I am grateful to a reader for providing the following analysis of Newham Labour’s priorities and comparing them to ideas sourced from across the community.
Priorities indicated by proportion of writing in the manifesto:
| Priority | Pages of text | Number of promises | ||
| Increasing personal resilience | ½ | 9% | 2 | 11% |
| Tackling crime and anti-social behaviour | 1 | 18% | 4 | 22% |
| Working for a cleaner, greener Newham | ¼ | 5% | 1 | 6% |
| Making Newham better through investment | 2¾ | 50% | 7 | 39% |
| Standing up for Newham | 1 | 18% | 4 | 22% |
| 5 ½ | 18 |
Issues that could have been in the manifesto, based on suggestions from local Labour candidate websites, newspapers, community groups & charities and residents on social media:
| Issue | Mentioned? | Policies/ principles | Promises |
| Fairness and help for vulnerable people |
|
||
| Children | Yes, p4 | Inclusive education | |
| Homeless | No | None | |
| Elderly | Yes, p9 | One | promise 14: fully fund the Freedom Pass providing free travel on public transport including buses, Tube, train and Docklands Light Railway. |
| Black and Ethnic Minorities | No | None | |
| Disabled people | No | None | |
| Religious groups | No | None | |
| Mentally ill | No | None | |
| Women | Yes, p6 | Assess the approach to domestic and sexual violence | |
| LGBT | No | None | |
| Development of community cohesion | No | None | |
| Approach to dealing with the bedroom tax | No | None | |
| Crime |
|
||
| Working with the MPS | Yes, p5 |
Funded 46 police officers, 140 enforcement officers
will continue to work on initiatives with local police and other partners to support victims and reduce repeat crimes |
promise 2: continue to fund and control police officers
promise 3: assess initiatives to reduce crime |
| Tackle anti-social behaviour | Yes, p5 |
residents feel safer when CCTV cameras are used in areas where there are safety risks
|
promise 4: tackle crime and anti-social behaviour,
promise 5: dedicated enforcement officer in each ward promise 6: Invest £5million in 200 new CCTV cameras |
| Tackling hate crimes | No | None | |
| Support anti-burglary measures | No | None | |
| Educate and support tackling violent/knife crime | No | None | |
| Environment | In all our surveys residents say they want a cleaner, greener and safer Newham | ||
| Street cleaning | Yes, p4 |
£13.5million spent annually
Free bulky waste removal
|
promise 7: £4m to improve roads, pavement & lighting |
| Improve responsiveness to reports of dumped waste | No | None | |
| Parks and green spaces | No | None | |
| Green issues | Yes | None | |
| Increasing recycling | No | None | |
| Introduce car share schemes | No | None | |
| Resist expansion of City Airport | No | None | |
| Supporting more schools and markets achieving eco awards | No | None | |
| Tackling air pollution | No | None | |
| Education |
|
||
| Free school meals | Yes, p8 | Free school meals for primary school children, | promise 9: continue free school meals for primary school children; |
| Introducing Food for Life standards in schools | No | None | |
| Educational achievement | Yes, p8 |
Every child a musical instrument & free tuition, free try of 20 sports, 1:1 reading tuition, every child a chess player
work with our schools to continue the excellent improvements in exam results New 6th form college in East Ham |
promise 9: continue with the Newham’s Every Child a Musician programme giving 3 years free tuition, continue with the Newham’s Every Child a Sports Person programme giving the opportunity to try 20 different sports |
| Literacy | Yes, p8 | promise 9: Newham Reading Guarantee programme providing 1:1 tuition to younger children struggling to read. | |
| Improving digital skills of all generations | No | None | |
| Skills for employment | Yes, p9 | promise 10: review skills training offered to adults and children | |
| Improve adult education | Yes, p9 | Free English speaking classes | promise 11: provide free English language tuition for all residents who want to learn English. |
| Ensuring teachers are qualified | No | None | |
| Resisting academies & free schools | No | None | |
| Tackling bulling and inequality in schools | No | None | |
| Summer schools | No | None | |
| Poverty |
|
||
| Unemployment | Yes, p7 | Helped 20,000 into work including 3,500 young people | promise 8: continue to invest heavily in Workplace |
| Money | Yes, p8 | provide some finance options for responsible, hard working residents | promise 12: set up a one stop shop – Money Works – which will provide a range of support to responsible residents |
| Council tax | Yes, p4 | Means to keep lowest council tax in outer London | promise 1: has delivered the lowest Council Tax in Outer London and means to keep it. |
| Support refugees and asylum seekers | No | None | |
| Food banks, food cycling | No | None | |
| Supporting food planting on estates, in parks and in gardens | No | None | |
| Supporting living wage (council) | Yes, p11 | ensures that it pays all its directly employed staff the London Living Wage. As a Borough which has retained most of its services in-house this makes us a leader, if not the leader, in this battle | promise 17: continue to pay the London Living Wage and review rates of pay offered by contractors. |
| Supporting living wage (local employers) | No | None | |
