After closing half its libraries Brent Council agrees Memorandum of Understanding with volunteer libraries

The Brent Council Cabinet is set to approve a Memorandum of Understanding on Community Libraries at its meeting on Monday.  In 2011 the Council closed 6 of the borough's 12 libraries in what they called the Libraries Transformation Projects. Local residents launched campaigns to keep four of the libraries open: Preston, Kensal Rise, Cricklewood and Barham. Neasden and Tokyngton libraries, the former in a very needy area, appear to have gone for good.

The SOS (Save Our Six Libraries) campaign was faced with the dilemma of campaigning for the retention of securely financed, professionally staffed libraries or keeping a local facility going through a volunteer system and fundraising. Some campaigners thought that keeping some kind of service going temporarily would make it easier for a future administration to restore the library.

The Brent libraries issue became something of a national scandal and contributed to Cllr Muhammed Butt's overthrow of Cllr Ann John's Labour leadership. In the event Brent's closures were ahead of the field and other councils, of various political complexion, have since closed libraries  citing government cuts as the reason. Currently there is a militant campaign in Lambeth LINK.

Since then there have been attempts by various lead members to reach an agreement with the volunteer libraries with Preston and Barham facing particular difficulties because the Council is the landlord of their premises.

The Officers' report LINK sets out the current situation:

Brent’s community libraries receive no direct funding from Council library service budgets. They are wholly independent organisations. They are not included within the Council’s statutory service, and they have full flexibility to tailor their offer to local need and interest and are eligible for various funding streams as independent organisations. 


 The four community library premises are:

·      Barham Library, 660 Harrow Road Wembley HA0 2HB (15 year lease) 


·      Cricklewood Library, 152 Olive Road, London NW2 (999 year lease being finalised) 


·      Kensal Rise Library, Bathurst Gardens, London NW10 5JA (999 year lease being finalised) 


·      Preston Community Library, 2 Carlton Ave East, Wembley HA9 8PL (currently has a temporary lease arrangement). 


The MoU (see below) sets out various ways the Council will support the community libraries without committing to any additional expenditure.

The case of Preston Community Library, where uncertainty remains over its premises as Brent Council seeks to redevelop the site, is addressed directly:
 

A temporary lease arrangement is in place until the end of the 2016/17 school year as a short term solution. Long term plans for the site are at the development stage.
 In September 2016 Cabinet agreed to redevelop Preston Park Annexe for new homes and D1 space appropriate for library use. Since then the Council has appointed 5Plus Architects to lead the design of the redevelopment proposals and undertaken workshops with Preston Community Library to understand their long term service delivery needs and spatial requirements. The next stage of the design process will be to translate the findings into a design solution that is supported by Preston Community Library. Further consultation will then be undertaken on design proposals before final decisions are made. 


The development of the site will provide a potential long term solution for Preston Community Library. However at present the medium term options for the library are not clear. Officers will continue to work to address this with the library within the constraints of the Council’s property portfolio and market options. 


 Council officers recognise the strong social value provided by Preston Community Library and are keen to support the group in continuing to provide a service throughout the transition process

In a curious post on his blog LINK, former councillor James Powney, lead member at the time of the Transformation Project, says:

In Barham, Paul Lorber appears to be trying to play the Council for either financial gain or as part of his political manoeuvrings prior to the 2018 elections.  In Preston, the existing group appears to be given an undue influence that does not sit easily with either the Council's financial obligations or the building's ACV status.  Such arrangements can lead to ugly rumours about the integrity of Council decision making even where there is no legally proven case against them. 

  This is the Memorandum of Understanding:

Recruiting Brent Council's Chief Executive – ‘no illegality in the process’ but...

Guest posting by Philip Grant

Last month’s blog about the permanent Chief Executive job at Brent Council finally being advertised LINK generated a great deal of interest. Among the comments (129 at the last count) some serious concerns were raised, so I wrote to Brent’s Chief Legal Officer, Fiona Alderman, to bring them to her attention. Four weeks later I have received a reply, the key sentence of which is as follows:

‘I have considered the issues which you have raised but am satisfied that there is no illegality in the process currently underway for the recruitment of a Chief Executive.’

