UPDATED A new face selected for Kilburn ward and the possible return of an old one in Willesden Green - Margaret McLennan rejected

Faduma Hassan

The first results are coming in for the selection of Labour candidates for the 2018 Brent Council Elections.  In Kilburn ward Rita Conneely and newcomers Abdirazak Abdi  and Corbyn supporter Faduma Hassan have been selected.

This leaves John Duffy, who has been extremely active in holding the Brent Cabinet to account, unselected in his current ward. I understand there are still some wards where short-listing is still open.

Elsewhere,  I understand that the architect of the 'Library Transformation Project, which saw 6  of Brent's 12 libraries closed, James Powney, has been short-listed for Willesden Green.  Powney has continued to hail the 'success' of that project on his blog but  has also used it to critique some Brent Council decisions as well as the leadership of Councillor Butt. LINK

Following rejection by Stonebridge ward last night local party members are asking if Deputy Leader Margaret McLennan will go back to seek selection in Northwick Park.  I understand Abdi Aden (currently Sudbury)and newcomer Promise Knight have been selected for Stonebridge. Ernest Ezeajughi has been reselected. Promise describes herself as a mentor and educator and previously worked as as campaign assistant to Dawn Butler and was one of David Miliband's communication team.

A reader has also been in touch to say that he understands all three sitting Queensbury councillors have been short-listed..

Helping James Powney solve the Brent Councillor suspension mystery

James Powney, former Brent Labour councillor, writing on his blog recently remarked that  'Martin (Francis) is self-confessedly a strongly anti-Labour man, his comments always need to be taken with a hefty dose of salt.'

However, he followed up my story LINK  on the suspension of a Labour Councillor in the run up to the Labour Group AGM which will be held after the May 5th election.  Powney expresses doubt that Brent Council leader, Muhammed Butt, had no knowledge of the suspension and added:

What surprises me is that he has got away with this line on many previous occasions _ disclaiming any knowledge of sacking a former Chief Executive, closing Kensal Rise Library, closing the Stonebridge Adventure Playground, and many others.  It seems to be his default response whenever asked to defend a position.  We shall see if Labour councillors are content to continue putting up with this,

James Powney returned to the subject after the above posting, writing on Friday:

I have sought some clarity on the mystery suspension of a Brent Councillor I alluded to recently.  Apparently an application for a suspension was made, and a junior Labour Party official is said to have approved it.  Shortly afterward, Brent Labour Group was written more formally by the Labour Party and told there was no valid grounds for suspension.  therefore the councillor was restored as a member of the Group he should never have been removed from.

What is more interesting is why Cllr Muhammed Butt is engaging in such distractions during Sadiq Khan's campaign.  Barbara Pitruzzella is an excellent candidate and I would be shocked if the Kilburn by election turns out to be anything other than a solid win for Labour.  Although Sadiq Khan is leading in the polls, I am less certain of his winning.  The Tories smear tactics are desperate but there would be no point in sinking that low unless they thought they had a prospect of success.

It is odd for the Labour Leader of Brent Council to be trying to stir up problems in the Labour Group in the run up to such an important vote.

There is surely no mystery regarding the identity of the councillor in question when you consider the evidence available to anyone who follows this blog.  We know that Cllr Butt can be terrier like in his pursuit of those who get on the wrong side from a previous case. LINK

More recently Cllr John Duffy (Labour Kilburn) has stood up for residents and courted unpopularity with his leader in the process. The most recent stand was over the out-sourcing of litter penalty notices: http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/duff-litter-enforcement-proposal.html

Below are some of the previous occasions on which Cllr Duffy raised issues which the leadership may have preferred to sweep under the carpet.

UPDATE: Brent Visitor Parking Debacle - Duffy does it again!

