DHPs and the Bedroom Tax

There is another demo against the Bedroom Tax in Nottingham tomorrow (albeit one arranged in an extremely unsatisfactory manner via an off the cuff announcement by some SWP apparatchik at the Peoples Assembly but hey ho).

The last one attracted a few NCC councillors, including Graham Chapman the Deputy Leader. They have been very vocal in their own opposition to the BT, even going as far as organising a petition against it. So are we to assume that they are doing everything they can to alleviate its effects?

Not quite. This year NCC's allocation for Discretionary Housing Payments is just over £696k. However, councils have the power to pay out up to a maximum of 2.5 times their government allocation, making up the rest from their own coffers. Nottingham could therefore pay out up to £1.74m. That extra million would help quite a few more people avoid homelessness.

However, from published decisions, it seems clear that NCC is only willing to splash out the central government money, no more.

So tomorrow, when you see Chapman and his pals shedding crocodile tears about the sheer awfulness of it all, remember our council has CHOSEN not to spend all it can to help those facing one of the most oppressive welfare policies for years.

Chapman Plays the Striver/Skivers Game for LOLs

Deputy Leader Graham Chapman has had the opportunity to pop down to that London and tell the Select Committee on Welfare Reform how bad the government's ideas are. Good stuff. Its how he's chosen to publicise it that pisses me off.

You see, like a number of mainstream Labour politicians he seems to have bought into the 'strivers v skivers' divide, the latest revamp of Victorian deserving/undeserving poor attitudes. The Victorian era is where such bigoted claptrap should remain.

You see, it is NOT the only thing wrong with government plans to limit benefit and tax credits increases to 1% per year that it will affect a lot of working people. It is wrong because it will also affect all unemployed people. Even if Chapman is just trying to highlight the Tories clumsy attempt to hide the affects of this real terms cut, he couldn't bring himself to highlight the government lie that disabled people will be exempt; the cap will also be applied to Employment Support Allowance too, many of whom are, in the common sense and/or technical legal term, disabled.

By buying into such divisive language Chapman is fueling the exact same image that the government and its tame poodle media are trying to embed. Labour has form on this of course, playing the exact same tricks like exaggerating benefit fraud and, in fact, the invention of Employment Support Allowance itself. In fact this left many with real terms cuts in benefits too as the amounts paid are often less than the Incapacity Benefit most claimants were previously paid.

Happy New Year by the way!

PS According to a source Chapman later felt bad about the use of language, so the above link will send you somewhere more friendly now.

Just so you know I didn't make it up, here's what it used to look like.

Fair play he felt bad. Maybe an apology Cllr Chapman?

PPS the Tories' 1% cap will probably affect most less than NCC's decision to insist on the poorest paying at least 8.5% of the full Council Tax. He blames central government for this too, with some justification. He will blame all of us when we can't pay it from our real-terms reduced benefits. The only people he won't blame is himself and his councillor colleagues.

New Discretionary Housing Payments Policy; It's, Erm, Not Brilliant

When I asked my big question about Housing Benefits and DHPs to full council, Cllr Chapman's response mentioned 'local policy and criteria' for awarding DHPs. As I had previously been told there was no such local policy I was intrigued and fired of a FoI request for what must be a new development. Well folks, in defiance of my honest but admittedly cynical expectations, here it is.

It starts off well, explaining the context and background of DHPs and encouragingly, makes the early point that DHPs should not be seen in isolation but as part of a wider strategy to prevent homelessness and maintain housing. Of course saying it is one thing and doing is another but the starting point is actually writing it down clearly and you can't argue with that.

It sort of goes downhill a bit from there. The section detailing the start date of a DHP award (see p5) is very confused. In particular, para ii) gives the incorrect impression that a DHP can only be backdated if a claim is made within a month of the mainstream housing benefits start date. In fact, there is no legal bar on backdating a DHP but, within the discretionary framework, authorities are entitled to set out situations where doing so may be a lower priority than paying for current shortfalls. NCC's policy doesn't even attempt to do that.

This lack of a 'priorities' framework is a repeated problem throughout the policy. It's structure essentially sets out the various problem areas that DHPs may be used to help alleviate, such as young people finding accommodation or preventing homelessness, then goes on to stipulate situations where they would consider a DHP, followed by situations where they would NOT consider one.

This is a massive issue. In discretionary schemes like this you cannot issue such prescriptive guidance, in legal terms it is known as 'fettering discretion'. It goes against the principle that all cases must be judged as individuals  on their own merits.

What you ARE supposed to do is to set out factors which may increase or decrease a person's priority for a DHP. The decision uses this guidance to determine the applicant's overall priority and depending on the budget position, uses this to decide whether to award a payment or not. Of course, you must also recognise that people may present situations that are outside your 'priority' definitions and the priority/non-priority should not simply be shorthand for will/won't get a payment. NCC's policy doesn't begin to do this, it just says 'yes you will get one if you are in list A' and 'no you won't if you're in list B'. Unfortunately, this makes it totally unfit for purpose.

Within this there are other bizarrities. For example, in the 'Young Individuals' section, the list of those who won't be considered for a DHP includes those in 5 bed accommodation who haven't faced a restriction to 4 bed HB levels (one of the standard Tory HB cuts which came into play this year). I mean, it's not impossible I suppose but how many 'young individuals' are going to have families so large that they need a 5 bed house?

