Home. A Place for Work? - Amazon Web Services · RICHMOND POSTGATE joined the BBC's educational services in 1945 and for nearly 30 years was involved in all their radio and television

A PLACEFOR WORK?

Possibilities and snags exploredby Richmond Postgate

RICHMOND POSTGATE joined the BBC's educationalservices in 1945 and for nearly 30 years wasinvolved in all their radio and televisiondevelopments including the partnership withthe Open University.

Before the War, in which he was in the RAF, heworked as a journalist, a teacher and a localeducation authority administrator in Surrey andDevon.

He was Director-General of the NigerianBroadcasting Corporation over the period of itsattaining independence.

Since his retirement in 1972 he has worked withUNESCO, the British Council, the Ford Foundationand ITDG, as consultant/assessor on variouseducational communication and development projects.

With John Scupham and Norman Mackenzie he madethe first world study of adult Open Learning(UNESCO 1975).

HOMEA PLACE

FOR WORK?

Possibilities and snags exploredby Richmond Postgate

Published by the Calouste Gulbenkian FoundationUK Branch, London, 1984

This study was undertaken as a project of theUniversity College of the Community, Swindon;sponsored by the Foundation for Alternatives,Adderbury; with funds provided by the CalousteGulbenkian Foundation.

The study was conducted and the report composedby Richmond Postgate, with the advice and assistanceof those whose contributions are acknowledged inthe text.

A list of publications and copiesof this report are available fromthe Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

©1984 Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation98 Portland Place, London WIN 4ETTelephone: (01) 636 5313ISBN O 903319 26 8

Typeset by Wordplex and Tessa UnwinCover design by Michael Carney Associates.Produced by PPR Printing, London Wl

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

OPENING STATEMENT 1

1. Purpose and Scope 12. Methods of Study 33. Definitions 34. Arrangement of the Report 5

CHAPTER I Home-based Economic Activity (HEA) 6

1. Individual Accounts 62. Range of Activities 213. Why People Start HEA 264. The Requisites of HEA 30

CHAPTER II Constraints and Help 32

1. Systems of Control 33a. Use of Land 34b. Use of Premises 36e. Taxes and Rates 39d. Health and Safety 49

2.' Systems of Assistance 50e. Monetary Assistance 50f. Aids to Personal Development 57

3. Business Initiatives 62g. Curbs and Help 62

Supplements 65

1. Car Repairing 65II. Taxes and Rates 70III. Monetary Assistance - Personal Experiences 73

Chapter III Other Factors Affecting HEA 76

1. Technology, particularly Information Technology . . 762. The DIY Phenomenon 823. Family and Personal 844. The Physical and Organisational Context 885. Who is at Home and what are they doing? 96

Supplements 100

I. Fitting HEA into a Particular Area and Implicationsfor its Development: Outline for an Enquiry .... 101

II. Swindon - adjusting to Change 102III. HEA in a Capital City - Glasgow 106

CHAPTER IV Round-up and Reflections 108

1. People 1082. Premises 1093. Systems 1104. The Working Definitions 112

FOREWORD

Whatever we become conscious of in childhood seems to have been eternallythere, and strikes us as 'given' and inevitable. How right and proper,for example, how much part of the natural order of things, that thereshould be workplaces where 'a living' is made, and homes where it isspent.

We may be dimly aware that once upon a time the pattern was different .The textile industry, the history books say, used to depend less onlabour in factories than upon cottage outwork. Before mass-production,manufacture occurred in small craft workshops or in the artisan's home.But that was ages ago. In a few situations still, we realize, a wife mayshare at home in the creation of the family income, and her husband bemore than a familiar visitor at the day's and the week's extremities.That's true on a farm, for instance: but such rare exceptions only serve,as we say, to prove the rule. The dichotomy of work at work places.,domestic life at home, is virtually absolute.

Richmond Postgate's detailed field study reveals it is no longer so. Thepractice of making wealth from the home is widespread, and its forms mostvaried. Some of these seem like hangovers from an earlier age, othersare emphatically contemporary, born by skilful inventiveness out of thelatest information technologies. As industries linked to coal and irondecline, as factory-based enterprise displays less the economies of scalethan the burdens of size, so the home as a centre for wealth-creation, andthe house-based business in a residential area, begin to look more likepoints of growth than curious survivals. The daily divorce of workplaceand homeplace, unknown to the vast majority of the world's populationand relatively recent among us, may gradually join those other Western,urban ways which W.B. Yeats perceived as part of "the last two provincialcenturies".

Yet new practices (or old practices become new again) always run hardagainst rules reflecting dominant if declining expectations. In arrange-ments for taxation, for pensions and other benefits, for zoning andplanning consents, for employment legislation, union practice and businessfunding, and in a myriad of other regulations, which control and perplexour daily lives, the recognition of wealth-creation from the home findslittle place. Those who try to escape from total dependency, whether on aspouse or on welfare payments, find their initiative baulked by a jungleof complications and restraints. The number who survive such discourage-ments has not yet seemed sufficiently large to justify architects,educators, designers of the new technologies and the like, adaptingestablished practices to emergent needs, although a few of the profess-ional avant-garde are given to uttering startling prophesies of imminentchange.

The Foundation wants to bring together some of those who, through'theirpositions, professions and skills, are able to facilitate wealth-creationfrom the home. It has therefore decided to print Richmond Postgate'sadmirable general conspectus in a limited edition, in draf t form, as abasis for some specialist seminars. There the general issues raised in

the report can be explored in technical detail. The outcome of theseminars will then be fed into a fuller version of the report, which wehope will be published in a manner that ensures the wide distribution boththe subject and the text deserve.

L C Taylor,Director, United Kingdom Branch,Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A study of this kind, made from a generalist background, needs inform-ation, interpretations and advice from many quarters; from those whovolunteered their individual experiences (of which a selection is givenin Chapter I); from a very wide range of people with special skills,experience and judgement, through their writings and in conversation;and from guidance and comment received from an informal panel during theproject.

These various sources led to the decision to enlarge the study and toseek further help in slanting the additional material, and in composing,typing, editing and producing the final text.

I feel deep appreciation of the openness, courtesy and help receivedthroughout. A list of the people principally involved is appended. Butspecial thanks is due to the following:

John Cecil Ray PahlBrian Dabson Geoffrey RichmondMonica Dowley Alastair RobertsonPenny Faust Roger SmithAndrew Hake Rodney StaresPeter Kuenstler Pamela StoreyNick Morris Keith Thomas

And, especially to Audrey, my wife, for unfailing encouragement andsupport, and for reading and revising the text.

The panel members were David Wright, Trevor Bailey, Rodney Stares,And rew Hake.

The typing was done by several people, Janys Faith, Caroling Shenstone,Cheryl Pickles, and the final version by Delia Twamley. Michael Nashdid the line drawings.

Valued help was received also from:

lann Barron J S MaclureMike Boardman Gillian McGrattanT R P Brighouse Bruce MeredithJames Cooke ' Jim MilesDenis Cox Chris MurrayGuy Dauncey Chris NorrisRobert Emmett T J PainterPrue Fuller • J T RawlingsGlasgow Planning Exchange John RobinsonJohn Goldthorpe Lawrence TaylorDonald Grattan Philip ToppingJohn Hardwick Peter WalshDavid Hawkridge Geoffrey WebberRalph Hopps Greg WilkinsonBruce Hudson Stan WindassBarrie Knight Ethel Wix

OPENING STATEMENT

1. PURPOSE ABD SCOPE

In this country most British adults expect to earn their living bygoing out to work, in order to feed, clothe and house themselves,their families and dependants. Forty years ago it was usually themale partner who went out while the female stayed at home workingunpaid or at small low-paid jobs. Today, when more women aregoing out, and most new couples have two incomes, the source ofincome is still normally outside. The home is seen as the placefor sleeping, eating, playing, sociability, hobbies and chores,the place where money is spent rather than made.

The word 'home' bears a strong emotional charge. It is the cave,the refuge of safety for the upbringing of the young, the place ofprivacy and freedom, the symbol and outcome of bonding.

'Home is the place whereIf you have to go there,They have to take you in.'

(Robert Frost The Hired Man)

The desire for a home is as strong as and sometimes stronger thanthe desire for a job. Both touch on people's deepest personalneeds, and deprivation causes acute pain. To new couples somekind of a home is virtually a necessity. In this country, thedesire to own one's home is very strong.

Today, for the first time in our history over 62% of all house-holds are within reach of that target (a fact which sharpensanother - that 74,000 families are officially homeless, and atleast as many single persons).

Many factors today limit the uses of one's home. The design ofdwellings, the separation of work from residential areas, cond-itions of ownership and occupancy, regulations about developmentand change of use, the tax laws, social and cultural expectationsand the innumerable 'do's and don'ts' of personal behaviour - allthese restrict and fence us in.

Great advances have been made, particularly since the last war, inimproving general health and saf-ety, enforcing good standards andfair trading, in outlawing the sharks and cowboys, and protectingthe privacy and amenity of homes and their immediate environment.A great stockade of regulation, requirement, and deterrence hasbeen erected; and a good deal of practical success achieved.

But another result, perhaps unintended, has been to curbinitiatives in using the home productively. To earn money

OPENING STATEMENT

there except in the most trivial way is a risky and uncertainbusiness, open to social disapproval and, if discovered, tounpleasant penalties. People who use their initiative to startsome enterprise can easily find themselves hemmed in, vetoed andtripped by restrictions. Though these perils are oftendisregarded, or the rules unevenly enforced, the situation canmake praiseworthy efforts illicit and create disharmony amongneighbours.

Continuing high levels of unemployment and the enormous cost ofhonouring benefit and allowance entitlements, and all the otherills of a malfunctioning economy bring any systemic weaknesses andanomalies into prominence. The insufficiency of the payments tosupport the normal living standards of the recipients, the stepstaken to circumvent dishonesty, the over-pressure upon the staffsof government offices - all these combine to produce distressingaggro and harm public service generally.

At the same time, the potential for residents to use their homesproductively has been steadily rising. Power-tools, the fridge,the mixer, the telephone, the knitting-machine, radio, TV,'cassetry' - all these tools and the associated facilities andadvice make 'value adding1, whether by processing materials orperforming services (to use the jargon) into a real home-basedoption as never before. The economist, the planning officer andthe tax-man will apply their own criteria to these activities; butto the home-occupant an activity which saves expenditure is asgood as one which brings in cash. To the family both arecommendable and earn smiles of gratitude. They may well bringpleasure in achievement and drive the blues away. So, they shouldbe promoted, not squashed.

From thoughts of this kind a study began in early 1982. At first,its was confined to Swindon and its environs (since 1974 known asThamesdown). The plan was to collect from individuals volunteeredaccounts of attempts to make money or save expense in their homes,and of their experiences of the constraints referred to earlier.Also, in parallel, to discuss with the bodies and individualsresponsible for the systems of control how they interpreted andviewed the regulations and the points at which non-compliance mostcommonly occurred.

A comparison of these two bodies of experience might, it wasthought, provide pointers for adjustments to policy andpractice which might help initiative without endangering theoriginal and often still valid purposes of the controls.

In the event, it became clear that the study must go wider and tryto show awareness of some of the rapid and radical changes in theeconomic and social conditions that form our environment. Thismeant touching on the changing position of women in society, andupon the family, on the opportunities for self-development and

OPENING STATEMENT

adjustment to changes in work opportunities, upon developmentslike DIY, upon trends in house-building and planning; and, mostdramatic and upheaving, upon the consequences for the home, justbeginning to emerge, from the confluence of computer sciences,micro technology and telecommunications. But all of these onlyinsofar as they might particularly affect the subjects of thisstudy - people in their homes.

So, a limited and localised enquiry grew into this longer essay;an essay in both senses of the word - 'an attempt or an endeavour'and 'a ... composition dealing with a subject analytically orspeculatively'.

2. METHODS OF STUDY

The information which follows is based on five sources:

a. information about home-based economic activities (HEA) andexperiences volunteered by private individuals;

b. generalised information about such activities based onaccounts from other individuals about the position in their areaknown to them;

e. information from officials in local and central governmentalagencies and relevant voluntary agencies whose work brought theminto contact with HEA;

d. reading academic, governmental and journalistic writing in thesubject area, and contributions, verbal or written, fromindividuals with special knowledge or interest;

e. attendance at meetings and conferences.

The bulk of this information was provided gratis. In the laterstages, due partly to the enlarged scope of the study, a number ofindividuals were commissioned to provide specialist material, andto help with the organisation and presentation of the text.Acknowledgement of all this assistance is given in the openingpages. As much of the data is anecdotal and illustrative, thereport is inevitably impressionistic. It is not a survey. Anyerrors, misinterpretations and conclusions are personal to thereporter.

3. DEFINITIONS

It is necessary to start with some vocabulary points since theprofessionals concerned give to some of the terms used specialmeanings that are not those in everyday use, e.g. in the planningfield 'development'; and since it seems agreed that the

OPENING STATEMENT

content of common words such as 'work' and 'leisure' is changing.These points are discussed later in this, report as they arise.The following seem to be necessary at the outset.

Work involves activity which for some reason, financial,contractual, moral or 'daemonic', one feels compelled toperform. It normally involves doing what another agency orforce requires and not what one chooses oneself. Performanceof work earns gratification of some kind, tangible as in payor intangible in permissions or approval.

Employment is the main form of Work, regulated bycontract between two parties. It is normally expressed interms of money or money's worth given in return for dutiesperformed. Employment has become so central to our societythat it determines to a great degree the ways in which ourabilities can be employed, and not only while at work. Itsettles not only income, but status in society and withneighbours, relatives and one-self. It deeply affectspsychological poise arid hope. To be deprived of it is asdistressing as a major bereavement. The 'job' is the hingeof social and personal life.

Leisure refers to the time during which an obligation towork is over or suspended, it is the opportunity for choiceand pursuit of what one fancies. 'Leisure' and 'Work' areconcepts linked to each other by contrast; for most of usboth are essential to happiness.

Home is the title of premises which the person concernedis entitled to occupy day and night to live in. But 'Home'is also a social institution and connotes the emotions whicharise from the experience of childhood, marriage and thatpart of life in which we withdraw from the world.

Economic Activity is activity to which a price is, orcould be, attached and which is undertaken with thosefactors in mind. 'Could be' because a price may not infact be fixed: or, as in much house-work, the activityavoids expenditure, or the market value may be disregardedas in exchanges between friends.

Home-based Economic Activity This term (abbreviated toHEA) was invented for this study to refer to economicactivity as defined which takes place in, with, or from thehome in its physical meaning. The term does not have anywider significance. It does not correspond, for instance, toany of the categories of employment used by the InlandRevenue (employed, self-employed, etc.). Nor does itcorrespond to the categories of 'economy' in vogue -'formal', 'informal', 'black', etc. Participants in HEAoperate in the formal and informal economies. The

OPENING STATEMENT

financial analyst retired from full-time highly paidemployment and now living at home using a computer andterminal as a freelance, is in the formal economy. If hiswife uses the mixer to make pate for the family, the W.I. andto sell to the local delicatessen, she is in the formal andthe informal. Both are HEA participants. And both areaffected by the physical limitations and possiblities oftheir home, by the constraints of society and by the claimsof their home in its other meaning.

But these definitional boundaries become a bit artificial. Forthe person concerned, HEA slides off into business or employment,a part of the many ways of making ends meet. From the standpointof the national economy, HEA is a fringe about whose size andsignificance not much is known.

In using the HEA concept, some marginal limitations are necessary.After discussion, it was decided to include people who usetheir homes as an essential component of the activity, whether asa communication base, a place where they think, plan andprepare it, a place where they keep supplies and articles, as wellas a place where the activity takes place; but to excludethose who use their home only to reside, rest and recuperate.

4. ARRANGEMENT OF THE REPORT

There are four chapters.

Chapter I gives the accounts of HEA, individual andcollective. It gives a rough classification of them,discusses the motives of those who engage in HEAand what are the requirements for success in it.

Chapter II looks at the constraints and help whichsociety provides. It tries to see each system in its owncontext and as it impacts on others, and to draw out thepoints that affect HEA.

Chapter III touches on some of the major forces changingsociety today, and tries to indicate their effect on HEA.

Chapter IV is a round-up of the previous chapters, andmakes suggestions for study and action.

To some chapters a supplement of information, relevant to theargument but perhaps not of interest to the general reader, hasbeen added.

CHAPTER I Home-based EconomicActivity (HEA)

1. INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTS

The individual accounts reproduced here were chosen not onlybecause they serve to illustrate the range of activities under-taken by those engaged in HEA but also because they bring outpoints which are pertinent to the study. They provide an insightinto the circumstances which prompted the respondents to use theirhomes as work-places, show how they use the facilities their homeso f f e r and how successful or unsuccessful they are in achievingtheir objectives. In addition, a number of the accountsillustrate how respondents deal with the constraints which ' thesystem1 applies to HEA.

The order in which the accounts are arranged is somewhatarbitrary. The classification adopted was that of type ofactivity pursued. Where the accounts are in the informant 's ownwords quotation marks are used.

The f irst five accounts are from those engaged in or attempting tomake articles at home for sale. Accounts I and II are from womenwho are effectively outworkers in the garment industry. Onereceived professional training as a dressmaker and has a purpose-built extension to her home to accommodate her work. The other isless well equipped and finds diff iculty in working within theconfines of her home, particularly when her children are onholiday from school.

Account I

Mrs T started full-time work as a dressmaker at home for severalreasons: to supplement her husband's income, because her sons werestill at school and because, before her marriage, she had trainedas a dressmaker. She works mainly for an Haute Couture house inLondon, which sends work to her. Although she works like anemployee, she is classified as self-employed. Consequently shecannot claim unemployment benefit when she is off work and has todraw on her savings. Also, she has to pay income tax in arrears,in two lump sums a year, which causes her not only budgetaryproblems but also difficulty over assessment. The Inland Revenueissue preliminary tax demands based not on actual earnings but ontheir estimate of what the earnings should have been. As Mrs T 'searnings did not rise in keeping with prices and average earnings,the Inland Revenue over-estimated her tax. Her husband, throughwhom Mrs T pays her income tax, managed to have the assessmentreduced.

No authority prevented Mrs T from using her home for her work.When Mr T designed and built an extension to the house for herworkshop, the local authorities were satisfied that it was

HOME-BASED ECONOMIC ACTIVITY

neither unsafe nor ugly nor a retail outlet. Apart from thepurpose-built extension Mrs T uses a heavy-duty sewing machine anda domestic machine. She uses a large plywood' board for a cuttingtable.

If Mrs T has to abandon her present employment she may seek full-time work in a local dressmaker's workshop or abandon paid workaltogether and devote herself to house-keeping and leisure.Because she has neither the knowledge of business law and book-keeping, nor a seller's skills, she may have much difficultyin working profitably as a freelance dressmaker.

Account II

'I am 43 years old, married with three children aged 13, 9 and 7.I sew skirts at home. A lady brings the pieces of the skirts tomy house twice a week and I sew them together on my machine. Itis a simple job. I get paid for each skirt that I sew, but it isnot very much. I got my machine from the people that I do workfor. I paid for it and I also have to pay for my needles. I haveto pay for my electricity, too.

I used to work as a sewing machinist at a factory but then I wasmade redundant. A friend of mine does the same sort of work athome and she asked the lady to come and see me. I have been doingthis work now for nearly two years.

I only do it for the money because my husband's wages are notenough. I do not get paid very much and sometimes I have to workvery hard to finish all the skirts I have been given. In theschool holidays it is very difficult to do it because my childrenare at home.

If I could get another proper job I xrould stop sewing skirts.'

* * *

Next an account from a man who in mid-life was found to besuffering from an illness as a result of which he became aregistered disabled worker. This account is of interest inshowing how public resources can be used imaginatively to helpbring about a success story. Our informant wished to emphasizehow much time and trouble must be spent to achieve this.

Account III

Mr T is 42, married with two grown-up sons and a daughter.Although he looks fit and active, he has been in and out ofhospital for the past few years. Two years ago he was diagnosedas epileptic. He was trained as an electrician and employed inplanning, estimating and selling air-conditioning and heatinginstallations for commercial and industrial buildings. His


disability has made this employment impracticable because of thetravelling involved. He successfully applied to the ManpowerServices Commission for a grant of £5,000 under the 'Business onOwn Account' scheme for the registered disabled.

The grant has been used to build a workshop complete with servicesand a range of power woodworking tools, because as part of histherapy whilst in hospital Mr T learnt woodwork. The workshop isof prefabricated concrete and is about 15 feet square. It islocated in the rear garden of his semi-detached council house, asfar as possible from other houses. Planning permission had to beobtained from the District Council, and Mr T found the localplanning office very helpful. When planning permission wasgranted at the first attempt he felt that this was largely due totheir assistance. The Council insisted that he leases the groundon which the workshop stands separately from the remainder of theproperty. The rateable value has not yet been assessed.

The planning approval covered the employment of a second disabledperson whom Mr T would train. There were some objections fromneighbours to the application, but there have been no complaintsabout his actual operations. The approval imposed restrictions' onhis hours of work and on the level of noise permitted.

He produces a range of simple white-wood furniture and he has notbuilt up his sales sufficiently to keep himself fully employedyet, or to take on a trainee. He thinks that advertising hisproducts may be one of his main difficulties, but he hopes to beself-supporting soon. His income is fully declared for taxpurposes.

He enjoys the work and gets great personal satisfaction from it.He plans to help at a new sheltered workshop for the adultmentally handicapped being built in a nearby town. He is alsoconsidering setting up an association of handicapped workers inthe county, with particular emphasis on the need for advertisingtheir wares.

Accounts IV and V are provided by two who failed in theirobjectives to establish units of production at home. Althoughinadequate financial backing played a part in their lack ofsuccess, other factors were also mentioned. In both cases therespondents mentioned the problems of attempting self-employmentwhilst drawing state benefits.

Account IV

'I am 46, my wife is 30 and we have two children aged 2 and 3. Wecame to this area four years ago to work at a nearby "alternativeconference centre" and when this job suddenly terminated we


bought (with a mortgage) a two-bedroomed terrace house. Until1977 I had a career in education and had been warden of aTeachers' Centre. Apart from a year working as a tree-surgeon forthe local council (mainly to qualify for a mortgage), I have beenregistered unemployed since 1977.

By and large we survive here by living a simplified lifestyle andreducing our needs and wants, growing our own vegetables, makingour bread, yogurt, beer, etc.

Since settling here we have tried a number of ways of earningmoney, ranging from running a "real food" stall at fairs topublishing a little magazine. However, I'd for some time beenkeen on the idea of shoemaking and had already tried makingfootwear for us and the children. In the spring and summer of1981 we tried getting into it as a money-making craft, offeringsandals, mocassins and shoes, hand-made and at reasonable prices.There was evidently a big demand, more than we could cope with.Many problems arose, like learning to do it, and finding sourcesof various materials. A particular difficultly was fundingexpenditure on materials which had always to be bought in heftyminimum quantities from income which came in smaller amounts.However, the over-riding problem was always workspace. The sizeand design of our house means tha't there is no space that can betaken out of use for working, especially with small childrenaround. I tried to set up a co-operative of folk with similarproblems to look for shared workspace: this project met with amixture of massive indifference and hostility and I soon abandonedit.

I continued to work on the bed, on the kitchen table, in thegarden, but eventually gave up altogether, and apart from smalljobs for us and for friends, shoemaking is now in abeyance. Otheroptions such as building a big shed in the garden, or renting aworkshop privately, or trying to find neighbours with unused roomsetc have foundered either on lack of money or on the need forsecrecy arising out of the fact that I have continued to sign onand draw social security. I have considered myself justified inthis, since my intention was to train myself to get off the dole,and in the process it has cost money rather than showing muchoverall profit. The law wouldn't see it that way however.'

Account V

'I trained as a graphic artist but at present I am unemployed. Iam lucky, I'm 21, a bachelor with no dependants so I am free tochange my plans when I want. When I was unemployed I went tolive with my mother and younger brother in South Wales. Whileliving there I did some freelance graphic work. I declared thehours I worked but I did not have to declare how much I earned.It seemed I could earn as much as I liked on one day and stillclaim for the other days that week.


To do my graphic work I only need a table top and a few drawinginstruments. Any enlarging or reducing I get the printer to do.I then had the idea of setting up a silk-screen workshop on my ownto produce fine art prints and posters etc. The equipment Ineeded was very expensive to buy and my bank manager was veryreluctant to lend money to somebody on the dole, so I designed myown and paid a carpenter to build it for me. I could have builtit myself if I had had the tools. I then needed inks andchemicals, and in an attempt to get a grant I went to the WelshDevelopment Agency. They had a minimum grant which was far inexcess of my needs and so I could not take advantage of theiraid, although they did offer me plenty of moral support and someuseful information. I was beginning to lose my enthusiasm by thenso I shelved the project temporarily.

The major handicap to the transfer from unemployed to self-employed was the loss of benefit immediately I started to work formyself, but that would have been impractical due to the inevitabledelay between taking the job and getting paid for it.

I then moved to another city where friends helped me resettle andwhere I am a part-time student at the Polytechnic. I live in ashared student house, rented from a private landlord. We have setup a photographic studio in the house which at present is used asa hobby but may generate money at some time, though this was notthe original intention. I also have contact with silk-screenprinters in Oxford and later I hope to produce designs for them toprint. The degree course I hope to attend next year shouldprovide me with inspiration, the qualification itself would haveno relevance to my life-style at all.

I still do occasional graphic work, which I do not declare,because I now receive Supplementary Benefit and I would simplylose the money directly (in excess of £4 per week) but maybe oneday I'll be successful and pay plenty of taxes back into thesystem. I can hardly wait!'

The next group of accounts concerns those involved in 'serviceindustries' .

The first is from a man who gave up his full-time paid employmentto pursue his hobby of restoring antiques and his accounthighlights the problems of undertaking that type of enterprise inthe home. The second case is of a man who suffered redundancyfrom his paid employment and started his own car repair business.His story again illustrates how helpful and accommodating thelocal authority can be in such situations.

The other account is from a married woman whose HEA supplements10 the income of her husband. She used her organisational


abilities to start a small agency, and thus create employment forothers.

Account VI

Mr and Mrs B live with their 8 year old daughter in a semi-detached house. Mr B left his job with a building society to workfor himself doing antique restoration. He has been undertakingrestoration work part-time for eight years, and had specialised inivory, tortoiseshell and mother of pearl restoration because heparticularly enjoyed working with these materials, and partly toexploit a gap in the market. Work has come from dealers inLondon, and by word of mouth via friends.

