Good news as BHT-led partnership is given the go-ahead to bid for £9.2 million Big Lottery funding

We have had some very good news this week which is attracting some media interest.  A consortium, being led by BHT, is in the running for funding from the Big Lottery of up to £10 million over 8 years.  The initiative is designed to improve services for men and women with complex needs (a combination of mental ill health, homelessness, offending behaviour and substance misuse problems) in Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings. Between now and September, a full bid and business plan needs to be prepared.  A decision will then be made by the Big Lottery and the new services will begin from April 2014.

The purpose of this funding is to bring about lasting change in how services work with people with multiple and complex needs; this funding is a vehicle to help bring about that change. The legacy of the 8 year programme will be that systems and services in all 3 geographical areas will better meet the needs of this group.

At this stage we have been awarded funding to develop the bid on behalf of our partnership which includes partners in local government and in the third / charity sectors.  Should the partnership be successful, it won’t just be BHT staff (contrary to what the Argus reported this morning) who will provide services.

My colleagues, Nikki Homewood and Jo Berry, are leading on this initiative for BHT. Nikki said: “As the lead partner for the Brighton and Hove, Eastbourne and Hastings area, BHT is thrilled to receive funding to develop our partnership bid to ensure better service provision for people with the most complex needs.

“Using the wealth of knowledge and expertise within our local Core Group, comprising seven voluntary sector organisations and five statutory partners including commissioners, along with the 60+ organisations in our Partnership Group, we will develop a programme that will truly bring about change for the clients the programme work with, and local communities.

“Our vision is to bring about long-term systemic change by putting service users at the heart of services, fully understanding what they need in order to move forward with their lives: thorough monitoring and evaluation will result in well-evidenced findings, which will then be used to influence future commissioning.”

BHT’s partners in this initiative, and who are represented on the local Core Group, include: Brighton and Hove City Council, Brighton Women’s Centre, CRI, East Sussex County Council, Eastbourne Borough Council, Hastings Borough Council, Homeless Link, Sanctuary Supported Living, Southdown Housing Association, Sussex Oakleaf, Sussex Probation Service

Biggest change in welfare provision since creation of the welfare state

April sees the biggest change in welfare provision since the creation of the welfare state. The aim is to simplify the benefit system, to replicate work conditions (monthly payments), and ensure that work always pays. I can support these aims but, as with much of what government (of any party) tries to do, there is likely to be problems with implementation and unexpected consequences.

The changes include:

• Universal Credit replacing Jobseekers’ Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, Housing Benefit, Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit
• Personal Independence Payments will replace Disability Living Allowance
• Council Tax Benefit going and those under Pension Credit age will probably have to pay around £2 per week
• Benefits Cap of £500 per week
• Changes to Social Fund
• Child Benefit reduced if one parent earns more than £50,000 and stopped over £60,000

Any new system has the potential to cause confusion. There is an expectation that 80% of claims will be made online (although research suggests that the majority of claimants don’t have the means to do so)..

Payments will be in one monthly lump sum, raising challenges with budgeting for some claimants.

Landlords are expecting a huge increase in arrears and bad debts. This will result in increased evictions and homelessness. At BHT we have modelled the prospect of losing £95,000 as a direct consequence of these changes.

And finally, there is the Under-occupation regulation, called by some as the Bedroom Tax. It is not, in fact, a tax, but a claw back of benefit for those who have a ‘spare’ bedroom. This has recently attracted much controversy and changes have been made, although there remains serious concerns about the practicality of households downsizing, not least because of the shortage of suitable alternative accommodation and the disruption to lives, including those with disabilities.

In the next few days I will posts more details of the changes.

Social media, online support and traditional giving all help BHT deliver services to our clients

Earlier today, as Sussex ground to a halt because of overnight snow, I tweeted about the Amazon wish list for First Base Day Centre.  The most surprising item on the wish list is for sun protection lotion, probably the thing furthest from most people’s thoughts as they slipped and slid into work this morning.

The serious point, of course, is that homeless people are at far greater risk of getting skin cancer than the rest of the population given their exposure to the elements.

