Information Bulletin

Summary of News and Publications from the Week ending 22 November 2013

JRF Activity
Julia Unwins new book Why Fight Poverty? will be officially launched at Bristols Festival of Economics on Saturday 23 November. We now have a number of copies in the Library please contact me if youd like to borrow one. @juliaunwin has also been named in the top 30 charity CEOs on social media. Report - Forced labours business models and supply chains.

Poverty
The increasing number of people turning to high-cost lenders to pay for essentials and the rise in serious debt is fuelling social problems, including mental illness and family breakdown, says a report from the Centre for Social Justice. Indebted households in the poorest 10% cent of the country have average debts more than four times their annual income, caused by rising living costs, and turning to high cost lenders as mainstream credit becomes harder and harder to obtain. Full report: Maxed Out: serious personal debt in Britain. Growing up and becoming an adult is the latest report from the Institute for Public Policy Researchs Condition of Britain programme. The report uses interviews, film essays and case studies to examine the issues facing Britains young people. A survey carried out over the last 12 months by Citizens Advice Scotland has found that in spite of the good practice charter, which the majority of payday lenders signed up to, borrowers are still experiencing the same problems and they perceive that lenders are ignoring the code of conduct. A new CIPD report Youth social action and transitions into work: what role for employers? examines why employers are engaging with youth volunteering and social action to help tackle youth unemployment. Six case studies look at specific programmes and at the benefits for business, communities and young people in developing employability skills. During the July to September quarter 2013, there were 1.07 million young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), 28,000 fewer than a year earlier. The proportion of all 16-24 years olds who are NEET fell 0.3% from a year earlier to 14.9%. A European wide study comparing how joblessness affected the life satisfaction of people in 28 countries, suggests that a high level of benefit payments does not affect motivation to find a job. The Welsh Governments Draft Budget for 2014-15 has been debated by the Assembly this week. Proposals include a 50m Intermediate Care Fund for 2014/15 to help promote the integration of health and social care and an additional 35m for the Pupil Deprivation Grant in 20I4-15.

Unpublished research reportedly commissioned by the DWP apparently suggests that a London council would need to spend in the region of 6 million over two years, to help support Universal Credit claimants getting online, opening bank accounts and managing their monthly budgets. It is estimated that one in 10 users of the system are likely to need intensive or ongoing support. John Sentamu delivered an address to the Church of England general synod this week which questioned welfare reforms and condemned the fact that an advanced economy such as the UK was seeing increasing food poverty and in work poverty.

Place
A new report from LGIU concludes that new relationships need to be formed between landlords and tenants to cope with the impact of changes such as welfare reform and the ageing population. It recommends investing in digital inclusion strategies, energy efficiency schemes, employment brokerage programmes, and financial support services; Using frontline staff as customer contact points that can signpost tenants to the most appropriate services; Identifying community champions among tenants to support engagement and communication and; using segmentation of tenant data to better target communications. Strong Foundations: Building better dialogue between tenants and landlords. One Foot on the Ladder, a new study from the Resolution Foundation, advocates that shared home ownership needs to become the mainstream fourth tenure to help meet peoples aspirations, generate new housing supply, address the growing wealth gap and reduce volatility in the housing market. Low and middle income households cant afford to take part in current programmes such as Help to Buy and the report calls on the government to create a new shared ownership equity fund to help increase in the number of homes built for shared ownership. It also proposes that many of the regulations that currently limit the flexibility of shared ownership should be abolished. Homes & Communities Agency (HCA) has released the latest house building statistics on the programmes they manage. There were 12,569 housing starts on site and 10,890 housing completions in England between 1 April and 30 September 2013. These figures exclude delivery under the Help to Buy programme. In the April to June 2013 quarter, the number of homeless applications in Scotland reached 9,474, 11% lower than the same quarter of 2012. As of the end of June 2013 there were 2,821 households with children in temporary accommodation a fall of 14% or 472 households compared with a year earlier. The Scottish Government have attributed the fall to their work with local authorities to present homelessness. The next Labour government would provide cheaper financing for house builders, embark on a programme of building new towns and consider the revival of development corporations with powers to buy land, Ed Balls announced in a speech this week. He also confirmed Labours commitment to build 200,000 houses per year by 2020. Following cross-sector discussions with a range of partners, this week the Town and Country Planning Association has launched three papers: 'people and planning', 'housing the nation' and 'filling the strategic void'. The papers contain recommendations which aim to make the planning system fit for purpose for the challenges of the 21st Century.

Smaller regional cities in the UK, such as Reading, Aberdeen, Preston, Southampton and Belfast, have been ranked higher than the largest cities in the latest 'Good Growth for Cities' index, from PwC and Demos. The index uses a series of measures for the ranking, rather than just economic size, including wellbeing, transport, jobs, health, income inequality and skills. By the end of October, 1,173 households had committed to take part in the Green Deal programme and 219 had had their Green Deal work completed, making it unlikely that the Government will reach last Marchs prediction of 10,000 committed households by the end of 2013. The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee has strongly criticised the DCLG's proposal to abolish the Code for Sustainable Homes which, the committee's inquiry report says, has driven up building standards. According to the report, the policy has been successful in driving up home building standards, and growing the sustainable building sector. The DCLG also chose to remove local authorities discretion to set high standards on energy and water saving. The first Housing (Wales) Bill has been introduced to the Welsh Assembly this week. Proposals include better regulation of the private rented sector, more approaches to preventing homelessness, revised standards for rents and housing quality in social housing and provision for each local authority to retain all of its rental income locally. Research from the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research and LSE London recommends the appointment of a Rented Sector Champion and the need for stability in the policy, taxation and regulatory environments if new sources of housing investment are to be attracted to Scotland to help expand the country's growing rented sector.

An Ageing Society
Key findings from the Care Quality Commissions (CQC) fourth annual State of Care report include: Over 0.5 million people aged 65 and over were admitted as an emergency to hospital with potentially avoidable conditions in the last year; For people living in care homes, admissions for avoidable conditions were 30% higher among people with dementia and once in hospital, people with dementia also have poorer outcomes than those without; Over 10% of home care agencies did not meet standards in staffing or monitoring quality; Over 10% of inspections of residential homes found problems with either safeguarding and safety, staffing or care; 20% of inspections of nursing homes revealed safety concerns. See also infographic. Although one in five older people surveyed by Age UK say they would benefit from energy efficiency measures in their home, 70% of older people say they would not consider using the Green Deal, mainly due to worries about costs and debt. Age UK is calling on the Government to devise a more ambitious programme to support a wider range of households. The latest ONS figures from the Census in 2011 found that the average age of the population in rural areas remained higher than urban places. The average age of people living in rural areas rose from 42 to 45 between 2001 and 2011, and from 36 to 37 in urban areas. The Social Care Institute for Excellences (SCIE) film Getting to know the person with dementia film has won the Best factual new media award at the Older People Media Awards 2013 this week.

Summary of this weeks online Guardian debate on improving care at home. An Integrated Care Pathway for managing long term conditions in older people, has won a Health Service Journal award. The pathway has been piloted with the support of Age UK in Newquay and enables older people to live a more independent life by bringing together voluntary, health and care services to offer a combination of medical and non-medical support. This Information Bulletin is produced on a weekly basis as an update for staff at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) and the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust (JRHT) for the purposes of their work it is not intended to be comprehensive but represents a selection of news and reports appearing in the last week. The items contained in this Bulletin are for information only and do not necessarily reflect the views of the JRF and JRHT.