Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240
- 258)
TUESDAY 29 JUNE 2004
MR GEORGE
SUMMERS, MR
TERRY HOLLAND,
MR IAN
CAIRNS AND
MS PAT
WEALE
Q240 Mr Betts: You have obviously
got a responsibility for the needs of the Gypsies and travelling
community but also for the needs of other residents as well. How
do you go about balancing that? Would you say generally that where
you have got authorised sites of a settled nature that you do
not have any problems with the local community?
Mr Cairns: We do not have a duty
to provide at county council. What we have is sites that are in
place that were built under the 1968 Caravan Sites Act. Obviously
with the pressures on the rent officer in getting rents and county
councils looking to divest themselves because they do not have
a duty and they cannot raise the revenue to run a site, then it
is very difficult to convince local politicians to get involved
in site provision. Again we have the groundwork there. For instance,
at our Middle Oil (?) transit site, which is considered one of
the best in the country, there is a local working party that works
with management and we look at a day-to-day running of the site,
how the people who are on the site react with the local village,
how the local village sees what is happening on the site. Sometimes
there are problems. For instance, we have medical teams that visit
the Gypsy site and the village get a bit upset that they are probably
in a queue to see the doctor when up rolls the medical facilities,
or the children get into the local village school very quickly
when they are visiting and we do have a dedicated Travellers Education
Service that moves in straightaway to help. So there is some enmity
from the local population on what they see as an imbalance in
service provision. If we work together then we should make it
a lot easier.
Ms Weale: Could I add to that,
I think the way we do it is slightly different in that the people
on the sites access all the mainstream services. We do not encourage
health units to go on to the sites because the local practice
is there to see to the children and the adults as far as health
is concerned. We do have an education service for travelling children
but again the emphasis is on doing your own thing. I do not see
us there to guide people. We work with the parish councils and
the parish councillors are encouraged to visit the sites and treat
the people on the site as they would any other community within
their parish. When elections come around that is also encouraged
and whoever is standing goes to the sites. They may not always
get a good welcome and people may not always speak to them but
that is the case wherever you go, there is no difference. The
nannying side of it has been removed in Worcestershire. These
are adults, they are families, they do not need us and they do
not need me to be going around doing anything for them. We promote
total self-reliance. We run the sites, we collect the rents, we
carry out the maintenance, we will give any information that is
required as we would do to anybody, and that is how we run them.
Q241 Christine Russell: Just to go
back to Chris Mole's questioning earlier, in your submission you
have been quite critical of the planning process and of law firms.
Is what you are telling us that there should be a clear duty on
each and every local authority? Who should have that statutory
obligation to provide sites? Should it be districts or should
it be counties?
Ms Weale: It should be counties.
Q242 Christine Russell: Why?
Ms Weale: Because if you put it
on districts you end up with district boundaries. No Traveller
likes to be told they do not belong here and they cannot go on
the waiting list because they are not from a certain district.
That is what we found in the past. When the Act was repealed we
found because we owned the land that the district was charged
with building and managing those sites. There was no incentive
there to actually manage them properly or to work with people
so if there was a problem some districts would just evict them
on to the roadside and if there were rent arrears it did not matter
because we picked up the deficit. On a county-wide basis we can
utilise the sites across that county so that instead of leaving
a site because you do not get on very well with your neighbours
you can ask for a transfer and transfer immediately to another
site which is outside that particular district, so the management
for the Gypsies is much better.
Q243 Christine Russell: So you think
it should be a county responsibility?
Ms Weale: I do.
Q244 Christine Russell: Despite the
fact that the districts will retain the planning powers?
Ms Weale: I do. You work with
districts.
Q245 Christine Russell: Do you all
agree with that? Is that the stance of your organisation?
Mr Holland: I support what Pat
said about counties but within a regional framework. The important
thing is that there is at least regional planning which identifies
what is needed where and splits it down between the counties and
then if necessary between the counties and districts. However,
it has to be done as part of a structured national and regional
framework so the onus must come at least from the region and then
work down. There is nothing stopping counties agreeing with the
districts how the allocation should be made within that area any
more than there is to stop the region agreeing with the counties.
Mr Summers: It is all a question
of the management of resources. Generally at county level there
are probably more resources, taking an overview of the county
or taking a regional look really, because you need a spread of
locations across a county. If you come down to the district level
quite often they might have one site, possibly two sites, and
they do not have the infrastructure management available to run
the sites so. That is probably why it is better having it at county
level—there is a wider spread, you have economies of scale
and people can take an overview of the county and locations. Ideally
if you did it at a regional level it could say where the Gypsy
sites should be—
Q246 Christine Russell: But it does
not work with housing at the moment, does it, because the county
structure plan says, "Right, in this county there will be
x number of houses", and the districts say, "We do not
want them here, put them in the district next door." Why
would it be different with Gypsy sites?
