Brent Council passes second cuts budget

Brent Council tonight approved the 2012-13 cuts budget that had previously been passed by the Executive. In addition they approved an amendment in the name of Ann John that doubled the amount of money in Ward Working to £40,000 per ward. Cllr John justified this on the basis that this was an area where councillors could really make a difference. The move is likely to be controversial beyond the council as it was not included in the budget plans discussed at Area Forums. Cllr Kasagra, leader of the Conservatives. dismissed Ward Working  as a method of councillor self promotion.

In her budget speech Cllr John said that the council was faced with an ongoing and increasingly difficult process in dealing with the funding cuts imposed by the Coalition government. She said that government policies were 'hurting but not working'. In a wide ranging survey of the economic situation she said that the crisis had been caused by greedy bankers but that 'the greed of the minority was being paid for by austerity for the majority'.

John detailed how benefit changes and the housing benefit cap would impact on Brent's poorest families and added that the Localisation of Council Benefits would force the council to decide whose benefits should be cut.  However, she went on to claim that having a Labour Council could make a real difference and expressed pride in the administration and in staff who had experienced pay freezes, increased pension contributions and job losses but who 'knew the Civic Centre made sense and had responded magnificently. In Brent we are really working together'.

Ann John said that the council's new priority, faced with Brent's young people going straight from school or university into long-term unemployment,  would be to tackle the lack of social mobility in the borough.. The council will set up am independently chaired Commission on Social Mobility, set up a new employment agency and refocus the work of BACES to concentrate on employment and employability.

 John listed council 'successes' including freezing the council tax, increased recycling, green charter, fair trade status and protecting parks and open spaces (no mention of privatisation). She said that in future schools would be expected to contribute to the whole community: 'especially news schools with state of the art facilities'.

Cllr John and Cllr Muhammed Butt both continued to claim that the funding was horrendous but at the same time that they were somehow able to protect the vulnerable, despite the cuts they were being forced to make. This contradictory approach was even more apparent when Butt boasted that the council had been able to protect incomes of residents  by freezing the council tax and later condemning the Coalition's grant that enabled the tax to be frozen as a bribe and something that would undermine revenue in the future.

Cllr John's presentation was listened to in respectful near silence by the Opposition but Labour jeered at Paul Lober (Lib Dem leader) and other Opposition councillors when they spoke. When the Conservative leader rose to speak Ann John pointedly got up from her seat and toured the Labour benches, stopping for a chat here and there.

The Lib Dem amendment sought to restore funding for libraries, end cuts in school crossing patrols, merge the Festivals Unit in the Grants Unit, reinstate Green Zones , reinstate the graffiti clean up team restore funding cuts mad ein the Summer University and Duke of Edinburgh Scheme,; and deal  with litter 'hotspots'. £500,000 from the Icelandic bank 'windfall' would be used for essential priorities and another £500,000 for a parking scheme to encourage local shopping. Cllr Lorber said the Lib Dems would invest in local people, local services and the things local people value.

Cllr  Suresh Kansagra, leader of the Conservative group made a confused and confusing speech which also sought to reinstate library closures and opposed the increase in ward working money. The amendment seemed to be predicated on spending some of the council reserves,

Several Executive members read out prepared speeches and the debate descended into knock-about stuff with Cllr Zaffar Van Kalwala, to Opposition cries of 'Brent's Best Banker', making yet another barn-storming speech to fuel his bid to beat Dawn Butler for Labour's Brent Central parliamentary candidate nomination.

Cllr Rev David Clues (Lib Dem) brought a chastening tone to the proceedings by saying that the council did best when councillors worked together for the benefit of local people and acknowledged work Ann John had done with him on trafficking and the sex industry. In the context of the libraries he warned the council not to worsen economic poverty by lurching into cultural poverty.

Voting was on strict party lines with no divergence so the Opposition amendments were lost and the budget, with the ward working amendment, passed.

