Brent Citizens welcome Council leaders' offer to meet to resolve Living Wage issues that have arisen since May local elections

 

Cllr Butt responds to school students and other community members questioning his commitment to making Brent a Living Wage Borough (Photo: @AmandaRosePhoto )

After Monday's Living Wage action at Brent Civic Centre by Brent Citizen's, Muahhmed Butt, Leader of Brent Council, put out a tweet:

Today Brent Citizens replied:

Thank you Cllr Butt for attending our public action and offering to meet with us in January to review your administration’s commitments re: making Brent a Living Wage Borough! For the benefit of your followers, allow us to provide some context:

 

Accountability and transparency matter. We’re glad our collective action led to

Cllr Butt offering to meet and resolve the issues that arose since May. We look forward to working with him and Cllr Southwood to combat in-work poverty in Brent.

 

Finally, for anyone who wants to dig deeper into the Living Wage Places schemes - Living Wage Zones, Living Wage Boroughs, Living Wage Cities - we recommend this resource: https://t.co/PQ5k5DcfhK

 

 

 Brent Citizens held up posters reminding Cllr Butt and Cllr Southwood of their election pledges

 

 

Joining in the coversation Brent Renters added:

 

That's great community involvement, however, wage rises for a huge proportion of workers will mean nothing as without rent controls/freezes increased wages will just be eaten up by ever increasing rent levels - especially for private renters.

 

This is why it's so important for Brent's communities to organise on both fronts - for better wages and for good quality, affordable housing. We're fully behind you.

 

Why Brent and Harrow electors should vote Green in the GLA election on Thursday

This is what Jafar Hassan told the Harrow Times when asked why people should vote for him as the Green candidate for the Brent and Harrow constituency. LINK


Green Party candidate Jafar Hassan said:

"London is in an awful housing crisis and the Green Party are the only ones with a viable plan to support and protect renters, and ensure housing is genuinely affordable. 

"This city is becoming more expensive to live in, making it harder for communities to stick together, but also making it completely unfair for those travelling from the zones in Harrow and Brent. We are campaigning to introduce a flat fares system making it cheaper to travel if you're a part time worker or living in the outer parts of London. 

"Investment in cycling and speeding up the introduction of zero emissions taxis and buses. During the school rush on busy roads around Brent and Harrow it is a disgrace that children are being exposed to so much toxic air on a daily basis. I will be fighting for safer cycling routes and ensuring all of the bus routes in our boroughs are electric powered. 

"I've lived in north west London my whole life, I studied both my journalism degree and masters in politics in London. This city along with my upbringing has shaped who I am. My mum who came to this country from Iraq before even turning 20 raised my sister and I on her own. I learnt from her the importance of persevering through difficult times and never losing hope. I will fight to give London back to Londoners and give them the Green policies they want. 

"We absolutely need more Greens on the London Assembly. Your votes for the Green Party in London elections have ensured investment for Cycle Superhighway and Cycle Hire, helped create the London Living Wage Unit, meaning that 60,000 Londoners are now paid a Living Wage, and pushed new housing developments to have more affordable housing. If you only want to give us one vote make sure it is on the orange ballot paper, where if you vote Green, you get Green."

Greens call for Wealth Tax on the richest 1% with assets of more than £3m

THE Green Party, the only party committed to progressive policies that tackle Britain’s persistent inequality problem head on, is calling for a Wealth Tax on the top 1%, those with assets of more than £3million. 

The Green Party, which is already fighting for a Living Wage for all and fairer company-wide pay ratios, says a tax on wealth would help to ensure that the richest 1% (300,000 people) pay their fair share back to society. 

The richest 1000 people have doubled their wealth in the last five years . Meanwhile, the number in poverty has risen and the queues at food banks have lengthened. 

Policies that tackle the disparities in income do not necessarily address the problem of excessive wealth. That is why an annual wealth tax which taxes the assets of the wealthiest at a rate of 1% which would raise approximately £21billion is needed. 