| Not use workfare or zero hours contracts (council) | No | None | |
| Discourage use of workfare and zero hours contracts (local employers) | No | None | |
| Tackle fuel poverty, home insulation, excess winter deaths | No | None | |
| Reducing gambling | Yes, p10 | led the country in our opposition to betting shops. We are demanding the powers to limit the fixed odds betting terminals which have caused the explosion in betting shops. We are not opposed to gambling – people should be free to pursue those pastimes which they enjoy – but not at a cost to other people. These new betting shops attract crime and anti social behaviour. That is why we will fight to get them off our high streets. | |
| Supporting time banks | No | None | |
| Supporting good quality, affordable childcare | No | None | |
| Providing secure bike racks | No | None | |
| Health |
|
||
| Public health | Yes, p9 | Support into employment, primary school meals, personal resilience, reviewing the spend on public health, developing personal budgets for individuals so they can have greater control of the services they consume, payments scheme which will financially reward service providers where users show high satisfaction with their services. | promise 13: continue to support the development of personal resilience; will develop a model where payment is linked to satisfaction for those who use our caring services. |
| Hospitals | Yes, p10 |
ensure our hospital stays open and that the facilities there are the right ones for our people.
ensure that the full range of quality health services are available to our residents and, in particular, that they have easy access to an effective and comprehensive screening programme. |
promise 18: stand up proudly for our residents against Tory attacks, fighting for the things that matter to them while also delivering services which make a difference. |
| GPs | No | None | |
| Tackle high rates of TB and deaths from cancer | No | None | |
| Free fitness classes and equipment in parks | No | None | |
| Introduce a responsible licensing scheme | No | None | |
| Introduce a take away food licensing scheme | No | None | |
| Regeneration & Enterprise | Yes, p10 |
continue to invest secure funding and help to deliver the physical infrastructure of the borough such as:
Redeveloping Canning Town and Custom House created nearly 9,000 new school places and invested £127 million into our schools Buying 35% of the Olympic Stadium to ensure that it works for local people in the future (and generates a profit) Assisted securing cycle superhighway extensions, Greenway investment and new quiet routes making Newham a much better place to cycle Rebuilding the Atherton Leisure Centre Created a brand new library and local service centre in East Ham Started on the development of a new 6th form college at East Ham in partnership with our schools Secure Westfield, the largest urban shopping centre in Western Europe |
|
| Regeneration of Queen’s market | No | ||
| Regeneration of Forest Gate | No | ||
| Support for street markets | No | ||
| Housing |
|
||
| Private renters | Yes, p11 | promise 15: continue to reduce anti-social behaviour and improve accommodation in the private rented sector by licensing all privately rented property. | |
| Implementing a good letting agent scheme | No | None | |
| Support for home owners/ leaseholders | No | None | |
| House building | Yes, p10 | promise 16: within the next ten years, build 3,000 new homes and buy a further 500 which will be made available for local people to rent at a range of rents that suit their income. | |
| Tackling overcrowding | No | None | |
| Tackling homelessness and supporting homeless people | No | None | |
| Social homes for rent (council or housing association) | No | None | |
| Responsive to local needs | Yes, p5 | we have increased spend on the things that matter most to our residents. | |
| Reducing complaints | No | None | |
| Involving residents in designing services | Yes, p4 |
where there really is a caring task we will develop new
small-scale mutuals to offer a much better, person focussed offer through greater clarity of purpose. |
|
| Involving residents in working together with the council to provide services | No | None | |
| Transport |
|
||
| Tackling congestion on buses and trains | No | None | |
| Improving cycling safety | No | None | |
| Managing parking and drop off points at stations | No | None | |
| Creating safe passing places for cars on small roads | No | None | |
| River Crossing consultation | No | None | |
| Managing budget cuts | Yes, p4 | promise 2: will protect the services residents value in the face of the most savage cuts ever to local government in general and Newham in particular. | |
| Management/ consultation on cuts of £41m (2015/16) and £53m (2015/16) | No | None | |
| Reducing council spending on councillors, offices, events, communications | No | None | |
| Tackling duplication, corruption, fraud and waste | No | None | |
| Arts and events | Yes, p9 |
We invested heavily to encourage local celebration and activity from street parties to torch relay.
Buying 35% of the Olympic Stadium to ensure that it works for local people in the future (and generates a profit) |
|
| Arts, festivals, events | No | None |
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