Brent looking for Air Quality Champions. Interested?

The recent hot weather, despite welcome sunshine after many grey days, brought along its own problem - air pollution. LINK

It seems a good time to pass on this invitation from Brent Council:

Could you be Brent's next Air Quality Champion?

Brent Council is looking for volunteers to take part in its Community Air Quality Champions Programme.

The programme aims to raise awareness of local air quality initiatives and the steps people can take to help improve local air quality.

Champions will help members of their local community to engage with local air quality initiatives, and take part in major air quality events in the borough. This includes Clean Air Day in June and sustainable travel options throughout the borough such as car clubs, cycling, and electric vehicle charging points.

Chris Whyte, Operational Director of Environmental Monitoring Team said:

This is a fantastic opportunity for anyone who is passionate about air quality in their area. We know that people want to get involved but may not be sure how to get started, so we're here to support and guide them. This is the next step in our close work with local residents and air quality groups, helping to make Brent a great place to live and work.

Anyone living in the borough with an interest in improving the local community can join, and give as much or as little time as they wish.

Training will be provided to Air Quality Champions by the council's Environmental Monitoring Team on local air quality issues and useful information for volunteers.

To become an Air Quality Champion email us at ens.monitoring@brent.gov  or fill in the attached registration form.

We are all in this together and can only stop air pollution together…

Seymour Zajota

Air Quality Projects Officer

Environmental Monitoring Team

Regeneration and Environment Services

Brent Council

020 8937 3027

What you can do for Clean Air for Brent

From Transition Willesden

Clean Air for Brent is a coalition of local residents' groups, Transition Towns, Friends of the Earth and the Council to improve air quality in the borough.  We met earlier this week, and are keen to involve people in having their say on air quality in Brent and also on diesel vehicles, especially in view of the results from our pollution monitoring in October.

Last October we carried out air pollution monitoring in Willesden, Dollis Hill and Cricklewood, and found 7 out of 10 sites were above the EU legal limit for nitrogen dioxide (NO2), with Cricklewood Broadway being well over twice the limit (see maps here and here).  For more about the project see our online group.

Brent Council is consulting residents and businesses on its Air Quality Action Plan for the next 5 years.  You have until Thursday 30th March to add your comments. Please take a little time to read the plan and respond to the survey online here.  You can also email feedback to ens.monitoring@brent.gov.uk

If you have less time, please sign one or more of these petitions against diesel.  It is largely the increase in diesel vehicles that is having such an impact on the air we breathe:

-Ditch diesel in the UK by Friends of the Earth

-One directed at car companies from Greenpeace.

-You can also write to MEPs asking them to clean up vehicle testing.  They will be voting on this issue on 5th April.

Brent Council: Does mere data gathering justify race equality award?

Nan Tewari has been following up the issue of Brent Council reaching the finals of the Race for Opportunity Award. This correspondence tells the story:

Dear Nan

Thank you for your phone call last week regarding Brent Council.

Our award categories are designed to celebrate and spotlight specific areas of best practice. The Transparency, Monitoring & Action Award specifically recognises best practice of the capture of ethnicity data within an organisation. It recognises organisations that are monitoring and evaluating the attraction, recruitment, progression, development, employee engagement, appraisal/performance ratings and retention of BAME employee in their workplace. We have this award because we believe that monitoring workforce data by ethnicity is one of the first and most important steps an employer can take towards understanding gaps in their workforce and improving diversity. 

We assess award entries against the criteria of the category being entered and this assessment is based on the information provided in the award application. Brent Council entered The Transparency, Monitoring & Action Award and their entry was scored in line with the award category criteria, and the entry met the requirements to be named as a finalist in this category.

All judging (our judging panels include external independent experts) has taken place and the winners will be announced at the dinner in October.  

Best wishes

Sandra

Sandra Kerr OBE

Race Equality Director

BITC

Dear Sandra,

I appreciate the time you have taken to reply and do not intend to take up your time with a protracted correspondence as this would be pointless.  I do however have some comments.

The mere exercise of data gathering does not confer equal opportunities status on an employer.  Brent has gone from being an Authority with significant BME representation in its management ranks to being the metaphorical pint of Guiness, notwithstanding the diversity of its population.

I have worked with many bodies that had been reluctant to change their ways of working on my recommendation citing that it would be contrary to their long established equal opportunity policies.    When I pointed out that the body in question notably lacked diversity in its ranks despite years of following these so-called equality policies, the light dawned and willingness to change followed.

I would respectfully suggest that your organisation could achieve much more by challenging monitoring and policy to actually deliver change, rather than to being ends in themselves.  Providing comfort to Brent Council by making an award to it (bad enough that it is one of two finalists!) would run completely counter to what BITC is supposed to stand for.

