All right, I think we're all set. Okay, and Marianne is here. Yes, but I don't know why I'm not on You have to turn your camera on It is I Thought In the in the bottom left you see it says a start video. Yes Is that what I should do? Yeah. Oh Because I saw it. I thought it was There you are. Hi Okay, good. Good and Karen's here. Yes Yeah, hi. Oh, oh hi Peggy. Okay. Oh And it's just four o'clock just gone for years.  Yeah, I think I think we have everyone here Okay, now when it's on zoom do we um should we identify who's on the meeting now? we should So like everybody say their name or should I roll a roll call attendance we could do if we could do a roll call I on my screen. I'll start at the top, which is Marianne. Hi. I'm Marianne Adams Jennifer Taube down to Bruce.  I'm here. Okay, Karen winter is here and I think Peggy you're muted too Okay, I can't hear I can't hear you Peggy though. May um Yeah A Peggy's mute button shows us mute. I just asked to unmute but yeah, I'm not seeing her mute button Yeah, it's muted Does she know how to unmute Lower left. I don't know there. She's got it. I got it. Okay. Got it. Yeah. So Peggy Schwartz Is here and Jim? Yes, I'm here. Yeah, Jim Lumley's here. Okay. So we're called to order We're all here except for Greta Wilcox who had indicated that she's um on an airplane now So that's terrific Okay, and then and both Nate Malloy and then brieger are here too great um Okay, so we have uh Do we just have two applications today and no other business? I um, you know didn't want to add that um because I was a little confused about it that the reason the uh The application fee that we had discussed at the last meeting and the exemptions that we had discussed are not on today's Calendar because there wasn't enough. We you know, they had to leave a certain amount of time for posting that publicly So we'll address that at our september meeting Right. Yeah, there's a few pending applications and then those topics can be uh part of the public hearing in september Okay, terrific And I just did want to add as a little aside because I was thinking about it after our last meeting You know our discussion about the application fee and thinking of the house on um McClellan where three times the applicant didn't come to the meeting I mean that was an example where the town incurred expenses But you know to no avail to us right so Um, you know that again if if there's any questions, that's that's an example A fee would promote discipline Yeah, like uh, Nate had said you might not apply unless you're serious that you're going to do the work Right. That's the hope. Yeah Okay, so we have um two applicants today, uh And uh is will we start with 154 Lincoln Avenue? Yes Okay, and we have uh Is it uh, doc is dr. Kama Enos? I'll promote uh heard a panelist and There are there are requests us to install A back deck uh with stairs And let me share um You know, I think on somebody we're getting some background conversation Let me just see whether it's me Yep, okay great. Thank you. Are you having one year listening to music or tv in the other ear on our meeting? Now he's muted. Okay. Well now he's muted Kama, can you hear that? Thanks for joining us. Sure thing Are you the calling user or is that someone else? I'm not. I'm just on my laptop. Okay. Yeah, I don't there you are. Hello Hello Now Kama, can you see us? I can yes. Oh good. Okay. I've ordered her to panelist so she she's That's great I'm one of my favorite houses on Lincoln Avenue. I live down Really? Gorgeous house. Thank you. Okay. Um, so do we uh, that's not gonna steal our judgment at all Right, right, of course It looks a little like my house Yeah, um, so Nate do you want to um Dude should I just invite I'll just invite Kama to make the presentation Sure, and then I mean I can provide comments after and Um, can everyone see the screen I'm sharing? Yes. Yes Yes So, you know, what's what's being proposed is what's back here in green is and you know outlined in bold black You know the stairs and then the deck Okay, um, and then just quickly sorry Kama. I might just do a few more notes Here's the house and so you know a view from the street the how the deck is on the back and so You know if there weren't vegetation it would be Visible at an angle. So it's not it's not a highly visible structure It's just you know when the building commissioner and I looked at it You know, there is the possibility that if these trees weren't here you could see At an angle You you know, you could See at you know part of the deck in the back in the stairs. So we just wanted to be Safe and not you know Yeah, not not allow this to move forward and then have someone complain and then have us to backtrack. Yeah Okay, and um Kama, I should say the way that you know, well sort of shouldn't take too long proceed is this is what we call the Public hearing where the applicant makes the presentation and then the members of the commission can ask you questions And then we go into what we call call closed sessions Although we're all still here together and then you know, we'll discuss it amongst ourselves and you know proceed to a boat So we give you a response today, but I'll turn it back over to you now No, it's pretty it's pretty straightforward. I would just like to have a to build a back deck It'll be walk out from the kitchen as you can see on the floor plan And it will I mean it will be mentally visible from the from the street level In theory and eventually when my driveway is less of a mess I'll use it to park a car underneath but for the time being I will Hopefully enjoy it for dinners and yeah That station There's not a whole lot of there there. I mean the um The decking material is just going to be simple treks A gray is the ideal and all of the other sort of railings around the front porch and the side porch are simple white railings And it'll mirror that as well There's already a floodlight in the back right corner of the house and I think that'll provide sufficient light Not really planning to add a whole lot else there and there's it's not really an aesthetically Visible space, so I don't really feel the need to dress it up much more than that just simple white railings and Great, I think that's it. Yeah, that sounds that sounds uh Very straightforward Are there any questions from the commissioners? There is the application. I don't know if there's any new information here Um Yeah, I drive by your house and walk my dog by your house many times a day And I really have to crane to see The back of the house. Did you see the house before because then you would definitely not Oh my god, I can't even Just for those of you When we moved in the house was a wreck But you always knew it had it was a beautiful house and then Your family bought it and It became a beautiful house, but it you know Yes, the transformation is unbelievable. Yeah I always thought it was one of the nicest houses on the street, but I I digress Thank you So here's the description of work. I mean you're right. It's pretty uh pretty simple back. I don't there's not much more Um Jennifer yes I'm sorry bruce I have a question. I The uh the deck How far off the ground is it? it's a So the driveway slopes down. It's a walkout basement Oh It'll be underneath that level Okay, full story. I see so basically the deck elevation is Approximately at the street elevation or the front porch elevation. I guess is that correct? Yes But the that the the land slopes off to the rear in a way you can't see it and so that's why those stairs are there Yes, uh to get from the ground good. Thank you I didn't actually realize so your driveway goes to the back of the house It goes to the back of the house and there's an area of black top at the very back of the house that um used to But a two-story garage with a walkout basement that was condemned before I bought the house um And so the prior owner had to sort of had all of the walls pushed in and there was a Pit that took about seven or eight dumpsters to almost get to the bottom I was trying to find I had an image but I can't seem to find it out of the back of the house, but um Maybe this yeah, it's hard. It is hard to see that it does slope. Uh quite a bit in the back. Yeah Okay, well, I guess I have another question to go back to the previous Uh image, which is the bottom one. I guess that from the uh, yes, it looks like that deck at the back is covered Or is that uh, you can just see a couple of Yes, is that the is that the deck? Oh, no, what is that? Oh, I see it's a side porch. Yes, I see it Right here. Okay. So it's it's it's a long way back. Yeah Yeah, it's actually hard to get a picture of uh Of it. Yeah because of the vegetation Oh, that's amazing. I'm sorry. I had actually thought that the Deck was going to be where the side porch is so the house goes way back. Yeah Yeah, you can't see that at