Brent Council's response to Islamophobic April 3rd letter

In a welcome move Cllr Tom Miller, Brent Council lead member for Stronger Communities, has written to all councillors setting out his response to the Islamophobic  'Punish a Muslim' 'April 3rd' letter which has received much publicity on social media.

Cllr Miller writes:


The letters sent are just one example of a swathe of Islamophobic material reported and made more widely available by Tellmama, who are a partner organisation in our own anti-hate crime drive. For those members who have not come across Tellmama’s work in cataloguing incidents like this, more information can be found here: https://tellmamauk.org/

The letters concerned involve a general threat of violence against Muslims on April 3^rd. Thus far, I have not received any indication from members, police, Council officers or members of the public about people receiving the letters in Brent. I have also received no information about any other threats, specific or general, made against targets or communities in Brent. It would be unusual if a police investigation into the letters is not underway.

I would be very keen to hear about any specific incidents or threats (including receiving this letter) if they have taken place. This should also be reported to Police immediately.

I’d stress that the council has also invested in a number of measures to tackle hate crime which can help people to report, make sure that cases are dealt with appropriately and that victims are represented, and that people receive the support they need. You can find information for reporting and the rest of the activity we have undertaken by using the link below:
https://www.brent.gov.uk/your-community/stronger-communities/hate-crime/

In addition to making sure that any incidents are reported, I would be very happy to hear of any specific preventative actions residents are keen on us adopting, and will pass them on to Police colleagues, who are also copied in here and may be able to update further.

On the issue about Prevent, far right activity certainly falls within its scope, but Prevent is really about flagging radicalisation during its development, and in Brent is specifically about safeguarding its victims. The kind of threat made in this letter is in my view clearly a criminal threat of violence and is therefore more seriously developed than we would expect Prevent to deal with, as well as being anonymous. Prevent doesn’t give us powers to detect extremist threats, for example; in a case like this, Prevent would aim to reach the person who wrote the letters before they had carried out any kind of criminal activity and offer interventions such as counselling, usually because of a concern highlighted by professional they are dealing with, for example social workers. So, although Prevent covers the far right, in this particular case the anonymity and criminal aspect means that this will usually fall within the ‘Pursue’ or ‘Protect’ parts of the government’s CONTEST strategy, being dealt with through the Home Office and Police

Does Councillor Butt have too much power?

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Guest blog by Philip Grant

The article below was submitted as a comment on the blog about the possible delay in filling the Stronger Communities Lead Member role on Brent’s Cabinet LINK t
I am repeating it here, for comment and discussion, as part of Local Democracy Week.

In my earlier comment, I explained why I believe that Cllr. Butt is within his rights, under Brent’s Constitution, not to appoint a new Lead Member for Stronger Communities straight away, but to take on the responsibilities of that role in addition to his role as Leader. This does not mean that I believe it is the right (i.e. correct) thing for him to do. Overall, I believe that Cllr. Butt has too much power, and some of it is a result of an abuse of Brent Council’s Constitution.

That Constitution (in its own words) ‘…sets out how the Council operates, how decisions are made and the procedures which are followed to ensure that decision making is efficient, transparent and accountable to local people. Some of the procedures are required by law, while others are a matter for the Council. The Constitution is divided into 8 Parts. …. In particular, Parts 3 and 4 set out the rules governing the conduct of the Council’s business and which part of the Council is responsible for various functions.’

“Responsibility for Functions” is an important area, which should mean that there are “checks and balances” to ensure that power is shared across the Council, so that no single person or group within it has too much (to guard against that power being abused). The Constitution gives the Leader, or the Leader together with the Cabinet, considerable powers, but there are also ‘functions which cannot be exercised by the Cabinet’, ‘functions not to be the sole responsibility of the Cabinet’ and ‘functions that may only be exercised by Full Council’.

One area of particular concern is the General Purposes Committee, which ‘carries out a number of functions on which the Cabinet cannot take decisions, including public rights of way, setting the Council Tax base and approving staffing matters’.  The committee has eight members, and the Constitution used to say that at least one of these must be a member of the Executive (the previous title for the Cabinet). That proviso, which gave a very strong hint that most of the committee should be made up of back-bench councillors, has been removed, and for the past few years seven of the eight members have been Cabinet members, with the official Opposition Leader as the eighth.

Cllr. Butt is Chair of the General Purposes Committee, and of its Senior Staff Appointments Sub-Committee. This has given him considerable influence over the Council’s senior staffing structure, who is appointed to the Senior Officer posts, and the terms on which they are appointed. There are suspicions that, during the time that Christine Gilbert was interim Chief Executive and Cara Davani was HR Director, the Leader of the Council may have been complicit in some of their alleged misconduct over staffing matters.

The appointment of the Council’s Head of Paid Service (Chief Executive) is one of the functions which can only be exercised by Full Council, and not by the Cabinet or the Leader. Despite this, Cllr. Butt was able to appoint Christine Gilbert in September 2012 as ‘interim Chief Executive’, supposedly for a few months while the Council advertised for and appointed a permanent Chief Executive. In June 2013, Full Council was asked to extend Christine Gilbert’s role as interim Chief Executive – it agreed to do so, but only for a FIXED TERM which should have ended in June 2014.

