Two Islingtons: Understanding the Problem - Islington Council

• 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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