Brent Council public consultation on 'Brutal' cuts on January 13th

Brent Council's Borough Plan puts much emphasis on working with the voluntary sector to deliver services in an era of cut backs.

At Scrutiny Committee last night Cllr Mary Daly asked if any figures had been put on what was expected from the sector.

Deputy Brent Council leader Michael Pavey responding said:

To be perfectly honest I don't know how much the voluntary sector can absorb. Cuts of £54 million will be brutal. We will just have to do what we can. We are working hand in glove with the voluntary sector to ameliorate the impact of cuts.

Pavey welcomed the Budget Scrutiny Task Group's report and its emphasis on equality but said:

 But I have to be candid. There will be a disproportionate impact on the less well off. That is the reality.

He felt the Task Group had been harsh to question the limited choice in the budget options. The Group had said:

The range and extent of public consultation, both with regard to the draft Borough Plan and the council budget options was welcomed by the scrutiny task group. However, given the severity of the financial reductions the group was concerned that the degree of ;choice; between various options was still limited and this needed to be clearly set out during the consultation events planned for January 2015.

Cllr Eleanor Southwold remarked that residents who had put much effort into responding to the consultation on the Borough Plan had been disappointed with the draft Plan and felt that it did not reflect what they had said.  Cllr Dan Filson said that although the suggested cuts of £54m was exceeded by the budget proposals which totalled £60m, giving some leeway in terms of the final decision, £35m still had to be cut in the first year.  He said that efficiency savings were much easier to find in a 'steady state' authority than one facing such drastic changes.

Cllr James Allie was keen to find out more about improving returns on Brent investments. He was concerned about always having to look at cuts and wanted to look at income:

If it is just about cuts I have to ask myself, what is the point of being elected?

Cllr Pavey replied that reserves were lower and investing for a higher return would be a risk and Brent Council already had experience of that (a reference to the Icelandic banks).

Michael Bowden, Operational Director of Finance, said that the budget proposals contained no assumptions about the level of  Council Tax or changes in the Council Tax Support scheme. Responding to Cllr Cowill he said that the Council Tax base had increased by 4% as the result of new build which was about £3.8m. The return on investments was average for comparable London boroughs. Any long term borrowing by the Council would currently be at an interest rate of 4.5%.

The Council will be holding two consultation events on the budget on Tuesday January 13th and these will be followed by consultations at the Brent Connects meetings. The paper on savings/cuts that went to Cabinet on December 15th can be found here LINK

The Council is expecting a high attendance at the January 13th meetings with media in attendance. It is likely that much discussion will centre around what services can be 'saved' given the £6m that can be clawed back from the £60m worth of cuts proposed. This could lead to a sort of bidding process between proponents of different services and leave the whole issue of whether the council should be implementing Coalition cuts to one side.

This is what appears on the Brent Council website:

Budget consultation event

13 January 2015, 2pm to 4pm, Brent Civic Centre

13 January 2015, 7pm to 9pm, Brent Civic Centre

See events in: Civic centre events, Public consultations

We have to make £54 million worth of savings over the next two years and we want to hear your views about this.
Over the last few years we have already made a number of savings but, with around a 50 per cent reduction in central government funding between now and 2018 coming we have to do more.
Our budget plans so far include the further streamlining of our senior management, renegotiating contracts with suppliers to get a better deal and focusing the biggest cuts on back office services such as IT, Finance and HR.
Despite these steps, significant and wide-ranging cuts to frontline services are 'inevitable' the Leader of the Council has warned.
Come along to have your say as we look to make further cuts to our budget.

Former Executive member Cllr James Powney makes some interesting comments on the complexity of budget consultation and whether some of the proposed cuts are realistic, or indeed legal, on his blog: LINK

Brent hospital proposals must come under intense scrutiny on Thursday

Days after NHS England announced an inquiry into why waiting times at Ealing Hospital and Northwick Park A&Es have the longest waiting times in the country, LINK, Brent's Scrutiny Committee on Thursday will be examining several important aspects of local health care.