Natalie Bennett, Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, revealed the Party’s commitment to a Wealth Tax ahead of the General Election live on LBC’s Duncan Barkes Show. 
Bennett said:

Our strong General election polling and surge in membership goes to show that the Green Party’s commitment to people over profits policies are really hitting home. The Green Party is prepared to take principled stands and an increasing number of voters recognise and value this. 

Other political parties are offering business as usual, only minor changes to our failed economic system and policies that are helping the super-rich and making the poor pay for the economic crisis that they did not create.   

A Wealth Tax is part of the Green Party’s policy programme that will deliver real change for the common good. It is this change that British politics and British society desperately needs.

Brent Council to rely on volunteers for Meals on Wheels provision

Brent Executive approved the handing over of the provision of Meals on Wheels and meals at Day Care Centres to the voluntary sector this evening. There were passionate speeches by Brent Fightback and Labour Party members Michael Calderbank and Graham Durham expressing concern over the proposals and posing some incisive questions. Their speeches caused Cllr Pavey to hesitate saying they had raised legitimate concerns and Cllr Denselow said that he could see the concern, in an era of cuts, over a Big Society style solution, but he preferred to see it as a cooperative solution offering vulnerable people choice and control.

Calderbank expressed concern over redundancies at the current provider, payments to be made to new providers, whether the voluntary organisations would be paid the London Living Wage that the Council had committed itself to, the report's 'high risk' with  'medium' probability assessment that vulnerable people may go without a meal with a number of different voluntary sector providers.

Stressing he was not opposed to voluntary organisations providing services, but that this should not be  a cover for cuts, or at the cost of a reduction in quality, he asked about monitoring of quality and hygiene standards, and wanted confirmation that the new service would not longer provide puddings.
 
Calderbank said he couldn't believe that the Council was going ahead on the basis of such a small pilot project with one provider. This was not a strong basis for a major change. He asked what sanctions would be applied to providers who dropped out.

Durham said that he has spoken to the minister at Harlesden Methodist Church which had operated the pilot and found that the only person to be employed was a 0.7 cook, all the rest delivering the service would be volunteers. This was not a partnership with the voluntary sector but reliance on unpaid volunteers. The Council was creating no jobs and guilty of creating unemployment when it was already at 8.4%

Through the NHS Patients group he had heard complaints about food being undercooked, the lack of puddings and food put into one container like baby food.

He said with disparate providers there was a need for strong contract compliance to ensure  continuity of quality of food and reliability of delivery. The real motive seemed to be the £300,000 of 'savings' - where was the Council's much vaunted London Living Wage?

Phil Porter, Acting Director of Adult Social Services, responded rather than Cllr Krupesh Hirani, lead member for Adult Social Care, who was absent from the Executive Meeting. Porter said the changes had been drivem by better service and increasing cost and control, not by cuts. The previous provider had provided only one option from their base in Leicester. The new range of suppliers would give more choice. The Council had been honest in publishing negative comments from service users but the 8 in the pilot had been 'very happy. (In fact the pilot numbers were reduced to six with one dissatisfied and seeking alternatives and 'very happy' doesn't really describe some of the other users' comments),

He said there would be no change of service for vulnerable individuals without a review of their needs carried out by social workers to understand their capacity and support network- managing risk was part of the review.

There was no contract compliance because the Council had a new role facilitating the market rather than establishing a contractual relationship. This was part of a broader move which the Council was undertaking. It created a challenge and removed the comfort blanket of a single provider.

Porter said the Council couldn't make the providers commit to the London Living Wage  - they could only encourage them t pay it. It was fundamental to give power to the provider and all the support required to make sure the provision is also safe, The scheme would deliver savings and a better service.

He said 5 or 6* people employed by Apetito in Brent would be affected by redundancy. He could make no undertaking that jobs would be created because some providers would be able to provide within their existing infrastructure and others may not. 

