK fathers currently work the longest hours in Europe and that the gender pay gap means that, for the majority of two parent families, it still makes better financial sense for the mother to take the bulk of time off work to care for the children.

But as the Daycare Trust points out, such changes are about "enabling families to make a choice about which parent is the carer, as well as promoting gender equality and potentially closing the gender pay gap" – although such cultural changes may take a long time. The Government estimates in the consultation paper that only 4-8% of fathers will take up this entitlement.

This issue therefore cannot be seen isolation from the gender pay gap, childcare provision and levels of poverty. While this is a welcome move by the Government, there's a lot more that must be done to truly break down traditional gender roles in child-rearing.

The consultation can be downloaded from the departmental website. The deadline for responses is 20th November 2009.

How do we care?

2009-09-20T08:47:00.002+01:00

Just before the summer recess, the Government published a Green Paper 'Shaping the Future of Care Together' proposing to develop a 'National Care Service' in the UK to make social care affordable for everyone.

In his foreword, Gordon Brown states that "A care and support system that reflects the needs of our times and meets our rising aspirations is achievable, but only if we are prepared to rise to the challenge of radical reform".

During 2008, the Government ran a six-month engagement process with the public, people who use services, and people who work in the care and support sector. Perhaps that was a sobering experience, because the DoH admits in this consultation paper that "There are wide variations in the standards and quantity of care and support offered by different local authorities. Such postcode lotteries are worsening as funding struggles to keep pace with rising numbers of older people in need of support".

The costs of care in the UK are phenomenal: a 65-year-old can expect to need care costing on average £30,000 during their retirement. Two in three women and one in two men will develop high care needs in their final years.

The one way in which a system could meet needs is through a universal, free at the point of need national care service funded through general taxation – it would also be the "radical reform" the Prime Minister claims to want.

The consultation paper looks at five funding options, the fifth of which is a tax-funded system. This is "ruled out because it places a heavy burden on people of working age". This has to be the most illogical statement ever made. If that burden is heavy when spread across the entire working population, then how 'heavy' will it be when placed solely upon those who actually need care? The paper also stops short of suggesting care home accommodation costs should be met, which will impose another cost on older people.

However, it is entirely consistent with the New Labour agenda against universalism and towards co-payment, means-testing and stigmatisation – across the board from benefits to pensions. As part of that agenda it is proposed that non-means tested, needs-based Attendance Allowance and Disability Living Allowance would be used to fund a national care service. However, these benefits enable individuals to pay for extra living expenses, not basic care.

The National Pensioners Convention states that therefore the Green Paper "does not meet our concerns". In response the NPC has instead presented an alternative vision of a National Care Service, and is building alliances with others to forcefully put the case for truly fair system – the only fair system.

Social care is an issue that, like healthcare and pensions, will affect us all. Universalism is the only way forward – and trade unions also need to be fighting alongside the NPC and carers’ organisations for this approach. A National Care Service could then be as emblematic as the National Health Service.

This approach is also advocated by Age Concern and Help the Aged, "high quality care must be available to all who need it regardless of where they live and whether they are rich or poor" according to their Director Michelle Mitchell.

The consultation on the Green Paper runs until 13th November 2009, and can be downloaded from the Department of Health website.

Long wait for council housing

2009-08-29T13:42:00.000+01:00

The Government is currently running a consultation on the 'Reform of Council Housing Finance'. In his foreword, the Housing Minister John Healey writes, "these changes will enable councils to become, once again, significant providers of new housing" – if only those words had been written in 1997 . . .

For several years, the Defend Council Housing campaign, supported by every major UK trade union, has been highlighting the daylight robbery by the Government from council housing, and campaigning for the reasonable demand that there should be a level playing field for council housing that is retained in public ownership.

The fact this consultation even exists, and that it explicitly promises "a level playing field between transfer and retention", is therefore a tribute to the DCH campaign.

Currently, councils are only offered funding to meet the Decent Homes Standard if they, in some form, privatise their council housing stock – through full stock transfer, Arms-Length Management Organisation (ALMO) or Private Finance Initiative scheme. DCH has been fighting for the 'fourth option' of direct funding for council housing.

There are over one million people living in council homes which do not meet the Decent Homes Standard (one in three of all council housing tenants). Yet for decades council tenants have paid more in rent to Government than is spent on the upkeep of council homes. It is a robbery from some of the most vulnerable people, undermining one of the most valuable institutions in British society. DCH estimates that over £30 billion has been siphoned out of council housing in the last 15 years.

The Government's commitment "to develop a sustainable, long term system for financing council housing" is therefore long overdue. Also welcome is the promise of capital grants in excess of £6 billion to meet the backlog of outstanding works to those estates and streets where tenants have refused to be blackmailed into transfer or ALMO. However, the promise of a level playing field is not yet a reality.

The government's impact assessment gives further evidence that the proposed settlement falls well short of what is required. Under the present system the Government will be taking more than £22 billion over 30 years – under the new proposals they would still be taking more than £10 billion.

Twelve years after the election of a Labour Government, after numerous conference defeats (which ultimately led to the Labour Party abolishing votes at conference) DCH concludes, "the proposals fall short but the door is opening". Please respond to the consultation and give that door another nudge.

The consultation document can be downloaded from the Department for Communities and Local Government website, and the deadline for responses is 27th October 2009.

For a full response from Defend Council Housing see www.defendcouncilhousing.org.uk

The Equality, within limits, Bill

2009-08-25T16:04:00.005+01:00

The Equality Bill is currently being debated by Parliament, and will continue to be scrutinised once MPs return in October from their summer break.

However, like many other parts of the Bill, most aspects of the Bill relating to age discrimination will come in much later through secondary legislation and therefore the Government is consulting on proposals: 'Making it work: Ending age discrimination in services and public functions'.

If you read the consultation paper you would be forgiven for believing that age discrimination does not affect young people, only older people. There is barely a reference to any of the discrimination faced by young people.

During the passage of the Employment Bill last year, John McDonnell MP tabled amendments to outlaw the lower pay rates in the National Minimum Wage legislation, and earlier this year Lynne Jones MP forced a vote to the Welfare Reform Bill on the lower benefit rates on Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA). It has never been satisfactorily explained why a 20 year old worker should receive less pay for the same work or why a 24 year old JSA claimant should survive on £14 less per week than an unemployed 25 year old.

The Government states it will “allow different treatment based on age only where it can be objectively justified”.

Older citizens have organised themselves into effective lobbies through various local pensioner action groups and the National Pensioners' Convention. They also live for longer in old age than young people do as young people.

Perhaps this explains the main form of youth discrimination identified in this consultation is that "many providers of holiday accommodation impose age limits such as "no unders 21s"". Readers may wish to pause to digest the full implications of this devastating impact on the formative years of young people.

Currently less than one in ten young workers are unionised and youth unemployment is at its highest in more than 15 years.

If trade unions are to recruit young people they need to be fighting on their behalf and fighting for their equal treatment. This means challenging the blatant ageism which means a 20 year old worker will be paid £2000 less per year for the same work as a 22 year old on the minimum wage, and an unemployed 24 year old is expected to live on £700 less than a 25 year old.

To take a quote from the consultation out of context: "there is clear evidence that age discrimination harms people's quality of life and life chances". However since this Government is also keen to "ensure burdens arising from changes are minimised" such discrimination will only be brought within the scope of the Bill if significant pressure can be brought to bear. Young people need trade unions to fight with them, and as the demographics of trade union membership increasingly shows, trade unions also need young people to fight with them.

The consultation document can be downloaded from the Government Equalities Office website and the deadline for responses is 30th September 2009.

Equality for Agency Workers?

2009-05-26T20:33:00.003+01:00

For several years the UK Government blocked the Agency Workers Directive in the labyrinthine structures of the EU (much like it does the Working Time Directive to this day). Finally last year a compromise was reached and the Directive is due to come into law soon although business organisations are seeking to delay it until 2011 (the latest date by which the Directive must be implemented).

It was part of a long campaign fought by Labour backbench MPs and trade unions with motions at TUC and Labour Party conference (before such democracy was extinguished) and with Early Day Motions and Private Members Bills in the House of Commons.

In his ministerial foreword to the Government's new consultation on implementing the Directive, Business Minister Pat McFadden describes the agreement that was reached between the CBI and TUC in May 2008 as "a commitment to equal treatment for agency workers" – which will apply after 12 weeks continuous employment.

The risk is that we will see the phenomenon of agency workers discarded after 11 weeks and a new tranche of agency workers hired in their stead. Obstacles to such a practice need to be suggested in response to this consultation.

But "equal" is equal in the Animal Farm sense. After 12 weeks, agency workers will still have no rights to pension entitlement or sick pay. The UK will therefore remain the sick man of Europe on workers’ rights. Many EU countries already have full equal rights for agency workers from six weeks. In fact, because of stronger employment and trade union legislation, there are fewer agency workers elsewhere in Europe and the EU estimates that one-third of all EU agency workers are based in the UK.

As John McDonnell MP said at the time, "this agreement can only be seen as a staging post to the full implementation of Labour leader John Smith's famous commitment to full employment rights for all workers from day one of their employment."

The frustration also boiled over for Unite leader Tony Woodley, "is it fair that British workers, alone in Europe, are so quick and easy to sack?" he asked last month. "It's an absolute disgrace. Labour should hang their heads in shame."

But this Government is light years from ensuring implementation is any sooner or any more favourable to workers, indeed the Minister frames the consultation by stating that "in these challenging economic times it is even more important that in implementing this Directive we avoid unnecessary costs and burdens for business".

One of the exemptions the Government proposes in the consultation is jobseekers engaged in 'welfare-to-work' programmes, otherwise the Directive could undermine the Government's new workfare policies, which could see claimants working for £1.73 per hour just to keep their benefits.

The consultation document can be downloaded from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform website and the deadline for responses is 31st July 2009.

Cells, Drugs and rehabilitation role

2009-05-04T19:41:00.002+01:00

The Sentencing Guidelines Council is currently conducting a consultation on 'Sentencing for Drug Offences'.

