Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity
The Question and Answer from the Full Council meeting agenda papers.
When I wrote my 10 July guest post “Bobby Moore Bridge murals – where will the advertising money be spent?” it was on the basis of a fairly vague answer given by Cllr. Muhammed Butt to a Full Council meeting question from a member of the public. It looked as if some or all of the rental income from the Bobby Moore Bridge advertising lease would be spent on Brent’s “communications”, which help to promote the Council Leader and his Cabinet.
The Report to the 28 May Cabinet meeting, which recommended the award of a lease which provided slightly more income but left the tile murals in the subway covered up for at least another four years, had been written by Brent’s Head of Communications. That appeared to be a serious conflict of interests, but I did not think I had strong enough evidence of where the money would be spent to make a complaint.
I did not know the person who had asked the question, but did manage to make contact with him. As he was also keen to get a more specific answer, he agreed to ask a supplementary question, and at the Council meeting on 8 July the Mayor promised that he would receive a written answer to it. It took a few weeks, but this is the response, which he has shared with me:
So there it is, from the Leader of the Council himself (who is also the Cabinet Lead Member for Communications, so probably knew where the money was going when he announced, without a vote, that Option B had been accepted). ‘All of the income generated from the Bobby Moore Bridge advertising revenue is allocated to the communications service budget.’
Now that I had the evidence to back up the case set out in my 10 July guest post, I sent an open letter to Brent’s Chief Executive on 30 August, making a formal complaint about how the award of the advertising lease had been dealt with. I will ask Martin to include a copy of my open letter at the end of this post, for anyone who would like to read it in full, but this is the text of the email that I sent it with, which summarises the position. (I have already received an acknowledgement to it, and a promise that Kim Wright will respond to my complaint):
‘Dear Ms Wright,
I am attaching an open letter to you, making a formal complaint about bias and a conflict of interests by a Council Officer (or Officers) in the Report and Recommendations to the 28 May 2024 Cabinet meeting on the award of the Bobby Moore Bridge advertising lease.
I am also attaching, as it gives further background and detail on my complaint, a pdf document copy of an online article I had published on 10 July, in response to the answer given to a public question at the 8 July Full Council meeting.
That answer gave an indication of where the rental income from the advertising lease would be spent, but as the Mayor said, at the meeting, that a supplementary question had been asked, to which a written reply would be provided, I have waited for further clarity on the facts before making this complaint.
Please see the suggested remedies section, on page 3 of my letter, as urgent action may be required if the new advertising lease from 31 August 2024 has not yet been signed and sealed by the Council. Thank you. Best wishes,
Philip Grant.’
As the Chief Executive is only responsible for the actions of Council staff, not councillors, I had to restrict my complaint to that side of the award. But I also wanted to publicly express my views over the actions of Cllr. Butt, and this letter from me was published in the “Brent & Kilburn Times” on 29 August. They published my letter in full, but did not use my suggested heading for it: “Leader abused his power”!
Philip Grant.
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