This year’s budget will be the toughest that RMBC has had to set ever since the the authority became a unitary.

Last years budget was bad enough with £30m cuts, this year we have to find another £20m.

This presents us with a huge challenge but we are determined to protect as much of front line services as possible, it will mean new and innovative ways of working and delivering services.

Millers’ award the Junior Young Person of the Year 2011

The Millers’ annual Junior Young Person of the Year was awarded before Saturday’s game against Bury at Don Valley Stadium. The Junior Young Person of the Year Award was open to nominees aged 7-11 years old from across Rotherham, we received nominations from teachers, friends and family explaining why they deserve to win.

Millers striker and Health Ambassador Paul Warne chose the winner and runners-up whilst visiting the Millers’ GOALZ education suite at Mangham House. Paul said: “I read through all the nominations and thought the standard was brilliant, I chose the winner as Gabby Circuit, a young girl who tries so hard in everything she does, I was really impressed – and I’ve checked that she’s no relation to the Millers physio Denis Circuit”.

Gabby and the other nominees were invited to watch the game in the VIP box and received their certificate and trophy pitch-side from Paul Warne, Millers Health Officer Alex Wilson, Matt Wainwright Partnership Development Manager for Rawmarsh, Cllr Paul Lakin, Cllr Jahangir Akhtar and Steve Cooke GM of Best Buy UK, Parkgate Shopping.

Matt Wainwright commented: “The Millers’ Community Sports Trust work closely not only with schools in Rotherham but also the Rawmarsh School Sport Partnership. The out of school hours opportunities that they give to young people make a huge difference not only in the fitness and well being of the pupils but also in their self esteem and confidence. These awards are the culmination of a lot of hard work and enjoyment for these young people. Well done to Gabby and all the nominees”

Health Officer Alex said: “Gabby, who attends Thornhill Primary, is a brilliant young person who always puts in lots of effort and attends extra sport sessions in the evenings and weekends. I hope she can build on this success and continue to be someone who classmates can look up to.”

Reducing bureaucracy, streamlining management and protecting services for people most in need underpin Rotherham Borough Council’s budget proposals for next year, due to be considered by Cabinet members next week (February 23).

Council tax bills in Rotherham will remain static and investment in services for the most vulnerable will continue despite a budget gap of £30.3 million in 2011/2012, as a result of a calm and measured approach, and listening to local people, says Council Leader, Cllr Roger Stone.

The budget proposals are due to be considered by the meeting of the Full Council in March. They have been influenced by the council’s recent Money Matters budget consultation, in which thousands of local residents participated.

“We cannot pretend that in the current climate, we can continue to do what we have always done, in the way we have always done it and neither can we stick our heads in the sand. That would be doing the people of Rotherham a disservice,” he said.

“However, by taking a calm and measured approach, and listening to what our residents told us in our recent Money Matters consultation, we have been able to tackle areas where people feel we should reduce our investment, and protect those services which are high on the list of priorities for our communities.

“For this reason, we are not currently proposing here in Rotherham the wholesale cuts in services and blanket closures that have perhaps been more evident elsewhere in the country. Nonetheless, with such a significant budget deficit imposed upon us, we have still had to make some tough choices, which will be reflected in the detailed proposals presented next week.”

The report presented for consideration by Cabinet will recommend no increase in Council Tax for next year, giving an annual bill of £1,203 for Rotherham properties categorised as Band D.

This will qualify the authority for a council tax freeze grant – a non-ringfenced grant payable to councils who set this year’s council tax at no more than the basic level charged in 2010/2011. In Rotherham’s case, the estimated benefit is £2.3 million.

The report also confirms:-

*    Faster access to services for adults requiring social care due to changes in their circumstances
*    Improved services for children in care and with special educational needs
*    £3million of improvements to the road network, an additional 132 affordable homes, continued regeneration of the town centre and improved customer services
*    Continued help for new business start-ups and to stimulate the local economy
*    Modernisation of the way youth services are provided in Rotherham
*    Ongoing support for credit unions providing financial support to residents facing homelessness as a result of the economic downturn
*    Protection for vital bus services in the borough

The Money Matters consultation revealed that services ranked as “very important for the future” by those who took part are care and protection for vulnerable people (66 per cent); safer and better maintained roads (58 per cent) and support for the local economy and small businesses (56 per cent).

