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Your chance to help stop legal loan sharking

01/03/2012, 12:00:57 PM

by Stella Creasy

Legal loan sharks are the Japanese knotweed in Britain’s consumer credit market. These invasive companies flourish by exploiting the demand for credit from families who find their incomes squeezed by the rising cost of living, wage freezes and unemployment and so are forced to borrow to make ends meet.

The government’s refusal to act against this industry means Britain is fertile ground for their loans at interest rates which can run to 16,000%. Yes you read that decimal point correctly.

In the payday loan world, offering money without credit checks, without advertising the costs and without any responsibility for the consequences is common place. When it comes to these companies, the impact of the extortionate rates they charge on the people they lend to comes second place to the profits they can make.

The chief executive of Wonga paid himself £1.6m last year, whilst Provident Financial posted a pre-tax profit of £162m in the year Britain went back into recession. As quickly as regulators try to address poor practices, another firm springs up ready to benefit from Britain’s dubious honour of being one of the few countries in the world where there is no limit on what you can charge for credit.

For nearly two years I’ve been calling for Britain to introduce total cost caps on the charges these firms can levy, putting a ceiling on the amount any loan could mount up to and giving consumers respite from the spiral of debt these firms can create. Twice now the government has voted against such measures, but as the evidence grows of the damage this is causing to millions of Britons they need us to not flinch from seeking every chance we can to make progress in championing the case for better regulation of these companies.

Such a moment of opportunity is upon us again.

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Workfare: fair work with a clear benefit

01/03/2012, 08:00:37 AM

by Peter Watt

Once again Labour has discovered its self-destructive sense of self-righteousness. It seems that sometimes we really can’t help ourselves. This time the issue is workfare where some in the party seem determined to reinforce the image of Labour as the party of the workshy.

But let’s get real. We need to start being honest and stop sending mixed messages. We have said that we are in favour of supporting people into work and of investing in supporting the long-term unemployed. We have said that we support reforming the welfare system so that welfare is not a lifestyle choice. And we have said that we must support hard working families who are struggling as costs go up. But then we go and spoil it by seeming to take pleasure in attacking companies who agree to take on the unemployed as part of a package of back to work support.

But “hang on”, I hear you say. Of course we oppose workfare. It makes people work for nothing. It compels people to work against their will. It allows bloated profit makers to exploit poor people as they don’t have to pay them for their work. And it forces people who would otherwise have to be paid out of a job. Quite frankly we might as well put the unemployed in orange boiler suits, spray “soap-dodger” on their back and make them dig ditches.

Except of course it isn’t true. (more…)

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Where is Labour’s Steve Hilton?

29/02/2012, 01:20:18 PM

by Peter Goddard

“We need a new brand.”

It’s a question marketers often dread from a customer. This is because, nine times out of ten, what they are really asking for is a new logo, a strapline and a colour scheme.

This is not a brand. Marty Neumeier in The Brand Gap defines a brand as “A person’s gut feeling about a product, service or company,” which is as good a definition as any.

Because the brand is, in fact, this relationship with the customer, it is vastly more likely to be the defined by a customer’s experience with your organisation than by your “look and feel”.

Of course, your logo is part of this. If your brand is your personality, your logos and straplines can be likened to your clothing. An outfit may be useful for forming a first impression, but eventually you will be judged by your actions.

This is something clearly understood by Steve Hilton, the nearest politics currently has to a new master of the dark arts since Peter Mandelson’s glide back into the shadows.

Hilton managed to turn around the popular view of the Conservatives as the nasty party and re-invent David Cameron as an electable prime minister. Whether it was hugging a hoodie, doing aid work in Africa or talking about “voting blue and going green”, something worked.

Enough voters changed their gut feeling about this Tory leader to put David Cameron in number ten.

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What’s the government got against children?

