Brent to get 9.9% increase in core funding next year. Ear-marked to address Adult Social Care and Children in Care budget shortfalls

From Brent Council 

The government has announced its local government funding settlement, following the Fair Funding Review of how council funding is distributed. The settlement introduces an updated funding formula intended to better reflect councils’ relative needs, costs and service pressures. 

The settlement marks a welcome shift away from short-term funding arrangements and provides councils with greater stability through a multi-year framework. It also restores a stronger emphasis on deprivation and need, which is particularly important for councils like Brent that face sustained financial pressures across social care, housing and homelessness services. 

Against this backdrop, the settlement includes a welcome 9.9% increase in core funding for Brent next year, one of the highest increases in London.

We will now work through the detail of the settlement carefully to understand its full implications for Brent’s budget and medium-term financial strategy. Our focus will be on making every pound count, protecting frontline services by driving efficiencies behind the scenes, and using public money responsibly to support residents who need us most. 

Councillor Mili Patel, Deputy Leader of Brent Council, said:

Brent was one of many communities that were disadvantaged when funding moved away from a focus on deprivation and need and was instead driven largely by population alone.

I am pleased that this settlement reverses that approach and puts the principle of fairness back at the heart of local government funding.

We will use this funding responsibly and sensibly to begin addressing the shortfalls in our budgets, particularly in the social care we provide for older people, disabled residents and children in care. These vital but often unseen services account for around two thirds of what the council spends, and they have borne the greatest pressure in recent years.

Formal investigation and a move requested after vulnerable dementia resident goes missing from Care Home for a second time, resulting in his hospitalisation

 

Beechwood Court

 

The partner and primary carer of an elderly man, Glen Atkins has written to Brent Council Leader, Muhammed Butt, and local MP, Barry Gardiner, following what she terms a 'profound breach of care' at Sovereign Network Group's Beechwood Court care home in Wembley.

She wrote: 

I am writing to you as an elderly carer, deeply distressed and frightened by the repeated safeguarding failures at Beechwood Court that have now endangered my partners life for a second time. 

My Partner, Glen Atkins, who has dementia and significant health needs, went missing again on Saturday 22nd of November, due to  what appears to be the lack of security and supervision from the carers.
 

On this occasion, the consequences have been even more severe: he was found in a deteriorated condition and is now in hospital receiving treatment. 

This is not only unacceptable but it is a profound breach of care. 

Following the first incident, I was assured that measures would be taken to prevent this from ever happening again. Those assurances were clearly not upheld. As his main carer, and as an elderly woman myself, I rely on the council’s systems to keep him safe. Instead, we are now living through the trauma of repeated failures that could have cost him his life. 

I am requesting the following immediate actions: 

1. A formal investigation into how my partner was able to leave the premises again despite previous alerts and assurances. 

2. An urgent review of Beechwood Court’s safeguarding procedures, including door security, staff monitoring, incident reporting, and emergency escalation processes. 

3.Immediate support in securing a safer and more appropriate placement for my partner, as I no longer have confidence in the facility’s ability to protect him. 

4. A direct meeting or call with a senior safeguarding officer within the council, within the next 7 days. 

No family should ever have to go through this once, let alone twice. The physical, emotional and psychological impact on my  Partner and on the family is immeasurable. I am asking you personally to intervene, as this situation now represents a systemic and dangerous failure affecting vulnerable adults in your borough. 

I look forward to your urgent response. 

Patricia Bryan 

 

Barry Gardiner has not yet responded and Muhammed Butt's office has just sent an acknowledgement,

 

Asif Zamir has written to Cllr Neal Nerva and Brent CEO Kim Wright in support of Patricia Bryan calling for a firmal investigation

 

My name is Asif Zamir, and I am writing to you formally to request an urgent investigation into the care and safety of Mr. Glen Atkins, currently a resident at Beechwood Court.

 

I am supporting Mr. Atkins’ partner and primary carer, Patricia Bryan, who has expressed profound distress regarding repeated safeguarding failures. On Saturday, 22nd November, Mr. Atkins—who lives with dementia—went missing from the facility for a second time. He was later found in a severely deteriorated state and is currently hospitalised.

