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2007
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November 2007
> Social Landlord’s Disappointment at No Respect
With news that the Government is to scrap the Respect Task Force, which has been in place since the Respect Agenda was launched over a year ago to help social landlords and other public agencies tackle antisocial behaviour and its causes, Harvest Housing Group waits with some concern on details of how the replacement will be implemented and assist in tackling ASB in our communities.
Although the Group, which owns 18,000 affordable homes across the North West, welcomes the new Youth Task Force targeted by the Government at ‘delivering positive outcomes for young people’, Harvest would have rather seen this as an addition to, rather than instead of, the Respect Agenda.
Cathy Bennett, Community Safety Manager for Harvest Housing Group said:
“Of course it is disappointing when so much of our time and resource has been put into delivering Respect but the main concern now is ensuring that the strong partnerships we have built our good work on continue, and the reduction in funding for the new scheme will have minimal impact for us, other RSLs and our partners.”
The Youth Task Force will receive £60m worth of Government funding as opposed to the £130m put into the Respect Task Force.
Cathy adds:
“Our achievements through the Respect agenda have raised customer expectation and the worry is how we can continue to meet the required levels with significantly slashed budgets and increasingly stretched resources.”
The extra pressures on those tasked with delivering the Youth Task Force is most keenly felt by those already committed to working with partner agencies on the delivery of the original Respect Task Force, and Harvest will now be meeting with other organisations to discuss how best to take this new initiative forward in the best interests of the communities in which they work.