It was noteworthy that with Labour concentrating on government cuts and benefit changes and the Opposition restricting themselves to libraries and parking that there was no one challenging the council cuts that will impact on vulnerable children,  children with special educational needs, people with disabilities and those with mental health needs. With Brent Fightback barred from making representations to the council and the three main parties accepting the limits on spending set by the Coalition, no alternative strategy for council budget setting was put forward. A whole swathe of the population is unrepresented and silenced.

Labour the 'Third Tory Party' on cuts - Lucas

IT'S TIME FOR BRENT PEOPLE TO MAKE THEIR VOICES HEARD

This week I have been giving out publicity for the Brent People's Assembly along with other activists.  Shoppers in Harlesden High Street and  parents at school gates expressed their concern about the cuts and how they are impacting directly, and indirectly, on children.

With both the Coalition Government and Brent Council appearing to ignore the views of local people,  the People's Assembly has been organised as a forum where people can make their voices heard and talk about what the cuts are doing to them and their families.

We will hear about these experience and about the campaigns that are going on locally. This is a chance for the Brent community to get together and organise to make sure their children have a future.

BRENT PEOPLE'S ASSEMBLY

GIVE OUR KIDS A CHANCE 

Saturday November 12th 12.30 - 4.30 pm

Harlesden Methodist Church, 25 High St, NW10 4NE

(Just around the corner from Jubilee Clock)

 

The timetable for the day is:

 

12.45-1.30 Opening speeches:

 

Lee Jasper (Black Activists Rising Against Cuts),

Jeremy Taylor (National Union of teachers)

Kishan Parshotam (Chair, Brent Youth Parliament),

Speaker from Brent SOS Libraries Campaign

1.30-2.30 Workshops (all same subject):

Experience of cuts, successful campaign strategies, next steps

2.30-3.00 Refreshments plus video One Million Climate Jobs

3.00-4.00 Any Questions? 

Two Brent Labour Councillors and Sarah Cox and Pete Firmin from Brent Fightback answer questions from the audience

4.00-4.30 Reports from workshops and the way ahead

Kids are welcome and there will be some provision for them

Europe Against Austerity Conference Oct 1st

EUROPE AGAINST
AUSTERITY CONFERENCE

Saturday 1st October, London

Should Greece default?
Has the euro got a future?
Is there an alternative to cuts?
Are we facing ‘double dip’ recession?

As the European economic crisis worsens and ordinary people are made to pay, hear what the left parties and campaigns across Europe have to say. Take the opportunity to be part of the debate: join us to discuss alternatives and action for change.

Speakers include: Jeremy Corbyn MP; Unite; NUJ; Pierre Laurent, Party of the European Left; Sevim Dagdelen MP Die Linke; Sinn Fein; Olivier Besancenot NPA; Annick Coupe Solidaires, France; Max Banc Attac Germany; Piero Bernocchi COBAS, Italy; Prof Costas Lapavitsas, SOAS; Marisa Matias MEP, Left Bloc, Portugal

Registration: £5 waged / £3 unwaged / £10 delegates from organisations

More info from www.europeagainstausterity.org / coalitionofresistance@gmail.com / +44(0)7939 242229

Conference initiated by Coalition of Resistance.

Executive will make weighty decisions tonight - at breakneck speed?

I am unable to make tonight's Brent Executive Meeting because of another meeting but Wembley Matters readers may be interested in some of the items coming up. It starts at 7pm but don't be late - it will probably be over by 7.30pm despite the major items on the agenda.

Petitions on the retention of school crossing patrols will be presented and the Executive are likely to revise the cuts and delay implementation. However they remain on the back-burner and there is likely to be a gradual reduction in the hope it will attract less publicity.

The Executive will decide on a public consultation on the Wembley Action Plan in the light of changing economic conditions with possible re-zoning of some areas. Officers will seek endorsement of their response to the Government's consultation on High Speed 2 with representations of the Oak Oak interchange to Crossrail and concerns about the impact of tunnelling on houses in Kensal Green.

Changes will be sought in the Articles of Association of Brent Housing Partnership in preparation for it becoming an enhanced ALMO (Arms Length Management Association). A revised system of payments for Adult Social Services will be presented which will see some paying more for services, some less and some unchanged according to the Council. The documentation is extremely complex and the Mayor may offer prizes to anyone who understands it!

