Two Islingtons: Understanding the Problem - Islington Council

www.islington.gov.uk/fairness
Two Islingtons: Understanding the
Problem
Review of Delivery and Action
1. Introduction
1.1. This paper summarises some of the key actions in Islington, across the Council and the
wider strategic partnership, to address fairness and equality. The paper is intended to
assist the Commissioners in understanding the range and flavour of the actions that are
currently being delivered in Islington to tackle equality and fairness from a number of
different perspectives. In many ways the impact of these actions being taken will be
cumulative, reinforcing and have positive spill over affects for a range of outcomes that we
want to achieve in Islington. For example, action to tackle deprivation can have positive
impacts on housing inequalities, which can have positive impacts on health inequalities
and so on.
1.2. Because of the linked nature of the actions taken to tackle fairness and inequality it is very
complicated to measure the totality of the impact an individual activity may have. This
paper is not intended to assess the value for money of individual actions and there is no
assessment of the relative merits or contribution of different types of interventions, so in
fact there may well be better ways drive up fairness and equality at less cost. However an
attempt has been made to assess the impact of certain activities as far as possible. It is
not always possible to assess the affect of some kinds of activity either because they are
fairly new initiatives or because the affect of the activity will only be measurable over time.
For example identifying statistical trends in mortality rates from cardiovascular diseases is
only possible over a period of years, however it is possible to identify the impact of
activities to reduce smoking cession which can indicate the likelihood of reducing death
from cardiovascular disease as smoking is a key risk factor.
1.3. To help guide the Commission this paper only focuses on a limited number of activities
and it is not intended to be comprehensive. Instead it sets out the range and flavour of
activities across fairness and equality issues. Further detail about specific policies can be
found in the individual strategies, action plans and publications that underpin this paper.
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The main documents are summarised in the paper available on the Fairness Commission
website what do people think and do about fairness in Islington. Key items are grouped
2. Improving Aspirations and Education
2.1. Pupil attainment levels differ significantly within the borough. Pupils from less prosperous
backgrounds do not perform as well as those from wealthier backgrounds. Pupils eligible
for free school meals perform below those not eligible. At GCSE White British pupils underperform
against other ethnic groups and overall boys slightly outperform girls. Low
attaining groups aged between 7 and 11, (Key stage 2 - KS2) include Turkish, Kurdish,
Somali and Black Caribbean and at GCSE White, Somali, Mixed and Black Caribbean.
The largest single NEET group is White (53%) with young White men being
disproportionally represented. A high proportion of disabled people have no qualifications
and disabled people, particularly those with learning difficulties, are disproportionately
NEET.
2.2. However, year on year exam results are improving. Additionally the gap between Islington
school students on free school meals and their peers at GCSE is now the lowest in
England; while attainment of Black students is now equal to or above (in the case of those
of African origin) this group nationally. The gap for White students is also narrowing and
Islington students with English as an additional language now attain at the same level as
this group nationally.
2.3. The 2009 GCSE results showed that boys’ attainment, especially attainment by Black boys
continues to improve sharply, and there was a 7% rise in White British attainment. A
renewed focus is needed on girls in all ethnic groups, as apart from Turkish children all
ethnic group girls performed below boys of the same background and Turkish and
Bangladeshi progress may be stalling after major gains in recent years.
2.4. The Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children’s and Young People’s Services
(C4EO) highlights the wealth of research showing that high quality early learning has a
major and lasting positive impact on all children, but especially poor children. An effective
focus on language and literacy development in the early years, particularly for children
from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with English as an additional language, is a
particularly effective strategy in narrowing the gap.
2.5. The Narrowing the Gap programme which is supported through the Local Area
Agreement (LAA) is focussing on specific ethnic groups at both 7-11yrs (KS2) and at 14-
16yrs (KS4) and these efforts are having an impact, particularly for Black and Mixed
Heritage boys. In addition, targeted work of identifying improvements in curriculum
delivery in some schools in specific subject areas is also starting to have an impact. The
programme has a number of activities and projects that sit within it, for example, schools
are encouraged to effectively use performance data available to them so that specific
issues in relation to that particular school or class are picked up and addressed. The idea
is that the gaps are found, strategies put in place, monitored, and then success celebrated.
The issue will depend on the school and class and the gap could be across any equality
group. The 1-1 tuition project targets students who have fallen behind, or who are at risk of
falling behind, and is targeted at where the need is rather than a particular equality group.
10 hours of individual 1-1 tuition is given and monitored to help bring the child up to level
with his or her peers.
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2.6. However, recently released (provisional 2010) KS2 attainment data shows that the
percentage of pupils achieving level 4 or above in Maths and English has remained at
similar levels to the previous two years, at around 70%. This is significantly below the
target of 77% and below the England average of 74%. Additionally Islington girls
significantly out perform boys achieving 75% attainment against 68%.
2.7. These results are currently not available by ethnic breakdown for 2010, however 2009
results shows that overall progress of BME pupils at KS2 matches that of White British
pupils at level 4 and above with a strong improvement in Maths for Turkish and Black girls,
and in English for Black Caribbean girls. Progress at level 5 in Maths has been sustained
for Turkish and Bangladeshi pupils. However the English gap at level 5 is increasing for all
BME groups when compared to White British Pupils.
2.8. Overall KS4 attainment rose by 6% in 2009 but it remains significantly lower than the
performance of our comparators. Performance also rose for the White and Mixed ethnic
groups but again attainment of these groups is much lower than the national average.
Improving outcomes at KS4 remains a key priority, both to continue to narrow the gap
between Islington performance and national performance and to continue to ensure that no
schools are below the 30% threshold or within the 5% of that threshold.
2.9. Outcomes for the lowest achieving 20% of children at the end of the Early Years
Foundation Stage (reception class) have improved year on year since 2006. In 2010, for
the first time, rates of improvement have been faster for the bottom 20% than for the rest
and the gap, (expressed as a percentage between the median score and mean score of
the lowest 20%), has decreased from 40% in 2007 to 34.8% in 2010, achieving the
equalities target for the year.