The key piece of UK legislation governing drugs is the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, a nearly 40 year old piece of legislation that has been amended throughout its lifetime, but still adheres to the framework introduced nearly two generations ago.

This approach to drug policy has been ossified by Daily Mail hysteria and political timidity. Everyone knows the current approach does not work and is maintained for conservative moral reasons.

There are differences of approach between decriminalisation and legalisation, but even those who are pro-prohibition (partial or full) have to concede the current sentencing for drug-related offences is farcical.

The more worrying factor is the current 'direction of travel'. By reclassifying cannabis from class C to B last year, the mere possession of the drug is liable to up to 5 years imprisonment, and if intent to supply can be proven then up to 14 years in the slammer can await.

Of course maximum sentencing does not necessarily equal actual sentencing but nevertheless if we compare relative imposed sentences then we get a measure of the moral panic around drugs:

In 2004 the average custodial sentence for those convicted of rape was 79.7 months, for GBH 50.1 months, for causing death by dangerous driving 44.4 months. Yet for importation or exportation of drugs (something mostly done by drug mules, rather than Mr Bigs) it averaged 84 months (seven years). The UK courts are therefore sending a message that walking through an airport with some drugs is worse than rape, viciously battering someone or killing them through driving dangerously.

A 2007 report for the Home Office showed drug dealers saw prison "as an occupational hazard and was not considered a serious deterrent" – as with any crime, as the perpetrators are either sanguine about being caught or do not consider they will be. This is why there is no correlation between the death penalty, sentence length or the harshness of the prison regime and crime or reoffending.

But instead of logically assessing this reality, in recent years the Government has created more laws to deter: 'confiscation orders', 'serious crime prevention orders' and 'the power to close down premises'. Will this work? No, but it will continue to feed the Daily Mail’s addiction to the moral panic of drugs. Even the consultation paper concedes that "it is not clear that lengthy custodial sentences contribute to crime reduction" and "imprisoning drug offenders for relatively substantial periods does not appear to represent a cost effective response".

If we were serious about tackling drugs then the criminal justice system would not even be involved for drug users – but the health service, as it is for alcoholics and nicotine addicts.

We should be asking, in the words of John Lennon, "why do people take drugs of any sort? . . . is there something wrong with society that's making us so pressurised, that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?".

If you can inject some logic into this debate, then please respond to the consultation paper 'Sentencing for Drug Offences', which can be downloaded from the Sentencing Guidelines Council website. The deadline for responses is 15th July 2009.

Pregnant pause

2009-04-13T14:37:00.005+01:00

In October 2008, the European Commission published a proposal to amend Directive 92/85/EEC, more commonly known as the Pregnant Workers Directive. The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR) is therefore consulting on the proposals.

For the UK it is a largely irrelevant document. Our maternity leave entitlements are already well above the EU minimum in key areas – with leave of up to 52 weeks compared to the current EU minimum of 14 weeks, which is proposed to be increased to 18 (although the European Parliament is lobbying to extend that to 24 weeks). Maternity leave currently varies from 14 weeks in Germany to 18 months in Sweden.

Likewise the UK already also meets the minimum safeguards of the proposals in terms of the rights to: reasons for dismissal during pregnancy or maternity leave; return to work in the same or equivalent post; and to request flexible working.

Nevertheless, both the British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) and Institute of Directors (IoD) are apoplectic. In their draft response, the BCC states the need to "avoid increasing the administrative burden for employers in managing maternity leave". The pain of pregnancy for employers is often forgotten as we recklessly focus on mother and child.

But why this outrage? Because the proposal states that mothers may be entitled to additional leave in cases where the child is born late, so there is no reduction in the post-natal leave entitlement. The IoD also states that this proposal is "problematic".

Other proposals that meet with business ire include that to increase maternity pay to full pay (subject to a national ceiling). Currently the UK provision is 90% of salary, but 100% with a ceiling could be better for lower paid women, as long as the ceiling was set in pounds earned rather than as a proportion of wage. "This would have major cost implications" barks the IoD, while the BCC responds, "as the UK government says itself, 'the principle of full pay is a significant spending risk'". Business Minister Pat McFadden told Parliament, "we want legal clarity that we are not being directed to pay full pay".

Yes sadly even at a time when the poorest and most vulnerable workers – often women – are being squeezed most and when the Government is failing to bring down child poverty, it still resists even moderate improvements for working people.

The TUC said in November 2008, "The Government should not use the recession as a reason . . . increasing maternity pay would not be a huge extra cost to business and would help companies recruit and retain highly skilled female employees".

The consultation document can be downloaded from the DBERR website. The closing date for responses is 22nd June 2009.

ConsultationWatch is published fortnightly in the Morning Star

Only the market for energy saving?

2009-04-11T11:56:00.005+01:00

Government's newest department, of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), is hosting a consultation entitled Heat and Energy Saving Strategy (HESS), which promises to be a step change in energy saving.

HESS sets out the strategy to cut carbon emissions by 30% from existing UK buildings by 2020, towards the ultimate target that emissions from buildings will be approaching zero by 2050. This aspiration has of course been widely welcomed. Friends of the Earth (FoE) called it "an ambitious target", and WWF-UK, "critical to the UK achieving our carbon budget targets". Yet both questioned the means: FoE stated it could "kick-start the economy" – as part of the 'Green New Deal' strategy, and WWF-UK stated "we need to see funding for this strategy as a matter of urgency".

As Green New Deal advocate Alan Simpson MP states, "The process of turning our homes, communities and cities into their own localised power stations requires huge amounts of work and skill. The employment prospects are vast. Jobs and investment cannot be banked offshore or relocated".

The consultation document states, "if the level of ambition set out above is achieved, then there will be approximately 34,000 jobs". Bear in mind, unemployment rose by 165,000 last month alone.

The thing is there is no funding – not in the consultation document anyway. Instead we have "new finance models", "a new voluntary code of practice with the building trade", "carbon pricing mechanisms", and the intention to "stimulate greater competition by encouraging new companies to enter the market to provide energy services".

Whenever we need delivery, New Labour looks to the market . . . and fails. Despite the wreckage of market failure hanging like an albatross around New Labour's lame duck government (London Underground PPP, the banks, PFI) it has lost none of its faith. From housing and postal services to welfare and the environment, if we need it New Labour will give it to the market to exploit.

Unlike some of its European neighbours, the Government will not invest, nor allow local authorities to invest, in decentralised energy systems. In parts of Europe 80% of their energy system is community-owned. Instead, the UK government will be "convening a Heat Markets Forum to ensure an appropriate market framework is in place."

It is this woeful poverty of ambition and market-based approach that requires a fundamental rethink, based on the more ambitious experiences of our European neighbours and a shift to community-controlled provision. The deadline for the consultation is 8th May 2009, and the consultation documents can be downloaded from the DECC website.

What rate for business?

2009-04-11T11:48:00.004+01:00

The Business Rate Supplements Bill currently before Parliament gives councils the right to levy a business rate supplement (BRS) to fund local economic development.

This consultation paper 'Business rate supplements: a consultation on draft guidance to local authorities' sets out draft guidance to be issued under clause 26 of the Bill for the consideration of local authorities, businesses and business representatives, and any other stakeholders in relation to when it might be appropriate to fund a project through BRS, how to levy the BRS, and the circumstances under which to conduct a ballot.

The Bill arose from the 2007 Review of council tax by Sir Michael Lyons, but is a much diluted version. Lyons recommended that the large homes of the super-rich should be charged double what they are currently paying to allow for a rebate of £150 per year for the poorest. He recognised that council tax was regressive, but New Labour has done nothing to address this injustice, nor the injustice of £1.8bn of Council Tax benefit goes unclaimed every year due to the complications and stigma of claiming.

On business rates, Lyons noted that in 1993, local government raised 23% of its expenditure through business rates, now it's just 17%. According to Lyons’ calculations, the average household could be about £250 a year better off if business paid the same share of taxation as they did in 1993. Neither the Bill nor this consultation gives local government the ability to challenge this.

Instead, in an act of tokenism it allows local councils to levy a supplementary rate of no more than 2%, and in a further blow to local democracy only for hypothecated expenditure on local economic development (which this consultation seeks to help define), and if the BRS will fund more than one-third of the total costs, then businesses must be balloted (by value and number) – as if business had a democratic legitimacy. The consultation paper makes it clear that "a BRS is not a new means to fund existing expenditure or a resource to support general service expenditure".

Despite the fact that the Bill and this consultation will not restore anything like the powers to local government taken since Thatcher, it is a (pigeon) step in the right direction.

The consultation paper 'Business rate supplements: a consultation on draft guidance to local authorities' can be downloaded from HM Treasury website. The deadline for responses is 17th April 2009.

Poverty of ambition

2009-02-21T21:55:00.004Z

In 1999, New Labour proclaimed that it would "end child poverty within a generation". Now there's a consultation to redefine that pledge.

Child poverty was defined as those living in households with less than 60% the median income. Under New Labour there are 600,000 fewer children living in poverty today. However 3.9 million remain in poverty by this definition – and the Government failed to meet its 2004/05 target to cut child poverty by a quarter.

A report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that the effect of current policies, "will be to keep child poverty roughly at its present level by 2010 and reduce it by only 260,000 by 2020". This would only be sufficient to reach the missed 2004/05 target. Worse still for the Government, their own statistics show that child poverty has increased in each of the last two years.

Now the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) is running a consultation 'Ending Child Poverty: Making It Happen'. In the Queen's Speech for the current parliamentary session, the Government promised to enshrine its child poverty pledge in legislation. Apparently "legislation will ensure that there is a clear vision and definition of success". However, what the consultation proposes is to re-define what is classed as success, dilute the clear original vision and share the blame for failure more evenly with local authorities.

The consultation proposes three targets, the main one of which is "reducing the proportion of children in relative low income to 5-10 per cent by 2020". While a retreat from the current target, this is still ambitious considering that currently 23 per cent of UK children fit that category – exactly the same percentage that did in 2001 (this compares with 17% in Belgium and just 10% in Denmark). However, the consultation paper states that "action to meet these targets is subject to overall affordability and . . . child poverty strategy, to be refreshed every three years". So if the target is still not being met, expect it to be "refreshed" in three years' time!

