Duffy will consider going to the police if no independent inquiry into Kingdom contract

 

Incentive: 'If you work for Kingdom the more you fine, the more yu earn'

Following the BBC Panorama report on the 'litter police' (view the programme HERE) Cllr John Duffy (Labour Kilburn) has called for a public inquiry into Brent Council's awarding of a contract to Kingdom Ltd, the firm featured in the programme. He will consider challenging the accounts and going to the police if there is no independent investigation.

Duffy wrote yesterday afternoon to Brent Council CEO Carolyn Downs:

It is clear the way Kingdom operate is of some concern. I believe the word of mouth contract was let without due process and was pushed through by officers and the Lead member without market testing was a mistake and  has wasted the council over £100k in income. The initial report itself was heavily biased towards the contractor, the fact that the lead member and cabinet  chose to ignore advice from me and preserve without challenging the report, does not legitimise the lack of due process that took place.

I am urging you to have a full independent investigation into the how the contract was let and how it was monitored, I believe there was no meaningful monitoring by our officers. It is clear this contract was a bounty hunting contract and often picked on the most vulnerable residents  and had nothing to do with street cleansing standards and was about securing a profit for the contractor.

Officers and lead member seemed happy to allow that situation as long as they could announce the number of prosecutions and number of litter tickets issue at full council, without any concern about the methods being used by the company. Our legal department did no monitoring on litter tickets issued and only monitored tickets being prepared for prosecution , leaving the contractor to self-monitor the issuing process.

I remain concerned that Kingdom were allowed to bid for other contracts based on recommendations of Brent officers without referral back to either Scrunity or cabinet. I believe we have been negligent and the cabinet were misled in both the letting and monitoring of the contract .

I hope you will reconsider your position not to have an independent investigation in light of the evidence about how Kingdom operate.I f however you chose not to have a independent investigation I intend to challenge the accounts ( I have copied Conrad [Hall, Brent Finance Officer] in so he can advise me of how to challenge the accounts) and will also consider going to the police. I find the loss of the £100k on the contract because of the lack of due process, the lack of documentation to ensure best value and continual word of mouth recommendation is unacceptable.

I do not need an explanation from officers, about what they did or did not do, that should be left to an independent investigator to judge whether the process of letting the contract and subsequent monitoring was adequate. However I do need confirmation that the investigation will take place. 

Clearly at the moment we are in the run -up to the national elections. However I still seek your commitment to a independent  investigation as soon as the  election has taken place.

It will not surprise regular readers to hear that Cllr Duffy was removed from the Scrutiny Committee at the recent Labour Group AGM.

Barry Gardiner raises Sellafield safety concerns after Panorama programme

Following the Panorama report on Sellafield questions were asked in the House of Commons by several MPs.

The programme can be viewed HERE

This is what Barry Gardiner, Labour MP for Brent North and Shadow Minister for Energy and Climate Change, said:

Yesterday evening’s television report on Sellafield was profoundly disturbing, and my hon. Friend Mr Reed was absolutely right to request this urgent question—I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting it. My hon. Friend expressed his concerns at the revelations and referred to the importance of the storage and reprocessing facility for his constituency. Of course, the House must raise such concerns on behalf of the country.

I want to focus on a number of questions on which I believe the Minister should give the House either further information or reassurance, and preferably both. On minimum staffing levels, will he confirm that as recently as five days ago a formal notice was sent to the management, raising the unions’ concern about critical manning levels and the ability to comply with the appropriate procedures and practices when minimum staffing levels are not met?

Will the Minister also say whether he agrees with Dr Rex Strong, the head of nuclear safety, who said in last night’s programme that not meeting the minimum safety standards or staffing levels did not mean that there was a safety risk?

In 2013, the manager of the site, Nuclear Management Partners, produced its somewhat ironically entitled excellence plan, cataloguing the safety problems and the critical nature of the infrastructure with respect to both electricity and water supply on the site. Why did the Government not insist that further resources—staffing and, of course, financial resources—be invested in the site to clean it up at that point? The Minister will know that expenditure in 2012-13 was £7,348 million, with £3,157 million from the Department of Energy and Climate Change itself. The year following that report, the figure had fallen to £5,345 million. Will he explain why, after such a damning report, the resources going into the site decreased? Will he also confirm that the cost estimates for the clean-up of the site have increased at an annual estimate from £25.2 million to £47.9 million?

The programme also cited problems with alarms, and it was said that these were turned off repeatedly, without checking. Will the Minister confirm that that practice is no longer in force? Finally, will he confirm that he has absolute confidence in Dr Rex Strong as head of nuclear safety at Sellafield and John Clarke, the chief executive of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority?

Gardiner did not get a very full reply from Nick Hurd, Minister of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

Again, I thank the hon. Gentleman for a constructive response, which reflects the cross-party concern to get this absolutely right with no equivocation. Issues were raised in the programme about minimum safety levels. I think they were responded to adequately in the programme. We were reassured that the NDA always has enough people on duty to maintain the site safely, and if the work cannot be done safely it will not get it done. I think the programme and the response to it have reassured us on that front.

