Should Cllr Butt follow Haringey leader on school re-openings?

As a press campaign, led by the Daily Mail, builds against teacher unions it is time that we saw some leadership in Brent.

Brent has many similarities with Haringey and in particular faces the disproportionate impact on BAME communities of the coronavirus.

Headteachers, school staff and parents are naturally anxious so it is important that they hear from the leader of the Council, Muhammed Butt;  the lead member for Schools Employment & Skills, Amer Agha; and Mili Patel, lead member for Children's Safeguarding, Early Help and Social Care.

Schools are grappling with demands from the government that could go very wrong and cause unnecessary illness or death - they deserve more than silence.

Strathcona staff to strike again as Butt refuses to budge ahead of formal CONsultation

From Brent NEU

NEU members at Roe Green Strathcona will take a second day of strike action next Wednesday 10th July in defence of their school. Brent Council did not listen to the 490 (99.4%) responders who said No in Brent’s first informal ‘consultation’ on the proposal to close Strathcona. They have now issued statutory notices. The NEU members have submitted detailed proposals for additional educational uses for the site - such as much needed places for autistic children- but are not confident they will be listened to. 

Cllr Muhammed Butt, Leader of Brent Council was asked what sort of response would be needed to make the council change its mind - he said “It's not about numbers or percentages” - indicating that however many constituents say no to closure, be it 500 or 5000, with even 100% objecting, it won’t make any difference. He also refused to guarantee that staff would not lose their jobs.  The same staff who bent over backwards in 2014 to help him find places for primary aged children. Brent has now opened its second ‘consultation’ which closes on 24^th July. 

Lesley Gouldbourne, Brent NEU Secretary, said “What sort of consultation is it when the numbers saying no don't count for anything? This consultation is a CONsultation.”

Cllr Butt's bad news week as he is accused of 'social cleansing' and Brent Central CLP swings left

Kilburn Times October 18th

With Cllr Abdirazak Abdi proving to be as courageous at revealing the short-comings of Brent Council as his Kilburn ward predecessor Cllr Duffy and Brent Central Constituency Labour Party swinging to the left, this has not been a good week for Muhammed Butt, leader of Brent Council.

The Kilburn Times LINK followed up my story of a week ago  LINK about South Kilburn residents being faced with eviction by the council, without their councillors being informed of a crucial  meeting about the issue. Cllr Abdi minced no words when he accused the Labour council of social cleansing.

Abdi is strongly backed by Kilburn Labour Party which is still campaigning over his removal from the Planning Committee by Cllr Butt. Now the Brent Central Labour Party looks as if it too will be a thorn in Butt's side with the left winning all but one officer position in the CLP  LINK.  Significantly the left filled all 10 places on the Local Campaigns Forum (LCF) which organises councillor selections and election campaigns.  The CLP also nominated at 6 left slate candidates for the National Constitutional Committee elections.

The LCF result may be most significant in the long run as it sets priorities for campaigns over the coming period when Butt and his cabinet are putting forward a cuts budget LINK and continuing the council's unhealthy close relationship with developers.

Cllr Butt has been criticised for not doing more to fight the local government cuts and for not signing a key letter protesting against the cuts signed by other council leaders. However, he turned up this week at the Local Government's Association lobby of Downing Street over funding and managed a photo opportunity with Nick Forbes leader of Newcastle Council and the LGA Labour Group.

It will take more than the odd photo opportunity to persuade Butt's critics that he is responding to their concerns.

Hitherto, opposition to Cllr Butt's leadership has been more about his personal leadership style and controlling approach rather than policies. The relationship between Brent Council Labour Group and the three local CLPs (Hampstead & Kilburn, Brent Central and Brent North) in terms of the latters' ability to influence specific policy is ill-defined and the Council leadership have been able to shrug off or ignore critical motions.

The LCF may now become the forum for a battle over the future political direction of the council.

Brent Members' Bulletin 'not a forum for ongoing political debate' despite Butt's message on Employment Tribunal

Cllr John Warren (Conservative, Brondesbury Park)  has taken up Muhammed Butt’s defence LINK  of decisions regarding the Employment Tribunal where the London Borough of Brent was found to have racially discriminated against a member of its staff, victimised her and constructively dismissed her.

Warren told me:

Following on from Cllr. Butt's extraordinary piece on Rosemarie Clarke in last week's Members' Information Bulletin I asked Brent Council to include a mild reply from me in this week' s bulletin.  The Council stated that Cllr. Butt was writing as Lead Member for Legal Services  and that the weekly bulletin was not to be used to continue an " ongoing debate." They refused to print my piece.  The Members' Handbook states on Page 19 that the Information Bulletin is not to be used for party- political purposes. So what was Cllr. Butt' s contribution supposed to be on such a highly politicised issue?!!  This is what I wanted to write.....hardly particularly controversial..........

Statement regarding employment tribunal of Rosemarie Clarke
(Councillor John Warren, leader of Brent Conservative Group)

Much has been written and said about the the Employment Tribunal of Rosemarie Clarke and Brent Council; a good deal of it has been fair and accurate.........

1. The case 3302741/2013 is listed as   Ms R.Clarke v. 1. L.B.Brent v.2. Ms Cara Davani

2.Para. 302 of the judgement states " The tribunal is satisfied that the action of Ms  Davani in seeking the claimant's suspension when she did ,was a direct consequence of the claimant having raised a grievance against her. The tribunal finds that the claimant was thereby victimised."

