Following my recent article entitled: My life has (once again) turned a full-circle or is it history repeating itself or a legacy? Here is some more additional research material.
PAST: Research
During my research in 1988 on “Black people and the welfare state – the Sheffield experience” (1) in which Chapter 3 examined the decline of employment within the Lower Don Valley (LDV) is the area that starts from river Don at the Wicker and runs all the way to Tinsley (including parts of Burngreave/Pitsmoor, Brightside and large part of Darnall/Tinsley). This is what I wrote at that time:
‘…The basis of the local economy used to be the steel industries of cutlery and engineering during the thriving era of last twenty five years. However, this has suffered a dramatic decline in recent times, from the mid-seventies onwards. There have been massive job losses in these industries, mainly due competition and rationalization plans or takeovers. Many local industrialists have asserted that it is also due to sufficient government protection given to Steel industry – compared to Europe. Whilst others have argued that it is due to under-investment.
The statistics below make amazing reading. Employment in the LDV in 1977 was 47k. Employment in the LDV in 1986 was 10k and today it is even less than that figure. According to a Guardian newspaper report on the LDV in 1986, there was around a thousand job losses a month. Many of those were satellite firms affected by major closures. Engineering apprenticeships were reduced to a very tiny proportion (in fact non-existent). Major employment in the city has swung to service industries, from pre-dominantly manufacturing industry to the City Council and the Areas Health Authority are two major employers in the public service industry…’
In 1999-2000, the Sheffield City Council (SCC) work-force was dramatically cut during the era of the Liberal-Democrats run Sheffield City Council. Many Black Council employees in Senior Officer and Principal Officer Posts were employed through funding from Home office via the Section 11 of the 1966 Local Government Act, 1966 to “address disadvantage brought out by by differences of language, culture that is experienced by ethnic minorities in accessing education, training and employment”) no new funding was available after 31st March 1999. This meant that the funding for the posts could not be found from mainstream budgets and many were made redundant or re-deployed to unsuitable posts and many simply left. After 2001, many members from the Muslim community stopped applying for jobs in the City Council – due the international and world-wide backlash against Muslims after 9/11 events.
As a result of these previous changes in Sheffield’s unemployment figures in the 1980s when a person claiming Supplementary Benefit (SB) and (nowadays it is called) Income Support. Locally, 1986, people claiming SB in Sheffield increased from 39,200 in 1979 to 75,000. Those claiming Supplementary Pension increased to 46,629 in 1985. So, the dramatic increase has seen those unemployed people claiming Unemployment Allowance (now called Unemployment Benefit) increasing by 430% from 5,955 to 27,600, more than reflecting the increase in unemployment during that period from 5.0% of the working population, to 16.3%. Most of the unemployed were and are still concentrated in the central district of Sheffield, where a significant number of Black people live as well.
Local: ‘North and South Divide’
This situation was vividly expressed at the time, in a Panorama programme in 1988 on the BBC, entitled simply: “The Under-Class of 88” which focused attention on the poor, elderly, youth, disabled and one-parent families. Coincidently, it looked at what effect the Social Security changes will have on Sheffield’s unemployed and poor, not surprisingly nothing was mentioned about the effect on Black people in the city. It became clear from the programme that Sheffield has within itself, a North and South divide. The Burngreave/Pitsmoor areas fall in the North of Sheffield. Thus, there is three-tier pattern covering much of central, northern and eastern districts of the city. If we take this into account then the assertion put forward by Alan Walker (nowadays Professor) from Sheffield University, on the same programme:
‘….it is wrong to talk about North and South …when we have a great divide here, we have seen some families having to buy second-hand food in order to eat…’
Another interesting feature on the programme, was the prosperity in some parts of the city, for example the ambitious developments like Orchard Square precinct and other urban regeneration schemes, (the Meadowhall development was still in its infancy at the time) which according to some commentators has largely benefited business interests more than others. Here is what I wrote about the idea of the wealth trickling down to the poor by supporters of these types of regeneration schemes.
TRICKLE DOWN: To the well-off is the reality and to the Poor is a myth!