Mr Summers: Because if there was
a duty of provision and you said that this number of Gypsy sites
is required in this county, then the provision would have to be
made available.
Q247 Christine Russell: The same
as housing.
Mr Holland: You are saying it
does not work with housing. It does but very painfully. The difference
is, though, that in terms of housing you do have national projections
as to the amount required coming down to the regional sector.
They do not exist for Gypsies.
Q248 Christine Russell: Can I ask
you one last question really which is about when you do get round
to identifying sites, very often those sites are inappropriate
and they are poor quality. Do you agree with that?
Mr Holland: Certainly.
Q249 Christine Russell: What is therefore
needed for a good site?
Mr Holland: Certainly the ones
built at the start of the Caravan Sites Act legislation tended
to be poor quality because those authorities that wanted to follow
up that legislation wanted to find sites quickly and ideally those
which were not fought tooth and nail by the general public. So,
in all honesty, you put them in a place where nobody else would
live because there is not going to be a lot of objection to that
and if you cannot find a site like that you put it on the edge
of the boundary so at least it affects somebody else half the
time. There is a history of that over most of the first sites
that were provided. I think that people have realised very much
now that that was probably wrong but we are still living with
the legacy of that. To some extent this is one of the problems
we talked about earlier. This is one of the reasons why, certainly
in my case, the costs of managing sites are greatly higher than
they are on comparable ones because they are happening in places
that mains drainage cannot reach or people build motorways. I
do not think it is true now. I think there has been a realisation
that Gypsies and Travellers are human beings with the same demands
and same needs as everybody else and, in fact, in one or two cases
there have actually been authorities that may go out of their
way, for example by allowing Gypsies to build at an area of higher
ambient noise level than, say, you or I.
Q250 Christine Russell: Can I ask
you one quick last question which is about the site design guide
which is now 25 years old. Does it need upgrading and if it does
what would you include in it that is not in the existing one?
Mr Summers: Yes, you are quite
right, the design guide is totally out of kilter with modern society.
There has been no central government advice on the whole area
of what should be provided now. Most modern sites now require
the facilities of a bathroom, a toilet, a sink, showers and all
the rest of it. The majority of them also need day rooms like
a kitchen or somewhere so that people can relax. When the original
sites were built they were really built for caravans as a hook
up point. They got there with their caravan, hooked it up and
there was basic small provision of a toilet and shower. Nowadays
people are looking for a wider infrastructure on the site to make
it a more pleasant place to live. We have moved on from the days
of just a hook up and a caravan and people really want toilets,
showers, a day room and somewhere to live. Sites should also have
proper road ways and proper fire equipment and be generally well
managed. It is the location of the sites, which goes back to your
previous question, which will determine that and you need to talk
to the Gypsies and Travellers about where they want the sites.
There is no point in spending vast amounts of money on a site
and nobody wants it there. That has been the problem in the past.
Local authorities have come up with ideas for sites, normally
on tips and under pylons because that is the only available piece
of land and they will say, "We will put it here and that
will discharge our duty", when did have a duty. We cannot
really do that. We need to find out via the count and the travel
patterns where people want to live and build sites appropriate
to their needs where they want them as much as we can. Then once
they are built we need to have an overview of it to ensure that
the standards are maintained all the time. In the past central
government has shelled out millions and millions of pounds to
build sites and never once come down and checked up on the sites
to make sure they are built properly or if they are being managed
properly. That is a waste of money. We do not have that and that
is what we need.
Q251 Chris Mole: I just wanted to
return to this question of the setting of rent by rent officers
on council sites. The Committee are probably a little surprised
to hear this. You suggested that this was because the land was
assessed as private land but that was not done on other land that
might be private land. Has there been any challenge to this position
and is there any argument to support that?
Mr Cairns: I contacted the Rents
Service in the region and at national level and the only reason
I was given why county council sites were treated as private property
was that it was an unintended consequence of the regulations.
When I actually tried to get into this they told me about the
formula. The formula to decide the local reference rent is left
to an individual rent officer and he will go and find the lowest
rent in the area of a site. This need not be a site with planning
permission, it need not be a Gypsy site so they are not comparing
like with like. He will find that and then he will decide himself
what is the highest economic rent for the area. In Somerset he
decided that was £40 so he found somewhere at £20 or
less than that. Then you put the low figure, add it to the high
figure and divide it by two, and this is the artificial low reference
rent. In Somerset if you say he set us at £26, so that is
£52, £40 is the highest, so he has found somewhere at
£12. That could be a farmer's field with a stand pipe. Plus
the fact when you go and ask him "Fine, can you tell you
the addresses of these places so that our clients can go there?"