A more basic error occurs where, in a couple of the lists where a DHP would not be considered (e.g. p8 and p12), one of the categories is where the council has good reason to believe that the tenancy is not on a commercial basis. The thing is, a tenancy not being on a commercial basis means that a person should be treated as not liable to pay rent and as such wouldn't be entitled to housing benefit at all (see Reg 9(1)(a) HB Regs 2006). As one of the basic entitlement conditions for a DHP is that there must be some entitlement to housing benefit, so in the circumstances where a claimant's tenancy is not considered to be a commercial one the question of a DHP is simply not going to arise. This just gives the impression that the policy was written by someone who has no idea of what they are talking about.

It sort of goes on like that. The last issue that concerns me is that there is no mention of budget profiling throughout the year i.e. planning in advance to ensure you don't spend the lot in three months and take into account known seasonal factors etc. All we get is -

"On a quarterly basis a report detailing all DHP applications received, decisions made and DHP fund available is forwarded to the Head of Service for  approval."

Yeah right, like she's going to bother reading that. When I worked at NCC one HB worker described handing a report to Lisa Black (for it is she) as a reason for nothing else happening on the initiative. Funnily enough, that was about DHPs too, back in 2006.

On the plus side, they have at least got a policy and its existence is useful for anyone trying to challenge a refusal to pay a DHP. Who knows, maybe they pulled their fingers out in response to the fuss I made on here? If so, maybe they'll read this post and look at it again.

In the meantime, anybody who IS challenging a DHP decision, my advice is to get a good lawyer on board and consider challenging the whole policy via Judicial Review.

That Answer In Full; Why Housing Benefits Are 'Not Brilliant'

I've just had the minutes through for the full council meeting on 11th June. I asked a question about problems with the Housing Benefits service and here is the answer I got from Graham Chapman. I've added the odd comment as you'd expect.

"Thank you, Lord Mayor, and I promise that the answer will be marginally shorter than the question.

[Guffaw! He's known for his jokes is Cllr Chapman]

Between May 2009 and May 2012 there has been a 14.8% increase in the benefit caseload increasing the annual benefit paid from £133 million to £175 million, that is an increase of 31%. Although not a national comparator, Nottingham puts 82% of cases received into payment, compared with a Core City average of 70%. In simple terms this means that more people that need support are getting that support in Nottingham than in the average Core City, and that is very important point.

[That's interesting. Is Chappers claiming that other core cities get round the issue by simply not paying benefit to people who are eligible? I wonder what these other core cities would have to say about that.

And how relevant is this to speed of processing? You still have to process the claim and make a decision even when benefit isn't payable.]

There has also been a marked increase in the caseload for the private rented sector, an increase of 63% over the same period. Now I am aware that on basic statistics, Nottingham’s performance on speed of processing new claims and changes in circumstances relative to other English local authorities is not brilliant. For 2011/12 Nottingham City Council performance for all new claims was 53 days and 27 days for changes of circumstance. The All England average was 24 days and 12 days respectively.

['On basic statistics'. 'Not brilliant'. It's like pulling teeth.]

On average we allow 36 days for provision of information, with reminder letters and follow-up action taken to secure evidence in support of claims, whereas the vast majority of high performers allow around 14 days, with limited follow-up activity. 

[Can I just stop you there? ALL local authorities are required to allow claimants at least a month to provide any information required to support their claim if the authority notifies them it is required (see sub-para 8). So if these 'high performers' really are cutting claims off after only 14days they are acting unlawfully. Not beyond the realms of possibility I know but without evidence I'm sorry Cllr Chapman but on this one, I name thee 'Bullshitter'.]

If our focus was only on processing times and only on the stats, rather than getting money into people’s pockets then 12%, or some 5,000 people, would not have received support they have. That is quite the opposite of what is implied in the question. In other words, we do not have a cut off date which allows us to say the case has been dealt with, we keep the case on file and work with it, and that way we get far more money into people’s pockets, but our performance statistics don’t look as good, and if anybody asks me which one I prefer, I prefer getting money into people’s pockets than having nice neat performance statistics which show us in a false light.

[Again, this is clearly bollocks as it's based on the same false premise as above. Is Chapman seriously claiming that if you submit a half-completed form and don't respond to chase-ups for 5 years, they'll still process the claim back to day one? That's not how I remember things going. Councils are allowed to allow longer than a month to provide missing info and there are many cases when they should. On this basis the claim that NCC allows an average of 36 days doesn't look over-generous.]

Since July 2011 the benefits service has been working with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to improve performance however. There has been significant investment in the service, both in terms of 13 new posts and additional temporary staff to assist with the speed and accuracy of processing. As a result, new average claims processing time has reduced by 9 days to 44 days in May 2012, and we anticipate further improvements. Performance on changes in circumstances will take longer to improve, the focus of activity during June, July and August is to bring the change of circumstances to a 14 day turnaround. On this matter the questioner does have a point, we are concerned, but we are doing something about it.

[13 extra staff is good. However, I'm a bit cynical about the sticking plaster/PR friendly use of temporary staff not least because of the cost.]