all from the street. You can't it just keeps going on forever Yeah, I mean what what the issue would be hold on. I have a new share Uh It'd be you know, like I said, it would be if at an oblique angle, you know, you'd see back So here's the back of the house. So the side deck we're seeing now is here Then the deck is way back here. Yeah, so I I think it's appropriate Nate and and rob is not here I don't suppose I think that you know, it's it's good to To the extent that we can manage it to Take the Take it quite literally and And uh completely so if you can see it We we shouldn't say you you almost can't see it because that opens a matter of degree and and then then there's all sorts of problems about whether it's In conspicuous enough for us not to be here Right. So long as it doesn't overwhelm our agenda week after week with Things which it hasn't yet in the three years that I've been here So I think you're doing the right thing and I think we should get used to Being quite quite pedantic about this right Okay seem to be an excellent design in addition to that And well thought out definitely an improvement Yes, I agree Questions or comments I was going to ask if it's time to make a motion. Yes, I think it is Oh, no, I don't have my sing-up So we would um, we're gonna ask to make a motion to close the public portion of the meeting so we can go into Um close meeting and and and vote So uh Peggy I'm I'm I'm so moved. Okay second I second Okay, thank you. Karin all in favor Yes, I Yeah, I don't so are there I'm Well, I feel very comfortable with the application Um, I I don't see any reason why we couldn't proceed to a vote Are there any other questions or comments or any additional information any of the commissioners would like I said a question is the are the railings in the will look similar to what's on the front here just a square Uh baluster and a simple railing. Is that the plan? Okay? um If there are no, uh You know questions or no or there is not a need for additional information um We could entertain a Uh motion to issue a certificate of appropriateness um, well, I've been in the habit of doing that and I uh I I I'm I didn't have my other computer on so I don't have the text. I can't get to the text That's okay. Yeah, so Nate if you would Uh, just use the text that we usually have which would say that in the in the property address To to identify the project and that we uh Word it's the motion so that the certificate of appropriateness is issued There's no conditions and the findings are as uh, I have typically expressed them I'm sorry. I I forgot to get my other machine on we would say it's in keeping with uh With the bylaws Oh, it's it's I've written it all out So that so that no doesn't I just don't have it here. Well now I can get it I think we're good. We're good. We're good. Is there a second for the motion? I second. Okay. Marianne seconds So since we're on a zoom call, we're not in person. We actually have to do a voice vote So I will stop at the top of my screen and the first is bruce to approve or disapprove. I approve Oh, thank you. Um Marianne I approve Karen I approve Peggy I approve Jim I approve and i'm jennifer and I approve Okay, so, uh, we are pleased to issue the certificate of appropriateness and Nate can give you the details But basically as soon as we vote you'll actually get a formal sign certificate But I believe you can begin to do the work before you actually have that in hand Yeah, you can follow up with jenn mollens, uh, the permanent administrator and she can coordinate the building permit and everything So that's should be all set So thank you. Yeah. Thanks. Good luck. Good luck Take care. Bye. Bye. Okay. Bye. Bye. Bye. Hey Thank you. No, I had no idea that house went so far back Yes, it is like I said, it is very difficult to get a picture of what yeah Amazing. Yeah, it's been added on to clearly over generations. Yeah But anyway, you cannot it look like a haunted house before they bought it But it's amazing What loving restoration will do Yes Um, and do we so now we'll move on to our next applicant at 32 cosby street jesse meager Yeah, let me uh Come out with a panelist Should I be seeing everyone on the panel on my screen? I only see a few of you I have to scroll down You have to slide up or down to see everybody Are you yeah, you could hit a grid view depending on how you have your view set up I can I saw I have a three by three view right now Ah Now I can see everything And now I don't look so current No, uh, that's what I have for you gotta change your current bruce and jennifer And I just Only had some I don't Have everybody and if I take myself out, I get one more view I'm not sure how to do How do I do that Upper right, uh, there's three little dots and it lets you stop the self view Not I'm gonna see yourself the whole time. That's no it's it's I'm on an iPad. I'm gonna leave it like No, I won't I won't see the new the screen here. Yes. Yes And I don't know if you can see on my screen. It's towards the bottom. Um, the homeowner jesse mager My pronouncing that correctly It's major, but that's fine major. Okay. Um, I see we see I see you on your bike every day I'm at the corner. Hi. I'm jennifer. Um, so the way, uh, this shouldn't take too long, but just, uh You will, you know, present the application and then for what we call the public portion of the meeting Uh, the commissioners have a chance to ask you questions And then we officially go into what we call closed session Although we're all including yourself still here and then we'll we may have some more questions at that point I need more information, but we'll you know proceed to a vote at that point So if you want to take it away, uh, sure So, uh enough sign completely different, right? This is not one of the prettiest houses on the block This is oh, it's a lovely house and you added on to it. Yes. Very nice house. Thank you. Um, so Yeah, we added some mini splits and I apologize jesse. Could I interrupt? This is bruce coldom Could I ask nat or jennifer to put whatever imagery we have because what I'm looking at is a dropbox Oh page Image of a of a Honda pilot, you know a right car and a house But I see I do I do I have it I've got I'm looking at it I'm looking at a dropbox file Wonder if it's is it your own computer Might be but why would it suddenly if well, let me uh, I'm just going down a little bit I'm going to I'm at the risk of the Let's see. I'll put it to the bottom Now I'm looking at my I don't have anything on the screen other than I can see some uh, I can see people but I don't have any, uh This is oh my god The camera don't see what the I can see. Yeah, I'm seeing the car in the driveway. Yeah arrow now with a red arrow Although On your zoom Sorry, bruce. You have a button that says speaker view that might bring it back I don't all I've got is the little set of boxes up at the top corner that have got people's faces in them And maybe above that are there any no, there's nothing other than that. That's all I've got Well, I'll tell you what I'll just go and uh, I'll go with since I now have my whole screen that I can open stuff for my own computer I'll look at the stuff Yeah, what we were said by Nate Yeah, okay. We'll solve that problem that way. Okay. Keep going. Sorry jessie. That's right So I was just apologizing for things being a little out of order. So we have the mini splits already put in Um, and I didn't realize this needed to come here. That's including my fault partly because we're not the first I'm sure partly because when we did an addition off the back which obviously was approved that included mini splits And that didn't even occur to me that that was part of the process. So these are additional Mini split condenser for the old part of our house. Okay Okay, we were planning on it going on the East side, but then when they got here it wouldn't fit. So they had to put it on our driveway side We also coincidentally got a free upgrade of a condenser. So it was actually a lot bigger than we expected Um, and so you can see in that first we can almost see in that first picture I put a red arrow where it is. Oh the I see I thought that was a very large Red hydrant, right? So there There's a picture without the arrow. Um, it's at the end of our driveway actually beyond the drive a little bit Five feet tall There's the other picture of it And now that that's in there. We'd like to build just a little screen fence. So no one has to see it basically including ourselves Um, it's just be a two-sided sort of L of a fence That's the style we're after probably horizontal shadow box. We think that'll blend in nicely with our siding Everything will be painted probably next summer including the house. So it'll all hopefully mostly disappear And that's sort of a digital mock-up that I made What you might see from the street. Oh, very good. Yeah, looks good Um, yeah, so it's about four feet on one side five feet on the other side And that's it you post in the ground and that should do it. Okay Thank you. Are there any questions? Okay, um, I have one question. It's a It's a comment more than a question. Uh, I'm a little concerned. Uh, the the uh, these Devices really need airflow around them because they're exchanging Uh, the heat if they're if they're heating the house, they're getting it from the air outside And if they're cooling the house, they're dumping the heat to the outside So you need the air circulation around these things and I'm I'm thinking that you might want to be asking us for a A screen fence that only has boards on one side Because yeah, because you're really in you're really kind of Boxed in so that it doesn't have good air circulation Point well taken. Um, and that's partly why we went with this horizontal shadow box So there's airflow through the fence. They're just alternating on either side. If you go by I see that I just think you're a limit.  