The Child Poverty Action Group, said: "so far, the lack of high quality childcare and ill-considered welfare reforms for parents have undermined progress on child poverty", and is urging drastic action in the Budget – now delayed until 22nd April. Gingerbread, the single parent charity, has stated that it would be pushing Government to accept a more ambitious target than that set out in the consultation.

This is a consultation about how to fiddle the statistics, pass the buck, and create grandiose yet meaningless commissions and reports.

The consultation paper can be downloaded from the DCSF website and the deadline for responses is 11th March. At a time of recession, when more families will be plunged into poverty, the Government is bailing-out banks while bailing-out of its commitments on child poverty. It's up to us all not to let that go unnoticed.

Democracy locally, decisions centrally?

2009-02-21T21:42:00.003Z

The Department for Communities and Local Government is consulting again in the 'Communities in Control: Real People, real power' series. This time the subject is 'Changing Council Governance arrangements – Mayors and Indirectly Elected Leaders'.

Despite the grandiose exhortations throughout the consultation paper "to strengthen participatory democracy" and to "deliver genuine empowerment to local people", this is solely about making it easier to change council governance arrangements to the Government's preferred mayoral model.

Labour councillors overwhelmingly opposed the mayoral system during the passage of the Local Government Bill in Labour's first term, labelling it as 'dictatorial', centralising power in hands largely unaccountable during the term of office, as the role and powers of ordinary councillors are curbed.

There are currently only 12 councils in England that have the mayoral model and one of those – Stoke-on-Trent – has recently voted to return to the 'leader and cabinet executive' model. Of the 37 where local authorities have sanctioned referendums, over two-thirds have rejected the idea, and none have approved it since Torbay in 2005.

The Government is therefore reforming the process to make it easier. Already the Secretary of State has the power to order a referendum to take place, as it did in Southwark in 2002. However, more often it requires a petition supported by just 5% of the electorate. This hurdle is too high says the Government, and the consultation proposes lowering the threshold to as little as 2% of the electorate, which the Government bizarrely claims would "encourage local people to get involved" by requiring fewer of them to get involved!

The Government is also proposing to allow petition signatures to be added online. Another proposal is that if the local electorate make the wrong decision and reject the mayoral system, then the 'moratorium period' during which another referendum cannot be held will be reduced from 10 years to 4 years.

The average turnout for these referendums has been around 25%, slightly lower than for local elections, and so it hardly seems to have generated greater public engagement. Neither does it seem a worthwhile use of council taxpayers' money to ask them the same question every four years.

The consultation paper can be downloaded from the DCLG website, and the deadline for responses is 13th March 2009.

The Conservatives are even more keen on directly-elected mayors now it seems.

Tipping the balance

2008-12-24T13:09:00.004Z

The National Minimum Wage (NMW) was the flagship policy of the first term New Labour Government. It directly benefited around two million workers and in every year since, until this year, was raised above the level of inflation.

The NMW has been criticised for being too low, and consecutive London mayors have backed a higher London living wage. However two loopholes remain for unscrupulous bosses: the lower youth rates and the ability to use tips to make up the pay to the level of the NMW.

It is this latter loophole that the Government is considering closing in a consultation. In the foreword Peter Mandelson, Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), states "our view is that tips should be paid to the worker on top of their pay" instead of being used to make up the NMW.

Despite this apparent clarity the consultation document is peppered with phrases such as the "cost to the sector", "administrative burdens", "flexibility to employers", the importance of "protecting jobs", especially given the "adverse market conditions". Trade unionists will therefore be arguing that the Government does not delay implementation because of the recession.

The agreement to end this practice was announced following the 'Warwick II' talks in July, yet it has taken the Government over four months to open a consultation, which does not close until February – with legislation unlikely to come into force until a full year after the agreement.

Trade unions and socialists in Parliament will need to ensure the timetable does not slip further. Last year 95 MPs (over three-quarters of them Labour) signed an EDM supporting the Unite Fair Tips Charter Campaign, and calling for the abolition of this loophole. As far back as 2003, Labour MP Michael Connarty introduced a bill to remove this practice, which the Government then blocked.

The exclusion of tips is also supported by the Scottish TUC, whose Deputy General Secretary Dave Moxham stated, "very few people realise that some unscrupulous employers are lining their pockets with the tips which customers leave to thank the staff who serve them."

However, when people do realise they are outraged – as they were when it was exposed earlier this year that the Carluccio's chain of restaurants pay their waiting staff just £3.75 per hour as a basic wage – which seemed generous compared with the Hard Rock Café chain which paid some staff as little as £2.06 per hour before tips.

The consultation document can be downloaded from the BERR website, and the deadline for responses is 16th February 2009. Ensure that you or your trade union branch responds.

Driving down road deaths

2008-12-24T12:57:00.005Z

Over the last forty years there has been a steady and continuous decline in fatalities on Britain's roads. Last year was the first year for over 80 years in which less than 3,000 people died. Nevertheless, 2,946 fatalities or just over 8 deaths per day is still a high toll, and that's without factoring in the additional 28,000 who were seriously injured last year.

The Government has just unveiled its 'Road Safety Compliance' consultation to target "the reckless minority who flout the laws of the road" – particularly targeting those who drive while under the influence of drink or drugs and those who speed.

Speeding was recorded as a contributory factor in 727 road deaths last year, and the Government is proposing tougher penalties for those who exceed speed limits "by a very large margin" who could receive six points on their licence for driving at over 20mph above the limit. This move has not been welcomed by the road safety charity Brake, which points out that "all speeding is unlawful and at 35mph you are twice as likely to kill a pedestrian you hit as at 30mph".

On drink driving, which costs 460 deaths per year, the Government appears resistant to lower the current blood alcohol level of 80mg/100ml as their research suggests that "almost all fatalities over the present limit had a blood alcohol concentration over 100mg/100ml". This is disputed by the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) which advocates a 50mg/100ml limit. This lower limit, says PACTS, means "around 60 lives a year could be saved".

The Government admits that a lower limit "has been adopted in many other countries" – a fact that Brake highlights in its support for the lowering the UK limit – "one of the highest drink drive limits in Europe". However the Government is proposing to remove the right to a blood or urine test for those who test positive in breath tests – as this is "rendered unnecessary by the proven reliability of the breath test."

Driving under the influence of drugs presents some complex issues – as there is neither a simple roadside test nor any estimate of what levels of intoxication makes a driver unsafe. Therefore there should be caution about Government implications that any presence of any illegal drug should be a driving offence – after all there is little evidence that many illegal drugs would be any more damaging to drivers than excessive caffeine or other legal drugs. However that should not minimise the danger of driving under the influence of any drug – legal or illegal.

Road safety is also an issue about child safety - and particularly an issue for children from poor backgrounds: children from social class V are five times more likely to be killed on Britain's roads than those from social class I. As the Child Accident Prevention Trust points out, "children whose families have fewer resources tend to live near more dangerous road environments, have fewer provisions for safe places to play, and tend to go out as pedestrians more often than children from wealthier homes".

The consultation document can be downloaded from the Department for Transport website and the deadline for responses is 27th February 2009.

Entrusting communities with Land?

2008-11-29T22:20:00.006Z

The Department for Communities and Local Government is consulting on the role for Community Land Trusts (CLTs) in delivering the Government's target "to provide 240,000 more homes a year in England by 2016". The Government states that CLTs, alongside housing associations, local authorities, Local Housing Companies and housing co-operatives , has a role to play in meeting this target.

CLTs’ origins can be traced back to the Chartists and the struggle for land reform. The aims of the movement were "To purchase land in order to demonstrate to the Working Class of the kingdom the value of land, as a means of making them independent of the grinding capitalist."

Despite the invocation of such a radical tradition, the Government seeks to co-opt CLTS rather than to rekindle any revolutionary verve. In fact, the consultation document sets out the Government’s goal to "help more people to own their own home". The Government then makes the bizarre statement that it "believes that this not only enables them to achieve their aspirations but also helps to meet additional objectives such as improving public services".

As with foundation hospitals, the Government is seeking to subvert co-operative terminology with CLTs. The document sets out a role for CLTs to be little more than providers of shared equity and part ownership schemes much like any housing association.

CLTs are supposed to be bolstered through the Community Land Trust Fund – which has £2m of loan funding on offer to develop CLTs – which makes them rather insignificant when the Government has already stated it is investing £8.4bn in housing over the next three years. The £2m fund drop in the housing need ocean may well be unattractive since "interest on such loans will be charged at a rate that will cover administrative costs, plus an element of profit to enable the fund to increase".

Nevertheless there are opportunities to empower communities who can establish their own CLT. A CLT must:
• provide a benefit to the local community; and
• ensure that the assets are not sold or developed except in a manner which the trust's members think benefits the local community.
A CLT must also ensure that:
• any profits from its activities will be used to benefit the local community;
• individuals who live or work in the specified area have the opportunity to become members of the trust; and
• the members of the trust control it.

Therefore the radical democratic origins remain, and – once established – CLTs will be prime candidates to be offered public assets, which will be transferred by the soon to be established 'Asset Transfer Unit' (ATU). The consultation states that the Government is currently reviewing the structures "to enable [CLTs] to successfully manage and own public assets". However, community activists should not get too excited – the ATU "will promote and support an increase in asset transfer . . . through the promotion of public-private-third sector partnerships".

The consultation document can be downloaded from the DCLG website and the deadline for responses is 31st December 2008.

Failure regime for the NHS

2008-11-29T21:56:00.004Z

The Department of Health (DoH) has issued a consultation paper on 'a regime for unsustainable NHS providers'. This is a further piece in completing the framework for an NHS market. Just as the NHS market model has been created, so now is the creation of market failure and a quasi-insolvency regime for that failure.

From 2009/10 there will be a new performance regime for NHS trusts and Foundation Trusts, in which trusts could be designated as "underperforming", "seriously underperforming", or "challenged" – the latter being the equivalent of a school being placed under "special measures".