The wish list, which can be found here, has a load more items that are very relevant during periods of severe cold.  I spent a few minutes this morning looking at what has already been bought by our supporters from the wish list in the last few weeks:

• 21 fleece jackets
• 4 pairs of thermal long johns
• 7 thermal vests
• 54 pairs of thermal socks
• 2 sleeping bags
• 5 waterproof jackets
• 21 toothbrushes
• 12 tubes of toothpaste
• as well as a whole range of other one off items essential for the work of First Based Day Centre.

Thank you to all those who have helped people keep dry, warm and clean.

I also this morning read a report, published in Digital Donor Review, that showed that only 5% of charitable donations are made through sites such as Facebook and Twitter, even though 30% of respondents said they were inspired to give by social media.

The First Base wish list shows that people like giving in different ways.  At BHT we are fortunate to have some extremely generous benefactors who support our work year on year, those who leave a bequest to BHT in their Wills, and those who support us on the ad hoc basis, although many do so on a regular basis in response to appeals, not least at Christmas time.

BHT is extremely fortunate to have secured a large number of contracts from national and local government, and we are successful in bidding of charitable funds, such as those from the Big Lottery.  However, it is the support of ordinary men and women that makes a real difference in the work we tend to.

From the list above, there are many items that we take for granted.  But for somebody sleeping on the streets of our towns and cities, having dry and warm clothes is important as is their ability to wash their face and clean their teeth.

The absence of a national approach to combat homelessness could have tragic consequences

Today I met with colleagues from some of the country’s larger homelessness charities, at a gathering organised by Homeless Link, one of our trade bodies. Amongst the themes discussed were those that come up at many meetings I attend these days, including severe funding restrictions, the “race to the bottom” as far as pricing tenders (“the race is over”, said one colleague from an area that has had cuts of over 80% in its Supporting People budget), and the risk to the quality of services.

One issue that struck me was a comment by someone I admire a great deal who said that any discussion around a minimum standard for homelessness services would rapidly become the default position. He spoke of the danger of a provider then going beyond ‘poor’, such as happened with the Winterbourne homes for men and women with learning difficulties.

All providers have their own ‘bottom line’ beyond which they won’t go, but there was a recognition that there are other agencies (not all exclusively in the private sector) who might bid at domiciliary care rates, where ‘support’ is reduced to a mere attendance as workers (inexperienced and untrained), and even volunteers, dash from one appointment to another.

The inevitable consequence will be an erosion of quality, increased turmoil for those with mental health problems, exploitation of those who are vulnerable, anti-social behaviour by some, and (in extreme cases) death through neglect.

The scenario was presented that in these circumstances, workers and volunteers are particularly at risk (a la Jonathan Newby), and clients might be overlooked, possibly with tragic consequences.

What is shocking about the current state of affairs is that, for the first time since 1968 (the year of Cathy Come Home and the setting up of homelessness charities including Shelter and BHT itself), there is no national funding framework. The ring fence for support services was removed by the previous government, and the devolution of funding to local commissioning bodies, is resulting in huge differences in provision across the country.

Notwithstanding the principles of Localism, there are groups of vulnerable people whose well being cannot rely on the vagaries of local funding decisions and where a national safety net is required, not least homeless men and women.

When we have a spate of deaths on the streets, there will be a mad panic to put something in place. Why not do this in a planned and co-ordinated way that will prevent man of these deaths in the first place?

What is clear is that the situation in Brighton and Hove and in East Sussex is so much better than in many places across the country, not least because of the all-party support there has been over the past few years for protecting services for homeless and vulnerable men and women. Long may that continue, particularly in these difficult times.

The invaluable work of advice services, services which are now under threat

In today’s Argus there was a report on the prosecution by Hastings Borough Council of a landlord for ignoring a property improvement notice. The landlord, who is well known to BHT’s Hastings Advice Centre in Hastings, failed to deal with damp, fire safety and domestic hygiene hazards. He was fined £4,250 and ordered to pay full costs.

The Argus quotes Cllr Kim Forward, Hastings’ lead member for housing: “We are sending a clear message to the landlords in our town who do not comply with the regulations which ensure their tenants are adequately protected. We will not tolerate poor housing, and if you won’t work with us to improve your property if it is substandard, you can expect us to use the full force of the law against you.”

