More youth cuts as we approach summer

It’s looking like hard year next year for Camden’s youth centres after another round of cuts by the Tory and Lib Dem administration.

After cuts to Queen’s Crescent, The Haven, Highgate New Town in this year’s funding commissioning process – the Samuel Lithgow on the Regent’s Park Estate now faces reductions - despite being in a high area of need.

Samuel Lithgow Youth Centre (SLYC) funding from Camden Youth & Connexions Service has been slashed from £45,000 in 2007/2008 to £29,792 in 2008/2009 - over 34% of funding slashed overnight.

What’s worse is that this decision to cut funding flies in the face of the hard work local volunteers have done towards raising £1,000,000 to fully refurbish Samuel Lithgow building (which belongs to LB Camden). When SLYC is shut for refurbishment/extension in December, for a year, it will need an extra £15,000 to rent local venues to deliver our services and to hire an office space.

It will also lose income from the fact that groups who normally rent the space will go elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the council seems to have no plan for what replacement services there will be to cover the shortfall. As everyone on the Regent’s Park estate knows – youth issues are on the rise, so cutting Samuel Lithgow makes no sense at all. This is just another set of cuts in a long line of post-2006 council funding decisions.

Camden weakens Street wardens in hotspots

Good news and bad news for local people with Camden’s excellent Street Warden service.

One the one hand they have been given new powers – and can now issue fines. On the other hand, the service has been diluted - a move labelled "naive" by local residents.

So the experience street wardens have gathered over the years in the hotspots of Kings Cross, Bloomsbury and Camden Town is now diluted.

(Not a peep, I should add, from Camden Town Lib Dem councillors Chris Naylor or Libby Campbell, over the last year on this issue - something which will come back to haunt them).

I say diluted, because with no increase in resources or personnel the wardens service will be much weaker now that it covers all of Camden.

Street Wardens were a good service because they grew trust over time locally, and were respected - especially on the estates.

Wardens were also proactive in ways PCSO aren't - organising football tournaments with local Somali kids hanging out on the streets.

How on earth warden with experience of ASBOs in Camden Town will be able to identify suspects when walking in Fortune Green is a puzzle to me – a point I raised at the Camden Town Unlimited meeting yesterday.

Remember - there was an alternative – Camden Labour promised to establish a fully-funded Street Warden service across the borough in our 2006 manifesto.

Camden Town Forum funds cut

Lib Dem spin that Camden Town was a priority for them has come to nothing with the cutting of funds from the successful resident-led Camden Town Forum.

The Forum, which steered such things as the £2.5 million Liveability Fund which transformed St.Martin’s Gardens and Castlehaven Open Space, wasn’t a politician-dominated group like the new Area Forums and wasn’t a talking shop.

Residents liked it because they could provide challenge to the council in central Camden Town.

Now their funding has been cuts from 6 meetings a year to quarterly, undermining their ability to question and influence decisions.

This led to the immediate resignation of the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Camden Town Forum.

No Lib Dem ward councillors turned up to the meeting.

We hear this evening from council sources that cuts to council budgets meant that the children's library in West Hampstead Library has been closed 25hours over the past month. The reason is the freeze on filling vacancies.

This is in Lib Dem Leader Keith Moffitt's own ward. On Wednesday night he happily sung the praises of his budget, which oversaw these cuts.

Meanwhile Camden Public Library Users' Group - senior committee members of which have long been Lib Dem activists - have stayed silent.

Are they not being told anything about these cuts? If not, do they not know about it? If they do, and haven't done anything doesn't there now not need to be a new organisation which can more accurately reflect the views of library users?

We ask these questions because there is silence at the moment.

Caretaking to be part-privatised at least, confirm Camden Lib Dems

Senior Lib Dems have confirmed in the local papers that the service will be part-privatised at the very least, despite the opposition of tenants' leaders from across the borough.

Kilburn Cllr. James King wrote in the Camden New Journal this week that the council is right to pursue the "partial outsourcing cleaning services" (Lib Dem Cllr. James King, 31 Jan 2008)

Critics from caretakers' union UNISON and camden Labour have been dismissed, as the council looks to the kinds services offered by other, Tory or Lib Dem boroughs. This often means fewer 'regular' caretakers at much lower wages, terms and conditions - and a poorer service for local people.

The Lib Dems have provided a variety of answers for their policy: from the need to extract efficiencies, to less government money.

But the Town hall is currently using £10 million from the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) to build brand new offices at Bidborough House - the real reason for the drive, we ask?

Caretaking to be privatised by Tory/Lib Dems

Camden Unison last week gave a vote of no confidence in housing chief Cllr. Chris Naylor after his plans to axe council tenants caretaking were revealed. Caretakers, many of whom live in the blocks they clean, are the ‘ears and ears’ of estates – providing a vital link between tenants (sometimes vulnerable ones) and the council. Camden housing staff have warned of council plans to reduce Camden’s service, in order to save money.

In today's CNJ Naylor tries, strangley, to blame "the government" for his own plans - but the new "Housing Management Improvement Plan" is totally his idea and his creature.
Plans include:
- A centralised (i.e. not district-based) call centre for rent queries
- Proposals to privatise the caretaking service and get rid of residential caretakers
- Less housing staff, with bigger patches, to provide the service

The plans have not been set out in full, but drip-fed from the council in order to avoid a full debate.

At the next Full Council meeting on Moday Labour will be promoting a motion against privatising caretaking – a test for Coalition councillors who profess to represent council tenants in areas with large estates like Kilburn, Cantelowes, Kentish Town, Gospel Oak, Haverstock, Camden Town with Primrose Hill and Highgate.

Privatisation of services hurt elderly

Gospel Oak community activist Sally Gimson warns of the Tory/Lib Dem threat to services to the elderly under the Town Hall's 'Better and Cheaper' agenda, see here.