Um, just the just the mechanic Uh, is he in support of this kind of The manufacturer recommends a foot on one side and 18 inches on the front side of the unit And they said that should be totally sufficient Okay that's it I just thinking that we would if if uh If it turned out that you didn't have that clarity and you wanted to come back and just take one of those things off I thought we might short circuit the process by approving it with or without the Second layer point well taken And so what would that mean that So I think you're suggesting just not having wood on the inside, right? So just on the outside so it'll be a slightly more visible through the fence. Is that right understanding correctly bruce? Yes I'd be I'd be prepared to approve it with or without the slats on the inside just to give you that flexibility, right? Thank you, marianne. So I just wanted to confirm your your what you were saying about your proposed paint job Was going to be to blend the box In with the color of the house so that it would be Not so ostensibly different correct Okay, okay Um, are there any other questions? Okay, so with that I guess we could um, uh, there's a there's a hand raised. Sorry. Uh, oh, I'm sorry. I'm not seeing it Oh, yeah here. I'll kimberley or allowed to speak Hi, I'm the other owner of this house. Oh, sorry. I didn't No, no, no, he's doing a great job and I hopefully we can approve it with in both with both ways Um within without the slap Okay, within is without what with it within without the inside. Um Slat as the other gentleman was just suggesting. Yeah Okay, thank you Okay, so if there's no further questions, um, is there a motion to Uh, go into closed session for the vote We don't have any public attendance Uh, there's a calling user, but I they haven't identified themselves that and um, they haven't raised their hand You know, that might be the um amherst indy. I wonder I'd asked if they would identify but they hadn't so You know, I I think their comments are there would have been a raised hand already, but Got it. Okay um And all you know All the neighbors are in close communication on cosby. So I think if it was in a butter, you would know what their concern was I'll move to close the public portion of the hearing. Okay, uh second. Yes All in favor, Nate. Do we really have to do a voice? I'm not for this. I guess. Okay. Okay. Thank you. So all in favor Okay, thank you So, um, are there any, uh questions or comments Or do we feel that we can well, I guess Do we want to move to a vote? Um Allowing for both options for this Well, I can put that motion together now because I'm looking at my cheat sheet. So I'm good at that I'm good for that. Okay. So so take it away Okay, move to approve grounding of certificate of perfumers for the uh proposed project at 32 cosby avenue Heat pump and screened enclosure With findings that the proposed work meets the review criteria expressed in sections 8.1 and 8.2 of the Amherst local historic district bylaw and the proposal is compatible with the overall appearance of the neighborhood and will not have a negative impact uh on the Prospect Lincoln Sunset local historic district um, the The work shall be uh executed according to the submitted documents with the condition that the inner Wyeth's I guess or slats of the screen fence Can be omitted if the owner so decides Okay, is there a second? Okay, say Karen. Thank you. Um, so now we will have to go to a voice vote vote since we're zooming in and not in person So I'll start with uh Bruce Yes Okay, um Karen Yes Thank you. Uh Peggy. Yes, and thank you. Marianne. Yes And Jim. Yes, and I'm Jennifer and I say yes. Thank you So, um, with that the uh application will receive a certificate of appropriateness And uh, thank you for coming. Thank you all for your time. Good. Okay Thank you. Bye. Bye Okay, so so that you know that um condenser mace, but that's the type of thing that would could be excluded So you know just to give you an idea for what we Yes Discuss a lot through meetings. That's the type of you know project that would be excluded from review Yes, I have two questions about that Nate one is Would that only would that be excluded once it was all publicly announced? Is that what we're waiting for? Yes, right. Yeah, once once we've decided We have to hope we're going to hold a public hearing on that for the committee to vote on and then it would be um It'd be part of the rules and rags. Yeah. Okay, then the second question is Uh, we had included vegetation Had we included a fence in our Um exclusion we had said adequate screening right. I forgot how the language So we didn't stipulate. Okay. I remember you know at our last at our last meeting I have the draft up right now. It says um, we landed on uh It remains screened from view with vegetation So that would mean that because the the fence would need to come before Yeah, and I guess we decided there are too many possible options about fences Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean someone could put a cinderblock wall and we wouldn't want that I guess for what that does that allows, you know, a homeowner to install these and then come for a fence later That way they're out the way for the project Oh good point, man. Yes. That's a good point Yes, excellent Okay, so um We don't have any other business or sadly. No, we could chat for a while sadly, yeah I think we'll um, so, you know takes a few um You know a few days to get a legal notice and i'm waiting on um one or two applications. So, you know, I was thinking the third week Um third or fourth week in september the week of the 14th or 21st for a meeting If that works for people It works for me I'm good for either of those. Yeah I mean now that we can zoom in Actually, it might be the 21st just because of uh the time to schedule a hearing Okay, for the legal notice. So would we be staying with mondays? Yeah, we can do monday the 21st. We say that Sure. Yeah, it helps me to kind of get it written in. Yes. Yeah. Yeah Okay, no, that's great because I can schedule the zoom link and we can get that going good. Okay Great Is that our time? Yeah I have it marked Okay, great Thank you If you want to raise your hand or make any comments, I guess we can Um, just you you'll send us the zoom link same way we did today. Yep. Yep I always lose it. So thank you Yeah, I have I have a question since we have we've only we've we're we're at half an hour and we've really done everything Um, I want to say that I'm quite enjoying Uh meeting this way Um, in other words, I I don't recall I I'm not I'm now past thinking that this is uh A bit of an imposition because of the coronavirus pandemic and that it's actually for me Working very well, and I'm feeling comfortable. I feel like I'm connected to you all The applicants feel to me as though they are Having a clear enough opportunity to Express themselves. I hope that the public Equally satisfied with their ability to Participate So I guess Nate and Jennifer, this is a question to you in leadership But also to all of us might have two questions One to all of us Does everybody feel more or less similar to me and secondly to nates and jennifer? Insofar as the mechanics of putting these together running them and all that How do you feel from a leadership point of view? With this, uh, is this something that we might consider? Being able to just continue no matter what I think the um You know, I'll say that we I think the town is not going to go back to in-person meetings For the rest of the calendar year. So I think the town manager I said that that's kind of end the decision unless something changes pretty quickly but so we'll be doing this for another few months and You know, what I like about it is it forces me to ask the applicant to provide enough information to then Be