 

Despite previous assurances following a similar incident, it is clear that the security and supervision protocols at Beechwood Court are insufficient.

 

I am formally requesting that you initiate a senior-level investigation into this case, specifically addressing:

 

The systemic failure of security measures that allowed a vulnerable resident to go missing twice.

 

The breach of previous safeguarding agreements made with the family.

 

An immediate review of the facility's fitness to provide care for residents with complex dementia.

 

To the Ward Councillors (Cc’d): I am copying you into this correspondence to formally request that you raise Member Enquiries on behalf of Patricia Bryan and Glen Atkins. We require your support to ensure transparency, accountability, and an urgent resolution to ensure Mr. Atkins is moved to a safer, more appropriate placement upon his discharge from the hospital.

 

 Given the severity of this situation and the fact that a vulnerable resident’s life has been endangered, I look forward to your acknowledgment of this email within 24 hours and a detailed response regarding the investigation steps.

 

Wembley Matters sough further information about the context of Mr Atkins'  going missing from the care home. Asif Zamir said:

 

It's alleged that CCTV was not working at  Beechwood house. Mr Atkins had been missing for approx 7.5 hrs. A contributing factor on the delay in finding him was that the staff  allegedly could not pin an exact time of when he had disappeared or the events leading up to his disappearance. 

 Mr Atkins had been taken by a members of staff to the communal area for his lunch and left unsupervised and that is when he disappeared.

When he wasreturned he had been out in bad weather and returned with wet clothes. 

Had the staff carried out their duty and provided accurate statements, there is a chance Mr Atkins could have been found earlier and prevented harm to him. There is a chain of failings.

He is in poor health in hospital; Beechwood Court have effectively evicted him whilst he is in hospital as they cannot meet his needs. The local authority must carry out their duty in helping find him a new home that meets his needs.

 

Patricia Bryan said that Mr Atkins had been found by police and returned to the Care Home who phoned to inform her.  When she arrived at the care home she was told the he'd had his medication and was in bed. When she went upstairs to his room she found him shivering and called 999. He was blue-lighted to Northwick Park Hospital where he remains. He has swollen feet with high blood sugar levels and is being treated with drugs for his diabetes and a course of insulin. Patricia said she she doesnlt know what trauma this incodent has caused and is seeking information from the consultant about his discharge.

She is looking at alternative care homes but was told that her preference would require an additional contribution of around £800 a week when that is how much pension Mr Atkins gets in a month.

 

A complicating factor is the triple involvement at the care home. It is run by Sovereign Network Group (SNG), the caring service is provided  by Westminster Homecare Limited  who have several recently renewed contracts with Brent Council, and Brent Council deals with allocations via the Adult Care Service and provides oversight.

 

A Stage 1 complaint was made to SNG on behalf of Mr Atkins and an investigation undertaken. The report on the investigation consists of a catalogue of many issues over time with the electronics and mechanism of the entrance door and a suggestion that he exited after the door was made insecure during a power outage. The conclusion has a sting in the tail: 

 

My Decision 

I am not upholding the complaint on the grounds of service failure. However, I want to be clear that this does not diminish the seriousness of the incident or the distress it caused. I fully acknowledge the impact this has had on Mr Atkins, including the deterioration in his condition and the concerns raised by Beechwood staff and social workers.

I would like to extend a further apology to you for the delay with your response. I wanted to ensure I had full scope of the situation at hand as well as tangible information/ updates to provide before responding to you. With that being said, I understand how important timely communication is and regret any additional frustration this may have caused. To compensate for this delay and in line with our policy, I will be awarding you £20 for delayed response. In line with our policy this will be credited to your rent/service charge account and visible on your statement within the next 28 days.