2.10. By 19 years only 36.2% of young people who went to Islington schools had attained a
Level 3 qualification (2 A Levels at grade A-E or equivalent) and only 63.1% had achieved
a level 2 qualification (5 GCSEs at A*-C, or equivalent), at the end of the 2008/09
academic year. The level 2 rate is the lowest level in London (and the second lowest in the
country), whilst the level 3 rate is the second lowest in London. These figures mean that
too few young people can access good jobs or higher education.
2.11. The Councils new 14-19 strategy sets out a robust action plan to address this low
attainment. This includes actions to ensure schools take more responsibility for the
progression pathways their students take, steering students during the later stages of
education to the higher quality provision post 16, ensuring that no young people fall
through the net as well as a broad range of provision post 16 for all students, no matter
what their ability.
2.12. Childrens Centres provide a means to address the significant equalities gap that can
open up in children’s well being and development by the time they reach the age of 3. It
has been shown on a national level that boosting the home learning environment at the
earliest stage (by providing culturally sensitive outreach and family support) and supporting
the transitions from home to early learning provision and then to mainstream school to be
particularly effective in addressing these inequalities.
2.13. Islington has a borough wide network of 16 Children’s Centres. These centres provide a
universal non-stigmatising environment in which to target children from when they are born
to when they are admitted to school with a range of support services from personalized
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care, education, health and family support. Bilingual family support workers have targeted
Somali, Bangladeshi and Turkish communities and have made a measurable difference to
widening access to children’s centre services. Islington’s admission’s policy ensures that
30% of care and education places in every children’s centre are allocated to vulnerable
children who are in need and who have been referred to the centre by social workers and
health professionals.
2.14. The NEET’s engagement programme is on track to deliver most of its targets for
contacting and engaging young people on programmes. However, the proportion
achieving accreditation and entering EET is slightly lower than targets would indicate
should be the case. Agreement was reached with City and Islington College to offer a
guarantee to all those 16 and 17 year olds who may have not yet taken up EET or who
needed to reconsider their pathway. This ‘January Guarantee’ provides additional access
to courses starting from January 2010. The official NEET’s count (Qtr3 2009/10) was 7.8%
which is the same as the previous year and above the central London average of 6.2%.
2.15. Considerable progress has been made towards positive change in comparison to our
neighbours over the last 5 years. The level of NEETs has reduced by nearly 10% from
October 2004 which is faster than the London average of 6%. Progress has also been
made towards reducing the number of people we don’t have information about. We are
continuing to stabilise this and as at September 2009 this stood at 4.2%. This performance
is as a result of a number of on going actions, for example, targeting of the most at risk
groups through data analysis, implementation of processes and procedures for tracking of
young people within certain timescales as part of every personal adviser’s work and the
Career Start project which provides employment and work experience opportunities for
looked after young people and care leavers.
2.16. We have a good understanding of the inequalities that exist in educational attainment as
there is a wealth of data collected and analysed on a regular basis. Addressing inequalities
in achievement is one of the main challenges facing the Council and its partners. Despite
year on year improvements overall in attainment results we continue to under-perform in
comparison to the national achievements and inequalities continue to exist between
different equality groups within the borough, particularly between different ethnic groups
and the genders. We know that 95% of our NEETs are from families on out of work
benefits highlighting the issue of intergenerational worklessness and that there is also a
high proportion of White children who are NEETs. The Children and Young Peoples plan
details how these inequalities are to be addressed. The Children’s Services Ofsted self
assessment document (July 2010) provides the needs assessment for the plan which will
be completed by April 2011.
3. Family Based Interventions & Direct Support
3.1. Islington Council has launched a new volunteering project in partnership with national
charity Community Service Volunteers (CVS) called Think Family. The project is a
volunteer scheme aimed at supporting vulnerable families in which a parent or carer has
mental health problems and where there are children under the age of nineteen.
Volunteers make regular visits to families and offer non-judgmental practical and emotional
support to help them improve their family life. This could include a range of tasks including
helping socially isolated families access local services, enabling children to take part in
activities, offering support with parenting skills and practical household tasks and being a
role model to children and parents who might not have many in their lives.
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3.2. This project is a fairly new initiative and therefore the impact upon vulnerable families is yet
to be assessed. However, so far through the Think Family scheme 61 ‘whole families’ and
23 young carer ‘whole families’ have received direct support. The Whole Family
Assessments (WFA) assess families with complex needs related to parental mental illness.
3.3. The Packington Families Project is a partnership between Children’s Services and
Housing which tailors support and advice to families on a range of issues including money
advice, finding work and training, parenting, housing, health, school and activities for
children and young people. The involvement of Housing means the project identifies and
engages families early on rather than when a crisis arises and the “think family” approach
ensures the whole family gets the support it needs regardless of which agency they
contact first. The project focuses on the Packington Estate and is based on resident
consultation, local data and agency knowledge that showed that as well as being in the 5%
most deprived areas of the UK, a larger number of families had additional needs including
poor school attendance and high dependence on benefits. Families could be identified
through one of the project’s 17 partners or could self-refer through outreach, community
events and a weekly drop-in.
3.4. The approach is based on a model of integrated working in use across the children’s
workforce, which uses the Common Assessment Form – CAF (or in this case a family
CAF); this includes strong information sharing arrangements and a common language
across practitioners to support the families and a lead practitioner to hold the ring in a team
around the family. Integrated working is fundamental to how we undertake earlier
intervention with children, young people and their families. Over 800 practitioners have
been trained since the integrated working programme started in 2007, most of them in
universal settings
3.5. In total the project has engaged with 26 families since it launched in February 2009,
exceeding the project target of 20 families. Outcomes for the families to date include:
• Income maximisation; around £5000 in grants and one-off payments have been secured,
over £200 of debts have been cancelled and over £600 per week has been secured in
additional benefits for the families,
• School absenteeism of children in these families has reduced,
• Anti social behaviour issues have been successfully addressed for six families who were
identified as being involved with youth-related ASB. There have been improvements for all
families, including fewer or no reports of ASB, engagement of parents with the process
and providing support to prevent Notices Seeking Permission going to court proceedings.
3.6. The Free School Meals pilot has taken place in 6 primary schools, providing meals to all 3
to 11 year olds. Take-up of school meals within these schools increased from 62% to 82%.