29/02/2012, 07:00:03 AM

by Michael Dugher

Today Sarah Teather, the Lib Dem minister for children and families, will be questioned by a cross-party group of MPs following a damning report by the all-party parliamentary group on Sure Start that said that, the UK is facing a “childcare crisis”.

The report highlights that fewer than half of all councils are able to provide adequate help for working parents. Last week, I appeared on the BBC’s Any Questions? alongside Sarah Teather. When asked what the government should do in the forthcoming budget she said: “One of the most important things is to put money back into families’ pockets”. I nearly choked on my BBC mineral water.

The truth is that life getting more difficult for many families with children. This was highlighted again on Monday by the national childcare charity Daycare Trust, which revealed that 44,000 fewer families have received help with childcare costs since cuts to tax credits took effect last April. Furthermore, by cutting the maximum level of support available through the childcare element of the working tax credit, the government is taking an additional £500 per year away from many low-income working families.

Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Just two weeks ago, the shadow treasury minister, Cathy Jamieson, revealed that 200,000 households, including 470,000 children, will lose tax credits worth almost £4,000 a year unless they significantly increase their working hours.

Due to changes that will come into effect in April, couples with children will have to work a total of 24 hours a week, rather than 16 hours, to qualify for the working tax credit. In Barnsley alone, this could affect over 750 households and 1,400 children. At a time when many employers are reducing, not increasing, the hours for part-time employees. The government seems, perversely, to have a ‘work to welfare’ policy.

Government policies are also forcing many Sure Start children’s centres to close; centres which have been so successful in helping families and communities in poorer areas. The government claims it is still committed to Sure Start, but figures revealed by Labour show that Sure Start budgets have been slashed in 83% of England’s local authorities. The average decrease in real-term budgets was 11%last year and will be at least 21%this year. Children’s charities, such as 4Children, have rightly voiced their concerns about the potential impact this will have on child poverty.

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From “Margaret Thatcher, milk snatcher” to “Michael Gove, toilet snatcher”

28/02/2012, 07:00:05 AM

by Amanda Ramsay

First the Tories gave us “Margaret Thatcher, milk snatcher”, now a new generation of school children are to become victims of “Michael Gove, toilet snatcher”.

Children’s charity Education and Resources for Improving Childhood Continence (ERIC) is fighting government plans to axe the requirement for a minimum of one toilet for every 20 pupils with their “Bog Standard” campaign. Cutting standards of sanitation and hygiene for children is part of the department for education’s contribution to the government’s “red tape challenge”. The consultation period on scrapping provisions in the School Premises Regulations (1999) closed in January and the changes will become law in spring.

While Michael Gove has targeted children in his Thatcherite crusade to remove statutory safeguards, teachers’ toilet facilities will remain protected under Workplace Regulations from 1992 which are the responsibility of the department for business, innovation and skills.

School toilets have a big impact on health and well-being. But many schools are failing their pupils with poorly maintained, dirty and smelly facilities. Research carried out by ERIC and online campaigners Netmums has found a quarter of pupils in England’s schools avoid using toilets because they are so dirty.

The consequences for children of not being able to go to the toilet are severe with issues of soiling and bullying making school life a misery for many. Lobbying parliament on Tuesday, ERIC will target government ministers, MPs and Peers with a petition from angry parents demanding action.

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Why the government’s cost estimates for delivering its NHS reforms are wrong

27/02/2012, 08:42:23 AM

by Paul Crowe

The Lib Dems are tabling hostile amendments in the Lords, the former chief executive of the NHS has broken ranks to voice his disapproval and the BMA is balloting on industrial action.

Just another day in the progress of the health bill.

As the lords set to work on the bill later today, the focus will be on amendments on competition in the health sector. But as the debate progresses they would also do well to focus on a number which has escaped proper scrutiny:- £1.3bn.

That’s what the NHS reorganisation is going to cost, according to the government.

The figure is contained in a report whose very title seems to discourage interest: Co-ordinating document for the Impact Assessments and Equality Analysis. This gives the detail of the projected costs. It’s a classic of its type: sober, measured and with an authoritative tone.