 

UPDATE: I emailed Cllr Nerva, Cabinet Lead Member for Adult Social Care, yesterday offering him the opportunity to make a published comment on this issue. I have only had a standard holding reply so far:  

Thank you for your email

I will respond to you as soon as possible

LETTER: Alerting readers to the negative impact of proposed Kenton development on the Wealdstone Brook

 

Google Earth view. Trees indicate the course of the brook. Disused garages on right.

 

Dear Editor,

I am writing to draw attention to a  Planning Application for 6 privately built terraced housing units close to the Wealdstone Brook in the disused garage area at the back of Woodgrange Close in Kenton. This proposed development abuts the Woodgrange side of Woodcock Park and abuts the Wealdstone Brook close to the Mural Bridge. It was available to view up to today (18/12/25) but has now been withdrawn as 'invalid'.

Application reference 25/3407 is currently invalid, and as such will not appear on the public register. Once the application is made valid the Local Planning Authority will carry out a statutory consultation, at which time the documents will be available to view on the public record.

An attempt to produce this controversial development has been thwarted for the time being but we need to be vigilant about it being presented once again in the New Year with short notice. This proposed private housing development will have a negative major impact on the Wealdstone Brook here and further downstream in Wembley.

John Poole

(and you can print my name - thanks)

Kenton

Full address supplied. 

The 2025 Wembley History Society Christmas Picture Quiz - the answers!

 Introductory blog for Christmas Picture Quiz answers, by local historian Philip Grant:

 

Thank you to everyone who entered into the seasonal spirit and took part in last weekend’s 2025 Wembley History Society Christmas Picture Quiz. (If you haven’t tried your quiz skills yet, please click on that “link” and have a go before you look at the answers!)

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed the quiz, and I’m sure that, like me, you are very grateful to Martin for providing such an interesting and varied selection of posts on his “Wembley Matters” blog. The answers document is below, at the foot of this guest post.

 

I included an extra question when introducing the quiz. I wonder how many of you knew, or worked out, that the 1930s speedway rider from New Zealand was Wally Kilmister (seen here with his Wembley Lions team mates in 1937)?

 

 

His sports shop near the stadium (part of which was later turned into a model shop) was at 6 & 7 Neeld Parade, although Wembley Triangle would also be an acceptable answer. This photograph showing it was taken from the top of a new office building under construction in 1963, which became Brent House.

 

 

 

You may have noticed that the photograph for question 3 was of a tile mural, but I’m sure that most of you recognised who it showed (some years ago, a 10-year old girl who saw the picture immediately said: “That’s Michael Jackson!”). That mural scene, along with around a dozen others in the Bobby Moore Bridge subway outside Wembley Park station, has been hidden from view since 2013, because of advertising leases issued by Brent Council to the developers, Quintain. Although the footballers’ scene, including the plaque unveiled by Bobby Moore’s widow in 1993, was put back on public view in 2019, Quintain were then allowed to cover the other subway murals with light boxes, for at least another five years.

 

The tile mural scenes on the east wall of the Bobby Moore Bridge subway at Wembley Park.

 

There was a chance to get all of the subway murals back on display when the lease came up for renewal in 2024. However, Brent’s Council Leader did not even give his Cabinet colleagues the chance to vote on the option which would have allowed that. In fact, the Cabinet members did not vote at all – they just stayed silent when Cllr. Muhammed Butt declared that the option he preferred (which would put slightly more money into the Council’s communications budget) had been approved.

 

There were probably a few of the questions that you didn’t know the answers to. If that’s the case, you have the chance over the Christmas / New Year break to discover more about some of the subjects via “links” I’ve included with some of the answers. These will take you to illustrated articles giving more information, if you want to take advantage of them.

 

If you were feeling competitive, and wrote down your answers, you can now see how many you got right. There are no prizes, but if you want to share your score out of twenty (just to let others know how well, or badly, you did), you are welcome to add a comment below!

 

The building in my “greetings card” above is St Andrew’s New Church, Kingsbury, and if you would like some church bells with your Christmas, you can read about and listen to them if you “click” on this “Wembley Matters” blog from December 2022. With best wishes for the festive season, and a happy and healthy New Year,

 

Philip Grant. 