When Mr B stopped working for the Building Society, the family'sincome dropped considerably and the mortgage payments rose as theywere no longer eligible for the subsidised mortgage rate enjoyedby building society employees. His wife began work first part-time and then full-time, which meant that Mr B had sometimes tocollect their daughter from school and care for her if she wasill.

Their three-bedroomed house is quite unsuited to its present use.Mr B's workspace consists of one end of the sitting room and anoutside workshop which is the garage. Space is a big problem, theworkshop is 10' x 12', and contains a workbench, shelves and itemsof furniture awaiting restoration.

The main drawbacks to having the workshop in the living area ofthe house are:-

a. With so little space the workshop tends to take over the restof the sitting room and his wife fights a losing battle with theworkshop tide.

b. The work involves the use of glues, some of which have strongfumes and the room requires ventilation.

e. Tortoiseshell restoration can require heat, resulting inunpleasant smells.

d. Bone for restoration work needs to be boiled several times toremove grease before it is useable.

e. The noise from Mr B's treadle and hand saws is quite loudwithin the house and can be distracting to the rest of thefamily.

Mr B has to submit his first set of figures soon, so they have anaccountant who will deal with it but they have kept their bills,receipts, etc.

11


They have not informed any official that they are running abusiness from the home, partly because there did not seem to beany need as no-one was complaining about it (i.e. neighbours) andpartly because they have a horror of the bureaucracy which theyfeel would then descend on them and the time which it would taketo sort it out. They are not strictly speaking allowed to run abusiness according to the deeds of the house but ...

Account Vll

Mr P who is 44, served an apprenticeship in mechanical engineeringto degree standard. Here he describes how he came to startworking from his own home.

'Seven years ago the company I worked for got into financialdifficulties and had to cut staff. I was employed as their solesales engineer. I spent two* weeks on the so-called executiveregister and then decided to go self-employed.

I had the opportunity to work as a car mechanic locally, whichgave me the notion to run a garage. I took a correspondencecourse about car-repairs which put me up to date with currentautomotive practice, and about 18 months later I went on a fiveweek management course with Esso. Then the escalating petrolprices and the cut price war put paid to any hope of applyingsuccessfully for a garage. I took the opportunity to run a smallgarage workshop on contract service, still being self-employed.After two years, I wanted to take a long holiday and as I hadinvested in a large number of specialist tools I felt I could copewith repairs from my own garage at home, as there appeared to beno premises available at reasonable rental.'

After working for about eight months repairing cars in a smallway, his next-door neighbour applied to extend his house. Mr Pregistered an objection. When the Planning Officer visited thesite to consider the application, he noticed Mr P's car repairbusiness and told him that he should seek planning permission.Mr P was advised by his accountant to use a consultant to make hisapplication, which he did. He was granted initial permission for12 months and when this period expired he was given an indefiniteextension on a personal basis, to lapse if he left the house orsold the business.

His basic tools have cost around £2,000-£3,000 and he has noemployees. He had no initial capital but his business is now inits fourth year and he is ploughing back profits into improvementsto the garage and into converting a conservatory into astoreroom.

His office is the dining room. His next major project is tocreate an area of hard standing behind his garage to accommodate

12 eight cars.


He only undertakes mechanical repairs: painting and bodywork arecontracted out so as to reduce the nuisance to neighbours and alsoto avoid investment in additional equipment. He provides apersonal service and enjoys good customer loyalty. On his returnfrom a two month holiday he was relieved to find himself fullybooked again within three days. His charges to clients are basedon the ICMB Manual and are slightly less then those of the localgarage. He sees himself as a car repairer rather than a fitterwhich probably helps to keep down his charges- At the moment heis fully involved with his business and takes little time off,mainly because of the current alterations to his premises.However, he is hopeful that, in three or four years' time, he willbe able to take things easier. He likes golf.

He has had no complaints from his neighbours and although hisproperty was revalued by the rating authorities a year ago, hestill pays a domestic and not a business rate. He employs anaccountant who does the books and tax returns. His wife does theVAT and he is currently revising his system of keeping accounts tohelp reduce the bill from the accountant.

Account VIII

Mrs C is in her mid-thirties, married to a Post Office Engineerand with two small children who have not yet started full-timeschool. Before her marriage, Mrs G worked as a secretary andbook-keeper. In addition she acted as secretary to an antiquarianbookseller and became his aide, organising intineraries, bookings,social events, etc. She still does this work which is only part-time but for which she is on call most of the time.

After her marriage she started a typing, book-keeping andduplicating business from her home. When she became pregnant shesold the duplicating business but kept the rest by employing goodtypists. Although the work dwindled, the business stayed alive.

Her latest business venture encompasses a wider range of services.Besides secretarial and book-keeping work, the agency offers houseand garden maintenance services, specialist catering and claims tobe able to undertake any assignment which is legal!

Mrs G uses shop window advertisements and parish magazines for herlocal publicity. Advertisements in the local newspapers provedunproductive, so she has used some national magazines to attractcustom from those with more money than time and who appreciatepersonal service.

Mrs G has no difficulty finding helpers - she has a pool ofassociates, mainly women who are unable to compete in the labourmarket but who wish to work. The arrangement is that each helpermakes a contract with a customer and Mrs G takes approximately 15%

13 on each transaction for the business.


The company is not registrable for VAT and naturally Mrs C doesher own accounts. Her income from the bookseller is included inher husband's tax return and the business venture accounts are onSchedule D. She lists any associate receiving over £100 andexpects them to make their own declaration to the Inland Revenue.

Mrs C's parents were shopkeepers and of the five daughters of thefamily, three are in business. Perhaps as a result of her earlycommercial experiences she is well organised and efficient andfinds her work 'satisfying. Her husband, a quiet man who enjoysthe solitude of gardening, was initially not enthusiastic abouther activities. However, he now tolerates her business ventureand with the help of a friend undertakes the gardening jobs forthe company.

Accounts IX and X are from two men engaged in slightly differentservices. The first is a tutor organiser for an adult educationorganisation. His case is different from the previous ones inthat he is a paid employee who uses his home as his base.Account X is from a man who has found it impossible to undertakepart-time employment since his redundancy for fear of infringingthe regulations formulated by the DHSSi His account isparticularly poignant and highlights one of the principal hurdleswhich those wishing to help themselves out of employment by self-employment have to surmount.

Account IX

'My job's to organise and teach adult education classes. I have awife and two children aged 10 and 5. I am required to work fromhome by my employers who do not provide me with an office. Theypay the rental of the telephone but I deduct my own phone calls.They also pay my travel expenses from my home rather than from anoffice so that no matter where I go, I am paid by my employers assoon as I leave home on business.

The facilities I provide are an office, a desk, a whole series ofbookshelves and filing cabinets. I also store projectors,cameras, video tape recorder and television and sometimes overheadprojectors. The disadvantage of these is that they take space;the advantages are that they can be used by the rest of thefamily. When I first moved to this house, we effectively lost theliving room because I used it for my office but since then we havehad it extended to provide me with an office. Some of mycolleagues have had considerable difficulty finding space in whichto keep all the paraphernalia. I use an accountant to make my taxclaims against wear and tear of our furniture and carpets withinthe room I use as an office.

14


I have found one main problem when working from home. Havingeverything running from home meant that there was no real cut-off 'between work and home. When tired, it became difficult sometimesto relax at home because of constant telephone calls. 1personally found working from home a very difficult experiencemainly because of the demand of the job and the way that it mixedin with the family. I did not find this acceptable when there wasthe chance of choosing where- to work. There is something to thediscipline of doing work in a place away from home, separated bysome distance, to allow a mental re-adjustment and a mentalseparation of various roles. I would not wish to work from homein future unless the work was something very creative, notbureaucratic or administrative.'

Account X

This respondent's story is told in his own words. The problems hedescribes are of course not confined to those engaged in HEA.

'I am 60, married, with one grown-up daughter now also married andliving nearby. I am a professional engineering buyer, having beenin this profession since 1949. I have suffered redundancy threetimes, in 1973, 1979 and 1981; on the third occasion owing tofactory closure. My redundancy money in 1973 and 1979 wasinvested in my house (the mortgage is paid). I received no moneyfor the 1981 redundancy, owing to the briefness of service.

An industrial buyer, unless he is one of the group managementpersonnel is not particularly well-paid; my last salary worked outat about £78 per week after tax and other deductions. In order toimprove my standard of living and to build up my savings I used mysecondary skill as a pianist and organist up to professionalstandard for some types of work; I undertook engagements atweekends, gave a few lessons and sometimes stood in for othermusicians. I conducted this secondary enterprise as a businessemploying an accountant and having my income tax adjustedlegitimately to cover my extra earnings.

When in 1981 I became unemployed, I discovered that I would bediscouraged from continuing to supplement my income, except onSundays. During the week I was allowed to earn only £1 per dayand was expected to notify the Unemployment Benefit Office inadvance that I expected to take on casual work during thenext fortnight, this information being expected of me when Iwent to sign on every other Thursday.

After a year on Unemployment Benefit I am now entering the DHSSsystem and find that in any seven days I may earn only £4 thoughmy wife is also allowed to earn £4. As she is 64 and is unfit forwork, this provision is of no help to us. Furthermore if thecombined capital of wife and claimant exceeds £2,000 no benefit

15 whatever is payable.


It has been suggested to me that I could take on "moonlight" workwithout declaring it. I object to this idea on the grounds that(a) the consequences can be serious if one is detected; and (b) ifone breaks the £4 earning rule (which action I do not considermorally wrong) one is also obliged to evade the income tax (andthis I do consider morally wrong). As a result of this legaltrap, I am now in a position where it would be difficult for me tohelp myself even if I decided suddenly to break the rules; for mylow income over the twelve-month period has obliged me at last tocease running my car, and I need it to transport my musicalequipment.'

The next account is from a woman engaged in one of the most home-centred of all HEA. Mrs S is a childminder and her story reflectsthe reasons given by many women for working at home.

Account XI

Mrs S lives with her husband and two children aged 9 and 6 in athree-bedroomed detached house.

Mrs S started childminding four years ago, looking after a 2\ yearold child whose mother was teaching part-time. She has neverlooked after more than three children at once, she feels thatthree is enough. Mostly she looks after children on either amorning or an afternoon basis or sometimes just after school untilthe mother finishes work.

Very little has changed physically in the house as it was gearedup for small children anyway. Mrs S was given a twin pushchairwhen she first began, and this she might well have purchasedanyway as it has proved a great help. The only other thing neededis spare clothes, and these come from the mothers themselves wholeave a change of clothes with Mrs S.

She negotiates terms of payment and 'conditions' with each motherat the beginning of each minding. The children come through wordof mouth and friends. She does not advertise and is notregistered through social services.

Mrs S says that-one of her reasons for childminding is that sheenjoys it. She is fortunate that neither her husband nor thechildren mind having other children in the house (althoughusually they are collected by six o'clock in the evening).

Another reason that this sort of work fits in with Mrs S's life isbecause she needs to be at home more than most mothers. Herdaughter suffers from cystic fibrosis which means that she issometimes off school. A part-time job away from home would be

16 difficult for Mrs S, childminding fits in well with the


limitations that the child's illness places on the family.

* * *

The final two accounts are from a man and a woman who are bothengaged in a popular home-based employment - selling. For thefirst, selling is an employment additional to his full-time paidjob. His account is also of interest as he was one of the fewrespondents who hid his activities from the authorities. Theother case is of a woman who worked as a manager for a well-knownorganisation selling by the party-plan method.

Account XII

'I work full-time as a machinist to keep my wife and our fourchildren who are 11, 10, 8 and 6. I have a relative in London whohas a shop. He sells electrical goods like clocks, watches andradios. He gets them quite cheap and so I get goods off him whichI sell at a reduced price here. I can sell them cheaply because Ihaven't any overheads. My relative makes a profit and so do I.

I keep some goods in a small stock but only those which I sell alot of. A lot of other things I sell, people ask me for. I go upto London every now and again and bring the stuff back in ray car.I sell to friends and people I know and sometimes I get batches ofsmall goods for others to sell, perhaps at work or in theirshops.

I do it because it helps my relatives and because I can make alittle money. I do not make much money though. At Christmas timeI sell quite a lot of things to people for Christmas presents.

I haven't told anyone in authority about this because they mightstop me doing it. If I was running it properly as a business Iwould have to spend a lot of time filling in forms and fitting inwith regulations. I suppose I would have to pay a lot of taxesand other things. I do not want them to know because theauthorities would always interfere.'

Accounts XIII

Mrs M's reason for working was financial. She and her husbandlived with their two children aged 8 and 5 in a bungalow and Mrs Mworked to pay for a home extension. Having worked as a Tupperwaredealer in the past, she made contact with a local Manager andwas recruited. After five weeks as a dealer, she became aManager. As a Manager she got a car (new, taxed and insured) aswell as commission on her sales and on the sales of the dealersthat she managed.

Being a Manager was a full-time job. Mondays and alternate17 Tuesdays she had to attend meetings and sales pitches. On an


average week she would attend anything up to five parties. Inaddition, dealers' earnings had to be collected and paperworkorganised. She worked for a year at full stretch but then foundthat she was beginning to have problems. On top of this she foundthat working at home got on top of her because it was therecontinually so she kept working and never really switched off.

The storage of Tupperware was such that they used a small studyfor that. She did the packing in there as well. A phone wasessential and was always ringing. Expenses were not paid (i.e.petrol and the telephone) and Managers are self-employed so theyclaim for these things themselves.

These accounts represent only the tip of the iceberg as far asthe total range of activities is concerned but they are a valuableinsight into how people manage their HEA and how they integratetheir economic activities with their domestic facilities.

Whilst most of our respondents were working independently a numberwere 'outworkers' in one sense or another in that they operatedsimply as part of an extended labour force. They were given atask to carry out at home and were paid for their labour but theydid not initiate the process nor market the result.

Traditionally one associates 'outwork' with manufacturing industrybut it is not necessarily so and the typist or computer programmerwho is given work to do at home can be considered an 'outworker'just as much as the machinist who makes up garments.

Having looked at the individual accounts by people who work athome, both 'outworkers' and others, we now look at threeorganisations which use the outwork system. One, Solar Designs,is a manufacturing business, with production being put out toworkers, but the other two, F International and Rank Xerox, havepioneered the use of computer technology to transfer theworkplace from the office to the home.

Account XIV

Solar Designs is a small business manufacturing gold and silverjewellery. Mr Allen, the manager, who had previously been abanker set up the business seven years ago in a redundant churchin Oxfordshire. He found COSIRA most helpful in the initialstages particularly in finding a suitable property.

This is not a craftsman jeweller's busiriess but could rather bedescribed as light engineering in precious metals, producing asmall range of standardised articles by breaking down themanufacturing process into a series of tasks of differing degrees

18 of skill. Full-time and part-time workers are employed on the


factory premises but use is made of outworkers for the simpleoperations which can be done at home. From the management pointof view this gives useful flexibility as the seasonal fluctuationsin trade can be accommodated by variations in the amount of workgiven to outworkers, output can be increased quickly without theneed to take on more labour or to extend the premises and thereare no problems with laying off workers when trade is slack.

All the outworkers are women and most are married and over 30,some are unable to go out to work because they have youngchildren, some are supplementing another part-time job and otherssimply enjoy doing the work rather than needing to earn the money.They are paid piece rates based on the average output for in-houseworkers and earnings vary from about £20 to £50 per week, most ofthem getting around £30 per week. The rate per hour works out atabout £2.20 for a fast worker. Over the whole year the total pay-out for homework would be between £8,000 and £10,000.

This business has always had very good relationships betweenmanagement and employees, rather a family atmosphere. Althoughworking with gold and silver, the manager has never felt thatthere was any need to have insurance cover on materials nor has hehad to advertise for workers. All recruitment is done by personalcontact and there are often several members of the same familyworking for the f irm.

Account XV

F International (the F stands for Freelance) was founded in 1962by Stephanie Shirley, formerly a senior programmer with ICL. Theprime aim was to provide an opportunity for women with domesticties to continue to use their computer skills by enabling them towork from home. In 21 years it has grown to be the largestindependent software and systems house in the UK and has set upsubsidiaries in Denmark and the Netherlands and, most recently, inthe United States.

The F International workforce in the UK now numbers around 800 ofwhom 96% are women and 92% work from home- The majority, over600, are the highly skilled members of the technical panels uponwhom the company calls to execute project work. All panel membersare required to have at least four years experience in the dataprocessing industry. They undertake to work a minimum of 20 hoursa week for the company, but within this limit the pattern of theworking week can be arranged to suit individual needs.

Although F International does not guarantee the 20 hours weeklywork most people find they are able to put in as many hours asthey want. Panel members are all self-employed on a fee-earningbasis and are entirely responsible for their own tax andinsurance, a great saving in office administrative costs. The

19 other quarter of the workforce are salaried staff of whom 71%


work from home (53% part-time and 18% full-time) the other 29% areoffice-based either in the head office at Berkhamsted or in one ofthe five regional offices.

The company offers a comprehensive range of services related todata-processing installations including consultancy, hardware andsoftware evaluation, systems analysis and design, programmedevelopment, documentation and technical training. Contractsrange from a few days consultancy employing one person to projectsextending over several years requiring teams of over 40 peoplewith associated management and administrative support. Allprojects are tightly controlled and monitored to ensure that thework is of high quality and completed to time. Initially an esti-mator will visit the client to assess the job, then the projectmanager will assemble the team from the panel members who aregiven detailed assignments and completion dates. Each panellistfills in a time sheet weekly so that the project manager can keepa check on progress- Each stage of the project is checked by anauditor who is not a member of the project team and close contactis maintained with the client throughout. F International is ahighly professional organisation providing a high quality service.The company is essentially people and their skills but it is theco-ordination which makes the skills marketable.

Account XVI

The Rank Xerox experiment began in 1982 and was a result of asurvey of the London Headquarters office costs. This showed thatthe overhead costs of the office accommodation such as rent,rates, fuel, etc amounted to 31% of total costs, basic salariesaccounted for 30% and other employment costs such as NationalInsurance and various employees' benefits for a further 15%, afairly typical breakdown for a major company in central London orthe Home Counties. Translated into individual terms this meansthat the true cost to the company of an employee on a basic salaryof £10,000 is over £25,000 when office accommodation andemployment costs are taken into account.

In analysing the problem two basic types of work were identified;first that which entails being on the spot like reception work andis dependent on personal contact, and second the pure 'output',for example the writing of a computer programme which need not bedone on office premises at all. Many if not most jobs will fallbetween the two extremes. With the advance of technology a widerange of automated office equipment which can be linked bytelecommunication to the Central Office is becoming availableat increasingly low cost and this broadens the scope for work athome.

This is where the Rank Xerox 'networking' system comes in. In1982 the company put 15 middle and senior managers on contract to

20 work from home, increasing the number to 24 by the end of


1983. They are linked to the office by computer and guaranteed upto 100 days work a year for Rank Xerox, beyond that they areexpected to make outside contacts and build up their own business.Rank Xerox selected the candidates for networking very carefully,ensuring that they had sufficient self-motivation and assisting byproviding training and preparation for running their own busines-ses. All Rank Xerox networkers have to form their own LimitedCompanies and the networking contract is made with those companiesnot with the individual networker who is encouraged to take onextra staff as his business grows.

There is a benefit too for the secretarial and administrativeworkers who remain in the office. They have more responsibilitynow that their managers have moved out leaving them to manage thenetwork and executive career prospects are opened up through theopportunities for showing ability in the management of executivework-stations.

For the company the benefit is clear. The expense of providingoffice accommodation is reduced as are incidental employmentcosts, people are only paid for time worked rather than for hoursspent in the office and the permanent workforce is reduced givingmore employment flexibility. For the networkers the advantagesdepend to a great extent upon themselves. Working on their ownaccount can be an incentive to greater efficiency, and higheroutput brings the immediate reward of higher earnings, time is notwasted in commuting and there is flexibility of hours of workinstead of a fixed time office routine*

Both F International and the Rank Xerox networking show thatcomputer technology enables many tasks to be undertaken at homewhich would previously not have been possible. Both rely on asupply of technically qualified workers with good motivation whoalready have extensive experience of working in an officeenvironment before undertaking the more exacting discipline ofworking from home. The advantage to companies using the servicesare in reduced overhead costs and increased employmentflexibility. The advantage to the Rank Xerox networkers and theF International panel members and other employees is in theflexibility of working hours enabling some to work who could nototherwise have done so, and all to arrange their working hours asthey choose, and in releasing them from the timewasting dailyroutine of commuting.

2. RANGE OF ACTIVITIES

The individual accounts cover a limited range of activities. Toobtain a full list of them and their distribution would require aprofessional survey, beyond the scope of this investigation.

This section brings together the information available from the21 other sources outlined in Section 2 of the Opening Statement.


From these it was possible to compile the listing given in Table1, where they are grouped into six main categories.

However, the range of activities shown in the Table is very much areflection of the method of collection employed. Since it reliedheavily on reports from individuals, it depended on the efficiencyof the reporters. Their reports were influenced by both theirpersonal knowledge of the area and of the community in which theylived, and also by their personal perceptiveness. Some activitiesmay be carried on so discreetly that they never attract theattention of neighbours, either because they are infrequent,because they make no impact on the local environment or becausethey operate in some 'grey'area' and may be disapproved of orformally prohibited.

The contents of the list were discussed with a number of peoplewhose work brought them into contact with those engaged in HEA:for example, local government officers in Planning, Housing,Environmental Health, Community Development and Rates departments;Civil Servants in Tax and Social Security; staff of voluntarybodies such as Citizens Advice Bureaux, Community Councils. Noneexpressed surprise at the list and the overall impression was thatit corresponded well with what was already known about HEA.

Reports were obtained from a variety of communities withinThamesdown. These included inner urban areas, poorer problemareas and thriving urban villages. Table 2 shows a typicallisting provided by an informant from one of the urban villages,where development is now approaching completion and the oldesthouses are only about two years old. The respondent reported ahigh incidence of home-based selling. The products involvedranged from the traditional 'Tupperware' to goods produced in theThird World, the profits from which are directed back to aiddevelopment in depressed areas of the world. Personal servicesfigured prominently in the listing too. Although Repair andMaintenance of Premises did not figure particularly in thislisting it was more prominent in the lists from the inner urbanareas.

Additional reports were also obtained from village communitiesoutside Thamesdown. Table 3 was compiled from a listing providedby an informant who stressed that she had not made any specificenquiries but had relied solely on her own knowledge of hervillage. Making and Selling was the most frequent activity, butit is also the most public, in that those producing goods forsale will seek to publicise their HEA. No cases of home-basedselling were reported here.

Another village informant provided a list for his village ofapproximately 800 households, listing some 36 persons engaged inHEA, the listing being compiled from local advertisements,

22 personal knowledge and reliable hearsay. However, he was also


Table 1

Range of Activities

1 Making and Selling Cooking, Catering, Art Work,Needlework, Dressmaking,Knitting, Homecrafts, Produce

2 Home-Based Selling Tupperware parties and Partyplan, Mail Order, Catalogueselling, Cosmetics, Newspapers,Football Pools, Taxi Services,Mobile Shops, Delivery Services,Manure, Straw, Insurance,General Dealing

3a Repair & Maintenance(Premises)

Painting and Decorating,General Maintenance, MinorPlumbing, Double Glazing, PlantHire, Gardening, Pest Control

3b Repair & Maintenance(Equipment)

Cars, Refrigerators andHousehold Goods, Watches, Radioand TV, Cycles, Mowers,Electrical Equipment

4 Family and PersonalServices

Childminding, Baby sitting,Hairdressing, Beautician,Chiropody, General Cleaning,Window Cleaning, Camping andCaravan Sites, Paying Guests,Caretaking, Animal Boarding

5 Intellectual andProfessional

Teaching and Tutoring curriculumand examination subjects,Musical skills, Dancing, Driving,Legal advice, Accountancy,Secretarial work, Planningapplications, Design, Editing,Freelance journalism, Research(Market and other), Computerrelated skills (programming,system design), Medicaltherapies, Counselling

6 Minor Manufacturingand Commercial

Machining garments, Packing,Typing, Book-Keeping,Enveloping, Assembly - e.g. Toys

23


able to provide a detailed survey of one group of 25 dwellings,which showed 15 persons engaged in HEA. This degree of activitysuggested two possible conclusions. Either people in this sub-group were particularly active, or the general report of thevillage revealed only the tip of the iceberg.

Table 2

Range of Activities - Report from 'urban1 village

1 Making and Selling Woodworked Toys, Rag Dolls,Plants, Theatrical Costumes,Screenprinting

2 Home-Based Selling Tupperware, Art materials,Cosmetics, Clothing, Third Worldproducts


Double glazing units


Car repairs

Personal Services Childminding, Newspapers, Hair-dressing, Carpet cleaning,Window cleaning

Intellectual andProfessional

Piano Tuition, Evening classteaching (vocational and non-vocational)

Minor Manufacturingand Commercial

24


Table 3

Range of Activities - Report from village of approximately250 houses

1 Making and Selling Selling produce in season,Selling eggs (4), Selling honey(2), Making and selling gardentubs, Knitting jumpers, Dress-making, Making curtains andloose covers, Sketches of thevillage, Selling daffodils,Propagating vines

Home-Based Selling


Carpenter/handyman


Car maintenance (2), Antiquerestoration

Personal Services Childminding (3), Breeding andBoarding dogs, Hairdressing (3)

Intellectual andProfessional

Piano Lessons

Minor Manufacturingand Commercial

Dressmaking for local shop

25

This range of activities utilises a wide spectrum of human skills,both intellectual and manual. Some make use of natural talents,of acquired skills, of human muscle. Others involve the use ofspecialised tools and equipment or of particular buildings or landattached to the domestic home. Yet others involve the conversionto cash of the by-products of other money-making activities, forexample, the manure and straw merchants. Some HEA enterprisesinvolve only one member of the household but frequently others inthe home were involved either regularly or occasionally.

The range of activities listed in categories 1-4 are those whichwere traditionally home-based, small-scale producing and selling,cleaning, taking in lodgers. The activities in these categoriesfill a set of needs which are fairly permanent, ones which arefound in all types of society, from pre-industrial ones to moderncomplex societies. They also cover a very wide range ofcommitment on the part of the participants; for example, the


26

the casual baby-sitter at one end and full-time agent for anational insurance company at the other extreme.