What did not come across in the article was the persistent and sterling efforts of BHT staff who pursued this case for over 12months. With reforms to legal aid and the squeeze on funding from local councils, our ability to take on cases like this will be severely limited.

BHT advice staff are often not recognised for their work. They deal with issues like this on a daily basis and, as a result, can receive abuse and threats from certain landlords (although most landlords are dedicated to providing a good service and are responsive to the welfare of their tenants). At the same time advice staff cope with clients who can be challenging. They then have the backdrop of the uncertainty over their future because of funding cuts.

A civil society should be judged by how it treats the weakest and most marginalised of its community. BHT Hastings Advice, with Hastings Borough Council, have shown how a civil society should respond to poor housing. It is a shame that such services are under threat.

Bullingdon Club Bullies dehumanise homeless man by burning £50 in front of him

This afternoon I was writing a no doubt worthy item for this blog on BHT’s preparation for the digital inclusion challenges relating to the introduction of Universal Credit when I saw the tweets by Aideen Jones, the Chief Executive of Southdown Housing Association, regarding members of the Bullingdon Club who allegedly burnt a £50 note in front of someone begging on the streets of Oxford. (26/02/13: Please note I have removed a link to the original article on another blog which has itself been removed).

Aideen is right to point out that £50 could have bought 40 pairs of thermal socks for homeless people.

Of course people will make a connection between this obscene flaunting of wealth by a group of rich boys. The Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Mayor of London, all were members of the Bullingdon Club during their misspent youth, but I imagine Messrs Cameron, Osborne and Johnson will today share the outrage felt by most reasonably minded individuals over this incident.

The thing that upsets me most about this incident is what it says about how homeless men and women are dehumanised by society. If the allegation is true, these Bullingdon Bullies are merely an extreme example, and are the rightful targets for the contempt of decent people. But this dehumanisation goes much wider, from the groups of lads who think it is funny to give someone sleeping rough a kicking on a Saturday night, or a drunken reveller relieving himself on someone sleeping in a doorway, or the security guard who pours a bucket of cold water over someone sleeping in a car park.

More extreme examples lead to the violent death of homeless people through assault or setting fire to a sleeping bag when the individual is asleep in it. Dropping a paving slab on the head of someone asleep on the beach or in a park is likely to do serious damage.

Yet this happens. What we need to do is to put an end to homelessness. A grand objective, but one that should be seen as historically important as the abolition of slavery or the ending of apartheid. This week, Homeless Link will be launching a manifesto aimed at seeing the end of homelessness in the UK by 2023. My colleague, Nikki Homewood, will be at the launch of this manifesto in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

But individually we can do something. In response to Aideen’s tweet, I will buy £50 of thermal underwear for homeless men and women who use First Base Day Centre. You, too, can help, either by buying something from Amazon using the First Base wish list on this link or for those of you who don’t wish to use Amazon, donations can be made direct to First Base through our Just Giving page.

But there is one other thing we can do. We can stop using the term ‘the homeless’, a phrase that dehumanises people. They are men and women, they are someone’s son or daughter, husband or wide, brother or sister, father or mother. They have names. They have hopes and aspirations, feelings and fears. I always try to refer to “homeless men and women”.

In South Africa, where I grew up under apartheid, the white rulers referred to “the blacks” who had second class status, and whose lives were valued less than those of white people. The murder of a black man and woman rarely attracted media attention, more rarely warranted a police enquiry. In the white community, black people had become dehumanised. Hopefully in Britain in 2013 we won’t allow the same to happen to homeless men and women.

Appeal for warm clothing and thermals

At First Base, our day centre for homeless people in Brighton, we have recently had a huge number of new clients and are run out of a number of really improtant items necessary for basic survival:

• fleeces
• thermal vests
• thermal socks/new socks
• mens boxers
• sleeping bags

We’re appealing for donations of useful items for people who really need it. You can buy us something on Amazon using the wish list on this link and it will be delivered straight to us. We are particularly looking for warm clothing and thermals due to the cold weather.

