Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Council promise full employment*
According to the Council, as documented in:
A plan for jobs, growth and prosperity
On the final page (15), specific 'shoulds':
In the period to 2018, our direct investment in projects should produce the following outcomes:
• 1,100 Haringey people supported into work
• 400 Haringey people increasing their skills levels and earnings
• 200 Haringey young people taking up apprenticeship opportunities
• 50 new businesses established in Haringey
• 1235 new jobs created in Haringey
• 1000 businesses benefiting from superfast broadband technology
*Apparently 'full employment' is commonly defined as being 75% of the working population employed.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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So, Chris, what do you make of the plan? Is it ambitious or not? How will you and everyone else measure the outcomes with confidence ? Crucially, how will anyone be sure that the Council's plans and interventions have affected - positively, negatively, or hardly at all - the overall outcomes?
What is a job? How long should someone be employed before it counts? Would an increase based on more part-time or zero hours jobs count as success? What significant role does the Council play in the commercial roll-out of superfast broadband? I was under the impression that this was in the hands of the companies.
How many businesses are usually established in the entire borough of Haringey each year. Is 17 a better or worse figure than usual? Is seventeen new businesses with three staff better than three new businesses with seventeen staff? If a large business relocates just outside the borough boundary is that a setback for Haringey?
Is it bad if people commute on the buses/tubes/their bike and find jobs in an entirely different part of London? Is it bad if non-Haringey people come across the border and take jobs here. Say, from far away places of which we know nothing like Enfield and Camden?
If over three years 400 Haringey people increase their skills and earnings does that represent an improvement or a disastrous worsening of existing trends? What is a skill? Something certificated as such? Or does on the job experience count? Do people have to increase their skills and their earnings to count? What happens if they are made redundant in Haringey's cuts and have to take a worse paid job?
I think though we can make a solid guess that in the next three years the sun will rise some 1096 times. Probably. And provided that homes get superfast broadband. Both Labour and the LibDems will put out Press Releases claiming the credit.
How many angels can dance on the cover of Haringey People magazine?
Or perhaps the candyfloss nature of these figures was the point you were subtly making?
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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No Alan, the plan cannot guarantee the predicted outcome but the impact of doing nothing is much easier to predict - nothing.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Nonsense, doing nothing will mean that youth services will not be gone by 2018 in Haringey.
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John, doing nothing will mean that far more than youth services will disappear. There is a very odd underlying assumption from some posters that Haringey want to reduce or end some services rather than feel they have no option and little in the way of what should be done instead.
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Why odd, Michael?
Please read pages four and five (Claire Kober, Leader) and pages six and seven (Nick Walkley, Chief Executive) in the Draft Corporate Plan (link here). Ask yourself whether these two people are angry, dismayed, upset, or even mildly irritated by the cuts. Or whether they might possibly be quietly and smugly rather pleased at the "savings" and new era they are ushering in. Not to mention the "head count" figures they will need to adjust. Have you been "adjusted" yet? Or is that not yet a threat where you work?
War has been declared against the core social democratic institutions of our society - not to reform but to dismantle them. The worst victims are the poorest and most vulnerable people. Local councils have the choice of trying to resist, protest and ameliorate the Government's plans. While pressing for the opposition parties to change course in May.
Or they can go along meekly and obediently. Or worse, like our so-called leaders, dress-up disaster as Progress and a "new era". Not because they have to, but - for some of them at least - because they actually want to follow these policies.
Do you recall Maggie Smith as a music hall recruiting sergeant in "Oh what a Lovely War"? Here it is. So you want to join Claire's army? "Congratulations Sir! We're proud of you." "Li' , 'old onter 'im."
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OK Alan, so what do you actually want Haringey to do, and please be specific, in order to avoid going down this road? Resist how? Protest to whom and ameliorate in what way? Who should be made unemployed in order to meet the £xM cut in funding (because salaries make up the lions share of council spend). Otherwise it's just empty words.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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please be specific
Good phrase Michael. On page 15 of the Growth Strategy we have Measures of Success. Alongside six bullet points there are precise quantities.
However, each number is followed by an undefined entity and qualified by an undefined description:
- 1,100 Haringey people supported ...
- 400 Haringey people increasing ...
- 200 Haringey young people taking up ...
- 50 new businesses established ...
- 1235 new jobs created ...
- 1000 businesses benefiting ...
Given that most of these "measures" are untestable propositions, its hard to see how they could either fail or succeed.
They all do sound good though.
Without doubt and by any measure, it's a clever sleight-of-hand achievement for the Council's big PR operation (The Communications Department).
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Permalink Reply by Zena Brabazon on
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Hi Michael
To start with Haringey could be brave and increase the Council Tax to preserve some services. Many other councils, Labour and Tory -have decided to do that to shore things up. See this news brief:
Councils stand firm on tax
The Independent reveals that three-quarters of county councils are set to raise council tax in the run up to the general election, defying government pleas to freeze the charge. The figures also show that four-fifths of the counties that plan to increase tax are Conservative-run, revealing that many of the party’s most senior council leaders believe ministers’ goal of long-term tax freezes is unsustainable in a climate of cuts. Across all council types, 43% are proposing to increase tax in 2015-16, refusing a government grant equivalent to a 1% rise. Some 55% will freeze tax and 3% will reduce the charge. Labour-run councils were more likely than their Conservative counterparts to plan a tax rise this year: 56% of the Labour-run authorities were planning an increase, compared with 25% of Conservative-run councils.