The range of activities given in categories 5 and 6 involve manywhich traditionally take place outside the home, but which for avariety of reasons have moved back into the domestic setting.Interestingly, they cover both the most remunerative and the lesswell paid of the activities. At one end, there is the consultantwho chooses to work at home because it allows him more freedomfrom the routine of the conventional office and at the other,there is the outworker machining garments or assembling ball-pointpens. Being taken from a single survey in one area, the range ofactivities in category 6 encountered was relatively limited.Although there'are no precise national figures describing thecurrent extent and nature of outwork in manufacturing industry,surveys undertaken by the Department of Employment, the WagesCouncil Industries Inspectorate and the Low Pay Unit help to buildup an overall picture and some further detail by smaller localsurveys, for example the Leicester outwork campaign and the workof Hackney Borough Council. These show that the largest field foroutwork is still the clothing industry particularly dressmakingand tailoring, hosiery and knitwear, and the boot and shoe trade.In addition to these traditional areas many outworkers are foundin newer industries in plastics, in light engineering and intoymaking.

In the clothing industries the great majority of outworkers aremachinists with substantial numbers of cutters, pressers andfinishers. In the knitwear industry a considerable number ofoutworkers are hand knitters. Specific occupations mentioned inthe boot and shoe trade were machinists and heel assemblers.

In the other industries much of the work described was essentiallyrepetitive assembly tasks, soldering plugs on to leads, makingChristmas crackers, fitting together the parts of mobiles,assembling lampshades and jewellery, making wigs, buttons and beltmaking and box making and many were employed in packaging.

3. WHY PEOPLE START HEA

There appear to be a variety of reasons why people choose toengage in HEA rather than to enter or stay in'conventionalemployment outside the home. Broadly the motivation seems to fallinto the following categories.

a. Those wishing to supplement their income from full-timeemployment; for example the machinist who sold electrical goods atdiscount prices in his spare time and the woman outworker whosewed skirts who said:

'I only do it for the money because my husband's wages


are not enough ... If I could get another proper job, Iwould stop sewing skirts'.

b. Those wishing to add to their income for a special purpose.This type of 'target' HEA was quite frequently mentioned, forexample a woman who reported: 'Finding ourselves running out ofmoney for doing up our terrace house and having no-one to lookafter the children I decided to make cakes at home'.

e. For some, an unexpected change of circumstances, necessitateda complete change in their working lives. The engineer who foundhimself suddenly disabled decided to work at home. The man whoestablished a car repair business from his own home took thisoption after his redundancy from full-time outside employment.

d. To improve the quality of their lives. Many reported thatthey took up HEA because they were dissatisfied with the qualityof their lives whilst in full-time employment in a factory or anoffice. For some this was possible because the work which theywere trained to do was of the type which could be successfullyundertaken at home. A computer programme coder and tester saidthat 'she got fed up working in an office'. She felt resentful ofthe people who did very little work when she was working hard.She was able to work from home just as well as she could in thecompany office. For others, HEA gave the opportunity to escapefrom an unrewarding job into an occupation which the informantfound more satisfying. The antiques restorer gave up his full-time job in a tape-library to become self-employed in his hobby.

e. Some took up their HEA activity as a hedge againstunemployment. They felt more secure if they had another optionopen to them, should they suddenly find themselves without theirregular employment.

f. Those who because of ties are unable to work outside the home.For many, the reason they took up HEA rather than some other formof conventional employment was linked to their domesticcommitments. A woman who makes cakes at home is limited becauseshe has small children. She is perhaps typical of many women withdependent children who wish to be economically active but whocannot fulfill the demands of full-time employment outside thehome. A mother reported that her daughter had cystic fibrosiswhich meant that the child was often off school. A part-time jobaway from home would have been difficult to do, so child-mindingfitted in very well with the limitations that the child's illnessplaced on the family.

Because of the wide range of reasons why people take up HEA, thereis also a variation in how important the HEA activity is to the

27 participants, whether it is a major or a minor source of


income. Although there is little information on this topic, onerespondent did provide a list of activities of which he knew andwas able to indicate whether they were of minor significance tothe participants.

Major Minor

1 Making and Selling 1 6

2 Home-Based Selling 1 . 1

3a Repair & Maintenance 5 O(Premises)

3b Repair & Maintenance 3 2(Equipment)

4 Personal Service 6 8

5 Intellectual and 3 2Professional

6 Minor Manufacturingand Commercial

' (With so flimsy and tiny a data base, questions such as these canbe asked but not answered. To get answers a different exercisewould be needed.)

Whilst many informants mentioned the positive reasons why theyengaged in HEA, the flexibility, the freedom from routine, forsome these advantages were tempered by drawbacks.

Many informants missed the division between home and work whichcharacterised employment in the factory or the office, and foundthat work and homelife became too closely intertwined. The tutororganiser said:

'With everything running from home, there was no real cut-off between work and home. When tired it became difficultsometimes to relax at home because of constant telephonecalls'.

The Tupperware manager found that:

'it gets on top of you because it is there continually soyou just keep working and never really switch off.

28 Some found that the problem was the other way round, not that


work impinged on home, rather that homelife interrupted work. Apart-time pottery teacher reported that she found it 'difficult totake time off from her family duties' to establish her own potteryat home. A garment worker also said:

'In the school holidays it is very difficult to do itbecause my children are at home'.

The cake maker remarked that making cakes for other people is notconducive to good relationships with one's own children, andalthough the antiques restorer mentioned no problems with hisfamily, one can imagine that they sometimes might have objected totheir home being slowly converted to a workshop.

Several remarked about the discipline required to work alone athome. The tutor organiser said:

'There is something to the discipline of doing work in aplace from home ... I would not wish to work from home infuture unless the work was something very creative' .

The computer coder found it very easy to concentrate and todiscipline herself to work at home. However, when her mother diedshe experienced difficulties in concentrating, her feelings ofbereavement being intensified by being alone and not in a busyoffice.

It is interesting to note, in view of the remark made by thetutor, that none of the respondents working on essentiallycreative tasks mentioned any problem in disciplining themselves towork at home.

Several respondents who combined work outside the home with theirhome-based activities stressed the value to them of the contactsthey made outside, both from the point of view of generatingbusiness and from the additional stimulus they received fromoutside contacts.

As the dress designer said of her work on a special teachingproject based at a community art centre:

'This has provided me with only a small and somewhatspasmodic income but my professional reputation is growingand my confidence much improved. Working outside the homehas provided me with the necessary contacts'.

Similarly a part-time teacher trying to set up her own homepottery felt that her involvement with other people outside addedto her confidence and business contacts. However she feltgenerally isolated from other potters and therefore unable todiscuss the working problems which prevented her from getting

29 started.


4. THE REQUISITES OF HEA

For HEA to be successful, it would seem that a combinationof factors is required, factors which can be summarised underthe four headings of Will, Skill, Means and FavourableContext.

Will can best be described in terms of the personal drive anddetermination needed to establish a work schedule outside theconfines of conventional employment structures of the factory andthe office. For some, this personal quality was inadequate to thetask, for others it was the existence of this quality whichspurred them into HEA, for example the woman who launched theagency of 'Helpers'. That particular informant had the necessarybusiness acumen and organisational abilities to initiate'something from nothing'. Faced with the same set of problems asthe man who tried to establish a shoe-making enterprise, she wouldprobably have successfully resolved them.

Whilst the possession of these fundamental and vital qualities isessential for the successful participant in HEA, education andtraining in the special skills associated with the activitypursued are also important. Many informants were obviously usingskills that they had acquired during earlier employment outsidethe home, whilst others had had no formal training (e.g. theantiques restorer) but had taught themselves the techniques theyneeded. A florist discovered her aptitude for this throughattending Adult Education classes, and one man acquired his newskills as part of a programme of therapy whilst-undergoingtreatment in hospital.

A further, and essential prerequisite for HEA is the means bywhich the occupation can be conducted. The suitability of thedomestic environment naturally varied with the type of HEA. Somerequire that part of the home is used exclusively for the activityor that some additional accommodation be provided, e.g. the-disabled woodworker, the dressmaker. For some this space is notrequired to actually work in but to provide storage, e.g. theTupperware manager, the tutor organiser. Some could utiliseexisting household facilities without too much disruption, e.g.the home caterer and the childminder. Others could work away in acorner of the home without utilising more than the 'space theperson sat in, e.g. the computer coder and tester who needed onlya table and chair and presumably quiet conditions.

However it was obvious from the reports that working conditionsvaried considerably and that frequently the results were far fromideal for both the person engaged in HEA and their families. Howsuccessfully activities could be pursued was related to the amountof inconvenience the parties and their families were prepared totolerate. For some the inconvenience was temporary, until the HEA

30 was sufficiently well established to make the provision of


additional and specialised accommodation worthwile.

The would-be shoemaker described poignantly his unsuccessfulattempts to reconcile his HEA with the limitations of his home.

A formula for successful in-it-Latives

At this point, it is perhaps worth generalising a little aboutinitiatives and their chances of success. It was earliersuggested that to succeed every initiative must be adequate atthree points - Will, Skill and Means. There must be the Will tosucceed: there must be the Skills requisite to the project; andthere must be the Means to carry it through. These factorsinteract with and reinforce each other; failure in any one willweaken and can destroy the enterprise.

Individuals (and small groups) commonly start strong on Will.Many are deficient in Skills, notably of management and marketing.An HEAer may, if his home happens to suit the project, start withone aspect of Means provided.

These accounts"and other evidence.indicate that a fourth factor isalso necessary, which might be called a Favourable Context. Bythis is meant not only the rules and regulations of society butalso the largely unarticulated bundle of approval and disapprovalof neighbours, inherited attitudes and public opinion at large.'Climates of opinion' are changeable, and sensitive to manyinfluences in society which may seem some distance away from aparticular HEA proposal; but their influence may be decisive.

31

CHAPTER II Constraints and Help

So much for the activities; now for the context in which they takeplace and its influence upon those who attempt HEA.

These may be seen as Systems of Control and Systems ofAssistance. These systems have a very long and chequeredhistory in our society. They have been developed and extendedenormously in the last 150 years, in concept, scope and cost.They now constitute Government's part in the implicit compactbetween individuals and each other and between the mass ofindividuals and 'Authority'.

Consider these facts: when you die, what you have put in your willwill be carried out. If you are found unconscious in the road,you will be attended to and put together again whether you can payor not. Your child will be educated free until 16 and you can bepunished for preventing this. If you receive money from publicfunds on account of poverty, conditions will be attached to whatyou may earn.

All these remarkable but familiar facts are linked, and howevercruel, maddening or misconceived they may appear in any oneinstance, they are all the outcomes of a system collectively builtup by processes in which all adults, in this country, can takepart.

What has been built up can be unpicked; items are being changedall the time, but the whole expresses a kind of Mutuality Pactexisting in our minds and emotions more than on paper, maybe amyth, but a powerful one.

One aspect of this Pact is that adults will be, will feel and wishto feel themselves to be dignified and 'self-winding' in aneconomic sense; that they are capable with reasonable applicationof earning their living, looking after their own, providing forthe unpredictabilities of everyday life, and paying their whackof taxes and dues. In return, society will maintain law, order,defence and an economic context to which all contribute byspending and earning, and which will finance both services ofwhich we are constantly aware - Health, Education and variouskinds of income support - but also those infrastructural ones likesewers which we tend to forget.

Clearly this Pact, this myth, can become a reality only if theeconomic system works and enables the individuals to make toit the contribution they are capable of. To the degree that itdoes not, all the arrangements including those of personal effortand restraint are endangered. Indeed, to a growing proportion ofthe young and of those living north of Watford, the Pact itself

32 may seem an absurdity.

II CONSTRAINTS AND HELP

It is against this shifting background that we have to look atHE A.

The number and complexity of the factors in this Pact is so greatthat there is a constant danger of losing the wood in the trees.To avoid this we focus on the key systems only and try to keepuppermost the aspects affecting HEA.

The volume of factual information is kept down and where suitableput into Supplements. Tentative conclusions which arise arepulled together in the final Chapter.

The systems selected are:-

1. SYSTEMS OF CONTROL

a. Use of Land

b. Use of Premises

e. Taxes and Rates

How you may alter the premisesyou own or rent.

What you may do in the premisesyou live in.

What Government takes frompersonal income and onpurchases. Charges foroccupying premisesaccording to the use made ofthem.

d. Health and Safety

2. SYSTEMS OF ASSISTANCE

e. Monetary Assistance

f. Aid to PersonalDevelopment

Benefits, grants, allowances.

Mainly education and trainingDevelopment.

33

3. BUSINESS INITIATIVES

HEA as defined, is concerned with 'value-adding' by one's ownefforts. These activities need not, though many do, involve someform of exchange. 'Value-adding' deemed to be 'trading' incursrestrictions, deductions and particular forms of control. Butvalue-adding initiatives beginning in the home can be theseed-corn of businesses that may grow to significant size. Sothey have a section.

g. Curbs and Help


1. SYSTEMS OF CONTROL

a. Use of Land

The possession of land, the right to occupy, use, enjoy, developand exploit it has always been a major form of wealth and thesource of power and consequence. Ownership enabled landlords ofgreat estates to create round themselves the physical and socialcontext of their lives and to secure neighbours of their choice.And by various legal stratagems to perpetuate these conditions fortheir successors. The estate of the benevolent Squire Allworthyin Tom Jones is described as 'adorned with villages'.

Before modern planning existed landlords secured their position byattaching restrictive convenants to land disposed of. Thispractice remains a major tool for development planning policies ofmodern district and county councils through their powers overgranting planning permissions.

The Industrial Revolution transformed the United Kingdom from anagrarian to an industrial society. The social upset of thistransformation we now forget, but the unhealthy and environmen-tally damaging industrial processes and the congested housing ledto legislation upon which the welfare state now rests. It alsoled to the view that the home and the workplace should beseparated. This view received imaginative interpretation in theGarden City idea of Ebenezer Howard (1898) and is the foundationof the planning legislation of 1947 and 1971.

In the stable atmosphere of British politics, land was notnationalised. However, land development values were (this-valueis the additional market value accruing when a property changesfrom a former e.g. agricultural use to another e.g. housing. Thisincrement is now claimed by the state). This fact accounts forthe special meaning now attached to 'development' by planners.

For the planner, 'development' covers doing something to theland, by operations such as building on it, or making use ofit in a way materially different from its present use. Foreither, permission may have to be obtained from the relevantplanning authority, probably a District or County Council.Without approval the development may be illicit. If unauthorisedand discovered, the planning authority may require the position tobe rectified.

Planning staff are concerned that the law should be knownand accepted and that people should comply with it by submitting,preferably willingly or after persuasion, applications forplanning consent to the Planning Committee. In the event of thecommittee's refusal, there is an established though cumbersome andcostly procedure for appeal and enforcement which can lead to

34 court or to the House of Lords. As the law can be involved


and as the decisions may range from the location of an airport tothe construction of a garden-hut, an enormous structure of legaland other professionals has gradually grown up. Because in somerespect every decision impinges on public policies and the rightsof individuals, this accretion was doubtless inevitable.Moreover, because the system is part of local government andinvolves locally elected committees and officials directly exposedto public opinion, decisions, particularly the small ones, tend totake into account factors that may be transitory and personal.

For instance, a home-based car repair business is generally notpermitted, but Planning Committees may agree to it if the work ishidden away or at a distance from other housing, or if it isconfined to mechanical repair which makes little noise and smell,body repair being done elsewhere. Or, a consent may be temporaryor personal to the applicant. (Accounts III, VI and Vll refer)

In practice, two recent Orders have simplified the positionconsiderably, the General Development Order and the Use ClassesOrder. Reference is made to these later in Chapter III,Section 4.

In this country we are familiar with case-law, the evolution of ageneral principle by successive determinations in varying sets ofcircumstances into a body of practice which is seen to be flexibleand reasonable. This practice obtains in planning but not toorigidly. Some Councils, of which Thamesdown is an example, make apoint of not allowing precedents and case-law to build up into astrait-jacket, preferring that each case should be considered 'onits merits'. This admits into consideration the personalsituation of the applicant at the time of the application andfactors such as disablement or distress. But this approach admitsalso the varying political complexion of the Council, and theviews of the members and chairman of the Planning Committee.Factors such as these contribute to the reputation forunpredictability and arbitrariness widely associated with planningmechanisms.

Uncertainty is illustrated also in two other terras in the in-vocabulary of planners - 'change of use' and 'intensification'which may or may not amount to 'development', requiring planningpermission. Uses are classified into categories. Changes withina category do not require planning permission; if a building isclassified as a shop, it may usually become another shop but notan office. A use which is disapproved of but infrequent, may bedisregarded; but if repeated ('intensified') it constitutes'development'.

It is in grey areas such as this that the endless tug-of-warsequence occurs between the individual householder andentrepreneurs, and the representatives of the community in the

35 shape of local and central government, and between the


developers, planning professionals and the environmental pressuregroups. By and large the planners seem to have won since 1947,with some notable victories (probably long forgotten) such as theelimination of roadside advertisements from the countryside. Butit is a wavering conflict never concluded. In 1980 the Ministerfor the Environment, Mr Heseltine, entered the lists with aCircular (No 22) which bade planning authorities to 'play a help-ful part in rebuilding the economy by accelerating their consid-eration of planning applications and avoiding placing unjustifiedobstacles in the way of development for industry, commerce,housing or any purpose relevant to the economic regeneration ofthe economy'. A wide invitation, much welcomed by those who thinkplanners have become too big for their boots. This circularjolted the planning world, including such bodies as the Councilfor the Preservation of Rural England which saw it as one signif-icant action in a policy of dismantling the safeguards built upover 40 years.

HEA initiatives may, In theory, be affected by any provisionof the planning system, and Planning Committee decisions areinfluenced by shifts in national policies. But a great deal ofdomestic HEA will not be affected unless substantial extensions tohomes are involved or the activity becomes so dominant as to bereckoned a change of use. Of the activities listed in Chapter I,Section 2, most will be resisted somewhere, and not resistedsomewhere else. Some, not found objectionable on planninggrounds, may be resisted on other grounds as we shall see. Thegreatest single cause of disagreement relates to car repair. Thisis a real and complicated problem. It is discussed in SupplementI to this Chapter.

An impression should not be given of real conflict, rather ofuncertainty. 85% of all applications are accepted. A proportionof the refusals are appealed against, some successfully or theproposal agreed in amended form or with conditions attached. Veryfew go to the length of enforcement orders and very few indeed toapplications for contempt. But planning departments do not havethe staff to monitor compliance in any real sense. To a largeextent they are activated by complaints from the public; and thereare of course the techniques of 'low profile* on one side and'blind eye1 on the other. And in this area changes in publicopinion can be Important factors.

b. Use of Premises

Planning regulations affect all residents whatever form the tenureof their premises takes. But leaseholders and tenants will alsobe under restrictions contained in their contracts of occupancy.This practice dates back a very long way, e.g. to the break-up ofthe great estates such as the Grosvenor In central London. The

36 policy of a Council in a development area such as Tharaesdown


may aim to secure that its own tenants are not more restrictedthan those of tenants of privately developed estates; an objectivewhich the Council can achieve through the processes of sellingland and planning approvals.

When public subsidised housing took off after World War I therestrictions on tenants were very severe. Over the next 50 yearshousing and conditions of tenure have been a hot political topic,full of scandals, legislation and new agencies. Housing manage-ment has become a profession. In parallel, tenants have changed,no doubt owing to such factors as rising standards of living,universal secondary education, travel, the broadcast media,changes in family life and social mores. But as late as 1976 theNational Consumer Council in a national review of tenancy agree-ments found that the vast majority were 'one-sided, patronising,difficult to understand, punitive, and in a few cases wrong inlaw'.

The Housing Act 1980, besides its controversial permission topublic tenants to buy their own premises, brought them new legalrights - of security of tenancy, of entitlement to take lodgers,to sublet, to improve their premises and to be consulted aboutchanges in the terms of the tenancy. These provisions are nowcoming into effect. They are of real importance to HEA. Thestandard clauses of the old agreement included provisions that'The tenant shall use the premises in a tenant-like manner as aprivate dwelling only and 'no* for any business ... shall notcarry out any act which is likely to constitute a nuisanoe toany other tenant'.* The new model draft agreement says

'The tenant must use the premises for residential purposesonly- However the Council will consider applications far alimited use of its dwellings for business purposes where thebusiness

i is permissible within planning termsii does not involve the wholesaling or retailing of goodsiii does not require substantial alteration to the propertyiv is not likely to cause nuisance or annoyance to

nearby residents'.

In respect of improvement, the new regulations say that the tenantmust not, without the landlord's permission which shall not beunreasonably withheld,

i decorate the exterior of the premisesii carry out structural alterations or make any addition

to the premisesiii alter or add to any fixtures and fittings or to any services

to the premisesiv erect wireless or television aerial

37* italics added


Thus, the door to HEA is opened, if only slightly. The HousingCommittee retains the power to refuse, or to attach conditions toconsent. As these decisions involve the Planning Committee, theHEA initiator may be faced with further applications for consent,involving time and cost. Disagreement could involve the courts,and the sanction of loss of tenancy remains. The permissibleactivities may prove to be few. The new position is some way fromthat of an owner or occupier with a common law expectation ofbeing able to enjoy his property free from inconvenience, annoy-ance or injury or to use it as he wishes, provided he avoids whatis illegal, dangerous or causing nuisance to his neighbour. Butit is a step forward.

These new arrangements use terms which like those of planning needinterpretation. What is 'a residential use1? Under whatcircumstances would it be either reasonable or unreasonable forconsent to be withheld? What constitutes a 'nuisance'? Canactivities be listed which will always, or normally, be agreedto?

Since all initiatives carry the risk of failure, can tentativeapplications be made without too much specification in advance asto what they will consist of? Can an atmosphere of encouragementrather than the reverse become the norm in the way officialshandle them? Can 'live and let live' be the ruling philosophy?

No answers yet: and scrutiny of some of the rulings made under-lines the uncertainty. For instance, it was established in onecourt action that a non-residential use does not matter if it is'incidental to residence1.

Some legal authorities consider that any money-making activitycannot be considered incidental. It has been ruled that while acar repair business is not a residential use, to repair carsfor money in one's spare time is incidental to residence, andpermissible on that score.

The concept of 'nuisance' relates not to the activity itself, butto the effect it creates on others, and upon whether theirdiscomfort is reasonable. What constitutes nuisance will differfrom place to place, not only by the distance of the sufferer fromthe source of the complaint but also on account of socialexpectations. A noise, as one legal luminary said, whichconstitutes a nuisance in Belgrave Square might not do so inBrixton.

Councils are now free from one embarrassment. Now that thetotal prohibitions against running a business or profession areremoved, a Council no longer has to face the danger of legalaction by tenants against it for failing to insist on theprohibition in cases in which they did not consider the

38 prohibition to be justified.


But a Council has many factors to consider. It must preserve theproperty itself from deterioration. It must strike a balancebetween supporting the initiative of tenants to improve theiraccommodation and their ability to do this well. It must considerinsurance, security and be careful that an HEA initiator does notraise insoluble questions of storage and debris. It has to avoidpermitting a slow general decline in amenity. It has to supportand help develop a good local spirit, and encourage, particularlyin new estates, the quick growth of friendly feelings, possibly byassisting the foundation of tenants' associations; but be awareof the dangers of local tyrannies.

To do this, good officers are needed serving a good committee andsufficient resources which can be justified to the financialcontrolling agencies. The factors assisting a process ofliberation are there, but the powers of control that Councils oncepossessed have diminished. One important factor is the relativelynew obligation to house the homeless. The Council may stilldetermine a tenancy, but if it has to rehouse this tenant, it willtry every other means of improving the situation first.

Should a tide of new HEA initiators develop, the staff of Housingdepartments may be hard put to it to discover them, persuadeillicit initiators to desist, and to assemble the kind of datathat would stand up in court.

Local government at its best is aware of changes and capable ofadjusting to them if they are not too sudden. The Englishtradition is to have a comprehensible structure and then to temperit by variations. Will it be able to do so here?

e. Taxes and Rates

So much for behaviour, now for money matters: what you may keep ofwhat you make at home and whether the fact of making it at homemakes any difference, particularly if the scale of the activityamounts to a 'business' .

Preliminary reading of books such as Can I have it in Cash?and contact with some of its contributors prepared one to acceptthat to invite individual accounts would not reap a rich harvestwhere the activity involved infringement of the regulations; andso it proved. The selection in Chapter I Section 2 gives no newinformation about 'moonlighting' or other deviations. And timeand resources did not allow for the more sophisticated tacticsthat proper researchers in this field have experimented with.

But the contacts with people mentioned in Section 2 of theOpening Statement whose work brought them into contact with HEAparticipants, or with larger numbers who for other reasons, oftenpoverty, came for help, confirmed and repeated many of the

39 commonplace criticisms of the tax system and of its impact on


tax-payers - of its obscure and confusing nature, its bafflingprocedures, of the belief that you need an accountant to get yourfull entitlements, that many successful evaders flourish and thatthe wealthy could 'get away with it ' . And that the general levelof compunction about diddling the taxman was pretty low. Add tothis that many people, whether from fear, faulty education orunfamiliarity display a kind of nervous paralysis when faced withtax matters.

That some of this might have some basis more real than jealousy orpretence was reinforced by diligent clipping of the serious pressand journals and by reading of considerable books such as thoseconnected with the Institute of Fiscal Studies, and the massiveMeade report (The Structure and Reform of Direct Taxation, J EMeade, 1978). It appeared also that few informed persons andagencies were happy with the tax situation.

The Conservative Manifesto of 1979 promised to do away withdomestic rates. The Times (19.11.81) expressed disappointmentthat Mr Leon Brittan would not be bringing in 'sweeping reformand simplification of Britain's cumbersome and inefficient systemof raising revenue', and at the further delay expected incomputerising the services, or in merging Income Tax with NationalInsurance. The Inland Revenue Staff Federation considered that 'acomplete rethink of the way the Inland Revenue operates inBritain' is needed so as to 'remove the resentment which taxpayersexpress when they are questioned'. Others considered thatCorporation tax, so frequently altered, should be abolished, inthe interest of national ecomonic recovery. An onslaught, infact, from many informed quarters.

Additionally, there was the Black Ecomony, the slightly piraticalname for evasion. Though the total size (between 2% and 15% ofGNP) is the subject of debate, the Inland Revenue considering 7%%the most plausible figure, this sum amounted to £3.0-£3.5 billiontax lost per annum, and testified to a degree of incapacity of thesystem to achieve its prime purpose.

