Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 73)
MONDAY 10 NOVEMBER 2003
MR DAVID
SEVIOUR AND
MR VERNON
JONES
Q60 Chris Mole: Can I ask Leicester,
your village companies project is setting up social enterprises
across north Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. Are these really
going to make a dent in the scale of the problem that has arisen
from pit closures?
Mr Seviour: Again, I would draw
on an example outside of the area. It began seven years ago with
the closure of British Gas headquarters in Leicester. We began
a gas servicing company, a social enterprise, socially owned.
The turnover of that company today is £1.8 million, and it
employs just over 40 people in permanent jobs. Three years later
we attempted an inherently more difficult social enterprise in
a regeneration and construction company called Newlife, and that
today has a £6 million turnover and employs about 50 people
in permanent jobs and a labour force beyond that that takes it
up to about 90. Then there are two other social enterprises which
I could go into but it would take too much time. Basically, that
social enterprise group now employs 120 core staff and has an
annual turnover of 8 million. It is socially owned and their profits
are Gift-Aided to the owning charity. The village companies is
obviously a very different proposition in terms of proximity to
marketplaces, and the main thrust of the village companies in
the first two years was to establish the governance structure
arrangements around the village companies. Six have been established.
They are working quite well. They have established some very small-scale
social enterprises: a print shop, a chip shop—which sounds
interesting, but if it is the only fast food outlet in a 15 mile
radius, it starts to have significance, and that was closing because
of the elderly people retiring. There is a coppicing project just
off the ground. So it is early days in terms of the village companies.
I believe that they need to also obviously move to a stage of
overcoming the kind of parochial nature that tended to exist in
terms of siege mentality in some of the villages, and begin to
cooperate with other villages and establish marketplaces that
go beyond a single village into the Meden Valley-wide operations.
But the principles are still the same as the private sector would
deploy.
Q61 Chris Mole: Are they principles
that can be transferred to other coalfield areas?
Mr Seviour: In my view, they are,
yes. Is there a gap in the marketplace? Is there a margin in the
gap? What are the things you can produce in this area? What are
the things that are viable in this area?
Q62 Andrew Bennett: You told us quite
a lot about the housing problems. As far as the Meden Valley is
concerned, why do you need a special company to deal with it?
Mr Seviour: In itself, Meden Valley
Making Places Ltd is an interesting validation of that; attempting
to deal with the something like 900 properties in private sector
landlord ownership that are rated as being substandard across
the Meden Valley. I can remember, in my own organisation, attempting
to begin negotiations on a single property portfolio of 200 properties
four years ago and we moved away from that because of the development
of all of the initiatives that were taking place. The first thing
that the Meden Valley Making Places Limited company is now doing
is actually talking to that same landlord about the purchase of
that same 200-unit portfolio four years later with recourse to—
Q63 Andrew Bennett: And, I assume
that, in those four years, nothing has happened to improve the
properties.
Mr Seviour: No. There has been
no improvement to the major part of that portfolio over that four
year period.
Q64 Andrew Bennett: Has it actually
become worse?
Mr Seviour: In some areas, yes,
absolutely. That is not to say that there have not been other
initiatives launched by various authorities and various agencies
that have started to turn the corner in some villages, but you
can actually see some villages where those portfolios are a blight
on the village and yet, 200 yards down the road, there is the
beginning of regeneration. They are a serious problem. As I referred
to earlier on the CPO powers, local authorities in the main using
housing powers have not been able to crack that problem. Hopefully,
there will be a negotiated solution with the vendor. If that does
not prove to be the case, then CPO powers of EP will be tested
in a strategic way, possibly for the first time.
Q65 Andrew Bennett: But it is all
taking a lot of time.
Mr Seviour: It takes a lot of
time. That is not to say that everything can be done in a rush,
I do not believe that, but, in my view, it has taken too long
to get to the position we are now in.
Q66 Andrew Bennett: Are there problems
with demolition? In a sense, if you demolish some of these properties,
you make the local community less viable: less people for your
chip shop and less people for the corner shop.