Services across the council’s five directorates – Children and Young People’s Services; Neighbourhoods and Adult Services; Environment and Development Services; Financial Services and the Chief Executive’s team have been reviewed and streamlined, resulting in a total budget saving of just over £17million.

Savings are proposed councilwide through a range of measures, including a review of the council’s buildings and other assets; streamlining of the management function; changes in pay and conditions for staff; efficiencies through developing shared services with other organisations, and more efficient ways of procuring supplies and services.

Money Matters indicated the greatest support for reduced expenditure was in the areas of communications and marketing (51 per cent); management (47 per cent); human resources and also administration (both 24 per cent).

“From the outset, we have said we would base our decisions on a clear set of principles – the main one being a focus on the customers we serve, the communities and businesses of Rotherham, and not our organisation,” said Cllr Stone.

“Clearly, the Council has a short-term objective to balance its budget for next year but we also have to look further than that and plan for the years ahead. We are very grateful to the people of Rotherham who have worked with us in helping us to face these challenges by taking part in our consultation.

The prime minister has made a huge gaffe by attacking multi-culturalism and blaming the Muslim community for the rise in extremism. By using the rhetoric of right wing fascist parties.He has shown he doesn’t understand the issues facing our country, It beggars belief that a British Minister is lecturing the most patriotic community about the need of integration. The vast majority of Muslims are fully integrated in to every form of our society. Of coarse there are differences in the lifestyles of many communities. There is nothing in the Muslim psyche that is different to the values of this country, equality, tolerance, respecting the rule of law. Islam is in complete harmony with the laws of this country. We just need to be mindfull not allow the few to stigmatise the many.

Summary

The council is responsible for about 1100 km (685 miles) of highway of which just under half (500 km/310 miles) is on the precautionary salting routes.

Since last Tuesday the Winter Maintenance service has been working around the clock to deal with the severe weather. A 3 shift system has been operating to keep our front line gritters on the road full-time, and we have brought a further 3 (demountable) vehicles into service too. They have concentrated on keeping our main roads and bus routes open, access to hospitals and emergency services clear as well as attending major incidents such as the A57 situation. We also responded to individual requests and clearing routes for medical emergencies, such as transporting a lady from North Anston to hospital for dialysis treatment.

We are now working to connect villages and other routes through residential areas; additional resources (JCBs) have been brought in to work with gritters to help clear the compacted snow and ice from roads throughout the borough, initially these will focus on the ‘spine’ roads in villages and estates to make it possible for as many people as possible to get back to normal. The extent of the frozen and iced up roads means that it will take some time to be able to clear side roads.

All available Streetpride staff, including those from green spaces, grounds maintenance, street cleansing, drainage, waste and street lighting, have been pulled from their ‘normal’ duties to hand salt and re-fill grit bins, which unfortunately, are often emptied by individuals and private companies.

Resources

1. We have used over 2,000t of salt and completed 30 salt runs - about 1/2 of what we would do in a ‘normal’ year.
2. The new Salt Barn has helped increase our resilience by about 50%; we still have about 3,700t of salt left.
3. 25 hand salting teams have been assembled and they are focusing on vulnerable groups (e.g. sheltered housing), emergency requests etc. We have deployed Green Spaces Rangers and Supervisors from other services to assess and prioritise requests as they come in.
4. 9 teams are deployed re-filling grit bins (>300) across the borough.
5. Precautionary routes are all clear or passable, so we are now working our way into villages and estates starting with the major ‘spine roads’ to enable as many people as possible to get back into a more normal routine.
6. Where possible we are coordinating this with the refuse collection schedules so that we can provide as many people will get a service as possible this week.
7. Green Waste has been suspended, and collection of recyclables is being reviewed on a daily basis have so that we can focus on black bins; on those streets where we can get the vehicles we are even collecting from the rear of the properties. We are currently managing to collect from just over 50% of properties, but as conditions improve we will continue to focus on catching up the black bin collections.
8. 3 HWRCs are open and working normally so there is the opportunity for people to dispose of excess waste if they need to.
9. We have contingency plans in place to work across this weekend.