The permanent post was still not advertised, and at the meeting in September 2014, Cllr. Butt extended Christine Gilbert’s tenure (eventually until September 2015) without seeking the consent of Full Council. The minutes recorded:

‘The Leader referred to the decision taken in June 2013 regarding the appointment of a new Chief Executive.  He stated that the external auditors were reporting back on how the Council was operating and whilst there was progress being made, stability within the Council would enable further progress to be made.  The current arrangements would therefore remain in place until a recruitment process began in the new year which would tie in with the launch of the new Borough Plan.’

Does Cllr. Butt have too much power? I would suggest that he does, and that the Council’s Constitutional Working Group, chaired by its properly appointed Chief Executive, Carolyn Downs, should consider ways to ensure that the functions of the General Purposes Committee and its sub-committees are carried out independently of the Council Leader and the Cabinet.

Philip Grant.

Stronger Communities post won't be filled: the repercussions

Information is sparse but I understand that there will be no immediate appointment made to Brent Cabinet to the lead member for Stronger Communities post made vacant by the resignation of Cllr Michael Pavey LINK.  Instead there will be a review of the post/Cabinet.

I had heard that there was a dispute within the Labour Group about whether the appointment should be made by Council Leader Muhammed Butt or voted on by the whole group.

The review sidesteps this issue in the wake of what was described as a group meeting that gave Butt 'a hard time' last week.

It is unclear whether Butt will manage the post in the interim as he did when the Environmentl lead was vacated by Cllr Keith Perrin, before later making his own appointment.

The failure to appoint puts power into the hands of a smaller loyalist Cabinet cabal and avoids Butt having to cope with an independently minded lead member elected by the group. 

The post is quite sensitive at the moment with ongoing negotiations over the volunteer Preston Library Hub LINK and the development of a Community Library Strategy and controversy over Brent Council's implementation of the Prevent Strategy LINK.

The development may affect Preston Library where there was a tension between Brent Council wanting to dispose of its assets at maximum profit and its stated commitment to enabling community groups to have a secure base from which to carry out their activities.

Brent councillors to get 8 hours Prevent training

Although Cllr Harbi Farah has promised to arrange talks about concerns over the Prevent Strategy in Brent the Council is going full steam ahead in its implementation. Tomorrow's Cabinet is due to adopt a paper on 'Stronger Communities' which includes radicalisation in a bundle which also covers female genital mutilation, domestic violence and gangs. Councillors are also attending an 8 hour Prevent training on December 22nd.

The Council strategy fro Stronger Communities has for main objectives:

1. Promote common ground
2. Encourage participation in civic life
3. Tackle intolerance and challenge extremism  and other harmful practices
4.Promote our vision and understanding of cohesion.

Which all sounds well and good but clearly the strategy in the document which I publish below needs careful scrutiny, particularly in the light of the criticisms of Prevent set out at the public meeting.

In an Appendix the Council does seem to recognise some of the problems:

Brent is one of 43 Home Office “Prevent Priority Areas” of particular national concern for fermenting extremism and radicalisation. As part of the Prevent programme, Brent receives funding from the Home Office to tackle radicalisation through a range of supportive projects and interventions.

The Prevent and Channel programmes have been seen by some communities, in Brent as elsewhere, as a means of demonising Islam and for spying on youths. The concerns raised by communities must be heard and it is precisely this perceived one-sided approach, which undermines cohesion and divides communities. Indeed, the Government has acknowledged that ‘Prevent depends on a successful integration strategy, which establishes a stronger sense of common ground and shared values, which enables participation and the empowerment of all communities and which also provides social mobility.’

Brent will seek to minimise the risk of extremism by recognising that the drivers for extremist behaviour lie in the marginalisation of voices from the public square and that a positive approach, celebrating diversity while improving our diverse communities’ ability to recognise the signs of extremism and early radicalisation will foster resilience and reduce the risk of extremist behaviour. We will also recognise the geo-political drivers of extremist behaviours and create safe spaces for dialogue and debate, whilst challenging hate speech and those who seek to divide our communities.

However its Equalities Impact Assessment on the impact of the Strategy (which deems it positive) seems complacent in the light of fears that Prevent is fuelling Islamophobia (Christianity not listed):

Religion or Belief – impact: positive

According to research conducted by Brent’s Business Intelligence team; the main faith groups in the borough are Hindu (17%), Muslim (12%), Judaism (3%) and Buddhist (1%). Achieving the four strategic objectives would ensure that the strategy is fully inclusive of residents of all religious and faith backgrounds. Furthermore, inter-faith dialogue is a key outcome of this strategy

The December 22nd event at the Civic Centre to which all councillors and some council officers are invited is entitled 'Prevent: Ideology and Radicalisation in Depth by FIDA Management and the Al-Saddiiq Foundation.'

Session One from 10am to 4pm will be 'providing advanced training on extremism and related global terrorism' to include':

• Ideology and its Development
• Theology, Politics and Violence
• Radicalisation (Concepts and Typologies
• The Core Narrative of AQ/ISIS
• Understanding Jihadist Narrative/Group
• Case Studies and Group exercises
• Assessing Vulnerability to Radicalisation
• Extremism and Behaviour

After what I imagine will be a much needed half hour  break Session Two from 4.30pm to 6.30pm will be run by the Al Saddiiq Foundation delivering 'A local perspective: extremism and support for terrorism gaining traction with the borough of Brent' Apparently this will involve 'case-based scenario workshops.'

Here is the paper going to Cabinet tomorrow: