Showing posts with label James Powney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James Powney. Show all posts

Tuesday 30 October 2012

Brent Council gets school students involved in climate change battle

New York today
 As Hurricane Sandy lashes the Eastern Coast of the USA and Canada at one level and Year 5 at Wembley Primary take to Twitter to research their half-term homework on severe weather events at another it is appropriate that Brent Council today announces a Climate Change Competition for Brent schools.

I declare an interest here as Chair of Brent Campaign Against Climate Change and because I have had a minor role in organising the Schools Conference on Climate Change that will take place in March 2013.
Brent Council is launching a competition in partnership with the College of North West London and Brent Campaign Against Climate Change for young people to present ideas showing how to help their community improve its understanding of the effects of climate change and how it might be addressed.

Brent Student Climate Change competition is open to anyone aged from 11 to 21 years who lives, works or studies in the borough. It invites young people to submit a piece of work that either raises public awareness of climate change or offers a practical means to lessening or adapting our lives to deal with its effect.

Young people can use any of the following media to present their ideas:
  • new media forms including apps for tablets and phones, websites
  • music, art, poetry, video, drama or performance
  • 3-D models
  • poster or technical drawing
  • written proposal of 1, 000 words such as a business plan for a small firm.
The winning entry for the competition will receive a £100 voucher and a certificate signed by the Mayor of Brent Councillor Michael Adeyeye, and the five runners-up will receive a letter of commendation also signed by the Mayor. The certificate and letters of commendation will include the name of the entrant's school, college or youth club, who will receive copies for display. The six winning pieces will be displayed in the new Brent Civic Centre and during a schools' conference on climate change in the borough, which is being planned for 20 March 2013.

Councillor James Powney, Lead Member for Environment and Neighbourhood Services, said:

"The competition will help to increase awareness of climate change in Brent. It is excellent that young people have been invited to put forward their suggestions because it is that generation who could be most affected by climate change in the future.

"It also offers schools and youth clubs the opportunity of receiving valuable publicity for their organisations while motivating students whose projects and ideas can form part of their normal coursework. I'm looking forward to seeing the innovative ways the boroughs young people tackle such a current and relevant issue such as raising awareness of adapting and tackling climate change."

Ken Montague, secretary of Brent Campaign against Climate Change, who is coordinating the competition, is available to visit your school or club venue with a Brent councillor to explain the competition. He can be contacted if a school or youth club emails environment@brent.gov.uk .

The deadline for submissions is 13 March 2013, but you must register by 8 February 2013.
Entries will be judged by a panel of representatives from Brent Council, Brent Campaign Against Climate Change, and The College of North West London. For more information about submitting your entry email environment@brent.gov.uk .

Monday 29 October 2012

James Powney and his library campaign critics


 I disagree with Cllr James Powney on many things but it is to his credit that he publishes critical comments on his blog.  The latest comments are of particular interest as they raise broader issues about his attitude to library campaigners. LINK

There is also an ongoing discussion about libraries on the Streetlife site of the Kilburn Times which readers may wish to join in with LINK

Friday 7 September 2012

Retreating into the hills while Brent implodes

Off to the hills for a week so no postings on Wembley Matters for a while.

It looks as if I will return to a changed Brent Council landscape. Any tips on who will be acting Chief Exec if today's golden handshake negotiations succeed?

Any money on Andy Donald?

Will the Ann John loyalists strike back?

Keep up on Twitter @bktimes

Sunday 26 August 2012

Efficacy of dog walking limits need to be reviewed

Dog walkers on Barn Hill earlier this week
I spoke at the Brent Council Executive in November last year LINK on the proposed restrictions on the number of dogs one person could walk in Brent parks. The proposal was to restrict the numbers walked by 'professional dog walkers' who earn upwards of £10 per dog per walk, to six. I had witnessed one dog walker with 15 dogs.

I suggested that enforcement would be a problem with the number of wardens cuts and many of the walkers coming from outside Brent.  I was also concerned that they would bring along a friend and thus reduce the ratio to the prescribed limit.

At the same meeting Cllr Powney agreed to a suggestion by Cllr Gavin Sneddon that the dog control orders should be reviewed after 6 months.  This appears not to have been done yet.

Last week I came across the dog walkers above on Barn Hill in Fryent Country Park  (there is another dog out of the picture) and two women who appeared to be waiting for them to move on.  The  women told me that the previous day they had been jogging around the field and were pursued by a pack of dogs, they thought there more than in the above picture, and that the solitary dog walker with them was unable to call them off.  A confrontation ensued about her lack of control.  As a result the women were now fearful of jogging when large numbers of dogs are around and it had spoiled their enjoyment of the park. They did remark that the walkers in the above picture appeared to have their dogs under better control but they were not taking any chances.

I am concerned that if this situation continues the public will be put off using the park and, in the worst case, there could be a serious incident. One dog walker who contacted me by e-mail to berate  Brent Council for introducing the ban quite unselfconsciously referred to 'my pack' of dogs. We really shouldn't be in the position of having packs of out of control dogs roaming in one of our Green Flag parks.

A review of the effectiveness of this policy is urgently needed.


Friday 24 August 2012

Northern jaws drop at sight of Civic Centre

This morning I  was asked by a couple of northerners down for tomorrow's rugby challenge final about the strange building arising opposite the Wembley Arena and the Stadium. They were staggered when they heard it was the council's Civic Centre and cost £100m. They thought we were all mad when I said the same council had closed down half our libraries.