The Executive will vote to close Knowles House residential Home and Westbrook Day Centre despite the opposition of many residents and their families. They will seek to reassure users that there will be re-provision of care by' independent and voluntary agencies as near to family and friends as possible'.

New rules on the Taxicard Scheme will be agreed to reduce a projected 'over-spend'. Changes will include the limit on trips using the scheme being reduced from 96 to 48.

The very full Preventing Youth Offending Task Group Report will be presented. It stresses the importance of early intervention and has 19 recommendations for action across the Council. It merits full discussion but probably won't get it on the basis that such discussions have taken place elsewhere.

To end with better news the Executive will make a decision on renewal of the Brent Citizens Advice and Law Centre for 6 months.

Full documentation can be found on the Council website. To avoid multiple clicking follow this LINK

BNCTV on street sweeping cuts

To support the e-petition against the cuts in street cleaning go to www.brent.gov.uk/epetitions

Thanks to BNCTV HERE

Brent Fightback Meeting Postponed

The Brent Fightback meeting planned for tomorrow (Tuesday) evening is being postponed. There are other important events that some of Fightback's most active supporters will be attending, principally the Barnet Council Unison strike rally and the Public Meeting on Kingsbury High School  in the main hall of the Father O'Callaghan Centre, 26 Hay Lane at 7.00 pm.

Lollipop patrol cuts withdrawn for time being

Officers are to recommend, following the strong responses to the consultation,  that the Council should not proceed with the cuts in school crossing patrols 'at this time'. The full receommendations are below:

2.1 Agree not to proceed with the proposed withdrawal of School Crossing Patrol officers at this time,

2.2 Agree that the Director of Environment & Neighbourhood Services, together with the Director of Children & Families, undertake a detailed consultation with schools, including governors, encouraging them to contribute voluntarily to the costs of the service and further promoting the importance of road safety
education in schools,

2.3 Agree the adoption of the risk evaluation matrix set out in Section 4.2, based on rates of vehicular and pedestrian traffic flows, additional risk factors and evaluation of mitigation, and the safety ranking of sites implied by that matrix,

2.4 Agree that this matrix be used to prioritise the deployment of school crossing patrol officers at such time when there is natural turnover of staff within the service, ensuring that sites with a higher risk assessment (with an adjusted score greater than 1x106) are prioritised for cover.

2.5 Note the prioritisation of risk mitigation measures at school crossing patrol sites, particularly the introduction of speed reduction interventions and controlled crossings that will continue to reduce the adjusted risk scores of sites.

Brent Fightback recently staged a well-publicised demonstration in Kilburn against the cuts in school crossing patrols and street sweeping. The Council received the following petitions:

1. Save Brent’s Lollipops

“I believe the safety of children is very important. I oppose Labour’s plans to scrap my local lollipop person and the school crossing patrol they provide.”(Some with above generic statement, others include specific reference to particular crossings in the borough in Sudbury, Convent of Jesus and Mary Infants, Park Avenue and High Road Willesden). (529 signatures approx.)
From: Brent Liberal Democrats

2. Petition is support of Simon Isaacs from the Parents of Gladstone Park Primary School
“We the undersigned wish to express the strongest possible support for Simon Isaacs our school
crossing patrolman. We want to emphasise the quality of his personal influence on the safety of
children. Pointing out how his happy, positive and inclusive manner affects the whole community
crucially including passing drivers with no connection to the school. This criterion to the exclusion
of others should be the most important for judging whether he remains in post.”
From: Gladstone Park Primary School PSA Committee (301 signatures approx.)

3. The proposed plans to cut the fund for our School Crossing Patrol
“We the parents and children of Leopold School and residents object to our school losing our lollipop lady during the staff cutbacks. She is a valuable community member actively preventing accidents and fatalities around the school in the morning and afternoon. We would like Brent Council to reconsider its decision and keep our lollipop lady.”

