The Islington Fairness Commission shows there are concrete things we can do on our own patch to try to close the gap between the rich and poor.
My mum’s a Scouser, and proud, so I was delighted yesterday to be up in Liverpool Town Hall, meeting with the new Liverpool Fairness Commission. They sound like they mean business when it comes to tackling the poverty that scars their city and leaves it the most deprived local authority in England.
In York, similarly, the Labour Council is establishing a Fairness Commission to figure out how to narrow the divide between the haves and the have-nots there. The word on the local government grapevine is of other possible Fairness Commissions cropping up elsewhere as well, particularly in London and the North.
The report focuses on income and work. Its recommendations include statutory bodies pushing subcontractors hard to ensure they pay the London Living Wage – insisting that no-one should do a hard day’s work for less than they can live on – and setting up a Fair Islington kitemark scheme to show which businesses are and are not helping make the borough a fairer place.
Islington may have the lowest male life expectancy in the capital (75 years), half our kids (46 per cent) may live in poverty, and we may have been the hardest hit local authority in London (in percentage terms) when it comes to the Tory-led government’s reckless cuts, but there are still concrete things we can do on our patch to try to close the gap between the rich and poor. This report identifies some of them. Now it’s time to turn words into action.
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2 Responses to “Progressive council points the way to fairness”
Michael
Progressive council points the way to fairness I Left Foot Forward – http://j.mp/m3tDFU
Selohesra
Is it not possible on here to write an article that refers to cuts without prefacing each mention of cuts with words like savage or reckless. We all know that Labour would have been making cuts too and that it is just the political elite from both left and right who are trying to big up the difference between the two parties spending plans in order to justify their cost existance at Westminster. Overall spending is rising because we have increasing interest payments to service the massive debts run up by the last administration (like all previous Labour adminisitrations)