Never mind, Cllr Powney still berates Brent Green Party  for opposing a fantastic green building. If the council erected a marble Stalinist Palace of Culture in his honour at a cost of £250m he would still expect us to support it if it had a grass roof!

Anyway make up your own minds. For my friends from the south who may not yet have seen it here are some pictures taken today. Decide for yourself if this is just a touch grandiose...


Friday 17 August 2012

Early start to see Paralympic Torch in Brent

Follow his lead

Brent Council's Lead Member for London 2012, Councillor James Powney has urged residents to get up early in the morning to see the Paralympic Torch go through Brent.

He said : "The borough really came together for the Olympic Torch Relay and I hope that despite the early start the community will make the same effort to line the streets on Wednesday 29 August."

The Torch will arrive in Brent at Honey Pot Lane in Kingsbury at 5.10am and leave at Carlton Vale, South Kilburn at 8.18am.  It will call in at Willesden Sports Centre and the Swaminarayan Mandir on its journey.

To view the route and timings follow this LINK

After the Paralympic Flame leaves the borough there will be a free Paralympic Sports Open Day at Willesden Sports Centre from 10am-3pm for young people (with or without a disability) aged 8-16.


Monday 21 May 2012

The Queen is dead! Long live the King!

Outside Brent Town Hall tonight
In fact Muhammad Butt's first Executive meeting as leader was a muted affair - no fanfares, cheers or even a 'well done, chum' from his colleagues. Instead a few mumbles about the order of business, a murmured exchange or two with Anne Reid, and we were away.

If there was any tension in the Executive after it was split by the leadership election it didn't show in any obvious way. Perhaps more councillors than usual arrived at the last minute to take their seats and there was little social interchange, but it was heads down and on with the agenda.

It was left to the public to inject a bit of life and passion into the proceedings and this they did through making representations on the Progress Report on the Library Transformation Project. All the contributors congratulated Muhammed Butt on his election win  and called on him to engage with the community.

Philip Bromberg for Brent SOS Libraries Campaign said the report reminded him of the saying 'the operation was a complete success but the patient died'. He had figures to show a huge drop in the number of visits and book issues at the remaining libraries and queried the escalation in the cost of the Kilburn Library refurbishment from £117,000 to £650.000.  He showed the audience and Executive a leaflet produced by Brent Labour Party asking people to 'Join Labour Campaign for Our Libraries' with a quote from Dan Jarvis shadow Culture Secretary. Bromberg reported that earlier in conversation Jarvis had express 'serious concern about what is happening in Brent over libraries'.

Martin Redston, speaking for the Keep Willesden Green Campaign urged Butt to be proactive, engage with the community and see the issue of the Willesden Green regeneration with fresh eyes. He pointed out that the only increased space int he new building would be for council offices and that the actual library would be smaller. English Heritage had recognised the community's valuing of the 'meaning of space' provided by the 1894 building. Redston pointed out the contradictions between the flowery words of the planning brief and the actual plan, which included a small door as an entrance to the new building, in contrast to the substantial entrance of the 1980s building. He urged Muhammed Butt and the Executive to 'stop, listen and reflect', because the majority of the local community did not want the scheme.

A speaker from Cricklewood Library spoke for how local nurseries and schools had been deprived of their library and older students of their study space.  She urged Muhammed Butt to restore good relations with the community by keeping the building open,

Cllr Paul Lorber said that the Executive had not been provided with proper financial information and said that the suggested 'savings' had not factored in the cost of rent and business rates for the closed buildings. He asked regarding Cricklewood and Kensal Rise's reversion to All Souls, 'Why give away buildings with £1.5m'. He claimed it was the Executive's responsibility to safeguard local assets. Speaking about the Barham pop-up library he said that most of the people who were using it were precisely those most affected by the closures: children brought along by their parents and mainly from an Asian of African Caribbean background.

A Conservative councillor urged that ward working money should instead be spent on keeping libraries open.

In response Cllr Powney said that most of the people who had spoken were just saying that they disagreed with the decision to close libraries that was taken last year. That decisions was to keep six 'excellent' libraries (one of which his Executive has since declared unfit for purpose and scheduled for demolition'  and develop those. He claimed that he had always said the the increase in the number of visitors and borrowers would not happen until 2014 when the refurbishments had finished and the new Wembley Library at the Civic Centre had been opened. He said, to heckling, that by 2014  the figures would be 'higher than now'. He confirmed that reversion of Cricklewood and Kensal Rise to All Souls had been completed, and that was the opinion of both council officers and All Souls.  In response to the questions about the increase in Kilburn refurbishment costs he said that the £117,000 had just been minor repairs and redecoration and the £650,000  was for a more extensive refurbishment.

At the end of the item, Muhammed Butt said he was meeting with Kensal Rise campaigners tomorrow and promised to meet with the Preston and Keep Willesden Green campaigns.

All other items on the agenda, including the Air Quality Action Plan, Animals at Events policy, and the provision of a Brent Carers' Hub were approved without discussion.








Saturday 5 May 2012

Believing James Powney...

I wrote recently LINK that in my experience Cllr James Powney, despite our differences, has always posted my comments on his blog, but it seems that others have not been so fortunate.