But this all pointed towards the entire system, not just theaspects connected with HEA, the subject of this study. So anattempt was made to focus on these aspects, because taxation isclearly an important factor which the HEA participant has to cometo terms with, and which the system itself would need to considercarefully were HEA to develop.

i. INCOME TAX AND NATIONAL INSURANCE

Three points soon become clear. First, that there is a mismatchbetween the HEA concept, which is based on place, on where anactivity is performed, and tax collection, which is concerned withthe different modes of acquiring money, and is organised by

40 a number of sub-systems each with its own regulations, forms,


procedures, and rhythms. Place, except in the case of rates andsome Capital Gains matters, is irrelevant.

Secondly, the difficulties and cruxes, so far as a good deal ofHEA is concerned, seemed to arise from the details and smallprint, and the fact that, as with the reformed Social Securityarrangements, little scope exists for administrative discretion orfor 'ad personam waivers' that characterise local goverment.

Thirdly, HEA participants may fall into many of the tax categoriesand some into more than one. Participants may be in employment,on benefit, or be pensioners; all of these are covered by PAYE,and so are their National Insurance obligations. Or, partici-pants' income may come from working on their own, or from contractengagements, in which case they are categorised as self-employed,with the different procedures and rhythms of Schedule D. Or, asin the case of many housewives, they may be earning money for thefamily by making products at home or providing services. In suchcases, unless the woman is also in employment and so covered byPAYE, she will be likely to have no direct contact with the taxauthorities. But her husband is obliged to report her earnings(with such authenticating data as the Inland Revenue may require)in addition to his own. An increasing number of women resentthis situation.

HEA participants may also, of course, be formed into partnershipsor companies, in which they have to conform to other taxprocedures as well.

Fourthly, when HEA income is either supplementary, or when itexceeds a low threshold, the individual must sort out the separateidiosyncracies of his or her National Insurance commitments. Thisis particularly arduous for married women, the most frequentHEA participants, who must make decisions both about any personalpension provision they may wish to make, and also about the sizeof contribution which is appropriate. This latter point requiresunderstanding both of past contributions, which can be sorted outwith (very helpful) National Insurance Inspectors, but alsopredictions about the future of the HEA, which may be not at alleasy to make.

In all, HEA can cover a great variety of work patterns, bothsolitary and joint, many levels of activity and income, and varyin continuity and regularity.

Two additional points. First, the bulk of HEA is (it is assumed)ancillary to income from other sources, whether the tax payer's orthe tax payer's partner or member of household, and in manyinstances the sums earned may not be very large though quiteimportant to personal budgets. This means that the Tax Scheduleappropriate to the HEA income may well be a different one from

41 that covering the main income. Also, that the HEA income may


not be large enough to attract tax, particularly if the MarriedWoman's Earned Income Allowance is relevant, or if the HEA incomedoes not raise the joint income to a different tax rate. The PAYEsystems recognise 'floors' below which casual earnings do notattract tax or National Insurance, but there is no publishedequivalent for HEA.

All tax systems rest on full and truthful disclosure of income bytax payers, since finally it is only tax payers who can know whathas been received. But to systems such as the British which makegreat efforts to apply fully the principle of capacity to pay,taking into detailed account individual responsibilities anddisabilities, the attainment of 100% disclosure is an even morecrucial objective. For it reflects the keen sense among the.British of social fairness which nourishes their law-abidingdisposition. The National Revenue is made up of a vast multitudeof returns, the tax on which may be a tiny sum related to thetotal collected; but each of these returns involves an act ofhonesty or deceit. So that the general level of public honesty isof paramount importance in achieving the equity at which thesystem aims. A climate of low compunction may be thought asdamaging to the system as is dry rot in an old house, and lesseasy to eradicate.

As their main information-gathering instrument most nationalsystems other than our own use an annual return of Tax coveringevery source of income which is sent to every taxable person.Recipients must give all the information demanded promptly andsign it personally. Some systems require the tax payers tocalculate the tax due and send it when sending back the Return.This establishes a regular direct channel between tax payer andtax office with no ambiguity either as to what the tax officerequires or who is responsible for supplying it. The tax payableis normally calculated on current income, adjustments being madeat the year-end. The whole process is brisk, abrupt and maybe

• temporarily traumatic, but it is not prolonged. Repetition yearafter year develops familiarity and competence among tax payers.

The administrative cost, that is, the difference between the sumpaid to the tax office and the sum received by the Exchequer, issaid to be low.

The British system is more roundabout, apparently gentler and,except for the very large number of straightforward PAYE cases,likely to take longer. In complicated cases settlement may take ayear or two, part of this being due to the present heavybacklog in tax offices. Wherever possible in the British system,tax is deducted before the money is paid (or credited) to the taxpayer, the deductions and payments bein'g made by third partieswith no personal interest in falsifying the figures.

42 The tax laws make employers and companies responsible for


notifying the tax authorities of the gross income, for deductingthe tax in accordance with the relevant tax table and forwardingthe amounts to the Revenue and the tax payer. By this, theDepartment secures that the work is done by staff capable ofhandling figures, and that income and tax stay in adjustment toeach other. Moreover, no cost falls on the Departmental budget.National Insurance obligations are taken care of , and the systemcan handle social assistance payments, and pensions. There is nonecessity for the tax payer to understand or remember the system,or to be clever about figures. The calls for information made onthose in employment, except on changing jobs or a major change inpersonal circumstances, are infrequent and easy to fulf i l . 'Dumbacquiescence' is all that is really needed.

The system is neat and, it would seem, trouble-free once inoperation, and it certainly avoids the confrontations and aggrothat disfigure Social Security offices. It has met verysuccessfully the situation for which it was devised - a war-timeneed for a rapid and permanent enlargement of the tax net to takein a large number of people without previous experience of incometax and who have one principal source of income.

The PAYE system now brings in nearly all of the £22,000 milliondue under Schedule E, and affects 26.5 million 'employments'relating to 20 million tax payers including pensioners.

But, astonishing in 1983, notices of coding are still filled in byhand.

Fuller Tax Returns are sent only to a minority of PAYE tax payers:to those with incomes from employment of £8,500 or over annually,and to others at the discretion of the local Tax Inspector. Thelatter averaged once every five years, and are now once in three.

ii SCHEDULE D TAX PAYERS

Full Returns of Income Tax are sent annually to those classifiedas self-employed (Tax Schedule D), to those with several sourcesof income, and to those whose incomes bring them within reach ofthe higher rates of tax. In families, unless the partners' jointincome is substantial and unless they have so opted, one partner,the man, is responsible for the tax matters of all the familythough any income his wife may have from employment will beprocessed through PAYE system.

The number affected by Schedule D is much smaller, butgrowing.

Schedule D Tax is based on fees and profits net of allowableexpenditure and involves the presentation of accounts justifyingtax payers' claims. The tax is calculated on the previous year's

43 results, not on current income as is PAYE. But the Department


also claims tax on the estimated profit for the current year,the estimate being subsequently adjusted to accord with theactuals. These adjustments may cause longish delays, partly owingto Departmental backlogs. The result is that tax payers canremain ignorant of their total liabilities for long periods.Unless they are experienced in the full complexities of thesystem, they are tempted to fee accountants to see that record-keeping systems are adequate and that their claims will bepresented to best advantage to themselves.

The tax is paid, not as for PAYE 'ambulando', but in two lumps inJanuary and July, an arrangement which some HEA participants findoppressive (see Account 1).

Tax payers having income taxable under both Schedule E and D haveto deal with two sets of regulations and rhythms at once. Theyalso lean towards accountants.

The British tax schedules have been called the accountant's bestfriend. Those who employ them can reflect more fully on this, andon the Department's dexterity in off-loading without cost toitself the labour of PAYE on to employers, as on the similar off-loading on to traders the donkey-work of VAT; and now, on to HighStreet banks and Buildings Societies.

But more serious, and more relevant to HEA, is that the system isnot waterproof against fraud, and that its defects have severaldrawbacks affecting the type of HEA that continued unemploymentand under-employment are likely to generate. The existence of theBlack Economy is a sign that the weaknesses exist. The study wason too small a scale to validate some of the points emerging butthey are listed briefly here so that in any review they may not beoverlooked.

I. In the PAYE System

The system is based on employment. It appears to work wellfor the first income or only job, but to be less successfulin 'corralling' second employments, in which the employer andemployee jointly evade tax (and possibly other dues as well).It is understood that this conspiracy ('moonlighting') isconsidered the principal element in the Black Economy.

The system is not designed to deal with irregular,casual, seasonal earnings, whether from employment or fromworking on one's own to provide services or produce goods.The lack of any regular demand or reminders of the dutyto report, and therefore adequately record such earnings, thelack of forms to use and guidance notes or of any easy way tocomply, or any indication of an 'earnings-floor' beneathwhich no reply is expected - these factors must surely weaken

44 the sense of obligation in tax payers; and, what is


equally likely since there are really no adequate means ofpolicing compliance, must encourage the feeling that the taxoffice 'doesn't really mind, and everybody does it anyway'.Knowledge of the Woman's Earned Income Allowance (which meansthat the first £1785 earned does not jeopardise her husband'sliability) is not unsurprisingly interpreted as a tacitagreement that HEA Income up to this level is, at leastmorally, permissible. So, recording and reporting are justnot done.

II. In the Schedule D System

Schedule D, which calls for a full return of all forms ofincome, is an annual requirement only: but some of the otherdefects noted in the last paragraph apply here too.

In discussing questions such as these with the Inland Revenue, thepoint was made that the study provided no evidence that HEA was onthe increase or that, even if it were, such an increase would bemaintained should levels of full employment return. On this pointthere could be no judgement nor quantification. Moreover, theDepartment would have to bear in mind that increases in enforce-ment activity incur cost, and that though the Department's job isto get for the Exchequer all the tax to which it was entitled,activity which resulted in a loss of net revenue would not besensible. Such reasoning is unanswerable, except by enlarging thediscussion to cover much larger questions about compliancegenerally.

After the enquiry stage of the study was supposed to be over, thereport of the Keith Committee was published (Report of theCommittee on the Enforcement Powers of the Revenue Departments,HMSO, March 1983 Cmd. 8822).

This authoritative and readable document is the first-evercomprehensive review of this aspect of the tax system, which itforthrightly describes as a 'hotch-potch' that 'requires' theInland Revenue to 'work with mechanisms in many respectsantediluvian and quite unsuited to modern conditions'. The reportenunciates a set of principles which it considers could form thebasis of a much simplified and comprehensible system and makesmany recommendations that, if implemented, should raise the levelof public understanding of the purposes of taxation, the need forall to comply so that rules designed to produce fairness and even-handed treatment would be carried through to actuality. It iscritical of the cost-effective approach towards enforcementactivity now obtaining. It considers that concern for integrityof the service should be more dominant, and implies that thetarget of 'dumb acquiescence' on the part of the tax payers istoo resigned a view.

45


The report advocates universal and annual distribution of a TaxReturn specially designed to bring in all sources of income. Iffinance does not permit this frequency, it should for a period benot less than one in three years. When the system is introducedthere should be much greater effort in publicising it and educa-ting the public, for example, with regard to the records whichshould be kept. The Report also advocates a more effective time-table for filing tax returns: a longer initial time limitfollowed by a specific schedule of penalties for delays subsequentto this date.

The recommendations of the Report would clarify the HEA taxpayer's relationship with the Inland Reveue. Its translation intothe detail of forms, guidance notes and models for tax payers tofollow would need very careful study and trial.

These were the main points of interest to HEA that emerged fromthe study. But the Inland Revenue never rests, and various pointshave since emerged, and more no doubt will by the time this isread. So, some of them have been gathered into Supplement 2 atthe end of this Chapter.

iii. VALUE ADDED TAX

VAT, a more modern tax (introduced in 1973) gets less criticsmfrom the Keith Report. To an outsider it appears a wilfullycomplex way of collecting a tax on retail sales. Like PAYE theDepartment gets the work done for free by traders. The traders'compliance costs related to be value of the tax received isreported to be very high among small enterprises. However, theturnover threshold requiring registration (now £18,700) isreported to be exempt from registration one-man service-providingconcerns such as might well be HEA. And it must be admitted, too,that at least in present circumstances the balancing of input andoutput tax payments is, in the words of one informant, 'capable ofbeing a real help with cash flow anxieties, if you're smart'.(88% of tax payments by tax payers are late, but only 14% of thoseby Custom and Excise). Since VAT is tied up with membership ofthe EEC, the idea of some other form of indirect taxation isperhaps hardly worth discussion.

If this is accepted, there is not much that can be said in theinterests of HEA that has not already been forcefully put forwardby the Federation of Small Employers, but rejected.

iv. RATES

Rates currently receive as many brickbats as Income Tax, and it iscommon knowledge that the Prime Minister, having failed to makegood an intention to deal with the dissatisfaction with theworking of the rating system, had abolition or reform high on her

46 agenda. The Observer in May 1983, describing rates as 'a


thoroughly bad system of taxation' expressed a view which manyhave expressed earlier. A sequence of enquiries, beginning withthe Layfield Report in 1976 have examined the matter, agreed thatthe position must be changed, but none of the solutions havereceived acceptance.

Yet rates, the only form in Britain of local taxation, is a veryold tax of several hundred years' standing and was widely regardedas the sheet-anchor as well as the main blood-supply ofresponsible local government. And many would hold that localgovernment is a bastion, even if a battered one, against thecentralising tendencies of large-scale enterprise and organisationof the last 50 years, and of the feelings of alienation that havegrown up with them.

Rates are a tax on property proportionate to its estimated valueas settled by a professional outside valuer. Rates are leviedannually by a Council elected for a fixed short period in order toprovide local services to its electorate. Rates are hard to evadeand cheap to collect. There is nothing abstruse about them. Sucha system, if it were still anywhere near the truth, would be amodel of democracy; and one which should encourage good levels ofinterest and participation. For the sums collected and the usemade of them are both visible. Individuals can make their viewsknown easily, and if seriously aggrieved, can withhold payment andsecure attention. Rates are not deducted at source. The areasused to be small enough and the powers significant enough toattract voluntary service on councils and committees, and thedecisions, being local, were not burdened with problems ofcreating awkward precedents for the future.

Qualities such as these are likely to be of considerableimportance to HEA now and in the future. If devolutionaryeconomic change is on the way, it could be advisable to hang on tofamiliar local bodies with the power to raise a rate and chargedto identify and meet new local needs. The present criticisms arecriticisms of the changed context in which rates have to beoperated rather than of the tax as a tax. 'Rates are too high andthey have gone up too fast ' . 'Rates pay no attention to capacityto pay, either of the householder or of the business man' . 'Thebasis of valuation for rating purposes - what a reasonable manwould pay in rent for vacant possession - is, in the absence of anadequate supply of premises at affordable cost, a sick f ic t ion ' .'Governments have turned local authorities into their localexecutive agents, and not respected them as a lower tier ofsemi-autonomous decision making. They have perverted the grantsystem into a mechanism for political manipulation'. Whetheror not this is true, is outside the range of this study, thoughhow the issues are decided would be of great concern to it. Thepoints of more immediate interest are two: one concerned withthe domestic rate, and the other with the concessions from the

47 full rate for other users.


Since 1967 domestic rate payers have by the decision ofParliament enjoyed a rebate of 18%p in the £1 from the full rate.Premises used for business purposes, besides having a higherrateable value because they are for businesses, pay the full rate.So to an HEA participant categorisation as 'domestic' isimportant.

The procedure for valuing and categorisation are briefly asfollows. At the request of the rating authorities properties arevisited, examined, measured and recorded by a valuation officeraccountable to the Inland Revenue, who alone has power of entryfor this purpose. Categorisation may be as 'business', 'domestic'or 'mixed'. The decisions are entered on the Valuation List.Different allowances apply to different categorisations. Wheremore than half are attributed to domestic use, a 'mixed' allowanceof 9.2p is allowed. Between \ and \ this reduces to 4.5p andbetween 2̂ and \ to 2.3p.

The owner has a right to object to the proposed valuation and ifno agreement is reached, a court will have to decide. (Fullerdetails are given in Supplement 2 to this Chapter.)

If it comes to the notice of the Chief Rating Officer thatpremises categorised as 'domestic' are in fact being used for'business', his officer may visit and interview the occupant. Hewill have then to make up his mind as to whether the valuer shouldbe asked to re-value the premises for business use. His judgementwill depend on a number of factors. If any structural alterationhas been undertaken to make the business possible, this wouldusually justify a revaluation and re-categorisation. If staff areemployed and an office or workshop has been set up, then alsorevaluation and re-categorisation. Similarly if a stream ofcustomers visit the premises. But the presence of a filingcabinet in a sitting-room is not per se sufficient; or as oneRating Officer said, 'if the sitting-room still looks like asitting-room', no change would be recommended.

Sensible and pragmatic though this sounds, it is, from thestandpoint of the HEA participant, to some extent chancy andsubjective. Owing partly to the new technologies, an increasingnumber of income-earning activities can take place in the homewithout much altering its appearance. If the purpose of the 18%pconcession was to charge occupants who make money at home, thisfact cannot any longer be satisfactorily ascertained by theindicators now in use.

Two instances may illustrate this. In the 'networking' scheme ofRank Xerox (see Account XVI), a small number of high executivestaff have left the company's employment, and formed themselvesinto companies to provide contract services to their formeremployers and to new clients. These individuals make their own

48 arrangements about taxation. The study learned that there


appears to be no consistency about the categorisation of thepremises for rating purposes in their cases.

The same is true of the much larger number of women belonging tothe firm F International Ltd (Account XV) which provides computersoftware services to a wide scatter of organisations all over theUK.

These two instances come from high technology enterprises; butclearly there may be many others.

The second point is about the policy of making concessionsgenerally. At present, agriculture is totally derated. For someyears, manufacturing enjoyed concessions. Registered charitiespay half-rates. The recent furore about rate-capping and theineffectiveness in local electoral terms of business interests inhigh-rated areas does not go to the root of this problem; and itis one with a special interest to the potential HEAer.

v. CONCLUSIONS

All in all, it cannot be said that the answers to the questionsposed at the start of this section are clear. A good deal ofuncertainty faces the HEA participant as to what he ought to do,and how to do it; and what will befall him if, sensing he knowswhat he should, he either neglects to do it, or takes positivesteps not to do it, and covers his tracks.

To the lay mind what HEAers attempt to do is wholly to becommended in present circumstances: better than hanging about.It would be an advance if furtiveness were to cease to be the bestpolicy.

d. Health and Safety

In addition to the constraints discussed in the two previoussections there is in any modern state, an enormous range ofregulatory provisions designed to protect the public from dangerand to promote its health. Even to read the duties of theEnvironmental Health Officer, who is the official closest to thehouseholder, is an eye-opener. Hemmed in we may be, but thedangers from which we are protected are legion.

In this report, however, there is space to deal only with onehazard, in an area which HEA initiators frequently select astheir target - the preparation and sale of food.

Under the Food and Drugs Act of 1955, premises have to beregistered before they may be used for the sale or preparation ofcertain foodstuffs. However an amendment to the Act in 1981 madeallowance for bona fide co-operative societies and societies whose

49 business is being conducted for the benefit of the community


so that they need not register. Thus the woman making jam for theW.I. to sell is not herself preparing the jam for her own personalprofit and is exempt from registration, but a woman who makesquiches for sale should be registered under the Act. Once abusiness is established then periodic visits will be made by thePublic Health Department to ensure that standards are maintained.They have less discretion than other local authority departmentsand cannot bend or vary the rules. The department may also benotified and need to make periodic checks if the business involvesthe creation of unpleasant smells or unacceptable noise levels.

2. SYSTEMS OF ASSISTANCE

The systems are broadly of two kinds, monetary and aid to personaldevelopment. Monetary assistance mainly boosts personal incomes,by 'benefits' allowances, remissions, etc; but also by supplyingfree education, remissions of fees, grants to students, etc,which enable people to use the services provided by Government toaid personal development, and of course, the Health and SocialServices.

The total financial commitment is immense, amounting to around 44%of GNP. Apart from the cost, the range of assistance is such thatit can reach us all, at every stage of our lives from beforebirth to after death. We are dependent on these systems. Modernsociety cannot do without them. But they are all, today, in somedegree of crisis.

e. Monetary Assistance

Some idea of the range of assistance may be given by listing thenumber of benefits, their cost to the exchequer, and the number ofrecipients. These are set out in Table 1. They relate to theprincipal benefits only.

50


Table 1

Name of benefit

Retirement PensionInvalidity BenefitSickness Benefit

Cost toPublic Funds(£.000.000)

14.6301.800J

250JUnemployment Benefit (UB) 1.530Widows' Benefit 775

Supplementary Benefit (SB) 4.950Housing BenefitFamily Income Supplement

Child BenefitOne-parent Benefit _Attendance AllowanceMobility AllowanceAll Benefits

2.500

4.250 _

1J

500300

33.750

Number of Type ofRecipients System(000.000)

9.2

0.91.00.4_

4.f7.00.2

A.Contrib-utory

B.MeansTested

13. f

0.40.3

~-

C.Non-Contribut-ory

51

Source: The Government's expenditure plans 1984-5 to 1986-7.HMSO 1984, Cmnd. 9143-11.

^* x*

The fourth column 'Type of System' needs some explanation. GroupC 'non-contributory' benefits are paid to people in particularsituations (e.g. having responsibility for children) withoutregard to their income. Group A 'contributory1 are paid only topeople who have joined the system by previously paying in.Recipients of Group B ('means tested') benefits have to provefinancial need. The whole sad story of monetary assistancerevolves round these differences and they are of significance toHE A.

It will be seen that benefits are numerous and specific, with theresult that one person may be eligible for several. Since allbenefits have to be applied for, sometimes from different offices,demanding different information and applying different rules, thisis one source of applicant-confusion. It is also a cause of in-effectiveness in the service. These benefits are intended to meetreal needs. The fact that the general level of take up of allmeans-tested benefits averages 67% of entitlement, and issometimes as low as 51% (for Family Income Supplement - FIS) isone measure of how far they fail to achieve their purpose.

But another, more grave defect relates to the contributorysystems. Beveridge, and Lloyd George before him, tried to liftpayments during unemployment, ill-health and old age out of thehumiliations of the Poor Law by introducing insurance schemes,based on in-payments actuarially calculated so as to finance out-payments adequate to meet his second principle: namely, of


'benefits up to subsistence level as a right and without means-test' .

In the event, neither principle has been fulfilled. The funds tomake the out-payments have been insufficient, so that theschemes now are only fictionally schemes of insurance. Thesubsistence target, as Beveridge envisaged it, has not been met.His figures were based on the objective work of Rowntree onpoverty in York in the 30's. Beveridge proposed lower figuresthan Rowntree's. The Labour Government in introducing the Acteffectively lowered them again by making insufficient allowancefor inflation. By 1948 the base-rate, from which all subsequentupratings have been calculated, was about 75% of what Beveridgeput forward. Consequently, a large proportion of the unemployed,the sick and the retired find themselves back in the arena of themeans test, so hated in the thirties. In 1966 out of the total of2,490,000 recipients of supplementary benefit (means tested)1,829,000 were pensioners.

The benefit picture is incomplete without bringing in benefitsderiving from the tax system (which has been dealt with as aSystem of Control earlier in Chapter II Section Ic). Today, whenthe great majority of the population are liable to pay tax,including tax on unemployment benefit, deductions from standardrates of tax on personal incomes are equivalent to benefits.

Table 2

Tax Benefits

Item Sums remitted Nos. affected(£.000.000) (000.000)

1.2.3.4.5.6.7.

8.

Married Man's AllowanceSingle Person's AllowanceWife's Earned Income ReliefAge AllowanceAdditional Personal AllowancePension Contribution ReliefSelf-Employed PensionContribution ReliefLife Assurance Premium Relief

(1) (2)10.350 11.45.750 9.22.840 6.3490 2.5150 ' 0.5

1.400

450600_

Not available

TOTAL of these items 22.030

Source: The Government's expenditure plans 1984-5 to 1986-7.HMSO 1984, Cmnd. 9143-11. Column (2) relates to 1983-4,

As with benefits, these reliefs are numerous and specific; butthey differ from benefits in being less minutely attached toproven and frequently re-assessed need; and because the tax-

52 system, though having regard to ability to pay, is habitually


used as a tool of social, economic and political policy. Thriftis, for instance, encouraged and so is house-ownership, whereasalcohol and tobacco are not. Of the principal reliefs listedabove perhaps six (Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 and 8) are of particularinterest to the HEAer. The cost to the Exchequer of these sixtotals £20,480 million.

But we must turn to the outcomes of the systems, to their actualeffects upon HEA. In general, the impact is unfavourable,particularly to part-time work, and to the needs of women. Andthe procedures for compliance bear heavily on the unemployed.Some examples illustrate these points.

i The multitude of means tests (said to be 45 in all) isan aggravation. Two of them ( fo r supplementary benefi t(SB) and for FIS) are sometimes called 'passportbenefits' as they normally bring with them nilassessments in other tests. But not always; it canhappen that an SB recipient has to pay a contribution tohis solicitor for advice even if this advice is givenunder the 'green form' legal advice scheme.

ii Then, the notorious poverty-trap, by which the interplayof tax and benefit regulations may mean a net loss ofincome to the person concerned. At some current incomelevels, roughly those at about £90-£100 per week, aperson can encounter the following losses of benefit orpayments of tax.

April- FromNov 84 Nov 84

Tax 30 30N I contribution 9 9Loss of FIS 50 50Lost rebate of rent 13 14%Lost rebate of rates k\ 4%

This makes a total in the £ of 106.5p now and 108.Opfrom November next.

iii The lack of coordination between the policies ofdifferent benefits can present claimants withextraordinary conundrums. Consider this one for acouple where the man has been made unemployed, his wifehas a job but it is not very well paid, and there aretwo children at school. They will have to decidewhether they are better off claiming supplementarybenefit or family income supplement. To make thedecision, they will have to consider what their weeklygross income will be; the tax effects of receiving FIS

53 (non-taxable) as against SB (in part-taxable);


whether they would qualify for single payments (forexample, of clothing) if on SB since these would not bepayable if they were on FIS. (They would already be inreceipt of child benefit. This is paid from the ChildBenefit Centre in Washington, Co Durham.)