3.Brent Council appealed the original decision of the tribunal despite the judge stating that " there was no reasonable prospect of success."

4.According to the Council press release Ms Davani left Brent at end of June 2015 to take a " career break."

5. The Council has not accepted F.O.I requests or enquiries from residents to reveal details of the " pay- off " to Ms Davani.

6. The 2015/2016 Accounts will eventually show any " compensation " payments that may or not have been made to Ms Davani.

Cllr John Warren

Discovering local democracy on-line, the Brent Council way

Guest blog by Philip Grant
 

Although Martin has shared his experience of Monday evening’s Brent Council meeting with you in his blog on “The death of Brent Council”, I am writing to share some personal thoughts, and images, of following part of the same meeting on-line.

At 6.50pm that evening I went onto Brent Council's website to watch the Full Council meeting, so that I could see and hear what (if anything) Cllr. Butt had to say about the Employment Appeal Tribunal's decision to reject the Council's appeal in the Rosemarie Clarke case, and hoping that he would finally make a public apology to Rosemarie, on behalf of Brent, for the harm she had suffered at the hands of Cara Davani and other senior Council officers. I was in for a disappointment, as the “Live Streaming” web page showed:

I have never followed social media before, but it seemed that #BrentLive was my only option, so I spent the next half-hour or more watching a column at the right hand side of the screen. The first tweet to appear was from Cllr. Matthew Kelcher (one of the new Labour intake in May 2014), just before the meeting began, to say that he might be making his maiden speech. Thereafter a slow succession of #BrentLive tweets, all apparently from people at the meeting, began to scroll down the column. 

The on screen details said that councillors would ‘be able to reply to tweets’, but it appeared that Cllr. Kelcher had a whole list of tweets ready to issue, each one praising a positive story announced by the successive Cabinet Lead Members who presented their reports to Council. Cllr. Roxanne Mashari even re-tweeted his comment on her positive story! 

One “tweeter” at the meeting commented that although many councillors appeared to be busy on their tablet ‘phones, very few of them seemed to be involved in posting tweets on #BrentLive. An exchange of tweets with another “tweeter” wondered whether they were sending DM’s to each other (perhaps someone will add a comment to let me know what a DM is!). The other replied that they might be playing Candy Crush, which I think is probably a reference to the actions of a Westminster MP, but again I am ignorant of such social media or on-line games terms.

 

Not all “tweeters” were convinced by the views put out on social media by Cllr. Kelcher, especially when it came to the report by the Leader, Cllr. Muhammed Butt. With all of the # and @ references in Matthew Kelcher’s tweets, I got the impression that he must have prepared them in advance, but perhaps he really is a social media whizz-kid (as opposed to my social media dinosaur), and can compose them far more quickly than I can write emails. 

 

Pukkah Punjabi showed that she is not just an anti-Labour “tweeter”, with her comments about the response from the opposition Conservatives. I seem to remember something about a cure for insomnia.

By this time I was finding #BrentLive a bit slow, without the live pictures and sound from the Council Chamber to let me hear exactly what my elected representatives were saying about important issues. Perhaps it would have been better if I had made the effort to be there in person. But then again, perhaps not, if the final tweet I read was a fair reflection of proceedings.

And I never did find out if Cllr. Kelcher made his maiden speech.

Philip Grant

DM equals Direct Message. Tweeters who follow each other can send each other private direct messages.

Authors round on Butt and Brent Council

The Guardian reports Muhammed Butt's comments at yesterday's meeting with Kensal Rise campaigners:

The leader of Brent council, Mohammed Butt, told campaigners he did not order the overnight removals and was not informed the clearance was happening until a couple of hours before council workers moved in.

"The decision to empty the building had been made before I took over the leadership and the go ahead was made by the police at that time on the basis of public safety concerns," he said. He added that his IT system had failed at home and that he had not found out about the removal until midnight last night.

But he stood by the decision to remove the items, saying they had been left in the building for months and would have begun to deteriorate had they remained.

He said the council's solicitors and those acting for All Souls College, Oxford, said the library building had now reverted to the college. He hoped All Souls would return the building to the use for which it was intended.

 Brent Council's action has been widely condemned:

Alan Gibbons, author said:

I grew up in an area where you didn’t vote Labour- you were Labour. As I became politically aware in the mid to late nineteen sixties, for all its flaws, we had an idea what Labour was about. It meant public service. It meant hospitals and schools that were free at the point of use. It meant libraries and swimming pools and municipal socialism.

Compare this hard-won, long-fashioned identity with the actions of Brent’s Labour council, skulking into Kensal Rise library in the early hours of the morning to strip it bare. I have written to Labour leader Ed Miliband asking him to condemn the council’s actions.

The shadow Culture Secretary Dan Jarvis was well received at the Speak up for Libraries rally in March for asking failed Culture Minister Ed Vaizey if he was a champion for libraries. That question will look like double standards if the Labour leadership fails to distance itself from this irresponsible act of cultural vandalism.

The removal was denounced as “wanton destruction” by the biographer Sir Michael Holroyd. And author Maggie Gee called the move “cowardice”. She said:

The philistinism of unscrewing the brass plaque remembering Mark Twain from its wall in the middle of the night, would horrify anyone who still recalls Labour’s founding mission to share education, knowledge and hope with the people. We will continue to fight for our library.

Fellow writer Michael Frayn said: 

The library is now an unlibrary, in the way that people became unpersons in the darkest days of the Soviet Union. I hope they took the titles of the books off as well. Removing unbooks from an unlibrary – who could possibly object?