As I said in my opening statement, cleaning up Sellafield safely costs £2 billion a year, and maintaining the NDA’s overall annual spend on cleaning up the UK’s nuclear sites at some £3 billion reflects the continuing importance that the Government place on cleaning up the civil nuclear legacy and Sellafield.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the reaction to the number of alarms raised—another issue raised in the programme. Those alarms, as he knows, are not unusual, given the types of material that people are working with and do not necessarily mean that there is a safety issue. However, we are reassured that staff are briefed never to be complacent and always react to alarms if they are serious, which is a point that was made in rebuttals in the programme.

On levels of confidence, yes, we do have confidence in the NDA. We also have a great deal of confidence in the independent regulator, which has made it quite clear that, as far as it is concerned, the programme does not raise any new issues and that Sellafield is safe.

Reassured?

Wembley French School fuelling house price inflation?

Work underway to convert Brent Town Hall into a school

The Guardian recently reported that percentage house price increases in Brent were the highest in London, fed by the gentrification of some areas in the south of the borough.  LINK

The lack of affordable housing in new developments such as Willesden Green Library, Bridge Park and Moberly Sports Centre is a real issue. Brent Council have agreed that developers are excused the usual 50% affordable (although there is a debate about what exactly is an affordable rent) allocation in exchange for the 'free' building of community amenities such as cultural centres and sports centres. We need the amenities but we also need housing.

Now it appears that the Wembley French School is contributing to rising house prices in some areas of the borough. Parents of pupils due to attend the private fee paying school have been reported looking for properties in Queens Park, Kensal Rise and Dollis Hill.  One estate agent serving those wards told me that the would be purchasers 'have plenty of money'.  Agents in Wembley Park, close to the actual school, told me that they have not discerned any interest from French purchasers in the local area.

The proposed private sector landlord licensing scheme (to be discussed at the April 21st Executive) may have the unintended consequence of reducing the amount of private rental as the Council acts against over-crowding and illegal conversions in the sector. Again we need to act against exploitative landlords and poor quality housing but also need to be providing alternative accommodation for those likely to be hit.

Against the background of the Panorama programme and the forced movement of families out of the borough into accommodation in Birmingham, Milton Kenyes and Luton it does seem that major demographic changes are in process.

Brent in the spotlight on Panorama tonight 9pm

As the government's benefits changes begin to bite, Panorama gains exclusive access over six months to Brent - one of London's worst-hit boroughs - and follows the personal stories of some of the people most affected by the changes. As claimants struggle with the loss of hundreds of pounds of benefits and have to move to other parts of the UK where rents are cheaper, we follow people battling to stay in their homes and a local authority forced to ask to them to leave as their benefits are capped.

TONIGHT 9pm BBC1

Clive Heaphy spoke out on Brent school victims of IT scams

Yesterday I tweeted about Brent schools being featured on Panorama's 'Reading, Writing and Rip-offs' last night. This was based on a circular from the council to headteachers.

In fact Brent weren't mentioned as such but Brent schools have had similar experiences, although not as expensive as some reported.

Clive Heaphy  Brent Director of Finance (since suspended while allegations of gross misconduct are investigated) spoke to the Times Educational Supplement about it earlier this year and reported on this blog LINK

Furness Primary is being sued by a finance company for £301,083 plus interest calculated at £14,579 in April and still rising. But Brent Council said the equipment involved was worth just £9,150 when it was sold off by the finance company in February.

Kensal Rise Primary is being sued by the same company for £287,000. Both schools have made counterclaims for money they say they have already paid “in error” - £805,000 in the case of Kensal Rise. The same school has also received a more recent claim from a second finance company for £253,000.

Brent says schools have been tempted into such deals by offers of up to £15,000 “cash back” a quarter from equipment suppliers that make initial lease repayments appear more favourable than the real long-term cost. Clive Heaphy, the authority’s finance director, said that primary heads were not always “business savvy” and cannot always “see through” such offers.

Given the political disagreement about academies Heaphy was very clear with his warning:

 “Inevitably there is a recipe there for difficult times ahead and potentially for some mismanagement issues and possibly some fraud issues,” he told TES, adding that increased autonomy for local authority schools had already made it much harder for town halls to guard against them misusing public money.

“I still retain personal accountability for schools’ finances and yet I see less and less data and have fewer and fewer levers to be able to do anything about it,” Mr Heaphy said. “There is very little action in reality you can take.”

On academies he said: “The only watchdog over them is the Department for Education itself. We have no relationship with them, but who does?”

 

Reading, Writing and Rip-offs and Brent Schools tonight

BBC Panorama tonight at 8.30pm, BBC1 apparently includes section on Brent schools exploited by IT companies: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01n2t2f