If they decided to claim SB they would have to go tothe local DHSS office and then on to the housing benefitsection of the local authority. They would need to seethe school about getting free school meals. They shouldget free glasses, dental care and prescriptions, butthey would have to fill in the appropriate forms at theoptician's etc. They would also have to claim housingbenefit if they opted for FIS, but this would be of adifferent type - 'standard' as opposed to'certificated'.

iv Claimants whose circumstances change, or who haveirregular or intermittent sources of income, may verywell want to engage in HEA; yet they can faceparticular difficulties.

Once a claim is established, its administration boilsdown to periodic renewal of giro books. But when thingsgo wrong they can go spectacularly wrong. A claimantmay be in receipt of four or five benefits - say,unemployment benefit, supplementary benefit, childbenefit, housing benefit and family income supplement(which lasts a year from the date it is awarded).Alterations in one of these benefits are likely toaffect the others and it is easy for things todegenerate into chaos. A claimant struggling to have aclaim processed quickly may well fall into despair inthe attempt to get all the constituent parts at theright stage at the right time.

Supplement 2 illustrates from real cases some of thedifficulties that have arisen.

What likelihood is there that people in such situations will findtime or energy to consider HEA?

These instances are systemic; they arise out of the peculi-arities of the systems and are unlikely to disappear withoutvery radical, simplifying changes such as that of the 'SocialWage' type proposed by the Heath Government and turned down byits successor.

The more common disincentives derive from the central purposeof the systems themselves which is: at the least possible cost tomake good income deficiency up to a very low subsistence level.

54 Given this objective, financial concessions (about earnings


under unemployment benefit (UB), and 'disregards' under SB) arebound to be kept minimal by the provider, and be considered measlyby the recipients. For the objective of the latter is to raisetheir effective net income either by getting money or saving onexpenses. HEA to them is a kind of DIY SB.

The interpretations given to the other principal criterion forreceiving benefit - that the applicant must be looking, andinstantly available for full-time work - have also a disincentiveeffect on those who would turn to HEA as an escape-route frombenefit dependency.

The regulations are as tightly screwed down. Though earnings ofup to £2.00 will not extinguish benefit for that day, the'availability for work' test for other days in the week will ruleout most part-time jobs. Moreover, if the insurance officerdecides that a claimant is working to the 'full , normal extent' inhis job, benefit may be stopped for the whole week; and, for sucha claimant, SB for that week will also be lost.

If a person is trying to establish himself in a business on aself-employed basis, e.g. as a window-cleaner, he may lose benefiteven if he earns nothing. The benefit rules allow no half-wayhouse. Either he is prepared to drop everything for a job, or heis trying to establish a business, in which case no benefit.His problem is greater if a job has been done but paymentdelayed.

From the instructions given to officers investigating dubiousclaims it is clear that skills and attitudes that could form thebasis of HEA are closely scrutinized: e.g. skills in typing, carrepair and building operations and records of self-employment bythe claimant.

It is, in the different context of education, even harder toaccept the implications (though not the reasoning) of the rulethat education courses occupying more than 21 hours a week,including home-work and using the canteen, will lose benefit forthe student.

However, an exception to this general situation has now emergedand though it has defects, it amounts to a break-through and hassome particular relevance to HEA. In early 1982 the EnterpriseAllowance Scheme was introduced experimentally in four areas.Under this someone, if of working age, who has been receivingbenefit (UB or SB) for 13 weeks or is under personal notice ofredundancy, may apply to receive a weekly allowance of £40 for 52weeks in order to set up a business. The business must be new,not a part of or financially connected with, another business. Itmust be full-time and local and the applicant must show that hehas £1,000 to put into it. Each application is individual, but

55 several people may make parallel applications for one


business; so the opportunity for joint ventures exists.Applicants are given an explanation and initial counselling, butthe grant is not conditional upon the proposal being consideredviable.

The scheme was an immediate success. In August 1983 it was madenationally available. The number of applicants has constantlyexceeded the budgetary provision. There is a large waiting list,and the delay between application and start (Spring '84) nowaverages 15 weeks and in some cases is 24.

The following facts may be instructive:

The applications total around 2% of the unemployed. Of theaccepted applicants 88% were male, 82% were between 25and retirement age, 63% had been unemployed for over 6 monthsand 29% for over twelve months. 12% fell out during theduration of the twelve months after start. 75% were inbusiness 3 months after the allowance had ceased. The flowof applicants from the experimental areas has not diminished.

These are national figures. In the South West Region, with whichthis study is primarily concerned, the volume of applicationexceeded the number expected. For the period August 1, 1983 toMarch 31, 1984, 3309 applications were received, 2213 starts weremade, and the waiting list on March 31, 1984 was 1236. During themonth of March, 30 starts were made in Avon (which includesBristol), 17 of these were home-based. In Devon, a more ruralarea, 30 starts were made, 20 being home-based. Of this 20., 14used the home as a base and 6 as the place where the work tookplace. The idea that the home is a seed-bed of economic activityreceives some endorsement from these figures.

It is possible to wonder why this way through was not discoveredearlier, and why the principle of cash-limit budgeting could notbe relaxed to reduce the waiting list. To find £1,000 after 6 or12 months unemployment is fairly difficult. To endure a long waitputs a great strain on the precarious confidence of those makingthe proposal.

So, all in all, these extensive systems of monetary assistancehave, for individuals considering entry into HEA, some drawbacks.For those having income from other sources - from a spouse, fromrents, investments, or a part-time job - the tax reliefs are notnegligible if you can suss them out. But for those dependentprincipally or wholly on welfare payments, particularly over anextended period, the anxiety and 'hassle' use up the spare energyneeded for any HEA initiative, and the payments tend to vanish inthe start-up period.

Of the four requirements in the formula put forward - Will, Skill,56 Means and a Favourable Context - the monetary assistance


systems do contribute to Means but at the expense of Will,

f. Aids to Personal Development

Substantial monetary assistance also goes to help people use thepersonal development services. Of the total budget of the newYouth Training Service, for instance, well over half goes onpayments to young people attending courses.

Of the various services helping personal development the principalare the NHS, the Social Services, the Education and TrainingServices and the much smaller one for rehabilitating offenders.Together, they constitute a girdle that supports people in crucialareas and stages of life. When the economy is sick the demandsmade on these services rise; unemployed people have highersickness rates, marital trouble is more frequent and families maydissolve. At the same time, budgets for the services tend not togrow, but come under heavy pressure for cuts. Targets andperformance are closely scrutinised. But these stresses alsoproduce very clear testimonies to the value the public places onthem when they seem to be endangered; witness the attachment tothe Health Service shown in the Winter of Discontent.

If the home is to be a good base for HEA initiatives, theimportance of these services is obvious. Small social units likethe modern family are easily upset and in an increasingly'mobile .society close support from neighbours is not to be depended on.

No doubt the physical and emotional well-being which the Healthand Social Services help to secure are prime and immediatenecessities; but it is towards education and training that welook to prepare and adapt ourselves and our children in the longerterm. When as now the rate of increase in knowledge, of changesin work, of multiplication of the routes to learning is so fast,the education and training services should be glittering in theirvitality and students clamorous to use them. But this is not so;as many eminent people and influential groups have eloquentlylamented, and as is testified to by truancy and disorder ininstitutions, anti-social behaviour outside, and the chillingstatistic that 40% of school-leavers have no subsequenteducational contact.

Reviewing the position nearly 20 years ago, one of the mosteminent, Professor Sir George Pickering, wrote that 'if theeducational system of Great Britain and especially England andWales, had been designed at all (and of course it has not), itmust have been designed to eliminate Britain as a world power inthe second half of the 20th Century.' He then forecast, what weare now experiencing in fact, that computers and other advancedmachines would take over from human brain and muscles.Consequently, he urged that 'the education systems should have

57 taught the young above all to be versatile and capable. It


should have taught them how to learn ... It should have taughtthem how to use their leisure profitably and enjoyably, sinceleisure once the privilege of the few will be the lot of all.'

'... You will see I am an angry old man. I am angry not on my ownbehalf - my race is almost run. I am angry because of what ourgeneration is doing to the next. We are by our foolishnessrobbing them of their birthright. We are not giving them thetools to finish the job.'

Since then a lot has happened: the raising of the schoolleaving age in 1973; comprehensivisation of secondary education;the Manpower Services Commission and all its works; the collapse

. of youth employment progressively since 1975; and Toxteth in1981.

At the same time, besides dogged and devoted service from the rankand file, much of course that was good. Yet are there many who,looking back, would seriously quarrel with Sir George's views,either as to the part in national economic decline attributable tothe education system, or with his damning assessment of the waythe bulk of school-leavers at 16 are prepared for adult life?

Indeed, in some respects the position today is worse. Thecontinuing shrinkage of manufacturing and the drying-up ofapprenticeship has highlighted the absence of any effectiveconsensus between industry and Government as to who is responsiblefor securing a work-force with the qualities and skills theeconomy wants, and for the manifest inadequacy and confusion ofwhat is supplied. Perhaps this explains why there is no solidbase upon which to develop the renewal and conversion of skillsthroughout working life, or to introduce new ones to meettechnological advance.

All these shortcomings are mirrored in the home - in teenage gloomabout job prospects, in men with obsolete skills and women whohave now lost the new jobs they were welcoming five years ago.

Downbeat recitals of this kind are worthwhile only if they pointto new starts: and there are signs of some which could befateful. One was the speech in January by the EducationSecretary, Sir Keith Joseph. In it he advocated the broadening ofthe secondary curriculum, the shifting of the examination systemin the direction of testing competencies rather than knowledge,and the recording of school-leavers' personal attainments ratherthan their position on a ladder of their classmates. Through thishe hoped to produce 16-year olds with a more rounded education andhigher levels of achievement. At the same time the Youth TrainingScheme offers (somewhat insistently) all school-leavers at 16 and17 a year's extension of their initial education. In thesecourses the strands of education and training so disastrously

58 divided in the past are being brought closer.


These proposals, though they came in the wake of heavy cuts ineducational budgets, chimed in fairly well with those of otherbodies who have been pressing for changes of this kind; forexample, the RSA campaign for 'Education for Capability1, and the'11-16 Entitlement Curriculum', the outcome of a long-runningconsultation between a group of HMIs, five local educationauthorities and over 40 schools.

Also, the movement for 'Community Education', which traces itsdescent from Henry Morris and the Cambridgeshire Village Collegesof the twenties, and is opposed to much of the classification andsegregation in the education system and in the local community.(To them the use of the home as a work place would seem as naturalas using the school, and both as places for learning). If what isnow proposed results in secondary education becoming moreappropriate to the personal development of the majority ofadolescents, this could be a real advance.

The second event was the White Paper Training for Jobs issuedearly in February jointly by the Secretaries of State forEmployment and Education. This presented a major scheme for worktraining and vocational education in schools and colleges, aimedto align their work more closely to the needs of employers and thelabour market. Under the scheme the Manpower Services Commissionbecomes the orchestrator, animator and intelligence of the system.It aids and commissions work oriented courses and initiatives, thesuppliers being educational institutions, voluntary and privateagencies, but principally employers. It is to become the NationalTraining Authority, charged to care for not only the half millionschool-leavers each year, but for the training and re-training ofadults throughout working life, including the long-termunemployed.

The resources are to come from mobilising industry, from the feesof trainees (maybe assisted by a loan scheme), and from publicexpenditure largely within its present limits. But the MSC'sbudget will be increased by transferring 25% of the DES budget for'non-advanced' vocational education previously channelled tocolleges through the LEAs.

Such an assignment, to be performed in double-quick time, is aprodigious task. It can be achieved only by a high level ofintelligent cooperation among this wide range of agencies, each ofwhich has its different philosophies, organisation, methods andinterests.

Both initiatives have a radical, back-to-the-drawing board flavourabout them. The training Schemes are exposed in a long documentTraining for Skill Ownership that sets out in systems-approachstyle an educational policy and a fully articulated structure ofcourses. And it recognises realistically that intermittent

59


unemployment is the context of training for work today.

The radical flavour of the thinking about secondary education maybe illustrated by the '11-16 Entitlement Curriculum' proposal.The -groups preparing new curricula worked to an agreed briefingpaper which set out a check-list of areas of experience to whichit was agreed every youngster was entitled to be introduced.Here, in alphabetical not priority order, is the list:

aesthetic and creative physicalethical scientificlinguistic social and politicalmathematical spiritual

To go back to wide cultural principles in this way is surelyfi t t ing when trying to shed the past, or to start from scratch.Implementation of both schemes raises practical and professionalreservations at a number of points; but if they manage to achieveeven part of their objectives, households all over the countrywill be aware of it.

In both, educational technology is expected to play anincreasingly significant part. The campaign for micros in schoolsis in full swing: an average number for secondary schools is now(April '84) three or four and for primary schools one. It isevident that 'computer literacy' as the 4th 'R' is on its way.Those sceptical of technological changes in education shouldconsider the forecasts of software purchase by the EconomicIntelligence Unit just published. 'More than £400m worth ofmicrocomputer programmes will be purchased in 1988 and half willbe used for education ... The software market in 1983 was 170%greater than in 1982; and 85% of those sales were for use withlow-priced personal computers and home-computers. Child educationsoftware sales grew from film in 1982 to £10m in 12 months. Theeducation market in schools and colleges is estimated to rise to£45m in 1987/8.'

The significant feature of this increase is that home and schoolgo hand-in-hand. The UK already has the highest home presentationof video cassette recorders, and the sales of all kinds of supportmaterial (courses, pamphlets, discs, cassettes, tapes) are growingcontinuously. Whereas schools pamphlets used to be the staple ofthe BBC educational publishing enterprise, continuing education isnow the leader.

This change and its implications have great significance for thoseat home. 'Continuing Education' (an educationalist's umbrellaterm to cover tertiary, adult and further) assumes or aff i rms thatthe capacity to learn and grow goes on throughout l ife, and thateducation can encourage and sustain it. During our lives, we playmany roles, student, worker, spouse, parent, citizen, consumer,

60 friend and ' re t i red ' . Each we can do well or poorly, and we


tend to get help from wherever we can to make a good showing. Ifwe are now to be faced with a permanent shif t in the balancebetween 'employment' and 'leisure' we need to learn and practisenew skills and patterns of cooperation if we are to make the mostof life. In the phrase of the UNESCO classic we have to 'Learn toBe' .

All Continuing Education is optional. You take it only if youwant it. So its claims for public subsidy have to be supported byvery good reasons. At present higher education is subsidised forthose of above average ability, presumably in the hope thatsociety will benefit from its investment. The Open University wasdesigned in part as a way of compensating those whose initialeducation did not give them a chance of higher education at thenormal age. Physical and other disabilities are helped, and someremedial and restorative opportunities (e .g . adult literacy and'First Step' houses). But beyond this people expect to pay theirway.

The advances in Information Technology provide the basis for agreat new range of personal and small group learning over thewhole range of concern of Continuing Education. Its productsrelease learners from many constraints of time and place. Theyimmensely increase the range of experience and of learningmaterials easily available. The concept of enrolment for a fixedcourse at fixed dates is modif ied. It becomes easier for adultswho have the will to decide for themselves what they will study,when and how continuously. A new DIY, PYO dimension of learningcomes into view. And not only for learning, but for activitybased on the learning, whether it is culturally or sociallyoriented .

As the technology takes over the job of transferring information,the purpose and content of institutions like libraries, and theroles of librarians and tutors will sh i f t : they will seethemselves more as' facilitators, encouragers and ' animateurs ' ,showing people how they can fend for themselves with the newfacilities.

However, ' to him that hath ...' these changes and prospects dolittle immediately to help those unwillingly at home,disoriented by redundancy, long-term unemployment and poverty.

Their needs are not those which most educational bodies were setup to meet. But these bodies, both official and (perhaps moresuccessfully) voluntary, can be adapted to help if they set outf irst to study what is needed. The act of learning itself createsself-confidence. The fact that someone listens intently to whatyou may say at a meeting is a help. Discussion of what ishappening in society, what is the future of 'work ' , may relievedepression. Formal classes are not, understandably, much

61 patronised. The activities are at a more primary level - to


repel depression and disintegration, and re-establish and maintainself-respect.

Thus, there are many challenges ahead for services aiding personaldevelopment, and new means of supplying the skills needed to meetan unfamiliar future.

3. BUSINESS INITIATIVES

g. Curbs and helps

The six previous sections of this chapter broadly cover theofficial context in which HEA takes place. But it is not thewhole context. For instance, HEAers have to check personallywhether the conditions of their mortgage (if any) or of the houseinsurance contain clauses which might affect the proposed HEAinitiative. It is distressing to find too late that a promisingventure has inadvertently cancelled an insured risk.

The present position and prospects of all Business Initiatives(which cover half of HEA) have been affected significantly by twomajor developments, the Consumer Movement and the present veryactive drive for small businesses. We look at them in turn.

The Consumer Movement (if that is the right word) has beengathering force since the middle fifties when the ConsumerAssociation was founded. Trade in the UK is now regulated by 40Acts of Parliament and over 300 technical Regulations. Of theActs, 24 were passed in 1968 or after; the most important beingthe Trade Descriptions Act of 1968 and the Fair Trading Act of1973. A London Headquarters, the Office of Fair Trading, wasestablished in the late 70's, and .there are local offices oftrading standards and Fair Trading in most large towns. Theirpurpose is by persuasion, advice and information to securecompliance with the spirit and letter of the law. The 'movement'has not lost its original impetus; it still has areas to explore,problems to identify and solutions to propose. With the currentrate of technical change its role remains important; and thefamily of informative guides and assessments from the 'Which'stable continues to be very valuable.

The first official declaration of the importance of smallbusinesses to the revival of the economy was the Bolton Report of1971 which described them as providing 'outlets for individualis-tic people who prefer to work in small units', and as 'offeringan essential source of innovation and a seed bed for large firmsin the future, contributing toward a balanced and stable indust-rial structure'. Action on that report though not immediate soongathered force. Today, there are over 80 Government sponsoredschemes for small businesses, and many sources of funding forsmall businesses, cooperatives and individual enterprises.

62


Further, there is now a growing number of local Enterprise Trusts;see as an example the Swindon one described in Supplement 2 at theend of Chapter III.

Since many initiatives (e.g. BL) begin in a shed, these twodevelopments though not directed to HEA are relevant to it; andone could suppose that initiatives using the home micro will soonproliferate, and most of them will seek to make a profit. Butthey may take on the form of no-profit mutual provision of goodsand services, and these initiatives may still be classified asbusinesses and have to comply with the present rules. So it canbe asked what is a 'business'? Or perhaps, better, when is abusiness? For all businesses consist of transactions, in whichone party 'renders money or money's worth in consideration ofmoney or money's worth received'. The making of this transactionindicates that each party to it receives some satisfaction,whether or not money changes hands. Where money does pass itbecomes part of the recipient's income: all income is potentiallytaxable.

So when do transactions rank as businesses or trade? Legally,there is no comprehensive definition of 'trade'. Lord Denning hassaid that trade is 'easy to recognise but hard to define'. In theevent of dispute, the matter has to be resolved at law, normallyat the level of a magistrate's court. The court will look to whatare called the Badges of Trade - to such questions as 'were thearticles acquired purely for trading purposes?' 'were theydisposed of soon after they were acquired?' 'were there similartransactions over a period?' 'were the circumstances of thetransaction normal or in some emergency?' 'were the motives of theseller clear, or inferrable?' On the answers to such factualquestions the court will decide; and much, as we have seen, flowsfrom that decision, for HEA.

Normally, however, decisions are taken by officials in the lightof earlier rulings and interpretations, though there is noguarantee that they will always reach the same conclusions fromone set of facts.

With all this innovation, the ordinary householder may easily beconfused, or discouraged or simply unaware of the possible effectsof an HEA initiative. For very likely the venture will betentative at first and naturally kept under wraps. But a timewill come when a decision has to be made, and it is desirable thatthe important points should have been considered first.Consequently, it is satisfactory that there is now a big volume ofinformation available on both developments - customer protectionand business start-up. The Public Library might be the first portof call; some local authorities have information sections. Theremay be a local Enterprise Trust, a Law Centre, or an establishedvoluntary body. There are also paper-backs, and cheap and very

63 good guides from the Consumers Association, the National


Extension College in Cambridge, and the Daily Telegraph. Somecommercial.consultants offer free advice and so do some banks.Then there is broadcasting: radio programmes like 'You and Yours1,'Checkpoint'; 'Watchdog' on BBC1, and numerous local andnational phone-in programmes. Most of the published materialcontains information about contacts and further reading. All thistakes time.

Our accounts suggest that adult education classes may oftenprovide the initial stimulus to HEA.

64


SUPPLEMENTS TO CHAPTER II

SUPPLEMENT 1 CAR REPAIRING

The most common occasion of conflict in the HEA field between theindividual and the Local Authority is car repairing. This is notsurprising as it is a relatively obvious and intrusive activityand if carried on extensively can cause considerable inconvenienceto neighbours through such problems as noise, smell, increasedtraffic and obstruction of residential streets. This can lead tocomplaints to which the local authority is bound to payattention.

The problem is more likely to increase than to diminish. Aspublic transport declines,' car ownership continues to expand. Thenumber of private cars and vans licensed in Great Britain doubledbetween 1961 and 1971 and by 1981 it had increased again by morethan a quarter to reach 15̂ million. The proportion of householdswith regular use of a car rose from 31% in 1961 to 61% in 1981 (ofthese, 2% had access to two or more cars in 1961 and 15% in1981).

Good servicing and repair facilities have not kept up with thisgrowth. Surveys conducted by the Consumers Association amongtheir members indicate a general dissatisfaction with commercialgarages and this would appear to be well founded judging by theresults of a more controlled through small-scale survey which theyran in 1977. This entailed sending a number of cars for routineservicing; when subsequently checked the performance of threequarters of the garages was rated unsatisfactory or evenappalling. The consequent opportunity for HEA is self-evident.The Consumers Association reported in 1979 that 10% of theirmembers do almost all their own servicing and repair and a further20% do simple servicing.

The reasons given for DIY were saving money, enjoyment, certaintythat the work was done and done properly, and convenience ofchoosing the time. Other estimates of the proportion of motoristsregularly servicing their own cars have been given by theFinancial Times as 20% in 1976 and 30% in 1979, and by MAA, 27%in 1978. A recent survey by the AA showed that 15% of people whohad recently had their car serviced had had it done by a friendunpaid.

The expansion of DIY car repair and its extension to working onother people's cars have been made more possible by the increasedavailability of people with the necessary skills and time. Thepresent recession has made redundant a large number of males withmechanical skills, but even apart from this, working hours havebeen reduced giving more spare time for DIY.

65


1. Difficulties with Authority

Once past the occasional or even regular DIY session on his owncar and on to more frequent sessions on other people's cars, thenthe trouble with rules and regulations can begin. Generally agarage at a private house can only be used to store a car and forthe owner to do his own repairs. If he goes beyond this he canmeet trouble not only from the constraints discussed in ChapterII, but from a private landlord, from his insurance and mortgagecompany.

Also, there are fine points of definition relating to car-repair.If a person fits up a mobile repair van and keeps that in hisgarage and visits other residents and repairs their cars on theirpremises, the planning authority is not likely to object ongrounds of planning, but it might on grounds of running a businessfrom a residence. However, if the equipment were unloadedinto the garage rather than being kept permanently on thevan, the planning committee could take the view that this wouldconstitute a non-eonforming use of the garage.

The principle of 'intensification' (see page 35) is important. Alittle leeway is allowed, but if the neighbours or the officersconsider the activity is getting out of proportion, enforcementaction may follow. An initiative which expands because it issuccessful is liable to be prohibited.

2. Positive Responses

If planning authorities were to face the fact that car repairingmust increase in proportion to the increase in car ownership, andthat a combination of the 'blind eye1 and the 'low profile'policies is just bad administration, then they should square up tothe problem and seek positive solutions particularly in areasundergoing development or redevelopment. The study came acrossthree instances of attempts to do this which are summarisedbelow.

The Hinckley and Bosworth 'Mini-Enterprise Zone' was launched bythe District Council in December 1980 especially to helpindividuals who were in conflict with the planning authority overnon-conforming use of premises and wished to set up in business ontheir own. A fenced site adjacent to an existing industrialestate was provided with full services brought to each individualplot of which there were twelve ranging in size from 300 to 1500square yards. Leases of up to 21 years at low rentals wereoffered subject only to minimal planning regulations. Four of thefirst tenants were car repair firms. Three years later they werestill going strong although one had stopped car repairing and goneover entirely to metal fabrication instead of combining this withcar repair as he had done initially. Of the other eight plots

66 only one was unoccupied at the end of 1983, an occupancy rate


which would compare favourably with many industrial sites.

A quite different approach is the MKOK scheme in Milton Keynes.Based on the idea of the Swedish OK (Oil Konsumer) Organisation,this was set up as a Motorists Co-operative Association withassistance from an oil company and from the forward-looking MiltonKeynes Corporation. It was opened in 1979 and operates as acommercial garage 7 days a week, 16 hours a day, with petrolforecourt, carwash, and a shop selling spare parts andaccessories; but in addition there is a large DIY hall with 10well-equipped bays for hire where people can do their ownservicing and repairs under the supervision of skilled mechanics.There is a wide range of tools and equipment which may be hiredand the facilities can be used by both members and non-members,though members have the advantage of a discount on hire chargesand all spare parts and accessories. Security is ensured by theautomatic entrance and exit doors which are operated by thecashier so that no motorist can leave until all tools have beenreturned and charges paid.

MKOK staff give advice to customers on request and can be calledin and paid at commercial rates to do jobs, or parts of jobs,beyond the competence of the car owner. All work involving safetysuch as steering and brakes is checked before the customer leaves.Although not admitted to the MAA because of their disapproval ofthe DIY aspect, MKOK provides a better service than many garageswhich are recognised by the MAA. The facilities are excellent andthe skilled supervision ensures that safety standards aremaintained.

From the start MKOK has run regular classes in motor mechanicswhich are well attended, but they have now expanded theireducational activity to bring in school children. In co-operationwith the local comprehensive school they organise courses .forchildren aged 14 to 16. Equal weighting is given to practical andto theoretical training and at present there are 64 childrenenrolled.

MKOK has now completed its fourth year and has settled down with asolid membership of between 800 and 900. It is also usedextensively by people who do not join the Association. Each yearhas shown a profit and the staff has increased from 7 to 13. Nextyear they look forward to opening a new and larger OK in Lambeth;this will be nearly three times the area of MKOK and will havefull facilities for bodywork and paintwork for which there is nospace at Milton Keynes.

