Cllr James Allie 'utilised' woman's estate meant for South African Charity

Cllr James Allie (Alperton ward) has been ordered to vacate a house and repay additional monies from an estate that he used for his own purposes reports the Daily Mail LINK.

Allie, a solicitor was appointed executor of Ruth Ballin's  £1.56m will which named the Canon Collins Education and Legal Assistance Trust that works in South Africa as benefactor. Canon Collins set up the International  Legal and Defence Fund at the time of the South African Treason Trials in 1956 to provide legal assistance for those facing trail, including Nelson Mandela, and to support their families.

Reporting the Court hearing the Daily Mail states:

..Mr Allie, who at the time worked for legal firm Spence and Horne, hid the news of the bequest from the charity for more than two years, the court was told.

Instead, the councillor is said to have ‘utilised’ her assets to buy a £580,000 property in Brent, where he has been living since it was purchased in 2017.

Cllr Allie was a Liberal Democrat councillor from 2005-2012, standing a the Lib Dem candidiate for Brent North in 2010.

In 2012 he defected to the Labour Party ostensibly over the Lib Dem's role in the Coalition Government LINK

Always a controversial figure a complaint was made against Cllr Allie in 2016 when he was spotted reading the Catholic Herald during a crucial Council debate on savage budget cuts. LINK

Cllr Allie and Cllr Butt in happier times

Former Labour Council James Powney was one of several people who drew attention to the irony of Cllr Allie being appointed as Chair of Brent Council Standards Committee later in 2016 by Council Leader Muhammed Butt. LINK
LINK 

Now Duffy asks about missing councillor and 'jollies' from developers

This is part 2 of Cllr Duffy's correspondence with Cllr James Allie who will be chairing the Standards Committee tonight:

Dear James , 

Here is part two of my concerns please ensure the co-opted member are given a copy. Also if you are not the person or committee who deals with these issues please pass them on to the CEO with the questions as a FOI .

(A) Committee attendance 

James as a member of  the Labour group you are  probably aware that I have been left off committees for the past two years. You maybe also be aware that I won an election to be on scrutiny committee but was then removed and was not placed on any committee whatsoever this year. This is in-spite of the fact that attendance at committee meetings is very  low and the recommendation from the Penn report concerning the death of CIIr Oladapo (Tayo) said under 2.

What, if any, improvements the Council should implement"

(i)consideration should be given as to whether every member of the Council should sit on a sub- committee or committee as well as Full Council to improve the potential for attendance and thereby avoid the possibility of breaching the six months rule. This could also obviate the current practice of using the substitution arrangements to enable members to avoid breaching the six months rule". 

I know you have witnessed the exchange of emails between the Labour Party chief whip Cllr Kabir and myself about this issue of me being removed from all committees. Therefore you can imagine my surprise when just before full council meeting on  last Monday! Cllr  Kabir told me that she had put me on the Licensing committee replacing another councillor, without asking my permission or my availability .I informed Cllr Kabir that I would not stand as I believe it was just cover-up to hide the fact a councillor had moved out of Brent sometime previous  and she was not willing to attend any more meetings than the bare minimum. I also told Cllr Kabir I was not good enough  for the leadership to nominate me for any committee meetings in May,  therefore what had changed by September.

I was at the time and subsequently concerned that the Labour leadership are not being transparent to residents  that  I am being brought into a deception without my knowledge. Also in the Penn report it said "consideration should be given to the way in which ‘apologies for absence’ are managed. Currently there is no requirement for the member concerned to tender their apologies directly or personally as these can be tendered on their behalf by another member or an officer". 
I am concerned that the apologies are being managed by the Chief whip in a blanket fashion and do not relate absences due to illness or any other reason , just the unwillingness of a councillor  to travel to Brent.I  wonder if under standards you would be willing to start an investigation into 

(1) When did the councillor leave Brent?

(2) Was the CEO and the Head of Legal informed ?

(3) If not why not ?

(4) Did the CEO and HOL give any advice?

(B) Hospitality 

As you know there has been a  successful planning application for Tottenham Hotspurs to play at Wembley , many people suggested Tottenham got a good deal  and many local Cllrs objected to the conditions. I have been informed by  a member of the public  both the Leader of the council Cllr Butt and lead member for Regeneration and planning Cllr Tatler have received hospitality from Tottenham since the planning permission was granted. Whereas I have some understanding that we need to keep relations open with the Wembley and their tenant Tottenham,  However I  do not understand why the lead member for planning should participate in hospitality as this could seemingly bring  the planning system into disrepute , therefore I ask you to ensure both these councillors  and any others who have participated in Hospitality declare  the reasons why they were offered hospitality and did they check it with the CEO,before excepting also if you could enquire 

(1) How many tickets were received and value.

(2) Who attended the matches with them.

(3) Reason  for the hospitality ( sometimes its OK to look at an issue of say crowd control ,traffic management, or a new street cleansing practise. However  receiving hospitality should not just be for a "Jolly Boys outing@ for them and their family that is not acceptable)

(4) Can you also enquire whether any other Councillors , Officers or relative have received hospitally from Tottenham or Wembley stadium.

In my experience its best to keep clear of hospitality from developers as ' When you dance with a developer, its always to their tune". I hope you see that a declaration alone without reason is not enough, what we must consider is what the average man /women in the street would think, that is why I ask you to look at the issue.

Cllr Duffy asks Standards Committee to defer his item to allow independent input

Cllr John Duffy, subject of a report going to Standards Committee tonight LINK, has requested that members refer back the report to allow independent input into the matter.

This is his email to Cllr Allie, cahir of the committee.