From: Leopold Primary School (321 signatures approx.)
4. Petition – objection to proposed changes to the School Crossing Patrol
“We the undersigned are deeply unhappy at Brent Council’s decision to sack 30 of the 47 School Crossing Patrol Officers currently working near Brent’s schools, despite the high rates of child injury and fatality in this country, including many tragic accidents in Brent. We are also very unhappy at Brent allowing just one month for consultation, which gives no real chance for views to be gathered or for preparations to be made. The so-called consultation process is woefully inadequate.

We therefore demand that Brent’s current plans be suspended, pending adequate consultation
and consideration of all the issues.”

Lead petitioner: George Burn (682 signatures approx.)

ESOL REPRIEVE - more to fight for

The Dept of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) led by minister John Hayes has reversed its decision to make cuts to funding which would have excluded up to 75% of adults on so called ‘inactive’ benefits.

This attack represented a huge threat to adult and further education affecting some of the poorest students in inner cities mainly from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds especially women who desperately want to learn English to support their children, find work, access education and play a full role in their communities.

This means most of the 250,000 adult places that were are risk this year can be saved and is an important victory for the Action for ESOL campaign.
The campaign included parliamentary lobbying by MPs, National Institute of Adult and Community Education (NIACE), the principals’ association (AoC), Refugee Council and the University and College Union (UCU). In addition colleges up and down the country held ESOL teach-ins and demonstrations which gave ESOL students a voice and exposed the hypocrisy of making some of the poorest people in society pay for a crisis not of their making. 

In London over 500 hundred ESOL students and teachers participated in a teach-out near Parliament and marched to Downing Street to hand in a 20,000 strong petition to Save ESOL.

 The u-turn means that the money is now there for ESOL. Colleges across the country have already begun to contact students who were turned away, asking them to come back and enrol for classes this year, refund students who had been charged fees, and some ESOL teachers who had been made redundant are being re-instated.

The reprieve is only for one year and the campaign still needs to fight for asylum seekers and those on working tax credit who have been excluded from the concessions.

This victory shows that campaigning together, ESOL students with the wider community and trade union movement, can work. Campaigners are now in a much stronger position to fight to defend ESOL and the eligibility changes planned for the coming year and the strength of the campaign can be used to go on the offensive to reverse the attacks on community Outreach provision, access to Adult Education and the defence of post-16 education. Is an important turning point in the campaign to defend ESOL and all Adult education and signals a way forward to address some of the frustration and inequality that people feel which fuelled the recent riots.

Thanks to the Education Activists Alliance for this  LINK

Making Brent A Dirty and Dangerous Borough

Brent Fightback supporters demonstrated on Kilburn High Road on Saturday morning against Brent Council's proposed cuts in street cleansing and school crossing patrols.

Most residential streets will now be only swept once a week, compared with three times under the previous administration which vowed to make Brent  'a cleaner borough'. The seasonal leaf service will be stopped with even Labour councillors warning of accidents when elderly residents slip on wet, decomposing leaves. Local solicitors should open their files now ready for a rush of custom in October when the cuts are implemented and the leaves (and the elderly) fall.

The Labour council are still reviewing school crossing patrols but intend to cut them forcing schools which want to ensure that their children are safe to pay for the crossing patrols themselves. This is a departure from the basic understanding that road safety is a responsibility of the whole community and provided through that community's local council which residents  fund.

I was just going to add as a joke that perhaps local businesses will start sponsoring lollipop patrols with their logo on the back of high visibility coats - then realised that this Council will probably leap on the idea. Or perhaps we'll end up with 'pay as you cross' with the kids thrusting 10p into the hand of the crossing patrol officer to see them across the busy roads with the ones unable to afford it having to cross at their own risk!

Protecting the vulnerable?

The full report on the street cleansing cuts can be found HERE

Brooms and Lollipops Protest in Kilburn

Brent Fightback are to hold a protest in Kilburn Square, Kilburn High Road from 11am on Saturday.

Supporters will be bringing brooms and 'lollipops' to protest against Brent Council's cuts in street sweeping and school crossing patrols. Veolia, the borough's cleaning contractor will make up to 50 street sweepers redundant in October and details of the numbers of school crossing patrols to be cut is currently under review.