Jan 31, 2016 ... I understand that Cllr John Duffy, who last year claimed he stepped in to stop a flawed policy that would let Veolia pocket large sums in the multi ...

wembleymatters.blogspot.com

WEMBLEY MATTERS: Duffy claims he was punished by Butt & Co ... Jun 24, 2015 ... Councillor John Duffy (Labour Kilburn) reveals in his blog today LINK that he is snubbed by the Council's Labour leadership and some other ... wembleymatters.blogspot.com

WEMBLEY MATTERS: Kilburn Labour Party Party steps into Duffy ... Sep 6, 2015 ... Kilburn Labour Party Party steps into Duffy dispute. Reliable sources inform me that Kilburn (Brent) branch of the Labour Party agreed at its ... wembleymatters.blogspot.com

Kilburn councillors 'disenfranchised' claims Cllr John Duffy

May 21, 2015 ... Amid the Tory Party infighting last night at the Brent Council Annual General Meeting there was a protest from Cllr John Duffy (Labour, Kilburn) ...

I hope this goes some way to help James Powney solve the mystery...

Powney is not alone as questions raised over Flytipping Report

'Am I alone in finding this change of wording interesting?' asks James Powney LINK , drawing attention to a discrepancy between a report  on the Scrutiny Task group on Flytipping from the Chief Executive going to Brent Cabinet on January 20th and the actual body of the Task Group's Report (which is also included in the Cabinet papers).

Spot the difference:

Chief Executive's Report LINK

The Task Group Report LINK

So 'Why the mysterious change in Scrutiny wording?' as James Powney asks. Could it be that someone (who?) has decided the critical second sentence in 22 should be deleted? Why and on what authority?

I quoted the whole section so that readers could see that the other points are identical so this is no simple editing of the entire report.

It could be argued that it makes no difference because the original report is also included in the Agenda but then the Cabinet is actually voting on, and adopting, the version in the Chief Executive's Report.

James Powney was  Lead Member for the Environment at the beginning of 2013 and was succeeded by Cllr Roxanne Mashari at the AGM. In 2014 Cllr Keith Perrin was elected to the position but resigned in September 2014. Cllr George Crane was appointed in his place after an interval in which there was no one in the post.  LINK  Cllr Eleanor Southwood is the current Lead Member.

It is not quite Stalin removing Trotsky from the photographic record but intriguing all the same. Is there someone at Brent Council who cannot tolerate criticism or is it just a harmless tidying up exercise?

Will Brent Labour Group bite back over last year's Council Tax decision?

I confess I am guilty of neglecting fellow blogger and ex-councillor James Powney's writings and I missed a posting last week  LINK on the likely Council Tax rise.

In his piece James Powney draws attention to the situation last year when the Executive over-ruled the vote of the Labour Group for an increase just below the referendum trigger.  He hints that this may affect Cllr Butt's leadership position at the AGM in May :

I hear that Brent Council is likely to go for a Council Tax rise this year.  This has seemed to me to be the only sensible course for some time.  The rise will still only make a modest contribution to protecting Council services but it is better than nothing.

It also helps to protect the longer term finances of the Council.  Each year the Council Tax has been frozen, the base revenue of the Council has been reduced not just in this year but for future years.  With the government talking about abolishing central government grant altogether, a continued freeze would simply run the Council into the ground.

One might ask why Cllr Butt has been so bitterly opposed to a rise for so long.  Even to the extent of ignoring the vote of the Labour Group altogether, which was such an undemocratic measure that I am sure no previous Labour Group would have stood it.  I wonder whether it will come back to bite him in May.

Certainly, his reasons can not have been to protect vulnerable residents, since he was fully behind the Council Tax Support Scheme which inevitably hits those least able to pay.  Indeed the rise for those residents in the first year was so large it would have been impossible to raise the Council Tax by that much across the tax base as a whole. 

Powney: Cabinet's 'blatant disregard makes everyone involved look ridiculous'

 

Front page of this week's Kilburn Times

Former councllor James Powney takes up the issue of the Labour Group vote in favour of a Council Tax rise, and the leadership's decision to ignore the vote in his blog LINK

Cllr John Duffy has made a formal complaint to the Coinstiutional officer of the Labour Party over the issue.