Representatives of the North west London NHS Hospital Trust will be questioned about progress on the recommendations of the Care Quality Commission's (CQC) critical  report on Northwick Park Hospital.

The report LINK sets out the issues to be examined clearly:

CQC made specific recommendations for improvement at Northwick Park Hospital concerning A&E and related services. These are set out below:-

• Ensure that there are appropriate numbers of staff to meet the needs of patients in the A&E department, surgical areas and critical care.

• Ensure that there are systems in place to assess and monitor the quality of services provided in A&E, critical care, surgery and maternity to ensure that services are safe and benchmarked against national standards.

•Review the coping strategies within A&E during periods of excessive demand for services.

•Empower senior staff to make changes to ensure that patients are safe in A&E in maternity.

•Review discharge arrangements in A&E and critical care to avoid re-admission to these areas.

Given the significant number of areas requiring improvement in the current A&E provision at Northwick Park Hospital reassurance is sought from the senior management concerning implementation of actions and the safety of the A&E services available to Brent residents.

Another area to be examined is the proposals from Shaping a Healthier Future and Brent NHS to close maternity and other associated services at Ealing Hospital. 

The committee is recommended to question representatives of the Brent Clinical Commissioning Group on:-

•the robustness of their modelling assumptions and assurance plan;

•the timescale for their implementation; and

•what contingency plans are in place in case any of the proposals turn out not to be possible or feasible

A puzzling aspect of the report LINK is the timing. This meeting is on November 26th and it looks as if key decisions on this issue are actually to be made by the CCGs on the same day:

The next stage of reconfiguration is the changes to maternity services and the inter dependent services at Ealing Hospital. Brent Clinical Commissioning Group is due to make a decision on delegating the decision on timing to Ealing Clinical Commissioning Group, along with the other CCGs across North West London, on 26thNovember 2014. Ealing Clinical Commissioning Group is due to make a decision on the timings of changes to maternity services, and the interdependent services at Ealing Hospital on 26^th November 2014.

One can only wonder if what the Scrutiny Committee thinks will have any impact given this timetable.

The report's authors reach a soothing conclusion:

The impact on Brent residents and NHS services of changes to maternity and inter-dependent services at Ealing Hospital is not expected to be significant. Local services have the capacity to receive additional activity from Ealing without causing a negative impact on accessibility for Brent residents

The final health report to be considered is on the future use of the Central Middlesex Hospital site LINK. Current proposals are:

•An elective orthopaedic centre.

•Mental Health inpatient facility relocated from the site at Park Royal.

•A GP and primary care ‘hub’.

•A Genetics laboratory relocated from Northwick Park Hospital.

•Relocation of rehabilitation beds currently at Willesden.

This is a crowded agenda with lots of 'suits' from Brent NHS Health, the Clinical Commissioning Group abd Shaping a Healthier Future attending.  At previous meetings the chair has seemed irritated by the searching questions posed by Cllr Mary Daly and tried to hurry through proceedings with so many of the scrutinised wanting to speak.

In fact Daly's interventions seemed based on the fact that, unusually, she is a councillor who has done her homework as well as being someone passionately committed to the health of local residents.

I hope that at this meeting, however inconvenient, she gets a fair hearing. I also hope, for the sake of the public, microphones are installed to get over the acoustic problem in the committee rooms as well as the suits' mumbling.

If all that Health material is not another there is a major and very interesting report  LINK by a Task Group on the Agenda.The Task Group, chaired by Cllr Neil Nerva, looked at promoting electoral engagement following the introduction of Individual Electoral Registration and is packed with information and ideas. The most innovative of which is the involvement of the campaign group Hope Not Hate.

Once again such a crowded and complex agenda raises the issue of the wisdom of reducing Brent Council's scrutiny committee to just one. This was a hasty decision made at the beginning of the administration with no prior consultation which took many Labour councillors by surprise.

These are decisions about vital issues, at the extreme perhaps a matter of life or death, and must have proper scrutiny.

Central Middlesex closes its doors for the last time and the community loses yet another amenity

It was significant that last night on Twitter someone reacted with shock to the news that Central Middlesex A&E will be closed today saying 'but that's my local hospital. I've it used since I was a kid!'