The success of this scheme can be attributed to the fact that isbasically a business in which each section has to be financiallyself-supporting, that it has an excellent manager and soundorganisation.

67


The third instance, which unfortunately failed to materialisedespite much preparatory hard work, was conceived as oneactivity of a Community Centre set up to serve three new urbanvillages (each of about 8,000) in the enlargement of Swindon bythe Thamesdown Borough Council created in 1974. In one of these,Toothill, a farm was taken over and its buildings converted for anumber of community purposes. The Barn, on a site surrounded by afair area of open space, was planned to become a co-operative carrepair centre. There would have been pits for four cars, a ramp,welding and compressor facilities and a long workbench. TheBorough Council were to make the building sound and provide waterand electricity. It was hoped to obtain funding for the remainderfrom the Manpower Services Commission, or by using professionalfund-raisers. It was to be run as a members co-operative whereusers would bring their own moveable tools and repair each other'scars. No money was to change hands except for an hourly fee tothe Co-operative for the use of facilities. If successful, it washoped to extend the servicing facilities to bicycles and motorbicycles owned by members' families. It was also hoped that itwould become an informal centre where the young could learn skillsleading to jobs or DIY competence. If there was a demand forformal instruction the premises would be made available to aninstructor paid by the LEA (the Wiltshire County Council).

In the event, the funding from outside the Borough did notmaterialise and the interest of residents faltered. So theproblem remains unsolved.

3. Conclusions

Individual car ownership will remain a high-priority personalobjective and therefore cars are likely to become more numerousand the demand for servicing facilities greater. Also as carownership is more widely spread the marginal owners are morelikely to own older cars, they are less likely to be able toafford garage prices and are more likely to turn to HEA carrepairers.

The number of HEA car repairers can be expected to increase asmore people with mechanical skills find themselves with moreleisure, and with increasing DIY in other fields more people canbe expected to turn to DIY on cars.

With the potential expansion in HEA car repair, planningauthorities will be increasingly unable to control conformity toregulations unless the present restrictions are revised orprovision is made for special areas where car repair and servicingcan take place either as a form of co-operation or as the basicprovision for small businesses. The contribution of suchbusinesses in providing a service to motorists and opportunity forself-employment should not be discounted as might have been

68 suggested by one Department of the Environment inspector who,


in giving a decision on a planning appeal concerning a car repairbusiness set up in a domestic garage, remarked that such smallservice businesses 'cannot be said to contribute to the nationaleconomy'.

Certainly the problem of kerbside and domestic garage repairs isnot one that will go away. Some Local Authorities may try toignore it but those who take a positive attitude and are ready torespond to the needs of the local community can give encouragementand assistance to those who want to use their skills to provide aservice for which there is a demand.

69


SUPPLEMENT 2

TAXES AND RATES

The following notes have some relevance to HEA, but were felt tobe too detailed to be included in the main text.

1. Schedule D Computation

There are other aspects of tax procedures which are currentlyunder review, however, and the first of these involves themechanisms of Schedule D computation. One proposal is to replacethe anomalous 'previous year' rule with the apportionment ofprofit earned as between coincidental fixed years, or even torequire co-terminous fiscal and accounting years. Tax would thenbe levied on actual net profits in the manner outlined in theKeith Report.

The adoption of that proposal, in making the business ofcomputation simpler, would pave the way for two further reforms:-computerisation by the Inland Revenue, and some degree of self-assessment by tax-payers.

2. Computerisation

The computerisation of Inland Revenue records would assist alltax-payers, and HEA tax-payers specifically, in that AnnualReturns really could be annual, and for all those with any sort ofincome to return, it would render possible further considerationof the integration of taxation and National Insurance systems. Itwould bring several steps closer the individual taxation ofwives.

3. Self-assessment

The road to self-assessment is made straight by simplification;significant changes have already been made to simplify theadministration of personal allowances. Child allowance is nowcollected in cash, and mortgage and Wife Allowance Reliefs aregiven, as it were, at source.

Other countries have gone still further in reducing the burden onthe tax authorities by introducing full or partial self-assessment, so that less time is spent in routine computerisationby the Revenue agencies, and more in public assistance and inperforming checks and investigations.

The results of these experiments are not completely conclusive inthe present context, however. The American system of self-assessment for example, like the original proposals for taxcredits in this country, are not extended to cover self-employment

70 and casual earnings. This is because there are inevitably


complexities in computing net profits, and this is a procedurewhich can only be performed periodically.

There are valuable lessons to be learnt from the attempts to bringin self-assessment, however, and their implementation should begiven greater consideration here:-

a. Better guidance and help to the self-employed to comply withmore clearly explained procedures.

b. Automatic Annual Returns, which must be completed andreturned, within clear time-limits.

e. The payment of tax on account in, say, quarterly instalments.The amounts would be based on figures from the previous year,the balance made up either way within three months of theyear end on the production of final accounts. There would besafeguards, allowing for profit fluctuations, and the use ofa minimal tax parameter would avoid the difficultiesexperienced by those in marginal situations.

d. Further simplifications to personal allowances and allowableexpenses to encourage in all tax payers a greater sense ofunderstanding, control and responsibility for the taxes intheir lives.

4. Rates - Valuations and Use Categorisation

This note of explanation was contributed by the Chief RatingOfficer of the Thamesdown Borough Council, and accepted withthanks.

"Guidance regarding the proportions of the rating assessmentmake up is available to the Rating Authority from theValuation Officer. After the Rating Authority categorises a-property as "domestic" or falling within one of the three"mixed" categories the ratepayer may object to thecategorisation and the Valuation Officer can be called uponto supply a certificate of value. If the ratepayer is stilldissatisfied the matter may be decided by a court.

N.B.1. To clarify the position it should be observed that re-

valuation and re-categorisation are separate exercisesalthough they are generated by the same change incircums tances.

Where some non-domestic use comes to the attention of theRating Officer he will request the Valuation Officer to amendthe assessment. Dependent upon the survey then carried out,the Valuer will propose to increase/reduce the value or leave

71 it unchanged. He may also change the description of the


property at the same time.

If he leaves both the value and the description unaltered theRating Officer would (unless he felt aggrieved) take nofurther action. If either or both the value and thedescription was changed the Rating Officer would decide uponwhat category the property should now fall into.

The normal procedures would then be available to theRatepayer to object to the value and, separately, thecategory.

2. The amounts of allowance granted are not percentages but ineffect reverse rate poundages. They could be expressed aspercentages of the rateable value but unless the ratepoundage chargeable is lOOp in the £ they are not a fixedpercentage of the amount payable.

i.e. R.V. £100 poundage 175.Ip = £175.10Domestic Allowance 18^p = £18.50 = 10.56% of the

amount due'.

5. Appeals Practice

As a great many decisions can be appealed against, it is perhapsworth noting a difference in practice between appeals against thatof the Valuation Officer for rating purposes, and those of theCommissioners of Income Tax. The former are held in public unlessthe court otherwise orders. Decisions of Commissioners are notpublished unless their decisions are appealed against in the HighCourt. Consequently, the Inland Revenue can decide whether theCommissioners' decisions are or are not followed in other cases towhich they are relevant. This lack of publicity results in thesame issue coming before the Commissioners on several occasions.It is also contrary to one of Adam Smith's canons that thequantity of tax to be paid ought to be 'clear and plain to thecontributor and to every other person'.

72


SUPPLEMENT 3

MONETARY ASSISTANCE - PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

Below are some quotations from personal accounts of the DHSS'sadministration of benefits. They are intended to give some humanappreciation of the problems considered more intellectually in therelevant secton of the report itself. They come from We don'tg-Lve sloth-ing grants anymore (CPAG) 1984 J Allbeson and R Smith.

'Staff had become virtually obsessed with the gathering ofstatistics. Everything that "moved" was. counted. Thisapplied to new claims, reassessments, callers at reception,interviews, etc. It was by these data (called "credits")that the performance of the off ice, and to a considerableextent of individual s t a f f , was measured. As a result, bothmanagement and staff were keen to maximise their measuredwork; for individual staff this brought them more credit,and for the office as a whole, more staff ... the emphasis onstatistics can, and in my view does, distort the of f ice ' swork and perspective. Too much importance was attached towork which was measured, however low in priority that workmight be or irrelevant to the true nature of the of f ice ' stasks. The importance of tasks which attracted no credit -a concern with claimants' welfare, referral to otheragencies, all the details which contributed towards thequality of service - was greatly undervalued.'

(Civil Servant)

'When I finished college at the end of June I went to theunemployment office and "signed on".

Because I had never worked I received supplementary benefit .When I heard from the hospital I informed them of this bygoing to the DHSS office. There I waited over two hours andwas told that because I had never worked I could not claimsickness benefit and because I was living with my parents Icould not claim supplementary benefit while I was inhospital. Not satisfied with this I phoned the next morning.It took me ages to get through. I wanted an appointment tosee someone higher in authority. I was told that I wouldhave to phone a different number for appointments. This Idid, and the girl asked me all the same questions that I hadbeen asked the previous day. She then refused to give me aninterview saying that I was not entitled to benefit.

When I insisted she became extremely rude and said that Iwould have to speak to her supervisor, and gave me anothernumber to ring. When I asked if the switchboard could

73 transfer my call she said "what do you think this is, a


bloody police station" and put the phone down. I rang hersupervisor who said that I may be entitled to hospital pocketmoney and to see the social worker. I asked about travellingexpenses and was told that I could not claim them. When Isaid that I thought that I could claim them as I was onsupplementary benefit, I was told that, although that wastrue, I was no longer on supplementary benefit. I was nottold how to claim hospital pocket money and who to see abouttravel.'

(23 year old graduate about to enter hopsital for major openheart surgery)

'[My son] has grown so fast, his jacket no longer fits. Hehas to wear either one made for a five or six year old whichdoes not reach his waist or fasten, or a fur lined wintercoat which makes him sweat. He should be wearing nine to tenyear old ... [my daughter] has to choose between cramped feetor sandals three sizes too small which leave her sore andswollen toes completely open.'

(Mr N Surrey)

'I am desparate for help as I can't get work, also my sonKevin. He is 17, is unemployed. Gets £15 per week on thedole ... He is already broke. The big problem is that he hasgrown out of the clothes he bought when he was at work. Hasholes in his shoes. The trousers he's got are too small andhe has worn out his working boots. He usually does buildingor garage work and complains "If I get a job what will Iwear. Everything's worn out Dad."'

(Mr P Nottingham)

'I applied for winter coats and shoes for my twins. My twinsare 4 and growing very fast. I am on social receiving £32.05per week. I am supposed to buy food, pay bills plus buyclothes which is not possible on the small amount I receive.When I applied I was refused ... in the end I had to buytheir coats which they badly needed out of my money, costing£20 each and almost starving for the next two weeks.'

(Mrs R Bow,London)

11 am a mother of two children aged 2 and 1 and my husbandreceives SS benefit. From today we will be getting £40 perweek after our rent is paid, plus child benefit. Can youtell me ... what are we supposed to spend e.g. on food,heating, washing etc? I am particularly interested in howmuch is allowed for the expenses for looking for work. Idon't mean travel to interviews which are rare enough and towhich we always walk, but buying the local paper every day(60p per week) and phone calls and stamps for job

74 applications. My husband told the URO (Unemployment


Review Officer) that he cannot afford to buy the paper andfinds them in litter bins - which is true.'

(claimant fromHampshire)

75

CHAPTER HI Other FactorsAffecting HEA

Many important factors besides those associated with governmentalaction will affect HEA: those deriving from new knowledge and itsapplications; those from business and commercial initiatives; andthose from changes in human aspirations and skills and in thesocial institutions through which they are expressed. ThisChapter touches on some of these as they bear upon the main theme- who will be at home, what they wish, can or could do there, whatopportunities for HEA will be on offer and whether their physicaland regulatory environment will help or hinder them.

We take first the most pervasive and penetrating influence,technological development, particularly information technology.Then an important commercial success story of recent years - thephenomenon of DIY.

From there we turn to social, personal and occupational aspects ofsociety. We note the changing position and aspirations of somemain groups - women, young people and the elderly - to see how thechanges affect the home's ability to respond to the many callsmade on it.

Then, to the physical environment. Are domestic premises andresidential areas capable of matching what people today want andare likely to want to use them for? Are they capable ofadaptation to meet new needs? Since houses are built to last, isthe physical environment of a rapidly changing society bound to bealways unsuitable?

Lastly, to bring the enquiries to a close, we attempt a summaryanswer to the question - 'Who is at home and what are they doingthere?'

1. TECHNOLOGY, PARTICULARLY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

'Technology' is much to the fore in current discussions of thepresent and near future. And rightly so; for it has for the lastcentury and a half been the most potent catalyst of change, and islikely to remain so for as far as we can see. It has beeninstrumental in extending man's power over his environment,raising his productivity, raising material standards ofconsumption, changing the economic organisation of society andtransforming his manner of living. And, now more than everbefore, it is at the heart of military supremacy.

In dictionary terms 'Technology' means the application ofpractical and mechanical science to industry and commerce and therelated methods, theory and practice. More simply, it is anexpression of the universal and perpetual human urge to do better

76 and more easily what has to be done, so as to be able to do

Ill OTHER FACTORS AFFECTING HEA

more of what one would like to do. It enlists human curiosity,inventiveness, tenacity and cupidity. Except in societies inwhich for religious or political reasons its limits and directionare restrained (as in medieval Europe by the Church, or in Japanby the government until the Meiji restoration in the 1850's), theflow of what it may achieve is free. Its story is therefore notonly of extension of knowledge and mastery of the environment butalso a continuing commentary on political and power systems andtheir effect on those who live under them.

Technological advance depends on the extension of knowledge andupon the identification and solution of problems; it needs bothscientists and engineers. Its rate of advance has not been steadyand regular, but punctuated by great leaps, such as the harnessingof fire, the invention of the wheel, the uses of steam-power andthe torrent of discoveries and inventions since then. Each ofthese leaps has its own genesis, course and consequences; butobservers have noted some broad similarities between them. Barronand Curnow in their book The Future with micro-technology findparallels between the development of steam power and what we arenow experiencing from the application of technology to thehandling of information.

Briefly, they hold that technology normally develops only to meeta human need. It is not a blind force of nature. It occurs whenthis need is felt by those with power in the community who use theresources they control to encourage its development. In the caseof steam the need for mechanical power had been growing for over ahundred years. The technological response came through a seriesof inventions spread over 70 years. Together they brought about -

' a steep increase in productivity of which the consequenceswere enormous. For the fortunate, it brought wealthand power; but for many it caused social disruption, greaterpoverty and a life even more abhorrent than the ruralrigours they had already suffered. The consequences were notdue to the steam engine itself, but to the inability of theeconomic system to absorb the changes, and to side-effectslike the movement from rural to urban areas.'

The national economy experienced first high activity and thendepression. Only gradually were the inequalities eliminated andstability restored, at a generally higher standard of living.

In forecasting (in 1979) a parallel sequence in our currentexperience, the authors suggest that it may be modified by twofactors - first the greater understanding, due principally toMaynard Keynes, of the feed-back effect of unemployment on theeconomy; and second the wider dissemination of political power,which enables sectors harmed by changes to exercise more leveragein resisting them. One can immediately think of instances.

77


But this strays outside the present study. It is more relevant tolook a little more closely at the information 'revolution' itself.This picture is muddied by other factors such as the world-widerecession about which so much contention exists as to causes andremedies. Nonetheless, it is surely inevitable that thisparticular technological leap will have a dominating influence onthe home and the people in it.

This revolution is concerned with the handling and communicationof information. Both of these terms are used in a special, strictsense and not the usual colloquial one. We often do not separateclearly the information from the channel by which it istransmitted or received. We normally think of communication as anact of exchange between human beings, and it may take an effort ofmind to recognise that information, however expressed, enters intoevery thought, conclusion, decision and action. Communication,with or without our knowledge, occurs in many actions or events -for instance when we sweat or shiver, or when a kettle turnsitself off - even though no writing, speech or gesture isinvolved.

The information revolution deals with communication in this verybroad sense. That it has occurred now is mainly due to thelinking of two existing technologies, computer science andtelecommunications with a third, the new technology ofmicroelectronics. While a full understanding of thesetechnologies may require high level skills in mathematics, physicsand logic, their nature is such that these skills are notnecessary in those who will make use of them. Informationtechnology, therefore, is becoming accessible to all including theyoung, the old and the handicapped. One of its more attractivefeatures is the amount of help it provides for those who want tolearn how to use it.

The capacities of the computer and telecommunications for handlinginformation may already be familiar to many of us even though wemay not begin to appreciate how they work. The great power of thecomputer is that it can handle any data which has been convertedinto number (or 'digital') form and, if the data is in this form,or has been converted into a series of mathematical values, it canbe manipulated by the computer, as instructed by the programmer.It can then store, retrieve and process the data in many differentways and with enormous speed.

Many modern communication systems also handle information indigital form. The images captured by a television camera areconverted into a series of digital signals which are reconvertedby the receiver into a picture on the screen. The sound of anorchestra can be recorded on a laser disc in digital form andthen reproduced with great accuracy by the player. Until now theways in which these two, computers and communications, could be

78 linked have been limited by the size and cost of the computer.


However, the new technology, microelectronics, is nowrevolutionising this link. The integrated circuit, etched on atiny silicon chip, is replacing the mass of bulky components thatpreviously made up computers and other electronic devices. Withfar fewer connections than earlier circuits, the integratedcircuit offers tremendous reliability and designers have been ableto progressively cram more and more capability on to a chip.This, along with their manufacture in very large quantities, hasled to dramatic decreases in cost. The familiar calculator whichten years ago may have cost £100 or more, can today be bought forperhaps £3 or £4 because of the high-volume automated productionmethods possible with integrated circuits. As a result thistechnology is much more accessible and can be incorporated into amuch wider range of applications than would have been imaginedonly a short time ago. Its potential for revolutionising thelives of us all is, therefore, enormous.

'There will be no aspect of life whether at home, at work orin leisure which will not be dependent on the availabilityand effective use of electronics technology'

(Sir Euan Maddock, 1983)

As the new technology permeates every aspect of our lives, newquestions will arise. We are already becoming familiar with usingcomputer terminals in the form of cash dispensers to maketransactions at our banks. We receive the money or make enquiriesabout our account. We enjoy the convenience and anonymity but donot usually consider the technological and organisational changesbehind the scenes. But at the topmost international level thesame technology is a source of great anxiety because of the volumeand velocity of credits whizzing round the world. The numbers oftransactions at the New York network centre which was a fewhundred daily in 1970 is now 72,000, each of an average value of2.5 million US dollars. The rules and procedures of bankingworked out over 400 years were not designed to meet this kind oftraffic. Problems of confidentiality and security have still tobe overcome.

While the automation that microtechnology makes possible maybenefit the large banks and corporations, there are manyindividuals for whom the first result of automation will beunemployment. For example, a microelectronics control system(MINOS) introduced into the new Selby coal-mine led to scareforecasts of prodigious labour-shedding in the mining industry.

We may hope that in the long-run this technological revolutionwill, as others have before it, produce a generally higher levelof material prosperity and well-being; but this is a hope, not anautomatic outcome, and depends upon a thousand other decisionsof a different kind. Whether we can collectively manage to avoidthe hardships, miseries and conflicts that accompanied the

79 industrial Revolution remains to be seen.


One of the advantages of mass-produced computers is the marketthat this provides for software (the programs or instructions forthe computer). In the past, programs were bespoke, that is theywere often expensively written specifically to meet therequirements of a particular company. Buyers of microcomputersare usually able to also buy 'off the peg' software at much lowercost. Word processing and accounting programs are the moreobvious examples of such software. However the large market makesthe production of software for a much wider range of applicationsan economic proposition. To take one instance from an occupationwhich is frequently home-based, architects will be offered asystem which could drastically affect their working routines. Itenables them, within their own office, to make three-dimensionalplans of buildings and their surrounds, and to display them fromany angle on a screen to the client for his comments; to adaptthem and then to apprise him of the practical and financialimplications of what has been agreed in the course of theconsultation.

The effect most wanted by those who exploit most technologicaladvances is economic advantage over others. The effect mostdreaded by those who are not in the position to exploit it is theloss of employment. In agriculture and industry, mechanisationhas brought about a shedding of labour on a large-scale and it isnow happening, at an increasing pace, in office work. It islikely to affect the large undertakings first which have theresources to carry the cost of re-equipment and reorganisation;but the smaller will be obliged to follow. Since every concernhas some office work, eventually nearly every economicactivity will be affected.

As a result numbers of people will be sent home - accountancy,clerical and administrative staff. Full-time jobs may becomepart-time, and the present drift towards 'bits and pieces'involving self-employment rather than employment accentuated. Thetasks needing to be done will call for skills related to theservicing of the new systems or the use of the new facilities theyoffer. Jobs least likely to be endangered are those considered'creative' or involving decisions not based on predictable data;or those calling for continuous physical effort. But in totalthey will be fewer, on Barron and Curnow's 1979 estimate by 10 -20%.

A recent report (September 1983) from the Employment andTechnology Task Force of NEDC, reviewing the impact of advancedinformation systems installed in 15 major firms upon 'job contextand boundaries' noted 'a general reduction in numbers in themajority of functions', particularly in the clerical andmanagerial sectors; but that the 'jobs left after the introductionof the system required a higher level of discretionary skill thanbefore and created greater job satisfaction'. A few new routine

80 jobs were created. 'All the case studies required staff with


no previous experience to make use of keyboards. In no case wasthis seen as causing a problem'.

The technology will stimulate employers to reorganise theirpatterns of work, and workers to invent new ones. Two examplesare described earlier, F International (Account XV) and RankXerox (Account XVI). These instances show how the technology candetach a function from its conventional physical anchorage. TheRank Xerox example also illustrates how far recent legislation hasmoved 'labour' from being a variable to a fixed element of cost.The act of employment now carries with it so many additionalsocial charges, and termination so many restrictions from whichother forms of contract are exempt, that the technology whichoffers an escape-route from these charges and rigidities becomesattractive, and not only to the employer.

So there are to be more people at home in the day-time, and theywill include those of education, energy and skills which they willwish to use. Since the job loss will often be described as'natural wastage', there will be at home other, similarlyqualified but younger, people who will be unable to fill theplaces vacated. And there will be yet others trying to use theirhomes to exploit new systems yet to be devised.

At the same time, the home is likely to receive new equipmentbenefiting from the techology. Some of this will be by way ofmicroelectronic control components replacing the presentmechanical and electro-mechanical devices in familiar domesticappliances. These articles will typically be smaller, moreversatile, more reliable and cheaper. Some will be new equipment,the electronic typewriter, micro-computers etc, whose droppingprice is bringing them well within the reach of those withmoderate salaries. Some, like video cassette recorders (which areexpected to be in a majority of British homes by 1985) will beprimarily for entertainment. But some will be also as much forincome earning; the boundaries will become, if not invisible, atleast concealable, thus providing conundrums for the taxman andthe rating officer.

One possible result, unconnected with HEA but, if it occurs, ofgreat significance to potential HEAers, could come from theapplication of the technology to Social Assistance and the taxsystem. Chapter II section l.c and section 2.e touch on theseproblems. The declared objectives of the Social SecurityOperational Strategy cannot be fully achieved without full use ofthe new technology; in particular the treatment of the individualas a 'whole person'. Much the sane could be said about the taxsystem. Technology could make an important contribution to theremedying of present deficiencies, and could contribute to theimprovement of relationships and compliance levels.

81


But to do so the infrastructural network of cables, satellites,fibre optics and lasers must be constructed. This is, in a way,rather like the railway system, the common carrier of the future,and its early completion could have as great an effect on theeconomy as did the railway network in the nineteenth century. Itis far from clear at present how and when and on what criteria ofcommercial and public service considerations it would be developedand completed. But should it take place, there would, for thefirst time in history, be a coherent and self-sufficient system ofhandling all expressions of information entirely by electronicmeans, and universe-wide in its application.

2. THE DIY PHENOMENON

'If you haven't the money to buy it, do it yourself.' Good,bracing advice which has been the maxim of vigorous home-makersfor centuries. Collect the wood, tend the animals, grow the food,make the bread, brew the beer, repair the roof, make the jam andthe doll's house and toys: all traditional and an outlet for artand skill, a rewarding occupation and a source of pride. So runsthe legend.

But DIY as a phrase and a novelty dates from the fifties. It wasa return import from Canada and the USA as the names of some ofthe early firms like Texas Homecare and Dodge City indicate. Thefirst popular magazines like the PIT Annual and the Pra.eti,oalHouseholder* date from that time.

Since then DIY in its normal meaning of house maintenance andimprovement, has grown into a great business. The retail sectoris estimated to mop up between £1.8-£2.0 billion of consumerspending, and to have increased annually by 18% over the last fewyears. The full story of its growth is fascinating, but for ourpurpose it is probably desirable to note only the principalfactors, which are:

a. The stock and state of housing

The lack of maintenance during the War left many pre-1919 houses in need of renovation and modernisation;these were very suitable for DIY.

For later built stock the need would be more forembellishment and extension.

b. The activity of the market, particularly in housepurchase

The typical leaders of DIY have been the heads ofhousehold, between 25 and 40, with an above averageincome and anxious to make the most of the purchase

82 of a first home.


DIY activity follows the ebb and flow of the housingmarket.

e. Positive simplification of the operations of buildingand maintenance; and hand-in-hand with this -development of powered handtools for the householder andall kinds of materials and kits specially designed forDIY users.

It is a tribute to the regulations of British Standardsand commercial 'agrement' certificates, that the safetyas well as convenience of what is now on the market isso high.

d. The encouraging attitudes of local planning authoritiestowards home improvements and of the building societiestowards second mortgages.

In 1982 some half of all planning applications to localauthorities were for home extensions; one third ofbuilding society loans went on conversions, extensionsand improvements.

e. Advice and encouragement

The volume of leaflets, instructions, 'How to'handbooks, national and local radio programmes,television series about home improvements is immense andcovers a very wide range of costs. The latest, 'Which?'book Borne Improvements and Extensions, though notcheap covers just about everything including regulationsand finance.

The full commercial opportunities of DIY were not fully graspeduntil the early seventies. During the sixties the retail outletswere regional and autonomous; thereafter these firms have beensteadily bought out by a few big 'High Street' retailers. Todaythree main firms - Woolworths (Dodge City), WH Smith ('Do it all')and Sainsburys dominate the market. In 1982 the 10 major storestraded through 450 outlets occupying six million sq ft of sellingspace. These dealt, of course, not only with DIY in its homeimprovement aspect, but in the entire range of family activity -gardening, fabrics, crafts, the lot.