 

 

UPDATED: Octavia HA leave pensioner 25 days without heating after 10 'no shows' by heating engineers

 Bannister House - what's behind the gloss?

UPDATE: SINCE PUBLICATION TWO COUNCILLORS HAVE BEEN IN CONTACT OFFERING HELP.

 

A pensioner with cancer has been left for 25 days in a new build South Kilburn flat with only a portable electric fire for heating. Octavia Housing Association has promised repair but  made 10 appointments and failed to turn up to any of them. I understand that the required repair is replacement of two thermostats,

John H, the pensioner concerned had been transferred to the housing association, at higher rent, as part of the relocations taking place as a consequence of the South Kilburn Regeneration.  When he turned to Brent Council for assistance they washed their hands of him: it was the housing association's problem.  An appeal to the South Kilburn Tenants' Steering Group was similarly fruitless.

 On December 8th John H emailed me;

 Briefly, I have rung about 30 times, contacted both Octavia and Abli, SureServe the heating contractors & tthe Management Agent for Bannister House, 

On Wednesday I rang Octavia again only to learn they were closed as they were holding their Xmas party.

Last Monday I received a phone call from SureServe Serve an engineer would visit my home sometime during the day but no one came.

On Monday afternoon I tried an officer, who managed to arrange an appointment for me on Tuesday between 8am and 12pm but again no one came.

Another apptointment was made for  me yesterday morning but no one showed up.

I am losing track but I think they have made 6 appointments so far but no one has attended any of them.

For good measure, I asked some questions at last Wednesdays Tenant Steering Group Zoom meeting  to the South Kilburn Regeneration Team leader who told me they could not help me, as I was no longer a Brent council tenant and it was up to Octavia to fix the issue. 

 

From Octavia's Tenants' website

In a catch up John told Wembley Matters : 

I made my first contact with Octavia on the 24th November who made 10 appointments for me with their heating contractor SureServe but they failed to attend any of them with the latest one being today the 19th December 2025.

I also contacted the Management Agent for Bannister House who informed me that they were only responsible for communal repairs.

I am still waiting to have my heating restored. I have have been waiting for more than 3 weeks to get the repair carried out.

If I had known that it would take this long to carry out an emergency repair, I might have asked for alternative accommodation but I suppose now I will just have to wait until the repair is carried out.

I submitted a complaint to Octavia, as on their website it says all emergency repairs will be completed within 24 hours but they have not replied to me yet, even though they are well past the time they are supposed to reply.

 

I wish I was a Brent council tenant again.

 The last statement is poignant after all the hope and public relations put into the regeneration  with around 6 different developers and housing associations involved.

I understand there is also a heating problem at Swift House, managed by L&Q, that has existed since March and I have covered the long delay in Brent Council repairing a faulty door in one of its own blocks despite the finding of the Social Housing Regulator   See: https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2025/12/failings-in-brent-councils-social.html

The Brent Council's Action Plan in response to the findings of the Regulator has yet to be published and is significantly behind schedule. 

Where do residents turn to for decent housing? Not to up-market build to rent Quintain it appears from the Evening Standard's story abour soaring charges and evictions:  

https://www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/renting/quintain-living-tenants-evictions-rent-hikes-bills-wembley-build-to-rent-b1259844.html

L&Q had problems with unsafe balconies on its properties and currently balconies are being inspected in the first Quintain Properties at Quadrant Court and  Forum House.

After the seious fire in Octavia's Wembley Central  property. Petworth Court,  the  Housing Regulator found it had  over 1,200 outstanding fire remediation actions, and mitigation failings. LINK

 

Let's face it, despite all the hype about numbers, and the glossy PR, it is the quality of the new housing itself and its management, including repairs, that are undermining the confidence of tenants and leaseholders.

Keir Starmer’s self-inflicted ‘nightmare’ - an insight into recent Brent events and the wider context

The remaining Brent Labour councillors are apparently as jitttery as teachers before an Ofsted inspection as they await a second visit  in January from 'Tatler's Troops' (Campaign Improvement Board). Further turmoil is expected with some surprises possible.

