Seething behind the scenes at Brent Council's meeting tonight

The format of Brent Council meetings these days is pretty predictable.  LINK The Leader makes a speech extolling the virtues of Labour members, outlines the difficult conditions caused by Coalition cuts and berates the opposition and then reaffirms the administration's commitment to protecting the vulnerable. Often adding that none of us became councillors to make cuts but we have to obey the law'.

The Tories refer to the mess left by Labour, wastefulness of the Council and go on about parking charges.

Questions to Cabinet members now have to be sent in advance so answers are carefully crafted. Backbench councillors ask prepared questions (often read out in stilted fashion) to Cabinet members that enable the latter to preen themselves and boast of their achievements with the opportunity for an additional swipe at the opposition.

Towards the end of the meeting Motions are put by Labour, Conservative Officials (Kenton) and Conservative Provisionals (Brondesbury Park). There's some Punch and Judy exchanges with the lone Lib Dem councillor looking a little lost; and then the Labour motion is approved and the Conservative motions defeated.

The unpredictability lies mainly with the voting of the Conservative groups and whether the Officials support the Provisionals or remain loyal to the Labour Group who granted them official status.

Tonight Cllr John Warren is moving a motion that regrets the fact that Standing Order changes mean that they cannot propose a vote of 'No Confidence' in Councillor Butt.

Warren will not have endeared himself to the Kenton councillors with the tweet he sent out in the early hours this morning:

 Kenton Conservative Councillor Bhiku M Patel died recently while on holiday in India.

Hardly tasteful tweeting.

Underneath all this there are real issues that could be raised. One is an update on the progress of appointing a new Chief Executive Officer. The Minutes of the September 2014 meeting record:

The Leader referred to the decision taken in June 2013 regarding the appointment of a new Chief Executive.  He stated that the external auditors were reporting back on how the Council was operating and whilst there was progress being made, stability within the Council would enable further progress to be made.  The current arrangements would therefore remain in place until a recruitment process began in the new year which would tie in with the launch of the new Borough Plan.

There has been little sign of any recruitment process and it now looks as if there may be an argument that Christine Gilbert should stay on until after the General Election because of her role as Returning Officer.  The fact that her partner Tony McNulty is actively campaigning for a Labour victory in Brent is not seen as a conflict of interest.

Another issue is of course that around the Employment Tribunal case and the finding that Brent Council racially discriminated against a council worker, victimised her and constructively dismissed her. Christine Gilbert will not countenance any disciplinary move against Cara Davani who was the second respondent in the case. Cara Davani, head of Human Resources. Cara Davani drew up Christine Gilbert's contract when she replaced Gareth Daniel  as Acting CEO, that included payment into her private company Christine Gilbert Associates. At the time Davbani wa sbeing paid a daily fee of £700 into her private company.

It would be interesting to have an update from Cllr Michael Pavey, Deputy Leader, on his internal review of Human Resources policies and processes. Two issues came up during the debate about his review including whether workers would have confidence that there would be no retribution over what they said and whether they could communicate with councillors over their concerns.

In Item 13 (Constitutional Amendment) a new clause has been added:

So Councillors approached by workers with concerns about racial discrimination, victimisation or constructive dismissal have to report them to Cara Davani, Head of Human Resources, who was the second respondent in a case where Brent Council was found to have racially discriminated against an employee who was victimised and constructively dismissed.  Cara Davani will be managing the redundancies consequent on the latest round of cuts.

Cara Davani is of course leading on the senior management restructure which has seen packages agreed for Fiona Ledden (former head of Legal and Procurement) and Ben Spinks (former Assistant Chief Executive Officer who was only appointed in 2013).

I understand that there has been one slight change in Gilbert and Davani's proposals. The original consultation ring-fenced the post of a senior legal officer to replace Ledden. Cara Davani's partner, Andy Potts,  was one of three employees thus eligible for the post. It was the only ring-fenced post in the whole reorganisation. Now the post will not be ring-fenced but only advertised internally. This seems to make little real difference in terms of who might be qualified for the post, so may just be a cosmetic change.

The Labour Group has its own internal tensions and a Labour councillor recently suggested to me that Muhammed Butt's support had declined to about 50% of the group against 75% a few weeks ago. It does not seem to be political opposition so much as distrust following recent machinations.


In the same week Pavey's Review will be put before the General Purposes Committee.

So if you have the staying power to watch the Council meeting on livestream tonight, just remember what is seething beneath the surface. Livestreaming failed last time but is supposed to have gone through an upgrade. To view from 7pm follow this LINK