Charlotte's blog

The latest unemployment figures for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly show a slight increase, with 11,116 people now looking for work.

The big picture is that joblessness is now at its highest level for thirteen years, with young people most likely to be out of work.

Currently unemployment is higher in Cornwall (3.4%) than across the South West (3.0), but both continue to be below the UK average (4.1%).

Last Thursday was international women’s day. Across the UK, female unemployment has risen this month; thankfully, this is less marked in Cornwall.

Cornwall Council has announced changes to its recycling scheme.

As landfill costs are rising – and continue to be seen as part of the Council’s long term waste strategy (and included in the recent draft core strategy document) – you would think increasing recycling might be a priority.

Some of the changes may help do that; for example, a bag is being provided for cardboard, which will make it easier to keep together and to separate from other recycling.

For anyone moving house, it may cause confusion that recycling containers will be colour coded in different ways in different former districts; but this will enable existing containers to continue to be used. In the former Carrick area, households will get a new orange bag for cardboard.

The hidden costs of the scheme relate to green waste collections. Many people complain the existing biodegradable bags are expensive, at 75p each. But in future if households want their green waste collected, they will have to purchase a permit and permanent container. This year, this will cost participating households anything from £6.50 (for a reusable garden waste bag and six collections) to £41.50 (for a large wheelie bin and fortnightly collections).

Compared to the current 75p per bag:

• for those paying £41.50, the cost per collection will be 40p;
• for those paying £6.50, the cost per collection will be £1.08.

The new opt in and annual / six monthly payments don’t seem designed to increase take up of kerbside green waste collections, and one danger if people decide not to opt in is that more garden waste may end up in black bags and landfill.

There are signs of further disunity between the Tories at Cornwall Council. This isn’t the first time County Hall Tories have turned against each other like March hares.

During last year’s budgeting round, Cllr Fiona Ferguson proposed a budget amendment to remove a Cornwall Sports Village from planned capital spend, which was agreed. In the following April, she stood against group leader Cllr Alec Robertson who held on to his position by six votes.

This year, deputy leader Cllr Scott Mann has resigned following disputed suggestions that Cornwall Council might be asked to help bank roll a proposed stadium; although he describes this as the last straw, and clearly not his only dissatisfaction with Cllr Alec Robertson’s leadership.

Meanwhile, in a message to members, Cllr Alec Robertson grumbles the public row is interrupting what might otherwise be a steady flow of news that he sees as positive from Cornwall Council. After last year’s leadership challenge, he established a Communications Group of senior councillors advised by local Tory MP George Eustice.

Amongst Cllr Alec Robertson’s media gripes is the way in which some Councillors’ use Twitter.

Coincidentally or not, this week Tory Cllr Stephen Rushworth is reminding everyone of the newly released Bruce Springsteen song Wrecking Ball – about the demolition of the Giants’ stadium:

“I’ve seen champions come and go
So if you got the guts mister, yeah, if you got the balls
If you think it’s your time, then step to the line, and bring on your wrecking ball

Bring on your wrecking ball
Bring on your wrecking ball
Come on and take your best shot, let me see what you got
Bring on your wrecking ball”

One year ago, people slept the night outside County Hall in Truro to protest against Cornwall Council’s plans to cut the Supporting People budget. This funding previously supported many worthwhile projects to help vulnerable adults, including those at risk of homelessness.

The Government’s Supporting People grant to Cornwall for 2011-12 was similar to previous years. Many Councils that received lower allocations somehow found ways to keep Supporting People projects going. But the Tory and Independent led Council in Cornwall decided to include its Supporting People funding in the wider budget and service cuts.

As more people are now sleeping rough in Cornwall – not least, in Truro – there is recognition that the service cuts and gaps are starting to bite, alongside rising unemployment and central Government cuts to housing and other benefits.

Tomorrow, Cornwall Council’s cabinet will consider proposals to part-fund the building of 4000 affordable homes and a homelessness shelter in the next four years. There is a commitment to make 3000 of these homes to rent, towards meeting the most urgent needs on the Council’s housing register.

These short-term goals – and aspiration to extend it to construct 10,000 homes in ten years – are ambitious as well as needed. If it happens, it will as the proposal says bring jobs as well as homes for people in Cornwall.

The explicit purpose of this housing initiative is partly to address the shortfall caused by Government cuts to the Homes and Communities Agency funding for affordable homes. It wouldn’t entirely do that, partly because it is also explicitly designed to bring in future capital receipts to Cornwall Council (as well as partly dependent on securing HCA match funding).

These new proposals are the final appendix in a lengthy pack of Cornwall Cornwall budget documents. Leaving aside its statutory obligations, the Tory and Independent led Council’s motivation seems to be financial as much as social and economic; if the proposals are supported by members, I hope they can be made to work to deliver more of the local affordable homes that are needed.

Update: The Cabinet agreed the housing investment plan.

If the Health and Social Care Bill is passed, public health will be devolved to local authorities from April 2013. A Health and Well Being
Board is being established this year as a ‘shadow’ body preparing for the proposed new arrangements.

In 1979, when the Tories were elected, they shelved the Black report which had been commissioned by the previous Labour Government to research evidence that poverty causes ill health and premature deaths in Britain. The report was eventually issued during the 1980 August bank holiday, and had no impact on UK policy.

The Tories’ legacy by 1997 was one in three children living in poverty.

By 2010, locally, that figure had fallen to one in four Cornish children living in poverty.

Making public health a function of local government is happening alongside clear evidence that coalition Government policies mean child poverty reduction targets for 2020 will be missed.

No amount of healthy lifestyle education can alter the fact that poverty kills. To reduce health inequalities, public health needs funding and administrative powers to remedy:

• fuel poverty and poor housing – at a time when energy companies cannot afford the infrastructure investment needed to switch to renewables;
• risk of homelessness – increased by the cuts to housing and council tax benefits;
• low incomes (earnings or welfare) which prevent people choosing daily fruit, vegetables and protein, rather than high fat, salt and sugar;
• play areas and free leisure centres / transport – people can exercise more by walking etc but there are Cornish children in deprived areas who have never even been to the beach. This is the one aspect that Cornwall Council might have looked at in a holistic way before it decided to privatise the remaining Council-owned leisure facilities and cut local bus services.

The coalition Government is dropping the public health agenda as surely as it did when the Tories shelved the Black report in 1979; and this time, they will be able to blame local Councils, who have no power to influence most of the things that need to change.