The remark indicates both our failure to get the message out in time to more people and thus moblise them, and also the sense of ownership that local people have for what many call 'Park Royal'.

Photo Sarah Cox

Symbolic protests took place this morning at  Hammersmith and Cen tral Middlesex A&Es to mark their closure.

On Monday the Council called for the closure to be delayed until Northwick Park A&E was in a fit state to take over Central Middlesex's role.

Yesterday evening at the Brent Council Scrutiny Committee, Cllr Mary Daly tore into the 'men in suits' behind the closure accusing them of failing in their 'duty of candour'.

Today the Central Middlesex A&E is closed.

In truth Brent Council was very slow to recognise the negative impact of the closure and while Ealing Councl was leafleting residents and advertising on buses, it was left to Brent Fightback and other campaigners to get the word out in Brent  with street leafleting and public meetings.

Campaigners attended consultations and  repeatedly pointed out the degree of deprivation of the population that used Central Middlesex; the health statistics for the area; low car ownership and poor transport links to Northwick Park; the presence of the large industrial estate at Park Royal with a high risk of industrial accidents; Wembley Stadium and major railway lines with the potential for major incidents (remember the Harrow train crash of1952 which killed 85 people?) and the strain on the ambulance service when, with only an Urgent Care Centre on the Central Middlesex site, needy patients will have to be transferred to Northwick Park.

After months of consultations and meetings none of these issues have been satisfactorily addressed and the Care Quality Commission's (CQC) report on Northwick Park and Centrasl Midddlesex Hospitals has added further doubt. Northwick Park was given a 'requires improvement rating' and Central Middlesex A&E a 'good'.

The 'men in suits' quickly moved into PR mode following that report, and before the closure, with a 'feel good' story about the new Northwick Park A&E, faithfully carried by the Kilburn Times LINK.

In fact the new unit will not be ready until November at the earliest and full operational changes until 2015.  There are concerns about the intervening period and Scrutiny called for further reports from the Hospital Trust.  Meanwhile some members of the Clinical Commissioning Group, with interests in  out-sourced services, are keen to bad mouth the hospitals and claim that they can offer something better.

Unfortunately the privatisation of health means that doctors and other staff often have private interests in health provision and there were calls from the public gallery last night for these interests to be declared at such meetings. 

I agree. 

Hospital Trust officials claimed at Scrutiny that the CQC's concerns were being addressed and that 20 new beds at Northwick Park would come into use today and help clear the backlog at Northwick Park A&E.  It would improve bed capacity by 20%.  They claimed that a new clinical and medical leadership team was now in place and would result in improvement.

In remarks that were not fully explored Scrutiny were told that the Trust would improve capacity at Northwick Park for the winter by looking for additional beds outside the hospital on other sites. This raises the prospects of the elderly being sent further afield during the peak illness periods which coincide with severe weather.

Bid to delay closure of Central Middlesex A&E

At the very last minute Cllr Mary Daly is to move a motion at Brent Full Council tonight calling for a delay in the closing of Central Middlesex A&E.

The unit is due to close on  Wednesday.A demonstration will take place outside the hospital at 10am on Wednesday to make community opposition to the closure.

There are fears that Northwick Park A&E is not yet ready to take patients who would have gone to Central Middlesex and is itself already over-crowded and suffering delays.

Brent's Super Scrutiny found wanting

Last night's first meeting of the 'Super' Scrutiny Committee of Brent Council, which replaces several specialist scrutiny committees, revealed the weakness of the new system.

Firstly, committee members seemed unclear of their remit and their powers, with only Cllr Mary Daly appearing well-briefed and prepared to ask awkward questions.

Perhaps because of time constraints in the over-crowded agenda, the chair, Aslam Choudry, limited questions from members of the committee, although he did allow the public to speak. On the Garden Tax he was reduced to asking Cllr Keith Perrin, lead member for the environment, and the officer, if they truly believed the waste collection changes were a good thing. Of course they did!