An article on Labour Hub, explains the background. Thanks to Labour Hub for permission to reproduce the article. The original article is available here: Labour Hub.  

“Nightmare for Keir Starmer as he’s hit by five Labour defections,” headlined the Daily Express.  Five councillors in the London borough of Brent have defected from Labour to the Greens and Green Party leader Zack Polanski says his party is ready to “bury” Labour at next year’s local elections as he welcomed them.

 

Another Campaign Improvement Board disaster

 

Four of the five councillors were barred by Labour from running again in 2026 after the Party instituted a ‘Campaign Improvement Board’ to replace the local Party’s usual democratic selection process. Normally, Labour allows local branches to select its candidates, but this time the Board interviewed the would-be candidates and then either approved or barred them from standing. The process was rubber-stamped by Labour’s National executive Committee, with no right of appeal.

 

This controversial and undemocratic process has been used elsewhere, most notoriously in Leicester. A Campaign Improvement Board was set up there ahead of the 2023 city council elections, and local Party members were denied the opportunity to select their candidates. Nineteen sitting councillors were barred, including all the Hindu councillors, and a high proportion of BAME councillors. The demoralisation and disgust at these manoeuvres meant the Party lost 22 seats in the subsequent election. In the 2024 general election, Leicester East was the only Tory gain from Labour in the entire country and Leicester South was won by an Independent.

 

Notwithstanding the damage done, a similar process was imposed on Brent earlier this year. Eight sitting councillors were excluded. All of them had signed a statement calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in October 2023. All eight were from minoritised communities.

 

The flimsy justifications for the top- down process, such as alleged concerns over the previous selection process in 2022, look absurd, given that all steps in that process were fully coordinated with and signed off by regional Party officials. Instead, the entire exercise smacks of a factional strike against councillors who are out of step with the increasingly right wing politics of the Party’s national leadership.

 

Statements from those leaving

 

On Monday, four of the sitting councillors, along with one who was not barred by Labour from re-standing, announced they were leaving the Party to join the Greens. A statement from the group said: “Like thousands of others, we joined the Labour Party because we believed in building a fairer society. As councillors, we took that mission into Brent, determined to stand up for the people who placed their trust in us…

 

“We have now come to the realisation that we can no longer play that role effectively while remaining within the Labour Party. We always knew being a party of government would put the principles and values of the party to the test, but we have watched as on every issue this government goes further away from the founding Labour Party principles of democracy, social justice and equality…

 

“We did not enter public life to serve a party machine – we entered it to serve our residents and we will not abandon that duty. That is why we are today resigning our membership of the Labour Party, and joining the Green Party, becoming the first Green Group of Councillors in Brent…

 

“We invite all who share this vision to work with us in offering Brent a real alternative. Together, we can build a Brent that puts people before profit, public good before private greed and hope before fear.”

 

 The councillors, including a former council Cabinet member and the Labour group’s former chief whip, accused Keir Starmer of a lack of ambition to deliver change, and criticised the government for “copying far-right policy and rhetoric on migration”, being “complicit” in the war in Gaza and for “silencing internal debate dissent”.

 

In a personal statement, Iman Ahmadi Moghaddam, who served as the Labour group’s chief whip until his defection, said: “I have given thousands of hours of my life to this party – knocking doors, delivering leaflets, recruiting members, volunteering at conference, facilitating meetings, giving presentations, and taking on countless other roles. I did this because I believed Labour, in government, could deliver meaningful change and move us towards a fairer society rooted in socialist values.

 

“I stayed even when I disagreed with decisions taken locally or nationally. I stayed while experiencing bullying, racism and Islamophobia that many long-standing members will recognise. I stayed because I believed that, ultimately, Labour’s success would be in the service of the people we exist to represent.

 

“But it has become impossible to ignore the reality that Labour has already left the principles that brought many of us into public life. Remaining a Labour member no longer feels like a route to change, and increasingly feels actively harmful.