In such a scenario, an NHS trust would be reviewed after a year in "challenged" status and then a decision taken on whether to: remove (improve) that status; keep the trust on probation; or deem the trust unsustainable and wind it down.

If the final decision is taken, then within 120 days all the services could be transferred to other organisations. Campaigners are rightly concerned that this could be used to speed up the transfer of NHS provision to the private sector.

The impact assessment that accompanies the consultation estimates that 2.1 per cent of NHS and Foundation Trusts will fail every year – which equates to about six per year. By cutting the time that trusts are in deficit, the Government estimates it will save £200m per year – but isn't likely to be offset by this new bureaucratic regime?

In the case of Foundation Trusts, failure would mean the removal of foundation status and the reversion to being an NHS trust – and then the same system would apply. Of course, despite being "independent", their debts – which could include PFI deals – would naturally transfer to the taxpayer.

Campaigners have also raised concerns about democratic oversight. Once a trust is designated "challenged", it seems that local opposition would no longer be able to block reconfiguration plans. Even the NHS Confederation has stated that there is a risk the regime could be used to "subvert the democratic process" by imposing reconfiguration.

What is clear is that trusts are being evaluated not primarily on their clinical standards, but on their financial standing. "Challenged" status in the DoH consultation document is referred to solely as "financially challenged" by the Health Services Journal – and while emphasising continuity of service provision for patients, the cost savings estimates reveal the DoH's prime motivation.

The consultation document can be downloaded from the DoH website, and the deadline for responses is 3rd December 2008. Organisations representing patients or staff in the NHS need to look forensically at these proposals could have a massive impact on local service provision and accountability.

Heathrow: air pollution expansion?

2008-10-19T15:43:00.002+01:00

The Department for Transport is consulting on an Equalities Impact Assessment of Adding Capacity at Heathrow Airport - looking at the effect on the local community of any potential expansion at Heathrow. The Government was forced to consult following a legal threat from Friends of the Earth.

According to local MP John McDonnell, who has been campaigning against expansion, "it is clear that the runway proposal will be in serious breach of the European Commission's air pollution legislation and following meetings with EU Commission representatives it is equally clear that the Commission has the power and will to act to enforce its new pollution limits".

This consultation therefore has the potential to kill Heathrow expansion plans dead in the water, and the Government is still wading through the 70,000 responses to the original consultation, which closed in February 2008, on expanding Heathrow capacity.

The consultation document reveals that an initial assessment, by a DfT-commissioned private consultancy, shows that ethnic minorities and those from income deprived areas would be "likely to experience significant adverse impacts" in noise pollution if extra flights or a third runway were approved.

The effects of air pollution from extra flights are even more extreme, affecting "twelve wards where children are disproportionately represented . . . furthermore ten pre-schools, twelve primary schools and two secondary schools are likely to be negatively affected by NO2 increases". If a third runway is added, it is "likely to result in negative health, educational and development effects for children in the affected wards and schools. Negative second round impacts for overall deprivation levels may be experienced".

John Stewart of the campaign HACAN Clearskies, said, "The one clear message is that a huge number of people from minority communities will be badly affected if the expansion of Heathrow goes ahead. But this consultation fails to spell out just how it will affect people. That is the more important part. It gives every sign of being a rushed consultant document commissioned in haste by a government department which was forced into doing the assessment by the threat of legal action".

For those who care about their environment and community in west London, it is essential you respond to this consultation by the 9th November deadline. The full consultation document can be downloaded from the DfT website.

Don't Stop the Music!

2008-10-03T19:17:00.003+01:00

The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR) is conducting a consultation on 'legislative options to address illicit peer-to-peer file sharing', or downloading music from the internet as it's better known to most of us. This follows the Gowers Review in December 2006, which recommended "industry agreement of protocols . . . to remove and disbar users engaged in 'piracy'".

It all began in the late 1990s with the emergence of Napster, as US based file sharing site which enabled users to share their music files, which as a dotcom company was closed down in 2001 following a lawsuit from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). As a result of the publicity from the lawsuit, launched a couple of years earlier, Napster's subscriber base increased from 9 million to 50 million.

In the Napster case, multimillionaire artists like Dr Dre and Metallica were wheeled into court to bemoan lost revenue on behalf their corporate publishers. What the case sparked was a flowering of new improved subscriber-less technologies that enabled file sharing without the corporate hub of a Napster.

Research cited in the consultation shows that between 25%-43% of all internet users download copyrighted music – however this rises to 63% of young people, who download an average of 53 tracks per month. But is today's generation of young people so different to the one that preceded it – who bought bulk purchases of TDK-90s to record albums from our mates onto tape?

And is the music industry really losing £1bn over five years, as they allege? Young people download music, just as they copied it onto blank tapes a generation ago, because they can't afford it – and it remains overpriced. So the music industry is losing only a tiny fraction, as most of the illicit downloaders have little disposable income.

Don't get me wrong, I think musicians should be able to make a living from their work, but it's highly questionable that the ability to make a living is seriously threatened – and musicians agree! A survey of US professional musicians in 2004 found that 60% thought lawsuits against individuals would not benefit them in any way, and only 3% thought the internet had a negative effect on their ability to protect their work.

This great mutually-beneficial sharing phenomena is costing the corporates though, and so the government department dedicated to business is consulting on ways to tackle the 'problem'. The music publishing division of EMI made a profit of £106m last year, meanwhile Sony BMG currently scrapes by on a profit of over £100m per quarter.

Today it isn't just music which is downloaded, but films, books, and even PC games – which resulted in Topware Interactive successfully suing a British woman for over £16,000 for sharing a 3D pinball game. Which rather begs the question – why is the Government consulting on further enforcement when prosecutions, with generous settlements, are already being secured?

Some of the options under consideration look largely incompatible with various EC Directives, while others simply implore ISPs and copyright holders to conspire more effectively. The consultation document can be downloaded (legally) from the DBERR website, and the deadline for responses is 30th October 2008.

A Constitution for the NHS?

2008-10-01T08:15:00.004+01:00

Perhaps the greatest lasting achievement of the Attlee Government, the NHS is a testament to Britain's post-war social democratic consensus. Today the NHS costs £100bn per year, and remains the world’s largest publicly funded health service. But does it need a constitution?

Sixty years after its foundation, a very different Labour government is now proposing that the NHS has a constitution, which, the Department of Health states, "renews our commitment to the enduring principles of the NHS . . . for everyone, paid for out of taxes, based on clinical need rather than an individual's ability to pay".

A cynic might suggest that drafting a NHS constitution sixty years after the organisation has been founded might be an attempt to bask in the reflected glory of the work of those sixty years ago. Such cynicism will be nurtured by the fact that the constitution that is out for consultation sets out only "existing legal rights" alongside "values" and "principles".

Reflecting New Labour's obsession, the right "to choice" may be established – although this will have to pass through Parliament first, where presumably it will acquire a legally cogent definition. In an era of outsourcing, competition, PFI and internal markets, aspirations to accountability and a sense of public ownership look increasingly vulnerable – even with this loosely phrased constitution.

Despite such cynicism the document could provide a clear and educational guide for patients, as well as engendering a public debate about the role of the NHS. As such, the proposal for a NHS constitution is backed by both New Labour and the Tories, the British Medical Association – and tentatively by the King's Fund health think tank.

However, the constitution is composed flexibly enough to accommodate the increasing role of the private sector – so those hoping for a turn away from, or a bulwark against, the further marketisation of the NHS will be disappointed.

Health campaigners working in the NHS will welcome the pledge that "the NHS will strive to engage staff in decisions that affect them and the services they provide . . . all staff will be empowered to put forward ways to deliver better and safer services for patients". This phrase should be quoted to the Health Secretary and Manchester Mental Health & Social Care Trust until Karen Reissmann is reinstated – following her dismissal in November 2007 for criticising the transfer of NHS work to the voluntary sector.

The consultation on 'the NHS Constitution' is open until 17th October 2008.

Welfare or unfair?

2008-09-28T14:55:00.007+01:00

Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell has launched a consultation on further welfare reform 'No one written off'. It was welcomed by former Conservative Social Security Secretary Peter Lilley who said, "I welcome him [Purnell] announcing policies that I originally enunciated ahead of the 1997 election".

The plans, states Purnell, will:

Support "Incapacity Benefit claimants back into work by paying private, public and voluntary sector providers from the benefit savings they achieve"
Give "private and voluntary providers the right to bid for any back-to-work service"
Test proposals for "full-time work programmes with private and voluntary providers" – just to keep receiving Jobseeker's Allowance.

These proposals are, according to Purnell, are "inspired by the reforms proposed by David Freud" – an investment banker who was commissioned by the Government to review welfare services. In his report, Freud describes welfare as "this annual multi-billion pound market" which could "attract major players from around the world".

It is this that alarms the Sheffield Welfare Action Network – which, in a detailed critique, concludes, "we are moving towards a US style minimal, high surveillance and invasive welfare system".

The General Secretary of the civil service union PCS, Mark Serwotka, states that "the public sector has consistently out performed the private sector in getting people back into work" - challenging New Labour's 'what works' mantra. As Serwotka states, "these proposals are regressive and draconian, going further than even Thatcher dared in the 1980s".

This is not an issue that those in work can afford to ignore. Aside from the moral disgrace that the policy proposal is, there is also the reality that more and more people will be pushed into the welfare system as the looming recession hits. Unemployment has been rising for the past seven months, and a member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee predicted that unemployment would reach 2 million by the end of the year. Meanwhile demand for staff (job vacancies) has fallen at the fastest rate for seven years.

The consultation document 'No One Written Off' can be downloaded from the DWP website and the deadline for responses is 22nd October 2008.

Right to Train?

2008-07-29T17:22:00.004+01:00

The Government is currently consulting on the right to request time to train, which states Secretary of State for Innovation Universities and Skills, John Denham, would give "all employees in England a right to a serious conversation with their employer about their skills development".