This is what James Powney said:

Reports of the discussion of Council Tax increases cause me some embarrassment as a member of the Labour Party.  It seems that the Labour Group debated and voted on the issue, deciding in favour of a rise just short of what would trigger a referendum.  This seems eminently sensible to me for reasons I have explained. 

It now appears that the Executive plan to simply ignore the majority of the Group, and freeze the Council Tax.  I have never heard of such a thing in Brent or in any other authority, or indeed any other party.  Such blatant disregard makes everyone involved look ridiculous.

It is normal for Budgets to be subject to Group whipping, but since the majority voted in favour of an increase, I would have thought the Labour whip is in favour of the increase rather than against it.

Brent library privatisation hits the front page and two men named James disagree about what it means

The Kilburn Times (above) puts the possible privatisation of Brent libraries management on its front page.  Management would be handed over to a charitable trust although details are not clear.

The story was first covered on Wembley Matters on January 4th LINK (Will privatisation of Brent Council's  library management damage the service?)  and I published an extract from a blog by Alan Wylie, veteran library campaigner, who made these points about the leisure companies or trusts:

What a Leisure Trust means in practice:

• Leisure services are outsourced to a separate organisation/company. 
• The Council retains ownership of the facilities, which are leased to the Trust.
• Virtually all the savings come from rate reductions and VAT savings, which are much smaller initially because of the high set up costs. 
• Direct democratic control of the service will cease - elected member representation on a trust is limited to less than 20% of the board.
• Company law requires that Board members must put the interests of the leisure trust before those of the local authority. 
• After a year the Trust will usually cease to use council services and will be responsible its own procurement and contracting or corporate and other services.

The move, ostensibly, is to save £160,000 in rates (trusts get charged 80% rather than the 100% the Council will pay), although this is a loophole that may well be closed.

Margaret Bailey, chair of Friends of Kensal Rise Library, told the Kilburn Times that privatising services often ends up costing more:

Savings made on the 80% (rates) rebate will be minimal   and certainly not enough justification for privatising the service. I wish local authorities would fight these cuts together - and harness the support of their communities to do this.

 I agree.

Cllr James Denselow, now in charge of libraries under his Stronger Communities portfolio claims its a change in management structure, rather than privatisation and  'saves us a huge amount of money with rate changes'.  He recognised the sensitive nature of the changes and said the Council would do 'only if we find it's the right thing for us, for our libraries..and our communities.'

James Powney, whose blog has become a lot more interesting since he left the Council, wrote a article on the issue on Thursday morning LINK

Cllr Powney of course was the lead member when half of Brent's libraries were closed. He said that the wording of the officers' report ('established trust') suggests an existing body and the obvious one is that which currently runs Ealing and Harrow libraries:

The phrase "transfer management" suggests something more ambitious.  Not just founding a Trust but having the management taken over by a private company as in Greenwich or Hounslow.  This would be a lot more complicated.  A full procurement would need specification of a contract and a full tendering exercise for what would be a sizable contract.  In itself that would be a substantial one-off cost.  The Localism Act appears to have made this whole issue even more complicated than it was before.  The redundancy of senior management is likely to make the whole process even more difficult. 

This option was discussed when I was on the Executive, and rejected.  The business rate saving was largely a piece of accountancy smoke and mirrors (I understand that the rules may have been partly changed since then), and it seemed to me that all the things a private firm could do to cut costs could also be done by the Council.  Of course, having direct employees also gives you more control and we wanted to ensure the success of the Libraries Transformation Project by having hands on management.  Therefore we only went for the Sports Centre part of the project. 

The two James clearly have different perspectives and it will be interesting to see how this pans out. Meanwhile library staff are rightly concerned about what these vague proposals mean for them, their working conditions and their pensions.  The public should be concerned about what it will mean for the quality of their library service when the number of libraries has been halved and the council are proposing to cut the amount spent on book stock.