The Independent on Sunday, Page: 14
The Council could agree to set a one year course and hold off from agreeing its 3 year plan. Wouldn't that be more sensible, given the election is imminent? Even if Labour are saying they will stick to Tory plans, they can REDISTRIBUTE funding to favour poorer areas, just as the Tories have favoured the richer ones. Even a 1% shift in resources would have an impact. And they could take money from other departments. One example, is the Labour pledge to put an additional £800m into childcare, increasing the free hours for 3 and 4 year olds to 25 from 15 per week. That funding will change and impact on the funding of children's centres for example. So why is Haringey planning to cut this service with 22 good jobs at risk? I know from thirty years experience that leaving childcare to the market is not the best policy. I suspect similar points about funding could be made for youth and adult social care.
Agreeing the three years sets the 'footprint' for these cuts to be implemented. Not my term, but a direct quote from a senior officer. Very revealing, I thought. What we need least, is a three year 'footprint'. What we need is the political thinking to create 'wriggle room' as the national politics unfolds. Instead Haringey is nailing its colours to the outsourcing mast and telling us things are going to be better, brighter and no doubt the sun will always shine here.
Best wishes
Zena
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Well said Zeena! Bang on. A 12 month budget and a 20% council tax raise please. Oh and yes, the people who were not paying council tax before the tories need to have that privilege restored.
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a 20% council tax raise please.
John, you might welcome a significant rise in the council tax and, like some others, be well able to pay it. But don't imagine this is widely the case during a recession. Council tax has no relation to income and despite crude Banding, it is something of a regressive tax.
It's legitimate to discuss it – indeed as last year's Supreme Court decision stated or implied, this should have appeared as one of the options in a Consultation about Council Tax Benefit Reduction.
Which brings me to another point.
Already, large amounts of Council Tax go uncollected, due to hardship.
The effect of the 20% increase in Council Tax that you seek would be to increase the numbers not paying what has been one of London's highest council taxes for many years.
This would result in more bailiff action (including their fees) plus more £125 administration fees levied by the Council on the Borough's most vulnerable.
Basically, more misery.
It might tip some people over the financial edge, although some residents would merely be pushed closer to the edge by the measure you seek.
There are no easy answers as you seem to imply.
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Also, what difference would it make if the Leader and Chief Executive dressed themselves in tattered robes and walked weeping down Wood Green High Road? They might feel a bit better about what is happening but it would make not one jot of difference to the budget.
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Well, Michael, the Leaders of other local councils seem to have no problem explaining just how bad things are getting.
I've made so many small suggestions - including on this website - that it's hard to know where to start.
But every little really does help. £181k from public funds to pay for a starchitect's office in High Road Tottenham may be a drop in the ocean. But that sum would keep one or two vital services afloat.
Who should Haringey "Leaders" speak to about our budget? Here's one suggestion. This is the borough of Victoria Climbié and Peter Connelly. So if I and my team were leading the Council I'd hire a suit, buy a tie and ask to see Government and Shadow Ministers to explain why we needed more money to avoid sacking social workers.
A general suggestion: that Haringey Leaders try telling the plain unvarnished truth. And stop using Orwellian Newspeak.
For example, there is a real difference between cuts and savings. They could try to avoid all euphemisms which hide facts and sugar the pill. For instance, sacking staff means sacking staff.
To ensure they were telling the truth they should check facts. You may remember what happened before when youth clubs were actually shut, but councillors parroted what senior staff said about them being open.
Then, they could start actually listening to suggestions residents bring. Instead of just talking bilge about some new partnership between the Council and residents when they clearly have no intention of taking any notice.
And I don't mean residents who simply disagree, but those who genuinely try to come up with suggestions for improvements and real savings. Remember the nonsense of the Endymion Road crossing discussed on HoL? It was a symptom of a much deeper problem. And other examples of the same problem are repeated constantly. (The Ducketts Common fences seem to be a tiny example.)
A while ago you made the suggestion that Haringey staff or councillors should ask Camden how they kept streets clean near Camden Lock. I passed on your suggestion. Did anyone contact you? Maybe they did it? Maybe they learned something? In which case three loud cheers for them.
Clive Carter and I often disagree. But he's right about the grossly inadequate measures of "success".
I'd go further. Download the Corporate Plan and have a riffle through the back pages. Pick a few at random and ask yourself how many of these "success" features and "measures" have any rationale or substance.
Or are they - as I see it - simply feelgood fluff?
News reports tell us there really is a supermarket in Pyongyang stuffed with goodies. In glaring contrast to the rest of North Korea. I wonder if their Dear Leader believes the propaganda?
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