The project will now roll out to all primary and nursery schools. This should benefit parents
on low incomes earning above the threshold for national criteria. The impact of this
initiative is yet to be assessed but it is anticipated that the long term outcomes will include
an increase to family incomes, which will impact significantly on those families who are sat
on the poverty margins, as well as behavioural improvements at school and long term
health benefits for the children.
3.7. The Rocket Science report ‘Consumer Debt in Islington’ (Jan 2010) sets out the picture
of consumer debt across the borough. Postcodes were analysed against 5 consumer debt
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3.8. The Council and several partner organisations have formed a coalition to tackle debt in
Islington. The Debt Coalition aims to help Islington residents with debt problems as part
of the boarder anti-poverty strategy. The main objective of this initiative is to raise the
importance of debt prevention and recovery, putting the importance of tackling debt at the
heart of the local anti-poverty strategy. The Debt coalition projects come under the theme
of prevention, mitigation, corporate good practice, communication and evaluation.
Examples of projects include linking up with other organisations working on financial
inclusion, financial capability and other areas as well as training frontline staff to provide
high quality information to residents. The Debt coalition strategy was signed off in February
2010 and therefore the projects are still in the early stages of development and
implementation.
3.9. Research from two pilot projects in illegal money lending shows that it reinforces financial
and social exclusion and exacerbates anti-social behaviour. Evidence suggests that
victims of illegal lending are likely to be female, lone parents or disabled. Over half of the
victims will have defaulted with other legal lenders and have exhausted all other credit
lines. The Financial Inclusion Team work with victims to identify the issues that have led
them to resort to loan sharks and support them in accessing appropriate support and
advice within the community. Specific work has included the distribution of posters and
leaflets across the borough, including information in money advice awareness sessions
given to local advice agencies and community groups, a presentation at Islington Housing
Action Group and advertising the service through this years council tax bill.
3.10. The Council funds free advice services for residents delivered by the borough’s specialist
independent advice agencies (Islington Law Centre, Islington People’s Rights and Islington
CAB). These allow residents on low incomes to get advice and representation on a range
of issues including, housing, welfare benefits, debt, employment and immigration.
Combined, the three agencies handle over 80,000 enquiries each year and provide
detailed casework to around 13,500 residents. Additionally as part of the Council’s
recession support, £25,000 was given to develop the capacity of smaller voluntary and
community organisations in the borough to provide advice to their users and effectively
diagnose and refer to appropriate specialist advice services where necessary. 310 training
places were attended by staff and volunteers from 67 different local voluntary
organisations supporting a range of residents (in particular, LBGT, the disabled, refugees
and asylum seekers, faith groups and older and younger people).
3.11. A range of other activities and projects have been implemented contributing to assisting
residents out of debt, these include:
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• During 2009/10, the Islington Credit Union was able to increase its membership by 75%
and provided 549 individual loans. Assisted through funding from the Council the union
helps residents who find it difficult to get credit from standard lenders, diverting them away
from sub-prime borrowers who charge exorbitant rates of interest.
• Benefit checks to all working households with children where income is below the 60%
median and all those with earned income,
• A Credit Crunch Hotline and Credit Crunch Roadshows offering advice and guidance
to residents,
• The Springboard project which is aimed at assisting residents with a wide range of
disabilities including physical, mental, visual, hearing and learning difficulties, with over a
third of clients reporting multiple impairments. The project has set up a debt advice service
in partnership with the Citizens Advice Bureau and monthly financial advice sessions
provided by the Financial Services Authority. Partnerships with Age Concern and Elfrida
amongst others have enabled the project to ensure it gives advice on as wide a range of
subjects as possible to this vulnerable section of the community.
3.12. The ISP commissioned ‘Energy Doctor in the Home’ project has a target to visit and
work with 600 residents a year. All Energy Doctor work and events are targeted towards
those wards and sections of the community most likely to be in fuel poverty such as the
elderly and people with disabilities. £4.3M has been secured for 2009-11 from the Homes
and Communities Agency to insulate 6000 hard to treat cavity-walled Homes for Islington
properties, reducing bills for many tenants and also helping with CO2 emissions. The
number of households where work has been done to improve energy efficiency stood at
4106 for quarter 2010/11. This new indicator counts all the achievements arising from a
basket of schemes and programmes including ‘safe and warm’ grants for owner/occupiers,
HFI cavity wall insulation and Energy Doctor in the Home. The Energy Doctor in the Home
service in particular is highly popular with excellent customer feedback. This work should
directly benefit those households where work has been carried out, saving money spent on
fuel for the home.
4. Access to Work and Employment
4.1. Employment and worklessness are significant issues for Islington residents. We know that
fewer women than men are economically active, with women in Islington lower paid than
men. In terms of ethnicity 36% of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women have no
qualifications, and first generation Pakistani men are almost twice as likely as their White
comparators to have no qualifications. Unemployment for Bangladeshi men is twice that
for White men and Black Caribbean men are most likely to be unemployed. A high
proportion of disabled people have no qualifications and just 49% of disabled people are
employed (compared with 66.3% non-disabled). In Islington, 38,000 people, equivalent to
about 26.% of the working age population, are economically inactive. This is slightly
higher than the rest of London where 25% of the working age population is economically
inactive and the rest of Britain where 24% is. Ward data shows that the highest
unemployment is in Finsbury Park and Hillrise and there are 10 wards in Islington 1.5%+
above the national average. However recently released 2009 skills data shows an
improvement in skill levels across the borough within the % of working age population with
a level 2,3 or 4 qualification all increasing from 2008 with the biggest increase in those with
a level 3 qualification improving from around 60% in 2008 to 65 % in 2009. Additionally the
level of local people with no qualifications has dropped below the London and GB
averages for the first time since these records have been published (2004), dropping 3%
points to 11%, 1% point below the new London figure.
