Save Our Job Centres - protest November 6th

Via Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group

Monday November 6^th 3-4pm

Department of Work and Pensions, Caxton House, 12 Tothill St, Westminster, SW1H

The government has already closed 24 jobcentres since August this year. They plan to close a further 78 Jobcentres by April of 2018.

16 of these Jobcentres are in London.

The poor and vulnerable need local jobcentres, not some superhub that they have to walk miles to reach.

Benefit money is too little to cover regular trips on public transport. People will have to walk. And don't be late or too ill to walk over a mile each way as often as the jobcentre demands– you'll be up for a sanction!

The Tories say that much of the jobcentres' work is now done online, but 5.3 million people in Britain have never used the internet, and 10 million lack the basic digital skills. And millions of these people will be in receipt of benefits.

You can't use the internet if you are learning disabled.

You can't use the internet if you can't afford a computer or a mobile phone contract or or the fee for using library or internet cafe

You can't use the internet if you are illiterate (and six to eight million Britons are borderline or fully illiterate)

Our local Jobcentres, Kilburn and Neasden, serve one of the most deprived areas in the country. If they are closed then over half of the borough of Camden and around two thirds of Brent will be more than half a mile from the nearest jobcentre, i.e. more than a mile round trip. These areas contain heavily populated areas: a lot of people are going to be affected.

In amongst the people who can't use the internet are hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their disability benefit because they aren't disabled enough for the Tories. They may be able to walk just 200 metres, or sometimes panic when out and get lost, or nor be able to plan a journey to places they don’t know, or have epilepsy. They may be seriously depressed or suffering from brain fog brought on by medication or illnesses like Fibromyalgia. They may be recovering from cancer or waiting for a heart operation. They may have variable conditions that mean that they can't guarantee being able to go out at all on any particular day.

But if you miss an appointment, or are simply late, you'll be considered for a sanction!

Let's meet outside the DWP's headquarters at Caxton House and let them know what we think about this.

Save our Jobcentres!

The 16 London jobcentres that are closing are:
Highgate, 24 November 2017
Edgware, 8 December 2017
Finchley, 12 January 2018
Dagenham, 19 January 2018
Southall, January 2018
Kingston, February 2018
Brixton,- 9 February 2018
Neasden 16 February 2018
Clapham 23 February 2018
Kilburn, March 2018
Hammersmith 9 March 2018
Croydon, 16 March 2018
Wandsworth, 23 March 2018
Leytonstone,- 30 March 2018
Hounslow, 10 Montague Road,

An account of a recent meeting on the issue can be found on the Brent Green Party blog HERE

Brent gears up to register more voters

Daily Mirror NOVOTENOVOICE Campaign 2010

Cllr Neal Nerva presented the report of the Task Group on Electoral Engagement at the Scrutiny Committee this week. LINK The report deals both with the repercussions of Individual Electoral Registration which replaces registration by head of household and the wider issues of lack of  engagement by different communities in the democratic process of registering and voting.

Individual regestration will not impact on the 2015 General Election but will do so at subsequent elections.

The Task Group assessed the extent of registration by matching information from the Department of Work and Pensions with data on the Electoral Register. The highest match was Kenton ward  at 79% and the lowest 56% in Mapesbury and Willesden Green.

The Task Group also looked at the characteristic of each ward which yielded some interesting results:

Cllr Nerva said that there was a particular challenge in the population of 20-30 year olds who were renting privately and perhaps only living in the area for one or two years. There was a need to communicate with these residents and make the case for the wider advantages of registration such as enabling people to get credit ratings and sign up to mobile phone contracts as well as  accessing a range of other 21st century trappings.

He also made the point that if a person was registered it made deciding NOT to vote an 'active' choice.

The context of different wards meant that different stratagies are necessary in each and the report outlines some of the possibilities and different  voluntary groups and organisations that could be involved. LINK

Citing the 97% registration rate in Scotland before the Referendum, Nerva suggested that the percentage of the population registered to vote should be a key council performance indicator.

One suggestion by Nerva that may prove controversial was that elected members should be involved in voter registration through what he called 'supplementary door knocking' and stalls in public places encouraging registration.

He said this would not be party political and there would be no rosettes except perhaps Brent identification. 

In a contribution to the Committee I suggested that in addition to the strategies outlined officers should go into primary schools to address Parent Forums, which often have high attendance,  about registration and suggested this was a good way of spreading the word as those parents would then speak to family and friends.

This is a solid report and well worth looking at in detail. It will be going to Cabinet in January 2015.