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As a result RBH is commissioning an independent options study to identify the best way to ensure that there is broad based and inclusive collective tenant involvement in the housing landlord service. The aim is to ensure that there is direct tenant involvement in how housing landlord services are developed and delivered in the future. This options study will begin in late July and complete in September and will involve talking to both tenants’ groups and individuals from across the borough about what they want to see in the future.

In the interim the RoFTRA Board has agreed to put on hold all RoFTRA activity and to delegate its powers to a sub-committee. The committee will ensure that any legal duties and responsibilities are properly discharged. A decision on the future of RoFTRA will be taken immediately following the outcomes of the options study. This will enable RoFTRA members to have an input into the options study without fear or favour. The study will give everyone concerned with tenant Involvement in the borough a chance to have their say, and if tenants want a representative body then the Council and RBH have promised to pursue this.

Ghulam Shahzad, Chair of RoFTRA commented “RoFTRA has served tenants and residents for over 20 years and we are proud of our achievements and our contribution to improve the quality of life for our members and the communities they work for. We are very hopeful that tenants will have their say and will take an active part in this study”.

We would like to thank our members, staff, RMBC and RBH for the support they have given us over the years and for the valuable contributions they have made to help us achieve our objectives.

 

This scheme is unique in that involves a partnership of Riverside Pennine (formerly Bowlee Park HA), Homes and Community Agency, RMBC and Seddons. This has resulted in RHI being able to lever in over £580,000 HCA funding in Temporary social housing grant to the Borough, matching that with an additional £447,000 in the form of loan from RMBC to improve these properties on the Langley estate.

The properties have been empty for an average of 8 years each, and will not only provide additional affordable housing for local people but also remove a series of eyesores form the estate. RHI are now looking forward to working with partners to bring back more long term empty homes in the borough therefore maximising the use of the existing housing stock.

RHI have also been elected to the National Executive of the National Association of Empty Property Practitioners (NAEPP) and therefore if you need contacts in other areas, or want to influence national policy on empty homes they'd be happy to talk to you about it.

Tel: 01706 750619

As part of the council’s change agenda, Pam will strategically lead  ‘Stepping Up’, and will oversee the council’s corporate services including finance, communications, customer services, policy, performance and organisational development.

Pam previously worked as the council’s Head of Performance and Development and is credited with overseeing the council’s recent improvement from a two to a three star authority.

Pam is expected to take up her appointment with immediate effect. She succeeds Margaret Carney, who has recently taken up post as Chief Executive of Sefton Borough Council.

Contrary to some recent bad publicity for the Borough that presented Rochdale as having the highest benefit claimant count,  Rochdale Borough ranks as having the 33^rd highest Job Seeker Allowance (JSA) claimant rate at 5.4% of its workforce out of the 408 local authority areas for which the Work Foundation has published the information.

Rochdale Borough is however the highest ranking local authority area in this respect of the 10 local authorities in Greater Manchester; neighbours Oldham, come in at 66^th on the list with 4.9% and Bury at 157^th on the list at 3.8%.

Of the 45 local authority areas in the North West Region, Liverpool comes forth with 7.0% of its population claiming Job Seekers Allowance in February 2009 followed by Knowsley at number 13 with 6.4% and Hulton at 26^th on the list with its 5.6% level. Rochdale Borough then comes in at the fourth highest level of the 45 areas in the North West.

The Rochdale Borough figures show an increase from 4,008 JSA claimants in February 2008 (3.2%) rising to 6,928 (5.4%) in February 2009, an increase of 2,920 or 2.2% of the workforce.

This fits the pattern of findings of the research which says that the figures tell a story of a traditional UK recession with the worst effects being felt by the traditional manufacturing and heavy industry that have suffered disproportionately in previous recessions.

The summary of the research can be read by clicking this link and the detailed figures for all 408 local authority areas can be seen by clicking this link.

A report published last week by the newly merged charity, Age Concern and Help the Aged, states that one in four of this country's older people – nearly 2.5 million individuals – say their quality of life has deteriorated in the last 12 months while a further two thirds of people aged 65 and over say their lives have not improved at all.

The report, One Voice: Shaping our aging society tracks 30 UK-based indicators of the quality of the experience of older people in this country and finds that while four of them have improved, 13 have worsened and 13 showed no change.

In a year in which the number of people aged over 65 will exceed 10 million for the first time, analysis shows that nearly one in five are in income poverty.

In old age inequalities in health also remain, with people from working class backgrounds in their 50s experiencing the same health as people from professional backgrounds in their 70s.

The report says that for too many older people the homes they are trapped in are often cold and unsuitable and the quality of housing is improving too slowly. It is the poorest and most disadvantaged older people who suffer from the most persistent and overlapping barriers to social participation.

