Tuhel

The Spending Review and the Impact on Community Cohesion

On Thursday 21st of October 2010 the LibCon coalition government put forward a spending cut not seen since the 2nd world war, which will hit the poorest of our society really hard and where it hurts most. The Spending Review announced is designed to save the UK £81bn over the next few years, Chancellor George Osborne confirmed to the houses of Parliament.

One of the big issues for debate is that funding for social housing is to be cut by more than 50%, with new tenants having to pay higher rents and in some cases people will be asked to move away from their permanent places of residency. This will break up established community links, access to schools, religious and cultural services, family and friends.

I went to a community event that evening which was organised by a local primary school where my children attend, Hunslet Moore Primary School. This is an inner city school based in Leeds, where this cut would almost hurt every person living in the ward. The aim of the event was to bring the communities together to build community cohesion and better understanding, celebrating the rich cultures of this deprived community. The children and the school put on a great line of acts, singers, speakers, and best of all a 3 course meal where the choice was between vegetable curry or lasangna, with side dishes of nan bread and garlic bread, finishing off with ice cream. The event was sold out at £6.50 per ticket it was worth it just for the meal if nothing else, which was donated by one of the parents. The School were a great number of the nationalities are presented; the classic Indian dance performed by a white school girl was the best act of the night. I have to admit I was so impressed by the young girls performance that its hard to explain, it was as if she was a true Indian and showed so much passion, hard work and perfection in ensuring the dance routines were perfect, pictures of this event can be see here. This kind of community interest is not common, but it does demonstrate how it can build community relationships and develop better understanding amongst the different communities. As one of the ex-head teacher who was a guest speaker mentioned that this sort of event would not take place in my daughters school mainly due to the fact that the school is not a multi-cultural school.

Today’s major cuts in spending will affect this community more than others in the city, as there is already a higher than average number of people who are unemployed compared to the other wards in the city. Even before the cuts announced today the local council had already proposed closing some local libraries, and if the local library did close then this already deprived part of the city is yet again going to feel the pain of the major cuts proposed by the local Liberal Democratic/Conservatives led council.

This is one of several schools in the ward, which has poor attainment results; the community suffer from various problems, one of which is housing. I cannot image how the community would cope when the rents go up by 50% or more and with benefit cuts at the same time. As more than 750,000 households will be affected by this change in housing benefit, it requires lot more discussion. From my own experience of living in social housing provided not by the council but a local housing association is that, it was a place we could call our own, my dad could not afford to buy a house, after his long absent from work, low rent was the only way we could afford to live in a 4 bed house. I believe this increase in rents for the poor will burden the local people into sharing and living in already over-crowded houses. I don’t have a problem with the cap in the total amount of housing benefit one can receive as £21000 per year is a huge some of money, what I do have a problem with is if the rent is increased and bigger housing benefit cuts are made to areas outside of London or housing benefit is capped, which could potentially affect the poorest of society and increase the north south divide.

Child benefit cut designed to get people back to work?

There is a lot of talk about the other cuts, such as the cuts in defence, local council budgets, various government departments, and child benefit. I fully support the child benefit cuts, but what I find hard to understand is why the child benefit cut was not made to affect two people earning more than £44,000, limiting the cuts to single persons earning more than £44,000 seems to indicate that the cuts are designed to increase both parents into working.

As further discussions are had other the next few weeks and months on the impact of the cuts, the hardest hit in society need to wake up to the changes and ask their local and national representatives some hard questions about the long term impact of the cuts on jobs, education and the likelihood of a double dip in the economy.