Pete Firm, who is secretary of Brent Trade Union Council and a Labour Party member, posted a comment on the leafleting licence issue some time ago. The comment was about James Powney's suggestion that the campaign around the issue had been 'invented'

Cllr Powney had written:
The mischief started with the Willesden and Brent Times leading with a story that gave the impression that this was an entirely new set of rules, and glossing over the exemptions.  What is striking is that I personally spoke to the reporter and told her that "political purposes" meant a variety of political campaigns, not just political parties
Firmin's comment pointed out  the  Editor's note in the subsequent WBT , at the foot of a letter from Michael Read clarifying exemptions to the licence requirement, which said:
Brent Council's communication team has issued an apology to the Times for issuing an inaccurate statement on which our original report was based.
In other words, as I have also pointed out, LINK the Willesden and Brent  Times story was based on an e-mail from the Council itself.

 The comment was never published on Cllr Powney's blog and Pete wrote on April 30th asking why.
James, Can I ask why you haven’t published my comment (submitted last Thursday or Friday) to you blog post “How To Invent A Campaign”? Pete Firmin
 Firmin has has received no response.

 Coincidentally the latest post on James' blog is pertinent. LINK He is concerned that people don't believe him:
All this helps to create an atmosphere where anything that a Council officer or councillor says is disbelieved.  I have had this many times over the libraries issue, when I have pointed out that an assertion is not true, only to be told that it must be, and to have my interlocuter refuse to believe me even when I refer to documentary proof. 
Pete Firmin and I have both pointed to the 'documentary proof' in the Council e-mail and the Editor's note, that Cllr Powney's accusation about an invented campaign was wrong.

Time to publish Pete Firmin's comment, James?

Sunday 29 April 2012

Ann John makes a bid to be Brent's Humpty Dumpty

Ann John, the leader of Brent Council is quoted in the Kilburn Times as saying that the report on licensing of free literature is clear and purely about preventing litter.

It wasn't clear to the Council's communication team who issued an apology to the Times for 'issuing an inaccurate statement' on which the Times report was based. Michael Read, Assistant Director of Environment and Neighbourhood Services had to write to the Times to 'clarify any confusion' about the 'clear' report.

And of course Brent's own 'Mr Confused', Cllr Powney, accused us of 'inventing a campaign' when in fact the Council had misinformed the public with their original 'inaccurate' statement.

What is clear is that the only reference to exemptions in the document is:

3.4 These powers do not apply to materials promoting charities, for religious purposes or for political purposes.

So now Cllr Ann John throws her own interpretation into the ring by saying , in response to concerns voiced by Tony Antonio chairman of Brent Safer Neighbourhoods, that their literature does not not fall into the exempt category because they are a group of volunteers, not a charity, that 'The exemptions include community safety literature'.

This is just not true if you look at 3.4 above which are the only exemptions listed. Nowhere does the document mention 'community safety literature'.  This illustrates the problem and the weakness  that campaigners have been highlighting. It is not good enough for Ann John, James Powney or any officer to make up exemptions as they go along with nothing in writing. This opens the way to political, social, generational or even ethnic bias and potential legal action.

Ann John puts herself in the position of Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass:
  "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."


Wednesday 25 April 2012

Powney, Prague and Democracy

Cllr James Powney
I have crossed swords with Labour Councillor James Powney often but I gladly acknowledge that my comments on his blog  have alway been published. This is democracy in action and welcome but there are concerns about the Labour Council's broader attitude to democracy.

In a recent post LINK he said:

'Recently, as part of the entirely artificial concern over regulating leaflet distribution, Brent Council has been accused of being Stalinist.  I thought this was a term of abuse, but given that the accusation came from someone on the extreme left perhaps it was intended as a compliment.'

In fact I think the most recent comment came from an ordinary 'non-political' member of the public but I believe in the broad political sense of top down, controlling, intolerant of dissent, knowing better than the 'people' what is good for them, that it has some justification when applied to Brent Council. I am not suggesting that Ann John will be sending dissidents to the salt mines of South Kilburn.

Rather than comment on James' blog about this I thought that a posting here, at greater length would help explain where I am coming from. His remark ignores the long battle between Stalinism and other leftwing currents, culminating of course in Trotsky's death by icepick but continuing into the late twentieth century with echoes still.

I started work at 16 and after a spell as a messenger in an advertising agency moved to Reuters News Agency and joined the print union Natsopa (now defunct). Union membership helped politicise me and I did a TUC postal course in economics.  As a union activist I soon found myself in conflict with the Communist Party dominated National Executive and the General Secretary, Richard Briginshaw (known as 'the Brig').

When we sought to make the union structure more democratic Briginshaw called us 'anarchist outriders' but we continued to struggle despite having the rule book hurled at us on numerous occasions.One of the main protagonists in this battle was a man called John Lawrence who had made the journey from Communist to Trotskyist and by the time I met him to socialist libertarianism/anarchism. He worked for the Press Association which shared the same building, 85 Fleet Street, as Reuters. 

Lawrence was one of the few truly charismatic people I have met and was a great influence. His political and activist history is incredibly rich and you can find out more HERE As a child back in 1956 I had taken an interest in news reports about the Hungarian Revolution as a consequence of seeing the arrival of refugees from Hungary and my interest in Eastern Europe continued.

At Reuters I had a good and politically stimulating friendship with Kurt Weisskopf,  a Czechoslovakian journalist who had lost family and friends in the German invasion and the Holocaust as well as under later communist purges.  Despite, or perhaps because of all this, he was passionately committed to social revolution and democracy and as the Stalinist regime began to crumble he dared to hope for liberalisation in Czechoslovakia and had many contacts in Prague.

I made an overland trip to the Soviet Union in  1968 days after Warsaw Pact tanks rolled into Prague. I took some western newspapers into East Berlin having passed through Checkpoint Charlie after delays caused by troop movements. I was soon surrounded by youth hungry for news of what was happening in the West and events in Prague. Their eagerness had a dark edge and as they talked they kept looking around fearfully to see if our conversation was being observed. Suddenly, as police were spotted they scattered. 