Now, on subsidy, it is acknowledged that in 2010/11 housing benefit subsidy was qualified to the value of £729,000. This was out of a total claim of over £157 million, so that means it is a 99.53% accuracy rate. This is consistent with other authorities of our size and complexity. Some £300,000 of the £729,000 was subsidy claimed in error when the equivalent expenditure had not been incurred, so there was no loss to the public purse nor citizens in the benefits system. Again, this is not what the question implied.

[I wonder what Cllr Chapman's response would be to a benefit claimant who claimed benefit 'in error' when the 'equivalent expenditure' in rent 'had not been incurred'? I suspect he'd have been very happy to have seen him down the Magistrates Court. And it's good to see Chapman being so blase about the remaining £400k.]

On to discretionary housing payments (DHP). Unsuccessful applications for discretionary housing payments are in simple terms the result of the claim not meeting the qualifying criteria.

[Really? That's a bit odd seeing as the potential eligibility is so wide. The assumption is that eligibility exceeds demand and that authorities use their discretion to decide who should receive a payment.]

The local policy and criteria itself was developed in line with the national parameters and in consultation with benefit practitioners, the welfare rights sector, housing professionals in the City, and we have a very good relationship with them.

[What is this 'local policy and criteria' of which you speak? Has Cllr Chapman seen it? In 2009 there was no such thing and the (small) bit of info I've been given about these meetings with the welfare rights sector etc didn't mention anything about drawing up local criteria. Not that they were minuted mind so their usefulness is limited. Maybe it's time for another FoI request to see if this has changed?]

In 2011/12, in recognition of the impact of changes to local housing allowance rates, the Government increased DHP fund allocation, more than doubling it for Nottingham, and I’ll give the Government credit for that. However, due to a transitional protection scheme introduced by the same Government, the full impact of the local housing allowance reforms was not felt during 2011/12, therefore, to expend the money would not have been appropriate. 

[Why the hell not? The best way to demonstrate need is to spend what you've been given. That also serves to increase the next year's allocation.And this claim isn't really consistent with the near 30% increase in applications in 2011/12.]

The DWP therefore agreed that the authority’s underspend could be carried forward to the next financial year. Nottingham City requested that £62,741 be carried forward to 2012/13 making our total provision £274,621.

[I like the way that he makes it sound like it was all planned, rather than an arse-covering exercise. Sorry but I'm not convinced by that at all.]

The take-up and availability of DHPs are widely promoted by frontline benefit colleagues as well as colleagues in housing, welfare rights and within the charitable sector. Thank you."

[Yeah right. That's why the council's leaflet on DHPs hasn't been changed for 7 years and refers you to an office that no longer exists. Oh and while we're here, notice how he makes no mention of the past record of DHP performance over the last 11 years.]

So, that was Cllr Chapman's response. I would rate it as inadequate and misleading to be honest. It's full of unsupported assertions along with blatant inaccuracies. It's a list of excuses that simply don't hold water, like a child caught by a shopkeeper with sweets he hadn't paid for. However, to someone who knows little about Housing Benefit and none of the background to DHPs and their administration in Nottingham, which probably includes the vast majority of councillors, it probably comes across as a robust response.

In Cllr Chapman's defence he probably had no idea what Discretionary Housing Payments are until he was given the above rubbish to read out but, at the end of the day, he's put his name to the response and he is the Portfolio Holder for the service. He is responsible for his answer and it simply isn't satisfactory.

Gor Bless Ya Ma'am

Turns out that Cllrs Chapman, James and Unczur approved a grant of £600 for a Royal Wedding street party on the date of the royal nuptials back in April.

What a load of old bollocks.

Can't see why a grant for a party in April wasn't approved* until July. Must have been a bit risky going ahead without knowing you could pay for it but there you go.

*Officially approved anyway

Jumping the Gun

I suppose you can forgive their giddy enthusiasm but are Nottingham's inner circle of politicians getting a little ahead of themselves?

Full council meets today for the first time since the election. Early on in the agenda is the election of the leader who has the gift of appointments to the executive/portfolio holders in her/his power. Somewhat helpfully, JoCo has already written a report "...in the event that [he is] elected as Leader of the Council..." setting out who will be his chosen few. It's listed as a 'report from the Leader'. Even though he isn't the Leader yet. But he should be by the time the relevant agenda item comes up so I suppose that's alright then.

Mind you a couple of these prospective portfolio holders have also been making hay before the sun's even out of bed. Graham Chapman has already signed off three portfolio holder decisions, one of which involves expenditure of £270k, and 'Calamity' Jane Urquhart has done one. Surely, technically these can't be valid because the councillors concerned were not portfolio holders at the time of signing?

Nottingham Plays 'Pin the Red Rosette on the Donkey. Any Donkey'

Well it's pretty clear that nobody listens to me.

Whatever your views as to which party is best for Nottingham I defy you to argue convincingly that the virtual removal of all opposition to Labour on NCC is a good thing.

As you probably already know the Lib Dems have paid the ultimate price locally for their national leadership's hunger for power. Former Leader Gary Long has made no secret as to what he thinks the solution is, although he's apparently bottled out of repeating that on the national stage too knackered to do Newsnight. The loss of decent campaigning councillors like Tony Sutton and Alex Foster is a real source of regret and gives the impression that voters don't want to know about corruption in the council and will punish you by voting you out if you wake them from their slumbers.

