Guest Blog by Scott Bartle who was the Green Party candidate for Mapesbury ward in the local election
The Private Rented Sector Licensing Consultation.
Brent Council have released their consultation paper for the Private Rented Sector Licensing.
The consultation can be found
HERE
This was initially discussed at the Brent Council Executive Meeting on Tuesday 22nd April 2014.
What
I am interested in, as I'm sure you are is Council's making policy
based upon firm evidence, but the research this private rented sector
licensing is based upon is very shoddy, hence its very important for
people to have their say in the consultation.
After a review of the research it is clear that
1)The
anti-social behaviour and the case scenarios that
are described in the report are best dealt with by the police who have
relevant anti-social behaviour orders to do with it. There is a lot of
conflation between Anti-social behaviour and criminal acts.
2) The sample size of people that responded was too small. In total 121
households renting in the private sector out of 20,182 spoke to the
researchers (and 67 from other tentures). Their perspectives can not be
considered representative, and their responses will be bias as they
would have had a specific interest to speak to the researchers.
Of
these: only 3 people from Mapesbury ward responded and according the
map these are people living in housing association properties and A>
will not be affected by the tax and B> due to the nature of their
accommodation (and the nature of the banding system) have a higher
likelihood of vulnerable people with various difficulties living in the
properties.
3) HQN analysed both the Council and Police data to
map anti-social and some criminal behaviour in Brent to identify where
the anti-social behaviour was most concentrated. The 'anti-social' of
highest frequency relates to litter and flytipping.
At the Executive Council Meeting on
22 Apr 2014 7.00 pm
- Councillor Butt admitted that the data is corrupted by people that do
not live in the area (such as tourists visiting Wembley Stadium
dropping litter). Similarly one might ask if people would really 'poo on
their own doorstep' & flytip in their own local area. Often the
flytip appears to be related to building works and could thus be
identified as being left by people who are only in the area on short
term contracts. Similarly, in Mapesbury the data is skewed by the number
of adhoc workers on Chichele Road who litter etc who the local
dispersal order was directed towards.
In table 3: The majority of the acts listed are criminal acts and are already dealt with by the police.
e.g.
violence theft etc. Therefore one might ask if it is the role of the
Council (and if they really have the budget) to try and do police work.
4)
Similarly, they include 'burglary' in this statistics to evidence why
they should put this tax upon tenants and landlords who are both equally
likely to be victims of burglary. This policy will clearly not be
effective in solving 'burglarly' as an 'anti-social behaviour' by
placing a tax on the very people that are affected.
HQN has
analysed both Council and Police data to map anti-social and some
criminal behaviour in Brent to identify where anti-social behaviour is
most concentrated.
5) The research talks of problems with HMO's
(Houses of Multiple Occupancy) which indicates a [quoted from the
report] "A significant problem with the mangement and condition of HMOs
in Brent." - I would like to point out that HMOs are ALREADY Subject to
mandatory licensing under the Housing Act 2004 and are already under eye
of Brent Council. However, they are reported STILL be a significant
problem. This is further evidence that this Private Rented Sector
Licensing policy will not be effective at what it proposes to do and
will only serve to penalise residents in Brent for an issue that it is
clearly not possible for the council to deal with.
6. The consultation paperwork shows that The Enforcement Team in Brent’s
Private Housing Services unit records its activities dealing with
sub-standard accommodation in the private rented sector. Yet
prosecutions are very low - less than one a year. his is further
evidence to show that sub-standard accommodation is not an issue that Brent Council can affect
real change with. There is also no evidence to suggest changing the accommodation will reduce anti-social behaviour.
7. Punishing the residents of Brent for
increased littering or flytip due to a failure in contract negotiations
with Veolia very unfair. According to the results of a freedom of
information request Brent did not ringfence funding for specific tasks
when they outsourced the public the service to a private company. The
primary aim of a private company is to make profits therefore based upon
the reduction in service, the poor collection of bins and additional
issues experienced with Veolia it is clear they are squeezing service to
increase their income.
8) The final figures in the report states that the six wards where the most anti-social behaviour was recorded were, in order:
Willesden Green, Mapesbury, Wembley Central, Aperton, Northwick Park and Harlesden.
In the report the authors state themselves that "
the number of incidents was small - less than 35 a year."
35 divided by the 21 wards in Brent = 1.6* incidents, per ward per year.
This is evidence that the only purpose for this policy can be for income generation and this a stealth tax.
We
must remember, that a council tax increase has already been proposed so
it is unclear if this is a fair way to deal with the issue.
At the beginning of the consultation it states:
"Brent’s private rented sector has over 35,000 properties many of which offer good
accommodation but some are of poor quality. There is evidence that poor quality accommodation can contribute
to anti-social behaviour and there may be other associated problems including overcrowding."
It
is well known that 'poor quality accommodation' is often lived in my
people with limited means and is generally considered to be an indicator
of people living in Poverty. Ergo - with this policy they are blaming
the poor for 'anti-social behaviour' and wish to tackle this by a
licensing the landlords, who will pass the costs on to the tenants
thereby further increasing inequality and making the people who live in
this accommodation poorer. Also worrying is the parallels this has to
the 1986 Westminter 'homes for votes' scandal where the conservatives
allegedly aimed to force out the poorer sections of society to increase
their vote share.
Most people everywhere have concerns relating to
'anti-social behaviour' and the people in Mapesbury would be no
different in that regard, but the question is if the research this
policy is based upon and the problem it purports to solve is sound. In
this
case, the research is not as it conflates 'anti-social behaviour' with
criminal behaviour and also confuses correlation with causation. It is ill thought out and is clearly not the
solution to the issue.
Reference:
a) The Consultation details on the Brent Website
HERE
b) The details from the Executive Meeting
HERE
