Brent’s Coat of Arms – some thoughts on history, and on justice

Guest bog by Philip Grant

The Coat of Arms which used to grace the front of Brent Town Hall in Forty Lane has been preserved, and will shortly be on display in the Civic Centre. A few weeks ago, I was contacted by Brent’s Regeneration Department, and asked if I would ‘review for accuracy’ the proposed text of the sign which would be displayed alongside it. As a keen local historian, I was happy to assist them, and was able to correct several minor errors and suggest some improvements. The resulting text and artwork for the sign can be seen below.

This coat of arms used to appear on Brent Council’s letterhead, and on various Council publications, but in recent years has been replaced by a modern branding logo. Looking at the coat of arms again, and the civic messages it conveys, has given me some thoughts which I will share with you here. Please feel free to add your own thoughts as “comments” below.

The designers could not use all of the information which I supplied. One of the details left out, about the banner held by the lion (taken from Wembley’s coat of arms), was that it shows the scales of justice, and commemorates the Saxon moot court held at a site near the present-day Kingsbury Circle. There was a form of local government here a thousand years ago, when Wembley was part of an area of Middlesex known as the Hundred of Gore. The name had nothing to do with blood, but with the triangular spear-head shape of the small field where the Hundred’s inhabitants used to meet.

The Moot (or meeting) for each Hundred was held in the open air on a regular basis, to discuss any problems, disputes or petty crimes which had arisen in the Hundred since the last meeting. The parties to an issue raised would put their case, anyone else who had a point to make could do so, and the matter would then be decided by a vote. The majority view decided the issue, and everyone was expected to accept it.

Illustration of a Saxon Moot, from “Wembley through the Ages” by the Rev. H.W.R. Elsley

I do not know how well this early system of local government worked in practice, but both Wembley (in the 1930’s) and Brent (when it was formed in 1965) were keen to use the symbol of the scales of justice, to show their commitment to fairness for all, which is what the Moot was meant to deliver. 

 

With over 300,000 inhabitants, it is not possible for the people of our borough to meet together in a field for an open discussion of issues which are then decided by a majority vote. Once every four years, we elect 63 councillors to represent us, in the expectation that they will hear the facts and evidence on matters of local concern, debate them and reach decisions democratically. Like the Saxon villagers of old, we have the right to attend Council meetings, and for several years we have been able to watch and listen to Full Council meetings online. In June 2014, we were given the hope that we could participate in our modern version of the Moot, when “Deputations” were introduced. The Council Leader explained the purpose of these in the “Brent & Kilburn Times” (12 June 2014) as follows:

‘Cllr Butt said, “New proposals allow the public to speak in council meetings for the first time ever is aimed at bettering how the community engages with the council and allows residents to hold us to account.” ‘

So far, in my experience, this measure to bring more openness into Brent’s local democracy has not lived up to its original promise.

Martin Francis made the first request to present a Deputation in September 2014, on the (overdue) appointment of a permanent Chief Executive. He was denied the chance to speak, on the grounds that he had not given sufficient notice (even though he did so within the time set out in a “tweeted” invitation issued by Brent Council itself) LINK 

I have given valid notice to make Deputations a number of times, but have never been allowed to present them. I asked Scrutiny Committee, in November 2014, to allow me to make a Deputation seeking scrutiny of Brent’s decision to appeal against the Employment Tribunal judgement in the Rosemarie Clarke case. They were persuaded not to hear me, by misleading advice from Brent’s then Legal Director (who had a clear conflict of interests in the matter). LINK 

At the end of April 2015, I gave notice to make a Deputation about the Equalities and HR Policies and Practices Review, which was on the Scrutiny Committee agenda. I was told that I could do so, but only if I did not refer to the Rosemarie Clarke Employment Tribunal case, which the review had been set up to learn the lessons from. Although I explained why it would be both relevant and reasonable to refer to that case, the committee accepted the advice of Council lawyers that I should not be allowed to speak on those terms. LINK
 

A year after Martin’s first attempt, I asked to present a Deputation to Full Council, to welcome the new Chief Executive, and to emphasise the importance of high standards of conduct in carrying out Council business. On this occasion, I was prevented from speaking only by the personal discretion of the Chief Legal Officer, who wrongly claimed that my proposed subject was ‘inappropriate’, and ‘in reality, a complaint about how the Council has handled your request for greater transparency.’ LINK
 

Does Brent Council still uphold the spirit of fairness that its use of the scales of justice in its Coat of Arms was meant to show? You can add your answers, whether “yes” or “no”, as comments below. Personally, I hope that the presence of the Coat of Arms, on display in the Civic Centre, will be a reminder to councillors and Council Officers of the standards that, historically, Brent should be aspiring to.