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4.2. In terms of poverty around 40% of 0-15 year olds are living in families on means tested
workless benefits, which represents 14,055 of a total of 35,453 Islington children aged 0-
15. There are over 16,500 children and young people aged 0-19 living in workless
families. Older people from BME groups are more likely to live in households below
national income level (31% compared with general figure of 20%) and are far more likely to
experience problems claiming benefits than White British (only 11% BME have NOT had
problems compared with 42% White). In Islington, the highest rate of people never having
worked is amongst the Bangladeshi community around 29%. This rate is proportionally
nine times that of White British residents and significantly higher than the Islington average
with is around 6%. A range of activities and actions has been in place to mitigate the
impact of the recession upon residents including
4.3. Islington Working, Islington Working for Parents and Adult and Community Learning
provide Islington’s main support services to helping local people become skilled,
employable and confident about finding work. The services work closely together to
ensure that there is a progression route towards getting and keeping a job and at the same
time offers a recruitment service to employers.
4.4. The Islington Working package of training and employment support assists a wide range
of Islington clients, offering paid work and work experience placements to Islington
residents. The worklessness programmes are targeted to address the needs of
disadvantaged communities with BME clients making up 68% or over of the total of those
receiving employment support or starting a paid job. Disabled clients make up 15% of
those receiving employment support. Activities have included Islington Working link officers
working with ‘Connect’ to roll out neighbourhood outreach and referral door knocking in
Finsbury Park while community ‘employment coaches’ are also working with out-reach
health workers and health centres. There are eight specialist parent advisers to delivery
new services to support lone parents with children under 7 and other parents with children
under 4 to help them work towards employability and to start planning towards
employment. The staff work very closely with benefits advisers, health workers and
children’s centre staff to ensure that parents receive their maximum benefits entitlement
and ‘better off’ calculations before entering work. To date the team have supported 627
parents and 141 have been referred for training.
4.5. During 2009/10 Islington engaged with 2,000 clients who were 44% female, 10% disabled
and 67% BME of which 50% had been out of work for 6 months or more. Over the year,
689 clients were successful in securing either paid employment or a substantial work
experience placement. 539 clients secured paid employment of 16 hours a week or more
through Islington Working, including 167 through the Future Jobs Fund project; a further 20
secured paid employment for less than 16 hours a week and 130 secured a work
experience placement. During 2010/11 to date a further 579 clients are being supported
including 142 parents with 102 gaining work. The service to deliver on this project is
through Islington Working for Parents.
4.6. The Adult and Community Learning (ACL) programme helps residents in the
development of functional and employability skills, including language skills, and referral to
projects that can assist with vocational training, job hunting skills and introductions to
employers with vacancies. The main educational partner is City and Islington College
(CIC). ACL and CIC are working together to deliver a new ESOL, literacy and numeracy
project funded through the Islington Strategic Partnership’s Social and Economic Well-
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Being Board (SEW). ACL also works in partnership with voluntary organisations and other
statutory services. ACL’s mission is to improve the quality of life and life chances for
Islington’s most disadvantaged and vulnerable adults and their families, many of whom are
furthest away from the labour market. Most of these residents have been disengaged from
education and would not access provision in mainstream educational settings. In 2009-10
ACL courses were attended by 2,182 learners, with a total of 5,123 enrolments across the
year. Additionally the number of Islington residents achieving Pre Entry, Entry Level, Level
1 and Level 2 skills and qualifications totalled 1,502 throughout 2009/10.
4.7. Further employment and training opportunities are gained through S106 planning
agreements and are used to secure construction training placements for local residents, as
well as a range of opportunities for training in the end use of the employment
developments. Developers have also signed up to the Council's local procurement
programme through which £7m of contracts have been awarded to Islington and Camden
firms in the first year of the current programme. Local companies employ a higher
proportion of Islington residents compared with outside firms and so this helps to create
further local employment opportunities.
4.8. The Child Poverty Innovation Pilot aims to help those children living in poverty within the
borough. There are 3 arms to child poverty: development and analysis (using data to
effectively target those families and children in poverty with services), delivery (the
principle underlying this approach is early intervention) and sustainability (training the 3rd
sector).
4.9. The project has also been imbedded via the service planning process which has so far
secured over 70 commitments across the council to improve child poverty. These range
from commitments to reviewing strategies to ensure that the needs of low income families
are considered, through to a commitment to train frontline staff to be able to provide
employment advice when they come into contact with people. Assessment of progress will
be made at the end of the financial year to measure the impact of the commitments made.
Availability of up to date data on child poverty within the borough, in comparison to other
authorities regionally and nationally, is limited and therefore the high-level impact of the
pilot in terms of data analysis won’t be available for some time.
4.10. In 2007 Age Concern Islington undertook research with the Islington benefits team to
identify the barriers experienced by older people from BME groups when trying to claim
benefits they are entitled to. The aim of the research was to develop solutions to overcome
these barriers, for the benefit of all older people. The final report ‘I never beg me bread
yet’ recommended a number of actions. Some of the projects implemented as a result
included creating mechanisms for word of mouth referrals, training for staff, and
improvements to communication material to target older people. As at March 2010 the
Joint Visiting Team and Islington Benefits Team had increased income maximisation for all
older people by £3 million. Since 2007 the average annual value generated by take up of
key benefits by people aged 60+ increased by £303 to £2,632, an increase of around 6%.
4.11. As with educational attainment inequalities, inequalities experienced by residents of the
borough in relation to access to work and employment is a significant challenge. It is
difficult to assess the impact of many of the projects and activities in place to tackle
worklessness when nationally the recession has had a significant impact on employment
and income. However, we do know that Islington is narrowing the gap with the rest of
England in relation to the National Indicators on reducing child poverty and reducing the
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5. Tackling Housing Inequalities
5.1. There are significant inequalities between residents in regards to access to and the
provision of affordable housing and decent housing within the borough. More women than
men live in non-decent / social housing. Older disabled people and those suffering from
long-term physical & mental health problems are more likely to have a lack of housing or
inadequate / poor quality housing and 40% of children live in overcrowded unfit housing.
Housing inequalities are significantly impacted upon by the availability of affordable
housing in the borough and severe over-crowding issues.