Cuts may have greatest impact on the most vulnerable says Brent Council budget report

Brent Council spending

There was a short Twitter exchange during last night's Council Meeting on the possibility of raising Council Tax with some arguing that by freezing Council Tax for five years the Council had undermined its own revenue base.  Others said that the amount raised beneath the 2% limit was so small as to hardly compensate for the loss of government grant made to Councils who freeze the tax. In terms of the amount raised as a proportion of the £54m cuts required it was piffling.

Former Labour councillor, and Brent Executive member, James Powney discusses this on his blog today. LINK

In Green Party circles the idea of a 'progressive' Council Tax has engaged people in debate LINK

Meanwhile here in Brent full reports have been published for each  potential area for cuts or revenue raising possibilities. In some cases there are soft and hard options given. The latter being ceasing service delivery.  The report to the cabinet makes clear that no decisions are required of the Cabinet at this stage except to go out for consultation on the proposals.

These are the links to the various reports:

• Chief Finance Officer's report budget-report, item 4. PDF 214 KB
• Appendix 1 Savings budget-app1, item 4. HTM 1 KB
• Adult Social Care 1-asc, item 4. PDF 299 KB
• Children and  Young People 2-cyp, item 4. PDF 266 KB
• Environment 3-env, item 4. PDF 399 KB
• Regeneration and Growth 4-rg, item 4. PDF 462 KB
• Assistant Chief Executive 5-ace, item 4. PDF 238 KB
• Public Health 6-ph, item 4. PDF 118 KB
• Finance and IT 7-fin-it, item 4. PDF 124 KB
• Human Resources 8-hr, item 4. PDF 120 KB
• Budget Savings by theme budget-app1-pdf-format, item 4. PDF 214 KB

The main report states:

There is a risk that the collective savings will have a significant impact on those vulnerable people who are the greatest users of council services.

Overall, the groups most at risk of being impacted are older people, disabled people, children and people from black ethnic backgrounds.

There would also be a low impact on women, people who do not speak English and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. There is a risk that disabled people could be severely affected by experiencing a raft of changes from different service areas, even if each proposal may appear to have a limited impact in isolation.

Many proposals will have an impact on staff, especially in corporate services where the majority of the budgets are made up of staffing costs.

Given the scale of staffing reductions, there is potential for these proposals to have a significant impact on all levels of the workforce. The majority of the workforce is BAME and it is important that changes are not disproportionate in terms of their impact. Brent’s Managing Change Policy and Procedure provides a framework to be followed during times of organisational change to minimise the risk of a negative impact on any equality groups. The Managing Change Policy requires that staffing changes undergo equality analysis to ensure that the restructure process is conducted in a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory manner. The Equality Team will review the cumulative impact of restructures on the workforce diversity profile.

 Cllr Sam Stopp's commentary on the Full Council meeting should perhaps be read with the above comments in mind LINK

Brent Labour Councillors must act on racism and bullying tomorrow

Former Brent Council Executive member James Powney returned to the subject of the current race discrimination and bullying scandal at Brent Council on his blog yesterday. LINK

This is what he had to say:

I notice that in a debate on Martin Francis blog some of the commentators appear to be confusing his position and mine.  My original post is here, and Martin has paraphrased it accurately, whilst adding his own view.  Hence the understandable confusion.

My view is that Brent Council had strong rules and procedures before 2012, including appropriate relationships between members and officers.  These were built up over many years since the nadir of the Tory administration in the 1990s, as explained here.  Since 2012, there has been a steady decline in the application of appropriate standards, leading to a situation where accusations of various forms of abuse, including racism and misuse of public money, are flying about.  This is, in my view, the result of the past couple of years where patronage and irrational decision making have increased, scrutiny has declined, and certain individuals appear to have been allowed to believe that they enjoy impunity from accountability.

My view is that it is up to elected councillors to step in and sort this out, whether the abuses are being committed by over mighty officers or whether they are being committed by elected members who are out of control (or indeed whether they are being influenced by people who fit in neither category). Given the composition of Brent Council, that primarily means the Labour Group.

The debate on Martin's blog can be found here. 