The ending of the Prague Spring
Returning to London I found a devastated Kurt who despite everything was still continuing to debate in the Old Codgers (the pub that formed part of 85 Fleet Street) with a journalist from Tass, the official Soviet news agency, as well as members of the British Communist Party who sought to justify the Soviet intervention.

For us, 1968 was much more about Eastern Europe than the events in Paris or even those at the LSE, just down the road from Fleet Street.
The battle against the 'Tankies' in Natsopa intensified.

In 1969 I travelled to Prague, now under Russian occupation, with a list of names and addresses provided by Kurt. These were members of the Czech Communist Party and others who had supported liberalisation. In  January 1969 Jan Palach had set fire to himself in Wencelas Square in protest against the suppression of free speech and the atmosphere in Prague was very tense.

My attempts to trace Kurt's friends gave me a small taste of living under an authoritarian regime. It made a profound and disturbing impact on me, which helped shape my attitude to human and civil rights and championing of democracy. I was young and rather naive at the time and seeing the terror on a journalist's face when I called at his office shook me. 

"There are informers here," he hissed as he roughly grabbed my arm and marched me out the street to a cafe, looking behind him anxiously all the time to see if we were being followed. It became clear in an accidental way that the authorities were aware of me when a hotel reception called me 'Mr Reuter' when I had not given any information about my job.  Visiting one contact 20 miles outside of Prague I got up early to take a 5.30am bus so as to shake off anyone trailing me.  When I left the contact asked me to take a bulky parcel of manuscripts with me to post in the UK. When he told me that this was the script of a children's book by his daughter, destined for a publisher, I accepted that was what I was to tell the police or the Russian military if I was intercepted.

Back in London Kurt was keen to hear the news and long after the events, I still feel guilty that I was so disturbed by  the experience, as well as not always fully understanding some of the conversations because of the 'code' in which they necessarily had to take place because of the fear of eavesdroppers, that I could not satisfy his desperate need for both news and analysis.

I was reporting the London Stock Exchange at the time, but was also a union representative and the contradictions of the two roles led me to an interest in ideology and consciousness, which it turn stimulated an interest in teaching . I left Reuters and became a mature entrant to teacher training . I entered the profession in 1975 where once again I found myself in battle with a CP dominated union leadership that wanted to maintain control and squash any alternative voices.

So what, you may well be asking if you have stayed with me this far, has this got to do with Brent Labour Council?  I am committed to transparent and open democracy, from the bottom up rather than the top down. I reject the concept of democratic centralism. I want to work with others on campaigns because of shared aims, not because I want to recruit them to a political organisation. I challenge ideas such as 'leaders know best what is in the objective interests of the people' and attributions of 'false consciousness' or 'bourgeois individualism' to opponents.

I honestly believe that in a low key sort of way that is how Brent Labour works. Ann John's control is rigid.  Despite a comfortable majority and  the controversial decisions that have had to be made, there has not been a single, even minor rebellion. We can expect the Executive to maintain silence because of 'cabinet collective responsibility' but not one councillor backbencher has stood up publicly against a single policy except perhaps Claudia Hector on the Old Willesden Library. Privately Labour councillors have told me that pressure is put on them with the message that if they step out of line they cannot expect preferment. A similar message is given to Labour Party members seeking candidate nomination for by-elections.

So we get messages that some councillors and occasionally members of the Executive disagree with particular policies but there is no open debate. This contrasts, and I know it is only a small example, with the way  opposing views of two Liberal Democrat councillors were put forward, in front of the public, at the recent Executive discussion on the Willesden Green Regeneration project.

In addition we have cuts presented in guises such as 'transformation', consultations that tick boxes rather than change anything,  partial information and a general approach of 'we know best' with opponents stereotyped as middle class, nimbys or special interest groups. Cllr Powney's recent attack on the local press has added a further and dangerous dimension as also the 'innocent' leaflet licensing proposals which we are told is nothing to do with control but just about litter.

In my formative years there were still fascist regimes in Europe in Spain and Portugal, a racist one in South Africa, military dictatorships on several continents as well as Stalinist regimes. In the UK there was even a shadowy plot in 1968, ridiculed at the time,when Cecil King owner of Mirror Group Newspapers met Lord Mountbatten and others to discuss the overthrow of Harold Wilson's government to be replaced by one headed by Mountbatten.

We must be vigilant and if this means being a 'pain in the arse' as apparently I am seen by some in the Council, so be it. Democracy is too precious to be surrendered, even at the local level.

At the Executive on Monday  I did not have time to read out the quote I had prepared  from the Czech human rights activist, playwright and President,  Vaclav Havel.  I wanted to remind them about the role of politics:
Genuine politics-even politics worthy of the name-the only politics I am willing to devote myself to- is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility through action, to and for the whole.

Saturday 12 November 2011

What should the council do about Coalition instigated cuts? The debate begins.

Today's Any Questions? with Labour Councillors and representatatives of Brent Fightback  was a lively affair.  Janice Long and Jim Moher (with Lesley Jone as a later substitute for Moher) appeared for Brent Labour Councillors and Pete Firmin and Sarah Cox for Fightback. Pete Firmin is chair of Brent TUC.

