FURTHER UPDATE: Dismay at closure of Brent Law Centre

Staff protest in 2011

After being hit with funding cuts and warnings of imminent closure for almost a decade I understand that Brent Law Centre has finally closed its doors.

Law Centres have been affected by cuts in funding via local authorities and through the Legal Aid Reform Act.  Neighbouring Barnet lost its Law Centre a while ago and Lambeth was forced to close last year.

Brent Law Centre had to stop direct applications for help due to funding cuts and only accept referrals via Brent Citizens Advice Bureau which itself was overloaded with cases LINK.  The only alternative was the mainly on-line BAM (Brent Advice Matters).

Whatever the government says austerity is far from over and it is shameful that an organisation that helped the victims of austerity is now itself a victim.  Brent Law Centre joins Brent Disability Concern that had to close its office when the NHS demanded a market rent LINK and the Council refused help,  and Brent Energy Solutions  LINK which limped along for a while after Brent Council cut its grant but eventually had to close.

This morning Cllr Ketan Sheth tweeted:

Very disappointed that the Brent Community Law Centre has closed. It was much used and appreciated lifeline for many, many residents over the past decades and is truly sad news...

While Cllr Roxanne Mashari responded:

I can't believe this was allowed to happen.

In response Brent Cabinet member Cllr Tom Miller  told his colleagues that he had outlined the issues affecting the Law Centre in the Labour Group and at Willesden Green ward meetings and said he was willing to answer their questions on the way forward.

He said:

The Council has bought the building as part of a plan aimed at rescuing the organisation and worked out in partnership with it. Brent Community Law Centre had become financially unviable for several reasons which I won't go into here.

He told Wembley Matters:

My colleagues are totally correct that this is an important institution worthy of protection. There are financial issues considerably bigger than just the relationship with Brent. I think there are short and long term solutions too, but right now it's crisis support.

Veteran campaigner Sarah Cox reacted on Facebook:

 I was dismayed the other day to see both Brent Law Centre and the nearby Citizens Advice Bureau in Willesden High Rd closed. Never has it been so necessary for people to have access to the help and advice these two organisations provided. Austerity, the new racist immigration laws, the punitive and unjust Universal Credit system all put people into terrible situations where they desperately need help.

UPDATE:

According to the Kilburn Times today (March 11th)  LINK the Law Centre building was sold to Brent Council in January:

A council spokesperson told the Kilburn Times that they could not comment on the building purchase, adding: 'We have been working with BCLC to identify alternative ways for it to deliver services to Brent residents and will continue to support them in whatever way we can.'

Nimrod Ben-Cnaan, head of policy at the Law Centres Network, said: 'With these financial challenges and other considerations in mind, the law centre's trustees have decided that closing the service at this time was the best way forward, when it is still solvent and an orderly closure could be maintained to protect clients.' 

The Brent Council statements raises more questions that it answers and given Ketan Sheth's concern I hope that the Council's decisions on this are called in for public scrutiny.

It would be a scandal if the Law Centre building, which has served Brent residents needing local support and advice for nearly 50 years ends up as a block of unaffordable flats and legal advice continuing as only a skeleton service from premises as yet unknown.

As fuel poverty increases the lifeline Energy Solutions closes

Planet House bathed in Autumn sunshine

Brent Council has confirmed that Energy Solutions, based at Planet House in Birchen Grove, Kingsbury has closed. The Council cuts its £50,000 grant in 2015 despite it having saved its clients in excess of £717,000 in disputed or refunded gas and electricity bills, trust fund applications and ECO funded affordable warmth measures (heating and insulation) since 2012 and contributing to the borough's carbon reduction programme.

I made the case for the continuation of the grant in January 2015 but to no avail. LINK

The charity soldiered on seeking alternative funding and curtailing its activities but finally appears to have decided it couldn't go on, much to the loss of the local hard-pressed community.

 Energy Solutions was based at the end of Birchen Grove in a building that was constructed as a chapel for the lawn cemetery which had been planned in the 1930s but never materialised. I understand that the surrounding area, which includes the Welsh Harp Environmental Education Centre (taken over by Thames21 after it too lost its grant) and allotments is still consecrated ground.

A Brent Spokesperson said today, 'Energy Solutions is unfortunately closing down. Brent Council is planning to market Planet House on a leasehold basis.'

Here is a reminder of  Energy Solutions' valuable work. I am sure that readers will join me in thanking the staff for all that they did for the community.