The outcome of the Central Middlesex A&E closure, local health reforms and the Garden tax discussions were anodyne proposals about monitoring and returning to the committee later,

Cllr Janice Long, a former member of the Executive, and one of those calling in the Garden Tax tweeted:

 Signed the call-in on Garden waste, sat through mtg but not allowed to ask questions. Had to email officers. Appalling lack of scrutiny.

The public gallery was crowded for the meeting and the general consensus was that the Committee would have to do a lot better in the future if the Cabinet is to be held to account.

Brent Council should work with the community on Barham Park Library

Guest blog by Philip Grant following the Barham Park Planning Committee decision and the Freinds of Barham Library's statement that they would challenge any appeal by the Trustees of Barham Park Trust

As at 3pm on 16 December, Brent's Planning Department had not been notified of any appeal by the Planning Inspectorate (to whom any appeal by the Barham Park Trust, or by a Brent Council Officer in Regeneration's Property and Asset Management section on their behalf) would be made. However, as I doubt whether the "Friends" would put out this Statement without firm evidence of the facts, I will comment on the basis that an appeal has been made.

A blog item on the original Planning Committee decision can be found at: http://www.wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/planning-committee-upholds-community.html
I am convinced that Brent's Planning Committee made the right decision, and that the Planning Officer's recommendation to give consent to the change of use was wrong because it relied on a document which was dishonest. 

At the Civic Centre on the evening of the meeting I spoke with people from both sides of the argument. Although she has been criticised for supporting the application, Cllr. Mary Daly did so only because she saw the Trustees deal with ACAVA as the only way to get the Barham Park buildings back into use quickly. She, like me and others, is concerned that the longer the buildings remain empty, the more chance there is that they will fall into disrepair, and suffer the fate of Titus Barham's mansion in the park, which was demolished in the 1950's after years of neglect by Wembley Council, to whom it had been gifted for the benefit of local people, along with the park and remaining buildings in it, in 1937.

I did not think that letting all of the space to ACAVA for artists' studios was the only answer, and after speaking to representatives of Pivot Point and FoBPL, I wrote to all of the Barham Park Trustees on 15 November. I suggested to them that they should invite ACAVA to join them in an attempt to find a solution, by sitting down with the two local community groups who also wished to use part of the buildings, on a "without prejudice" basis, to see whether they could agree a workable way in which they could all share the facilities currently allocated solely to ACAVA. If they could agree how they would share the buildings, Council Officers should be instructed to draw up the necessary agreements to allow this to happen as soon as possible.

There may be some people within Brent Council who regard my efforts to get involved and give advice (on matters where I feel I have the knowledge or experience to make sensible suggestions) as "troublemaking", but here I was definitely trying to help as a "troubleshooter". I genuinely thought that 'given goodwill on all sides, this could be the way to get the buildings back into use, for ACAVA and for the local community, producing rental income to contribute to the refurbishment costs and help pay for the future maintenance of the buildings and to bring life back into the park.'

I have not heard back from any of the five Trustees (Cllrs Crane, Denselow, Hirani, Mashari and Ruth Moher), or from anyone at the Council on their behalf. If they have taken up my suggestion, I have not heard any word of it. I had said in my email to them: 'I realise that you may wish to take advice from Council Officers on my suggestions, but please remember that you are the Trustees, and the decisions are yours.' Despite this, it looks as if the Council Officers have got the upper hand (with the support or acquiescence of our elected Councillors, with their Trustee hats on). Their plans have been thwarted, quite rightly, by Brent’s Planning Committee, but they are determined that at whatever cost in (Council Taxpayers') money, and whatever the delay, and potential consequences in terms of the future of the Barham Park buildings, their will must prevail. 

Sadly, it makes the final comment in my email to the Barham Park Trustees of 15 November seem prophetic: 'I believe that the time of Officers would be better spent in working on a solution to the problem, rather than in searching for reasons to try to justify a scheme which is not a solution to it, and will only prolong the discord between Council and local community, rather than healing it.' 

Can anyone, please, explain why Brent Council makes it so difficult for Councillors, Council Officers and local people to work together for the mutual benefit of our community?

Philip Grant.