It doesn't seem revolutionary, but the Government insists it will "spark the skills revolution we need" – and indeed we do: as the consultation document states, the UK workforce languishes 16th out of 29 on the OECD scale on skills; and only 35% of UK employers have a training budget. Nevertheless in these figures reflect progress from 1997 – for example two and a half times as many workers start apprenticeships each year now compared with 1996/97.

In 2003 the Government introduced the similarly-couched right to request flexible working, which was introduced for a limited group of employees. These 'rights to request' are exactly that, they carry no obligation on the employer to grant them, and any one of a range of about ten 'business reasons' is enough to reject them. However, the Government estimates that 92% of requests for flexible working have been accepted.

In granting this constrained right for workers, the Government has made concessions to business. If, following this consultation, the new right is implemented then the Government will delay until 2015 the scheduled 2010 review into whether workers should have the legal right to workplace training where they lack at least a level 2 qualification (i.e. equivalent to five good GCSEs). As John Hannett of USDAW stated, training is win-win, "access to training in work-related skills helps to build morale and loyalty amongst employees. In addition, the company’s skills base and productivity increases".

Nevertheless the Government is optimistic that the measure will engender a culture change in favour of lifelong learning, leading to up to 300,000 people each year undertaking training as a result of granting this right.

One issue of contention in the consultation paper relates to the role of unions and union learning reps. When the Prime Minister announced the proposals in May, the TUC, in a detailed response, welcomed them as they would "give unions - and in particular union learning representatives (ULRs) - an important role in helping individuals to shape their requests to learn new skills". Despite this, the Government clearly states "there will be no legal requirement for employers or employees to engage with their unions and ULRs on time to train". There are fears that the role of ULRs in coordinating union-led learning initiatives could be undermined.

Whether the Government's estimations are realised, it needs to think of innovative ways to reach many of those most in need of skills training: the one-third of people with poor literacy and numeracy that are currently on benefits.

The consultation document 'Time to Train' can be downloaded from the DIUS website. The deadline for responses is 10th September 2008.

The Future of Tobacco Control

2008-07-12T16:37:00.002+01:00

The Government is currently consulting on 'The Future of Tobacco Control' and identifies four main areas requiring further attention:
1. Reducing smoking rates and health inequalities caused by smoking
2. Protecting children and young people from smoking
3. Supporting smokers to quit
4. Helping those who cannot quit

Just over a year ago, the Government banned on smoking in public places. Likewise it raised the age for buying tobacco products from 16 to 18. According to Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) the public are now in favour of further controls to discourage smoking, including 85% who want retailers convicted of selling tobacco illegally to children to be banned from selling tobacco products.

The last decade has seen a decline in the proportion of smokers from 26% to 22%. Yet 87,000 deaths per year are directly attributable to smoking – as the consultation document points out.

In the consultation paper it states quite unsurprisingly: "The chances of being a smoker are substantially greater among people living in rented housing, receiving state benefits, who don't have access to a car, are unemployed or living in overcrowded accommodation". Yet you can sense the incredulity when the following statement "the reasons why this should be the case are not well understood".

It's ironic that the Department of Health does not understand this, when the NHS Direct website clearly states, "unemployment, poverty and lack of education can trigger addictions to develop, as can stress and professional or emotional pressure". As the consultation document notes, smoking remains the primary reason in the gap in life expectancy between rich and poor.

HM Revenue & Customs’ latest estimates on smuggled tobacco show that around 18% of cigarette and 62% of handrolling tobacco consumption is smuggled, while 70% of all large scale cigarette seizures are counterfeit. According to ASH, 1 in 20 smokers in professional groups admit to buying smuggled tobacco but among poorer smokers the figure rises to 1 in 5. This inevitability should encourage the Government to think of other ways other prices rises to tackle smoking.

One of the most publicised suggestions to reducing smoking in the consultation is the plan to ban the display of cigarettes in shops, and to remove branding from cigarette packets so they have "plain packaging" apart from information required by law and health warnings.

Those interested may also want to refer to the Smokefree Action Coalition’s (SAC) recently published ten-point national action plan. SAC comprises most of the major cancer and heart disease charities, trade unions such as the RCN, the Socialist Health Association, and local action groups.

The consultation document 'The Future of Tobacco Control' can be downloaded from the Department of Health website. The deadline for responses is 8th September 2008.

Clash over the Titans

2008-06-30T23:01:00.002+01:00

The Government is consulting on proposals for three new 'titan prisons' based on its projection that the prison population will rise to over 95,000 by 2014. The Government aims to have the first titan prison operational by 2012. The three locations for the titans will be London, the West Midlands and the north-west, where available prison places are currently outweighed by demand.

New Labour came to power promising to be "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime". Since then it has overseen a massive rise in the prison population from 60,000 in 1997 to over 80,000 today. The UK now locks up more people than any other European country.

Each titan prison will provide 2,500 prison places, which the consultation paper states will be through five 500-place units within a single perimeter. Brian Caton, General Secretary of the Prison Officers Association, said "we are not affecting many of the people we are releasing . . . because of overcrowding". Yet, overcrowding is already built into these designs. The Ministry of Justice states that in fact titans will provide "2,100 uncrowded places, with the capacity to hold up to 2,500 prisoners through planned overcrowding".

The Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, states that the proposals are "flying in the face of our, and others' evidence, that smaller prisons work better than large ones. They may be more efficient, but at the cost of being less effective."

The large sites required to build titans (a minimum of 50 acres) have also raised concerns that the locations will be remote and will therefore hinder access for prisoners' families – a key component of rehabilitation. Harry Fletcher of the National Association of Probation Officers states that all the evidence is "for smaller units close to where prisoners live". Sarah Salmon, assistant director of Action for Prisoners' Families, is concerned that, "titan prisons will result in more prisoners being held further from home, making it harder for them to maintain family contact. And that will impact on levels of re-offending."

In the consultation paper, the Prisons Minister states that "prisons are the right place for the most serious and dangerous offenders" – but around 15% of the prison population is serving a sentence of less than one year, and only 9% is serving a life sentence, as BBC figures show. The Prison Reform Trust states that "community punishments have been proven to be often more effective than short prison sentences".

You can debate prisons policy online on the Justice Select Committee online inquiry: Justice Reinvestment – which allows you to debate criminal justice system costs. The Howard League points out that "the government says that each new titan prison will cost some £390 million for the land and the build. For this we could have 13 brand new secondary schools or four big new hospitals with 4,000 beds AND 122 new operating theatres".

The consultation document 'Titan prisons' can be downloaded from the Ministry of Justice website. The deadline for responses is 28th August 2008.

The commercial generation?

2008-06-16T07:59:00.004+01:00

The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) has opened a new consultation 'Assessing the Impact of the Commercial World on Children's Wellbeing - A Call for Evidence'. The DCSF states that "Some evidence suggests that the combination of a lowering in the age at which children begin to engage with the commercial world, along with an increase in the quantity of commercial messages targeted at children, may have some outcomes which are detrimental for children's wellbeing".

However, the DCSF states, the "evidence is not clear. In particular, there is a gap in understanding properly the impact that cumulative exposure to shopping, advertising and commercial messaging may have on children’s wellbeing". And so it needs your help, and by 30th June.

The Advertising Standards Agency states that common issues surrounding children and advertising are:

Making children desire things they cannot afford or would not be able to use
Pester power: encouraging children to pester their parents for advertised products or services.
Showing children in unsafe or dangerous situations that other kids might emulate.
Making children feel inferior, especially if they don’t buy the products or services shown in the ads.
Showing children in a sexual way. I.e. wearing make-up and glamorous clothes
Advertising soft drinks & high fat / sugar foods to children

There is plenty of evidence available that an impact is being had. The Children’s Society has conducted a 'Good Childhood Inquiry' which looks at the impact of a commercial world on children including that "Nine in ten agreed with the statement that 'children nowadays are more materialistic than past generations'" – Children’s Society’s Good Childhood Inquiry and the same proportion that "advertising to children at Christmas puts pressure on parents to spend more than they can really afford". The Inquiry also asks about video games, junk food advertising and other impacts of commercialism on children.

A more materialistic society and commercialised world also has consequences as social relationships are reduced to economic ones, and children compete rather than co-operate and share. Last year a UNICEF study put the UK, along with the US, at the bottom ranking on children's well-being. Among its findings was that "the percentage of children who report that their peers are 'kind and helpful' varies from a high of 80 percent or more in Switzerland and Portugal to less than 50 percent in the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom".

In early June it was reported that for the second year running, the number of children living in poverty has increased. As Barnardo's states, "a third of children in poverty in the UK go without meals, or toys, or clothes that they need".

Details of the consultation 'Assessing the Impact of the Commercial World on Children's Wellbeing - A Call for Evidence' can be downloaded from the DCSF website, and the deadline for responses is 30th June. There is a version of the consultation for children, parents and for interested parties.

No IDea

2008-05-30T09:33:00.004+01:00

The Home Office is consulting on the implementation of Identity cards in its consultation document 'National Identity Scheme: Delivery Plan 2008', which details the roll-out of ID cards to foreign nationals, airport workers, young people and then to the whole population . . . "voluntarily".

From November 2008, the UK Border Agency will be charged with issuing biometric ID cards (including fingerprints) to foreign nationals. This according to the Home consultation document will "protect the community against crime, illegal immigration, and terrorism".

However, a cursory scan of the internet reveals that crime, immigration and terrorism are still present in countries with ID cards. The ID card has always been a solution looking for a problem, and the consultation document 'National Identity Scheme: Delivery Plan 2008' only serves to highlight this fact.

Desperately seeking a reason for ID cards, the Home Office have allowed nonsense such as this to be printed: "more frequently than before we have to prove who we are to people who do not know us: for example when we apply for jobs, use public services, travel abroad and open bank accounts".

But the fact is that mechanisms and forms of ID already exist for all these purposes – and this has not become more frequent in recent years. For decades now, people have worked, used public services, travelled abroad and even had a bank account without needing an ID card. Indeed, later in the consultation paper it states that ID cards will provide "the same level of proof as a passport for confirming your identity", so why are ID cards necessary?