"..The ‘Trickle-down theory of building a strong economic base, which it is hoped will eventually benefit the poor. Around 1988, Sheffield was designated as a Urban Development Corporation (SDC) and the central government pumped around 250 million pounds to revive Sheffield’s declining LDV, however the SCC opposed the plan until they had assurances of jobs going to local people and “ethnic minorities” under the 1976 Race Relations Act…’
The rhetoric of the SCC is clear, yet in 1999-2000 – Black employees within the SCC were not treated as mainstream workers – but as marginalized workers with funding from elsewhere (Home Office) and they (SCC) were not to blame for sacking them through redundancy!
Furthermore, the rhetorical statements about ‘job creation’ from the late 80s to early 90s was a million miles away from what the LDV used to employ in the 1950s and 60s. The future at the time of the SDC development was uncertain. When Meadowhall opened in 1990 and ‘local jobs for local people’ was only rhetoric and not the reality, the future indeed looked bleak in terms of economic activity of Sheffield’ underclass. The national unemployment rates were around 18% and over. Presently, unemployment figures in Burngreave/Pitsmoor for all residents are around 18% – the national average in 1988! The situation in 1980s within Sheffield for people living in the acute poverty designated areas accounted for 27% of male unemployed.
PRESENT: Research
At a recent Burngreave Community Action Forum (BCAF) meeting at the Burngreave Vestry on 2nd February 2008, the Chief Executive spoke about the BNDFC future plans and was asked this question:
“what is the current unemployment (joblessness/worklessness) rate in Burngreave?”
His answer was:
“..it is around 15% far higher than the national average…”
And the average figure in this decade was almost same as the figure in 1988 hovering at almost 18%!
In 2004, Evelyn Milne from the Sheffield City Council confirmed at SCC Meeting, “that the Unemployment rate in Burngreave was over three times the Sheffield average five times the national average”. So, in 2004 we had the “Underclass of 2004” and even in 2008 the unemployment is still around 18% – the same average figures in the 1980s. The rest of Sheffield has essentially become more affluent whilst – Burngreave remains frozen in time!
According to the Sheffield City Council: ‘Sheffield Neighbourhood Information System (SNIS)’ in 2005-2006:
“… Economic Activity – there was a small drop in levels of benefits dependency from 18.1% to 17.8%. This data confirmed the existence of an unemployment gap. Fewer under 5’s were living on Income Support dependent household down from 21.6% to 18.9%.
More recent research that the official Government (Nomis) figures for claimant count with rates and proportion of working of resident working age population on July 18th 2007, in affluent areas like Fulwood there were just 63 people registered as unemployed within the proportion of resident working age, at a rate of 0.3% – which is the lowest in the city. In Stark contrast, in Burngreave there were 994 people registered as unemployed within the proportion of working age, at a rate of 6.9% – which is the highest and Manor Castle (662@5.3%); Central (626@4.6%); Firth Park (547@4.7%); and Darnall (466@3.7%). The Burngreave, Firth Park and Darnall areas has a high concentration of BME communities.
LDV: (Burngreave) The FUTURE!
The figure has not changed that much even today in 2008! The previous experience of SDC development and the current impact of Meadowhall in providing local employment for local people has not convinced majority of people from Sheffield. The “Great Sheffield Flood on 25th June, 2007” devastated the LDV area and Meadowhall and other companies located near the banks of river Don suffered – due to lack of investment in improved and upgraded drainage systems and flood warning systems.
However, ironically according to the Spital Hill Partnership's catchy slogan:
“…- Bringing your future to life…”
Seems to imply that the future is looking bright for Burngreave within the LDV area – we hope they do bring ‘our future to life’ and not the death-knell of the previous attempts to revive it!
The founding partners of this partnership are: Burngreave New Deal for Communities, Jobcentre Plus, Sheffield First, Sheffield Futures, Sheffield Work and Skills Board, Sure Start and Tesco.