And hopelessly wrong. The £1.3bn identified will be almost certainly just the start of the spending.

To anyone with even passing experience in managing large-scale reorganisations, the department of health’s assessment should flash more warning lights than the police switchboard on riot night.

The £1.3bn figure is made up of redundancy costs of £1bn for 17,000 staff and £300m of what the department calls “one-off transition costs…around IT and property”.

In return, the government expects to make a £1.5bn saving each year after the change is implemented, giving a net saving of £3.2bn over the course of this parliament. Impressive.

Or it would be impressive were it realistic.

Few disagree on the need for reform in public services, particularly in economic times such as these. And change, when implemented in the right way can achieve the savings needed and improve care in line with the traditions of the NHS.

But looking at the scale of what the department of health is attempting and comparing it to recent corporate reorganisations, three problems are soon apparent.

First, the savings are aggressive given the costs; second, the costs identified don’t appear to be complete; and third the timetable for achieving savings is optimistic to say the least.

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Is Cameron feeling vulnerable on crime?

24/02/2012, 02:44:15 PM

by Matt Cavanagh

The lead story (£) in today’s Times tells us that David Cameron is feeling stung by the accusation that his government lacks a coherent policy on crime and law and order. This accusation will be familiar to Labour Uncut readers, for example this piece last year, and more recently after the latest set of crime figures here.

Cameron’s response, we are told, is a new policy of “virtual prison” for offenders on community sentences, tagged and placed under curfew for up to 16 hours a day. But while “virtual prison” is an evocative new label, the policy itself is not new: it was announced in August.

On the inside pages, the Times home affairs expert Richard Ford does a better job of putting the story in context, reminding us that this is “yet another attempt, by yet another government”, to strengthen public confidence in alternatives to prison (similar attempts by the Brown government, for example, can be seen here and here).

The other element in today’s story is No 10’s apparent unhappiness with the Ministry of Justice, and speculation that it may be broken up – based on an article earlier in the week by the Times’ Rachel Sylvester, picked up today by ConservativeHome. Contrary to Conservative Home’s Paul Goodman, I think this is very unlikely – though we agree that “there are few less futile Whitehall activities than merging and unmerging Departments” (as I argued in relation to the plan announced earlier this week, to split up the UK Border Agency).

Structural reforms won’t do anything to help Cameron’s fundamental problem on crime and law and order, which is a lack of ideas. This was disguised temporarily by his ability to strike the right tone over the riots (as far as the majority of the public was concerned), after an initially sluggish response.

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February shadow cabinet league

24/02/2012, 07:00:30 AM

by Atul Hatwal

Boom! There have been fireworks at the start the year from the shadow cabinet: a blaze of 30 press releases per week for the past six weeks, more stories generated proactively than ever before and a couple of urgent questions in the House of Commons for good measure.

The best team performance since the shadow cabinet league began.

But for all this activity, there is one star turn that stands out: Andy Burnham. He has shone as never before.

Although Ed Miliband has grabbed many of the headlines on the NHS with his attacks on David Cameron at PMQs, it’s the shadow secretary of state for health who has made this campaign a Labour-led fight.

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Greece has taken one for the team; for now

23/02/2012, 08:00:22 AM

by Peter Watt

What a relief, the world has been saved. Again.

In 2008 there was a financial crisis that many have described as being worse than that of the 1930s. Markets collapsed, banks failed and lives were ruined. In essence, and over many years, much of the western world had begun to believe in magic. Somehow we could all have really low taxes and really high spending by governments. We could have relatively low interest rates and unlimited access to borrowing. Individuals and governments indulged themselves as excess cash from the economies of the east poured into a market of gorging consumers. Credit cards, mortgages, car loans, government bonds – it didn’t matter as there was so much money to go around.

But it was all too good to be true and it couldn’t go on forever.

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