Philip Grant

  Text and artwork for the proposed sign at Brent Civic Centre

 

BRENT SCANDAL: Cara Davani and Christine Gilbert – Yet another Deputation the Council won’t be allowed to hear! (or, “The Cover-up Continues”)

The cover-up at Brent Council is fast becoming a scandal and surely should at least be taken up by our local and London  press and TV. Here in a Guest Blog  Philip Grant shares the latest twist in the sordid tale:
 

In a guest blog last week LINK  I  let readers know that I had given notice to Brent’s Chief Legal Officer that I wished to present a Deputation to the Full Council meeting on 7 September. One element of that Deputation was to be asking, in open Council, for answers to the “two questions” I had put to Christine Gilbert on 9 July about the possible “pay off” by Brent to Cara Davani, its Director of HR until June 2015. 

I was promised a reply to my notice on Tuesday, but it actually came today, at 08:47am. In the interests of transparency, I am setting out the full text of the reply from the Chief Legal Officer, and my response to it:-

Dear Mr Grant

I apologise that I was not able to respond yesterday.

I have carefully considered the constituent parts of your deputation request and I have also considered it as a whole and in the context of your previous correspondence on related matters.

The purpose of the deputation procedure is to allow members of the public to address all Members of the Council in relation to Council services or policies etc. The deputation procedure is not intended to be used as a continuation of an on-going complaint or grievance about decisions made by the Council. Further, any attempt to use the deputation procedure in such a way would not be appropriate.

That being the case, it appears to me that your deputation is, in reality, a complaint about how the Council has handled your request for greater transparency. As you remain dissatisfied with the Council’s response to date, I will formally deal with this via our procedures in relation to the Freedom of Information Act 2000.  You will receive a formal response within 20 working days and thereafter you have a route for taking the matter further via the Internal Review process and, ultimately, the Information Commissioner.  This is the appropriate statutory procedure for pursuing your objectives and not the Council’s deputation procedure.

Neither would it be appropriate to use the deputation procedure to complain about the conduct of individual members of staff or other matters relating to their employment, irrespective of their seniority. Consideration of such matters at a Full Council meeting would not achieve your desired objective and would only undermine the obligation of trust and confidence that staff can reasonably expect of the Council as an employer and would be contrary to the Data Protection Act 1998.

Best wishes

Fiona Alderman
Chief Legal Officer, Chief Operating Officer’s Department

I replied to Ms Alderman at 11:03 this morning, as follows:

Dear Ms Alderman,

Thank you for your email this morning. I am disappointed that you have used your discretionary power under Standing Order 39(b) to prevent me from making my Deputation to Full Council on Monday 7 September. I believe you have mis-used that power, in part, at least, because you have allowed previous correspondence on one aspect of my proposed Deputation to cloud your judgement. 
I would ask you to reconsider your decision. Please let me know by close of business tomorrow, Thursday 3 September, whether you will allow my Deputation to go ahead, so that I have ample time to prepare my final text for it.

When the provision for Deputations was introduced into Brent’s Constitution by Full Council, at its meeting on 4 June 2014, the report from your predecessor, Fiona Ledden, said:

‘3.6 (ii) Deputations - It is proposed that Deputations by members of the public be included in the agenda. A maximum period of 15 minutes will be provided in total, with 5 minutes maximum being provided for each speaker. Criteria are established requiring that such deputations relate to a significant matter concerning the borough

 The title of my proposed Deputation is “The importance of high standards of conduct in carrying out the functions of Brent Council”, and it can hardly be claimed that this is not ‘a significant matter concerning the borough’. You are wrong to suggest that this is, ‘in reality’, just an attempt to pursue a single ‘complaint’. I first spoke publicly about concerns which I, and other residents, have had about the conduct of Senior Council Officers in a “soapbox slot” at the Kingsbury & Kenton “Brent Connects” forum in February 2014.

 

The timing of my request to make this Deputation now is because of the arrival of a new Chief Executive, Carolyn Downs, and the window this opens for improvements to be made. I accept that I am also taking the opportunity to use, as an example of the main point I wish to make, the failure by her predecessor to comply with her duty to show openness and accountability in response to my “two questions”. This gives the Council, and its new Chief Executive, the chance to re-commit to high standards of conduct, by answering those questions and by investigating, if necessary, whether there has been a misuse of Council funds.