able to share with you so you're getting information up front as opposed to A surprise during the hearing. So we've been better about asking applicants to provide images or You know any information that could help Explain the project. So in that respect, I think it's been going very well And then you know sharing the screen if everyone sees that then to me it's um You know, it's almost the same as that we're in person because you can see, you know, we can You know, we can see everything together. So I I think that works pretty well I think it's terrific. I think it's well ecologically responsible and I think You know, certainly for people and as it gets to be winter, you know that people don't have to come through the snow Or inclement weather to make a presentation I guess my first we're just is do Do we have the choice, you know, once the Once town hall is open to the public. Could we continue this way or are we not allowed to at that point? We're allowed to operate this way under the governor's orders. Um, so, you know, if there's It could be that at some point, this is no longer allowed So I I'm I'm preparing for us to if this is a more effective way And I hadn't even thought of the snow situations or remember how difficult it was when we were doing the Amos media, uh, and we so I just think I'm I'm getting to thinking that this is a better and possibly a far better way of doing business And I would like to think that if that's the consensus of the commission That we could damn well do it this way until dune's day if we wanted and I and I would Be prepared to argue that That we should and I'm just getting ready to wonder whether that argument should be done to be put together I think jim jim you have your hand up Well, I I'm not quite to where bruce is Mainly because I think that However, it does work. It's efficient. Um, I kind of feel we've lost a little bit of Not so much our because we found a fair amount of time together before zoom came along but You know, we lose a little bit of personal interaction with the uh With the people that come before us and I I'm not sure that's quite wise and I wonder See, we've had fairly easy decisions to make Uh in the last couple of months. You're right. You're right. I mean it gets more complicated Something like in bruce alluded to amos media. Yes, absolutely. Just can't see how this is really going to work I can't see 20 odd people coming In your zoom meeting and You know with being effective or Satisfying to everybody. Yeah, good point jim. Right. That's a good point Yeah, then you know, I've been attending the zba hearings for a project where you know, there's consistently anywhere from 10 to 20 or 30 guests And it is difficult when You know, not everyone can view each other. So in the applicants making a presentation that the The public can't see everything necessarily can't see the panelists. So we've had Meetings where it's been, you know, we can promote applicants to panelists and everyone can Can see each other. So I agree. I think sometimes with a bigger project or more complex project, but I've also found that those meetings was really nice is again the applicants are preparing more information upfront and everyone's been Provided that so it it's kind of forcing everyone to be better prepared I like the meetings in person Even though I love the convenience of sitting at my kitchen table and not having to go anywhere Yeah, but part of my Part of my desire to even be on the committee is to is to have the personal involvement with the town and with the other neighbors, you know from from within Amherst and And I've enjoyed I've enjoyed that. I think we've been very efficient in our use of this and You know what what's available to us Technologically is kind of mind-boggling, but it's wonderful but Sorry to say but I do prefer the meetings in person I just think that there's there's something about the camaraderie all of it that that speaks to my spirit. So Yeah, I don't object if the committee decides to keep going this way, but that that that would be my presence Yeah, no, I mean great points all around and again, I wouldn't be surprised if once town hall is open that the decision Would be a decision town-wide and it probably won't be up to us individually Yeah, definitely pros and cons on both sides right At some point maybe we would weigh in on that, but I think like I said, it's a few months away before even any consideration is you know Is given I don't have a hugely strong feeling and I'm just meeting this way It's got its own satisfactions, but that's just my Well, thank thank you for reacting to my Proposal or for my my thought that's very helpful. I and I only added it now Which yes clearly is perhaps premature, but but because we have a nice open Piece of time on our agenda Yeah, no, it's it's good to bring up and I do think It's worked well considering we have to do it this way Yeah, I just saw Jim's dog walk down the stairs behind him Well, you see I don't see everybody. How do you how do I think it's kind of fun to have those moments? I can only do six I I can't do everybody either A few minutes ago Jim I I do just simply want to add and you know The convenience has been very important for me And as you know, I've not been well So that uh, if we were meeting in town hall, I would Let me just mention now need to step off the board Because I really can no longer make it back and forth even with Jennifer's generous Drop driving me So I think that's just something to think about in terms of illness disability Etc. Yeah, this is not going to be an easy decision one way or the other And I wasn't going to say anything after um Peggy's heart felt Cree to core But uh, I I do think it's worth mentioning Well, first of all Marianne you look great That is the paradox of all this it is I had to write as a joke in my letter to my my helpers That everybody obviously feels I'm just Crying melanoma to get everybody's attention and really have no problem at all Because uh, it just doesn't show it doesn't show it's all inside But I also think honestly, I don't think this is ending anytime No, no, no, but it's it's I just wanted to mention. Yeah, no, we appreciate that. Yes, but I know Can I I wonder if uh Further down the road. It's also possible to do a hybrid so It's really far away or Feeling that they can't make it that we have Zoom Oh, yes And some there could be a little group of people that are meeting in person But it could still be a zoom so you could be connected very much like teachers are teaching right one One part of the classroom is there and the other is virtually present All right, that's a good suggestion. We the town allows remote participation, which yes before was made difficult because it was only through a phone line and The people that never participate remotely would have to have physical copies in front of them but if we Had a hybrid model where people could use zoom to participate remotely then that would make that a lot easier So it's not a decision that I'm you know part of but I think that's a good suggestion So we can always bring it up with you know with my supervisors and everyone I think the world will look different when this Part to go back to normal. It won't be Yeah, right possibilities Okay, um, so with that do I accept call for um, I guess a motion to The meeting and I wish everyone um a good I guess summer officially ends this weekend, but Have a good rest of the summer So And I always ask you this are your kids going back to school the um, we chose a hybrid. Well, you know, I think um The school gave the option of doing fully remote or hybrid in the hybrid we chose hybrid, but it's uh two mornings a week That's it. So two but your school is opening. It is um Uh, I think I you know base of timber early october. I forgot okay, not yet. Okay It changes every day from what I follow in the new It does. We just had a new update uh over the weekend was different than what we had a week ago. So All new plan. Yeah New okay, so, uh, motion to All of a sudden who did something? Oh, I guess hearing my screen. So I always have where it was from Okay, hello everybody. I even have some heart. I know this is great Peggy classes. No Peggy there. Hi Yeah, so I suddenly can see too right and now I did something about meaning to because all I see is jennifer Okay, so is there a motion to adjourn? I'll move Okay, all in favor Yeah, yes Okay


We're going to do our best to characterize the environment, we're going to do our best to put a plan together, then we're going to step forward and the first thing you've got to do is measure to see, are you having the effect that you designed, you know, that you intended. There's a lot of uncertainty and I think this kind of, you know, measuring as you go and adapting as you go is fundamental to our use of the word design rather than plan.