 

Protest against Brent budget cuts Monday 6.30pm Brent Civic Centre

Brent Fightback will be demonstrating outside the Civic Centre on Monday at 6.30pm as councillors prepare to vote on a budget that will see the closure of the Stonebridge Adventure Playground, the beginning of the likely end of Energy Solutions, the closure of the Welsh Harp Environmental Education Centre (unless Careys come up with the goods) and the shifting of the cost of school crossing patrols from the Council to individual schools (if the schools agree to spend their money on them).

Last weekend Brent Fightback presented an invoice to the Liberal Democrat and Conservative offices in Brent for the money taken from Brent Council since the Coalition took office.

Brent Labour slams down the shutters over Council Tax debate

My grandad, brought up in the Victorian era, had a rich collection of' 'naughty' sayings and rhymes.   Apparently innocuous when said slowly, they were rude when spoken quickly. He delighted in encouraging his grandchildren to utter them at speed and would then gleefully accuse us of swearing.

One was 'I chased a bug around the room, I'll have his blood, he knows I will.'

Another, which came to mind today after I heard about last night's meeting of the Brent Labour Group, was:

'She shuts the shutters and sits in the shop.'

Well the shutters have come down on last night's meeting as the hunt for the leakers intensifies and I expect some councillors have been accused of s*itting in the shop!

The meeting was called at short notice to discuss the controversial issue of the possibility of a Council Tax increase before Monday's Full Meeting of the Council.

Cllr John Duffy had challenged the decision of Michael Pavey and Muhammed Butt to ignore the Group's vote in favour of a council tax increase  at the previous group meeting and wrote a letter of complaint to  the Constitutional Officer of the Labour Party at this affront to democracy.

Whether the short notice group meeting was a result of a ruling by the Labour Party authorities or the Cabinet trying to head off a public revolt is not clear.

There was clearly a possibility that there would be a split when it came to voting on the Council tax rise and even the potential for an amendment to raise the tax. Elsewhere on this blog I have listed some of the services that could be saved even with the comparative small sum of £1.4m over two years. This could include Energy Solutions, School Crossing Patrols,  Stonebridge Adventure Playground and the Welsh Harp Environmental Education Centre.

Anyway, with a little bit of what used to be called Kremlinology in the old days of the Soviet Empire (when I worked at Reuters, TASS the Soviet Union's news agency was in the same building so I am used to interpreting nudges and cryptic silences about totalitarian regimes) I guess that a formal vote on a Council Tax rise was taken and that it reversed the previous vote in favour of a rise.

I would conjecture that this was the result of pressure from the leadership and a bigger turnout from the 56 strong group than the 30 or so who had attended the previous meeting. I also assume that the leadership offered no crumbs in return.

I could be wrong and that really the meeting was about whether to support the Lib Dem amendment to reduce Council Tax for cat owners and aroma therapists,  or the Brondesbury Park Conservative's motion to reduce  Council Tax by 2.5% to be paid for by closing the Civic Centre's Melting Pot restaurant and replacing it with a Super Casino.

All will be revealed on Monday - or, more likely - all will be concealed on Monday.

You can watch the live streaming of the meeting on Monday from 7pm HERE

Council Tax increase of 1.99% would raise £1.4m over two years and add £21 to Band D residences

The debate on a possible Council Tax rise of 1.99% may be helped by the following figures I have obtained from Brent Council:

A council tax increase of 1.99% would provide £1.7m (gross) and £0.7m (minus the freeze grant) in each year. 

Therefore the council's ongoing resources would be £1.4m higher after two years of council tax increases. This assumes the freeze grant would continue to be added as permanent funding by the government in subsequent years (which is the current arrangement).

A 1.99% increase would be equal to a £21 increase for Band D residents.

Readers can see the full range of proposed cuts HERE but it may be useful to see the value of a few key cuts in relation to that £700k achieved each year from a Council Tax increase:

Adult Home Care: The proposals are to cut home visit times from 30 minutes to 15 minutes saving £600k

Stonebridge Adventure Playgroun : Proposed ceasing funding to save £118k

Welsh Harp Environmental Education Centre: Closure to save £13k

Energy Solutions: Cease grant to save £50k

Closure of Leisure Centre:  saving £400k

Reduction in Street Cleansing (inc no litter clearance in Zone 5 residential roads): saving £400k

Brent Council environment cuts break 'cleaner and greener' pledge

I reproduce below Brent Friends of the Earth's comprehensive response to the current Budget Consultation. I am sure that similar responses could be written on other areas of the proposed cuts making it clear that the level of cuts  now required is unacceptable and making no long-term economic or social sense.

