Birmingham Campaign For State Education Meeting – June 11th

Melissa Benn, education journalist and author of ‘School Wars’, will be speaking at the next
Birmingham CASE (Campaign for State Education) public meeting on Tuesday 11 June 7.15 at the T&G Offices, Broad St, Birmingham (opposite Novotel).

7:15pm
Tuesday 11th June
T&G / Unite offices, Broad Street, B15 1AY

Unite building is accessible with a manual wheelchair but unfortunately the lift is too small for motorised wheelchairs. Accessible toilets are available at the venue.

School Wars: what really lies behind the current education revolution?

What are the real motives and values underlying Michael Gove’s ‘new schools revolution’, enacted with breathtaking and undemocratic haste since 2010? And how can we build a strong case for state education that also encompasses school improvement, high quality learning, particularly for poorer children, but a greater measure of democratic involvement in our schools?

All welcome. Please publicise.

Cuts in WM Fire Service

Fire Brigades Union condemns cuts involving one fire engine lost, three downgraded, and 34 firefighters’  jobs removed.

Labour Get Extra Funding To Increase Council Tax Benefit

Back in January, when Labour announced how they were going to deal with the localisation of Council Tax Benefit (now called Council Tax Support) and the 10% cut in funding that came with it, they decided to impose 20% charges on all unemployed and some disabled people in the city, whilst neighbouring councils absorbed the cut into their budgets, possibly in expectation that 84% of people would be unable to pay the charge and that court action would be financially unviable. Strangely, having cut the amount of benefit being paid, the coalition offered some transitional funding worth £2.1m for one year to reduce the amount cut. At the time, the Labour council here turned this down due to the conditions attached to accepting the money.Yesterday however it was announced that Labour have now decided to accept this money, reducing the charge from 20% to 8.5%. This is an excellent move by the council, even though the money is only for one year, it provides breathing space for claimants who are already struggling with food, rent and energy price rises, a real terms benefit cut and for many the bedroom tax as well.

In January, the refusal of this money was justified on the basis that there would have to be an average 8.5% charged across all groups (except pensioners, who the coalition exempted from any possible charge), and that this would mean charging some of the severely disabled people that are currently exempted. Secondly, it was said that the council would need to find an additional £1.3m to reduce the charge to 8.5%.

Cllr Ian Cruise on twitter said that:

The Govt blinked first under pressure from BCC leadership. We still have full exemptions for pensioners, vulnerable etc…. the exemptions set out in the Motion to council stand. This is extra money

This is good news for claimants, who will presumably receive an updated bill shortly. The council say that details will be released soon. For anyone who cannot or will not pay this charge, it also means that it will take even longer for any court action to become financially viable. At an average of less than £2.50/week, the debt will build up slowly, court action costs thousands of pounds to undertake so whether the council will ever prosecute claimants in this position remains to be seen. If they do then there is possibility of jail. From a financial perspective, it costs £40,000/year to keep someone in jail, so it would be cheaper for the taxpayer to forget this debt rather than lock someone up.

We are still waiting clarification on whether the council will need to find £1.3m from somewhere else to cover this reduction, as they said they would in January, but this is a good move to accept the money on offer. We are not going to pretend that an 8.5% charge is good though, it isn’t. No claimant should be paying council tax and we would like to see the Labour party joining in the fight for alternatives to austerity rather than passively passing on cuts made by the coalition.

Protest The Council’s Decision To Make Crisis Grants Only Spendable At ASDA – Sunday 19th May

Kings Heath ASDA

Activists from the Slaney Street blog have called a demonstration at Kings Heath ASDA on Sunday 19th may against the council’s decision to pay crisis grants – the replacement for the Social Fund Crisis Loans scrapped by the ConDem coalition – a pre-paid card usable only at ASDA.

2pm Sunday 19th May
ASDA, Kings Heath High Street, B14.
Join the Facebook event
Kings Heath High Street is step free and accessible toilets are available at Kings Heath Library and various restaurants/pubs along the high street.

On April 1st as part of the welfare reform bill, the coalition government scrapped crisis loans – small short term loans that people receiving or waiting for benefits could get in an emergency (including being a victim of crime) to pay towards essentials such as food or heating (including boiler repairs) and many other items. Crisis loans were interest free and paid back out of future benefits. The scheme was more or less cost-neutral as everyone paid back the loans, but was scrapped and a smaller sum of money handed over to councils to use as they chose.

Many councils have adopted voucher schemes of one kind or another and some have used the money to fund foodbanks. In Birmingham, they decided to pay the money out as grants – an improvement on the old system – but that these will be in the form of pre-paid cards usuable only at ASDA, and therefore only on a limited range of items in a very few places. Scotland and Wales have both moved to a grant system which can be paid in money useable anywhere on essential items.