Although I have to respect her opinion that there is nothing illegal in the recruitment process, the legality was not what I had written about. The purpose of my email was summarised as follows:

‘It is very important that the appointment of a permanent Chief Executive at Brent Council, to lead by example as Head of Paid Service, is not only conducted fairly, but is seen to be conducted fairly.’

I had referred to several “anomalies” on the practical side of the recruitment process ‘which, if not addressed, are likely to mean that it will not be seen to be conducted fairly.’

There are some aspects of the recruitment process which may already be unfair, but which it is too late to change. The briefing pack issued to potential applicants makes clear that the post has been designed with the current Leader of the Council in mind. Part Four of the “Person Specification”, which candidates must show they meet, is actually headed “Chemistry and ‘fit’ between the Chief Executive and Leader of the Council.” The previous permanent Chief Executive, Gareth Daniel, was in the post for fourteen years and served a number of Council Leaders, from different political parties, before leaving because of irreconcilable differences with Cllr. Muhammed Butt, just four months after he was elected as Leader in 2012. And yet, unlikely as it may seem, Brent Council could elect a different Leader at the same meeting as it is asked to approve the appointment of a new Chief Executive recruited to ‘fit’ with Cllr. Butt’s ways of working.

One source of potential unfairness is the small number of people who will actually have any influence over who is chosen for the post. These will include the current interim Chief Executive, Christine Gilbert, and Director of HR, Cara Davani. Questions have already been raised about appointments of their “cronies” to other senior Brent Council posts LINK  The fortunes of Ms Gilbert and Ms Davani also appear to be closely linked with those of the Leader of the Council, and Cllr. Butt has not yet answered the question of why he is still “protecting” these two senior officers, when he has known about their misconduct in the Rosemarie Clarke Employment Tribunal case since at least September 2014. That question was put to him in February 2015 LINK

Good online detective work by “Wembley Matters” readers has shown that there are close links, during their time at Tower Hamlets Council and at Ofsted, between Ms Gilbert and Ms Davani, and Shahidul Miah of Bloomsbury Resourcing Ltd. That one-man company is one of two recruitment consultants handling the search for Brent’s new Chief Executive, along with Davidson & Partners. It is unclear from the briefing pack what the respective roles of the two consultancies are, but the involvement of Mr Miah does raise concerns that the external and internal sides of the recruitment process may not be independent of each other.

Under the Council’s Constitution (Standing Order 77) the shortlist of candidates who will be interviewed for the post will be drawn up by the (interim) Chief Executive, ‘or another officer nominated by him or her’, most probably the Director of HR. The list is then submitted ‘to the Chair of the Senior Staff Appointments Sub-Committee’. If the Chair agrees the list, ‘then the shortlist prepared by the officer shall stand.’ If not, ‘a meeting of the Senior Staff Appointments Sub-Committee shall be held to determine the shortlist.’ The Council’s website shows that the Chair of this “SSASC” is Cllr. Muhammed Butt, so once again the trio of the Council Leader, Ms Gilbert and Ms Davani hold the power to decide who will, or will not, be considered for the job.

The composition, and Chair, of the SSASC was one of the main points which I raised in my email to Ms Alderman. Under Brent’s Constitution, the SSASC comprises 5 councillors, 'at least one of whom shall be a member of the Cabinet'. This wording appears to have been designed as part of a system of “checks and balances”, to ensure that power over senior staff appointments is shared between Executive and backbench councillors. While it does not say that there should be only one member of the Cabinet on the sub-committee, as the Constitution also gives Cabinet members other rights to object to proposed appointments, it seems odd that the SSASC currently comprises four Cabinet members, plus the leader of the official Conservative group.

As stated above, Cllr. Butt chairs the SSASC (to be fair, his predecessor, Cllr. Ann John, did so before him, although with only one, or at most two, other Executive members, and at least two members from opposition parties on the sub-committee). I have suggested that Cllr. Butt should allow a backbench councillor to replace him as Chair of the SSASC for the recruitment of the new Chief Executive, and that one or two other Cabinet members should appoint non-Cabinet substitute councillors for this process. Brent’s Chief Legal Officer did not comment of this suggestion, other than to thank me ‘for [my] observations’.

The SSASC will interview the shortlisted applicants, and its Chair must then notify to the Council’s Director of HR ‘the name of the person to whom it wishes to make an offer together with any other particulars the sub-committee considers are relevant to the appointment.’ It is at this point that a clear conflict of interests arises, because the HR Director then has to notify every member of the Cabinet of these details, and of ‘the period within which any objection to the making of the offer is to be made by the Leader on behalf of the Cabinet to the [Director of HR] and the Chair of the sub-committee.’