Cllr Roxanne Mashari intervened to say that she had been concerned about nutritional standards being maintained in the new arrangements and had visited Cricklewood Homeless Concern to see their provision. As a result she thought it was a fantastic move and should have been made earlier. The food was fresh meat and fish, fruits such as avocado, not baby food, and was served in ceramic type containers. Cricklewood Homeless Concern were able to build on their existing relationships with their clients.

To protests from the audience that their questions had not all been answered, the Executive went on to approve the new arrangements.

* Please note earlier version because of a typographical error rendered this figure as 506. My apologies.

Kitcat calls for 'legal, fair and affordable' suggested solutions to Brighton pay cut crisis

I posted an item on the situation in Brighton and Hove where the local Green Party and Caroline Lucas MP have condemned the Council's pay modernisation which involves a pay cut for a minority of workers and increases for others.

Jason Kitcat, Convenor of the Green Group of councillors has responded to the criticism with this article on the Liberal Conspiracy website:

My colleagues and I on Brighton and Hove Council have led this country’s first Green local authority since May 2011, although as a minority administration we can (and do) get over-ruled by Labour and the Tories when they choose to work together.

There’s much we’ve done over the last two years which has been widely welcomed including introducing the Living Wage, building more affordable homes, protecting third sector funding, becoming the world’s first One Planet City and progressing a City Deal, but it’s fair to say that staff pay has been the most controversial issue we have had to deal with.

We inherited a deeply flawed and muddled pay and allowances structure from previous administrations, and indeed from predecessor defunct local authorities.

The lowest paid were not getting a living wage and the work on resolving single status for employee take-home pay (regardless of gender) was incomplete.

The Tory-Lib Dem cuts to local government have also hit us hard: in fact, they are the second steepest faced by any council of our type. Furthermore, we cannot raise Council Tax beyond a level Labour or the Tories would support. Although senior management pay is down to its lowest level for over ten years, the budget is exceptionally tight.

So we’re consulting on a proposal that will bring in fair pay and allowances for all who work for the council.
Building on the Living Wage we’ve already introduced for the lowest paid, we now are seeking to complete the final step of ensuring single status for all council employees.

It is very clear that this is not about budget savings and not about ‘austerity’. In fact, based on the offer under consultation, the pay bill is likely to go up slightly. Which other Council in the country can claim that?
What is the offer then? The offer includes three key aspects:

1) A new fair and simple set of allowances which is easy to understand and helps the council meet the needs of our citizens.With these new allowances 90% of staff will see very little or no change at all in their take home pay. Of those that do, the majority will actually see an increase and a minority will see some detriment. Most of those seeing detriment will, it is estimated, lose less than £25 per week. I recognise even that is a lot to some people, but not the headline figures being used by some individuals.

2) Anyone who is unfortunately suffering detriment will be generously compensated for that loss with a lump sump payment. For example someone losing between £1,001 and £1,250 a year is proposed to receive £3,550 in one-off compensation.

3) We are keen to provide new opportunities for staff. We hope that, if agreed at a future committee, changes like Bank Holiday working can increase opportunities for waste and recycling staff whilst improving services to the city by eliminating changing collection days every time there is a Bank Holiday.

Some staff will regrettably see allowances reduced, but we can see no legal and affordable way merely to increase everyone’s pay up to those levels – and we therefore propose a lump sum to compensate those staff, worth very roughly about three years’ worth of any reduction.

We have to resolve these allowances now. To do so without any detriment to any member of staff would sadly be totally unaffordable, even with Council Tax rises that would certainly not be supported by Labour and Conservative councillors.

I know this process has been controversial and could have been communicated better. Some colleagues locally have concerns about it, to say the least.

I would therefore welcome suggestions from them, as well as from staff and the unions, on how to improve these proposals in any way which is legal, fair and can be afforded within the tight budget limits effectively set by the government as well as our Labour and Tory opposition.

—
For more on the proposals, see Jason’s blog here.
Jason Kitcat is a Green City Councillor. He is writing in his capacity as Convenor of the Green Group of councillors on Brighton & Hove City Council.