Johnny Void summed up the issue with paying vouchers:

This ignores the reality of poverty for millions in the UK today, whose chief concern is keeping pre-pay electricity and gas meters topped up enough to keep the lights and heating on. A bag of food bank pasta is of little use if you can’t boil water.

Birmingham City Council have decided to hand over £6.1m of our money to ASDA rather than allow claimants to spend it in local shops and the markets. In doing so they have made life harder for claimants who now cannot buy many of the essential items they used to be able to, and unless they happen to live close to one of the seven ASDAs in Birmingham, they face long walks of up to five miles to get anything at all – that is unless they cash their cards in below face value to the criminals waiting to take advantage of desperation. Following the outcry over the decision, the council have said they will be bringing other supermarkets into the scheme – still denying claimants the ability to spend the money on essential items like heating and transport that are not avialable at supermarkets, and from seeking out the best deals at other shops.

Birmingham City Council should replace the pre-paid cards with money and allow people to shop at local business and places like the markets who are losing money as benefit cuts hit the city, whilst the council is warning of chaos as nobody knows how the benefit reforms work (including the DWP) and welfare offices face closure in council cuts.

Dan Doherty criticised the Labour administration in his article on this decision on the Slaney Street blog.

By failing to stand up for some of its most vulnerable inhabitants, the men and women who run our city have once again shown their cowardice, their complacency, and their complicity. They have wholeheartedly bought into Whitehall’s message that the poorest must be demonised, castigated, and stripped of their dignity and autonomy

We would encourage everyone to attend this demonstration. Kings Heath high street is step free and accessible toilets are available at Kings Heath library which is approximately 0.2miles from ASDA. (Other accessible toilets may be closer).
The council have already started to backtrack from this stupid decision, claiming that other supermarkets are going to join the scheme – but why should the Bullring markets and our local shops lose out to multibillion pound businesses?

Bernice Ellis of the Open Market Trader’s Association has said that their customers are often low income and therefore likely to be affected by this:

We serve low income people, they come to us for the low prices. People will get on a bus to come to us because the price of food is so much lower than anywhere else

We call on the council to change the scheme so that it can be paid in money to allow people to find the best deals and spend it on the things they need in a crisis to survive.

Local Areas Organising To Resist The Bedroom Tax

There will be a number of meetings in the next couple of weeks in local areas around Birmingham that are heavily affected by the Bedroom Tax, as local residents start to organise themselves to resist the charge and any evictions that may come from it.
Meetings will take place in Ladywood, Stockland Green and Highgate:

Ladywood
7pm
Wednesday 15th May
Ladywood Community Centre, Vincent St West

Stockland Green
7pm
Wednesday 22nd May
St Barnabas Church Centre, Erdington High Street
Speakers: Dave Nellist and a Communities Against The Cuts campaigner

Highgate
7pm
Thursday 23rd May
Stanhope Community Centre , Emily Street Highgate

There will also be a lobby of Albert Bore’s surgery at the council house on Friday 17th May from 6:30pm and a protest outside. See here for more information.

Lobby Albert Bore For No Evictions Over The Bedroom Tax – 17th May

At the meeting in Ladywood last week it was decided that tenants from Ladywood would go to Albert Bore’s surgery at the Council House on Friday 17th may and that there would be a protest outside to support them. They will hand in any letters and petitions collected. We want a big number outside to support them. This follows a meeting last week at which Albert Bore has said that they will evict people eventually.

6:30pm
Friday 17th May
Birmingham Council House
Victoria Square, B1 1BB Birmingham, United Kingdom
Facebook Event

Any questions, please join the Birmingham Benefit Justice Campaign group on Facebook

There will also be a meeting in Ladywood on Wednesday 15th May at Ladywood Community Centre, Vincent St West from 7pm

BARAC Needs You!

Black Activists Rising Against The Cuts (BARAC) are holding a public forum on the 6th June to discuss the impact of austerity and cuts. Unemployment amongst young black men is over 50% as the recession and austerity impact disproportionately on different groups of people. We hope that you will join BARAC on the 6th to build resistance in our communities to the engineered poverty of austerity.

Thursday 6th June
6:30pm
The Drum, 166 Potters Lane, Aston, Birmingham B6 4UU

Speakers: Lee Jasper (National co-chair, BARAC UK); Maxi Hayles (Chair BARAC UK Birmingham); Desmond Jaddoo (Birmingham Empowerment Forum) and other guests, plus light entertainment.

BARAC Needs You!

Time for the Community to wake up tot he effects of the CUTS!

Bedroom Tax
Universal Credit
Benefit Caps
Caps on Child Benefit
Eviction
Attacks on Disabled People
Benefit Harassment
Attacks on the Poor and Vulnerable
Redundancy
Reductions in Services
Increase in Food Banks
Increased Community Isolation
Higher Levels Of Poverty

Join BARAC for a Public Forum to discuss the future of our Community

Time to Wake Up and Get Involved
This is a free event all welcome.