Two Islingtons: Understanding the Problem - Islington Council

More documents

Recommendations

Info

3.8. The Council and several partner organisations have formed a coalition to tackle debt in Islington. The Debt Coalition aims to help Islington residents with debt problems as part of the boarder anti-poverty strategy. The main objective of this initiative is to raise the importance of debt prevention and recovery, putting the importance of tackling debt at the heart of the local anti-poverty strategy. The Debt coalition projects come under the theme of prevention, mitigation, corporate good practice, communication and evaluation. Examples of projects include linking up with other organisations working on financial inclusion, financial capability and other areas as well as training frontline staff to provide high quality information to residents. The Debt coalition strategy was signed off in February 2010 and therefore the projects are still in the early stages of development and implementation. 3.9. Research from two pilot projects in illegal money lending shows that it reinforces financial and social exclusion and exacerbates anti-social behaviour. Evidence suggests that victims of illegal lending are likely to be female, lone parents or disabled. Over half of the victims will have defaulted with other legal lenders and have exhausted all other credit lines. The Financial Inclusion Team work with victims to identify the issues that have led them to resort to loan sharks and support them in accessing appropriate support and advice within the community. Specific work has included the distribution of posters and leaflets across the borough, including information in money advice awareness sessions given to local advice agencies and community groups, a presentation at Islington Housing Action Group and advertising the service through this years council tax bill. 3.10. The Council funds free advice services for residents delivered by the borough’s specialist independent advice agencies (Islington Law Centre, Islington People’s Rights and Islington CAB). These allow residents on low incomes to get advice and representation on a range of issues including, housing, welfare benefits, debt, employment and immigration. Combined, the three agencies handle over 80,000 enquiries each year and provide detailed casework to around 13,500 residents. Additionally as part of the Council’s recession support, £25,000 was given to develop the capacity of smaller voluntary and community organisations in the borough to provide advice to their users and effectively diagnose and refer to appropriate specialist advice services where necessary. 310 training places were attended by staff and volunteers from 67 different local voluntary organisations supporting a range of residents (in particular, LBGT, the disabled, refugees and asylum seekers, faith groups and older and younger people). 3.11. A range of other activities and projects have been implemented contributing to assisting residents out of debt, these include: 6
• During 2009/10, the Islington Credit Union was able to increase its membership by 75% and provided 549 individual loans. Assisted through funding from the Council the union helps residents who find it difficult to get credit from standard lenders, diverting them away from sub-prime borrowers who charge exorbitant rates of interest. • Benefit checks to all working households with children where income is below the 60% median and all those with earned income, • A Credit Crunch Hotline and Credit Crunch Roadshows offering advice and guidance to residents, • The Springboard project which is aimed at assisting residents with a wide range of disabilities including physical, mental, visual, hearing and learning difficulties, with over a third of clients reporting multiple impairments. The project has set up a debt advice service in partnership with the Citizens Advice Bureau and monthly financial advice sessions provided by the Financial Services Authority. Partnerships with Age Concern and Elfrida amongst others have enabled the project to ensure it gives advice on as wide a range of subjects as possible to this vulnerable section of the community. 3.12. The ISP commissioned ‘Energy Doctor in the Home’ project has a target to visit and work with 600 residents a year. All Energy Doctor work and events are targeted towards those wards and sections of the community most likely to be in fuel poverty such as the elderly and people with disabilities. £4.3M has been secured for 2009-11 from the Homes and Communities Agency to insulate 6000 hard to treat cavity-walled Homes for Islington properties, reducing bills for many tenants and also helping with CO2 emissions. The number of households where work has been done to improve energy efficiency stood at 4106 for quarter 2010/11. This new indicator counts all the achievements arising from a basket of schemes and programmes including ‘safe and warm’ grants for owner/occupiers, HFI cavity wall insulation and Energy Doctor in the Home. The Energy Doctor in the Home service in particular is highly popular with excellent customer feedback. This work should directly benefit those households where work has been carried out, saving money spent on fuel for the home. 4. Access to Work and Employment 4.1. Employment and worklessness are significant issues for Islington residents. We know that fewer women than men are economically active, with women in Islington lower paid than men. In terms of ethnicity 36% of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women have no qualifications, and first generation Pakistani men are almost twice as likely as their White comparators to have no qualifications. Unemployment for Bangladeshi men is twice that for White men and Black Caribbean men are most likely to be unemployed. A high proportion of disabled people have no qualifications and just 49% of disabled people are employed (compared with 66.3% non-disabled). In Islington, 38,000 people, equivalent to about 26.% of the working age population, are economically inactive. This is slightly higher than the rest of London where 25% of the working age population is economically inactive and the rest of Britain where 24% is. Ward data shows that the highest unemployment is in Finsbury Park and Hillrise and there are 10 wards in Islington 1.5%+ above the national average. However recently released 2009 skills data shows an improvement in skill levels across the borough within the % of working age population with a level 2,3 or 4 qualification all increasing from 2008 with the biggest increase in those with a level 3 qualification improving from around 60% in 2008 to 65 % in 2009. Additionally the level of local people with no qualifications has dropped below the London and GB averages for the first time since these records have been published (2004), dropping 3% points to 11%, 1% point below the new London figure. 7
Page 1 and 2: www.islington.gov.uk/fairness Two I
Page 3 and 4: 2.6. However, recently released (pr
Page 5: 3.2. This project is a fairly new i
Page 9 and 10: Being Board (SEW). ACL also works i
Page 11 and 12: ut with extra security measures suc
Page 13 and 14: of health such as the economy and e
Page 15 and 16: disability family carers’ group.
Page 17 and 18: levels of behavioural difficulty an

Two Islingtons: Understanding the Problem - Islington Council

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?