Hello, everyone. Myself, Dr. Mohammad Ashraf, junior resident third year in the department of radio diagnosis, JNMCH, AME Oligo. Presenting a case report of the central pontine myelinalysis with extra-pontine myelinalysis. Here, the clinical history, a 46-year male non-diabetic, non-hypertensive, non-alcoholic presented to emergency department with a chief complaint of vomiting for 20 days and khabrahat for seven days. And episodes of abnormal movements for five days. He came from a private hospital where he was managed initially for the same. An NCCT head was done that turned out normally study. At the time of presentation, serum electrolyte was done. There was severe hyponatremia. Serum sodium was 108 milligram per deciliter. CBC, RFP, LFT were within normal limit. There is a history of correction of sodium turned by 3% NSEL. And repeat, serum electrolyte was done after 24 hours. Serum sodium was turned out 128 milligram per deciliter. And after a few days, patient again developed episodes of abnormal moments, difficulty in breathing, khabrahat. On neurological examination, spasticity and disintegrated posture by little hypotonia in the upper limbs. Babich's reflex on the right side and normal plant reflex on the left side. Tracheostomy was done for the airway maintenance. And MRI brain was advised. Here are the images of MRIs. This is the T1 axial image at the level of pons and T2 axial image at the level of basal anglia. The T1 image, there is a few hyper-intensities seen in the pons region, few hyper-intensities in pons. And in T2 image, at the level of basal anglia, showing symmetrical areas of hyper-intensities in bilateral potted globus pallidus and putamen. Again, this is T2 axial image at the level of pons and diffusion weighted image. T2 axial showing three linear hyper-intensities forming omega sign or trident sign, giving restriction on diffusion weighted imaging. So this is the characteristic omega sign or trident sign. And again, this is the T2 flare image at the level of basal anglia region and showing multiple hyper-intensities seen in bilateral basal anglia region and showing diffusion restriction and diffusion weighted imaging in the corresponding areas. This is the axial image of diffusion weighted imaging at the level of pons showing characteristic trident sign. The trident sign is due to the involvement of transverse pontine fiber and relative sparing of descending corticospinal tract. That is responsible for this characteristic omega-shaped appearance.  The symmetrical areas of altered signal intensity involving bilateral potted globus pallidus, putamen, pons, which are appearing hyper-intense and T1 weighted imaging and hyper-intense T2 flare with restriction on diffusion weighted imaging with no evidence of blooming on SWI. So the diagnosis was central pontine myelinalysis with extrapontine myelinalysis. Coming to the discussion, central pontine myelinalysis, which is a component of osmotic demyelination syndrome, is a frequent neurological complication that follows rapid correction of hyponatremia. Electrolyte abnormalities are frequently encountered during hospitalization, which are usually followed by aggressive normalization of the involved electrolyte. The osmotic demyelination syndrome comprising central pontine myelinalysis and extrapontine myelinalysis are common neurological complication associated with abrupt osmotic fluctuation. Alcoholics and malaria patients generally are deficient in organic osmolites. And these conditions may put at greater risk for developing osmotic demyelination syndrome. Some other additional comorbidities that predispose osmotic demyelination syndrome like prolonged use of diuretics, transplantations, extensive burns. The sites of extrapontine myelinalysis includes mesylvanglia and cerebral white matter, and less commonly the peripheral cortex, hippocampus, and lateral geniculate bodies. Extrapontine myelinalysis commonly occur in conjunction with central pontine myelinalysis. However, it may also occur in isolation. These are the differential diagnosis for central pontine myelinalysis or extrapontine myelinalysis.  A treatment in the treatment prevention, in the treatment of central pontine myelinalysis is primarily aimed at prevention. Then reintroduction of hyponatremia. The current recommendations are to correct the sodium not more than 8 to 12 milliequivalent per liter for 24 hours. Supportive care measures include ventilator support, intense physiotherapy, and rehabilitation, and anti-partisanism drugs. Promenosis some patients may recover completely however, six months survival rate is only 5%. Thank you.


We're still talking politics. The crisis rocking the U.S. state chapter of the all-progressive Congress APC seems to have come to an end as the new chairman of the party, Isaac Ajiboio Modeu, has inaugurated the state executive members and the third free local government chairman of the party. An inauguration ceremony at Ukeadou party secretary, Ibado, in the U.S. capital. Modeu vowed that the party will dislodge the ruling people's democratic party in the state in the 2023 general elections. He pledged to religiously preserve the legacies of the late party leaders, adding that he would aggressively carry on with their unfinished agenda, which is reclaiming on your state in 2023 from the misruling people's democratic party PDP. Hello hope you enjoyed the news please do subscribe to our youtube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


Hi and welcome back to the Family Finance Survey's user conference 2023. We're in our fifth and final session now where we're going to be hearing from some researchers on poverty and benefits. So starting us off is going to be Mary Alice Doyle. So if you'd like to start sharing your slides while I do the intro that would be great. So Mary Alice is going to talk to us about the policy and the reality of effective marginal tax rates and if there's a difference. Mary Alice leads the research team at policy and practice and is a PhD student at the London School of Economics. Her research focuses the interaction of benefit policy with labour market and health outcomes and as previously if you do have any questions if you could pop those in the chat and start off with the word question so I know what I'm looking for. Thank you very much over to you Mary Alice. Hi everyone. Thanks for taking around to the last session. So I'm presenting today on effective marginal tax rates or I'll explain what that is in a minute but really thinking about work incentives and looking at the difference between hypothetical cases where you might look at incentives for a given type of household versus what we actually see when we look at the FRS data. So let me get into it. So this is a summary of what I'm going to do today. Just give you some background and then get into my estimates of effective marginal tax rates based on the policy and then based on the reality of actual benefit take-up rates. Okay so effective marginal tax rates are really trying to answer the question of if I earn an extra pound how much of that pound do I keep? And so if we think about you know someone who might work an extra shift or an extra hour in a given week then they'll have part of their income taken through tax as you'd expect and then part of it taken through the benefit taper if they're receiving benefits and they'll keep a portion of that. So in this example that I'll walk you through in a minute we're talking about someone earning an extra pound and keeping 30p of that pound. So EMTRs are based on a range of different inputs instead of looking just at the tax system we bring in the tax and the benefit system. So looking at income tax, national insurance, the benefit taper and child benefit withdrawal and what I'm going to talk to you about today is also including other types of benefits that we don't usually see in estimates of EMTRs. So pass putter benefits like free school meals or healthy start and social tariffs like discounted water and broadband for low-income households. For example this pie graph on the side shows you for a single person who's earning £20,000 a year in claiming Universal Credit then their EMTR is going to be 70% and just to sort of clarify that's different from their average tax rate. So the average amount that they're paying in tax as a share of that £20,000 which if you include the total amount of Universal Credit that's tapered away at that level of income then it's 40% so average tax rate of 40% but an EMTR of 70%. So why do we care about EMTRs? Well we can think about primarily about work incentives. It's a separate empirical question as to how much EMTRs actually affect work incentives. I'm not going to get into that with this presentation but it is kind of a key input to work incentives to think about how much you are going to keep of the extra money that you earn and we can also just think about you know generally about fairness and I'm going to get into that but just sort of those are reasons why you might care about EMTRs. So what do we already know about effective marginal tax rates? Well we know that they're really high in the UK for some households so there's been several reports including one from Policy and Practice one from IFS and others that we've seen that look at EMTRs of 90% or more for some types of households so that means that you earn an extra pound and you keep 10p or less of that pound and that's because of the interaction of taxes the UC taper and the child benefit withdrawal that happens particularly at the the earnings window of 50 to 60k a year which is when the child benefit gets being withdrawn. So this has been described by researchers as a disincentive desert so a range of income which it really makes no sense financially for you to work a marginal amount more. We also know that people who receive certain benefits are then passported