There are still five Tories which means that Nottingham's golf courses continue to have their advocates in the city, although they will have to find a new leader as Andrew Price got his marching orders.

In my ward the odious former 'high class' (self defined) escort Cat Arnold kept her seat. My bet is that she'll be on the new Executive as she's been crawling up JoCo's arse for years. Mick Newton, who ran as an independent, didn't make it which I think is a shame. Again, a red rosette means more than a record of actually getting out into the community and doing your job it seems.

It has to be said that, despite some best efforts, the corruption issues haven't gone away. The District Auditor is set to report on alleged Future Jobs Fund dodginess, the Harold Tinworth affair is still ongoing (and hasn't he earned his money) and as Tony Sutton has a bit more time on his hands I suspect he won't let that go. I've got FoI requests regarding the funding cuts to CEHRNN and whatever went on between NCC and Nottingham Studios over Radford Unity Complex. These issues could be embarrassing for JoCo and his sidekick Chapman. Could there be resignations?

Addendum - nearly forgot, the NCC website has a rather impressive results information portal. It's only missing turnout figures so far (as a %) but the votes cast numbers indicate a much higher turnout than 2007.

Some More of My Opinions on the Local Elections

If anybody should care here are some of the issues that I believe are important when deciding how to vote in the local elections on Thursday.

My first thought is that, before deciding HOW to vote, it's vital to first decide TO vote. Local elections are notorious for their low turnouts and this is a serious threat to true democracy. Turnout in 2007 was 32.4%, up from 29.1% in 2004, an improvement but still nowhere near a majority of those eligible to vote. And that increase is more than explained by the increase in postal votes which bring in their own problems.

I have to say it, voting for someone is nearly always better than not voting at all in my opinion. Nothing encourages complacency, self-interest and downright corruption in our elected representatives than them knowing that they are in a safe seat and not enough people care about their poor performance in order to bother voting against them. Whatever your political views I firmly believe that just turning up for each election and voting against the current incumbent will improve the health of democracy, at least it would keep them on their toes.

So, presuming that you have decided that you are going to vote, my next piece of advice would be to be sure to avoid voting on national issues at the expense of local. It's tempting to assume that they are one and the same and, while there is clearly overlap, it's not necessarily so. For example, I believe very strongly that the biggest local issue in Nottingham City is the out and out corruption and cover up within the Labour establishment at NCC (housing scandal etc, see the blog passim) and voting Labour to teach the coalition will not solve this. I'm not necessarily saying that Labour in local government is intrinsically bad, and I'm certainly not saying that I would never vote for a Labour politician again, it's just that the current Labour establishment consists of three groups; a small controlling core that has no respect for democracy and due process, a small group of lickspittles desperately trying to get into group one and lastly, a larger group of useful idiots/vote fodder who do as they are told regardless.

Again, I should emphasis that this is not a syndrome that is exclusive to the Labour Party, I firmly believe that if the Green Party won three elections in a row you'd end up with a very similar situation but with different colour hats. You'd probably find a lot of the same names as the politicos changed allegiance to the party that could deliver them into power. The important thing here is that when these cliques do establish themselves the important thing is to bring them down.

So for me at least I will not be looking to vote against the Lib Dems simply to punish them for selling their national souls to a poor-hating disablist right wing government. Locally they have been effective constituency representatives and sources of opposition, their effectiveness limited mainly by their numbers. The Tories are a little different of course, while they have taken on certain issues such as the Radford Unity Complex but I'm quite sure that was for cynical electoral reasons as they were targeting the Nottm South seat in the general election at the time. If a comment on Alanadale's blog from one of the candidates in Radford and Park ward is anything to go by they still see some mileage in this issue yet. In power, the Tories wouldn't give a shit about RUC but most importantly, everybody who's nice hates Tories anyway, that's just a fact.

So, to be a bit more prescriptive and specific, I've made no secret in the past that I strongly believe that a Green Party presence on NCC would be a good thing and if you are lucky enough to have a candidate in your ward I would urge you to vote for them. Those against Tesco on Eastside might want to look at Dave 'Lord Biro' Bishop in Dales ward too. In Basford, former Labour councillor Mick Newton is standing as an independent and seems to be good at getting stuck in to local issues so he will probably get one of my votes.

But in the end I suppose that it is pretty much inevitable that there will be a Labour majority in the end so what to do? My personal opinion is that a 'decapitation' strategy is the best bet i.e. get rid of those who are at the top of the dodgy clique. Luckily, we have already seen the last of Hassan Ahmed for a while so the priority is to get rid of JoCo and Graham Chapman. If you live in either St Anns or Aspley ward I implore you not to vote for these two even if you are a Labour supporter, their removal will result in an immeasurably improved local Labour Party I'm certain. We can but hope...

So that's what I think, see you at the ballot box.

A Surprising Event Happened

After the Labour Party showed its contempt for collaborative politics and accountability at the full council meeting this week the Post reports on the an example of opposition councillors showing how it should be done.