The whole thrust of today's publicity is to demonstrate how easyand straightforward DIY tasks are, and, in particular, howsuccessful women can be at them.

It is significant, too, that many YOP/YTS courses are directed toraising the competence of young people in undertaking homemaintenance - painting, decorating, carpentry, plumbing and so

83 forth.


Those who own, or are buying their home, have, of course, aspecially strong motive to improve it - both for their own use andto raise its sale value if they leave. Much less DIY is done bytenants; but some local authorities - Wolverhampton is one -offer their Council tenants grants towards redecoration of theirown premises. The 1980 Housing Act which entitled tenants toimprove their premises and to purchase them at discount rates maybe expected to swell the number of DIYers. The scale and size ofthe new edge-of-town centres demonstrate the wide range of incomethey hope to attract.

DIY then, both in its normal sense of home improvement and in itswider sense of family activity, is a strong and positive force,and one of great importance in households where people are lookingfor occupation and are prepared to 'have a go'. Some willdiscover they possess a talent and can find a market thattransforms a hobby into a small business. However, others may befrustrated by limitations of space or storage either inside theirhouse or outside. Here is an idea which could be explored - someform of communal work-space where people could come to do workwhich they cannot do at home or in a block of flats; the kind ofindoor equivalent of an allotment of the old kind. In thereorganisation of decayed urban areas or the planning of newdevelopment areas, could not such spaces be created? They couldbe a boon. DIY does not have to be HEA; nor does it have to besolitary; people can join together for shared purposes.

Supplement 1, Chapter II about car repair gives one example ofthis kind of activity. People's resourcefulness and ingenuity mayfind others.

3. FAMILY AM) PERSONAL

In this section we examine the diversity of family groups existingin Britain today and its implications for HEA.

The traditional assumption about the family in Britain is that thetypical 'worker' is a married man with a non-working wife and twochildren; but in fact only 5% of households are dependent on amale wage only. It has become more and more difficult to define a'typical' family and increasingly important to consider one-parentfamilies and reconstituted families, dual-worker households andfamilies comprising only the frail and the elderly.

Although the family unit remains one of the most important socialinstitutions in our society, there has been a rapid growth in thenumber of one-person households over the past 20 years, with

• 22% of all households in 1981 consisting of only one person. Atthe same time there has been a fall in the percentage ofhouseholds containing a married couple and their dependentchildren but a rise in the percentage of lone-parents with

84 dependent children. There has been a trend towards a smaller


number of adults per household with an increasing tendency forpeople to live alone, particularly the elderly and those sufferingmarriage breakdown. By looking at current trends in marriagepatterns, in cohabitation, fertility and marriage breakdown we cansee how these changes in household structure have occurred.

Marriage is still very popular in Britain and most people do getmarried, only about 8% of women and 14% of men remaining unmarriedfor their whole lives. The trend in this century has been formore people to enter marriage and at an increasingly younger age.After the second war, marriage rates rose sharply, but declinedagain in the 1970's. The marriage scene has been furthercomplicated by a growing minority of people who choose to livetogether before marriage.

About 7% of first time brides who married bachelors in the early1970's had cohabitated before marriage; by the end of the decadethis had risen to 19%.

Along with these changes in marriage patterns, there have beensignificant shifts in fertility, with family building nowbeginning later and ceasing earlier.

Although most marriages still end with the death of one of thepartners, divorce has become increasingly frequent. The number ofdivorces granted annually rose from 31,000 in 1951 to 146,000 in1981 with the divorce rate rising over 500% in the past 20 years.This rise in the incidence of divorce has led to an increase inthe number of one-parent households from 570,000 in 1971 to890,000 in 1980. Not surprisingly there has been a moresubstantial rise in the number of such families headed by womenthan by men and by single and divorced mothers in particular. TheFamily Expenditure Survey, 1979, showed that 47% of one-parentfamilies relied on state benefit as their major source of incomecompared with 4% of two-parent families. Maintenance payments arethe main source of income for only about 6%. Lone mothers facenot only the same employment problems as other mothers butadditionally they may be disadvantaged because of their soleresponsibility for caring for their children, a responsibilitywhich keeps most women out of the job-market for about 10 years.

There have been considerable changes in the age structure of thepopulation with the number of persons aged 65 and over increasingby one third in the past twenty years. There are today over 8million people aged 65 and over and around 6 million 'elderly'households with 3 million people living alone and 2.3 millionhouseholds consisting of elderly married couples. There isexpected to be rapid rise in the number of very elderly overthe next 20 years, with the population aged 75 and over increasingby 900,000 between now and 2001. Many of these retired people arephysically active and well whilst others, infirm or disabled,

85 require support and assistance to cope with the routine of


everyday life. In some respects they reinforce the family,providing help for those caring for children in a number ofdifferent ways, so that the family involves relationships betweenthree and four generations. Thus the active elderly mayparticipate in HEA to supplement a fixed income or to providepoints of contact with the outside world, whilst relatives whohave to care for the growing number of infirm elderly may wellfind HEA the only way of combining earning with their caringrole.

a. The Roles of Women

It is perhaps the economic role of women which has undergone themost significant transformation as a consequence of thesedemographic changes. In 1921 only one in three of the labourforce were women and less than 10% of married women were in theformal labour market. Now over half of all women are in paidemployment; 2 out of every 5 workers are women; and there aretwice as many married women workers as unmarried. By 1981 61% ofmarried women had some form of paid work. Increased lifeexpectancy, controlled fertility, lower infant mortality havehelped reduce the number of years which mothers spend whollydevoted to child care. New domestic appliances haveindustrialised the home, freeing women for work outside it. Itshould be noted, however, that in better-off households many jobspreviously performed by paid servants have now become absorbedinto the unpaid job descriptions of women.

A rise in the demand for women workers, inflation and the desireto maintain living standards have led many women to combine workoutside the home with their domestic duties. Their motives, likethose of the mill workers of previous centuries, are economic; topay the mortgage, to buy appliances for the home. As inflationand divorce rates rose in the 1970's and 1980's the subsistencemotive returned and many mothers now work to feed and clothe theirfamilies. In 1975, the Think Tank reported that 4 times as manyfamilies would have been living below the poverty level had notthe wife been earning. However, recent rising unemployment hasaffected women much more than men. Between 1975 and 1980, femaleunemployment rose at three times the rate for males and in 1981 itwas estimated that 9 women were still losing their jobs for every5 men who became unemployed. Women are more likely to faceredundancy because of their lack of seniority, a consequence oftheir child care role. They frequently prefer shorter hours tohigher pay; flexibility and proximity to work are often decidingfactors for them.

In fact, women's employment behaviour is largely explained bytheir responsibility for young children; and when mothers dowork, they are more likely to be working part-time. Most stilltake a break of up to 10 years to look after their children and

86 are expected to fit paid work into their lives as wives


and mothers.

How they do this seems very much to depend on the range ofopportunities which present themselves at the time. Given achoice, most women would sooner go out to work; they regard home-working as a sacrifice made on behalf of their children. With theadvent of microtechnology, however, women should be able to share(with men) in the wider and more interesting range of home work onoffer (the F International Account (XV) exemplifies this).However, overall it is difficult to see any great change inwomen's role in the economy since Beveridge formulated his reportin the 1940's.

b. The Position of Men

For most men the accepted model for life is of education, leadingto employment followed by retirement, with marriage and familycommitments fitting neatly into the sequence. Familyresponsibilities have a major effect on the work-patterns of men,and the heavy financial commitment of young married men withdependent children is demonstrated by the extent to which theyseek paid overtime work. More than 70% of the registeredunemployed are males with the semi-skilled and the unskilled beingmore than proportionately represented. Single, divorced andseparated men suffer the highest risks of all, their rate ofunemployment being nearly three times greater than the rate formarried men with no children. However, at the same time 33% ofall unemployed men have dependent children.

The families of unemployed married men show signs of beingaffected by depression and by the financial constraints whichdisrupt family life. Pahl reports in his survey of Sheppey(Division of Labour3, Blackwell, Oxford, 1984) that employmentstatus is the key to participation in all forms of work andsuggests an increasing polarisation of households, with somehaving multiple earners and substantial resources of money, timeand energy to devote to consumption, self-provisioning and variouskinds of unpaid and informal work in and around the home. Inother households, the main earner may be unemployed, his wifeloses her incentive to keep a part-time job and demoralisation mayset in. The Economist Intelligence Unit reports (Coping withUnemployment, 1982) that most unemployed people use their freetime neither to develop new interests not to broaden their skills.HEA could provide men who suffer unemployment or forced earlyretirement a means of recovering lost status among family andfriends, as several of the individual accounts in Chapter Ishowed.

For many men the prospects for the future are threatened by theintroduction of new technologies. Increasingly those remainingin employment will need to have more than one skill and must

87 expect to undergo considerable retraining^ not once but


probably several times in their working lives,

e. Young People

Adolescence is a period of marked change in duties, responsi-bilities and privileges, when young people begin to emerge fromthe security of home. But for many, the passage to adulthoodis now being blocked by unemployment and enforced continuingreliance on family support. Employment is particularly crucial tothe young, because it acts as an important symbol, signalling theentrance to the adult world and therefore a goal towards which allyoung people strive. Without a job they cannot cross thisboundary between adolescence and adulthood and are forced backinto a childlike dependency. Chapter II, Section 2. f . referred tothe role of the school and the Youth Training Programme in thepersonal development of young people. There is an overwhelmingneed to educate them to be resilient and versatile, to cope with afuture in which periods of work may well be interspersed withperiods of unemployment.

Besides the YTS there is a need for more schemes which encourageentrepreneurial activities and help young people to use whateverskills they have. 'Instant Muscle1 is one such organisation,aimed at providing just enough professional advice to enable themto set up small co-operative businesses like contract lawn mowing,building sheds and more ambitious enterprises. Customers arecharged at the rate of £2.50 an hour for manual work, the moneygoing back into the co-op to be divided between the group, by whomall decisions are made. By the middle of 1983, 24 such co-operatives had been set up. In Wiltshire a further project hasbeen initiated to advise students faced with the choice betweenunemployment and self-employment. The project aims to provide a'godfather' to help set up a business whilst students are still incollege and before they need to rely on their businesses for aliving. (There are, of course, elsewhere many others whoseexistence may often be known only locally.)

The greatest need is to provide self-respect for the young byestablishing more alternatives to unemployment, especially forthose leaving the YTS and those in their early 20's who havealready joined the ranks of the long-term unemployed. HEA isprobably not the answer for this group, whose need to work outsidethe home and to be seen working away from home is of fundamentalpsychological importance. Perhaps more forms of community workcould be introduced and more challenging opportunities along thelines of Outward-Bound activites, Operation Raleigh andInternational Voluntary Service.

4. THE PHYSICAL AND ORGANISATIONAL CONTEXT

If a considerable number of people decided to embark on HEA, would88 their homes be physically capable of containing the new


operation? If this were the case, would their activitiesadversely affect the physical aspects of the neighbourhood? IfHEA initiatives were to increase substantially, would the nationalstock of housing be able to accommodate the additional demandsmade on it? Setting aside for the moment regulations andreactions, would the existing buildings, curtilages, surrounds andthe general infrastructure be able to cope with a shift of policymore favourable to HEA?

New building adds only about 1% to the national housing stockannually; so if new HEA is to be accommodated, it will have to behoused in the existing stock in its present condition or as it canbe adapted. If it is thought that HEA is capable of helping inany significant way to resolve current social and economiccomplexities, the physical basis could be a prime limitingfactor.

The question has to be asked at several levels; at that of theindividual dwelling where proposals originate; at the nationalpolicy-making level; and at the intermediate levels ofneighbourhood, district and area at which differences betweenpolicy, private and public opinion and enforcement have to beresolved by local authorities. These levels are all linked, andat each the physical basis is a major element. If this basis isnot there and cannot or may not be supplied, that is the end ofthe matter. If the basis exists, it could be the starting-pointfor a study of ways and means reflecting a more cordial attitudetowards HEA.

Does this basis exist? Partly because the question has not beenseriously put, the answer is inevitably 'don't know, at present',but more importantly the answer must be affected by changes in theway activities take place (e.g. by technological innovation), byhighly unpredictable attitudinal factors and by the inventivenessand resourcefulness that people show in meeting new situations.

Given an intention and backing, there is an abundance of talentand professional expertise amongst architects, surveyors,planners, estate agents, housing departments and associations,building societies and solicitors, which could be mobilised forsuch a study.

Despite the present lack of organised useable information, it maynevertheless be possible to piece together some of the pointsneeding elucidation and solution and to gain a preliminary ideaof the possibilities and limitations of HEA. The limited aimof this section is to deal in broad terms with the threelevels mentioned earlier. In Supplement 1 at the end of thisChapter some sketches of possible adaptations of dwellings andareas are given. Also, an outline plan for studying how HEAmight be fitted into an area and the implications for development.

89


Supplement 2 at the end of this Chapter tells how a borough facedwith the twin problems of major change in its economic basis andbig increase in population, is looking towards small business and,marginally, HEA as components of its development policy.

Finally, to emphasise the point that established conurbationswhich aim to admit HEA and yet retain some control over it, mustmodify their restrictive regulations, a brief account of theexperience of the city of Glasgow is given in Supplement 3 at theend of this Chapter.

a. At the Level of Dwellings

For HEA to take place a concordat must first be establishedbetween the home organisation and the work organisation. Sucharrangements are highly individual but their elements are not toomany. The HEA worker may be a single person living alone andworking alone. Or he may work with a small group of two or threesharing space and equipment. In the household there may beothers; working adults who may work outside; children, who needprotection from the materials and processes involved in the work,need time for their homework and must be prevented from illegalemployment; the retired who value privacy and quiet but needcompany; and adults busy with the domestic menage or out at workwho look for relaxation in the evening.

Whatever pattern emerges, it has to take account of the physicalaccommodation available in the dwelling and its curtilage if any.It may be worth juxtaposing commonly found dimensions of the twosets of spaces. The dimensions for the dwellings are taken fromthe DOE's standards; the two figures of columns for work are (a)those found in actual conversions, (b) those used for planninglettable units.

90


Table 1

Common Dimensions for Dwellings and HEA Activities

Dwellings Work Spaces: Sq ft per worker

ObservedPurpose - Standards sq ft Conversions Purpose New built

Living Room 150 300 Workshop 400Stores

Parents' bedroom 120 160 Services 400(e.g.electricalrepairs)

Small bedroom 80 120-130 Offices 100-200

Garage 150

Machinery - space allowance - sq ft

Sewing machine 27Electronic instrument bench 70Lathe 60

There are wide variations on these figures up and down but theymay serve to give a general picture. They do not of course takeaccount of internal room amalgamations or extensions or oferecting adjacent structures. These are better shown by plansthan by words and some possible ones are given in Supplement 1 atthe end of this Chapter.

It will at once be seen that office-type occupations fit fairlyeasily into domestic settings and that services fit into garagespace or other out-buildings. Workshops, in terms of space, aremore difficult and are likely to raise objections from neighbourson other grounds. Flats, maisonettes are at a disadvantagecompared with houses. Tenure too, is an important factor. Wehave seen earlier that the restrictions on tenants are on thewhole greater than on owner-occupiers. On the other hand,particularly if they suffer the misfortune of unemployment, owner-occupiers may be expected to seize any opportunity to make use oftheir home to augment their income. HEA may be one way.

Technological innovations, particularly in information technology,91 are generally neat and fit easily into domestic dimensions.


They are relatively non-polluting. Their labour-saving capacitycan free time and energy and this, though it does not affect thespace available, reduces another major limitation on HEA.

b. At the Intermediate Levels

Some occupations (for instance accountancy, tutoring, authorship,and any 'domestic' skills) can be wholly house-bound. Others,like sales representation, catalogue selling, small-scalehairdressing, are so invisible that neighbourhood objection onphysical grounds is barely possible. Other operations arenoisy and cause vibration or disturbance by people coming andgoing. Uhile to a degree post-war building standards may be re-sponsible for this, it is clear that propinquity can turn anirritation into an actionable nuisance and that problems ofaccess, storage and parking can result in the disapproval of muchotherwise tolerable HEA.

Research suggests that there is a fair measure of agreement amongthe householders as to the environment they want to inhabit. Itshould be clean and have fresh air. Residents do not like tofeel 'hemmed-in'. They want privacy and convenient access toshops and schools. Convenience for work has a relatively lowpriority. They dislike noise, particularly from motor traffic.They want 'attractiveness'. This is a costly commodity and thosewho have bought it are the most determined and vociferous toretain it. But what attractiveness consists of is less certain.Both mixed developments and separate residential developments havetheir supporters.

The range of money-making activities that people can propose on ascale small enough for them even to think of undertaking them athome is too huge to be described here. But an indication of therange that might be put forward and which would not affect theenvironment too adversely can be deduced from a regulation madeunder the Town and Country Planning Act of 1971 called 'T and C.P.(Use Classes) Order, 1972'. This Order divides, for the purposesof planning consent, all commercial and industrial activities intoa number of broad categories. Change of use within a. category maybe made at will; change from one category to another requirespermission. Three categories are relevant to HEA; between themthey set boundaries of what is acceptable in residential areas.They settle, as it were, the long list of applicants from whichan HEA shortlist could be made.

Briefly, shops and small offices qualify and so do activitiescalled 'light industry'. Some notes about each term follow.

A shop is a place for selling goods retail; but theregulations allow also for the sale of certain services such ashairdressing, undertaking, travel, postal services, offices for

92 taking or giving back articles to be washed or repaired.


It excludes snack bars, hot food shops and the sale of alcohol.

An office includes a bank, premises of an estate agency, abuilding society and the office aspect of a car hiring or drivingtuition agency.

Wheeled and foot traffic and parking can reduce the amenity of aresidential area and create situations which call for its physicalalteration. But where services and sales can be conducted bytelephone or in the future by cable TV and other technologicalmeans, these objections, on planning grounds, may diminish and letin more HEA initiatives.

Light industry A building for light industry is defined asone 'in which the processes carried on and the machinery installedare such as could be carried on or installed without detriment tothe amenity of the area by reason of noise, vibration, smell,fumes, smoke, soot, ash, dust or grit'.

This definition allows into residential areas a good deal moreactivity than would appear to be welcomed by the localauthorities. It would seem that other factors - socialpreference, the 'tone of the neighbourhood1 and thus the capitalvalue of the properties - play a part in the decision-makingprocess. This is an area in which public opinion as expressed byamenity and other pressure groups has an influence on thedecisions taken. Differences in attitude are observable from onearea to another.

Taken together, these groups allow into residential areas and thusonto the HEA shortlist a very wide range of activities. Theyinclude:-

offices - typing, insurance, company representatives, taxiservices using telephones, agents, tutorial work,mail order, business address, medical and para-medical services.

shops - all types of shops with the exceptions named, partyselling and so forth.

light industry - shoe repairs, light repairs (e.g. watches),electrical goods, studios, film and videowork, jewellery and many other crafts,engineering, optical goods, hand-manufactureof clothing and toys, catering, personalservices.

(Chapter 1 indicated the range found in the course of thiss tudy.)

93


The activities normally rejected are:-car repair, building contractors, haulage contracting, animalbreeding, joinery, foundry work, panel beating.

As access and traffic are two of the commonest causes of refusal,Supplement 1 shows the outline of some possible solutions to theseproblems in residential areas.

e. At the National Policy-Making Level

If the attitude towards HEA is to be modified, it is at this levelthat proposals for amendment to Orders are considered, or newinterpretations issued (e.g. DoE Circulars such as No. 22/1980).Here again the information immediately available is sketchy; itis also too general. For instance: there are 19% millionhouseholders in the UK; 800 thousand of these households live indensities of more than 1 person per habitable room. 8.4 millionlive at densities between 0.56 and 1.00 persons per room, and 10.3million are over two rooms per person. This does not take us veryfar in estimating the capacity of the housing stock to accommodatemore HEA; but it is a beginning.

If we look at 'the average town', half the land is generally takenup by housing; factories and warehouses use about 10% and shopsanother 3-4%. Using a number of sources available over the years1976-81 an approximation of the allocation of floor space inEngland can be made.

Table 2 Use of Floor Space in England, 1976-81

(million square metres)

Houses (18 million, at say 100 square metres each) 1,800

Domestic Garages - say 12

Factories and covered warehouses 400

Shops 73

Commercial Offices 44

2,329

If 10% of the domestic floorspace were to be made available forHEA that would represent a substantial increase in the 'economic'floorspace - if we were prepared to see it used.

However, generalised information of this type including reports94 about the standards of housing, its overcrowding and under-


occupation, do not get close enough to the problem. What would beneeded are detailed investigations into the real nature andimplications of admitting a number of occupations onto the HEAshortlist. Parallel studies, also in considerable detail could bemade of the housing stock in typical towns or areas so that thetwo could be set side by side. It might then be possible toassess the capacity for additional HEA and to identify the stepsneeded to modify existing accommodation and influence futureplans.

Supplement 1 suggests in rather more detail how this might bedone. But two general points should be made here.

a. Though such enquiries might focus primarily on HEA,HEA should be regarded as only one way in which small-scale initiatives might be encouraged. Homesteading,cooperatives and workshop areas ('industrialallotments') should be looked at also.

b. The techniques of consulting with individuals would needattention. The present methods of planning andconsultation about housing and general development havebeen elaborated to a point at which some individuals andgroups are unable to participate. With HEA there areno ready-made bodies to represent the initiators andvery little fat in local authority staffing to take onadditional liaison functions. If there is to besatisfactory consultation some less formal localisedmechanisms would be appropriate. Perhaps there is anopportunity for voluntary effort and for educationalbodies such as polytechnics to offer their services.

d. Conclusions

Though the press, the broadcast media and political speeches areconstantly drawing attention to the deficiencies of the buildingswe inhabit, recently especially to the defects of the 15 years ofpost-war construction, the vast bulk of the housing stock is ingood condition. Though there is a severe and shameful lack ofhousing for families, recorded to be 74,000 in 1982, and at leastas many single persons (who have no housing priority),nevertheless there is little over-crowding in the stock thatexists. Overall, there are approximately twice as many habitablerooms as people. The basic damage due to the War has to thatextent been made good.

The older terraced part of the stock is probably unsuitable forextensive HEA. It is an unfortunate fact that many of those withthe greatest need to augment their income live in these premises,and could use them only as a base for HEA, not as a placeof work.

95


For office-type HEA, there should be no great difficulty so far asthe physical basis is concerned. Should industry and commercebecome, as forecast, more decentralised and large enterprisesbecome fragmented, this change would not present an insuperableproblem for office-type work.

The same is not likely to be so true of the other categories inTable 2 - services and workshops using bulky, noisy or linkedmachines. To accommodate these near homes other strategies may benecessary, which need the kind of exploration illustrated inSupplment 1, Part II at the end of this chapter.

That some local authorities are deeply concerned to minimise theadverse effects of unemployment in their areas needs no emphasis.The options open to them within the constraints on policy andexpenditure of central government will differ according to theirhistory and situation and to political complexion. Supplement 2illustrates what a still-growing area can do - Swindon - and whereHEA falls in its priorities. Supplement 3 shows how a developedmetropolitan area has come to terms with public tenants determinedto use their homes to augment their incomes, while still retainingsome control over economic activity that would damage amenity andcreate objections.

In these collective decisions, the formula for successfulinitiative - Will, Skill, Means and a Favourable Context - appliesjust as it does to the small man in his home.

5. WHO IS AT HOME AND WHAT ARE THEY DOING?

If it were possible to answer these two questions satisfactorilythe answers would give a basis for assessing the size and import-ance of the topics raised by the study. One would like to be ableto give a broad-brush picture of the main groups of the popul-ation, how they organise themselves into family and other group-ings, and in what domestic accommodation they live and how theyoccupy their waking hours. Also, to be made aware of majortrends in figures relevant to these matters.

In this way one could bring a very approximate quantitativedimension to the issues and influences that the rest of thisreport has tried to sketch.

Unfortunately, as was noted in the preceding chapter, theinformation needed to do this adequately is not readily available,no doubt (again) because the questions have not been thoughtsufficiently important. So what follows is a composite of factand surmise drawn from a number of sources specified at the end ofthe section.

96


a. Population

The total population of the U.K., just under 55 million in 1981,the year of the last Census, is fairly static and not expected tochange greatly in the next 20 years. There are more women thanmen (28 million against 26%), and if we divide the total up intothree groups - before working age, of working age andover working age - the figures are 12, 32 and 10. All thefigures are affected by the birth-rate and longevity; the middleone (32) can be altered by legislative decision e.g. by the recentraising of the school leaving age and the differences in theofficial retirement age between men (65) and women (60).

Over the next 20 years, the total of those over working age willremain fairly static though the proportion of the very elderlywill grow. The number reaching 16 and ready to enter the work-force will fluctuate in ways that cause difficulty to theeducation/training and employment services. This is shown by thepeaks in the Table below. The years of particular concern areindicated by the box.

Table 1

Forecast of Persons at Key ages

900r

97

Source: Population Trends in Great Britain, D Hubback, SimonPopulation Trust, 1983.

b. Households

Families and other domestic groups organise themselves into avariety of autonomous combinations. In the statistics they areall 'households'. In 1981 there were 19% million households inthe U.K. The figures can be analysed in many ways; for ourpurposes the following few, all of which are percentages of thetotal are perhaps the most significant:


Percentage of all households

Households with dependentchildren (2 per cent containedone adult only) 18

Households with no dependentchildren 66

Households containing one adultonly 24

The trend towards smaller families (noted in Chapter 3, Section 3means an upward trend in household-formation.

e. Occupations

It is much more difficult to present a simple picture, partlybecause of its complexity, but also because of the concept ofHEA taken in this study; namely, that those who work productivelyat home without pay to save expenditure are as economicallyactive as those who do it for money. The official statisticsclassify the former as economically inactive, 'keeping home'.

For this sketch we exclude from HEA only those who are returned asliving at home but unavailable for work (disabled, prematurelyretired, etc), those in the Armed Forces and those in full-timeeducation.

The Table below is offered as a best guess. The figures with anasterick are estimated.