In the event that you are not familiar with the background to the uproar over ths issue by Brent residents and staff, I attach a couple of links for your information.  It is utterly unspeakable that Brent Council made no move to initiate disciplinary proceedings against its HR Director, Cara Davani, in the light of the Watford Employment Tribunal having found against her for race discrimination and victimisation.  No amount of statistical monitoring of diversity can eliminate the contempt which Brent Council has shown to its workforce by its having left this very HR DIrector in charge of a redundancy programme involving large numbers of (non-management grade) BME staff.    

WEMBLEY MATTERS: Tribunal finds employee suffered race discrimination, victimisation and constructive dismissal at hands of Brent Council

				WEMBLEY MATTERS: Tribunal finds employee suffered... The Employment Tribunals has announced its judgment in the case of Rosemary Clarke versus the London Borough of Brent and Ms Cara Davani, Brent's Director of...
				View on wembleymatters.blo...	Preview by Yahoo

WEMBLEY MATTERS: Brent Council Race Equality Award condemned

				WEMBLEY MATTERS: Brent Council Race Equality Awar... Following yesterday's revelation that Brent Council was a finalist for a Race for Opportunity award the organisation has received messages from local people about t...
				View on wembleymatters.blo...	Preview by Yahoo

 

Yours sincerely,

Nan Tewari

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Cllr Powney promises to investigate 'Low Carbon Zone' proposal

Could it be Brent or Wembley next?

 Making a presentation on Monday the the Brent Executive,  Ken  Montague, Secretary of Brent Campaign Against Climate Change, agreed with the Green Charter Annual Monitoring Report's comment that  while “there is progress in all seven areas of work” there was “room for improvement over the next year”. In particular he sought to bring to the Executive’s attention proposals jointly being developed by BCaCC and Brent Friends of the Earth as an outcome of their Community Briefing public meeting on 21 November, which council leader Muhammed Butt attended. A report  of the meeting has  been circulated to Councillors.

The purpose of the Community Briefing meeting, which was to make local community leaders aware of the rapid depletion of the Arctic ice cap and its affect on weather patterns around the world. This had an indirect impact on people in Brent as many members of the local community have friends and families in parts of the world being devastated by floods, droughts and fires. It was also having a direct impact through its effect on the price and quality of food.

Ken addressed  two of the three proposals that came out of the briefing meeting, which aimed to develop a community response. The first of these was about reaching out to the local community to increase awareness of the seriousness and urgency of the need to mitigate climate change. The aim was to enhance and strengthen the work of the Sustainability Forum and the Brent Climate Change Steering Group, especially its Residents’ Steering Group. This meant sending speakers to meetings of tenants’ and residents’ associations, faith groups, trade unions, etc, and on occasion booking rooms for meetings. The first request to the Executive was therefore that those organisations like Brent CaCC and Brent FoE who were identified as Green Champions under the Brent Climate Change Strategy should have use of Council premises, including public libraries, free of charge.

Monatgue went on to draw the Executive’s attention to a proposal in the early stages of development by BCaCC and Brent FoE which would require support from the Council, advice from council officers, and the involvement of specific councillors. This was for a pilot scheme to establish a Low Carbon Zone in an area of the borough still to be identified in consultation with the Council. A Low Carbon Zone involved concentrating existing agencies on the area identified in order to generate awareness of the advantages to tenants and residents of implementing measures for energy conservation and the sourcing of power from renewables, to provide advice and guidance and facilitate discount buying, and to access funding to install insulation, double glazing and combined heat and power boilers. The “existing agencies” could include the Council, private companies, campaign groups including ourselves and Transition Town, the College of North West London, and the Brent TUC.

Central to the proposal was the possibility of accessing significant funds for these purposes from the Department of Energy and Climate Change under the Green New Deal. By way of an example he mentioned that a Community Interest Company in Barnet, “Energise Barnet”,LINK  was working with the Council in making a £200 million bid. A meeting of the Brent Residents’ Steering Group and council officers was being held on 22nd January to prepare a bid to DEC but this could only go ahead once the Council had decided whether to apply as a “Large Scale Green Deal Provider”, as a Marketing Partner” or a “Small Scale Green Deal Provider”. The second request to the executive was therefore that it make a decision on the form of its application in order to facilitate an appropriate bid to DEC being decided at the meeting on 22 January.

Responding, lead member for the environment  Cllr James Powney promised to designate an officer to investigate the proposal. 

Declaration of interest:  I am Chair of Brent Campaign Against Climate Change