As well as Cllr Sutton's motion asking that NCC calls on the IPCC to investigate Notts Police's failure to do its job by not taking any action over the housing allocations scandal, Cllr Chapman also submitted a motion condemning the cuts to funding as 'unfair'.

With the Lib Dems currently on secondment to the Tory government you'd expect them to vote against but in fact they backed it. Admittedly it may well have been electoral suicide for them not to but at least they have set an example that not all votes need to be along party lines. Maybe Labour might learn something. Unlikely I know but we can live in hope.

Talking of Cllr Chapman, Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has tried to humiliate him by 'hilariously' calling him 'a very naughty boy' because he shares his name with the Monty Python member who, as I'm sure you know, played Brian in 'The Life of...'.

I mean for fuck's sake. JoCo is right about one thing, that man is a buffoon and that's being polite.

An Early Contender for Least Surprising Event of the Year

I mentioned before that Cllr Tony Sutton submitted a motion to full council asking that it support his call for the IPCC to investigate Notts Police for their criminal and likely corrupt decision not to investigate the housing allocations coruption scandal at Nottingham City Homes. Over to the Post to tell us what happened with that one but before you click on the link try guessing the result. Go on give it a go.

Yup you were right. The motion was defeated with the vote split clearly on party lines i.e. apparently every single Labour member voted against.

There's a rather sinister quote from Cllr Chapman -

"Why would we want to cover up? The easiest thing for us would have been to get a few heads rolling, get a few martyrs – guilty or not guilty – prosecuted and we could have got on with it."

In other words, Cllr Chapman thinks it's more honest to cover up corruption using the time honoured method of hiding the matter under the carpet as opposed to the alternative one of fitting somebody up. Notice he doesn't see the third option i.e. of actually catching the real perpetrator and handing them over to the police. That's because the perpetrators are either still in power or working with some of NCC's most favoured 'partners'.

So let's round up what has happened so far -

JoCo called Cllr Sutton a 'prat' fpr mentioning that he himself had contacted Tyrone Brown on behalf of a tenant who was then handed a property outside the normal procedures.

The Standards Committee quietly rejected a key Audit Commission recommendation that councillors should be required to declare any personal relationship with tenants on whose behalf they make representations. Apparently it would be too complicated for them.

Cllr Grocock has been openly named as having dishonestly tried to help someone get a property by saying he was his grandson. Despite there being no apparent dispute over the facts of this the Standards Committee has still not completed its investigations into the matter. I'd bet £1.50 of my own money that they won't do either until after the election. In the meantime he has been severely punished by, er, being appointed as Lord Mayor which just happens to carry with it an extra £25k personal allowance.

One part time temp has been let go. This is the sum total of disciplinary action taken. Similarly, no houses have been repossessed.

The council's internal investigation has cost £100k (or £150k if you believe Cllr Chapman's latest claim). This is apparently as much as can be justified*, although compare with this the £700k spent on the investigation and prosecution of the Ratcliffe environmental activists. Different organisation I know but let's not forget that JoCo is the Chair of Notts Police Authority too.

Furthermore, and if this isn't the clincher on this being a cover up I don't know what is, this £100k was spent on paying external solicitors to do NCC's Legal Services' normal work while they did the investigation themselves. Why? Surely a fresh set of eyes would have been more appropriate for the investigation rather than make them all learn NCC's systems which they would be completely unfamiliar with. Even on an efficiency aregument this was the wrong way round. It's difficult not to conclude that the idea was to make sure no-one looks in the wrong (right?) places. Where this leaves NCC's lawyers' professional standing I don't know.

All this is dodgy as fuck and, in theory should result in Labour being shown the door at the next elections in May. Unfortunately I doubt this will happen, I rather expect postal voting to play a pivotal role in the final result.

*To put this into context I reckon my employment tribunal case cost them over £40k including internal staff time.

Lack of Engagement Woes...Again

Unfortunately I have to report that my initial optimism at One Nottingham's response to my request for a copy of the decision to award Nottingham Equal funding appears to be misplaced.

As I said before, ON's PR chap Kevin Bartlett provided me with copies of board minutes but said that the decision to pick NE was made by a tender panel, a detail not mentioned in the NCC decision to provide match funding. That just mentioned a lack of other potential organisations.

I have written back to Mr Bartlett, twice, asking him for a copy of the tender decision and meeting minutes as their guidance says that this should normally be provided under the Freedom of Information Act and Kevin did say he would deal with my request under FoIA principles. Not a peep back from him sadly and he sounded so friendly at the outset.

What have they got to hide?

The next tactic I think is to test just how independent ON is from NCC by putting in a FoIA request to NCC itself. NCC's financial regulations state that contracts over £50k must have three bidders. The financial regs can be dispensed with if a justification can be provided but according to Kevin that didn't happen. We'll see what they say.

In other clamming up news, after encouraging all and sundry to write to their councillors about discretionary housing payments I made a point of doing so myself. Ten days ago I wrote to my own local councillors, Cat Arnold, Rob Lee and Mick Newton, the three party leaders and relevant portfolio holders Graham Chapman (resources), Eunice Campbell (adult services) and David Liversidge (housing).

Wanna know how many replies I've had? One, from Lib Dem leader Gary Long who said he would support DHPs being sent for scrutiny. Hats off to him at least. Nothing from anybody else, not even my own councillors which is an absolute disgrace. I've never had a reply from any of my local councillors apart from one from Mick Newton and that was when he was off sick.