It would be a pity if Labour councillors meeting tomorrow as the Labour Group let personal antipathy towards James Powney (as a member of the old regime), myself (as a member of a rival political party or Graham Durham (well, as Graham Durham) get in the way of recognising the need to deal with this issue.

Up to this point the scandal has not hit national media but any risk assessment of the potential damage to the Council and perhaps the Labour Party's reputation would recognise that the matters needs to be dealt with decisively and action taken.

In the last fortnight I have received emails and phone calls from former and current Brent Council workers about working conditions at the Council, some of whom work at a senior level. They have been told they will be disciplined if they approach Councillors directly and those that have left have had gagging clauses imposed as part of the settlement.

I have inadvertently found myself in the position of being their only outlet because of the Council's actions.  Several have wept on the phone as they recall the effect on their health and emotional well-being as well as the impact on their families.

Councillors should recognise that it is their responsibility to ensure that their employees are treated fairly in an atmosphere free from harassment, bullying and fear.

It is as simple as that.

It is not something they can ignore.

James Powney comments on 'tragic situation' regarding Brent Council bullying allegations

Former Brent Labour councillor James Powney has posted two interesting articles on the current controversies in Brent regarding the Human Resources Department and the Employment Tribunal findings of Racial discrmination, victimisation and constructive dismissal.

Yesterday he wrote:

Following an Employment Tribunal that found Brent Council had tolerated racist bullying, there has rightly been a lot of disquiet.  The concerns are highly unlikely to be met by any internal review into the issue, as such a review is far to close to the people alleged to be involved to have any credibility.

What saddens me most about this is that Brent has over many years made real efforts to tackle equality issues, and this looks like an organisation losing those hard fought gains through neglect and perhaps something worse.

Commenting that the Council had come through a rigorous review over the libraries case he went on:

Since then I get an impression of decline.  A lot of this follows on from the removal of Gareth Daniel as Chief Executive.  There has never been any public explanation of why this was done, but I suspect part of it was because Gareth had objected vigorously to a particular councillor bullying staff.  The councillor bore him a grudge as a result and persued a vendetta against him.

Once you start allowing this kind of thing without objection, you begin to create a culture where it is acceptable, and people cease even to object to bullying and simply keep their heads down.  That is a tragic situation not just for the victims but also the organisation as a whole.

I agree that the root of much of the current situation goes back to the removal of Gareth Daniel and deals that were done at the time. The leaking of email communications between Gareth Daniel and Muhammed Butt, to the local press, the suspension of Clive Heaphy for gross misconduct (not financial) and then the settlement with him, the initial stand of three Corporate Management Team members in support of Daniel and the rapid appointment of Christine Gilbert are all part of the scenario.

James Powney today discusses some of the wider issues involved LINK:

I mentioned some of the failings of Brent's human resources yesterday.  Understandably there has been a lot of focus on accusations of racism and bulling, but I think the Human Resources function at Brent Council has a number of problems that need examination by rather more rigorous examiners than the "internal review" apparently set up.  The questions I have in mind are:

1) The obvious concerns about issues to do with bullying, intimidation and possible misuse of funds.
2) The continued appointment of an "interim" Chief Executive whose term appears to be set to extend for more than two years.  During this time other London Boroughs (eg Barnet) have seen seen Chief Executives go and be replaced.  Lambeth Council has advertised recently.  Why is Brent unable to perform this basic function?
3) The rising use of interim staff, which is an enormous cost to the taxpayer, and whether this reflects an underlying weakness in the structure of the organisation.
4) Whether anyone is getting any benefit from the One Oracle project.  One of the main aims of this was supposed to be the improvement in human resources information, which should lead to genuine efficiency savings as well as potentially improving the Council in terms of diversity and so on.

I am sure that these concerns are shared by many Labour councillors as well as local Labour Party members.

The bullet has to be bitten.