Dear James , 

I was not informed of this meeting and only read about it on Wembley Matter on the 22^nd September. No doubt the CEO and the head of legal will say I was told six months ago this would be referred to the next meeting, however it is up to you to decide, whether it would be reasonable for CEO to inform me of the date of that meeting once it has been fixed.  

Anyway I am unable to attend tonight for personal reasons. Can you pass this email on to the co-oped members.

Let  me first point out there is no independent input into the report and I refused to accept that officers can come to a decision on selective emails and therefore I refuse to co-operate unless someone who was not on the officers “payroll” was involved.

Let me get things right and state why I believe the CEO was wrong  to leave Brent  to sit on operation Gold. I believe operation GOLD, was a complete waste of time,it's not my opinion it's the opinion of many  people.I strongly believe that quangos very seldom solve problems and I believe I have a right to voice that, as we live in a democracy.

In the aftermath of the disaster I believe the Ministers were wrong to set up a quangos of CEOs as many of the victims believed senior officers were responsible for not listening to them. What was needed were operation teams with hands on experience of logistics  and how to deal with problems that would arise from Re -Housing, Social Services , Bereavement counselling, Food distribution etc. CEO could play a role by nominating their best officers and put them into the field with resources.The ministers view that we need more Chiefs instead of Indians was proven wrong. 

The following day I went down to South Kilburn  and identified two blocks I believe were of concern, George and Swift House and raised it with the CEO during the next few days neither the CEO, the lead member for housing Cllr Harbi, the lead member for Regeneration Cllr Tatler appeared in South Kilburn, even though they were aware of SK  close proximity to Grenfell and the  fabric of the buildings was similar.

The officers on site did a sterling job on ensuring all survey were carried out.I also recognised that the Leader and Deputy Leader and the MP Tulip Siddiq (who chaired a very well received meeting) turned up to reassure residents.

However the CEO's decision not to support a emergency meeting was in my opinion wrong. It was clear the meeting may have been difficult as many resident needed to vent their  anger and frustration.

The CEO had a number of options of how to respond to the request from the 5 Councillors,Cllr Chan and Cllr Hector requested a meeting via all councillor email which included the Mayor.  

She could have supported the meeting and assist the members who were calling for a meeting to get passed, or to ignore those members of the council and use the bureaucratic tactics to ensure it did not take place. The CEO then compounded the issue saying a meeting would take place but the residents would be barred and the meeting would last no -longer than a ½ hour.I believe the later decision was  the worst decisionand an affront to the democratic process 

I believe the CEO was wrong so I am releasing some of the private emails LINK between the CEO and myself and other officers,which may explain what was going on at the time,means from the bottom-up.

I do have respect for the CEO and I believe she is very competent, however she is not infallible and on this occasion I believe she made a mistake on this occasion.

Overall I believe Brent officers did well following the Grenfell disaster. Therefore I think the CEO should concentrate on where we agree not where we disagree. 

I would ask committee members to refer the report back to allow independent input into the report.

I have other things I wish to raise with the standards  which I will send you later to today before the meeting .

The emails Cllr Duffy refers to can be found on his blog Kilburn Calling HERE

Slippery Standards meeting on Butt complaint

 

Cllr Muhammed Butt

I was unable to attend last night's Brent Standard's Committee Meeting last night as I was chairing a school governing body meeting elsewhere. It appears I missed a fascinating event. I am grateful to Cllr John Warren for providing the following first-hand account. Any views expressed are his own as I was not present.
 

I had a fascinating evening at last night’s Standards Committee..... it was 50 extraordinary minutes. The only item to discuss was the Penn report on Cllr. Butt - whether he had breached the members' code of conduct in his role in the " Tayo Oladapo " saga?

When I entered the meeting I thought I was in the wrong place, as the public gallery was packed. Why were there so many people here? On closer examination it was more like a Council meeting - not a packed public gallery you understand, but the number of Councilors in attendance.

Cllr.Allie was in the Chair.... as the meeting moved on he contributed very little. I was going to challenge Cllr.Kabir as not being an objective Committee member. I was going to refer to her e-mail to Labour members telling them to " rally round their leader." However, the redoubtable Cllr.Mahmood substituted for her.

I did challenge Cllr.Allie, however, on the grounds that he had been involved twice previously with Cllr.Butt in potential changes in political allegiance...and so was too close to him to be objective. The only response I got from Cllr.Allie was a series of scowls.

The meeting progressed with officers going through Mr. Penn’s report. It seemed that only Cllr. Collier and myself were engaging in this report, although Cllr. Collier was heckled for his efforts. From my position it looked like  Cllr. Wilhemina Mitchell-Murray was the main cheerleader.

In my experience Committee chairs take the lead. Not this chair! The report revolved around the meeting of Cllr. Butt and the Labour party official on 2/3/16.

Why did Cllr. Butt specifically ask her to make enquiries about Tao - after all he had all the Council resources available for others to take on this task?

Why did he not follow up on this enquiry- seemingly not being pro-active in finding out what the official had found out? As we know she found out that Tao had died five weeks earlier.

Why did this party official put her career on the line by making her statement?

Eventually, Cllr.Mahmood's contribution was to read verbatim the Penn recommendations. These stated that Cllr.Butt was not in breach of the code of conduct. In doing so, Cllr.Mahmood informed us that he had not read the whole report on which he was about to vote.

Oh yes, I forgot that Cllr.Krupa Sheth was also part of this committee.

The inevitable outcome was that the Penn recommendations were agreed. When it is one person' s word against another with no independent witnesses it is difficult to argue otherwise.

I found the whole exercise an experience I do not wish to repeat, and left with a feeling of sadness that a young Councillor - who died ridiculously too soon - had figured in an unwanted part of Brent Council history.