Part of the “checks and balances” on the fair appointment of senior officers built into Brent’s Constitution is to separate the roles of Chair of the SSASC and Leader of the Council, as one heads the sub-committee which choses the preferred candidate, while the other heads the Cabinet which has the right to review and object to that choice (even though that may seem unlikely in practice, when half of the Cabinet are also currently members of the SSASC). If there were an objection, the Leader then has to give notice ‘of any objection which the Leader or any other member of the Cabinet has to the proposed appointment’ to both the HR Director and the Chair of the SSASC (imagine the scene: “I, Cllr. Butt, as Leader of the Council, give you, Cllr. Butt, as Chair of the SSASC, notice …”). In that case, the SSASC would have to reconvene, ‘to consider the objection and to consider whether to confirm the appointment.’

While Brent’s Constitution does not say that the Leader of the Council and Chair of the SSASC cannot be the same person, it is difficult to see how the recruitment process can be seen to be fair if this is the case. It could be argued that having the two roles held by the same person allows the process to dealt with more quickly and efficiently; but that argument could also be used to combine the roles of judge and jury in the criminal justice system, which many would feel could make that system less fair or just.

For the appointment of a Chief Executive, the proposed candidate 'must be approved at a meeting of the Full Council before an offer of appointment is made'. The proposed date, shown in the briefing pack, for the SSASC’s final interview panel is 18 or 19 May, and the next Full Council meeting is the Annual Meeting on 20 May. The final point I made to Ms Alderman was that this would not give the elected members of Full Council given sufficient time to consider properly whether they should approve the proposed appointment. I suggested that the date of the final interview panel should be brought forward by a few days, and that Officers should ensure that all members of the Council are notified with details of the person who it is proposed should be appointed as Chief Executive in good time (at least several days) before the Full Council meeting on 20 May. I do not know whether any changes have been made as a result of these suggestions.

Brent’s Chief Legal Officer is also its Monitoring Officer, a role which includes trying to ensure that the Council’s committees, sub-committees and officers do not act in a way which breaches codes of practice, or which may give rise to maladministration or injustice. I hoped that by bringing the points above to Ms Alderman’s attention, the potential unfairness in the recruitment process for the Chief Executive post could be avoided. It is not my intention to criticise Ms Alderman, who may have done all that she can to achieve this end. The overall responsibility for ensuring a fair appointment lies with the interim Chief Executive and the Leader of the Council.

We will find out next month whether my efforts have helped to produce an appointment which is seen to be fair, or whether those at the top of Brent Council are determined to bring it further into disrepute. If it appears that the person proposed as the new Chief Executive may not have been recruited fairly, I hope that councillors will be prepared to challenge his or her appointment at Full Council, rather than just nod through their approval of it.

Possible Council Tax rise emerges as an option on eve of Budget Consultation deadline

I understand that at last night's Labour group meeting the possibility of a Council Tax increase came back into play with a potential rise of 1.99% for 2015-2016 looked upon favourably by a majority of the group. A straw poll indicated 24 in favour of a Council Tax increase and 6 against.  This would be an annual increase of £30 for Band D residents.

Although Cllr Muhammed Butt opposed an increase at the Civic Centre Public Budget Consultation  that this would hit people already suffering from Coalition cuts the counter-argument is that in terms of social solidarity sharing the burden (with those in higher rated property paying more) would enable the most extreme of the proposed cuts to be avoided.  This would preserve some vital threatened services  to the benefit of poorer residents andwould be better for the Council's long-term stability.

Since 2011 the Council has avoided Council Tax increases, accepting the Government's grant for freezing the tax. Indeed Muhammed Butt has made virtue out of what he sees as necessity by boasting to residents that he has frozen the tax.

However there is an argument that long-term freezing of the Council Tax undermines the Council's revenue base.

This is what Clive Heaphy's Report stated in the First Reading Debate in November 2011 LINK

On 3 October 2011 the government announced a further one-off grant, for 2012-13 only, of £2.6m predicated on the basis that the council does not increase council tax for 2012-13. Each 1% in Council tax equates to approximately £1m of Council spending and members should note that the failure to increase Council tax over a number of years will erode the Council’s underlying revenue position in the longer term.