You have referred several times to my continuing attempts to get answers over the possible “pay off” to Cara Davani as being a ‘complaint’. If I were making a complaint, I would have said so. Neither you nor Christine Gilbert has previously responded to my correspondence on this matter by saying that it would be treated as a complaint under the Council’s complaints procedures, so there is no reason why you should refer to it in that way now. 

Similarly, I see no reason why you should now treat my request for simple “yes” or “no” answers to two questions, which I first put to Brent’s interim Chief Executive on 9 July 2015, as a Freedom of Information Act request. If it was such a request, I would have said so. If you or Christine Gilbert saw it as such a request, then the 20 working days for a response to it has already passed! 

It is as if you have tried to find excuses not to accept my, perfectly valid, notice to make a Deputation to the Full Council meeting on 7 September, rather than accept, at face value, my request to bring a matter of real and serious concern publicly to the attention of the Council, so that it can be discussed and resolved. This matter has been “swept under the carpet” for too long, and it needs to be aired, so that it can be properly dealt with. Brent Council needs to deal with this stain from the past, so that it can move forward, and the arrival of a new Chief Executive is the ideal time to do that. 

I look forward to hearing from you. Best wishes,

Philip Grant.

On past experience, it is unlikely that I will be allowed to present my Deputation to the Full Council meeting at 7pm next Monday evening, 7 September. However, if “Wembley Matters” readers still support my efforts to get the “two questions” about a possible “pay off” to Cara Davani, I would ask again, please, that they email their Ward Councillors, as soon as possible, this time with copies to: chief.executive@brent.gov.uk  and fiona.alderman@brent.gov.uk , to say so. Thank you.

Opposition amendments for tonight's Brent Full Council Meeting

A Council with a huge majority needs an opposition, even if it a Tory one. Tonight the Brondesbury Park Tories will move a budget amendment which would reduce the Council Tax by 2.5% and that they claim would also protect front-line services.

Further details of how they think they would achieve this should be available at Full Council.

They are also tabling an amendment to Item 8 on Pay Policy:

Key Strategic  Aims of HR Strategy for 2015/2019.......

To add  "adopting a zero  tolerance approach to bullying, intimidation and harrassment of staff by fellow staff members."

In addition Cllr John Warren has submitted the following to the Mayor:

 Mr.Mayor, 

              I have been approached by Brent residents who are unable to make a deputation
tonight, as that is not an agenda item.

        The urgent business is as follows......" To allow the Leader of the Council the opportunity to reply to two urgent questions raised by the recent high profile Industrial* Tribunal case....

1.How can staff have confidence in the latest round of job cuts when it is presided over by senior officers responsible for staff victimisation,racial discrimination and failing to follow the Council's HR procedures......as per.the same Industrial Tribunal judgement?

2.Why is Cllr.Butt still " protecting " the officers in this case? "

 *Should be Employment Tribunal (MF)

I get to speak to a Brent Council meeting!

For the record. after the Full Council deputation debacle that required 5 full working days notice for a deputation, I emailed Brent Council last night at 2 minutes to 5 asking to speak at Scrutiny Committee that evening.  Scrutiny begins at 7pm.

I was granted permission by the Chair  and spoke to the Committee about the Task Force being set up to investigate the use of the Pupil Premium in Brent schools.

All a bit mystifying.

Ledden claims Brent Council tweeted in 'error' to 8,000 followers inviting them to speak at Monday's Full Council meeting - then bars Martin Francis from speaking

Regular reader will know about the issues around democracy and Brent Council (refresher course: LINK ) and these came to a ahead wsith the Labour landslide  with proposals to limit questions to the Cabinet and have just one 'super' Scrutiny Committee. At the same time Muhammed Butt tried to get a change in rules which would have meant the Labour leadership only being contested every four years.

A concession made to the public was that they would be allowed to address full Council.

On Friday August 29th Brent Council sent out this tweet: (Screen grab)

Clear enough you might think and having posted about the opportunity on this blog and on Facebook I sent in a request on Monday morning to have a deputation on the issue of the appointment of a Permanent Chief Executive.

The previous adminstration had accepted a report from Fional Ledden (Chief Legal Officer) to continue with Acting Chief Executive, Christine Gilbert's acting appointment until after the May 2014 local elections. According to Ledden this was in order to ensure a smooth transfer to the Civic Centre, continuity during the election and because market conditions were not right for recruitment.

The then Liberal Democrat opposition had opposed this and called for an open and transparent recruitment process. LINK

I was surprised to receive a belated response from Fiona Ledden refusing my request as it had not been received by the  'deadline of August 29th'.

I replied (attaching the screen grab of the Tweet):

Thank you for your letter informing me that I cannot have a deputation to Full Council because my email was sent on Monday September 1st and the deadline was Friday August 29th.