"Terribly sorry, it is data protected and it is business
sensitive." We said, "How many Gypsy sites are included
in the calculation?" "None." Gypsies are not excluded,
they are just not included because Gypsy sites are deemed to be
benefits led so they are not included in the calculation.
Q252 Chris Mole: Is this something
that NAGTLO could give the Committee a supplementary note on because
it seems fairly critical to getting the resources into county
councils to allow you to maintain a sustained degree of site.
Mr Summers: Everybody in county
councils across the country suffers from the same thing. In Hampshire
our rents are £35. We only get £25.
Q253 Chairman: This is also something
we want to pursue with the Minister next week. Can I take you
on to one final issue and that is this question of trespass. Who
should be responsible for shifting people where there is illegal
trespass?
Mr Cairns: As a county council
it is part of my function to protect the integrity of county council
land. Therefore as the Gypsy officer and specialist officer I
go there to ensure that when we are there we understand that we
are dealing with ethnic minorities. We have policies to deal with
that. We look at the other duties that we do have that are already
in the legislation—the Education Act and Welfare Act—so
on county council land it must be a county council officer.
Q254 Chairman: Are you using the
Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003?
Mr Cairns: In Somerset we do not
use the Criminal Justice Bill and we try not to use the Anti-Social
Behaviour Act because we see it as a social issue. It is not a
criminal issue, it is a social issue and that is how we try to
address it. We have no interest in criminalising any families
at all. All we are trying to do is to protect the integrity of
our property.
Mr Holland: In Buckinghamshire
we take a rather different attitude to Somerset in that we currently
concentrate on procedures under the Criminal Justice and Public
Order Act basically because when it was issued it said that it
was there in order to protect the interests of private owners
of land. It is impossible for local authorities to use county
court action on private land whereas they can use it for private
owners' own land. It is clearly the concern of the landowner in
law to look after his land. In the case of a highway that would
be the Highways Authority. In the case of private land it would
be the private land owner. In practice, that is probably totally
unfair on the private land owner whose land is invaded and who
may find it covered with rubbish, but there is no getting out
of that situation. However, they should be able to depend upon
support from the local authority and the police. I believe that
provided that those authorities stay within the reasonable confines
of the working affairs, in other words, if the Gypsies are on
the land and they can be persuaded to come to an agreement with
the landowner and not do damage to the land, just as that might
happen on local authority land, then there should not be a need
for immediate eviction. If they are harming the land and they
will not move in other ways then there should be immediate action
taken against them by the authorities on behalf of the landowner.
There is a considerable difference in views on this within the
organisation and within authorities.
Q255 Chairman: You talk of a future
in which there will enough pitches for everybody who wants to
go on one but they will almost certainly have to pay. Is there
a possibility that some Travellers will be totally reluctant to
pay and, if so, ought there then be some change in the law to
make sure that there cannot be free loaders?
Mr Cairns: There will always be
those Travellers who will stay outside the law and providing a
local authority has a decent level of provision they can go before
the courts and inform the courts that they have been made an offer
of accommodation, that there are transit facilities there, and
they have been identified to them to use, and if they prefer not
to use that then you will obtain your order to move them on. As
there was with the 1968 Caravan Sites Act, where there was the
designation process, I think that there should be that carrot
and stick so that local authorities who do have provision on there
to be used and it is not being used by the Travellers have the
power to move them on.
Q256 Chairman: And what would that
power be?
Mr Cairns: Again, it would be
power to remove them from their area over which they have authority.
Mr Summers: Recently there have
been changes to the Police Act, Section 61, Section 62, A to E,
where the police can actually move people on to sites if there
are sites available. However, at this moment in time there are
insufficient sites available so this legislation is totally unworkable.
In what we are doing at the moment we appear to be putting the
cart before the horse. Instead of trying to find accommodation
on permanent sites and also transit sites, we are bringing in
legislation that says you have the power to move people without
having the accommodation to move them to.
Q257 Chairman: Right, so what you
are saying is we have got the legislation and if we had the sites
we would then be able to move people onto those sites?
Mr Summers: There are different
requirements. If they are permanent residential sites where people
want to reside permanently that is not the same as transit or
short-stay accommodation. When people settle on permanent sites
and use that as their home, the last thing they want is people
coming on there for a couple of weeks, living next door to them
and then moving off. That is a permanent residential site. You
also need a network of transit or short-stay sites.
Q258 Chairman: If there were sufficient
transit sites you are saying that the law would then make it possible
to move people off illegal sites on to those transit sites?
Mr Summers: That law is available
now to the police. At the moment you do not have this network
so when anyone stops anywhere, unfortunately, they are on an authorised
stopping place.
Chairman: On that note, can I thank you
very much for your evidence.
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