Janice Long said she was unwilling to refuse to implement cuts as someone else making them would be worse. Cllr Moher said that he was the only member of the Executive to make changes in proposals as the results of representations and had not implemented the proposed cuts to school crossing patrols. He said the Council had protected front-line services but had to exercise the 'judgement of Solomon' in deciding what to cut. In response to ex-Labour councillor Graham Durham, who called on the council to unite with other London Labour councils and refuse to implement the cuts, he said that the situation now was far more difficult than the 1980s when Durham had been a councillor.

Sarah Cox said the Coalition had no mandate for the cuts in the NHS and it was time to resist bad laws. She said the Council should have put together a 'needs budget' and taken it out to the people of Brent as a basis for a united campaign by the council, its workers, and the Brent public against the Coalition's policies. Pete Firmin said that Labour councillors hadn't taken up opportunities when they could have worked with local activists, such as attending the Fightback lobby of Sarah Teather, MP for Brent Central. He said other London Labour councils were backing the public sector strike on November 30th but no such backing had come from Brent Labour council. Labour's  deputy leader, Cllr Butt, had referred a caller who wanted to oppose the overnight closure of Central Middlesex A and E Department, to Brent Fightback. The council itself needed to get organised against such cuts.

Janice Long said with the council having to choose between closing libraries and enabling people to carry on living in their houses she had to say that having a house was more important.  Her statement was challenged as conflating local government cuts and the government's cap on housing benefit.

Questioned by Shahrar Ali, Brent and Harrow  Green Party candidate for the London Assembly, about the cost of the new Civic Centre, Janice Long said the cost to Brent residents was neutral and it would reduce the council's carbon footprint and provide more space. It would  pay for itself over 25 years.  Cllr Moher said that the cost of the interest on the £102m project would be a further £25m but the Civic Centre would save the council £4m a year compared with the current buildings. He admitted that it was a difficult project to justify in the current situation of cuts and recession.

Pete Firmin said the we needed transparency and honesty about the Civic Centre and that another connected issue was the concentration of services in Wembley rather than in the various localities of Brent.

Cllr  Moher said that he was right behind the November 30th strike as an individual but that the council itself wanted to see lower public sector pensions because of their cost.  He supported a pension based on 'career average' earnings rather than a 'final salary' scheme. He justified this on the basis of the immense burden on council tax papers of the pensions of high salaried senior officers but a member of the audience pointed out that this would also affect the low paid - the average salary based on 40 years service was much lower than one base don final salary.

In response to join the NUT and other unions at the Torch, Bridge Road, Wembley at 9.30am on November 30th, Janice said that she hadn't known about that, but the Brent Central Labour Party would be on the march.

There was a brief discussion about whether campaigners should stand an 'anti cuts' candidate in the forthcoming Wembley Central by-election. There were a variety of views on this and it will be discussed at a later Fightback meeting.

Earlier in the day there had been speeches from Chris Coates about the Brent SOS Libraries Campaign and its success in mobilising people, raising money and getting  high profile support form famous authors. Jeremy Taylor, President of Brent Teachers Association and NUT representative at Preston Manor High School, spoke about the impact of cuts on students at his school and how the changes in pensions would affect teachers. He expressed concern both for teachers and students if teachers were forced to go on teaching well into their 60s when the job required so much energy. He demonstrated that the changes in pension contribution represented a wage cut in real terms.

In a wide-ranging speech Kishan Parshotam, Chair of Brent Youth Parliament and a Brent UK Youth Parliament member said that the BYP was campaigning against negative stereotyping of youth and for their voice to heard. He said that they supported the reduction of the voting age to 16 so that politicians would have to listen to their concerns. The cuts in libraries would mean over-crowded study areas and poor ICT access for the most needy students, particularly in the south of Brent, who lacked those facilities at home.

He told the audience that in discussions 8 and 9 year old children were well able to talk about how cuts would affect them and should not be under-estimated.

As well as councillors, campaigners and residents, the meeting was attended by Dawn Butler, ex-Labour MP for South Brent, but she made no contribution during the open sessions. Cllr James Powney trotted past the venue just before the Assembly started but kept his head down and did not come in.

I think a valuable debate and perhaps even a dialogue was opened up during the day. Brent Fightback wants to involve a broader spectrum of people and this was a modest start. We now need to consider how to involve more people at a time when everyone is feeling hard-pressed and those most affected by the cuts are concentrating on day to day survival.

Shahrar Ali's take on the day is HERE

Thursday 4 August 2011

Festival cuts go ahead amidst confusion over equalities legislation

There appeared to be some confusion from Labour councillors members last night when discussing the cuts in funding of faith events at Scrutiny Committee.  At first Cllr Lesley Jones said it had been a financial decision  and that the Equalities Act, previously cited as the reason for stopping funding of religious festivals, did not require the cessation of funding. The required Equalities Impact Assessment had been done after the initial report and further additional responsibilities had been published in April of this year. She said that some respondents in the Consultation had  said the festival grants were divisive.Under questioning she later said that both the equalities legislation and financial issues were prime factors in making the decision. Cllr Powney said that this was an Act of Parliament and not a matter of choice. He said that the Council could not decide to ignore it because of what people said during consultation: "Someone will need to explain why funding different religious groups at different rates is not discriminatory."

Addressing the public gallery, overwhelmingly consisting of Hindus concerned about the ending of the Navratri grant, Cllr Helga Gladbaum  reminded them of the support given by Brent Council when East African Asians fled Kenya and Uganda and came to settle in Brent. She said that the Council had funded a highly qualified Language Team that had helped children as they settled into Brent schools and the outcome was that our schools are now full of highly achieving children. She told them that times had changed and the Council could no longer afford the Navratri grants: "You are a proud people and are well able to organise events without holding out your hands for money. The money is needed for the elderly and for disabled children."