If you would like further information, please phone 01273 326844.

And, finally, please help share this list if you can by email, Facebook and Twitter.

Confessions of a secret email hoarder

This is a very scary day.  Yesterday, following on from my recent blog about emails, The curse of the humble email, I spent a couple of hours with my PA looking at the psychology of emails.  She had been on a course on Tuesday that is destined to change forever my email life!

I mentioned in an early post that the top tip regarding emails from Valerie Pearce at Brighton and Hove City Council is to “prioritise and delete”.

Some people are hoarders of emails, with tens of thousands of emails festering in their inbox.  They do not have a hope in hell of having anything other than a nightmare relationship with emails.  How can anyone keep track of even 100 emails let alone 18,000?

I thought I was quite good at ordering my emails.  As soon as they had been dealt with they were dragged into one of twenty to thirty sub-folders in my ‘Received’ folder.  The theory was that this makes for easy retrieval.

All well and good, except when my inbox begins to groan under 100, 200, even 500 emails.  The psychology is that emails equate to anxiety.  I had developed a need to check my emails at every possible opportunities, and I began to prioritise quick wins at the expense of, perhaps, more important emails.  It gave me the allusion that I was coping.  Yet all that was happening was that important emails were backing up, sadly neglected.

Like the classic alcoholic, I began to hoard emails in folders called ‘Pending’, then ‘Pending November’, Pending December’ and ‘Pending January’, along with ‘Pending Nikki’, Pending Wendy’ and a good two dozen or so of the email equivalent to hiding a bottle of alcohol behind the books.  It gave the illusion I was coping.

The irony is that when I looked at these emails, several hundred in total, most were unimportant, that I had been copied in for information, or the issue was long gone and forgotten. Once again I reflected how easy it is to be copied in to things that are not central to my job.

So why is today so scary.  Gone are the various ‘Pending’ folders.  They have been replaced by just four. I have been introduced to the four D’s – ‘Do’, ‘Delete’, ‘Defer’ and ‘Delegate’.

Then there is ’Email Death Row’.  I must admit I am really not at all sure about this last one, having had a lifelong aversion to the death penalty having read Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country as a young boy.

‘Email Death Row’ relates to are for those emails you don’t know whether you want to deal with, or have time to deal with.  You know that at some point you will kill them off.  These emails could be the overwhelming majority that don’t necessarily need attention, the circulars, the group emails, the ‘cc’ for information emails.

I’ll blog again at a later date about whether this approach has improved my well being.  In the meantime, if you want to find out more about Think Productive’s excellent email training workshops (it is far more thought-provoking than that sounds) contact http://www.thinkproductive.co.uk or email Graham Allcott at hello@thinkproductive.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @grahamallcott or @thinkproductive.  Graham is also the author of the book “How to be a Productivity Ninja”.

Further reflections on Twitter – can the personal be professional?

Continuing my reflections on Twitter, some people think you should keep your work tweeting separate from your personal Twitter account.

I’m not so sure. My Twitter handle (see, I am learning all the lingo) is @AndyWinterBHT. I know I am slightly hindered in what I can say given the “BHT” suffix. But then, even if I had a separate account, I still couldn’t speak my mind freely because I would still be identified with that organisation I work for, whose name temporarily escapes me!

I actually like knowing that people have a hinterland, such as the Sunday ritual of @LisaSaysThis and @AMOQ1 who for some obscure reason tweet about archery or, more specifically, about The Archers themselves. The flower arranging prowess of the Handsome One, as recorded by @Huxley06, gives me hope that I too will one day be able to arrange a vase of daffs, but I sadly won’t ever become the top flight football referee that @ConallBartlett4, according to his dad, is destined to become. Then there is the Muesli Hill soap opera brought to us by @anthonyzach and @dzyrl, or baking by our very own Delia Smith, @ValPearceBHCC.

Of course all of the above successfully combine professional tweets with personal reflections and insights. I apologise unreservedly for the above comments. I think their Twitter content is the better for this fusion.