Next in line, after foreign nationals, are airport workers who have been told they must pay £30 for an ID card from 2009 to work in the job they already do. The Unite union has stated that the workforce at airports already "undergoes lengthy and vigorous pre-employment checks", and therefore "see little additional benefit stemming from the introduction of identity cards".

The National Union of Students is also "extremely concerned" about the Government's proposals to issue young people with ID cards "on a voluntary basis" from 2010: "They say that the card will be 'voluntary', but those students who decide not to have an ID card will encounter difficulties when applying for student loans and bank accounts", and so in practice the card becomes compulsory. From 2011/12 the scheme "voluntarily" rolls out to the rest of the population.

The NO2ID campaign states that "Whether you volunteer or are coerced onto the ID database, there's no way back. You'll be monitored for life. That's why the government is targeting students and young people".

Corporate Watch is also concerned about the role of the private sector, and the ever-expanding veil of commercial confidentiality. The Government states that the "market would provide" enrolment for the card, including the taking of biometric data. The full report 'Corporate Identity' can be downloaded from Corporation Watch.

The deadline for responding to this consultation is 30th June, and the full consultation document 'National Identity Scheme: Delivery Plan 2008' can be downloaded from the Home Office website.

Painting the town green

2008-05-19T22:34:00.002+01:00

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) is consulting on the proposals for the first wave of eco-towns, but already local campaigns against them have formed at virtually every proposed site. The DCLG states that construction at some sites will start as early as 2010. The sites in question are in Leeds, Rossington, Manby, Rushcliffe, Curborough, Pennbury, Coltishall, Middle Quinton, Marston, Henley Grange, Weston Otmoor, NE Elsenham, Bordon-Whitehill, Ford, and St Austell.

There are serious concerns with every alleged benefit of these new eco-towns: the environmental, housing, and democratic.

On the environmental case, many green groups that initially welcomed the proposals are now expressing concerns that far from being about the reclamation of brownfield sites adjacent to existing conurbations, almost all the short-listed schemes in the consultation paper are on greenfield sites. The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) states that it "supports the idea of exemplary development that achieves high environmental standards", but that the majority of current proposals "appear to be in unsuitable, unsustainable locations". In a four-page dossier, CPRE assesses each of the proposed locations in turn.

Friends of the Earth (FoE) also states in its balanced document 'Sustainable solution or too good to be true' that "by being sited on top of a former wildlife haven or by causing lots of new road traffic", even the best eco-town "is unlikely to be a model of green development and living". FoE also rightly questions why the environmental criteria applied to eco-towns cannot be applied to all new housing and to existing settlements – in its document Home Truths.

Of the over 100,000 homes that could be built through these proposals, it seems that somewhere between none and very few will be council homes. Instead, the proposals refer to the nebulous concept of "affordable housing".

The role of councils in the whole eco-towns scheme is also limited. The detailed proposals are shrouded under "commercial confidentiality" as the new towns will be run by a management body, which will "co-ordinate delivery of services and manage facilities".

The Local Government Association has raised concerns that "locally agreed planning policies could be bypassed" and "councils would be unable to insist that services such as schools, shops, parks and public transport are integrated into the new settlements". In other words these new eco-towns could be corporately controlled towns, and national planning rules will override local democratic accountability in their design and construction.

The consultation document can be downloaded from the DCLG website, and the deadline for responses is 30th June.

Power to the People!

2008-04-28T22:38:00.002+01:00

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) is currently consulting on 'Participatory Budgeting: A draft national strategy – giving more people a say in local spending'.

The DCLG states that "participatory budgeting engages people in taking decisions on the spending priorities for a defined public budget in their local area. This means engaging residents and community groups to discuss spending priorities, make spending proposals, and vote on them, as well giving local people a role in the scrutiny and monitoring of the process".

The proposals emerged from the DCLG's Community Empowerment Action Plan, which was published in November 2007, following ten participatory budgeting (PB) pilots – of which there is an independent assessment of these projects to download.

In the consultation document, the DCLG states that it wants PB schemes in every local authority area by 2012, involving the devolution of spending decisions on health and police budgets, as well as youth services. One idea in the draft strategy is for decisions to be devolved to ward area committees – but not all councils have these.

However, it is unclear exactly how much or which parts of the local government budget will be devolved to PB schemes. As people and participation.net notes "the amount of power devolved has tended to be larger in Latin America where participatory budgeting was developed compared to in Europe and North America". So consultation responses might want to think about which areas or what percentage of the council budget should be devolved.

The first participatory budgeting scheme developed in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre in the late 1980s, under the now ruling Workers Party. In the UK, you can find out more about PB from the Participatory Budgeting UK website and from people and participation.net.

The campaigning organisation Involve has produced a useful briefing paper on participatory budgeting, which provides a good academic consideration of the issue.

PB has also been trialled with young people. The National Youth Agency (NYA) states that PB provides "opportunities for young people to develop an active citizenship role" and "to engage with, and feel ownership of their community". The NYA website has some useful information and research on PB as it applies to young people.

The consultation document 'Participatory Budgeting: A draft national strategy – giving more people a say in local spending' can be downloaded from the DCLG website and the deadline for responses is 10th June 2008.

Getting railway accessibility on track

2008-04-14T13:37:00.004+01:00

The Department for Transport (DfT) is consulting on a new code of practice for train and station design for disabled passengers. The consultation is being jointly held with Transport Scotland, the devolved Scottish transport authority.

The consultation covers train accessibility, infrastructure and facilities for disabled people, and service provision (e.g. staffing assistance). The effect of an inaccessible transport system on the lives of disabled people is examined in the 2003 Mind the Gap report by the Leonard Cheshire charity.

Mainline services on the UK rail network are already covered by EU guidance as part of the Trans-European Network, and this consultation is proposing to match the remainder to the European specification. The Government states that this will "make it easier for disabled people to know what type of facilities and infrastructure to expect as they travel by rail throughout Great Britain" and makes compliance by licensed operators to abide with. However the DfT has unhelpfully not made the EU guidance available on its website.

One immediate problem is the exemptions for the Heathrow Express and for London Underground. As MENCAP states, "it must be stressed that access is fairly poor on the Underground in general". Given the Victorian infrastructure of much of the LU network, there is perhaps a case for limited exemptions at some LU stations, but why the Heathrow Express?

Railway accessibility issues directly concern a large number of people: it is estimated that 800,000 people in the UK use a wheelchair; 2.5 million have learning difficulties; 157,000 are registered blind; and, according to RNID, around two million people in the UK use hearing aids. The RNIB website contains a good summary of how the 2005 Disability Discrimination Act applies to rail.

The rail union RMT has clear policy on expanding provision for disabled passengers, and highlights that for disabled passengers to be able to use the trains, "railway stations themselves must also be fully accessible. This requires the introduction of station facilities such as; level access to platforms, accessible toilets and booking office areas". The RMT has recently been campaigning against the closure of ticket offices and cuts in opening times and against driver-only operation of trains on the rail network.

Adequate staffing levels are cited as vital by a number of disability organisations. The Spinal Injuries Association states that "SIA would like to cite Paddington Station as an example of good practice has a reception area for people needing assistance to travel providing a warm, quiet area, with to accessible toilets away from the hustle-bustle of the main station concourse, where they are able to notify (and wait in comfort) the well trained and organised staff of their arrival at the station". As Age Concern notes: "many mainline stations and termini are accessible, but facilities and availability of staff vary widely". It therefore might be worth suggesting that minimum standards of station staffing and ticket office opening times are written into future franchise agreements.

The consultation document Consultation on revision of "Train and Station Standards for Disabled People: A Code of Practice" can be downloaded from the DfT website. Those based in Scotland are also asked "whether this code ought to apply in Scotland or whether Scottish ministers should exercise their right to prepare their own code". The deadline for responses is 23rd May 2008.

Violent Extremism in Colleges?

2008-04-08T15:43:00.004+01:00

The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills are co-hosting a consultation on the 'Role of Further Education Providers (aka colleges to you and I) in promoting community cohesion, fostering shared values and preventing violent extremism'.

The shared values that the document states should be fostered are "values of openness, free debate and tolerance". In promoting cohesion around these values, the college should also "listen to and support mainstream voices". I wonder if there should be a consultation around what our "shared values" are, let alone whose constitutes a "mainstream voice"!

The consultation was welcomed by the National Union of Students (NUS), but it is "disappointed that the Government did not expand this consultation to address the problem of gun and knife crime".

Instead, the consultation highlights "al-Qa'ida influenced terrorism" as, according to the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Bill Rammell MP, other forms of violent extremism "do not present the same scale of threat" - actually more young people have been killed by gun and knife crime than by "al-Qa'ida influenced terrorism". The NUS is also concerned that students are involved in any proposals, "to avoid unnecessary victimisation of Muslims".

The University and Colleges Union (UCU) picks up on this contradiction between promoting community cohesion and the relentless focus on Islamic extremism: "we still have some worries, however, that Muslim students and staff generally will feel themselves to be the focus of attention".

Writing in the Guardian, UCU General Secretary, Sally Hunt writes that "the FE guidance's six "scenarios and responses", intended to help colleges deal with potential dilemmas, include two Arab or Muslim-related scenarios. It would have been easy to add a possible scenario based on, say, extremist Christian fundamentalists". She concludes that "we will encourage and support all efforts to promote community cohesion, but let's be realistic too about the many other challenges the sector faces."

The Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS), which represents 90,000 Muslim students, states that "there is no evidence to suggest that Muslim students at university are particularly vulnerable to radicalisation nor is there any evidence to suggest that university campuses are hotbeds of extremist activity". Yet, the consultation document advises, some colleges may need to develop "preventing violent extremism plans".

The consultation document can be downloaded from the DCSF website, and the deadline for responses is 6th May 2008.

What should we teach primary school children?

2008-03-24T00:22:00.003Z

The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) has commissioned an Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum – led by Sir Jim Rose. This is an 'out-sourced' consultation, asking respondents to submit evidence via the DCSF.