These wasters are a disgrace to democracy. How can they complain about people not voting or otherwise engaging in political life when they steadfastly ignore people who do? How often do politicians howl in condemnation when people dare to take matters into their own hands and riot or stage other forms of direct action? We hear them mewling and puking that we should effect change by democratic means but ignore us when we do. It's not a party political thing, they're all part of the same disease, although we do have a particular problem with councillors being little more than vote fodder at the beck and call of the leadership in Nottingham. The last thing that elected representatives of that calibre want is for people to take an interest in what they're doing.

The Continuing Adventures of Councillor Hassan Ahmed

Councillor Hassan Ahmed does keep us busy here at NCCLols.

You will be aware of his difficulties in remembering who he worked for and which charities he was trustee of and the understanding and sympathetic attitude he received on this from Standards for England, something that shocked even the supremely supine Standards Committee at NCC.

Well, I've managed to get a bit more information about that in the form of the (heavily redacted) full report on the case against him from Standards for England. I am still trying to get as much of the redaction removed via the Information Commissioner but I'm not over hopeful. And it's more than I got from an identical request to NCC who refused to provide anything.

This document provides more insight into the thought processes behind SfE's decision making, I'll quote a few examples, see if you can spot a pattern emerging -

"...At the same meeting, the executive agreed to fund Nottingham Training and Enterprises Ltd [one of Ahmed's interests] for £50,000 per annum over three years. At the time of the council executive's decision, Councillor Ahmed was not a member of the executive. He did not attend the meeting or take part in the decision..." 

"...Forest Fields Advice and Neighbourhood Centre [another interest] received a grant of £3,092 during 2008-2009. The decision to approve funding to this organisation predated Councillor Ahmed's appointment as portfolio holder. I have seen no evidence that Councillor Ahmed was involved in the decision making process in relation to funding the Advice and Neighbourhood Centre..."

"...Nottingham Training and Enterprises Ltd and FEBA [both Ahmed Interests] also submitted bids to the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Bids for ERDF monies were decided by the East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA). The city council participates in a commissioning group, which assesses preliminary applications...At the time of Nottingham Training and Enterprises Ltd's ERDF bid in 2008, the group was chaired by Councillor Graham Chapman, the deputy leader of the council...

...FEBA was awarded two ERDF grants in July 2009 of £179,810 and £230,468...That decision predated Councillor Ahmed's appointment as portfolio holder..."

There seems to be quite a lot of reliance on the fact that Ahmed had not been appointed to the Executive at the time funding decisions were made. But he was Graham Chapman's Executive Assistant. Who jointly made the decision to cut CEHRNN's funding with him.

Then there's this -

"...I do not consider that Councillor Ahmed was required to declare an interest in Central Education and Training Ltd at the time he met with an officer from EMDA, as this was not a meeting of the council. At that time, no application had been made for ERDF funding..."

WTF? I can only assume that slipped through the redaction process because there's no mention of this meeting anywhere else. But essentially, SfE sees nothing dodgy in the fact that Ahmed was meeting EMDA officers when he was a director of two organisations that had not been declared on his register of interests, shortly before those organisations submitted funding bids to EMDA. Because it wasn't a City Council Meeting. Words fail me.

Anyway, it seems like Ahmed's forgetfulness in keeping his regulators up to date extends to Companies House and the Charity Commission. On 28 October this year he resigned as a director for 'Voice East Midlands' and yet the Commission don't seem to be aware as he is still listed as a trustee. Needless to say his NCC register of interests is yet to be updated. He also seems to have a habit of notifying Companies House about changes in his details with regard to one company but not with others; for example, in October 2008 he updates his address details for First Enterprise Business Agency, a local small business advice agency of which he is chair* but there is no corresponding notification for Nottingham Regeneration Ltd or Voice East Midlands. In April 2009 he does update address details for VEM but to a different address to the one notified earlier to FEBA. Again, no corresponding notification to FEBA nor to NRL, although he does deign to inform the latter that he is usually resident in the UK.

Let's hope that he advises FEBA's clients to act more appropriately.

*Or at least that's what he says in his annual report but I'm not sure what is real any more.

Equality Impact Assessments and CEHRNN

There was another interesting little snippet in the progress report on RUC recommendations that I discussed in my previous post. It concerned the use of Equality Impact Assessments and said -

"The corporate report writing guidance has also been amended to be clear that EIAs are needed for reports relating to new or changing policies, services or functions..."

In other words, if you a considering a change in policy, operations or whatever, as EIA is carried out to assess the potential impact on equalities issues and maybe make changes as a result.

NCC's EIA guidance says that priority services will also be subjected to an EIA according to a yearly timetable, more of an equalities review from what I can see. As a former manager who used to be involved in such things I'd question that. Services never stand still and will be subjected to a general review from time to time (and NCC certainly loves its reviews) and it seems somewhat fragmentary to have a separate EIA process happening at different times, better to carry out an EIA of your service review I'd have thought. Best practice is to have EIAs integrated into policy making and service development. But I digress.