5.2. Islington has a high level of social housing, and a high level of inequality and these two
facts are almost certainly correlated. The John Hills report ‘Ends and means: the future
roles of social housing in England’ (2007) states that tenants are more likely to have low
incomes and not be in employment compared to those in other tenures. Nationally 70% of
social tenants have incomes within the poorest two fifths of overall income distribution and
the proportion of social tenant households in paid employment fell from 47% to 32%
between 1981 and 2006. Tenants also have high rates of disabilities and are more likely
than others to be lone parents, single people and be over 60. Additionally, more than a
quarter of BME household are social tenants.
5.3. Reducing overcrowding: Overcrowding officers have been dealing with the housing
queries raised by the door knocking initiatives in the borough such as ‘Help on your
doorstep’, ‘the Canonbury Project’ and ‘EC1 New Deal’. Six tenants have taken up the
‘Time Out’ scheme and moved into private sector homes suitable for their needs. An
additional 15 families have been helped with space saving furniture to mitigate the affects
of living in an overcrowded home while they wait for a housing transfer. The annual target
to assist 160 severely overcrowded households has been met with 278 households
assisted in 2009-10. Of those applicants within the third quarter of 2009-10 the majority
came from the under 16 age group and from White British or Black African households.
5.4. Homelessness: A number of projects are in place to tackle homelessness within the
borough. Work has been undertaken to address the findings of the Black Homelessness
study of December 2007. Workshops were held with the voluntary sector to see how the
findings could be taken forward and as a result a number of internal processes and
procedures were revised such as establishing an email alert system to advise on changes
in policies and legislation with regard to housing and homelessness issues. Additionally
the Homelessness Forum progresses issues within the borough. During April-Jan 2009/10
569 residents were prevented from becoming homeless and 53 unsuccessfully prevented.
Since 2006-07 the numbers of residents accepted as homeless and in priority need per
10000 households has significantly decreased within the borough (from 2.0 to 0.7) and is
now on a par with London, although higher than the England figure.
5.5. The Home Shelter Sanctuary Scheme offers the victims of domestic violence the option
of remaining in their home as an alternative to making an application for emergency
housing assistance. The scheme is a partnership between the Council, the Police and
Kier; who enable the victims of Domestic Violence the opportunity to remain in their home
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ut with extra security measures such as locks and fireproof letterboxes to make them feel
secure. The scheme is open to tenants, leaseholders or home owners.
5.6. In the last financial year 54 households have been assisted who would otherwise have
been homeless and placed into temporary accommodation, many of these households
contain children who would have had their schooling disrupted by a move to new
accommodation. The scheme has been running since 2005 during which time it won a
national innovation award and has helped hundreds of families.
5.7. Maximising the delivery of affordable housing is a key priority. The authority is using its
planning powers to tackle the acute shortage of housing that can be accessed by local
residents. Through the Core Strategy, the council's spatial plan for the next 15 years, the
Council has set a target of 50% of all new housing developments to be affordable. During
2008/9, 492 affordable homes were provided in Islington (Annual Monitoring Report 2009),
this is more than the amount of affordable housing built by the vast majority of London
boroughs. The majority of these 492 homes are social housing, and they have been
allocated to Islington's residents who are in greatest need. A smaller proportion of the
above figure is 'intermediate' housing. These are normally 'part rent, part buy' properties,
usually allocated to key workers and local residents who meet eligibility criteria.
5.8. The Council requires a range of types of provision and financial contributions from
developers through planning S106 agreements as a part of the planning process. This is
the main route for affordable housing delivery in the borough. Contributions for enhancing
and increasing the capacity of facilities and infrastructure have been secured to offset the
impacts of developments, but also with significant benefit for existing residents. In the last
two financial years 160 local transport, open space, community, playspace and leisure
schemes have been funded including improvements to open spaces and other facilities.
Many of these are located in and around the Council's housing estates and are accessible
to the borough's most deprived residents
5.9. Green spaces are now seen as a determining factor in regeneration projects, projects that
do not address the environment often produce places where people do not want to live and
those that can will leave once able to do so, however this creates inequalities between
residents who have access to good quality green spaces. In Islington greenspace on
housing estate land has been brought up to the same grounds maintenance standard of
parks. Green flags awarded for the quality of parks have been focused on the 10% most
deprived super output areas in the borough, therefore reducing the disparities in the quality
of greenspaces across the borough.
5.10. Additionally a key objective in the Local Development Framework Core Strategy is to
ensure that new developments and the spaces around it provide a high quality
environment that is accessible to all residents, employees and visitors. To that end the
authority operates inclusive design and accessible housing policies, against which all
planning applications are assessed. To enable developers to deliver on those policies
supplementary Planning Documents on ‘Accessible Housing’ and ‘Inclusive Landscape
Design’ have been produced. These documents were drawn up in liaison with the local
disability organisation and establish a standard that is unique to Islington.
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6. Reducing Health Inequalities
6.1. Health inequalities mirror other income and other inequalities in the borough. There is a
high prevalence of smoking amongst certain groups including Bangladeshi, Irish, Turkish,
Somali and Pakistani men. BME backgrounds are significantly over-represented in
specialist mental health services, in particular Black African, Black Caribbean and Irish
communities as well as a high level of mental health issues and disability amongst refuges
& asylum seekers. Child obesity in Islington is worse than national average – 25% of
children are obese and 40% are overweight by the age of 11-12 and children & young
people in Islington are 36% more likely than counterparts in London / England to
experience mental health problems.
6.2. There is a national target to reduce health inequalities by 2010, as measured by infant
mortality and life expectancy at birth. Life expectancy in Islington is lower than the national
average. Men in Islington have the lowest life expectancy in London at around 75 years,
and women have the fourth lowest life expectancy, at 81 years. Although life expectancy in
Islington is increasing, the gap between Islington and the rest of London and England is
widening, as life expectancy is increasing elsewhere at a faster rate.
6.3. The diffuse nature of health inequalities in Islington presents challenges when designing
interventions that target high risk groups, as well as interventions that address the health
needs across the whole population. Recommendations from the recently published
Marmot review and the Mayor of London health inequalities strategy recommend that all
interventions must address the whole population across the social gradient. This means
that small scale interventions targeting small numbers or groups are not effective to
improve overall health status in Islington over the long term. This approach, to address
health inequalities across the social gradient, requires universal action and interventions
where the whole population have the opportunity to benefit as well as targeted
interventions with particular high risk groups.