In announcing the consultation, Secretary of State Ed Balls said: "A strong, coherent primary curriculum is central to achieving the ambitions of the Children's Plan and delivering the outcomes of the Every Child Matters agenda. It follows that our central purpose is to make the curriculum as good as it can be for all primary children, taking fully into account the importance of providing continuity with the early years foundation stage and the secondary stage curriculum". Respondents may therefore want to look at the aims edxpressed in those two documents.

A good source of information is the Cambridge University-based Primary Review, which recently found "a decrease in the overall quality of primary education experienced by pupils because of the narrowing of the curriculum and the intensity of test preparation". This was because of "a curriculum dominated by literacy and numeracy".

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) website also provides some useful perspectives: from a resolution passed by their 2000 conference which states that "Primary teachers are being forced to teach following a prescribed methodology regardless of their professional judgement, the circumstances of the school or the needs of pupils"; to the NUT response to the aforementioned Primary Review.

Similar themes of narrow curriculum and over-testing also emerge from the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT). You can download the 20 page NAHT submission to the Primary Review, which states: "there needs to be continued rationalisation of, and flexibility within, the National Curriculum at primary level, and of the assessment process" and that "there is a good case for arguing that today's primary children, particularly towards the upper end of Key Stage 2, are placed under too much pressure to perform well, which can lead to concerns about their emotional well-being". It also looks at some of the inherent contradictions between a wider curriculum and testing: "primary schools . . . recognise the value to children's learning of music, drama, poetry and creative subjects, while the inspection system still focuses on standards in maths and English".

The leader of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) recently made headlines by stating that: "Our national curriculum should be far more focussed on the development of life skills and ways of working than whether or not we teach the Battle of Hastings . . . too much learning that goes on in primary and secondary school is rote learning and that's not learning for the 21st Century".

And so it appears that educational professionals feel there is not only enough space in the curriculum for creative subjects, but also for life skills too (aside from literacy and numeracy) and that testing causes this.

It's interesting that since devolution Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all abolished SATS for seven year olds. Should England follow suit?

Full details of the consultation can be downloaded from the DCSF website. The deadline for consultation responses is 30th April 2008.

Aviation's duty to climate change

2008-03-12T23:15:00.004Z

In the 2007 Budget, the Government announced a consultation on replacing Air Passenger with Aviation Duty. The Treasury document Aviation duty: a consultation sets out the options for implementing Aviation Duty.

The consultation looks at how the duty can be switched from passengers to planes. In early March, the story of an American Airlines flight which flew from Chicago to London with just five passengers illustrated the case for taxing planes over passengers – and caused outrage in the press.

It is proposed that Aviation Duty will be based on flight distance and the 'Maximum Take-Off Weight' of the plane as the most effective measure. The consultation essentially asks for responses on the detail of implementation - though, as ever, there is scope for more general responses.

The move to Aviation Duty is welcomed by Friends of the Earth, which states it "could be a major step in the right direction".

The Campaign for Better Transport has also welcomed the transfer to Aviation Duty, stating, "the aviation industry currently pays no fuel tax or VAT so it's right they contribute something to the economy. But we need to see investment in sustainable alternatives to short-distance air travel, such as rail links". Perhaps respondents to the consultation should ask for revenue from Aviation Duty to be ringfenced for such schemes.

Such ringfencing would surely be supported by the RMT (the rail, maritime and transport workers' union) which makes the environmental case for shifting freight transport from air to rail and inland waterway in its recent submission to the Transport Select Committee. The RMT and environmental campaigners will be pleased to know that Aviation Duty, unlike Air Passenger Duty is also proposed to apply to freight as well as passenger flights.

For a good background on the environmental case for reducing air travel see AirportWatch or Greenpeace. However, the consultation document states that "the Government remains committed to supporting the sustainable growth of the aviation industry", yet also admits that while currently accounting for 6.3% of UK greenhouse gas emissions, aviation is projected to increase to 21% by 2050. So much for joined-up government!

The deadline for responses to the consultation on Aviation Duty closes on 24th April 2008 – and it's proposed that Aviation Duty will replace Air Passenger Duty from 1st November 2009.

On the Buses

2008-03-08T20:49:00.004Z

You wait for a consultation on buses, and then two come along at once! The Department for Transport has a consultation on 'Options for strengthening bus passenger representation' for which the deadline is Monday 17th March – if you hurry you might just catch it!

The consultation seeks views on how to "provide a more high profile, recognised point to which passengers could address their concerns about punctuality and reliability of their local bus services".

So anyone who catches a bus regularly should be interested – especially if you have a disability.

The Campaign for Better Transport is looking forward to a watchdog for bus passengers, and has a template response for those replying to the consultation.

The other consultation is on Bus construction regulations – which may sound as if it is only of interest to bus manufacturers, but is actually about the regulation and safety standards of buses. It should therefore be of interest to road safety campaigners, bus drivers and the unions that represent them, and other road users. The deadline for responses to this consultation is Thursday 20th March.

Direct democracy or petition sham?

2008-03-01T22:43:00.005Z

As part of the Governance of Britain green paper, the Department for Communities and Local Government is now consulting on Local petitions and Calls for Action.

Since November 2006 members of the public have been able to start or sign online petitions at the 10 Downing Street website, which can run for up to 12 months and receive a Government response if signed by 200 or more people.

The Governance of Britain green paper committed the Government to considering means of petitioning Parliament and devising a mechanism which could lead to a debate in the House of Commons – but strangely this is not included within this consultation, with no explanation of why not or whether it will be in the future. To find out you may want to email Hazel Blears (Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government)

Instead, another issue, not even mentioned in the green paper is being consulted upon: petitions to local government.

The consultation document proposes that local authorities would have a duty to respond to petitions in much the same way as the 10 Downing Street system, if they relate to an issue in local government jurisdiction; are organised by a local person; and have a sufficient level of support.

However, as the consultation document admits, "many local authorities already deal with petitions systematically, scrupulously and fairly" – so it is not clear what difference this proposal would make – except for the minority of councils who perhaps do not respond formally to petitions (no examples are cited in the consultation document).

However, the document does mention examples of countries where petitions are a "trigger leading to electoral action, typically in the form of a referendum". One such example of this is Switzerland whereby any change to Swiss law can be subjected to a referendum if 50,000 people sign a petition opposing it within 100 days. Additionally, a referendum on a constitutional change can be initiated by 100,000 people signing a petition within 18 months.

Campaigning organisations such as charities, trade unions and other NGOs may therefore wish to reply to this consultation suggesting the Swiss model.

The deadline for responses is 20th March 2008.

Helping the disabled back into work?

2008-03-01T18:21:00.004Z

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is currently consulting on 'Improving specialist disability employment services'. According to the consultation document, "the overall employment rate for disabled people has improved significantly over the past decade – from just 38% in 1998 to around 47% today".

As the Shaw Trust highlights "only about half of disabled people of working age are in work, compared with 80% of non disabled people of working age". Their website also contains comparative employment statistics by disability.

The consultation looks at the nature of provision that the DWP offers to disabled people seeking work, and asks how this provision can be improved. But both the Citizens Advice Bureau and the PCS union (representing staff who work in Jobcentre Plus) question whether improvements can be made at a time when the DWP is cutting a further 12,000 staff – having cut 30,000 over the past three years.

Improving this specialist provision to these services is part of the DWP's proposed reforms of Incapacity Benefit, which aims to remove one million people from Incapacity Benefit. These proposals have been criticised by unions, and disability charities.

The consultation document Improving specialist disability employment services can be downloaded from the DWP website. The deadline for responses is Monday 10th March 2008.

Is your Post Office about to close?

2007-10-06T18:48:00.001+01:00

The Post Office has this week launched a consultation as part of its programme to close Post Offices across the country. The first areas to be consulted on include Kent, the East Midlands, East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire – but the consultation will eventually cover all areas of the country.

The Government remains the largest shareholder in the Post Office and has laid down certain criteria about the closures, which will eventually mean 2,500 post offices closed. The criteria include the availability of public transport, alternative access to post office services, and the impact on local communities.

Recognising that there is a social role played by the Post Office, the Government has also committed £150m per year until 2011 to support the rural network. However the Campaign to Protect Rural England doubts this is sufficient: "despite buying a bit more time for the existing network, and acknowledging the complexity of local circumstances, in the end, many post offices will close. For many rural communities and the people that visit them on holiday, life will be made more difficult and communities will be put under greater strain."

A great source of information for consumers is Postwatch which contains lots of information about the proposals and how you can have your say. Postwatch aims to protect, promote and develop the interests of all customers of postal services in the UK.

The Communication Workers' Union (CWU), representing post office workers, has set out its concerns about the closures programme. As you may have noticed, post office workers have recently been taking industrial action against Post Office Ltd over pay and pensions. For more information on the dispute, visit the CWU website.

The RNIB is campaigning to "ensure that the closure process and alternative arrangements take into account the needs of blind and partially sighted people". Help the Aged also has concerns: "Post Offices are a vital lifeline for many older people and it is important that older people have their say on what happens in local communities."

Each local consultation will run for six weeks. For details of when the consultation starts in your area, visit the Royal Mail website.

For current consultations and details of how to respond, see the Post Office website.

Your say on Drugs

2007-09-10T07:37:00.000+01:00

In July the Home Office launched it consultation on drugs 'Our Community, Your Say', which will then inform the Government's drug strategy. The consultation looks at the issue from a range of angles: public information and education, enforcement and punishment, and treatment and support – and there's also a section of the consultation about the international supply-chain.

The Government is quite proud of its record over the last decade and boasts of twice as many drug users in treatment and a reduction of 20% in drug-related crime.

Earlier this year a report by the RSA published a detailed report into the issue which you can download from the RSA website or read a summary on the NACRO site.

The report gives a thoughtful overview and advocates bringing all misused substances under one Act, and treating them as predominantly a health rather than a criminal problem – transferring overall responsibility for drugs strategy from the Home Office to the Department for Communities and Local Government. This would integrate drugs policy "into policies in such areas as social exclusion, housing and homelessness and regeneration". As Drugscope points out "One in three problem drug users are homeless or in need of housing support."