The Southern Parishes

Members will be aware that the most severe conditions were experienced in and around the Southern Parishes, especially Anston, Woodsetts, Dinnington etc. We are receiving a lot of requests from this area of the borough both from members and from the public; while we are using the same methods of prioritising these requests, we are actually deploying proportionately more resources here than in the north of the borough.

Short term weather forecast

The latest information that we have from the Met Office is that the weather will become a bit milder towards the weekend, but probably not sufficient to make any real difference to those roads with compacted ice and snow. Beyond Saturday, temperatures are expected to drop again.

A snapshot of resources deployed today

To provide members with an idea of how we are responding to the conditions, below is a schedule of the resources that are deployed on Tuesday 7^th December:

Gritters with JCBs

Thurcroft

Harthill

Wickersley, Bramley, Carr Lane.

Brinsworth

Kimberworth.

Dinnington, Anston.

Aston

Maltby

Broom, Whiston

Anston

Gritters working alone 

Bramley

Dinnington, Woodsetts.

Hand gritting teams with JCBs

Moorgate

Brecks

Broom

Whiston

Hand gritting teams working alone

Wingfield

S Anston

Dinnington, Woodsetts.

Gipsy Lane

Thorpe Hesley

Additionally

Rother Valley Area

Thee Teams filling grit bins

Four Teams on secondary salting

Rotherham Town Area

4 teams filling grit bins

4 teams on secondary salting

Wentworth Area

2 teams filling grit bins

2 teams on secondary salting

An  8 week consultation on Social Housing reform has begun today ending on the 17th Jan ( the fact it runs through the xmas period is surely just a massive coincidence !!!! )

 There is much to digest and much will be left to  local authorities to work out.  The “consultation” is limited either to specific groups or to more specific issues without challenging the underlying rationales.  The Localism Bill, shortly to be introduced will carry the main proposed changes.   It also seems like there will be considerable residuary powers retained centrally and locally.  If you are looking for keywords, they seem to be flexibility (tenure and rents), choice, change, deregulation, re-regulation.  There are some good bits (assisting the resettlement of ex-offenders/the deinstitutionalised) and some frankly barking bits (most of the rest of it).  Anyway, here’s my attempt at a summary of some of the changes :

Tenancy Reform: The “social offer”
 

The search is for flexible local solutions to individual housing needs (and non-needs, of which see below) and reforms to the current “social offer” (an ugly label used throughout the CP, but, I suppose, is discursively intended to offer as a comparator to the private rented sector -”PRS” – offer).  The current secure tenancy framework is regarded throughout as “inflexible” and a tenancy “for life”.  The way of resolving that is to leave the current security of tenure system in place, and (importantly) protecting the current tenants from the new regime, but introduce a “flexible tenancy” for a proposed minimum of two years which can be granted to new occupiers.  The two year period is up for consultation, but note the point at para 2.49 that “We would for example expect social landlords to provide longer tenancies to families with children as a safeguard against disruptive changes”.

This I believe is the most concerning of the proposals, it will discourage tennants from investing and looking after the properties if they they could be evicted at the end of a fixed term tenancy. It will also erode any chance to build cohesive communities withpeople not having an incentive to get involved in local groups to uplift they’re neighbourhoods.

Six months before the end of the fixed term, the landlord is to issue a “minded to” notice if it has decided not to extend the term and offer “advice and assistance” (hopefully more than chucking a list of relevant websites/available accommodation at the recipient).  This may be a positive aspect of the proposal, but raises concerns about how that letter might be framed and how lawyers are to interpret its framing (presumably like a homelessness decision?).  The principle here seems to be similar to the method of determination of introductory/demoted tenancies, with a right to review, but with the added protection of an appeal to the County Court “on the limited grounds that the landlord has made an error of law or a material error of fact” (para 2.32).  I wonder whether that will pass an Article 8 assessment. 