6.4. A programme of work over the short, medium and long term is in place to tackle existing
inequalities as identified in the Islington Health Inequalities Strategy, “Closing the Gap,
Tackling Health Inequalities in Islington”. Short term actions to improve life expectancy
focus on reducing early deaths across the borough. Diseases responsible for early
deaths include cardiovascular disease (CVD), cancer, infant deaths, and seasonal excess
deaths such as winter deaths. Projects and activities in place include the development of
the Seasonal Health and Affordable Warmth Strategy which will target individuals at
high risk of early death particularly winter deaths e.g. vulnerable elderly (particularly those
living alone or in care homes), those in poverty and fuel poverty and those unable to adapt
to adverse weather conditions – e.g. learning and physical disabilities.
6.5. Medium term actions aim to improve lifestyle behaviours which contribute to poor health
such as smoking, healthy eating, physical activity, alcohol and drug misuse, mental health,
sexual health and teenage pregnancy. Progress on three of the lifestyle areas are
identified in this paper; mental health, health eating and smoking cessation.
6.6. Projects and activities in place include implementation of the Islington Mental Health
Promotion Strategy with universal action to address stigma and discrimination and
promote early identification of mental heath problems. Targeted actions address
vulnerable communities and those in the criminal justice system, carers, and clients with
existing mental health problems. Long term actions aim to address social determinants
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of health such as the economy and employment, housing, education, and community
safety.
6.7. The Healthy Schools Programme supports schools in ‘Healthier Living and Learning’ –
providing opportunities for enhancing emotional and physical health to improve long-term
health, reduce health inequalities, increase social inclusion and raise achievement for all.
In Islington, the healthy schools programme acts as the key project to influence and
support schools’ work to address Islington’s health priorities.
6.8. At the start of the year ten Islington schools signed up for the enhancement model for
healthy schools. A co-ordinator has been appointed for the ‘Family Kitchen Programme’,
and they have recruited 15 schools and children’s centres to date to host the programme.
Work in 2 targeted schools has begun to increase the work in addressing healthy eating
and physical activity, developing their programmes from a base-line of practice. The new
primary PSHE Education and Citizenship scheme of work has been promoted to all
schools. There are now 59 schools within the borough with national healthy school status.
6.9. Obesity in primary school year 6 children has decreased since 2006/07 from 23.6% to
21.4% in 2009. Although the rate is below that of our statistical neighbours and similar to
London, it is above the England average and our long term goal of significantly reducing
childhood obesity rates and therefore remains a challenge. Worryingly obesity in reception
classes has risen from 10.6% in 2008 to 12.6% in 2009. In order to address this Islington
has also developed an innovative Healthy Children’s Centre Programme, designed to
address health inequalities, setting out standards and a process which bring together
elements of the Early Years Foundation Stage with the Healthy Child Programme. The
programme provides a structured and evidence-based approach for all activity taking place
in children’s centres and their linked services that relate to health and well-being of
children and families, including breast feeding and nutrition, immunisation, smoking
cessation, oral health and healthy lifestyles.
6.10. The Islington Play Strategy is being implemented to provide more and better play spaces
and opportunities for young children to be active. NHS Islington is also developing new
local obesity care pathways which will aim to accurately identify and manage individuals
that are overweight and obese, ensuring that services are in place to meet the needs of
the local population.
6.11. The Smoking Cessation programme aims to increase the number of people accessing
its services and those completing a successful 4 week quit. A number of staff were
recruited and trained to the project and it has succeeded all of its targets. BME populations
have been targeted through activities such as the Smokefree Ramadan campaign which
targeted Bangladeshi men, Pakistani men, Turkish men and women and Somali men. The
number of people successful quitting for 4 weeks during 2009-10 was 2386 exceeding
target. Local audit data on “access” to smoking cessation services shows that the service
is reaching the targeted groups fairly.
6.12. The Islington Smokefree Implementation Plan 2010-20 brings together a number of
partners whose aim is to sustain efforts to reduce smoking prevalence by promoting a
sustained smokefree environment in the borough, at every opportunity. The action plan
has 4 strands including; i) smokefree education, prevention and social marketing ii)
Reducing the harm from second hand smoke iii) Enforcement and Business Control and
iv) Provision of a flexible and responsive Stop Smoking service.
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6.13. Islington’s Food Strategy was developed in partnership with LBI, NHS Islington,
Cambridge Education and organisations from the voluntary sector. The strategy is based
around 3 key themes; Food and Poverty, Food and Health and Food and the Environment.
It sets out 10 key objectives including; Promoting a healthy diet, Making healthy food
accessible, Making healthy food affordable, Promoting safer food, Reducing our
environmental footprint, Promoting local food, Promoting ethical food, Reducing food
waste, Celebrating food and diversity, Identifying and targeting high risk groups. A detailed
action plan has been developed for each objective which is now being delivered by key
stakeholders from the Council, NHS and voluntary sector. As part of this a borough Food
Partnership is being set up, involving residents, community groups and organisations in
developing projects which will tackle local food issues.
6.14. One of the key projects to be delivered in the first year of the Food Strategy was the
Council’s community food growing programme Edible Islington. Edible Islington was
developed to meet a number of key aims in tackling inequality. These were to:
• Increase the availability of healthy affordable food to communities on low incomes
• Increase levels of both physical and mental health through food growing
• Increase social cohesion and community wellbeing
• Increase knowledge and awareness of the production of local food and its wider benefits
The programme is nearing completion and has establish new community food growing
projects across Islington as well as providing support, training and resources to residents
to help them grow local food. Edible Islington has funded over 85 new food growing
projects. It is estimated that the programme has benefitted around 7500 residents through
the development of these spaces with a further 1000 residents benefitting from the range
of training and support programmes that have run alongside the programme.
6.15. The impact of the various initiatives in place to tackle health inequalities will take time to be
realised, as long term health outcomes are hard to measure over short to medium periods
of time. Poor health is also attributed to many other issues such as poor housing and
access to good quality open space and therefore projects and activities which improve
outcomes in these areas, particularly for the most disadvantaged, will help to improve long
term health outcomes.