Liberal Democrat leader, Paul Lorber, who had called in the Executive decision, said that all Brent councillors were aware of the kind of comments they got on these issues and they shouldn't take these few comments into account while ignoring the wider number supporting the festivals. The negative comments were from an underlying 'element' that all councillors know about 'and we wouldn't tolerate racist comments'. He asked about the wider implications of the legislation for the work of Brent Council and whether any other areas were 'at risk' from the legislation. He gave the example of Stonebridge councillors who had financed Jamaica Day from ward working funds and Black History Month.

The Borough Solicitor, Fiona Edden, said that the Council had to pay 'due regard' regard to the legislation and the impact of decisions on 'protected groups' (1) . in consultation some groups had the perception that they were not being provided for. She said that if looked at historically this could be claimed to be the case. She said that the legislation (2)  was new and case law on it was still being developed and the law interpreted. It was clear that the libraries case was casting a long shadow over her comments.

Cllr Jones said that the fact that Navratri gets far more money than other, more modestly funded groups, could be seen as divisive. It was nobody's fault but a problem that had developed over the years. She defended spending on a team to promote corporate events, and extolled the virtues of one massive community 'Brent Celebrates' event. (3)

A speaker from the Hindu Council had earlier told the Committee that Brent was renowned all over London for its Navratri celebrations which was the biggest and best in the UK with thousands attending from the different communities. He said that cessation of funding would cause a loss of respect and goodwill and end the positive community engagement involved. He said the the Hindu Council would like to work with the Council on how to deal with the equalities legislation.

Lorber's motion asking the Executive to look again at their decision and its impact on a large section of the community. He called for the money being used for a special Events Unit to be distributed instead to community groups in line with the equalities legislation. He said that such community groups would be better at putting on events than the Council. His motion was lost.

1. Protected  characteristics are age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion and belief, sex and sexual orientation.
2. Extract from the Equality and Human Rights Commission website:

With major reductions in public spending, organisations in Great Britain are being required to make difficult financial decisions. The equality duty requires public authorities to demonstrate that they are making financial decisions in a fair, transparent and accountable way, considering the needs and the rights of different members of their community. This is achieved through assessing the impact that changes to policies and practices could have on different protected groups.
The duty does not prevent public authorities from making difficult decisions such as reorganisations and relocations, redundancies, and service reductions, nor does it stop public authorities from making decisions which may impact on one group more than another group.
Assessing the impact on equality of proposed changes to policies, procedures and practices is not just something the law requires, it is a positive opportunity for public authorities to ensure they make better decisions based on robust evidence. The assessment does not necessarily have to take the form of a document called an Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) but you can choose to do so if it is helpful. It will help you to demonstrate compliance if you:
  • Ensure you have a written record of the equality considerations you have taken into account
  • Ensure that your decision-making includes a consideration of the actions that would help to avoid or mitigate any negative impacts on particular protected groups.
  • make your decisions based on evidence
  • make your decision-making process more transparent
The equality duty is a legal obligation which should remain a top priority for public authorities, even in times of economic difficulty. Failure to meet the equality duty may result in public authorities being exposed to costly, time-consuming and reputation-damaging legal challenges.
3. Such events can be fraught with difficulty as it is often difficult to untangle cultural and religious strands and there is a danger of the format not respecting aspects of some cultures. It is probably an urban myth but at the extreme end is the story of the Japanese store that celebrated Christmas with a huge model of Santa on a cross. I worked for a primary headteacher a long while ago who was determined to have a 'multicultural Christmas' and was miffed when, at the height of the cultural revolution, the Chinese Embassy gave a shirty reply to her request for information on how the Chinese celebrated Christ's birth!

Thursday 17 February 2011

Barry Gardiner tells Cllr Powney that the Council is wrong to close libraries

At a packed meeting of 120 local people to oppose  library closures at Preston Park School yesterday, Brent North Labour MP Barry Gardiner  told the meeting and many Labour councillors present, that he was opposed to the proposal to close six libraries.

Graham Durham,Secretary of Save Cricklewood Library Campaign commented:
'Under the pressure of the huge campaigns to save six  libraries in Brent the local Labour party is now at war with itself with many Labour councillors threatening to join Barry Gardiner in opposing and voting against library closures. In Doncaster Labour leader Ed Miliband is actively campaigning against local library cuts and his lead should be followed in Brent .Everyone understands that the massive cuts demanded by the Con/Dem government will, if implemented,devastate services in Brent. Labour councillors have a clear way forward - stop doing the Con/Dem Coalition's dirty work and join the huge resistance across Brent.'
Brent Fightback are organising a leafleting campaign to maximise attendance at the full Council meeting on February 28th at Brent Town Hall.

Meanwhile the Save Cricklewood Library Campaign are holding a FUN DAY AND 'READ-IN' at Cricklewood Library on SATURDAY 26TH FEBRUARY  10.30AM-2pm.  There will be story-telling, plays and games and all ages are welcome.

Friday 7 January 2011

'Flakman' under fire on library closures

Cllr Powney certainly lived up to his nickname of Flakman when he appeared at last night's library consultation in front of a passionate, vocal and rebellious audience. This followed his appearances at Area Forums last year when he had a tough time defending the Council's Waste Strategy. Powney took the flak last night from the stage while other Labour councillors sat quietly in the audience.  He made a valiant attempt to defend the indefensible (the closure of half the borough's libraries) but ended up quoting Margaret Thatcher's TINA mantra (There is no alternative).