Response to Brent Council Budget Consultation from Brent Friends of the Earth

Our members are concerned about the cuts to Council services overall, in particular cuts to vital front line services.  Whilst we recognise that Brent's income has been severely reduced, we do not wish to see vital welfare services axed, especially those for children. The vision of what will remain is stark and in some cases unrecognisable from the provision residents have come to know and expect as Council services.  However our comments as a group focus on the impact of proposed cuts to environmental services. We also question whether some of the cuts proposed will actually save money in the long run:

Energy Solutions must stay to protect the poor from fuel poverty

One of the most troubling aspects of the current round of cuts is that organisations that contribute to long term stability and long-term savings in expenditure are losing their funding in order to balance current budgets. Sometimes those long-term costs are paid by individuals or departments outside the Council: cost shunting.  This is the case with the Stonebridge Adventure Playground and the Youth Service where long term costs of the loss of those services may be picked up by the criminal justice system or mental health - much more expensive in the long run and often at the social expense of ruined lives.

Energy Solutions is another such case:

Energy Solutions who are housed in the chapel building close to the Welsh Harp Environmental Study Centre in Birchen Grove also threatened with closure, have a long term aim of reducing the carbon footprint of the borough contributing to the fight against climate change.  In the process they are helping residents, landlords, schools and businesses reduce fuel bills and emissions and providing a vital educational function.

They work with local organisations such as Citizens Advice Bureau and AgeUKBrent.
 
 

--> During the period since January 2012, Energy Solution clients have benefited in excess of £717,000 in disputed or refunded gas and electricity bills, trust fund applications and ECO funded affordable warmth measures (heating and insulation).
This figure could have been considerably higher if DECC/ECO funding for heating and insulation upgrades had not dried up early in 2014, and if Energy Solutions had been able to find funding for health and wellbeing based referrals.

Much of their time is spent trying to find funds from pension funds, friendly societies and other legacy organisations, this has resulted some good outcomes - recently the banking benevolent fund paid for a new boiler for a pensioner who didn’t qualify through benefit proxies but was none the less in hardship.

It is cases like these that the organisation find most challenging, where need is great - and often urgent, but  proxy profiling takes no account of individual circumstances, so there is little they can offer other than a personal visit and the provision of advice on how to make the most of the assets they have in terms of behavioural change, tariff or energy company switching and energy saving advice.

Their new ‘Boilers on Prescription’ funding approach is aimed at Public/NHS health and Adult Social Care services in Brent and is unique in that it proposes to prioritise patients/residents living in cold homes based on their clinical need rather than the benefit proxy. Health and wellbeing first and all the other, often conflicting issues, around housing, family ‘obligations’, and conflicted interests later.
Energy Solutions’ approach to Social Prescribing has been described elsewhere, but the ‘Boilers on Prescription’  LINK hub concept they propose could be extended into long term help and assistance from the third sector to make it easier to move vulnerable private tenants into more suitable housing, and provide a holistic circle of support to help improve social isolation, loneliness and mental stress - saving countless ££££’s to the local authority, Public Health and the NWLHCT, the CCG.

In the words of Dr Tim Ballard, Vice Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, “What’s not to like?”


The proposal in Brent Council's budget consultation states baldly:

Cease grant to Energy Solutions. Discontinuation of grant  for the provision of energy efficiency / fuel poverty advice.

The grant is just £50,000.Energy Solutions must stay

It comes with the virtual abolition of the Environment Department and the ending of many of Brent's green initiatives. The Council has made public statements about fuel poverty and only in December 2014 announced a series of roadshows on energy saving LINK

In his 'My Priorities' blog in  December 2012 LINK   Muhammed Butt, leader of Brent Council said:

Too many people in our community live in fuel poverty - unable to afford to turn the heating on over Christmas. That is why we will launch a Brent Collective Switching scheme.

But the answer is more than just switching and the work that Energy Solutions does with the poor, the elderly, the sick and with schools and other organisations is absolutely vital.

If the Council's aim is to protect the vulnerable, then Energy Solutions must not be cut. If it is serious about its commitment to combating climate change, then Energy Solutions must not be cut. If it wants to invest in the long term wellbeing of the community, then Energy solutions must not be cut.

 More about Energy Solutions work and contacts HERE  

Energy Solutions also collects donations to help those in fuel poverty. Older people who received the extra DWP winter fuel allowance but are not in need may be particularly keen to donate HERE