Why I am on strike today

I work for the University of Oxford and am a paid-up member of the Universities and Colleges Union.  I've just set my work out of office message to read:

"Thank you for your email.  In line with the ballot of the University and Colleges Union I am taking part in industrial action in the form of a strike today to send a message to our government that I will not accept their erosion of and withdrawal of support to UK Higher Education.  This means I will not be dealing with any email sent to me today.  If you still wish to contact me please re-send your email another day."

I will not be crossing any picket lines in to the town hall today and fully support the action by all the hard working council staff that provide you and me with so many services we depend on right across the City.

It was bad enough that Clegg and co carped on about what a good thing tuition fees of £9k were and now the Tory-led coalition is attempting to slash remuneration for academic and academic-related (that's me) staff in Universities in the form of a big reduction in pension benefits and an increase in contributions from employees.  Now let me be clear, these changes don't affect me YET but I see them as part of a slippery slope so I am willing to join the legally-called strike action to support the work of the Universities and Colleges Union to protect the rights of my current and future colleagues and to join the collective effort in sending as strong a message as possible to the coalition that Higher Education (along with many other public services) is much more valuable than this and that the cuts are going too far.  If we screw higher education now then in 20 or so years time we'll be in a much greater mess than we are now!

I should also say that I don't think Labour did any better when in power and it's shocking how they don't really have a plan to get the UK out the financial mess THAT THEY LET US GET INTO when they were last in power.  We do have to sort out the economy and reverse the dangerous slip back to recession that we're currently seeing. The Leader of the Labour Party isn't even supporting this strike (See http://labourlist.org/2011/11/ed-miliband-wont-back-strikes/) which I think is frankly outrageous given how it was the Unions that got him elected to be leader of the party in the first place!

It's good to see that the coalition is taking its responsibilities on benefits seriously and has protected the most vulnerable in society from real-terms cuts in income. I'm also pleased to see that the chancellor has put the January rise in fuel taxes (struggling families really can't afford it any more than the many business that are now spending so much on fuel) on hold but there is still so much more that could be done.

I know it's fashionable to bash bankers and so on but really - do these people actually NEED to be so wealthy?  Remember - it wasn't the public sector workers (from nurses to civil servants to academics to border control staff) who caused this recession.  You didn't see them engaging in all sort of greed-fuelled high-risk, low-sense banking activity that simply made them richer and left the UK (and much of the rest of the world) in the mess it is now in.  And are they paying the penalty for any of this? Not a chance!  The coalition is trying to dump it all on the hard-working, lower-paid public sector and almost universally public spirited workers of our country.  If Labour had regulated the banks properly about 10 years ago then I believe we wouldn't be in the mess we are now in.  But I'm not an economist so don't pretend to have all the answers here.  [following comments, I should add that it's investment bankers I have the real problem with, not so much the retail bankers although they should not have been allowed to let individuals get into so much personal debt either]

Remember - nobody chooses a public sector job for the money - so for the coalition to hit us rather than hitting those who are making a fortune out of everyone else's suffering is, I think, utterly outrageous.

National Landlords Association Oxford Branch Meeting

This was an interesting meeting, attended by about 20 of Oxford's decent and honest landlords as well as Ian Wright, the City Council Service Manager that covers HMOs and Ken Staunton, the NLA Head of Regions.

Ken first spoke about the NLA Landlord accreditation scheme which looks like is a really useful thing.  I am impressed at how much information it provides and how it has a requirement for Continual Professional Development for Landlords.  That's very important in the continual changing regulatory landscape in which the business has to operate these days.

There was then a talk by Ian Wright from the City Council about the additional HMO registration scheme.  Ian did a good job of explaining what I think is a completely over-the top scheme that is crippling the HMO market.  It's not Ian's fault - he's just doing what the Labour Administration of Oxford City Council tell him but there really are a lot of charges and I was appalled to hear that the council is demanding extra works on 97% of properties where licenses are being applied for.  In most cases tenants and landlords were entirely happy before the council interfered.  Ian did show some slides of some awful cases where council intervention is clearly needed and welcome but I suspect none of those applied to to the good and honest landlords present last night.  There was also a list given of successful prosecutions.  I was a bit surprised that the names of all those convicted were included and didn't really understand why Ian included a case where someone had been imprisoned after performing an illegal eviction.  That case was nothing to do with HMO licensing even though that was the subject of Ian's talk.