 

“Under Keir Starmer, Labour has abandoned any serious ambition to transform society. It has embraced austerity during a cost-of-living crisis, sided with big developers and corporate interests, and hollowed out internal democracy so that dissent is punished and conscience is treated as a liability. The party is now dominated by a narrow, self-serving clique more concerned with control and careerism than with delivering real change.

 

“This is clearest on Gaza. What is taking place is a genocide, with British roots and ongoing British involvement through arms sales and the criminalisation of peaceful protest. Members and elected representatives who have spoken out (from a position of basic human decency) have been bullied, suspended or silenced. I include myself among them.

 

“At the same time, the leadership has chosen to pander to the far right by scapegoating migrants and stoking division to mask its own economic failures. This is not only a betrayal of Labour’s values; it actively legitimises forces that threaten our communities and our democracy.

 

“There remain many members, Councillors and MPs in Labour who are principled, well-intentioned and committed to socialist values. Many of you will read this. This statement is not written in anger towards you, but in sadness at what the party has become.”

 

Councillor Mary Mitchell said: “The Labour Party has left the values that I stand for, and what the Party historically has stood for and achieved. 

 

“In copying far-right policy and rhetoric on migration, scrapping jury trials and the draconian policing of protest, we have seen the Labour Party move to the right.  

 

“In downgrading investment in the energy transition and deepening fossil-fuel interests, the party has gone against manifesto promises on tackling climate change and nature depletion.  

“The appalling complicity in Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza and suspension from the party of those who call this out is a stain on Labour’s historic record of free speech and human rights advocacy.”

 

Cllr Harbi Farah, former Cabinet Leader for Safer Communities, said: “I am leaving the Labour Party because my values have not changed; the party has. I still believe in a society structured around solidarity and genuine systemic change. I am a socialist, and I seek a political home that unambiguously champions these ideals.”

 

All the defecting councillors criticised the restrictive internal culture of the Labour Party that had abandoned its former inclusivity and openness.

 

Consequences

 

 A London Labour spokesperson responded to the defections, saying: “For the avoidance of doubt, all but one of the individuals unveiled were not selected to stand for the Labour Party at the next election, as they fell below the standards we require of those seeking to represent Labour. The Labour Party operates rigorous and transparent selection processes and maintains the highest standards for its candidates.”

 

Most local members would disagree. There was no transparent selection process for the 2026 local elections – it was replaced by a secretive, factional operation that carved out a number of excellent councillors, many of whom enjoyed wholehearted support from their local members.

 

Brent councillor Shama Tatler is widely thought to have had a hand in this undemocratic process, as she did in the Leicester carve-up. She has now been rewarded with a peerage, as one of the 25 Labour nominees to the House of Lords last week. The list was one of the most narrowly factional in many years – it includes Geeta Nargund, the mother of the failed Labour candidate who ran against Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North last year – she runs a private fertility clinic.

 

One of the ostensible justifications for imposing a Campaign Improvement Board on Brent Labour Party was the significant drop in Labour’s vote share and the problem of left-leaning voters migrating to the Greens or independents. The consequence of the whole shoddy process is that this trend is likely to accelerate.

 

Brent Labour has a massive majority in Brent, but the Party’s national unpopularity is unprecedented. Locally, the Greens and Lib Dems are campaigning hard and upsets are expected across the capital next year: Brent is not the only borough experiencing defections from Labour.

 

The upshot is that politics for the foreseeable future is likely to get unusually messy, with a number of credible parties fielding progressive candidates.  October’s Caerphilly byelection showed that in the right circumstances, progressive voters can find a way to defeat both Reform and their imitators within Labour, in that case voting for Plaid Cymru. This historic loss for Labour, it should be remembered, was again the result of factional interference in the local selection process, where an experienced and popular local councillor was barred from running on spurious grounds.

 

It wouldn’t be surprising if the narrow faction currently in control of the Party sees the latest resignations as a positive, given their utter hatred of the left.  If this proves to be a “nightmare” for Keir Starmer, it’s very much a self-inflicted one.