National Association of Gypsy and Traveller Officers

Travellers Officer Vacancy
Creating a comprehensive and customer-focused housing and support service for our Gypsy and Traveller communities.

The role
This is your chance to be the key contact on the Council for Travellers. It’s a varied role including managing empty pitches within sites, monitoring applications for sites, and offering advice on housing options. At the same time, you will build positive customer relations and identify and develop a network of agencies and individuals to support Travellers’ needs.

The requirements
You’ll come to us with experience of multi-agency or community development work with Gypsies and Travellers or those from ethnic minorities together with knowledge of housing management. This will include tenancy management, arrears prevention, and repairs. Skilled in mediation and advocacy, you will have an understanding of relevant housing legislation.

Job description

Please apply online at www.jobsatsouthwark.co.uk

Annual NAGTO Training Day
Heads up for all NAGTO members, and a date for your diaries.  November 18th 2011 is our annual training and social event.   To book a place contact Steve Wilkinson on swilkinson@northampton.gov.uk Tel: 01604 837248.

Mobile Homes Act 1983 becomes law for Council Traveller Sites - finally.

Councils across England who manage Traveller sites, including many with NAGTO members working for them, are busy preparing Written Statements by 27 May for every single current tenant or licensee. The Mobile Homes Act 1983, in a modified form, became law for these sites on 30 April, twenty-eight years after it became law for most other caravan sites.

Many authorities are sharing legal advice over all the implications. For details, email bill.forrester@kent.gov.uk

Localism Bill and Travellers Panel Report: "A Big or Divided Society"
NAGTO gave evidence in February to a Panel considering the implications of the Localism Bill on Gypsy and Traveller site provision. The Panel, managed by the Travellers Aid Trust and funded by the Joseph Rowntree Trust, has just published its final report, at a launch in the Houses of Parliament on 11 May. Worth a read when it appears online. Interim report here.

Affordable Homes Programme - including Traveller Pitches
May 3, 2011, was the closing date for bids by Registered Providers (what were mostly Housing Associations) for their Affordable Homes "offers" for the years 2011 to 2015 inclusive.

For the first time, the programme included "Traveller Pitches".

First bids to be considered are "package bids" for up to whole county areas, which have often meant local authorities linking up with Registered Providers, to pursue much needed social pitches and social housing.

We wait to see how many bids there are, for the £60m available over the four years for pitches, with a maximum cost of £99k per pitch, and the Homes and Communities seeking "value for money" and not funding the whole costs of any site.

NAGTO members have been involved with some of the bids. HCA framework and more details.