NAPO, the trade union for probation officers, told a 2001 select committee enquiry on drugs, "there is no evidence that punishment or imprisonment reduces drug misuse, but on the contrary that access to treatment reduces criminal behaviour. NAPO believes that drug misuse is nevertheless a health and educational problem and not a matter for the courts and criminal justice system". You can read the submission in full on the parliamentary website. You can read the contemporary views of probation officers on the NAPO discussion forum.

This may be seen by some as "soft on drugs". However, the Government states that "every £1 invested in treatment produces £9.50 of savings in health and criminal justice costs". Despite the acknowledged overall benefit to tax-payers of treating drug users, the Government consultation document also insists "resources are not limitless . . . our aim is to reduce overall [treatment] costs whilst improving effectiveness". So the Government is actually proposing decreasing funding despite their acknowledgement of its cost-effectiveness!

PCS, the trade union that represents prison instructional officers, is calling for "greater emphasis on stopping re-offending through alcohol and drug treatments and by equipping prisoners with the skills to get work". This also highlights that alcohol treatment is excluded from the consultation, except in the context of young people for whom alcohol is illegal.

This seems a major omission. Addaction points out that "in some parts of the UK people addicted to alcohol face waits of up to a year for treatment", and a report for the Howard League for Penal Reform found that "more young men are in prison because of alcohol than drugs".

It is implicit in the consultation that the Government is not considering the legal status of drugs – with the exception of cannabis, which the Government is considering reclassifying up to Class B from Class C. The Police Federation states "you do not need to change classification to change the way drug issues are policed. It's important that police officers have discretion to take account of all individual circumstances". Drugscope concurs, pointing out that since cannabis was downgraded, its use has actually fallen among young people. Rethink, the charity serving those with severe mental illness, is also underwhelmed - believing that a health campaign rather than harsher laws would be more useful.

The RSA report recommended that drugs education in schools must occur in primary schools too, and NASUWT, a teachers’ union, advocates an extension of random drug testing in schools.

On the international front, Oxfam is calling for "massive support for non-opium agriculture and rural livelihoods" in Afghanistan rather than aerial crop-spraying or removal by force.

The consultation document 'Drugs: Our Community, Your Say' can be downloaded from the Home Office website. The deadline for responses is 19th October 2007.

Homes for the Future

2007-08-24T18:25:00.002+01:00

The Housing Green Paper 'Homes for Future' was published in July 2007. It outlines plans to build 3 million new homes across Britain by 2020, and to put an extra £8bn funding into affordable housing.

The proposals have been broadly welcomed as a major step to reverse the trend over the last 30 years of fewer houses being built, which has led to the current housing shortage and soaring house prices.

House prices have doubled in the last decade so that in London, the South East, South West and the East of England the average house price is over 8 times the average wage. The Green Paper also points out that the percentage of private renters who can afford to buy has more than halved in the last decade.

In welcoming the proposals, Shelter points out there are over 1.6 million people on council house waiting lists in England alone, and fellow homelessness charity Crisis is calling for at least 750,000 social rented homes to be included in the 3m total.

The Defend Council Housing (DCH) campaign, supported by several trade unions representing key workers, is calling for the restoration of powers to councils to build and manage social housing. They have issued 5 demands in response to the Green Paper. As Jack Dromey of the Unite union said, "Council house building has collapsed from 300,000 to 300 a year in a generation".

The Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) is concerned that "such a huge increase in housebuilding could sharply raise the rate at which countryside is built on and add to the environmental damage associated with housebuilding". They have published their alternative proposals.

From a different environmental angle, Friends of the Earth, believes the Government's proposal to make all new homes carbon neutral by 2016 should be achieved by 2010. Our homes are currently responsible for over 25% of UK carbon emissions.

Construction union UCATT highlights concerns about the exploitation of construction workers and calls for an apprenticeship training programme to train a new generation of skilled construction workers - which would seem all the more necessary with the construction necessary for the Olympics and Crossrail in the same timeframe.

The Green Paper also looks at how local authorities can benefit from the increased value from planning decisions. The Labour Land Campaign has some alternative proposals for Land Value Tax, which are compelling.

The Government has also pledged to publish a 'National Strategy for Housing in an Ageing Society' in the Autumn, which may please Help the Aged - which believes the Housing Green Paper is a "missed opportunity" for older people's housing.

The Housing Green Paper 'Homes for the Future' can be downloaded from the Department of Communities and Local Government website, and the deadline for responses is 15th October 2007.

In Work, Better Off?

2007-08-24T18:19:00.002+01:00

The latest proposals for welfare reform have been set out in the consultation document 'In Work, Better Off', available to download from the Department for Work and Pensions website.

Government is targeting a one million reduction in those on incapacity benefit, and aiming to get an additional 300,000 lone parents and one million more older people into work. Yet in the Green Paper there is no evidence to suggest whether or how this is possible.

These figures are simply the necessary number to reach the Government's own target of an 80% employment rate, for which no reason is given. As the Work and Pensions Select Committee said in its May 2007 report, "there is a lack of clarity about precisely what the 80% aim represents and why it has been set".

For lone parents, the Government is proposing to make lone parents on benefit look for work when their youngest child is 12 by 2008, falling to the age of 7 by 2010. At the moment lone parents receive benefit until their child is 16.

These proposals have been heavily criticised by childcare groups. Chris Pond, a former Government Minister who now heads One Parent Families (OPF), said "a punitive approach would only impact badly on youngsters in one parent families - many of whom have already lost one parent".

OPF points out that the voluntary New Deal scheme has already doubled the chances of lone parents finding work, and that a punitive approach could be counter-productive. Failure to comply with the proposed new regime could result in benefits being cut, if parents decide to look after their children rather than return to work. Those with children over 12 and eventually 7 will lose lone parent benefit, and therefore be on Jobseekers' Allowance.

This seems to contradict what the new Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families told the Daycare Trust conference in June this year: "Staying at home or returning to work must be a choice for parents, and our role is to make that a real choice . . . to make both staying at home and returning to work practical and realistic, so that parents can do what is best for them and their children."

Bizarrely though the consultation paper states that "we have considered increasing the work-related responsibilities for carers and do not believe this would be appropriate". What are lone parents if not carers? As OPF states: "if they work they are accused of neglecting their childrens' needs and if they don't of scrounging from the State".

The Daycare Trust, OPF and the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) have highlighted the shortfall of childcare provision to enable more parents into work. CPAG is calling for "a government commitment to the same level of childcare investment as countries with more working lone parents, like Denmark and Sweden".

For disabled people, there is much more that needs to be done to break down employer prejudice (despite the Disability Discrimination Act). The mental health charity Rethink says "less than 40% of employers saying they would employ someone with mental illness, the government must do more to help reduce the prejudice and ignorance which surround mental health. Scotland invests eight times what the English government does on anti-stigma campaigns and has seen real results".

RADAR, the pan-disability charity, says the Government needs to invest more in skills training and childcare - pointing out that a quarter of children living in poverty in the UK has a disabled parent. RADAR's Liz Sayce said "increasing in-work tax credits, extending conditionality and broadening eligibility criteria for employment programmes does not equate to having radical new ideas for how to support people to get and keep work".

The civil service union PCS points out that over 15,000 Jobcentre staff have been cut over the last two years, and over 500 jobcentres and benefit offices closed. It is concerned that these, and further looming cuts, will undermine the welcome parts of the Green Paper to provide more individualised help.

The Government is proposing to outsource some of this work, and PCS has considerable doubts that there is the capacity in the private and voluntary sectors to carry out the functions. You can download PCS's response to the Freud Report (which informed the Government's Green Paper) which provides useful information about how these changes could and could not be delivered.

CPAG is also concerned about the proposed reform of the delivery: "if charities take on the role of policing the benefits system, the relationship of openness and trust with their clients that is a key factor in their success will be damaged, and vulnerable individuals will lose the protection of independent advocates who can stand up for their rights."

As well as issues around employer discrimination, the consultation also raises issues about the ability of workers to choose flexible working patterns. At present employees have the right to request flexible working patterns, but there is no obligation for employers to provide it.

The consultation document 'In Work, Better Off' can be downloaded from the DWP website. The deadline for responses is 31st October 2007.

Towards Single Equality legislation

2007-08-24T18:17:00.001+01:00

The Government has a 2005 manifesto commitment to introduce a Single Equality Act. This consultation is a step towards that legislation, which will underpin the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) which will be established from October this year.

Current equality law is set out in nine Acts, four European Directives and a number of other regulations, orders and codes of guidance - and so it is hoped that a new Act would simplify, and many hope strengthen, existing legislation.

A number of campaigning organisations and trade unions have been campaigning for the Government to propose measures to close the gender pay gap. Currently women in full-time work earn 20% less than men, and this rises to 40% for part-time work.

Dr Katherine Rake, the Director of the Fawcett Society said, "At the current rate of change, it's going to take 140 years until women are paid equally - and the Government has missed a huge opportunity to speed that up. This is tinkering at the edges".

Like the Fawcett Society many trade unions, such as Amicus, support the introduction of mandatory pay audits and the right to bring class actions on behalf of groups of employees, as does public sector union Unison.

The Fawcett Society has set out its detailed proposals 'Gender Equality in the 21st Century' which provides detailed material of use to anyone responding to the consultation. There is also detailed information about the gender pay gap on the website of the Institute of Employment Rights.

One proposal that has been welcomed is the right for mothers to breastfeed in public. However, the National Childbirth Trust is keen that this is not limited to infants under one year old, as is proposed in the consultation.

There is currently no legal protection against age discrimination in the supply of goods, facilities and services, premises, education in schools, and other public functions. The law on this was recently changed so that it is now illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, as well as gender, race and disability.

The anti-ageist proposals have been welcomed by Help the Aged, which has produced a useful guide setting out the changes on age discrimination.

Several trade unions and equality organisations are also calling for a strengthening in the powers of Employment Tribunals. Liz Sayce, Chief Executive of disability charity RADAR said, "Employment Tribunals can order compensation - but not re-instatement to the job, or changes in policies - the employment provisions are only half-powers"

The consultation document can be downloaded from the Department for Communities and Local Government website and the deadline for responses is Tuesday 4th September 2007.