In response the report identifies seven priorities for action and devotes a chapter to each of them. They are:

• Equal citizens, equal rights: outlaw mandatory retirement ages
• Enough money: rollout automatic benefits
• My life, my care: spend an extra £1 to £2 billion on older people’s care
• Staying well, feeling good: redirect the NHS to prevent and manage common conditions of aging
• Places to age in: a national offer for older people’s services
• Opportunities and contributions: age proof employment and skills support to help older workers cope with recession
• Acting Globally: a UN Convention on the rights of older people

The short overview of the report can be read by clicking this link and the full 72 page document by clicking this link.

RoFTRA welcomes the report, The Health and Wellbeing of Older People in Rochdale Borough because it honsetly and openly acknowledges the serious local health deprivation as the basis for responding positively to them.

Produced jointly by the Council and Primary Care Trust (NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale), it is the first outcome from their duty under recent legislation to carry out a Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) in partnership with local people and groups.

It acknowldges that nearly one in every five people in the borough will be aged 65 or over by 2021, an increase of 30% since 2001, from 29,450 to 38,400 and that older people in Rochdale borough can expect to live shorter and less healthy lives than older people across the region and country as a whole.

The borough had an average of 12% of its 60+ year-olds claiming Disability Living Allowance in 2006, 50% higher than the national average of 8%. Men who reach the age of 65 in the borough have the 7th lowest remaining life expectancy of the 46 local authorities in the North West; for women, it is the 11th lowest in the region.

The document is completely clear about the connection between poor health and deprivation: between 2004 and 2007, the gap between the healthiest and the least healthy areas has widened... there are 2,444 more older people living in income deprived households in 2007 than in 2004.

In sharing the challenges, the report identifies 29 recommendations for change across Social Care, Housing, Employment & Income, Lifelong Learning, Information & Advice as well as Equity & Equality. The recommendations can be read separately by clicking this link.

The 4-page Executive Summary can be read by clicking this link and the the full 54-page document by clicking this link.

RoFTRA is grateful to its authors and looks forward to collaborating with them in implementing the its recommendations in the borough's social housing communities.

The report, Close to Home: UK poverty and the economic downturn, notes that 13.2 million people in the UK already live in poverty (with incomes less than 60% of average) and that child poverty has been increasing for the last two years.

The gap between unemployment benefits and earnings has been allowed to increase by 20% since 1997 and the latest increase in the minimum wage, at 3.8%, was outstripped by the then inflation rate of 4.7% while benefit levels rose by only 2.3% in April 2008.

Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) for a newly unemployed person aged 16-24 is now just £47.95 a week and £60.50 a week for anyone over the age of 25. If the link between benefits and earnings was still in place (it was broken in 1979) JSA would now be £113 a week.

The report refers to recent research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation showed that a single working-age adult needs an income of at least £153 a week in order to have the opportunities and choices necessary to participate in society.

Oxfam's recommendations to protect the poor and the about to become poor are:

• introduce a fairer tax policy - at present the poorest tenth of the population pay a higher proportion of their income in tax than the richest tenth;
• increase the incomes of the poorest - an increase in JSA of £15 a week would restore the gap between benefits and average earnings to its 1997 level;
• protect rights at work;
• ensure access to affordable credit;
• provide secure housing; and
• encourage social cohesion an solidarity.

The full report can be read by clicking this link.

As all Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMOs), including RBH, face a loss-making future their National Association has just published its report setting out a range of ways in which they can survive.

The report - A future for ALMOs - within local communities - recognises that ALMOs can't stay as they are and that many local authorities are already planning to transfer their council housing to a Housing Association.

But the report makes the case for retaining the ALMO model while making the changes to its operations necessary to make it financially viable.

The new areas of work it suggests ALMOs could take on are:

• new build and acquiring houses by purchase, although this would need a subsidy such as Social Housing Grant or cheap borrowing from the local authority;
• regeneration activities, remodelling estates and replacing unsuitable stock, physical rather than social regeneration;
• further investment in existing stock, although the report says this is almost impossible on any scale given the lack of subsidy; and
• assistance of owners in the public sector, most likely as an agent or partner with the council.

It has a major chapter headed How community ownership could refresh ALMOs that examines new structures for ALMOs based on greater tenant control. These include: Tenant Management Organisationas, Housing co-operatives, the Community Gateway Model, Community Land Trusts and Community Associations.

The Summary of the report can be read by clicking this link and the full 59 page document by clicking this link.

Details of the project Rochdale Council is adopting for exploring RBH's future are available to members in the Spolight section of the Members' area of RoFTRA Update.