There was a lot of dicussion and confusion about the change to HMO registration requirements coming in January 2012 and the Article 4 direction on planning which removes the permitted development right to change a property from C3 (domestic household) to C4 (HMO with 3-6 unrelated sharers) coming in February 2012.  It's fascinating to me that the council seems to act as if Landlords are nasty evildoers trying to extort money out of tenants while spending as little as possible whereas what I saw was a bunch of honest professionals trying to run their business in an honest a way as possible.  There is clearly a lot of confusion about the ridiculous amount over over-regulation the Labour council is trying to pile onto the HMO market in Oxford.  I find it really hard to understand as Oxford is depsperately short of housing and HMOs provide a vital part of the housing mix.  If Landlords are persecuted and saddled with ridiculous amounts of expense for work that nobody wants then that will just get passed on in increased rents and Oxford's housing (and homelessness) problems will jut get worse.  I wish Labour would just accept that being a landlord is just an honest business in the same that running a taxi, a shop, or a bar is.

The meeting took about 2 hours and was extremely interesting.

Back from Holiday to a tirade of anti-student vitriol

I'm just back from a week away and disgusted by some of the emails I have received about a planning application in East Oxford. Clearly there is a campaign going on and a standard email has been circulated. I quote some phrases repeated in many of them:

"from my many years of experience of the growing numbers of students in the East Oxford area they are incapable of talking quietly or without using offensive language in every sentence that leaves their mouths along with continuously playing loud music."

"The student population is increasing to unbearable amounts already in this area and they do not need any further encouragement or welcoming into our community because they bring nothing positive."

"Our community is being destroyed and controlled by the universities and their students."

Well I'm sorry but I completely disagree with all of that.  It is full of gross generalisations and is frankly offensive to the many people in Oxford who are students or staff at either of its world-class Universities.  To say students bring nothing positive is utter nonsense - how do people think local business remain viable and vibrant?  I don't just mean bars either - I mean buses, restaurants, supermarkets, local shops and much more.  How many people in Oxford would become unemployed if out two Universities disappeared? I would, as would the leader of the council and many thousands more local people.  The other thing to consider is that if purpose-built student accommodation is provided then this reduces pressure on more conventional housing that could then be used for families and other social groupings.  In principle I think purpose-built student accommodation is a vital part of the accommodation mix in Oxford and the more of it we can have (so long as it is appropriate in scale, site etc.) the more we will reduce the massive housing pressure Oxford suffers.

We have students in our street and they are mostly quiet, considerate and well-spoken.  Occasionally we hear them late at night and occasionally they hear us.  That's a consequence of living in a crowded City with densely built accommodation - for me it's a fair swap for all the wonderful things there are about Oxford.  At last night's Central South and West area forum there were many students present with positive contributions to make and showing genuine interest for local issues of concern.  I was extremely impressed that OUSU, the Oxford University Student Union, is organising an-on street collection for the new Crisis Skylight Centre in Oxford this weekend.  Students do many good things for our City and many volunteer for all sorts of community outreach.  You can read lots about this on the site of the Oxford Hub.

On this particular planning application I will retain an open mind  - there may be reasons to refuse it if it gets called in and there may not.  As chair of Planning Review Committee I'll have to study it more carefully.  But I can say this without any doubt:  I will not be making any decision in either direction just because this is accommodation intended for students.  To do so would show complete disregard for planning law and would be frankly stupid.

The language I have read in emails sounds horribly like the racism of the 60s, the homophobia of the 80s and the sexism of the 70s.  I wonder - would people oppose an afro-Caribbean resource and advice centre, or an LGBT resource and advice centre, on that site with such gross and frankly disgusting generalisations.  They might find themselves on the wrong side of the law if they did.

Central South and West Area Forum

This forum met today in the Town Hall and focussed on student safety issues as well as homelessness.  It was really good to have Lesley Dewhurst from Oxford Homeless Pathways present to explain to us all the good work her charity does.  We also have the new manager from the Oxford Crisis Skylight Centre to tell us about all the good work just about to start in the Old Fire Station.   Lesley produced the best handout I have seen for ages that shows really well how the homelessness services work in Oxford.  How refreshing not to be blinded by high-tech graphics.  Click on the image here to see it in its full glory!

There was a presentation about student safety from the City Council community safety ream and some useful comments from the many students present .  Student input, particularly from the OUSU Vice-President for Charities and Communities , Daniel Stone, is always particularly welcome as it can be hard to build meaningful and sustainable channels of communication between the council and the University sometimes..  I was alarmed to hear a story about a sexual assault on a student in a bus but pleased that the City Council student safety team will take up the issue with the Police and the bus operator.

A useful meeting about HMO licensing

I had a meeting today with Tim Sadler, Executive Director City Services, and Ian Wright, Health Development Service Manager in Environmental Development.  My colleagues Cllr Mark Mills and Cllr John Goddard also attended.  The subject of the meeting was to discuss the problems and unintended consequences that are occurring with the City-wide licensing of Houses of Multiple Occupation (HMOs).