into other benefits so you know free school meals and healthy start being two of the the key ones that also different councils will have council tax support schemes and support for you know parents to pay for uniforms and school transport that is all based on benefits that you're already receiving so if you're getting universal credit or other similar benefits and those likely are going to increase effective marginal tax rates because it means that you get more of the benefits taken away when you when you sort of leave eligibility for the passported benefit and then we can we also know that a lot of benefits are not actually claimant people who are eligible for them and that's going to decrease effective marginal tax rates because it means that you haven't got that additional disincentive of having your benefits taken away because you're not receiving the benefits. So that's what we know but what we don't know is how many households are actually in this disincentive desert of having really high effective marginal tax rates. How much do passported benefits affect effective marginal tax rates and how does benefit take up effective effective marginal tax rates? So what I'm showing you today is my first pass at trying to answer these questions. So what I'm doing essentially is combining the FRS survey data with our benefits calculator. So we need representative data on distribution of household income for that and using the FRS. I use the 2020-21 data and looking at it at the benefit unit level. And then we also need information on actual benefit receipt which is what we have in the survey versus benefit eligibility for households who might be eligible benefits but not taking them up. And for that I'm using policy and practice as benefit calculator. We've recently developed a API which means you can interact with the calculator without having to you know go to the website and then click through and enter the data manually. You can just send a whole a whole table of data of FRS respondents for example and then send to the calculator and then that will calculate for all of those households their benefits and eligibility and all the details broken down into universal credit legacy benefits local benefits and other details of that even the elements of universal credit. And we also need eligibility for a lot of different types of benefits and not just you know the the key income replacement benefits. So as I said we've got all this detail in our benefits calculator. Okay so what does that tell us first off on benefit take-up which is a kind of a bi-product of this analysis of trying to understand how benefit take-up affects effective marginal tax rates. So this is my graph that's showing on the x-axis we've got household earnings in 10k bands that's annual earnings so if it's a two adult household that's going to be both adults earnings within these bands and then we've got the number of benefit units who are in each of these categories and we've got the number who are eligible for means test of benefits that's the orange bars and the green bars are the number who are actually claiming those benefits. So you can see that most people who are eligible do claim benefits but particularly at the lower end of the income distribution there are a lot of households who appear to be eligible but are not claiming. So based on this estimate it suggests that 13% of working age households are eligible for benefits but not claiming them. And then I think a question that seems interesting after that is okay so these households who are not claiming benefits how much could they be getting do they have a good reason for not claiming them in that they might not get very much if they did bother with making a claim. So to try and get at that I looked at the average value of a potential benefit claim for households who are working age and would be eligible for universal credit or equivalent benefits and I find that households that are already claiming benefits they're eligible for about one and a half thousand pounds a month less if the household hasn't got any children but then for households who are not claiming but eligible the amount that they could claim is still substantial on average but it's quite a lot less than those who are claiming. So part of the story doesn't appear to be that there's some households who are eligible benefits but not claiming because it's not worth it for them although the fact that these numbers are still quite large suggests that that's certainly not the full story but that's sort of an aside to try to to use this information to calculate EMTIs. So the other key element of EMTIs that guest talked about a lot is the child benefit withdrawal and so this graph has a lot of detail on it that I'll try and talk you through to to understand what's happening there in terms of like how big of a problem is this aggregate. So here we've got the number of households who are taking up child benefit by income band and then we've got the the share the green lines who are not taking it up and you can see that you know there's some households at all income levels but particularly at the high income levels household not taking it up which makes sense because they're not eligible for it most of the time and then we also see that once you hit households that have 50,000 pounds or more so the the eligibility is based on one earner earning 50,000 pounds or more but we do have households who are increasingly taking up child benefit but having that withdrawal so that's showing us that there are you know certainly a large number of households but not not in terms of a proportion of households who are receiving child benefit who are affected by the withdrawal. Anyway so let's get on to talking about the EMTR estimates. So this graph is showing you the breakdown of effective marginal tax rates by income band of the household so it's going to be not based on the individual who's earning the income but based on both there and if they have a partner that person's income as well that leads them into being in any of these bands. So you can see that so I've done this separately for the primary earner and secondary earner in the FRS data and you can see that as you might expect for the lowest levels of income the only thing that affects EMTR is the UC taper that's because people who are earning as well incomes aren't going to be paying any tax and then increasing as you get to higher incomes it's more income tax and the UC taper is falling away and we see a similar picture with slightly lower levels of the EMTRs for a secondary earner in the data. So that's showing you what contributes to EMTRs and how it varies at different income levels and I think the other interesting point to take away here is that these EMTRs like none of them are 80 90% or more so on average we're not seeing very high EMTRs but I'll get to that in a minute in terms of thinking about who is it who's paying these high EMTRs and then this graph is these graphs are showing you actual EMTRs versus those potential ones that I showed you before so sorry I should have said these ones I just showed you that's based on assuming that households have full take up of benefits that they're eligible for whereas here I'm showing you the comparison between what it would look like based on full take up versus actual take up and so here you can see the contribution that benefit take up makes to EMTRs and it's showing us that particularly for low income households the EMTRs are actually lower than they should be based on the policies that apply to them because they're not taking up benefits that they're eligible for and if I haven't got those benefits being tapered away. Okay and then the question of which households are actually facing high EMTRs that given we don't see on average households having very high EMTRs so then I split the data into groups of ranges of EMTRs and let's just focus on households that are having EMTRs of 80% or more there's about 950,000 of those households according to the 2020 FRS and those households generally have they have children they have earnings that are less than the median income and all the receiving needs as a benefit which of course makes sense most are receiving child benefit but it seems like none of them are receiving passported benefits so it's sort of these households who you know there's a large chunk of them but they are a small portion of the total number of households affected by EMTRs. Okay that's what we see on EMTRs but then I think the other interesting thing is so I tried to include free school meals and other passported benefits into the EMTRs but then we just get you know negative 1000% EMTR at the threshold at which you lose eligibility for those types of benefits because it usually is an income threshold and so instead here I'm showing you the for free school meals and healthy start these graphs are showing you on the left axis the number of households at each income level that are sorry the average value of the benefits for households who are at each income level and then the number of households is the the green lines which is the right hand axis and so you can see that it's really a very small number of households who are just sort of at the threshold of not being eligible for either of these benefits which is around 8k free school meals and 4k for healthy start and but for those households it is you know a huge fall in in your the value of your benefits and income if you do pass that threshold so just to think about a worth example here with free school meals so free school meals are worth on average around 460 pounds a year per child that's just an estimate for two children that would be 920 pounds a year so say that a parent is moving from not working into working two days a week at minimum wage and that would mean that they lose eligibility for free school meals they then need