Brent Labour in need of good political advice as spin doctor and organiser leave

Brent Labour Group is looking for a new Political Assistant following Richard Bell's departure. Richard Bell was the latest Political Assistant with a background in the Fabian Society. His predecessor Jack Stenner had been a Young Fabian. The two have published articles together LINK

If anyone out there fancies their chances (and there is an ex-councillor with time on his hands with very definite views on Brent Labour and democracy), I reproduce the application pack below:

Coincidentally (perhaps), Lee Skevington, Labour's borough organiser, has according to highly placed Labour sources, decided not to extend his contract. Skevington has been popular with rank and file Labour Party members.

The departures leave quite a gap ahead of the General Election in nine months time. However influential Jim Moher remains firmly in the driving seat of Dawn Butler's Brent Central  campaign following Labour's AGM.

Brent Labour's need for good political advice became clear this week when the 'poor doors' issue hit national as well as local headlines. This segregation of private and affordable home tenants in the same block was justified by Margaret McLennan, lead member for housing and regeneration, on the basis that separate access was required to keep the service charges of affordable tenants down, but attacked by former Council leader Ann John as 'utterly ridiculous and dreadful'. Pete Firmin, also a Labour Party member and chair of Brent Trades Council, as well as a committee member of a local residents' association, said, 'It is outrageous and basically saying we are the privileged, keep out of our area.'

This controversy follows the revelation that a one bedroomed flat in the Willesden Green Library development, advertised in Singapore as 'benefitting' from having no social or key worker homes, was selling at £450,000.

I have sympathy with McLennan's point on service charges but surely this goes back to the planning stages of mixed developments and their marketing, when the private service charges could be set to subsidise affordable housing service charges.

It is worth noting that Muhammed Butt has refrained from commenting to the Kilburn Times and has not responded to Twitter requests for his reaction.

Former Ann John supporter, James Powney, has continued to raise issues about democracy in Brent on his blog and the need for proper scrutiny. In a recent posting he was critical of the budget process by the current leadership LINK:

I fear that Brent Council is just going to float along without proper planning, until suddenly the money simply isn't there and panic cuts have to be implemented.  When that happens, councillors cease to exercise any sense of priorities and simply try to balance this year's books, until they go through an even more difficult exercise next year.

Not exactly a vote of confidence in his Labour colleagues.

Today  LINK  Powney commends the nine Labour councillors who called the £40 'Garden tax' in for scrutiny at Wednesday's Scrutiny Committee but contrasts the current changes with 'the thoroughness of the last major change in Brent's recycling arrangements four years ago'. He was, of course, lead member for the environment four years ago.

Elsewhere, on Twitter, James Powney has been involved in an exchange about the police investigation into fraudulent emails supporting the Kensal Rise Library development. Brent Council itself instigated the investigation with Muhammed Butt initially insisting that the issue should be thoroughly investigated. Lately the Council has granted planning permission and the council does not appear to be pursuing the matter. Powney, who still has the twitter handle @CllrPowney was accused of wanting to drop the investigation.

The police investigation is not the only unfinished business carried forward from the last administration.

The previous Labour adminstration extended Christine Gilbert's contract as Interim Chief Executive until after the May elections. Fiona Ledden's report advocating this at the time cited a smooth transition to the Civic Centre, managing the local elections, and safeguarding of Brent's reputation, as well as prevailing market conditions for LA CEs as reasons for keeping Gilbert on.

Now, three months after the election, Gilbert is still in post, with no sign of any recruitment process. She is currently on holiday and Andy Donald is standing in as Acting Interim Chief Executive.

Ledden's report (with Cara Davani of HR fame as the other contact officer) adopted by the then Brent Executive stated:

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Taking these factors into account and taking a strategic view in relation to the optimum time to commence the permanent recruitment process, it is proposed that recruitment for a permanent Chief Executive commences after the May 2014 elections and that the current interim arrangements continue until a permanent appointment has been made and the individual is in post. This approach is fully supported by the Executive.

Unfortunately this (deliberate?) lose wording seems open to an interpretation  that the appointment can be made any time after May 2014. May 2020 perhaps?

Lastly, no independent investigation has yet been set up into the modus operandi of Brent's HR department.

