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Decent Housing: Decent Housing is seen as vital, critical & fundamental to healthy, educated, thriving and sustainable communities enjoying safety, quality of life, environmental, social & economic well-being.
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I’d like to go a lot further in saying that flexible, extendable, timber frame, pre-glazed, prefabricated panelled, erectable onsite, fully secure and functional in approx 72 hours, modular housing-for-life (going far beyond any UK Building Regulations, Health & Safety Standards, & Thermal Insulation Requirements with the economy of fuel and the quality of life currently unimaginable in the UK) is vital, critical & fundamental to healthy, educated, thriving and sustainable communities enjoying safety, quality of life, environmental, social & economic well-being.
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I introduce this thought provoking point because the ODPM and its delivering vehicle the EP with partners like MKC & MKPC have a unique opportunity for the next 30 odd years to ensure that the demographic time bomb of the current 25–34 years old majority population in MK due to retire then all together, many of whom hopefully enjoying their retirement with their extended families including grand children within their modular homes-for-life which they were allocated by the Council, or bought via shared ownership or bought it outright may have a more socially, economically and emotionally secure and caring environment mutually beneficial and multi-beneficial to all generations reducing the otherwise immeasurable social cost to the society too extensive to list. It is and will have to be a matter of choice but a persuasive one where once the nuclear families have seen and sensed the clear social, economic, educational, environmental and emotional (psycho-somatic) benefits of extended family living, they may well be willing to have a go. It may not suit all but it has irrefutable benefits for a very little cost of personal individual sacrifice what other living in such families consider as inherent duty. We simply may have to seriously consider going back to basics.
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It may suffice to say that families spending a whole lifetime in homes-for-life would go a long way towards generating the communities that cohese naturally. Sustainability will come when such communities feel that they have equal stake and equal access to life chances as any other and begin to feel valued for their diversity rather than their ability and willingness to fit in; feel at ease with itself and its immediate and wider environment.
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Notwithstanding this stance, I have been and am an independent political thinker for a long time and seek an answer to this critical communities-focused issue as a Champion of Equalities, Diversity, Public & Community Value. Despite the Govt’s consistent claims of having delivered their last two electoral manifestos, Reform, the IPPR (institute of Public Policy & Research) findings & others such as JRF (Joseph Rowntree Foundation) Findings show that ironically Inequalities and poverty (including child poverty) under Labour have actually increased since they came to power and that the Educational Attainments are actually stalling. So much for the stakeholders society (where odds are staked against those very communities the Govt is claiming to help) and “Education, Education, Education …”
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At the IPPR (Institute of Public Policy & Research) seminar 9 Nov 04 on “Inequality, mobility and opportunity”, addressed by Alan Milburn, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, I experienced a distinct feeling of Déjà vu. Much of Tony Blair’s Party conference speech this year was taken up with an argument that Government policy should aim to achieve opportunity for all. He called for the “glass ceiling on opportunity” to be broken and for the traditional welfare state to be reshaped as the “opportunity society”.
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Alan Milburn made the same argument in his introduction to the IPPR seminar. He also warned that social security benefits can foster dependency rather than personal responsibility and, in language reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher’s pledge of a “property-owning democracy”, rightly said that an “asset-owning democracy” could increase mobility and alter individual behaviour towards the state.
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However Reform argues Tony Blair and Alan Milburn are right to call for greater social mobility and the extension of opportunity, and much of what they say is very welcome. They should not, however, exaggerate the lack of mobility in current British society nor underestimate the extent to which mobility increased in the 1980s, which saw, for example, rapidly increasing home and share ownership. The remedy proposed by the IPPR is wrong. Higher public spending will not in itself increase social mobility and there is no evidence from other countries that it does so.
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As Reform has consistently argued, following the near-abolition of selective education, the British schools system favours better-off parents who are able to move into the catchment areas of good state schools or to buy good private education. As a result disproportionate numbers of children from better-off families attend university, increasing their earnings advantage.
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The key means to increase mobility, therefore, is not to increase spending on education, as the IPPR advocates, but to introduce reform, based on the introduction of choice and the removal of planning of school places, so that all parents enjoy the educational opportunity currently available only to the better off.
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Although Milton Keynes, originally in 1967, was declared as solely Comprehensive Education Area; in the truest sense of Equality & Opportunity for all, it is time let the citizens of MK decide what types of schools would best suit their and their children’s’ needs. The next 30 years of development of MK cannot be left simply to Political whims and experimentation. It is, indeed, time as Tony Blair claimed during the last campaign – to deliver.
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On the economic front – 1 Dec 04 Eve of the pre-Budget Report by Reform claims – the public finances have very sharply worsened over the last three years. Even on current policy, however, taxes are planned to rise over the next Parliament to their highest level for 24 years. The UK public sector has undergone a period of dramatic expansion and taxes are now rising to pay for it.
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While the private sector is achieving a relatively high level of productivity, productivity in the public sector is at best flat. Spending has been increased before public services have been reformed. Resources are being transferred from the productive to the unproductive parts of the economy.
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The rising tax burden and the very poor performance of the public sector will have a twin negative impact on economic growth. Reform’s latest report, Costing Britain – falling productivity in the public sector, estimates that on current trends, with rising taxes and poor public sector performance, incomes per head will rise to about £33,000 in 25 years’ time. But with a reduction in the tax burden to the level of 1996-97 and improved outputs from the public sector, incomes per head would rise to about £39,000. The cost of poor public sector performance and rising taxes will amount to £6,000 a year foregone per person, or £14,400 per family.