The discussion centred around the inflexibility of the Amenities and Facilities guide.  I made a statement in full council about one of these issues a while back and two more have since arisen:

In the first case we have a landlord who owns a few some modern executive houses (built in 2003/4) and has six tenants in each.  They have plenty of bathrooms and toilets and a huge kitchen/lounge communal area with which the tenants are all happy.  The problem is that for six tenants the dreaded document insists on an extra sink (or a sink and a dishwasher).  The tenants are happy with one sink and don't want either another sink or a dishwasher as this would reduce the cupboard space available to them for storage of their own personal food.  The council is however insisting this work be done against the wishes both of the tenants and the landlord.  This seems bonkers to me and only creates expense for the landlord that will inevitably be passed to the tenants in the next rent rise.  See the ground floor plan on the left.

The second case is even more bizarre.  This is another house with six tenants.  It has two bathrooms, each of which contain a toilet.  You'd think that would be fine as the guide says that for 1-4 tenants one bathroom that contains a toilet is sufficient.  But no - for six people if you have two bathrooms that both contain a toilet you also have to have a separate toilet.  I understand that toiled has now been fitted after the issue was forced by the council -  in a room that opens onto the kitchen, as one of the options the council suggested.  The tenants hate it and never use it because of the smell into the kitchen and obvious hygiene issue.   The work the council has imposed again strikes me as a waste of money and another inevitable rent rise.  I really don't see why the house can't be treated as two groups of three people with a toilet-containing bathroom for each group.

My real issue with all this - both these cases, and the one I talked about at full council - is that these are groups of consenting and non-vulnerable adults sharing a house in a responsible and neighbourly way, with good relationships with their landlords.  One of them even said to me: "As a landlord it is my policy to provide almost anything my tenants ask for.  They are, after all, my customers.  Thus, for example, if one tells me that their mattress is uncomfortable I don't even check it myself.  If they say it is uncomfortable...it is; so I change it.   A quick phone call to my supplier who delivers and takes away the old one is easy and not very expensive.  It makes good business sense to treat tenants well.  I even turned out to fix a leak on Christmas Day.  The tenants really do not want these things that Council officers are forcing us to do."

The council is not protecting tenants in these cases - it is making problems and rent rises when there were no problems and everyone was happy.  This is absolutely classic Labour behaviour:  We'll decide what's best for you and make sure you have it - even if you don't want it! This attempt to impose a one-size fits all policy on a complex situation where one set of guidelines clearly does not fit all situations is just causing unnecessary expense and waste for landlords and rent rises for tenants in a not exactly financially buoyant time of the economic cycle.  Tenancies come in many different forms - some are room by room, some are whole-house, some have individual locks on rooms, some don't.

I am of course all in favour of pursuing landlords who are negligent, don't keep their properties in good repair and treat their tenants badly.  These are not examples of that though - these tenants are financially capable working people who choose to live in high quality HMOs because they can't afford to live in other way in Oxford with housing being in such short supply and so expensive.  The landlords are providing essential accommodation for the people of Oxford and running decent, honest businesses doing it.  In many cases this is to fund retirement - which seems entirely reasonable to me.  If the landlords were not treating the tenants well they would move out!

There are two ends of the HMO spectrum in Oxford.  At one end you have cases like those I've mentioned and at the other end you have run-down, damp, cold, overcrowded properties with vulnerable tenants with few choices.  In my mind THESE are the places where council intervention is welcome and essential.  But it really is not welcome or needed when landlord and tenants were happy and everything was fine - it is not the job of the council to disrupt perfectly good and safe arrangements between good landlords and non-vulnerable tenants.  The Labour council should be arguing about numbers of cockroaches in some properties - not numbers of sinks or toilets in places where everyone is happy!

This was put rather well by one of the landlords at the last full council also:

"I would ask that the council focus on the highest risk properties and are not deflected by technical breaches of guidelines. That they use scarce resources and strong enforcement powers to protect vulnerable tenants and do not waste their energies on nitpicking .... Please avoid the temptation to consider being a landlord as a life choice of the more unsavoury end of the spectrum."

She is absolutely right! I really want this council to accept that decent, honest landlords actually provide vital housing for many of Oxford's students and young professionals.  These good landlords want the bad landlords brought to account just as much as the council and we councillors do.  The problem is that it feels like the council is currently treating all landlords like the enemy - when the council writes to them for example wouldn't a few sentences in the letter acknowledging the important contribution they are making to the City's housing needs be quite useful?  It might achieve a much better relationship and much better outcomes.

Both of the landlords quoted above have told me they are seriously considering getting out of the business because it is too much hassle.  Neither is young and both are providing good quality accommodation that Oxford desperately needs.  I think it would be a real tragedy if the Labour council's actions pushed these and others out of what is actually an essential business in Oxford thereby removing even more housing stock for young professionals and students who are an absolutely vital part of the economy of our City.

LibDem Group Meeting

We had a meeting of the Lib Dem Group on the City Council today.  We talked about our manifesto for next year and some of the excellent candidates we have lined up.  The meeting was very positive and left me encouraged for the upcoming few months leading up to the elections in 2012.