7. Empowering the community to tackle inequality
7.1. Under the Transforming Social Care programme a number of activities and actions have
been implemented to broaden the choice and improvement in the quality of care and
support service supplied. The Council is working with providers to influence their
development. We have been running education seminars for local providers to help them
prepare for personal budgets. We are starting a series of capacity building events
focusing on developing the services that we know users want more of, such as personal
assistants. (A personal assistant is a flexible care worker, who will carry out a range of
personal and social tasks and is typically employed by the service user directly). The
transformation of adult social care is being developed with existing service users, their
carers and other citizens, for example we fund and support two dedicated forums that work
alongside staff on the implementation of social care transformation, including personal
budgets. One group is a network comprising over 40 local groups that represent service
users and carers, such as the Islington Mental Health User Group and the Learning
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disability family carers’ group. The second is a ‘citizens’ jury’ of 14 service users with
different disabilities who are reviewing the detailed process of self-directed support. Both
groups have shaped many aspects of the new processes, such as the tools for
assessment and care planning, the appeals process and a new framework for
safeguarding vulnerable adults. During 2009/10 the service received 395 self directed
support cases. For 2010-11 the government has introduced a target of 30% of all cases to
be self directed.
7.2. The Council and the NHS have developed new services to respond to the requirements of
Putting People First, such as the Re-ablement service which opened last year. This is a
model of home care that enables people to regain their independence, working with people
for a 6 week intensive period. Over 400 people have now used the service, which is
offered to suitable people at their first point of contact with social services as a means of
both increasing their independence and well being and reducing longer term need for
social services input. Data from the first 9 months of operation showed that 56% of people
using the service were fully independent at the end of their 6 week programme and 36%
needed less support from care services than previously.
7.3. The Council and its partners support and fund a number of projects and activities which
build upon the capacity of community groups and voluntary organisations in order to
ensure that the borough has a sustainable third sector. This is achieved through providing
training for people in voluntary sector organisations and assisting community and voluntary
organisations to gain and sustain quality marks. During 2009-10 9 voluntary and
community organisations were supported to achieve a recognised Quality Mark for the
first time.
7.4. The Volunteering and Timebanks scheme recruits and places volunteers in various
organisations, undertaking outreach work and targeting minority groups. During April-June
2010-11 outreach work was carried out at the Bangladeshi Women’s Association and St
Magdaline asylum seeker centre under the diversity project and visits to the mental health
rehabilitation hostel and Islington Learning Difficulties Partnership Employment Fair were
carried out under the disability project. An additional 13 disabled people were supported
this quarter, with a range of impairments. The 13 people supported include 2 people with
severe and enduring mental health problems and 5 with physical disabilities. 45 disabled
people were supported to take part in volunteering during 2009/10. Timebanks bring
people together to help each other and improve their local community. Participants
'deposit' their time in the bank by giving practical help and support to others and are able to
'withdraw' their time when they need something done themselves. There is a network of
eight timebanks in Islington located in some of the most disadvantaged parts of the
borough and hundreds of local residents take part in timebank activities.
8. Equalities based approach to fairness
8.1. The Council is currently working towards achieving ‘excellence’ in the Equality
Framework. The framework embeds equality standards across the organisation which
address the six equality strands of age, disability, gender, race, religion/belief and sexual
orientation. The Equality Standard is a tool to combat the institutional processes that can
lead to discrimination as part of the culture, administration and governance that can be
found in many public organisations.
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8.2. Prevailing assumptions and practices can set up barriers that prevent fair access to
services and equal employment opportunities, which in turn can discriminate against
people on the grounds of age, disability, gender, race, religion or belief and sexual
orientation. Working with the Equality Standard enables Islington to mainstream equality,
which will ensure that discriminatory barriers are identified and removed. This is achieved
through the implementation of Departmental Equality Action Plans (DEAP’s) led on by
each department and overseen by the Corporate Equalities team as well as the
undertaking of Equality Impact Assessments which assess the potential impact of a policy
or project on the different equality strands.
9. Crime
9.1. Crime is a significant issue within the borough and affects different groups
disproportionately; 81% of victims of domestic violence are women and drug misuse is
higher amongst men. There is an over-representation of Black boys entering the Youth
Justice System and disabled people are more worried about crime and twice as likely to be
fearful of going out after dark. Young people are the main perpetrators and victims of crime
and over 40% of older people feel very unsafe out after dark.
9.2. An overview of Islington’s Total Notifiable Offences revealed that crime has continued to
decline during 2009, with an approximate 6% reduction compared to the previous year’s
figures (Apr to Dec compared to the same period in 2008). However more recently, this
long-term decline in total offences has appeared to slow, suggesting that levels are
beginning to plateau. Overall, Islington continues to be a high crime borough, with
comparatively more crimes than any other London Borough with the exception of
Westminster. Despite positive reductions, a number of offence categories saw increases
over the last year, most notably Hate Crime (8% up), Motor Vehicle Crime (7% up) and
most other areas of acquisitive crime (Theft & Handling offences up by 3% overall). This
rise was predicted as a possible consequence of the current economic issues in the
country A range of activities and actions are in place to tackle the inequalities in relation to
crime and safety;
9.3. The Triage Programme works alongside partners in the Police service to divert potential
first time entrants away from the youth justice system by offering a targeted package of
support services. The programme is targeted at young people committing gravity 1 and 2
level offences. Between its launch in June 2009 and Dec 2009, Triage has worked with 93
young people. 10 of the 93 have been re-arrested since and dealt with via the criminal
justice system; 2 others were still on Police bail as of Dec 2009. This represents a
relatively low rate of re-offending, and early indicators are that the Triage programme is
having a significant impact on reducing first time entrants.
9.4. For young people, crime & drugs there has been a focus on reducing re-offending,
preventing young people becoming victims of crime, improving attitudes towards
education, and reducing the risk of young people entering the criminal justice system. The
number of first time entrants to the youth justice system is improving- PNC results for
2008/09 show a 15.5% reduction on the previous year while the YJB submission for Q3
shows a 33% reduction – both measures are substantially better than London and YOS
family comparators. The charity Chance UK aimed reducing youth crime and anti-social
behaviour by providing one-to-one mentoring for children aged 5-11 with behavioural
difficulties using a solution focused approach. Well over 100 children have been mentored
have been mentored and 97 new mentors trained. 98% of children showed reductions in
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levels of behavioural difficulty and 51% showed no behavioural difficultly at all by the end
of the mentoring year.