Social landlords will have the option of the type of tenancy to grant (secure/assured or flexible) but will have to publish their strategic policy, which appears to require only that they “set out the broad objectives to be taken into consideration by individual social landlords in the area regarding their own policies on the grant and reissue of tenancies” (para 2.19).  Such strategies will be drawn up by local authorities (even non-stakeholdingones) in collaboration with other housing providers and interest groups (eg tenants).  Publication of such policies will apparently provide the requisite transparency.  Some parameters will be set centrally in legislation  and there will be a direction to the relevant regulator of a “Tenancy Standard”.  The terms of that standard will undoubtedly be significant but, at the moment, it is framed essentially as fairly minimalist principles-based regulation which will be “brief and focus on principles, and should avoid detailed prescription” (para 2.43). 

Snuck away at paras 2.35-2.37 is an important qualification to all (flexible and otherwise) future social tenancies regarding succession: there will be a minimum right of succession only once and only to the spouse or partner of the deceased tenant.  Social landlords will be able to grant more than that, though. 

The right to buy/right to acquire will be retained for all these new tenancies. 

The affordable rent regime, under which PRPsare able to grant tenancies at 80% of market rent from April 2011, and will be phased in, but the changes detailed above will also apply to these parts of the social offer. 

If I was cynical – I would suggest that these reforms have been intended to offer a more level competitive set of arrangements between the “social offer” and the PRS, but more of that below. 

Initial conclusion: so-called flexibility will result in more complexity and confusion in the short to medium term, with a prediction of legal challenges to possessions and the re-drawing of the intensity of the proportionality defence. 

Empty Homes 

There are a number of paragraphs in a short section on empty homes, which make much the same set of empty observations as past CPsof the last thirty or so years.  Frankly, rich people with empty homes are not going to be a target of this government. 

Allocating social housing The headline here is that at least some of the 2002 Homelessness Act changes will be unwritten.  Transfer households are to come off the housing register, so that they can more effectively compete for an allocation and use the new national home swap scheme and facilitate chain swaps.  In other words, because such households may be less needy, they are rarely going to get an allocation/letting under the current scheme.  There will be no requirement for open lettings (unless this is what the local community wants).  There is an odd para (4.7) in which CLG appears to be applauding local authorities gatekeepingpractices in respect of households withno chance of an allocation.  But the key para here is 4.9, which delimits the kinds of additional local exclusions which authorities might consider: only those in housing need; residency criteria; past tenancy record; those with sufficient resources toa ccess the private sector.  It doesn’t need a crystal ball to foresee how that might operate (or to predict DDA/Equalities Act challenges).  

The bits I still don’t get are the following: 1) how does forcing people to move provide an incentive to work, 2) do they really think – on the basis of no evidence whatseover – that light touch regulation is what the social housing sector needs? 

The allocations bit is just a way of massaging the figures is it not? Lets get rid of all the no-hopers so that in a few years time we can say that we’ve reduced waiting lists by however many x million without the inconvenience of spending lots of mone on new houses . 

As for the Pt. VII bit, local authorities can already discharge a duty under s.193(2) by offering accommodation in the private sector . Yes the duty doesn’t currently cease if they do that, but under these proposals it won’t really either, because if they become homeless again within two years the duty recurs without a new application.

Because of the short time frame allowed for the responses we will be working with RotherFed and The Strategic Housing Partnership along with a presentation at the Council’s Scrutiny Panel to respond to the consultation.

Shadow home secretary Ed Balls has indicated that Labourwas ready to support moves to cut the pre-charge detention period for terror suspects to 14 days.

This is great news from Eddd Balls although its a pity he didn’t air these sentiments when he was in the last Cabinet. The erosion of oour civil liberties was the biggest mistake by the last government. our reputation in the world community was severly damaged and in some instances made a mockery of statements like ” we wont let terrorists change our way of life” well with all due respect we did just that.

We need to show the purveyors of terror that we are better than them and our institutions are strong enough to take them on and beat them without lowering our selves to they’re level.

So I welcome the Shadow Home Secretary’s view that we should lower the 28 detention of terror suspects to 14 days and even lower if possible. these sort of draconian laws protect no one but act as recruiting Sergeant for the loonies who kill and maim in the name of a perverse political ideology.