to earn an extra 2200 pounds a year to regain that value that they'd lost on free school meals and that's because of the combination of EMTRs and this passporting of benefits so because the UC TAPA and lost eligibility of council tax support mean that even though the household doesn't pay tax or national insurance they keep only 42% of their earnings which means that they need to work a whole lot more to earn back the value of free school meals so it would be on average an extra half a day or week at minimum wage that you need to work to earn back that value okay a lot from from what I found so in practice I found that average EMTRs aren't as high as we might expect but they are high for some households and I estimate that there's about 950,000 households that have EMTRs of over 80% for at least one of the earners in their household their largely households with children earning median income or less and receiving means tested benefits and also as it's not a surprise but just sort of confirms that millions of households are not taking out benefits of that that they could although they have lower average claims than those who are taking them up and the households with lower incomes those cliff edges in support interact with the EMTRs mean that they lose thousands of pounds worth benefits from working more and that comes through free school meals and other sort of passported benefits of course that's not in practice an issue at the moment because transitional protection that means that households that eligible free school meals don't move their legibility but it will be an issue when that traditional protection ends in 2025 and then there's a whole lot of limitations the type of analysis that I'll just sort of touch on so one is that we're assuming a static income for households and of course lots of low income households don't have static incomes so their EMTRs likely to vary across the year and their total income is perhaps not not well summarized as saying you know your last month's income at the time of the survey is going to be one-twelfth of your annual income so that's just a limitation of looking at any kind of survey data like this and then we also I haven't taken into account here households that don't claim benefits for good reasons like not being eligible for clean benefits even if they meet criteria of having low enough income and assets and of course our households that haven't reduced public funds will fall into that category so that's a next step to make sure that I do take it into account with my estimates of eligibility. In terms of other next steps I want to estimate participation tax rates as well as EMTR so not just earning an extra pound but if you you know take on an extra shift or start working part-time then what does that mean for your marginal tax rates and I want to include local benefits so particularly council tax reduction and social tariffs which are different depending on which utility you're with and see what that means for EMTRs and then do simulations of household earning an extra £100,000, £500,000 a year to see what that means for work incentives and again we can also do simulations on other metrics like looking at removal of child benefit withdrawal, lower UC taper rates etc we can do all of that in our API to then look at what that means for EMTRs for different types of households but this is a work in progress so any feedback is very welcome as I'm trying to figure out which of these next steps to focus on and what's most useful for for anyone who you know thinks about these positions as well so thanks very much looking forward to your questions. Wolf is a researcher at Loughborough University Centre for Research in Social Policy. He's worked on living standards and livelihoods in both the global north and global south exploring datasets and issues of resource access in a wide range of contexts. Thank you very much I'll pass over to you. Hi so yeah thank you very much everyone for sticking around until the end and yeah thanks to all the presenters earlier for some really interesting presentations and so yeah this presentation stems from my PhD research completed about a year ago very much looking at the limitations of what existing finance survey data in the UK can tell us and very much valuing the insights we can get from it but aware of where it isn't necessarily fully representing the circumstances of people particularly at sort of the bottom end of the income distribution so yeah I'll be talking through first of all a little bit more of that background context and I'll summarize the methods looking particularly at income sources and costs which are missing from surveys at the moment and then touching briefly on some issues to do with subjective food insecurity units of analysis and some of the implications of using longer reference periods for collecting the data as well. So to begin with sort of building on what Peter told us earlier there have been sort of large increases in the depth of poverty and one of the sort of indicators that's particularly come to sort of symbolize a lot of that is the large increase in trust-to-trust food bank parcels over the last sort of 15 years or so starting out at just over yeah around 26,000 parcels a year in 2009 up to three million as of the latest figures and these are sort of only indicative of a much wider increase in food aid as well and all of this has very much demonstrated the insufficiency of many people's formal incomes and we know that inadequate and unreliable financial resources are very much the key drivers of food aid usage and indeed much wider food insecurity and survey datasets like family resources survey very understandably focus on sort of formal regular income sources like wages and formal benefits and housing costs but beyond that a lot of the more piecemeal income streams or less regular costs that low income families might face are often overlooked and it's great that as of this year the family resources survey does include more details of food bank usage but this still is relatively top level in that it's great to know that people are going to food banks or not but it doesn't really quantify their usage of the services in great detail and then there are also issues around units of analysis in that in FRS and by extension HBAI the grouping of people is very much based on sharing and address and cooking facilities and without any more explicit information on resource sharing which is sort of a very reductive interpretation of the idea of sort of a household as being a group that shares a common pot and so it's kind of sharing the pot but not necessarily what's in the pot and then finally among other issues household residents can only be either fully present or fully absent without sort of more of the sort of nuances of people maybe being part time in different households or sort of temporarily resident and the social metrics commission measure which was developed sort of roughly the same time as I was doing the fieldwork for this study and does sort of very much go part of the way to addressing these issues but there are some emissions from that measure still that are potentially quite important to people on low incomes and in many cases that's just because perhaps the data isn't there to accommodate those aspects and so the way that I approached this study very much grew out of the use of household economy methods for researching incomes and broader livelihoods of people in developing countries in the global south where in many cases a lot of the core components of people's incomes overlap very much with incomes in the global north but it's particularly striking in some cases how you need to expand that sort of fairly that more standard formal framework and particularly where if you're thinking about rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa for example and the need to also look at food income sources and so for example if you're trying to predict a famine what happens to people's own crops and how that impacts on their food consumption is absolutely critical but then also there are a wider range of incomes and costs that also and sort of different dynamics involving them that also need to be taken into consideration so for example sort of season the seasonality of different income sources so like what people might do when they're not working in the fields on crops or if people are migrating for work for some of the year but then returning home for other periods and then this longer term period also allows for a bit more perspective and nuance than if you're just looking at a very short snapshot because you can look at how these things might change over time or else how they sort of accumulate to affect people's net income comes over that longer term period but I did also integrate these approaches with lots of aspects of the family resources survey partly to acknowledge how income from employment or benefits in the UK are often in many other regards more complex than you might have in some of these societies and then also just being very aware of trying to avoid reinventing the wheel where it wasn't necessary and being able to sort of simulate how the FRS might model the incomes that I was recording as well and then I also used minimum income standard data as part of the research partly as a sort of resource adequacy benchmark and Peter's already given a bit of an introduction to this but also as an implicit price for the food so you collect lots of very detailed information about what people are receiving but then you can give it a price based on the sort of implied price from the minimum income standard food baskets and then there are also various qualitative aspects that I also explored to put these incomes and how they related to people's overall livelihood strategies in a bit more context and the interviews were all conducted with people