In fact the audience came up with quite a few alternatives including abandoning the expensive Civic Centre project, getting rid of highly paid council officers, reducing opening hours rather than the number of libraries, and refusing to implement Tory-Lib Dem Coalition cuts.

Contributors emphasised the importance of libraries to the cultural life of local communities and particular emphasis was placed on their importance to young people, the economically disadvantaged and older members of the community. I stressed the importance of children having a library within independent  walking distance of their homes and described the buzz at Neasden library on a Friday evening with a homework club in progress, people working at computers and others borrowing books. Children from Braintcroft Primary School and adult learners using the recently installed ICT resources will be deprived of a vital resources which could change their lives.

After the meeting I spoke to a pensioner who despaired at losing community facilities that had been in place for years and helped many generations of Brentonians. Libraries are particularly valuable to older people because they provide both stimulation through books and valuable social contact. It is also important for them that they are within easy travelling distance.

A borough-wide 'Save Our Libraries' campaign would be one way of resolving some of the differences in approach that were evident  amongst residents at the meeting.  There is a particularly active campaign around Kensal Rise Library (45,755 visit per year at a cost of £4 per visit) and the group seemed ready to form a volunteer force to help save the library. Others were against this idea, wanting a full, properly funded service.  Such volunteer support may not be available in less affluent areas such as Neasden (117,604/£2.30) but where the library is vital to raise the life chances of the local population.  Another area of potential conflict is the '40% proposal' where all  libraries would cut their opening hours by 40% rather than closing some. It was suggested this would safeguard the future of the buildings which would otherwise be disposed of or revert to  trusts such as All Souls College, which originally provided the land. A reduction in opening hours would still impact on accessibility and jobs.

On the issue of volunteers and charities Michael Rosen, the children's poet and former Children's Laureate was absolutely clear in a recent Daily Mirror article:
It is a scandal. What this Government is doing is taking over where Thatcher left off. The library system took 150 years to build up and they are destroying it.

I am completely opposed to this idea of handing libraries over to charities and retailers. It is purely ideological and there is no justification for taking libraries out of public ownership.

Books should be free to all and not reliant on charity donations. However well-meaning, charities end up begging for money. It is another Tory attempt to break the social contract by which we look after each other through taxes
When I suggested that the Labour Council were not fulfilling their commitment to protect the most vulnerable from the Coalition cuts Cllr Powney outlined the dire  condition of the Council's finance (Readers of this blog will know that I have posted articles on this), demanded that we be realistic and said that if the Labour councillors refused to implement the cuts they would be replaced by others who would implement them away  - with the implication that they would do so less sensitively.

This is an argument that we are going to hear regularly in the Area Forums in the coming month when Ann John and Muhammed Butt appear to talk about the impact of the cuts on local services and the difficult decisions they will have to make.

Meanwhile, back to Michael Rosen and some reading for adults opposed to the cuts (from the Independent)
So angered is Michael Rosen by the Coalition's plans for welfare cuts, the children's novelist and poet paid the bulk of production costs for a new anthology called Emergency Verse, a compilation of protest poetry featuring work by more than 100 writers, including the Beat poet Michael Horovitz, Jeremy Reed and John O'Donoghue. Rosen says he is "very angry" at the roll-back of "advances" that softened "some of the worst effects of rampant capitalism", adding: "These rampant capitalists, who walk off with the majority of the wealth anyway, now want to steal our services too – people who have no other means of getting health care, education and social care will have it snatched away." The anthology was launched at the Southbank Centre's Poetry Library, and copies can be downloaded for £2.99 from www.therecusant.org.uk.
Prior to the consultation meeting Brent Fightback said:
Brent Fightback supports keeping ALL our libraries open. Once closed, they are gone for ever. We hope that, while pursuing their local campaigns, the libraries campaigners will unite and will become part of our broader campaign to defend jobs, services, pensions, benefits and the environment.
The Kensal Rise campaign can be contacted at kensalriselibraryusers@hotmail.co.uk and they have a blog LINK and a Facebook group 'Save Kensal Rise' library.

Preston library users are getting organised and I will put their details up when I have them.

The Friends of Cricklewood Library can be contacted via eric.pollock@tiscali.co.uk Information

Many authors and individuals including Alan Gibbons  and Michael Rosen have set up Campaign for the Book and Voices for the Library are asking individuals to send them statements on how important libraries are in their lives.

The Guardian has also covered the meeting using Kensal Rise as an example of wider closures  LINK

Tuesday 14 December 2010

Wasted opportunity to get strategy right

Brent Council Executive last night refused to accept the recommendations made by the Scrutiny Committee on the Waste Strategy despite the efforts of Elaine Henderson and Viv Stein of Friends of the Earth who addressed the meeting (see below). They also decided to go ahead with consultation on the West London Waste Authority's plans for more waste processing depots in the borough, serving several nearby boroughs, despite concerns about the concentration of such facilities in Brent and lack of information on the actual processes that will be employed.  In his contribution Cllr Powney, lead member on these issues, appeared not to provide any substantial answers to the questions raised.  On waste the issue was reduced to budgetary demands rather than green principles.

Viv Stein's speech:

Brent Campaign against Climate Change endorses the views of Brent FoE regarding the waste strategy.  Having attended the previous Executive committee and last week’s Scrutiny committee I felt compelled to speak as I was so astounded by some of the comments made by Cllr Powney.