The street sweeping cuts will mean that outlying residential streets will be swept just once a week instead of the three times they were swept under the previous administration.  All street sweeping in the borough will end at 2pm on Saturday and Sunday. Council officers said the event days at Wembley Stadium, when local streets are often scattered with beer cans and takeaway cartons, will come under a different budget but details have not been made clear.

The additional seasonal leaf clearance service will also end. Officers said leaves will be cleared in the normal scheduled sweep but as that it only once a week it is unclear whether workers will be able to keep on top of the job. Previously leaves were bagged and sent for composting and again it is unclear whether that will still be done. If it isn't Brent green credential will take a battering.

Concerns have been raised by residents about street safety if rotting leaves are left on pavements and become wet and icy in the autumn months.  Safety concerns have also been expressed about the safety of school children if school crossing patrol cuts go ahead. Both groups of workers suffer from low pay but are vital to the well-being of the community.

Brent Fightback welcomes any support. Please bring brooms and home-made lollipops, plus placards to Kilburn Square at 11am on Saturday.

Europe Against Austerity takes off

 With the heebie-jeebies spreading across world stock markets and talk of more failures of both banks and sovereign states it seems apt that supporters of alternatives to this failing system have got themselves organised across Europe.

A new website has been set up called 'Europe Against Austerity and Privatisation and in Defence of the Welfare State'. Not exactly a snappy title but one that describes exactly what is is about.

A European conference has been organised in London on October 1st to begin a fresh round in the battle against solutions that penalise the poor.


LINK

Brent: London's dirtiest Olympic borough

I chatted to a couple of street sweepers yesterday who had known nothing about Council plans to cut back on street sweeping with the potential loss of up to 50 jobs. This is the full statement I made to the local newspapers after Monday's Executive decision.

After these cuts Brent will be London's dirtiest Olympic borough. Once again the Council is sacking the lowest paid but most socially useful of its employees. Autumn leaves are beautiful and fun when they first fall but as they rot on pavements soon become unpleasant and slippery. Covered in a sheen of ice they are lethal. Brent Council may end up paying out an arm and leg to ambulance chasing solicitors.

More Brent Council cuts ahead

Click on image to enlarge

The financial difficulty facing Brent Council is starkly illustrated by this table from the Budget document going before the Executive on Monday. More light may be shed on the situation when the local Government Review is published later this month and the Council is able to forecast its revenue more accurately. However, the figures are not likely to change very significantly and further cuts are likely if the Council continues its present policy.

The situation makes it even more important to develop mass resistance to cuts and challenge the government's policy.

Clive Heaphy, Director of Finance and Corporate Services, outlines savings that can be made through the One Council Programme and tight control of expenditure elsewhere. The sharing of more services with other borough and a full review of grants to voluntary organisation are envisaged. In a key passage Heaphy refers to:

Areas no longer funded by specific grants (e.g. Sure Start) where it can be assumed that no service will be continued  by the Council unless a business case can be made to justify their continuance along with identified funding.

There will be a budget 'Away Day' shortly when councillors and officers will consider the areas for review for the 2012-13 budget (see below):

Click to enlarge

The People of Tower Hamlets Speak Out on Cuts

Don't Blame the Workers!

As Brent Council moves into the second phase of redundancies many of the remaining local government workers are finding themselves taking on additional work.  This is not just the work of those who have been made redundant as a result of cuts but also extra work  caused by the increased needs of Brent residents hit by cuts and the recession.

I recently received an e-mail from a Brent employee sent from their office at 7.30pm. Increased work demands result in longer (often unpaid) hours, increased stress and eventually increased sickness.  As a result so-called 'efficiency savings' actually result in inefficiency.This is exacerbated by the fact that many senior staff have taken redundancy leaving less experienced colleagues to deal with complex issues. The result is errors, delays and even loss of some funding in the case of the temporary primary school expansion programme. The setting of final school budgets for the current financial year have been delayed as firm figures are not yet available from the Council and it is likely that schools will not be able to submit their final figures, approved by governing bodies, until June. This may cause cash flow problems in some schools.