By January 2012 Ann John had ruled out a rise in the Council Tax as reported by the Brent and Kilburn Times LINK

As I stated at the time: LINK

The [Heaphy] report said that a rise of 2.5% in council tax would close the budget gap as follows:

2012-13 £4.4m
2013-14 £1.1m
2014-15 £19.7m
2015-16 £13.1m

In other words a rise of 2.5% in council tax this year would result in a net gain when the loss of the £2.5m grant is taken into consideration. Some councils are considering this option and some Labour councillors in Brent thought it worthy of debate. However that option appears to have been ruled out in advance of both consultation and decision making.

In November 2012 Assistant Director Finance presented a Budget Report that assumed a 3.5% Council Tax increase (above that triggered a referendum at the time). However the trigger was reduced to 2% (still current).

As I stated on my blog in January 2013 LINK

I understand that there has been discussion in the Brent Executive as to whether to raise Council Tax with the benefit marginal after grant losses and  a reduced collection rate are taken into account. A rise above 2% would have incurred the cost of a local referendum.  It would of course have been another additional cost for people already suffering from benefit cuts and low or frozen wages. An alternative view is that calling the Coalition's bluff and triggering a referendum could result in a proper political debate about the need to adequately fund  local services and the iniquities of the Coalition's grant reduction to local authorities. Only a very small percentage of local government revenue comes from council taxes and charges.

Brent Council leader Muhammed Butt has confirmed via a Facebook interchange with me that there will not be a 2% rise this year. Asked about a possible lower rise he said that the Council was looking at the settlement figures as part of the budgetary process and considering the offer of the freeze grant.

In January 2014 Muhammed Butt said that there were 'no plans' to change policy from freezing Council Tax in the 2014-15 Budget. LINK

I wrote on this blog:

Reflecting on Muhammed Butt's declaration yesterday that there were 'no plans to change course' on freezing council tax for the 2014-15 budget, I wonder what his plans are for 2015-16. In October the Council forecast a deficit for that year of  £34m (see below) a huge amount that on the council's own reckoning will put essential services at risk.

As political parties are deciding their manifestos for the May local elections surely they should be saying something about this crisis waiting for them in their first year of office.

In that respect a manifesto pledge to have a referendum on increasing council tax would make sense. Rank and file Labour party members and the wider public could than have a say and it could provide a launch pad for similar moves by other local authorities.  I do not think increases in council tax are the answer to the huge cuts in local authority funding, that of course requires the restoration of adequate funding, but a national debate post May 2014 leading up to the General Election in 2015 could feed into that demand. It will certainly put the future of local government on the General Election agenda.

Unfortunately despite some efforts at raising the issue and confronting the Coalition with the impact of the cuts, no real movement has emerged and no Referendum challenge..

Brent Council is left with the weakened revenue base that Clive Heaphy warned them about and deeply damaging unpalatable cuts.

It is noteworthy that in the above examples it has been Ann John and Muhammed Butt who appear to have made the decision about a Council Tax rise, although formally of course it is the Full council Meeting.

Where this leaves the Labour Group's support for a modest 1.99% rise, just below the Referendum threshold remains to be seen. Clearly the Cabinet should be taking note of the virews of its own councillors as well as the support shown for services by residents in consultations and in the campaigns that have sprung up to defend services.

If you wish to put your view there is still time to submit a  comment to Brent Council's budget consultation. The deadline is tomorrow, Wednesday February 4th :consultation@brent.gov.uk


 

Brent Youth Parliament must feel free to campaign on youth service cuts

Five years ago Barry Gardiner MP (Brent North) raised the issue of alleged 'intimidation' of Brent Youth Parliament members in the House of Commons  LINK

He said:

Recently, my hon. Friend Ms Butler [Dawn Butler then an MP] invited young people who were members of her Facebook group to visit her in Parliament. Many of those young people were also members of the Brent Youth Parliament. Shortly thereafter, members of the Youth Parliament received a letter from Brent Council's senior lawyer. The letter stressed that Brent Youth Parliament is supported by the London borough of Brent and it counselled them as follows: "You will obviously need to give careful consideration as to whether you wish to align yourself with a particular person or group and what impact this may have on others' perception of you as a Brent Youth Parliament member. If you do decide to participate in local politics, you will need to give consideration as to which person or group you are willing to be connected with and any implications of this."