I sent my email in response to a Tweet from Brent Council which quite clearly stated that the deadline was Noon on Monday September 1st. The Tweet was sent out by the Council on August 29th.

I therefore repeat my request to speak to full Council on the issue of appointing a Permanent Chief Executive.

I received the following letter  from Fiona Ledden in response:

Thank you for your email in response to my letter. 

Please accept our apologies for the confusion. The Tweet you refer to was published in error and this is something I shall follow up. 

I refer you to Standing Order 39 in Part 3 of the Council’s Constitution “Any person wishing to make a deputation shall give written notice to the Director of Legal and Procurement of the title and summary of the content of the deputation not less than 5 days before the date of the meeting”. The deadline for deputations was 29 August 2014. 

As stated in my original response to your email, you will receive a written response to your question in due course.

Brent Council has about 8,000 followers, some of whom will have retweeted the notice, so that is some error!

I am used to Fiona Ledden's method when challenged, she basically seeks to grind you down and then eventually close down any correspondence.  There are several guest blogs on Wembley Matters that testify to this method.

Undaunted I replied again this morning:

Dear Ms Ledden,

I am afraid that i am not satisfied with your response.  An invitation that went out to almost 8,000 followers of Brent Council on Twitter, and was then further distributed by some of them, cannot simply be dismissed as an 'error'.

Furthermore even the 5 day's notice in Standing Orders does not say '5 working days'.  Even if we take that to be what is meant, a deadline of Noon on Monday would give 5-1/2 days between the deadline and the evening meeting on September 8th. That is Monday afternoon, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and the following Monday.

I therefore ask you to reconsider my request to speak as a delegation to the Full Council on September 8th on the issue of appointment of a permanent Chief Executive.

 You may not be surprised to learn that I have had no reply.  

If Muhammed Butt and his Cabinet were genuine in their commitment to give the public a voice in representation and decision making, it seems that their desires are being thwarted.

In the Standing Orders approved by the Council at their first meeting Fiona Ledden granted some fairly draconian powers over selecting delegations to speak at full Council meetings. No one from any party questioned these powers although they were commented on here:

Any deputation must directly concern a matter affecting the borough and relate to a Council function. Deputations shall not relate to legal proceedings or be a matter which is or has been the subject of a complaint under the Council’s complaints processes. Nor should a deputation be frivolous, vexatious, or defamatory. The Director of Legal and Procurement shall have discretion to decide whether the deputation is for any other reason inappropriate and cannot proceed.

So if I complain the issue will get caught up in the complaints procedure and therefore cannot be raised by me or anyone else.  If I make a fuss then it could be labelled vexatious. And if I suggest that perhaps something is being hidden or avoided, or someone being protected, then that could be defamatory.

If all else fails then Ms Ledden can refuse the deputation on the the grounds that it is inappropriate for 'any other reason'.

Regular readers will remember that Ms Ledden wrote to  Wembley Matters 'requring' us to remove documentation about the Audit and Investigation team's report on allegations against Brent's Acting Head of Human Resources LINK We refused to comply on grounds of public interest.

Is there any councillor out there who will stand up and question this nonsense?

Midday today deadline for addressing Brent's Full Council Meeting on September 8th

Brent Council sent out a tweet on Friday advertising the 5 minute slot at Full Council meetings where the public can address the Council:

Brent Council @Brent_Council  ·  Aug 29

Speak out to the whole council. Ask for a five-min slot (a deputation) @ full council. For 8 Sept email committee@brent.gov.uk by noon Mon.

The deputations are made under Standing Order 39:

Deputations

.    (a)  Deputations may be made by members of the public. Each deputation shall last not more than 5 minutes and there shall be a maximum of 3 deputations at any one council meeting on different subject matters. There shall be no more than one deputation made by the same person or organisation in a 6 month period and no repetition of the subject.

.    (b)  Any deputation must directly concern a matter affecting the borough and relate to a Council function. Deputations shall not relate to legal proceedings or be a matter which is or has been the subject of a complaint under the Council’s complaints processes. Nor should a deputation be frivolous, vexatious, or defamatory. The Director of Legal and Procurement shall have discretion to decide whether the deputation is for any other reason inappropriate and cannot proceed.

.    (c)  Any person wishing to make a deputation shall give written notice to the Director of Legal and Procurement of the title and summary of the content of the deputation not less than 5 days before the date of the meeting.

.    (d)  If more than three deputations are received a ballot will take place three days before the Council meeting to select the deputations to be presented before the Council.