The central education services provided by the Council, which are 'bought-in' by schools, have had their workforces cut but the schools are being charged more. Many schools are looking to buy them from elsewhere on the basis that this offer is poor value for money (they have a statutory duty to look for 'best value') but information on Council service level agreements and precise costings were received so late in the budget making process that there has not been time to do this effectively. Other schools have reduced the number of services they buy-in, while some have wanted to support the local authority and decided to buy-in for this year and review the situation in 2012.

As different departments seek to meet savings targets and manage workload boundaries become more strictly policed, and disputes arise about which department is responsible for a particular area. Disputes involving say the clearing of rubbish from a vicinity arise as the Parks Department, Streetcare and Brent Housing Partnership all claim it is not their responsibility.  At a broader level there are likely to be disputes between the Council and Health over funding of particular areas of special needs such as speech therapy.

Inaccuracies, delays and lack of response are all likely to irritate the general public and infuriate them at times. Rather than blame the poor workers who are trying to hold things together against the odds we should put the blame firmly where it belongs: the Coalition for reducing local government funding and front-loading the cuts and the Labour Party and Labour councils for not putting up more of a fight.

Could a 'Needs Budget' unite us?

It was clear as I was chatting during the by-election count on Thursday evening that there is a great deal of disquiet amongst some Labour councillors about the Council's cuts programme.

 "Me! Closing libraries... I can't believe it!" was the comment from one Labour councillor, while a former Lib Dem councillor lamented the lack of political power of ruling group councillors who aren't on the Executive. He said that the new 'cabinet' form of local government sharply reduced the role of 'back-bench' councillors.  It is those Labour councillors, often newly elected, who stood last time in order to improve the quality of life of Brent residents, who will be faced with a stark choice on February 28th when the full Council meeting is due to vote on the budget.

The Labour leadership has undermined its own position to some extent because they have denied that the cuts they propose will have a detrimental impact on already disadvantaged local people. To make the cuts palatable they have sought to placate opposition by insisting that those most in need will be protected and that the quality of service, despite massive staff cuts, will be maintained.   Added to this they have sometimes echoed David Cameron's 'Big Society' smokescreen by calling for volunteers to run libraries and other services. The people of Brent aren't fools and can see through the spin.

The Labour leadership thus separates itself from local community activists, users' groups and trades unionists who seek to defend public services. Rank and file councillors find themselves at odds with erstwhile friends, colleagues and comrades and some are sickened by the position they find themselves in.

Rather than act as the Coalition's bailiff's, Labour could be taking the lead in fighting the Coalition's cuts imposed at local and national government level by constructing a 'needs-led' budget in collaboration with local activists.  Rather than deny that the cuts will hit the most vulnerable they would analyse what services local people need to survive the forthcoming period of  economic turn-down and social stress and cost them.  They would also look at what investment and job creation needs to be made locally order for Brent  to move out of recession.   Such a budget would, for example,  immediately show that cuts in children centres, youth provision and Brent Law Centre are counter to the needs of local people.

Armed with this budget, and the detailed analysis on which it is based,  the Council could fight a campaign, alongside organisations such as Brent Fightback, against the Coalition cuts and make the case for fair funding for Brent based on the needs of the population.   They could also unite with Labour councils elected across London at the last election in a London wide campaign publicising the irrevocable damage public service cuts will cause.

LINK to report on similar campaign in Portsmouth

Green alternative to destruction of public services by Tories, Lib Dems and Labour

Caroline Lucas, Green MP and Green Party leader, had the following letter published in the Independent today.

“Deficit denier” is a very ugly term for those of us who have a positive and constructive viewpoint on managing the country’s financial and other problems.

We can make full acknowledgement of the deficit, and still identify different options for dealing with it. The response of ruthless cuts and austerity measures is an ideological choice made by the big three parties. For Labour and some Lib Dems to criticise the “pace and scale” of the cuts is still a pro-cuts, pro-austerity choice.