Many of these young people have been frightened by the letter and regard it as a warning shot. They have previously believed that Brent council was encouraging young people to become politically active, but they now consider that it encourages them only if they are sympathetic to the Liberal Democrats. What action can this House take to ensure that these young people are not bullied in this way by a local authority?

Unfortunately I think the problem is related to the way the Youth Parliament is set up, regardless of the political complexion of the administration. Members 'shadow' particular departments and take part in Council Meetings, Committees etc but this closeness, (incorporation some may say), seems to prevent open, public disagreement with Council policy.

In April 2011 Kishan Parshotam, the Chair of the Brent Youth Parliament, in a presentation to Scrutiny Committee, claimed that the YP was being ignored over their opposition to library closures LINK

In January 2012 a youth wrote to me about his/her concerns regarding the independence of the Youth Parliament LINK

Changes in youth provision are planned in Brent with options  ranging from  outsourcing to voluntary organisation to complete closure of the  youth service.

When these proposals were first announced there was an outbreak of comments from Youth Parliament members on Twitter and then silence descended. I understand that there were suggestions that members should not get involved in party politics, which is rather similar to what was said above during the Liberal Democrat administration.

If Brent Youth Parliament cannot campaign over drastic cuts to the youth service which will impact on young people throughout the borough, what can they campaign on? There was a presentation to the Council meeting on December 15th (see below) but I would expected press publicity at the least and public meetings, visits to youth centres and schools, to gain support for the retention of the service.

Of course Youth Parliamemnt Members should get involved in opposing the cuts - as loudly and vociferously as possible.

That is what happened when cuts were proposed by Ann John's Labour administration and the cuts were opposed  by young people with some success. LINK

A question I wanted to ask at the Scrutiny Committee was not taken. The Safer Neighbourhoods Team has spoken about their work to prevent youth offending and prevent re-offending which included work with gangs based on the Cincinnati model.  The police recognised the roots of crime in inequality and deprivation and the remedy in improved educational outcomes and employment opportunities.

They'd had some success and I wanted to ask what they thought the impact of  cuts in the youth service and the closure of Stonebridge Adventure Playground on their work.

Cllr James Denselow's blog LINK in an article on crime in Brent included this:

Cllr Zaffar Van Kalwala, who represents the Stonebridge ward, works with youths in Brent. He is calling for the availability of more activities in the borough to divert young people away from crime.

He said: “This is terrible news for our young people. Although it’s important we take tough action on youth crime, it’s also important we provide alternatives to keep young people out of crime.

“The government cuts to youth services, such as abolishing Brent Connexions, which gave career advice to young workers, is making it harder, not easier, to tackle youth crime.

“We need to divert our youngsters away from crime and gangs. If not, we could easily see another repeat of the London riots”.

Now as the result of Coalition cuts Brent is proposing to cut the Youth Service.  The social long term impact of cuts made for short-term financial gain is incalculable.

In Haringey, Seema Chandwani, former Deputy Head of Haringey Youth Service wrote in September 2012 LINK:

Tottenham sadly is now on the map for all the wrong reasons, an area that will long be known as the home of the riots and not for the first time as the 1985 riot also took place here. Prior to the riots, as many Youth Workers up and down the country are aware, Young People from Haringey (the borough where Tottenham is located) commenced a campaign to save their Youth Service. Despite their campaign, in Feb 2011 Haringey Council decided to cut the Youth Service by 75%. Cuts started to take effect from April 2011, the riots occurred in Aug 2011.

It will be wrong to state that the closure of the Youth Service led solely to the riots, but knowledge informs us that a circus of social circumstances leads to social disorder. For Young People in Haringey, specifically Tottenham there is an array statistics that demonstrate a negative impact on Young Peoples lives ranging from low educational attainment, high youth unemployment, high crime rates etc. Intelligence should have informed decision makers of the potential risks of the action they were about to make, especially as the Young People and wider community had told them at every juncture – Young People needed their Youth Service.

There was some self-congratulation at the Scrutiny Committee that Brent had not experienced rioting at that time but the message to the Council must be 'Brent Young People need their Youth Service' and Brent Youth Parliament members should feel free to shout that from the roof tops.

The current campaign in Haringey LINK