The call-in of the 'Garden Tax' proposal is a welcome sign that some Labour councillors are prepared to question Cabinet decisions. I would hope that Labour councillors, committed to equality in housing, transparency in recruitment procedures, and good labour relations with employees, will also take up some of these other issues.

.

Diminishing democracy in Brent - an update

At the time of the local elections the Brent Green Party called for an independent investigation into the following issues in Brent Council:

1. Corporate Management Team officers being paid through their private companies rather than normal pay roll
2. The contractual arrangements for CMT officers and interim appointments
3. Previous employment and business connections between senior offices appointed by Brent Council on an interim basis
4. The working culture of the Human Resources department 
5. Brent Council's Whistle Blowing Policy to ensure that it adequately protects whistle-blowers from harassment and retribution

To which a reader added:
6. Instances of council policies, procedures, standing orders, scheme of delegation etc being circumvented.

Secondly, there is the important issue of the appointment of Chief Executive.  Christine Gilbert's acting role was extended by the Brent Executive  until after the local elections on the recommendation of Fiona Ledden, Head of Legal and Procurement. The report stated:

The recruitment process for a new permanent  Chief Executive should be delayed because the current recruitment process for  three other CEs in London boroughs would limit the quality of candidates, to allow the restructuring of council senior management to go ahead smoothly, and  to ensure continuity and reputation management over the move to the Civic Centre and the 2014 local elections.

No independent investigation has been launched by the new Labour administration and no open recruitment process has started for a permanent Chief Executive.

Muhammed Butt accused of tricking Labour councillors on Scrutiny

James Powney, ex Brent Labour councillor, has returned to the matter of the changes in Scrutiny voted through by the Full Council on June 4th with no comments or questions from Labour backbenchers.

Here is an extract from his hard-hitting posting about the Labour Group meeting LINK:

Neither Cllr Butt nor anyone else chose to mention the drastic changes to the Council Constitution which he at least must have known about.

Why therefore did the entire Labour Group simply nod them through?  I asked a councillor this, and was told that no one in the Labour Group had chosen to read the changes and therefore they did not really know what they were voting on.  If true, that statement is a fairly damning comment on the thoroughness with which councillors prepare for meetings.  When the Tories pointed out the content of the rule changes, the inevitable partisan instincts kicked in and the Labour councillors all voted for them.

Had I been there I would have argued for deferral on the grounds that most of the councillors didn't understand what they were being asked to vote for because parts (eg describing scrutiny arrangements) are just obscure, and parts have sersious implicationms which new councillors simply won't understand until they are given some sort of grounding in Council governance.

Cllr Butt has effectively tricked his colleagues.  I hope they return to the issue at a later date, when they have had time to think about it.

The claim that 'no one in the Labour Group had chosen to read the changes' is interesting. The day before the Full Council I emailed a selection of councillors from all parties with the following message:

Dear Councillor,

First of all congratulations on your election as a Councillor for 2014-18.  With a Council returned with a large majority it is important that there is effective scrutiny in place with backbenchers playing a full part. Effective scrutiny protects against bad decision making and also protects against the damage to the Council's reputation that could be caused by poor decision making.

There has been extensive coverage on Wembley Matters of the proposed changes tabled for Wednesday which have not had full discussion, tabled as they are just two weeks after the election and with many new councillors elected.

Effective scrutiny is a matter for all political parties on the Council and I suggest that you read the pieces below and consider referring back the proposals to allow for the provision of more details and to allow for proper discussion.

Martin Francis

http://www.wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/powney-calls-for-councillors-to-give.html

http://www.wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/powney-blasts-scrutiny-proposals.html

http://www.wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/brent-scrutiny-proposals-elaborated.html

http://www.wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/scrutinising-brents-scrutiny-proposals.html

The only councillor who really questioned the changes and pointed out the issues was John Warren, leader of the Brondesbury Park Conservative Group.

I understand that disquiet is now developing in the Labour Group with newly elected councillors complaining about the lack of discussion beforehand. A source suggests that there is a possibility of a review although there may be some constitutional impediment to the reversal of a policy recently adopted by Full Council.