At the launch of this partnership on 20th July 2007, the local MP, Rt Hon Richard Carbon, in his keynote speech, impressed upon the audience of stake holder and community leaders the importance of the public and private sectors working together to deliver long-term benefits for the local community. He re-iterated that he was delighted to see that part of the proposed development included improvements to Caborns Corner which commemorates the life and work his father in Sheffield, and he looked forward in due course to being able to welcome recruits to the training and job guarantee schemes that Tesco and its partners are looking to establish. I can still picture the scene of the news and film footage beamed across the world on 25th June 2007 of the flooded Wicker Arches, during the “great flood” – very near to Caborns Corner – (where many ex-activists still reminisce of the Demonstrations/Marches assembling and making their down Spital Hill and under the famous a Wicker Arches on their way to the Sheffield City Hall for the final rally).
The Spital Hill Partnership was established to make sure that local people have a real opportunity to benefit from ‘investment’ by Tesco in a new foodstore and associated development proposed for the Hartwell’s site at the apex of Spital Hill and Savile Street. The partner members agreed to jointly combine resources to deliver:
• Tesco Job Guarantee inked to pre-employment training • Wider awareness of jobs and training on offer • Making it easier to live, shop and work locally • Tesco live, shop and work local • Integrating with wider regeneration in Burngreave • Helping to tackle unemployment in Sheffield • Supporting a strong sense of community
It remains to be seen what the Tesco Development in Burngreave will bring in terms of creating 395 jobs and include the offer of a job guarantee scheme linked to pre-employment training. The SHAW Trust signed up to Spital Hill Partnership as a direct result of the launch on 20th July 2007 and the trust was:
“keen to pool its expertise to make sure that disabled and disadvantaged people are given as much help as possible to benefit from the proposed Tesco store and office development planned for Spital Hill”.
From the previous experience of the SDC and its benefits to local industrial infrastructure and the communities that lived and worked in the LDV did not improve that dramatically. The Meadowhall development was very successful in increasing the consumer/consumption, ‘shopahlic’, spiraling credit card debt culture affecting people nationally. Locally, Meadowhall has in recent months has made a come-back to getting their regular customers back after the flooding in June 2007 – mainly due their marketing campaign of the “Wow” factor – whatever that means in modelling or beauty terms!
In the 1990s, Meadowhall was famously dubbed as the:
“temple of the cash till”.
Today in 2008, the proposed Tesco development in Burngreave will have hopefully learned lessons from the previous shortcomings on the lack of employment opportunities for disadvantaged groups. Tesco foodstore and associated developments need to accept the reality that consumerism and consumption need to be de-priortised and creativity, honesty and sense of community needs to be acknowledged from the outset.
MATLOUB HUSAYN ALI KHAN
(Free-lance Management Consultant/Journalist)
Notes & References:
(1) This research study was out in conjunction with my studies at Sheffield Hallam University and employment with Sheffield Youth & Community Service (Education Department) and I would like to thank and acknowledge many groups and individuals. Especially, Sheffield City Polytechnic, Kashmir Education Trust, Everyones Centre, Greenhill/Bradway centre, Asian Youth Centre (Sharrow), Asian Youth & Community Association. Many individuals gave invaluable help in the research and I would like thank: Andy Shallice, Abdul S. Assim, Trevor Peters, Shahidah Janjua, Derek Bate, Mohsin Zulfiquar, Anne Woodhouse, Tasleem Sadiq and special thanks to John Fair, Marliyn Victor & Andy Smart (part of the area 4 Short-term to investigate proposed project into welfare rights & Black Young people in light of the 1988 changes to the welfare system). This project was curtailed – due to lack of funding and time. The final product was a shortened version of the research and I would like to thank my co-worker at time: Sheila Waite (lead on work with African Caribbean Young People) and Mohammed Nazir (work with Asian young People), part-time cover worker, to free-up my time to carry out that research study in 1988 (work with Asian young People. However, without help from these groups, individuals and there are many other individuals & groups who are not mentioned – without them the study would have proved to be fruitless. The errors and shortcomings remained my responsibility at the time.
© Meridian Communications (MCPR)