KHOODEELAAR! Evidentially noting: "We are in rare company" The CPGB Morning Scar says the same about John Denham that we have said today!

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Cash for councils a 'sinister' initiative

Friday 13 November 2009 by John Millington Printable Email
Housing campaigners and left economists on Friday condemned a "sinister" government initiative which ties financial sanctions against the unemployed into its latest aid package.

Communities Secretary John Denham claimed that the funding of £40 million, which will be spread among 61 local authorities, would help up to 70,000 families.

But Mr Denham also warned that the new government proposals would see tenants "risk financial sanctions like losing benefits" if they did not take up job offers.

Mr Denham wants to use social landlords including housing associations as "a doorway" for council-led agency interventions to convince people they can be better off financially in work.

Despite unemployment figures topping nearly 2.5million with only 428,000 vacancies in the economy, the Cabinet minister admitted that the priority was to "reduce the burden placed on state dependency."

LEAP coordinator Andrew Fisher said the proposals had "sinister" connotations and called on the government to increase benefits.

"Housing is a right, and should not be contingent upon jumping through the latest hoops set by ministers," he said.

"Rather than its ongoing obsession with portraying the unemployed as a feckless mob who need sanctioning, the government should increase the appallingly low level of benefits to give people the dignity they deserve when unemployed."

A Defend Council Housing spokesman said he did not believe that housing associations were best placed to assist people in finding work.

"We have heard all this before," he exclaimed.

"The whole notion of this policy rests on flawed assumptions that all council housing tenants don't work, when many do."

"Council tenants or social housing tenants want authorities to focus on providing clean and safe housing for them and their families."

The spokesman called on the government to instead use the money to fulfil its manifesto commitment to provide a decent home for all by 2010.

"There are 5 million people on the council waiting lists. There are thousands of acres of undeveloped land. Given the housing crisis, it is a no brainer," he added.

The extra investment has been earmarked for councils who have among some of the country's highest unemployment rates and deprivation.

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