Both the Brent Campaign and FoE are in favour of increasing recycling, increasing green jobs and cutting carbon.  But this new system is likely to CUT UK jobs, INCREASE emissions and is UNLIKELY to achieve the huge increase in recycling to 60%, which Cllr Powney admitted last week is “very important to get this right as will be a major financial problem for the Council if we don’t.”

You might think this strategy is all about climate change and cutting emissions.  So much so that it mentions climate change 28 times in the document.  But will it really have such an impact?

Yes we do understand there will be less emissions in the collection within Brent – with fewer lorry journeys (as less frequent collections) and instead of recyclables sorted manually on the kerbside they’ll be crushed (so you get more in the trucks).  But when you consider:

-there will be larger vehicles, using more fuel
-the mechanical separation at the materials recovery facility (which uses loads of electricity)
-the additional distances lorries have to travel to these
-the likely reprocessing overseas (as we’ve heard the commingled low-grade materials are likely to be sent further away including China), something not ruled out now by Brent, our emissions do not stop at Brent’s borders, so overall they will actually INCREASE.

Camden Council did an energy audit of their commingled collection, when they switched from kerbside sorted and found that, The carbon footprint of the co-mingled collection system, transfer and MRF is 77% greater than for the kerbside sorted waste collection.”  They then changed to a twin-stream system, with paper collected separately, as Brent FoE proposed previously.

My question is – has an energy audit been modelled into the proposed new system?  If not, how can you possibly claim it will reduce emissions?

We’ve heard that commingling will produce low quality materials, so another question is – is this paving the way for incineration of Brent’s waste? Only last week the UK Confederation of Paper Industries expressed concerns that increasingly paper that could be recycled, may be used to generate energy instead.  This is both an incredibly inefficient use of resources and as a means of energy production, besides all the other concerns that incineration brings.

One of the main reasons why commingling is bad is that the crushed glass contaminates everything, but it also has implications for emissions.  According to WRAP (waste resources action programme) “co-mingled collection of glass frequently results in glass used as road aggregate, which creates 2 kg of CO2 for each tonne of glass. Whereas, glass that is not compacted during the collection phase is made back into bottles and jars, which saves 314kg of CO2 for every tonne.”

So to conclude I am asking for the Exec to reconsider the current kerbside sorted system, and if for some reason you really can’t, I would urge for an amendment that “glass be separated for collection in a twin- stream system” which would be preferable. (These could be collect in the existing green boxes and put in a wheelie bin on the kerbside).

Wednesday 1 December 2010

Waste Strategy Challenged

Elaine Henderson of Friends of the Earth made a well researched and cogent critique of some aspects of the Council's new Waste Strategy at last night's Scrutiny Committee.  The Lib Dems had called-in both the Street Cleansing and Recycling proposals.

Elaine made the case for making reducing landfill  costs the main focus of the strategy. She said that adopting co-mingled (mixed) collection of recyclables in place of kerbside collection and sorting, would mean that the material would be contaminated and less acceptable to UK based processing companies.  She had talked to Aylesford, Brent's current buyers of paper waste, who had said they did not knowingly buy paper from co-mingled collections. She said that co-mingling would make it more likely that Brent's waste would be sent abroad for processing. This would reduce the price paid by processing companies for Brent's recycled waste.  In answer to a claim that it would be too costly to extend kerbside collection at the price offered by Veolia,  she said that another waste management company, May-Gurney. could offer a kerbside service at the same process as co-mingled.

She criticised the Council's Brent Magazine and on-line consultation as not making it clear that residual waste would now only be collected fortnightly and that residents would  have to have  another large wheelie bin for dry recyclables rather than the green box. The new containers will cost the Council £1.7m.  She suggested that the council should consider the use of large reusable bags for paper as used by other boroughs. She cited the ambiguous language of the survey and its inaccessibility to residents not fluent in English. Elaine made it clear that comment about the possibility of a Judicial Review on the issue that she had made at an earlier meeting, was raised as a member of a Residents' Association, and was not the policy of Brent Friends of the Earth.  She presented the committee with a two page alternative Friends of the Earth Waste Strategy.

A rather irked Cllr Powney was caustic in his response and claimed that it had been a 'good consultation' and compared well with similar Brent consultations. He said that he had personally appeared at all the Area Forums to explain the strategy and that there had been articles in the local press about it. He claimed that the new strategy was not a reduction in service but an enhancement as it would now extend to 28,000 more households. He said that the waste once collected by Veolia was their property and where it was processed was no concern of the council.

Cllr Lorber (Lib Dem) who was chairing the committee said that he agreed with Brent FoE that the consultation was not fair or reasonable and suggested referral to the Local Government Ombudsman. In the debate there was much discussion of numbers and recycling rates as well as practical issues about how people with small gardens would cope with three bins. Cllr Moher tried several times to get further discussion on the co-mingling verus kerbside sorting issue, rather than the consultation, but had little success. Cllr Lorber said he did not want to see at some future date a TV documentary showing Brent's waste being sorted by child labour abroad.

Earlier the committee had discussed a reduction of in the sweeping of residential streets from three times a week to twice a week. Officers claimed that there would be no reduction in standards because Veolia would still be held to a Grade a or B standard of cleanliness. Independent surveys had shown public satisfaction with the standard of street cleanliness and these surveys plus increased monitoring should maintain standards.

At the conclusion of the meeting Paul Lorber used his chair's casting vote to put forward recommendations to the Executive to reconsider key aspects of the Waste Strategy, in the light of projected savings being over and above those required. However, Cllr Powney's vociferous defence of the strategy seemed to indicate that the recommendations would be rejected.