Which brings me back to NCC's treatment of the Council for Equalities and Human Rights Nottm and Notts whose funding was removed by Cllrs Ahmed and Chapman ostensibly following an EIA which found the group wanting.

Let's have a look at the background here.

Firstly, Notts Racial Equality Council (CEHRNN's former handle) were awarded grant aid of £122k pa for three years at the Executive Board Meeting on 16 December 2008, the funding due to start in April 2009. The EIA looking at CEHRNN was started in November 2009 which means someone decided to do so some time before, when isn't known. The EIA document itself also confirms that it wasn't on the list of routine 'review' style assessments.

So why carry out an EIA on a funded external organisation only a few months after you've handed them £122k for 3 years? Why wasn't an EIA carried out as part of the decision to fund them i.e. before any money was handed over, if at all? What does it say about NCC's grant application procedures when so much money is handed to an organisation when, only months later, problems are found which are supposed to be so serious that they warranted an instant decision to withdraw that funding, a course of action which is pretty much unprecedented in the history of NCC's relationship with the voluntary sector? And why has that decision never been made public?

I've said before that an EIA is an inappropriate tool to use to review an organisation's overall effectiveness and this adds another element of inappropriateness to such action.

The EIA report notes that the initial decision to move from a purely race based organisation to one covering all equalities strands in 2007 and that the process was completed in Summer 2009. And yet one of the concerns highlighted in the EIA was that they had taken too long to widen their remit. Why wasn't this picked up in their funding bid if it was such a concern?

What's more we know that NCC had fabricated a complaint from the police about CEHRNN's involvement in protests against the EDL and were forced to withdraw it from the report. You have to wonder why they did that. And even if such a complaint had been made a) that's no proof that it was justified and b) CEHRNN is an independent organisation who can campaign on any issues it chooses, the only relevance to the grant aid would be whether it breaches the service level agreement between them and NCC.

And there's the rub. There was a contract. As far as I know there has been no explicit claim that CEHRNN was in breach of that contract by missing targets or failing to produce agreed outcomes. Do you think that's why they had to find another reason to remove the funding instead?

The multiple ironies are that NCC carries out an EIA which alleges that CEHRNN hasn't been carrying out its remit adequately so the funding was withdrawn in its entirity and the work is now not being done at all. Where's the Equalities Impact Assessment of that decision? And, despite the complaints that CEHRNN was only concentrating on race and not its wider remit, NCC/One Nottingham has since funded a new organisation, Nottingham Equal, which has no track record and only deals with erm, race issues. It does however, include Cllr Hassan Ahmed among its founding directors who only resigned when the Post busted him for not declaring the fact on his register of interests.

And so the ingredients which point to this being a stitch up are -

• Lack of concerns at the time of the funding decision
• Inappropriate use of EIA
• Cllr Ahmed's non disclosed involvement with a potential competitor organisation
• ...and involvement in the decision to withdraw funding
• That decision being withheld from the public, what have they got to hide?
• The competitor organisation later being awarded significant funding

Well, I'm afraid I'm convinced. I believe that the decision by Ahmed and Chapman to end CEHRNN's funding should be made public without delay so that as much light can be shed on this sorry matter as possible. I'm working on it.

Nottingham Studios Given a Home

Nottingham Studios last came to our attention when it emerged that they were intended as the beneficiaries of the decision to offload Radford Unity Complex due to it being 'surplus to requirements'.

Initially, NCC proposed to offer the RUC tenants the (genuinely) surplus Douglas School site but that wasn't suitable and, as the legal quagmire deepened the sale of RUC fell through.

In a twist of fate it now seems that Nottingham Studios is to be offered a lease on the Douglas School instead which you can't help feeling would have been a good idea at the start. Not that we get to see the terms of the lease mind, that's 'exempt' from publication.

It seems that NCC doesn't see it as being in our interests to examine whether our assets are being disposed of in a way which provides value for money.

Death of a Quango in 'Not Government's Fault This Time' Shock

So. Farewell then...
Greater Nottingham Partnership
...

(That's enough poetry. Ed. And if you can leave off the Private Eyeisms for a bit...)

Yes, the 'Post' is today reporting that the Greater Nottingham Partnership is off to the great quangocracy in the sky. This follows the demise of the East Midlands Development Agency, a decision that I also chose to lament in verse.

Regeneration isn't really my thing so I'm in no position to give an opinion as to the usefulness of either of these organisations. Certainly my post on EMDA attracted a comment from one of their fans.

What I do know is that I get quite a few visits from GNP peeps so I'd like to say to those individuals that I'm genuinely sorry about you losing your jobs and hope you find something else soon.

The article in the 'Post' is quite interesting. It carries a number of quotes from people criticising the decision to wield the axe, including one from NCC Deputy Leader Graham Chapman -

"I think we will lose a very helpful lobbying body. It has been very supportive in bringing in business involvement on a whole range of issues, from the station to the A453.

I have sympathy with getting rid of bureaucracy. But this is real stuff that's going to undermine growth."

Then there is a quote from a Diana Gilhespy, EMDA's executive director of regeneration -

"In the case of GNP, we were unable to reach an agreement with Nottingham City Council on how economic development will be delivered in the future within the City. As a result, GNP's board decided at the end of 2009 to wind up its operations by April 2011."