Mr Seviour: Yes. It is not all
demolition. The consultation exercises that are taking place offer
a whole range of permutations. In the main, I think it is likely
that most of the villages, under the present initiative, are likely
to see a mixture of renovation and new build and certainly perhaps
the most advanced village in terms of regeneration across the
Meden Valley currently is a place called Whaley Thornes which
I think was extremely interesting for the task force to see when
they were touring the area. You can actually begin to see that
Whaley Thornes is beginning to turn a corner, but only beginning,
and it is my belief that if the housing investment plans relating
to the single housing pot in the region come to fruition, then
there is a danger of stall in a number of these villages based
on a £5 million allocation to that particular area which
I believe is insufficient.
Q67 Andrew Bennett: If you consult
with local people about what they want to live in, is not the
problem that a number of those local people will, during a regeneration
process, move away and you almost have to consult with the people
who might move into the area who are almost impossible to identify?
Mr Seviour: There is obviously
a displacement factor in wholesale regeneration. I think that
the trick, in terms of this quest for sustainability and identity
and engagement, is to make sure that consultation takes place
early and there is enough buy-in by local people. They feel that
they really do have ownership of the plans. There is enough buy-in
to retain a core of people who will then act as the communicators
and the leaders.
Q68 Chris Mole: Mr Jones, we have
heard about educational aspiration but poor health seems to be
the other distinctive social problem in the coalfields and perhaps
intuitively we understand respiratory and similar disorders. Is
the mainstream health provision effectively meeting these specific
needs?
Mr Jones: The answer is emphatically
"no". I sit on the English monitoring panel for the
delivery of compensation for chronic bronchitis, emphysema and
vibration white finger and the three panel members, when looking
at volumes of spend which will deliver in Yorkshire twice the
annual budget of Yorkshire Forward, we decided that we were actually
looking at a compensation scheme that compensated for poor health.
We then did a survey amongst a number of people with respiratory
diseases about the availability of local services, the quality
of local services and whether they were accessible and the results
were appalling, to be honest. That is just issues around people
with respiratory problems. The ill health amongst the former mining
population is disproportionately high. For example, the incidence
of bowel cancer is five times the national average. Nobody knows
why, it is just a statistic. There are tremendous problems around
mobility. It is reassuring now that there are discussions about
community-based health facilities. There are a number of pilot
projects taking place in Barnsley. A number of individuals suffer
in silence. They do not know how to access certain services or
they are rather shy of accessing them. One of the statistics which
quiet horrified me in looking at issues around respiratory problems
is that, at Rotherham General Hospital, 20% of readmissions within
12 months of a first admission came from people with respiratory
diseases and that is not just retired mineworkers. A disproportionate
number were female. We are looking at establishing a pilot project,
perhaps in the Rotherham areas because the PCT are supportive,
of a specialist centre that can offer both day centre facilities
and short-term residential care because there is an awful lot
of bed-blocking around people with respiratory problems, particularly
if it is the carer who is ill. Health is a major issue amongst
the retired and, when I say "retired", perhaps the population
that is aged over 55 in mining communities.
Q69 Mr Cummings: Could I perhaps
just flow on from what Vernon has said because I represent a similar
area and of course these problems exist in all ex-coalmining areas,
but what I would like to put on record is the fact that Westminster
Primary Care Trust is funded to 136% of its target. In Easington,
my constituency, my PCT is funded to 80% of the target. This really
is a national disgrace and really has to be identified. I am not
too sure how your primary care trust stand in relation to reaching
target, Vernon, but I do understand that this is not just a problem
that exists at Easington but elsewhere and something really has
to be done to try and correct the awful imbalance and unfairness
of the present position.
Mr Jones: I do not dispute Mr
Cummings's figures. The other issue that I would like to comment
upon is that, to some extent, members of the mining community
are a little fortunate in that, because of history, they have
access to a number of convalescent homes, issues around post-operative
care. For members of the mining community who are not eligible
to go, there are issues there about equality, but we have found
that the convalescent homes do provide a tremendous social and
helpful method of assisting people whose health is not very good.
Q70 Chris Mole: Can I look at another
dimension of the health issue, which is how many of those who
might be on health and disability benefits would be able to work
if they had the right support.
