Policy in Practice

The Government has announced an extra £52million to ensure 6,000 more homes are put into the system which supports rough sleepers. This hugely welcomed move will ensure that in the next 12 months, 3,300 homes will become available and that Dame Louise Casey’s, rough sleeping pandemic taskforce , can continue supporting solutions, which saw 90% of rough sleepers being offered accommodation. The next steps will prove how much thought the Government has given to deliver a sustainable service because many existing places are either temporary/hostels and have unsuitable and underfunded support services. These services, which councils typically arrange, don’t always offer the type of support and environment needed for sustainable recovery and too often, just put roofs over heads. On-site and floating mental and physical health support may need to operate as a separate contract, as many residential sites will not be able to provide adequate wrap around care. Separating contract...

When moving to Brighton three years ago I hoped the political landscape of Green, Labour and Conservative would bear insightful and progressive conversation. The reality has been a mixture of ideological entrenchment and partisan positioning. The Green party and Caroline Lucas - their only Member of Parliament (MP) - are formidable in Brighton and Hove. This local influence and national recognition has not only sustained their only MP throughout many swing elections but locally, the Green's spent 2011-2015 in minority control of Brighton and Hove council. As the voice of the green sector, their contribution is vital to political discourse. I (like most) share many values with the Green party but all too often we differ on the approach to sustainable delivery. In this piece I wanted to explore their ardent support of the diesel scrappage scheme and comment on why deeper policy thinking should always come before protest. The background and consequences of 2009 The 2009 ...

The Housing and Planning Act is a mess, it should've been redrafted entirely. However for now, we're stuck with it. Though the Act is a fine example of how not to draft policy the Conservatives have received a lot of negative press surrounding their complete efforts. But are all their efforts on housing so dire? In the 1980's housebuilding was led by housebuilders, development was mostly organic and industry prescribed. We built a lot of houses and locally. In the 90's things changed, local authorities began deciding community expansion and local housebuilding became a lot more centralised.  At first local authorities were equipped to deal with this change, many of the same decision makers remained. Yet as time passed local authorities saw themselves as the deciders and not the enablers. Today the culture of co-operation has almost disappeared with planning being used as a tool of revenue and political gain. Austerity is another conversation entirely and onl...

This week has seen my voice become horse and my flatmates deafened; after two weeks off I’m back to watching political television. Not much has changed; Labour’s failures are still being exampled, the Conservatives look arrogant under pressure and the Lib Dems are meekly squeaking, yet for some reason UKIP are finding a strong platform to vocalise and the Green Party, a party gaining recognition, seem absent. Debates and hot topics have thrown up a mass of ineptitude and the Labour party have particularly disappointed; though Miliband looks more assured as party leader his content seems as sparse as past Labour promises. Two subjects have been strongly debated this week, both giving us an insight into where our future leaders may be heading. The Leveson Inquiry recommended statutory underpinning, an idea Mr Cameron seemed to support until officially suggested, so perhaps a peek into today’s press and recent by-election gives us a clue why. The Rotherham by-election saw a L...

In 2012 the Government changed the penalties for cannabis growers and now having up to 9 plants will see a more rational approach to coping with the millions of those who do use the drug. I wrote this piece because I have spent a lot of time working with the disengaged, especially those with habits, through my experiences I was able to speak to users, abusers and growers to try and further my understanding of the cannabis and drugs problems in a wider policy context. The last decades Government efforts to reduce cannabis availability has caused more issues than expected and has ironically cost the NHS and Police service more time and more money than they once exerted. Drug seizures have doubled since 2004, mostly due to cannabis, yet this supply reduction has impacted social, economic and underworld activity. While the Police force have increased their focus on closing cannabis farms there are few statistics to show how those efforts work to improve the real problems.  Many ...

In recent time the Work Programme has gone live and organisations (businesses) have been working with communities to improve their employability. This began under Labour where huge mistakes were made  and private businesses were allowed to bring their own buckets to  shower of money soirées. Since then nothing has changed (apart from an increase in bonuses) and unscrupulous private businesses are still able to tender for huge contracts and provide no measurable service quality either before, or  after they begin. In South Birmingham we have two training providers for the unemployed; one named Pertemps and the other named Intraining; they provide work experience opportunities/employment training and operate as referral  agencies for the JobCentres. The city used to have another main competitor in the way of WorkDirections but they, due to unsatisfactory performance and community complaints, lost many of their contracts. ...

Future Jobs Fund Future Jobs Fun or FJF was a great example of policy in theory and not in practice which once again looked at tackling short term statistics and not long term issues. Basic FJF eligibility from the part of the employer and employee included: The job must be new and additional to current staffing Be expected to last at least 26 weeks, a minimum of 25hrs per week and pay at least the National Minimum Wage Be of a benefit to the Community Clients need to be 18-24 yrs of age, have been unemployed and claiming JSA for between 39-52 weeks or be long term claimants who are in areas selected for support due to high unemployment Once again on the surface we can assume that this scheme gives young people, or those in areas of high unemployment, an opportunity to find a job however the drawback to the programme more or less undermines the reason for its creation. When the scheme was first announced it worked with a particular slice of our unemploye...