Hello? Unless I'm very much mistaken that seems to be putting the blame fair and square on Nottingham City Council. Strange that Cllr Chapman didn't mention anything about that and instead seemed to imply that it was about reducing bureaucracy.

CEHRNN are Fighting Back

There was a report in the 'Post' recently saying that The Council for Equality and Human Rights Nottm and Notts were challenging NCC over the decision to stop their funding. However, apart from saying the challenge was based on an opinion that the decision should have been made by a committee there wasn't much info.

I was interested to know what the nature of their challenge was so I emailed them to ask and one of their board members rang me today, which was good of her.

It seems that CEHRNN have started action for a judicial review of the decision made by Cllrs Ahmed and Chapman. Well, I say CEHRNN have but, as is standard practice, one of their service users has done so on their behalf. Doing it this way means that, if the action is unsuccessful, the service user's legal aid will cover the costs. This is possible if the service user can be said to have sufficient legal standing in the issue, something normally accepted by the courts for someone who is reliant on the service that would be lost or adversely affected.

And I am actually quite proud to say that the basis for the action is that it was unconstitutional for the decision to be made as a portfolio holder decision, as I had suggested in a previous posting here. You'll be pleased to hear that, as it's such a good cause, NCCLols has waived its (normally considerable) consultancy fee on this occasion, because deep down I'm such a nice guy!

In Tesco We Spend...Whether We Like it or Not

There's a helluva hullabaloo (don't ask me to say that out loud) brewing between NCC and Tesco at the moment and you have to admit it couldn't happen to two nicer organisations.

The 'Post' is reporting that Deputy Leader Graham Chapman is ruffling his feathers about Tesco "carrying on regardless" - "regardless" by George! - with its Eastside superstore plans despite planning officer 'advice' that it is unlikely to get planning permission.

This could be for one of two reasons. One, if you believe the developer behind the Trinity Square carbuncle, NCC planning officers' advice isn't worth a great deal. Alternatively, it could be because Tesco is a huge multinational conglomerate which could spend NCC back into the sea many times over and therefore has a lot less to lose from an expensive planning dispute.

If Cllr Chapman is unhappy with this state of affairs he may wish to mention it to the national leadership of his party which, once it had been taken over by accountants (like Cllr Chapman), lawyers and city folk, promptly sold out to capitalism leaving big business with the run of the place.

Hassan Ahmed and Graham Chapman Provide Comfort to Fascists

Ahmed and Chapman's possibly unconstitutional decision to end funding for CEHRNN has raised the morale of fascists.

The EDL has posted up a vid on YouTube gleefully claiming that the cut was because CEHRNN had opposed the EDL and some local BNP chump also crediting the EDL for triggering the decision.

Well done Cllrs Ahmed and Chapman. Very well done indeed, I hope that you're proud of yourselves. Sad thing is you probably are.

Council for Equality and Human Rights Nottingham and Nottinghamshire

Anybody know anything about this bunch? They don't seem to have a website although they do seem to be something to do with Nottm and Notts REC. It might even be their new name but it's difficult to tell because, at time of writing, their website is on the blink.

The reason for my interest is that Hassan Ahmed and Graham Chapman appear to have just made a portfolio decision to withdraw NCC funding for this organisation (see decision #659) but they don't want to tell us why. NCC's website claims the decision is exempt from publication.

In the light of a complete lack of information I can only speculate that there will be trouble ahead over this. Removing funding from what seems like an anti discrimination organisation would normally cause uproar. What's more, how NCC can claim that such a decision won't have a significant effect on two or more wards in the City, and therefore suitable for being decided by a portfolio holder rather than the Executive Board or full Council is a bit of a mystery to me, unless the NCC funding share is extremely small.

Can anybody enlighten me further? Comments or email, you decide.

Update; have now established that CEHRNN is the new name for the organisation that was Notts REC. Notts REC was effectively the local branch of the Commission for Racial Equality and I presume the local name change was due to the CRE's absorbtion into the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

In other words this isn't some two bit local community group. So what on earth is NCC doing pulling its funding?

Old Friends...

I see that the Deputy Leader has agreed a 'dispensation from financial regulations' in order to award a contract with one of NCC's old friends again.

Not PricewaterhouseCoopers this time, amazingly, but in a portfolio decision Cllr Chapman has issued a contract for carrying out a review of single person discounts on Council Tax to Northgate.

Remember Northgate? They are the new owners of Kendric Ash who trousered a fortune helping Housing Benefits learn how to pull the wool over the Audit Commission's eyes. Good to see them back.

Northgate have teamed up with Experian, Nottingham's own version of Skynet. Presumably they will be providing the data about who really lives where.

As far as I can make out from the document, the plan is that data from Experian will be compared with all the people getting single person's discount and whoever looks dodgy will be getting a letter. One result of this will be that Nottingham's advice centres and CABx will be inundated with people whose NFA/working away etc kids are using their houses as a secure mail drop.

On the other hand, if there's a surreptitious special someone or dodgy lodger you're keen to see the back of, now's a good time to give them their marching orders on the basis that they're no longer tax efficient. Don't worry, they'll understand.

Anyway, it's due to start next year and run into the year after. Remember, Experian knows more about who is living at your house than you do so you have been warned.