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The increase in taxes is also weakening the UK’s competitiveness.
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This long-term economic damage makes real reform of the public sector – through choice (in services such as health and education) and accountability (for services such as the police) – all the more necessary. Reform would make services more efficient, enabling reductions in taxation, and improve standards & social mobility. That is the right way.
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The public supports this analysis. The latest Reform poll shows that 81 per cent of voters agree with the statement “if the Government reformed public services and cut waste it could make services better and reduce tax at the same time.” 77 per cent agree that the UK needs lower taxes to remain a competitive economy. (Quite the common sense analysis in my view. However talking of Déjà vu, why do I get the feeling that this ‘common sense’ is quite uncommon in certain quarters?).
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During the past year I have been involved as a Member of MK Primary Care PPI Forum with the MKPCT & MK Gen NHS Trust to jointly consider the future strategy for health in Milton Keynes. My view was that the strategy locally and Nationally ought to include all partners in a holistic aim to deliver economic prosperity; safe communities; accessible high quality education (in my view with preventative public health & responsible citizenship approaches such as compulsory Science applied to Health, Nutrition, sports and Inter School Athletics); decent housing; better health to the poorest parts of the country. This Strategy is translated into National, Regional and local level. New Commitment to Neighbourhood Renewal: A National Strategy Action Plan was launched by the Prime Minister on 15 January 2001. The Strategy sets out the Government’s vision for narrowing the gap between deprived neighbourhoods and the rest of the country, so that; within 10 to 20 years, no one should be seriously disadvantaged by where they live. Avery worthy and august ideal. But the evidence is of serious financial and management incompetence of the people running New Deal for Communities. A serious amount of money has been wasted. What’s more – the evidence submitted above suggests that the economic gap is actually widening between those deprived and those not.
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MK must be enabled* by the Central Government to start attacking the core problems of deprived areas, like weak economies and poor schools; Harnessing the power of all sectors to work in partnership; Focussing existing services and resources explicitly on deprived areas; giving local residents and community groups a central role in turning their neighbourhoods around. In my view Every Child Matters in MK Programme ought to integrate not only with education & social care but also with Housing, Homeless Persons Unit, voluntary sector, leisure & after-school activity agencies, community groups and other major players.
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*Enabled by all resources needs to comprehensively and inclusively deal with the imminent & rapid development expansion of MK (including the fastest natural expansion – thus far ignored by the Govt – that has been going on with MK since its inception). Plethora of legislations is failing to address the root cause of problems such as all forms of ASB (anti-social behaviour) and is proving ineffective. So much for the spin – “..Crime and causes of crime.”
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There is a dire need for a shift from plethora of PIs (performance indicators) which prove to be fetters preventing innovation and productivity from the frontline public services staff – the very people researched by the PIU (Performance & Innovation Unit, Cabinet Office reporting directly to the Prime Minister) as being the most innovative and productive. The shift has to be from Performance Indicator led compulsive obsessive behaviour to public-value-outcome-led culture.
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That is why I claim that the ODPM, EP, MKPC & all other players have this unique opportunity to lead an exemplary programme (drawing from talents from all communities) creating an exemplar community based on the all the values discussed herein. Such a community, in time, will become persuasive upon all future developments within the UK and may be overseas.
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Summary: I have discussed the moral, social, economic, business & political imperative for MK (including all the stakeholders) to put Social Inclusion at the heart of its current & future development strategy and put the community at the heart of the Council ensuring that Equality, Diversity, & fair play are mainstreamed in all its, LSP’s including the MKPC’s services.
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I have discussed Deputy Prime Minister’s Community Plan above (which unfortunately omits the critical factor of community cohesion without which Sustainable Communities will reamain a pipe dream). Below I discuss how through inequalities, certain groups can become dissatisfied, dissaffected, angry and alienated & thus pose high risk to the society. This is ‘settled disadvantage’ that both the Central & Local Governments have got to tackle to elicit social trust – or common glue without which there can be no community cohesion and therefore no sustainable communities.
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At the IPPR (Institute of Public Policy & Research) Seminar 7 July 04 on New Challenges for Race Equality & Community Cohesion in the 21st Century – Keynote speaker David Blunkett (respondent Prof The Lord Bhikhu Parekh) – research by learned respondents in Ethnic Pluralism & Social Cohesion indicates that (i) Immigration has not undermined national integrity (ii) Some immigrant groups have progressed well, others not (iii) Labour market integration has been unwisely downplayed (iv) Discrimination persists & thus affects social trust (v) High risk, alienated, left behind groups are the priority (vi) Building common glue is vital but so is the need to avoid overly prescriptive, threatening answers. Promoting solidarity depends on underlying (in)equality in a three-way triangular relationship thus solidarity r equality s diversity. Thus building greater & more explicit cohesion across ethnic lines depends on (i) understanding recent history (ii) learning the lessons of how economic integration has worked abroad and (iii) systematically tackling settled disadvantage.
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Thus the knowledge not only of community planning and development but also of community engagement approaches must muse over this vision – there can be no community development & planning for it without community cohesion based on social trust. There can be no social trust and social capital without equality and removing discrimination. Thus there can be no sustainability without social inclusion and community engagement with empowerment in deciding Community Strategy and approaches.
; Anant.M.Vyas; Meera Vyas-Sparks; Krishna A Vyas
Anant M Vyas 