Mr Jones: It is difficult for
me to comment because most of the individuals with whom I deal
who have ill health are in fact over retirement age. We do deal
with a number of families who have children with learning difficulties
and undoubtedly, if there were better support mechanisms, it would
be perhaps easier for some of those to enter employment. I think
you have to appreciate that some of the levels of disability and
ill health are such that alternative employment is perhaps not
an option. I can give you an example. I went to a spirometry testing
centre and witnessed an examination where a man walked in with
his wife carrying the oxygen bottle. He was asked to sit down;
he declined because he had fused discs. Then he gave his date
of birth and he was six years younger than me. We are dealing
with quite debilitating levels of disability and ill health.
Q71 Christine Russell: Mr Jones,
you mentioned the voluntary sector earlier. In what ways do you
think the voluntary sector could help more in regenerating the
coalfield communities?
Mr Jones: I believe it has tremendous
capacity, but one of the difficulties is that there is an assumption
across central government and local government that the voluntary
sector can deliver without any injection of professionalism. If
you compare the support given to, say, new business start-ups
through Business in the Community and other similar funders and
look at what exists for the voluntary sector, it is stark. If
you look at the East Midlands Development Agency, who I must admit
is one of the two better RDAs that work with the voluntary sector,
they have looked at cluster units of providing professionalism
support for new start-up businesses. I would like to see a parallel
for the voluntary sector. It really can deliver improvements in
quality of life and a lot of locally-needed services. For example,
if you have four women who want to start a creche, they start
with questions: Do we need a constitution? Where do we get one?
If we are a charity, do we have to be registered with the local
authority? Where do they go for an answer? That is before they
have even started to develop the concept.
Q72 Christine Russell: What about
the capacity of the local authorities to provide that kind of
help? We heard earlier that many coalfield communities do not
get their fair share of Lottery funding. Is that perhaps because
the local authorities are not geared up to give that advice and
support?
Mr Jones: Has Professor Fothergill
gone? I have had issues around local authorities with Lottery
funding. If you looked initially at some of the underspend and
some of the more generous recipients, some of that is down to
whether local authorities had appointed lottery-funding advisers.
Conversely, I have been looking at some statistics recently and,
if you look at the South Yorkshire local authorities, Barnsley
has the most vibrant voluntary sector as measured by income acquisition.
Is that because Barnsley MBC have embarked upon a policy of local
regeneration partnerships? Is it because the Lottery has invested
£3 million in the Brass for Barnsley scheme or it is a combination
of both? If it is complicated, I do not think that the local authorities,
because of their own financial problems, have the capabilities
of facilitating voluntary-sector development to the level that
I think is necessary. It perhaps has to come from within the voluntary
sector itself but it cannot unless it has access to funding for
professionalism. Eighty-five per cent of voluntary organisations
have earned income of less than £10,000 a year. We are talking
about volunteers who need some professional help and input in
helping their organisations and services to grow.
Q73 Christine Russell: So, what you
are really saying is that any public funding should actually go
direct from the centre into the voluntary organisations and miss
out the local authorities totally?
Mr Jones: Not necessarily because
a number of good projects do develop in partnership between the
voluntary sector and the local authority and a number have to
fit into some of the local strategic plans. Conversely, I would
not like to see all external funding coming through a local authority,
as was suggested by Nottinghamshire County Council, because part
of the remit of, say, the Coalfields Regeneration Trust was to
get money into communities that statutory funders had failed.
Mr Seviour: I would like to underscore
that. I think that the six Village Companies that were established
in the Meden Valley were effectively established through the work
of a small team that was CRT and ESF funded. We were not able
to fund that direct because of the view that it would be housing
funds leakage and therefore it was funded from other sources,
but what has happened with the Village Companies now is that they
make applications in their own right and are beginning to achieve
funding successes in their own right. I refer to the chip shop:
that was a funding success that the local people put together
themselves. It would have been pretty difficult to envisage that
happening prior to the creation of the Village Companies, so I
think I would underscore and agree with what has been said.
Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very much
for your evidence. We do apologise for the late start and keeping
you a little later than scheduled, but we do appreciate you coming
along.
The Committee suspended from 5.56 pm to
6.06 pm for a division in the House
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