Table 2

The Occupation of the Population of Working Age (1981)(OOO's)

Totals Men 17,200 Women 15,700 All 32,900

All figures below are percentages of 32,900

THOSE WORKING FOR HONEY

1 Employed, working away from home 62.7*2 Employed, working at or from home 1.6*

SELF EMPLOYED

3 Working at home 1.6*4 Working away from home 4.7*5 All self-employed 6.36 Total of those working for money 70.5

98cont/..


THOSE WORKING, BUT NOT FOR HONEY•KEEPING HOME'

7 Single parents with dependentchildren 1.2*

8 Married, with no children 3.0*9 Married, with children 7.6*10 Others 2.8*11 All 14.6*

THOSE AVAILABLE FOR WORK,NOT WORKING FOR HONEY

12 Registered as unemployed 8.0

EXCLUDED FROM WORKING FOR HONEY

13 In full-time education 1.014 Armed Services 1.015 At home, unavailable for work 5.216 All 6.9

If this Table succeeds in giving a general sketch, are there anypoints of particular interest? The following are suggested:-

a. 85% of the population of working age are occupiedproductively, though 14.6% are not paid. Nearly 7.0%are held off economically productive work for full-timeeducation, for military service or because they areunable to contribute. 8.0% are available but not used.

b. The 85% represents 28 million people. Of this figure,those 'keeping home' and using the home for paid workamount to nearly 21% or a fifth.

These figures relate to 1981. The percentage (line 12) of thoseavailable for work, not working for money (8.0) is now higher.

These figures omit, of course, those whose economic activity isconcealed, who are believed to be distributed over the wholetable, but largely in lines 1-6.

Figures for the table were taken from OPCS General HouseholdSurvey, 1981, Social Trends 14 and the Department of EmploymentGazette. Estimated figures, denoted by asterisks were calculatedfrom these sources using simple estimating procedures.

99


SDPPLEHEHTS TO CHAPTER III

The three supplements aim to illustrate and extend the main text.

Supplement 1 considers some practical aspects of accommo-dating HEA in existing domestic premises and residential areas,and for undertaking serious studies as to what kind, and howmuch of HEA might be fitted into an area if there were a policyintention to attempt this.

The first part consists of two illustrations which are self-explanatory. One is of an average semi-detached house with a bitof a garden. The other is of an area which could be within oradjacent to housing. It may serve to illustrate the idea of the'industrial allotment' referred to in the text.

It was not possible to illustrate solutions to the problems ofaccess and supply that HEA development often raises.

The second part is an expansion of the text on page 89 whichsuggested that serious studies should be made of the capacity ofan area to contain HEA

Supplement 2 relates the experience of an area currentlyexperiencing substantial development 'Swindon - adjustment toChange'.

Supplement 3 shows how one capital city, Glasgow, responded tothe needs of public tenants in council housing to augment theirincome without serious detriment to residential amenity.

100

SUPPLEMENT 1 - PART I

ADAPTING THE HOME AND GARDEN TO FORM A WORKPLACE

GARDEN SHED USED FORPACKING OR

MAIN ROOF SPACE USED ASDRAWING ROOM [OAYLIGHTPROVIDED BY ROOFL1GHTSTO THE REAR).

FRONT ROOM OR SPAREBEDROOM USED ASOFFICE AND RECEPTION

GARAGE AND ROOF SPACEUSED FOR WORKSHOP ANSTORAGE-PLUS POSSIBLE EXTENSIOI

SMALL NAME PLATE /NEXT TO FRONT DOOR '

'ADDITIONAL PARKING SPACESFOR VISITORS

•&

SPACE FOR THE SMALL FIRM1 THE NOUSTRIAL ALLOTMENT'

SECURE OPEN YARDS FORBUSINESS USEOCCUPANTS SITE SHEDS OR

STRUCTURES ON THEAS REQUIRED.

PREMISESSMALLMANUFACTURINGOFFICES AND MAGEPOSSIBLE COMPUTER UNK-

IQPIEB& COMPUTERMAILING ADDRESSDRINK MACHINETOILET


SUPPLEMENT 1 - PART II

FITTING HEA INTO A PARTICULAR AREA ABD IMPLICATIONS FOR ITSDEVELOPMENT: OUTLINE FOR AN ENQUIRY

1. To make such a study, it would be necessary to select acertain number of types of HEA and to extract for each theparticular space/facility demands as a basis for identifying thekey variables which determine whether a house is suitable forHEA; e.g. as to size, layout, relationship with neighbouringproperty, ability to extend, access (people and vehicles), qualityof environment.

2. It would be necessary in parallel, by using the housingstatistics for the area chosen, to arrive at a broadclassification of the housing stock, by types, age and tenure towhich subjective assessments could be made by someone with localknowledge as to the environmental access variables.

3. Should the conclusion be that the housing stock is to aconsiderable extent inadequate/unsuitable for all but thequietest/cleanest/least disruptive kinds of HEA, a local survey ofprofessionals and providers would be useful to establish:

a. whether they consider that the local economy could behelped by HEA now or in the future;

b. whether there are any possibilities of improving theflexibility of the future housing stock, and, if so,what are the problems and constraints and how can theybe overcome.

Ideally the enquiry should involve architects/surveyors, planners,estate agents, housing departments, housing associations, buildingsocieties, solicitors.

4. In the course of such an enquiry, attention should be givenalso to identifying other forms of new development havingpotential for economic growth as well as residential use:

e.g. home-steading, 'common service1 work-places inresidential areas, 'industrial allotments', etc.

5. A range of such studies chosen to represent a variety oftypical situations in various parts of the country might generatea corpus of data, and yield developmental solutions with widerapplicability.

101


SUPPLEMENT 2

SWINDON - ADJUSTING TO CHANGE

Note . This supplement was contributed by someone who has beenclosely involved in the development of Swindon. It is not adocument carrying the official stamp of the Thamesdown BoroughCouncil, but it is as will be seen, very well informed.

For most people who have not visited the town, Swindon is the nameof a railway junction and works; a creation, like Crewe, of theRailway Age, with dingy buildings and rows of back-to-backterraces. Whilst this was true until after the Second World War,it is so no longer.

Nowadays, Swindon is a thriving sub-regional centre with anexpanding commercial core, a notable pedestrianised shoppingprecinct, good leisure facilities and in its urban centre ahealthy mixture of the old and new.

This transformation from dependence upon one major industry is theresult of sustained effort over 30 years. It called for flexibleforward planning, bold investment decision, a high level of risktaking and some good luck. The body initiating thistranformation and for many years the sole contributor was theBorough Council. It purchased large areas of land, much outsidethe Borough boundaries, built houses and factories, provided thecomprehensive infrastructure needed for major development areas;it also found time and resources to undertake community and socialdevelopments, and provide high-class leisure and recreationfacilities for a rapidly growing indigenous population. Noassistance was received from Central Government; the developmenttook place in the teeth of increasing opposition from many of thesurrounding predominantly rural areas, and from the CountyCouncil; which led to a succession of Boundary CommissionReviews, Planning Appeals and Public Enquiries between the late1960's and 1980. In the main, the objectives of the SwindonBorough Council and, after local government reorganistion, of itssuccessor, the Thamesdown Borough Council, were upheld.

Very briefly, these objectives were to provide or encourage theprovision of adequate employment and housing for the residents ofthe Borough, and, at the same time, ensure an improvement in theoverall quality of life. In the main these have been achieved.

102 But by the late 1970's the Council realised that rapid


technological advance, and structural changes in the national andlocal economies, called for more changes in working conditions andpractices. Employment was shrinking in large-scale manufactureand the older, skilled trades, and the diminishing number of newcompanies attracted to Swindon were bringing fewer jobs to theindigenous population. An additional impetus, 'growth fromwithin' was also needed.

Initially, the situation was met by encouraging private developersto provide traditional estate-based small units. However, asrecession and redundancies rose, the sixties 'babyboom' childrenbegan to swell the local labour market and the pace of changeaccelerated, the Borough Council broadened its approach and becamemore flexible. It adopted new policies on three fronts.

a. Advice and supportb. Training and re-traininge. Physical assistance and advocacy

To take each in turn, the Borough took the initiative inestablishing the Swindon Enterprise Trust (SET), with hearty humanand financial support from local private industry. For anybodywishing to start business for the first time, a full range ofskilled advice is now available, in addition to the informationand advice already provided by the Council.

In training/re-training matters, the Borough which lost itseducational role in the 1974 reorganisation has collaborated withthe local Continuing Education institutions, with the Skill Centreand the MSC to provide the local people and industry with theadditional courses they now need. An ITEC is being established aspart of the Training School at British Rail Engineering, itself onthe site of the old GWR works. Further developments willmaterialise during the next 18 months.

Finally, since the 1980's, the Borough has also attempted whereverpossible to provide physical assistance to small-scale businesses.The first such scheme, again with significant private sectorassistance, was to establish an organisation of young unemployedof the type which has since become known as 'Instant Muscle'. InSwindon the name chosen was 'Swift Services'. The majority of itsactivities - catering, ironing, delivery, etc - were home-based.A wide range of schemes followed - the gift of a farmhouse,buildings and grounds to a local community, the provision of craftworkshops in a major new shopping centre, conversion of ex-BritishRail workshops to small low-cost units, etc. Again these camefrom a combination of private and public sector initiatives.Along with other similar initiatives a rapid growth of smallbusinesses over two or three years resulted. There was also anincrease of small offices, frequently in buildings previously usedfor residential purposes. Over the period, a noticeable growth

103 occurred in certain types of HEA, notably 'party-plans',


carpet selling, plumbing, electrical repair, delivery services andbuilding work. In fact, the only major sector for which provisiondid not expand was in the 'dirty trades' - car breaking, plantstorage, heavy duty car repairs and the like. As a result, andafter many months of investigation, the Council identified a site,provided basic infrastructural works and eventually promoted a'small firms compound'. Here, on disused land owned by BritishRail, are offered plots with only very basic services, the mostminimal planning restrictions, the cheapest feasible rent, andflexible contracts and leases.

The recently established Swindon Enterprise Trust had meanwhilepersuaded some Thamesdown companies also to open up unused landand buildings for conversion into workshops. The Councilresponded by appointing an Employment Initiatives Off icer . Herrole covers helping in the formation of cooperatives, as well asin the development of MSC and community-based schemes.

Could more be done to assist in the development of smallbusinesses, whether home-based or within communities? Clearly'yes'; but the problems that face all local authorities in thesematters must always be borne in mind.

Firstly, local authorities operate within constraintsstrictly defined by statute, which means that if a scheme orinitiative does not meet the planning criteria laid down, anauthority has no option but to reject it. The same appliesto public health and health and safety aspects. Furthermore,a local authority, unlike priva'te industry and privateindividuals, can, broadly speaking, attempt schemes only ifactually empowered by statute to do so. (The discretionaryexpenditure, permissible under Section 137 of the LocalGovernment Act, often called the 2p rate, is an exception.)

Secondly, a local authority clearly has a duty to protectand help those least able to protect themselves. Frequentlythis will mean protecting one section of the communityagainst the activities of another section or against outsideinterests. Similarly, the duty to balance competinginterests (whether they be other local or centralgovernmental or other statutory agencies, business anddevelopers, pressure groups and campaigners, or local publicopinion), is an important potential constraint.

Thirdly, as constraints on public sector expendituremultiply, financial considerations, the 'fiduciary duty1

towards ratepayers and the increasing need to minimise risksin new ventures and to maximise efficiency and effectiveness,all act as curbs on new initiatives especially those whichhave not been tried and tested elsewhere.

104


Finally, even where none of the above apply, local authoritieshave now passed out of an 'and/and' approach to incrementalbudgeting and new schemes, and are increasingly adopting an'either/or' approach. A budget that is fixed or diminishing inreal terms forces the setting of firm priorities. In suchcircumstances, needs that are clearly defined and stated earlyoften secure a higher priority than propositions with a possiblybetter eventual pay-off, but which are unclear as to itsfeasibility or when the pay-off will come.

Will more be done to assist the development of small businesseswhether home-based or within communities? Within Thamesdown,unless additional restrictions are placed upon the Borough Councilundoubtedly 'yes'. In the main the Council will continue toprovide its present services and expand them. As important, itwill continue to develop its persuasion/advocacy role relative tothe activities of other central and local governmental agencies,private industry and private individuals- However, the depth ofits future involvement will, as with other authorities, dependupon three external factors.

1. Changing attitudes - in national policy and in theattitudes of the general public towards home-basedeconomic activity.

2. Changing legislation - should local authorities againbecome unitary organisations able to control alldevelopment or redevelopment initiatives, an extensionof the Section 137 discretion would encourageflexibility and HEA initiatives.

3. Economic performance - if this improves nationally, andonce the presently identified basic needs are met,more research, encouragement and resources will becomeavailable to supply the facilities and environments forHEA and community-based work.

105


SUPPLEMENT 3

HEA IN A CAPITAL CITY - GLASGOW

In 1980 the City of Glasgow District Council realised from anumber of tenders received for Council contracts that theapplicants were writing from premises let to them by the Council,and were running businesses from these premises in contraventionof a clause in the tenancy which forbade business being carriedout there. So an enquiry into the matter was set up, and thewhole position explored.A satisfactory definition of business activity had first to bereached. This was not easy because of the very wide range ofpossibilities - for example:

mail order catalogue (part-time agency); freelancejournalist; insurance agent; vehicle repair; companyrepresentative; dressmaker; storage of materials (hazardousor otherwise); removal contractor; taxi-operator; joiner;window-cleaner; freelance typing; tutorial or similar otherservices; hobbies with some earning potential; business useof address or telephone.

Many of these were felt to be acceptable as involving neithernoise nor undue disturbance to neighbours. Some, e.g. windowcleaning, provide a useful service to the community as well asincome to the operator.

The exploration covered all the implications of relaxingrestictions. These included - classification for rating, wherethe Council decided that no change would be made in assessmentunless a room was used exclusively for business purposes;security; traffic of people and vehicles; fire prevention; safety;building regulations, where it was noted that professional andscientific occupations enjoy advantages; storage; planning controlof premises and out-houses; and the landlord and tenantrelationship.

Factors taken into account included such facts as that to permitprofit-making activities in subsidised housing would reduceoverheads at the public expense, that the Council as landlordcould exercise stricter control over its own tenants than privatelandlords were likely to do with their tenants, that during highunemployment it was unreasonable to stifle income-makinginitiatives; and that in areas in which few residents possesscars, the provision of taxi and other services should be balancedagainst possible nuisance and annoyance.

The outcome was a decision to maintain the general prohibition ofbusiness activity from council residential property, but to givethe Director of Housing discretion to accept written applications

106 for permission provided the activity was fully described and


accepted in advance. If accepted, the rent would be reviewed. Ifthe activity took place In the house a standard charge of £25per annum would be made; but if the house were to be used only asa base, no charge would be made. If complaints were receivedpermission would be reconsidered.

It was recognised that a considerable volume of unreportedbusiness activity did and still does take place. Nevertheless,the scheme has not provoked jealousy or informing. The consentsare not reported to the DHSS or Inland Revenue as a matter ofroutine.

There has been no special monitoring. 'Sleeping Dogs'.

107

CHAPTER IV Round-upand Reflections

This protracted tour d'horizon is now over. It remains to pulltogether the information and inferences and relate them to theoriginal questions - how people use or try to use their homes tomake wealth and whether in our changing social, economic andpolitical situation the home could be used more to help solve ourpresent predicaments. And with a longer focus, what will be itsrole as a work-place in the future.

In this chapter we try to give an overall impression of what thestudy has found; and so to isolate a number of points which mayneed further attention. Finally, to look back to Section 3 of theOpening Statement to see whether the working definitions have beenmodified by the enquiry.

But first, two preliminary remarks: one, to emphasize that someof the information is patchy and the inferences uncertain. If thetopic deserves serious study at all in the future such defectswill have to be overcome. Two, to record the strong impressionleft by this study that all the various factors are interrelatedand that suggestions for improvement must take account of thiscomplexity. Hence the four-part formula for successfulinitiatives: Will, Skill, Means and a Favourable Context (end ofChapter 1 Section 3). With the immense and largely unchartablepower of the new technologies, it may be that for the macro-dimension of future policy-planning some new organ will berequired to assemble and analyse all the relevant factors.

In this summary we deal in turn with People, their situationsand activities and aspirations; with Premises; and with theman-made Systems of control and assistance. To saverepetition, this is done partly by reference back to the relevantsections.

Finally, we look back to the Working Definitions proposed inthe Opening Statement, Section 3.

1. PEOPLE

The changing nature of the family and the needs of the diversefamily groups were discussed in Chapter III Section 3 in order togive a picture of the home as a social institution. Chapter Iillustrated the range of activities that are likely to be takingplace in it now and in the near future. In Chapter III Section 1we attempted to sketch the effect of modern technology on thehome. Earlier, in Chapter II Section 2.f. attention was drawnto its great potential for helping people, young and old, to meetthe challenges of change. This was illustrated in Chapter IIISection 2 in relation to DIY. Chapter III Section 5 tried to give

108 the picture numerical reality by classifying the population

IV ROUND-UP AND REFLECTIONS

into several main groups, and showing what each is doing. Insofaras this is a true picture (and it is partly guesswork), thesesections led to the most striking conclusions of the study -namely, that at the present time, for the rest of the decade, andperhaps for a very long time after, more people of working-agewill be at home or nearby during more of each twenty four hoursthan has been the case for the last 200 years. Moreover that,unless ideas about living change, many of these people willardently wish not to be in that situation, and will try theirbest to get out of it or to make it tolerable by using their homesin any way that they can.

Prima facie, HEA could be developed, now and in the future, tohelp such people not only in wealth-creation, but socially andpsychologically also. In such circumstances, the case forexploring this capability further seems very strong.

2. PREMISES

Chapter III Section 5 discussed residential premises and theirsuitability for HEA. Here the lack of organised information wasparticularly limiting. The HEA concept is a general one andcannot be used directly for research about bricks and mortar andtown plans. The section discusses how those aspects can bestudied.

The section indicates that there is a considerable volume ofaccommodation that could house office-type HEA without muchdifficulty. Supplement 1 to Chaper HI gives sample sketches ofhow typical premises and areas might be adapted.

But it also shows that those whose low income gives them thestrongest motive for augmenting it by HEA tend also to be inpremises that are unsuitable for it and hard to adapt. This meansthat for them an escape via HEA from poverty and benefit-dependency is less feasible. This conclusion is confirmed inChapter III Section 5.

The question is raised therefore whether we are now facing asituation similar to that in the eighteenth century when landenclosures deprived a rural population of access to common landfor grazing animals, fuel gathering etc. At that time somecompensation was provided through the garden allotment system.Perhaps 'Industrial Allotments' should be today's version of thatcompensation, by providing workshop or other facilities to allowthe exercise of valid skills that the changed institutions ofsociety can no longer employ. Centres of this kind would need anup-to-date information technology installation which would laterbe linked into the communication infrastructure outlined towardsthe end of Chapter III Section 1.

109


Domestic premises could then be seen as the smallest physical unitof economic activity, an item in a continuum leading to very largeindustrial and commercial premises, or to urban aggregations ofsmaller ones. All of these would be at the disposal of theeconomy for use in whatever direction it might move, and would bewell matched to the differing personal patterns of work and non-work that seem probable.

3. SYSTEMS

The great range of subject matter covered in Chapter II isimpossible to summarise except in the most general terms. Itwould appear that the motives and principles of the services areconsidered reasonable, but that strong discontent and indignationare aroused by the way some of them are converted intoregulations, procedures, programmes and human attitudes.Predictably, those most often attacked are concerned with thedistribution or collection of money.

Again, those services generated less hostility where theindividual citizen and the deciding authority were close enough tobe sensitive to each other's standpoints and the rules permit someflexibility and discretion.

As many of the comments are universal rather than specific tothose at home, points included here focus on those in whichpotential HEAers have a special interest. It is recognised thatsome of them open up very large matters.

a. Income Tax and HEA

In Chapter II Section I.e. the report identifies several points atwhich it was felt that improvements might be made. If HEA were togrow in value and the number of cases of multiple-source,intermittent and unenumerated income increase, these weaknesseswould become more damaging to the overall efficiency of theservice and to its reputaton.

In Chapter III Section 3 it is suggested that social grounds existfor involving all women in the tax system.

And is there not a larger point? With liability to tax now almostuniversal, with secondary education for all and with the vast newand growing capacity to explain, guide, calculate, record and layout data, tax could cease to be a bogeyman topic where one sideaims at dumb acquiescence and the other at furtive concealment orclever outwitting. British practice tends to keep it this way,but need it really be so? Has not the link between the taxman'sdemands and the real, and valued, public services suppliedbeen lost? Is it not time to reshape the tax system so that itaccords more closely with the classic formulation of its founder

110 Adam Smith:


i "The subjects of every State ought to contribute towardsthe support of the Government as nearly as possible inproportion to their respective abilities, i.e., inproportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoyunder the protection of the State.'

ii 'The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought tobe certain and not arbitrary. The time of payment, themanner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought all tobe clear and plain to the contributor and to every otherperson.1

iii 'Every tax ought to be so levied at the time or in themanner in which it is most likely to be convenient forthe contributor to pay it.1

iv 'Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take outand keep out of the pockets of the people as little aspossible over and above what it brings into the publictreasury of the State.'

The young man who wrote Account V ended his justification for notdeclaring freelance work because he would lose his SupplementaryBenefit 'but maybe one day I'll be successful and pay plenty oftaxes into the system. I can hardly wait.'

'Glad to be taxed?' Well, perhaps not; but maybe proud to beable to contribute.

b. Monetary Assistance through the Tax and Benefit Systems

Chapter II Section 2.e. describes from the HEA standpoint thedefects of these beleaguered services and inevitably highlightsthe destructive effect on people of long-term unemployment and thedisincentive influence upon initiative caused by the interactionof the systems. The Enterprise Allowance Scheme and the taxconcessions (Chapter II Section 2) provide some help, but it isonly marginal and could not be extended without compromising thecentral purpose of each service. So far as aids to new businessis concerned, there is some evidence that they do not reach downto the very modest level of help some HEA requires. Unless,therefore, HEA can be relieved of some of the mass of smalldeterrents, it is hard to see that the present systems of MonetaryAssistance can do more than keep the wolf a few feet from thedoor; they cannot turn him away.

And yet, the home is widely held, at least in folklore, to be arich seed-bed for successful initiative.

e. Domestic Rates

111 The issues are now so tangled, tense and politically charged


that the very real underlying question of what aspects of life arebest dealt with by local councils with varying degrees of autonomyis unlikely to be considered coolly. Yet such rethinking issurely needed. Discussions ought to take place among 'ordinarypeople' as well as amongst officials and politicians, and theyshould address the whole case for and against local government ina twentieth century state, and not only the defects of the ratingsystem as a tax-gathering mechanism. For if the economy is nowentering a centrifugal phase any new solution to local governmentissues must take account of this change.

d. Planning Control and Public Tenancies

The trend towards greater freedom noted in Chapter II Section l.b.is very welcome news for HEA. It will be reinforced by the growthof house ownership. The original reasons for the separation ofhome from work-place no longer exists. The common law principleof 'quiet enjoyment' should be publicly re-enthroned whereverpossible. And the social reasons which have grown up since shouldnow give way. One of these is the lingering prejudice that to useone's home to earn money in is somehow shameful. To work at homeshould become unremarkable. In such an event, of course, theperils and risks too perfunctorily touched on in Chapter IISection l.d. would need closer scrutiny.

4. THE WORKING DEFINITIONS

When setting up the enquiry it was felt desirable to write down atthe outset the meanings which would be given to a few key termssuch as 'work' and 'leisure' with a view to seeing how they mightbe modified by the enquiry. These were drafted after reading anumber of academic works, but before the publication in May 1982of the report of the House of Lords Select Committee onUnemployment (especially Vol. 1, Chapter II).

In the event, the enquiry did not point to much modification, butit did bring home how much the tasks that are today called 'work'differ from the old idea of hard physical toil, how uncertainpeople are about what will be called 'work' in the future and itsavailability.

This was well illustrated in a recent BBC 2 Programme 'Beyond1984' January 1st 1984. In the passage which follows Len Murray,General Secretary of the TUG and James Robertson, author of TheSane Alternative are speaking:-

MURRAY: The work ethic has been round for 4,000 years. It'sgoing to take a fair bit of time to break down thisdependence ot people on woric tor status, tor dignity, rorincome and all tne rest. It's a long haul. I'm not sayingwe snouidn't start to question it, out ...

112


ROBERTSON: But, Len Murray, do you equate work with jobs?Are you keeping on saying that if someone doesn't have a jobthey can1t do useful work?

MURRAY: Well, broadly speaking I define work as that forwhich you have to be paid for because you don't like it andleisure as that which you don1t have to be paid for becauseyou enjoy it.

ROBERTSON: There are 4 million people in this country nowwho are unhappy because they're told they ought to have ajob and they don't have a job. Now there are two ways aroundthis, one is to create jobs for them, the other is topromulgate a new idea in society that you don't have to havea job to be a proper person.

MURRAY: First and second, in that order. First, more jobs,but work towards a situation where leisure is accepted asequally valid as working for an employer.

This brief exchange also brings out the crucial importance of 'thejob', the form of employment on which depends so much of whatmakes for well-being - personal income, security, status, self-respect and the grounds for hope - all from a single packagelabelled ' job' .

If , as seems generally agreed whatever policies are adopted (andlet us recall that the situation of most EEC countries is notvastly different) , the shortfall in 'jobs' is likely to continue,other ways must be found of undoing the package and sharing outits 'goodies'. A number have already been suggested: restrictionof over-time, substitution of self-employment for employment,part-time, flexi-time, and planned alterations of work andeducation; postponement and phasing of entry into the work-force,earlier and gradual leaving it. Other forms of productiveorganisation have been proposed and experimented with, such asthose laid out in the Foundation's publications Whose Business isBusiness? and Community Business Works.

Together, these strategies could begin to dislodge the ' job ' fromits towering pre-eminence in the economy, and jobs might cease tobe the principal focus of destructive confrontations. That is atop level issue; for the domestic level of this study, the pointshould be made that these strategies involve the home as a placeand as a social institution just as do the initiatives we havelabelled HEA. They too would make claims on the physicalfacilities and environment of homes, on the people who live inthem and the rules they have to keep.

Does not all this suggest that we should give more thought to thehome than we have done, in the hope that this might help repair

113 the rents in the social fabric of our beautiful battered countni '

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Home. A Place for Work? - Amazon Web Services · RICHMOND POSTGATE joined the BBC's educational services in 1945 and for nearly 30 years was involved in all their radio and television