9.5. The Integrated Offender Management (IOM) is the strategic framework that brings
together agencies to prioritise interventions with offenders who cause crime in their
locality. It builds and extends the framework that is used to work with Prolific and Priority
Offender’s and Drug Intervention Programme (DIP) and recognises that an offender who
may be cause for concern in a local area may end up being no-ones responsibility, in
particular if they are not on licence. The broad principle of IOM is that these offenders are
tackled together and that there is strategic buy in and ownership of delivering the IOM in
each local area. This project is the key operational tool for the delivery of Islington’s
Integrated Offender Management project and will focus on addressing offending behaviour
through the delivery of a range of interventions. The project is tasked to deliver the
partnerships targets on reducing with an emphasis on reductions in volume, seriousness
and type of offence amongst statutory and non statutory offenders and an increase in
successful convictions and sentencing of offenders who continue to commit crimes. The
projects current primary focus is on those committing serious acquisitive crimes in
Islington. The projects broad approach is focusing on targeting and working with specific
cohorts of offenders, as directed by the Safer Islington Partnership. It will take some time
to analyse the impact of this new approach.
9.6. Islington has high levels of Domestic Violence reporting with 5285 incidences and
offences reported to the Police during 2009-10. Projects and activities in place focus not
only on protection for DV victims but also work with perpetrators. MARAC is a monthly
multiagency public protection meeting attended by partners from the statutory and
voluntary sector to deal with high and very high risk victims of domestic violence (those at
risk of serious injury and death). The MARAC puts in a multi agency support plan around
the victim to reduce risk and decrease repeat victimisation. On average 16 cases a month
are heard at Islington’s MARAC. Perpetrator work is provided by the Domestic Violence
Intervention Project (DVIP) and referrals are made by Children’s Services. This is a pilot
project with up to 15 places available, with the quota already used for 2010/11. The launch
of the Victims of Violence project, working with NHS Islington, has helped to identify the
extent of under reporting of violent crime (particularly domestic and youth violence) and
increase the number of victims of these types of crimes entering the relevant services. The
current Domestic Violence Strategy has now been developed into the Violence against
Women and Girls Strategy. Analysis of statistics over the last three financial years shows
that approximately 39 % of all crimes over this period had a female victim and 34% of
these crimes were violent offences.
9.7. The Homesafe Project is funded by the Community Safety Partnership Unit and employs
a dedicated worker located in Cambridge Education who delivers DV awareness in both
junior and secondary schools. This is an award winning project which received a Mayors
award from the GLA in 2007. In addition, London Councils have funded Tender to work in
4 Islington schools from autumn 2010. This is a 12 week programme focusing on healthy
relationships using the medium of drama.
9.8. The SIP Domestic Violence Training programme is a borough wide multiagency training
programme, which has recently been broadened to Violence against Women and Girls
Training. The programme covers the coordinated response to domestic violence, forced
marriage, honour based violence, female genital mutilation, safety planning and risk
assessment, male victims, and MARAC. The training is open to all partners. In addition,
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Islington Housing Aid Centre have commissioned bespoke training on domestic violence
and housing and SIP are commissioning DV Training for substance misuse agencies on
working with perpetrators for 2010/11.
9.9. The Gang Prevention Team is based in the Islington Youth Offending Service that
supports young people at risk of becoming involved in gangs and youth violence and
provides gang prevention education in Islington Schools. 45 young people aged 8-17 have
been engaged who are at risk of gang involvement and 20 parents/carers provided with
support to enhance parenting skills and increase their confidence. The Family Intervention
Project is a family support service that provides intensive support to families where young
people are at risk of involvement in youth violence.
9.10. The Bronze Group is a multi agency operational meeting which aims to prevent and
reduce young people’s involvement in gang activity, group offending and violent crime. It
aims to do this through the sharing of information and the use of resources to work with
individuals and groups. The work of the Bronze Group is underpinned by the overall aim to
prevent harm to children and young people. The Bronze Group is designed for young
people up to the age of 24, where the referring agency has concerns that the person is at a
high risk of becoming involved in violent crime as either a perpetrator or a victim, whether
or not they are involved in a gang or group. During October 2009-March 2010 40 young
people had action plans in place.
9.11. The BME Community Outreach Project has been very effective in developing the
services for BME communities and strengthening BME community groups. It also has been
very successful in prioritizing domestic violence within BME networks in Islington. A wide
range of BME groups participated in the project including Iranian, Kurdish, Asian, Somali,
and Eritrean which strengthened their relations and enabled them to act together and in
cooperation for particular causes. The participating organizations organized raising
awareness events and developed their services by attending trainings and forums which in
return will help to decrease domestic violence cases in the borough.
9.12. The project also brought a change in the perceptions of domestic violence, which is now
not regarded as a private matter and it is seen as an unacceptable behaviour in every
community. BME women are more aware of their rights and have been increasingly using
the services in the borough. The referral system has been used very efficiently by the
organizations. In cases where there are alcohol and drug problems or other specific needs,
the clients were referred to appropriate agencies. Cases are being reported to the police
more either directly or using third party reporting. According to the feedback from the
groups, they feel more confident in referring cases to statutory agencies. An evaluation
undertaken in 2009 showed that nearly every community group involved in the project had
identified cases while the Islington Somali Community Centre said they had identified
hundreds of cases.
9.13. The Introduction of Islington Deaf Link scheme provides a direct text service for the Deaf
community to contact police regarding non-urgent crime. This project has just been
implemented and is aimed at increasing reporting of crime as well as ensuring that the
deaf community receive the same level of service as a hearing resident. Unlike previous
schemes an officer will take responsibility for a phone and will respond immediately to the
text. This project is a pilot which if used successfully will be rolled out across the Met
Police service. As the scheme is new it needs publicity to the deaf community to ensure its
success.
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