The Green Party, many unions and some economists have proposed an alternative choice. This would involve cracking down on tax avoidance and tax evasion, saving billions every year. It would involve the wealthiest people in society pay a fairer share. It would mean saving £100bn over thirty years by scrapping Trident and its proposed replacement. It would involve a windfall tax on bank profits as well as a heavy tax on bankers’ bonuses. It would mean reducing the deficit more slowly, and thus avoiding these savage cuts. It would mean smart switching of funds from high-carbon to carbon-reduction spending (for example away from motorway-building and into public transport), and other ways of generating funds such as a green investment bank. 

It would mean having enough cash to invest heavily in a Green New Deal – a major plan to kickstart the transformation to a post-carbon economy while creating a million new jobs and training places. And the new jobs would in turn bring in extra revenue to support public spending (whereas cuts will cost the country a million jobs).

Greens and many others who do not “deny the deficit” would prefer the government to make this ideological choice – based on fairness and sustainability – not the one based on destroying public services and punishing the poorest people in society.

Mental Health Day Service Cuts

The Agenda for the Jan 17th Executive has just been published. It includes Decommissioning of the Mental Health Community Networks Day Care Service.

The introduction  states:

To reflect the shift towards independence and personalisation within Adult Social Care a review of all services is being undertaken to ensure services are appropriate and sustainable. Given the changing environment and the need for efficiency savings by the Council across Mental Health and the wider organisation a plan to decommission the Community Networks Day Care Service has been proposed. Community Networks provides Day Care to approximately 175 mental health clients in the Brent Borough.

The report gives the following risk assessment:

Possible risk implications
• Reduced care package support may lead to bed blockages and delayed discharges
• Limited capacity to move people on from secondary care services to non statutory
local support
• Longer lengths of stay in supported housing due to lack of capacity to move service
users on to independent living
• Fewer staff to steer service users through the SDS process, which will impact on
Council performance targets
• Current support into employment will be reduced and will therefore impact on the
Council’s performance target.
• Possible local opposition to closure of long-established direct day care provision
• Increased pressure on Mental Health Care Coordinators caseloads

Save Our Libraries

Brent Council call it the 'Libraries Transformation Project' - I prefer to call it the Libraries Closure Programme as it involves the closure of 6 out of Brent's 12 public libraries with the remainder becoming 'community hubs' (whatever that means).

The consultation programme begins this evening at Brent Town Hall with a public meeting about the proposals at 6.30pm.  This is followed by an Open Day 10.30am-1pm and 2.30 - 5pm on Wednesday January 12th at Willesden Green Library.

The proposals will also be discussed at the Area Consultation Forums. In addition. according to the local press, the leader of the Council Cllr Ann John and deputy Cllr Muhammed Butt will also attend to talk about council cuts in general.

AREA CONSULTATION FORUM DATES AND VENUES

HARLESDEN Tuesday January 11th 7pm All Souls Church
KILBURN AND KENSAL RISE Wednesday January 12th 7pm Queens Park Community School
WEMBLEY Tuesday January 18th 7pm Patidar House, London Road
WILLESDEN Wednesday January 19th College of North West London, Dudden Hill Lane
KINGSBURY AND KENTON* Wednesday February 9th, Kingsbury High School

I hope the Council will be challenged on how they have arrived at its 'footfall' figures - do libraries have someone standing at the door counting how many people enter? I doubt it and book lending figures don't include visitors who use the library for other purposes than borrowing books.  Another issue that has come up from some campaigners is reducing opening hours across the board rather than library closures. The figures of a 40% cut in opening times producing the required savings has been mentioned. It is argued this would preserve all the library buildings, six of which would otherwise be lost for good, and enable opening hours to be extended again in a more favourable economic climate. Clearly their are  pros and cons to this option but we need to know if its has been considered.  

Finally there is the puzzling proposal, not yet finalised to close Willesden Green Library for 2 years while the site is redeveloped to include revenue producing flats. This would mean the temporary  closure of the flagship 'hub' in the south of the borough as well as the permanent closure of 6 libraries. Strategic thinking?