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Class War issue 80: Hackney Is Not Working
In 1997 Hackney Council privatised its Housing Benefit and Council Tax sections. The running of these public services was handed over to the company - IT Net - that promised to do the job at the lowest cost.
When IT Net took over the contract there were 280 housing benefit and council tax workers. By the end of 1998 this had gone down to 160 and by the end of March 1999 only 90 workers remained. According to IT Net these workers were unnecessary as their state of the art computer system would not only make the whole benefit system run more smoothly but cheaply too!
As thousands of claimants now know to their cost, the introduction of IT Net to Hackney has brought a catalogue of continual errors and high level management mistakes. Claimants are waiting anything up to 18 months before receiving benefit, resulting in thousands of people with huge rent arrears, threatening letters and eviction notices from landlords and in many instances bailiffs at their front door. Housing Associations have faced bankruptcy because of the amount of money they are owed by IT Net and many are now reluctant to take applications from Hackney residents who are on benefit. In the year to 31st March 2000 the local government ombudsman received 234 complaints about IT Net.
Particularly hard hit are those with joint tenancies. This means you are jointly liable for the rent and council tax. Should one tenant be working and the other unemployed and waiting for IT Net to get its shit together, Hackney Council have quite seriously been suggesting that the working tenant pay the rent and council tax for the whole house and "you'll get the money back when the claim is processed". Bollocks to that!
IT Net replaced existing software packages with highly complicated systems that required extensive training. Workers were not given adequate training. Coinciding with this bungle was the introduction of the government's anti-fraud programme - the new identification verification programme. The requirement that all claimants produce 3 pieces of original personal identification increased their workload massively. IT Net have also managed to lose significant numbers of documents so have ended up sending out ID requests and renewal forms in triplicate!
Despite this chaos Hackney Council have found staff to launch an audit of their properties, handily paying staff overtime rates for working in the early evening. Tenants, disturbed by an unannounced knock on the door, have been asked to produce proof of tenancy and then proof of who they are - such as passport or cheque card. So much for your home being your castle!
This audit, supposedly to crack down on the illegal use of council flats, smacks of a rather desperate attempt to help IT Net out. If question marks can be raised about a large number of tenancies, IT Net can wriggle out of paying money owed and justify the time it's taking to pay many tenants.
IT Net/Hackney Council are running the largest Revenue and Benefit section in the UK - up to 45,000 claimants, 1 in 3 of the population. Given this, to force so many changes through at one time and to sack so many experienced staff shows an astonishing level of contempt for the working class people of Hackney. Each week the Hackney Gazette is full of letters, some verging on the pitiful, from people who fear eviction or prison for debt. One councillor has resigned from the council as IT Net had failed to pay his rent and his landlord was going to chuck him out!
The silence of the national media has been deafening on this issue. IT Net won a 10 year contract with Enfield Council last year, and boast of a turnover in 1999 of £131 million and a profit of £10.1 million. Had their incompetence in Hackney occurred in one of the Home Counties it would no doubt have been a major news story. So much for investigative journalism.
During 1999 the backlog of work got so great IT Net were forced to employ temporary staff and move to 7 day working. Temporary staff were offered up to £20-£25 per hour. As queues of several hours waiting time became the norm (and threats and punch ups increased) Hackney turned the wheel full circle, providing IT Net with staff and starting to do more of the work in house.
In June this year Hackney panicked further when Private Eye announced IT Net had had their contract renewed. This was apparently untrue, but released the staggering information that IT Net had a contract with Hackney worth £70 million over 10 years. The earliest they could legally be sacked is 2005.
The backdrop to this affair is the severe social changes Hackney (and to a greater extent Islington) have experienced in recent years due to gentrification. Starting out in Hoxton and other areas close to the Regents Canal, housing developments have built expensive new properties in previously solid working class areas such as Clapton Park and Homerton. Flats in Landmark Heights, a former council tower block on the Clapton Park estate retail at £100,000 plus.
Those unable to pay their own rent, and certainly unable to buy a property in the borough are increasingly surplus to requirements. At what point do we stop talking about cock-up and start talking about conspiracy?
Stop press! As Class War went to press it was announced that IT Net were to be sacked! More details next issue...
Back to issue 80 contents
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