In addition to tweeting about @BHT_Sussex, and issues that impact on the organisation and its clients, I have been known to tweet about @SussexCCC and South African rugby and cricket. I have even been known to tweet about @StokeCity. This comes at some cost because every time I tweet about the Mighty Potters, I lose 2 or 3 followers. I just can’t imagine why.

I tend to keep my private life just that, private, although I have been known to mention I am watching cricket with @ClareCalder or offering her paternal advice about not getting another piercing. (She ignored me).

What gives me a great deal of pleasure is retweeting others, not least those posted by amazing third sector organisations locally. I know how much I appreciate being retweeted by them. I also retweet much of what is posted by @OurDaughtersUK, a campaigning organisation for whom I act as treasurer.

Many people put a disclaimer on their Twitter. My biography had such a disclaimer which said: “The views expressed here are Andy’s and not necessarily those of BHT”. Why I felt it necessary to write about myself in the third person, I don’t know. I set up my own account unlike the CEO of another charity (not local) whose PR team would not give him the password to his own Twitter account. This caused no end of amusement when that became public knowledge.

So today I changed my twitter profile. Gone is reference in the third person, and as for the disclaimer, I have changed it to: “The views expressed here are probably not those of BHT other than tweets relating to Stoke City which are all official BHT policy”.  It is about as valid as any other worthless disclaimer!

Twitter, who I am following, emails, and some shameless self-promotion

Do you, like me, sometimes pretend to know what people are saying when in fact you don’t?  I find this happens often on social media which can be fast moving and I find myself running just to stand still.

I don’t really get LinkedIn, I keep up with my daughter and nieces (I have no nephews) through Facebook, and feel out of my depth with most other social media. But I love Twitter. Some people liken Twitter to another email inbox. It is nothing like that. While emails demand and consume, Twitter feeds and inspires. While emails are a burden, Twitter is an inspiration.

I used to read two or three newspapers a day, now the only daily I read is the wonderful Brighton Argus. People criticise the Argus, but we would sorely miss it if it was not there. The cause for turning my back on daly papers is Twitter. I get far more information through Twitter, access to good writing, and most of all, I am entertained.

I follow too many people. It is said that it is possible to effectively follow a maximum of 150 people. I know I skim read my Twitter feed but there are those Brighton folk whose posts I always read including @Tony_Mernagh @huxley06 @robert_nemeth @ridgwaytim @brightonargus @BHcitynews @ChSuptBartlett @LisaSaysThis @ValeriePearce @RichDB_Brighton @IanChisnall @MelitaRadio @OurDaughtersUK @AMOQI @bonettpa @ArgusBizness and, in the interest of political balance, @chrishawtree @CoxGraham and @ThePennyDrops as well as my 45 or so @bht_sussex colleagues who are on Twitter. An absolute delight is @davemarthur who invariably makes me laugh or otherwise reminds me of my political roots. Apologies to those I have not mentioned – the list was getting rather long.

Being followed by famous people can be very flattering until you realise that three of the ‘big names’ who follow me follow thousands, even tens of thousands of people. I was thrilled when Desmond Tutu followed me. It wasn’t a fake account, it was actually the Tutu Foundation, sadly not the great man himself.

But back to my main point, not keeping up with the jargon. I have sympathy for David Cameron. I too thought LOL was “lots of love” although it is something I have never tweeted, and certainly never to Rebekah Brooks! I regularly RT but I hadn’t realised that I also MT. Apparently I have been MT-ing for months. I learned today that one should insert MT if you have modified a tweet, MT standing for ‘Modified Tweet’.

When I first joined Twitter I didn’t realise that to RT did not imply endorsement although, as was pointed out to me last year, a pattern of RT-ing can convey a message, such as the number of Tweets I re-Tweeted on the impact of welfare reform.

I had hoped that to MT was to offer some kind of endorsement, as in ‘meaningful tweet’. Alas, no. There are some tweets I would like to endorse. I would suggest ET but that acronym has already been taken.

I will continue to RT and try to remember to MT. When I do, it usually implies, but not always, endorsement from me, for what that is worth, which is probably not a lot! If you have yet to join Twitter, delay no more. A good starting place is to follow @AndyWinterBHT. How is that for a shameless bit of self-promotion!