recruited in London in the borough of Southwark and recruited at one trustful trust food bank which is very much the sort of dominant model of food banking and they're certainly the highest profile and but then also two separate community meal services to also look a bit beyond just the food bank and the limitation main limitations of this research are partly that when looking at sort of wider issues of food insecurity we know that the majority of people who are food insecure don't actually use food banks for a variety of reasons around inaccessibility or stigma but yes so this this this data just relates to people who are going to food banks and then also of course it was just one location and in London and we know that people in London tend to have higher housing costs but this was sort of mitigated for my interviews by virtue of the fact that most of them couldn't afford to be renting privately or paying mortgages and so the vast majority of people were either in social housing or various different forms of homelessness and so turning now to the findings of the research this chart shows how HBAI might represent the net incomes after housing costs of these interviewees and so we can see that based on the sort of dotted line thresholds that over 80 percent of them would be below relative income poverty measures but there is a group whose incomes appear to be slightly above it which might look quite puzzling particularly at first glance but then to sort of unpick some of these a bit more to turn that orange line into a column chart you can then add in all the various different dimensions that are overlooked by HBAI and FRS and so we can see that there's a lot of extra income sources that sort of come in for the families at the bottom end of the distribution on the left and so income from social transfers in particular in blue and then in-kind incomes such as food aid usage and then also loans for this household here which help to sort of just about keep these families heads above water and then while also impacting on the family's resources at the upper end of the distribution as well but then also at the upper end there tend to be more additional costs which aren't necessarily being reflected in FRS so a lot of debts in the brown costs from disability benefits or costs the disability benefits would cover costs of childcare, costs of legal costs and then also costs of education for some people who are often sort of experiencing relatively temporary hardships so that they can do a vocational course of some description as part of a career change but very much experiencing a lot of deprivation as a result of that and then sort of looking at the cumulative impacts of all of these different resources and costs it has a very significant impact on what people's overall income looks like so overall the immediate median change is 40% of the original net income and in some cases that's sort of unimaginably bigger because of how close those incomes are to zero and so this sort of gives us yeah it raises a lot of questions for how exactly we should interpret some of these people's circumstances if the people might be considerably poorer than they would otherwise appear to be in particular and the one sort of exception is the richest household in the distribution where his income would still be very high but that is primarily because of receiving recent support from a relative and without which it would have fallen down much lower and the impact of this on the distribution is to create a slightly narrower range of net incomes but the overall impacts are slightly muted by the canceling out of sort of individual level increases and decreases but that individual level sort of changeability sort of shows how much is going on under the surface still and so turning to the implications of some of these emissions and many of the informal incomes in particular charity food aid are actually quite unsuitable for inclusion in poverty measurement in the UK and so I'm very much not suggesting that this should be included in HBAI poverty measures in particular because things like having to recourse having to resort to turning to a food bank is very much a symptom of acute poverty and often represents exclusion from mainstream consumption practices. It can't sort of really meet people's needs in food security terms because of how current definitions of food security emphasize the need to obtain food that's consistent with people's requirements and preferences and social acceptability but where these details can be very valuable still is for other purposes in particular helping to explain what might otherwise be considered as implausibly low formal incomes and also to monitor these sort of coping strategies that people are having to resort to and so for example one of the third poorest family in the study their money income or they didn't have any money income at all which might be considered fairly suspect perhaps if you were just looking at the net income in itself but we can see by looking at the food income that actually they were sort of just about surviving solely through meeting all of their food needs in this case through food banks, community meals and also food that was provided in their hostel but this is quite an extreme case because the median total food income was only about a fifth of the food budget so the median family in this study would still have had to meet four fifths of their food energy needs with purchases or probably more likely cutting back on food and we know from lots of other studies but also some of the qualitative aspects of this study that people really don't want to be having to turn to food aids to meet their needs so for example in order to reach that kind of level of food income people had to be constantly moving from place to place trying to find food often queuing up for a long time at different services where perhaps there might not be any food left by the time they got there or else there wouldn't be food that they wanted or they might be having to sort of scavenge from sort of leftover sandwiches or whatever at bus stops so this really isn't something that we should be taking into consideration when thinking about whether people are reaching poverty thresholds or not but on the other hand the missing costs are perhaps a bit more useful in poverty terms in the sense that these additional costs can really help to explain things phenomena like food bank usage and other experiences of deprivation and it would give us a much better sense of what people's levels of food access or ability to meet other needs actually are as well as making clearer relationships between net income and deprivation and some of these costs are similar to the social metrics commission recommendations in particular the debt payments and the indications of costs from disability benefits but this study also found that there were quite significant impacts from other areas of costs such as extra health needs not not covered by disability benefits and for example we know well there are there are a lot of interviewees for example who who did have quite significant health needs but these but they weren't even receiving disability benefits and others who thought that the disability benefits weren't meeting their needs and then also other costs that might be involved with education home moving or homelessness or legal fees which might encompass things like immigration fees or divorces or things like that and so if we if we look only at the costs the extra costs in the green and what as well as a few other perhaps less contentious income sources like perhaps loan income to balance out the debt payments we end up with only a few people very narrowly above the 60% of median income poverty threshold and even deeper poverty than otherwise was indicated so now I'll try I know that there's not all great amount of time so I'll try to whiz through these quickly and the last slides but the findings also sort of revealed some of the limitations of how of the established subjective measures of subjective food insecurity in that it was clear that by not explicitly covering the acceptability of food that people were receiving it seemed that people could then be sort of judged as food insecure which in ways that seemed a bit perverse and the fact that in FRS and HBAI there's not an extra level between the household which is just the people at the address who share cooking facilities and a more sort of nuclear family benefit unit and this groups together people who might be lodging or sofa surfing or in other shared accommodation as mentioned in the presentation first thing today about sort of financial cognitive models and so they're for people who really wouldn't be sharing any resources necessarily apart from perhaps a cooker in ways that could increase the apparent poverty and so for this study I didn't collect any details of the incomes of people who people were living with who they weren't related to in this sort of familial way but I could sort of look at what the impacts might have been if you for example separated out people who are in the same in different benefit units within the same family unit which tended to be the case where there was an adult child living with their parents and so for example in the in the example here to the right of the chart the sort of the biggest orange bar that's £336 a week was the combined income from both of these people but if you had separated out it would be very clear that this was two sort of different standards of living which in this case would be misleading because they were sharing resources but if they weren't sharing resources and both of them seem to have a higher income that would be slightly misleading. Hi Walt I'm afraid we're running out of time now. Oh okay no problem um but yes so yeah I can I can finish there and be happy to take any any questions.