Brent Council Cabinet and Committee appointments for 2024-2025

 Brent Council Cabinet and Committee appointments have been published ahead of the AGM tomorrow evening where Cllr Tariq Dar will be installed as Mayor.

Cabinet and other appointments/nominations are all made by Brent Council leader Muhammed Butt. Note that on the Barham Trust Committee the Cabinet have to approve their own appointment!

The two Scrutiny Committees are important to ensure there is careful consideration of Cabinet decisions and initiatives. I do not know if there is any significance in the word 'Scrutiny' missing from Resources and Public Realm. Note that chairs and vice chairs of both committees are from the Labour Party. This will change if the Liberal Democrat constitutional amendment is passed.

Given the amount of development in Brent the 'non-political' Planning Committee is of particular significance. Again Chair and Vice Chair are Labour nominations.

 There are several fairly independent Labour councillors on the Audit and Standards Committee:

 

Other Committee appointments are Labour only. Note the appointment of Cllr Saqib Butt, Vice Chair of Planning and brother of Muhammed Butt the Council Leader, To the First Wave Housing Board, 14B Board and deputy to Cllr Kelcher (Chair of Planning) on Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation Planning Committee.

For other appointments see LINK.

New Brent Administration: Cabinet and Committee Posts

 

 

 

 

 

Two opposition councillors now on Brent scrutiny committees

 Full details of Cabinet, Committee chairs and Committee members in the new Brent Council adminstration should be released later today before the Council Annual General Meeting takes place at 5pm. You can view the meeting HERE.

Meanwhile following the election of 5 Conservative and 3 Liberal Democrats the allocation of seats has been agreed and  published on the agenda.  These are:

 

There are now single Liberal Democrats on the two key Scrutiny Committees alongside single Conservatives which should strengthen scrutiny if a good working relationship is established. However, Lib Dems are not represented on Planning Committee which given the prominence of a critique of new developments in their election campaign is a pity.  They also have one seat on the General Purposes Committee which in the last adminstration consisted of Cabinet members plus one Conservative. That arrangement has been criticised as being a Cabinet committee in all but name, thus centralising power, and it will be interesting to see how that situation developes.

The allocation of Liberal Democrat councillors is:

General Purposes: Cllr Lorber with Cllr Georgiou as first alternate and Cllr Matin as second.

Licensing: Cllr Georgiou with Cllr Lorber as first alternate and Cllr Matin as second. 

Resources and Public Realm: Cllr Georgiou with Cllr Lorber as first alternate and Cllr Matin as second. 

Community and Wellbeing: Cllr Matin with Cllr Lorber as first alternate and Cllr Georgiou as second.

It is worth noting the difference between allocation of seats in the council as a pecentage of the total  and the proportion of the total vote that each part achieved (latter in brackets).

Labour 85.97% (58.60%)

Conservative 8.77% (21.99%)

Liberal Democrat 5.26% (13.52%)

Other constitutional changes are made in the light of the election result. With Liberal Democrats now recognised as a group alongside the Conservatives. Each opposition group will have the right to ask a question at Council and to put a motion.

Cllr Kennelly joins Brent Planning Committe, Cllr Saqib Butt nominated on i4B & First Wave Housing Boards

 

Changes to be voted on at tonight's Full Council Meeting. Cllr Saqib Butt is the leader of the Council's brother.

UPDATED: Labour rebellion over Principal Opposition designation

Brent Council's  CEO, Carolyn Downs, announced tonight at the Brent Council AGM that  she will be commissioning an independent person to review the whole episode of Cllr Tayo Oladapo's death going back to January 2016.  (This is not the same person as the Council's Independent Person. The reviewer's identity wil be made known in due course.) Any recommendations arising from the review would be brought to Full Council.

Downs  outlined the sequence of events that included reports earlier in the year that Cllr Oladapo had gone back to Nigeria, his country of origin.   These had not been reported to Council on February 22nd  because there was no confirmation that this was the case. There were then reports of his death that could not be confirmed as the Registrar said the death had not been registered.   Letters to his address in Harlesden got no response and attempts to contact relatives in Nigeria and the USA also drew a blank.

On the 9th March police were contacted and on 10th March they had confirmed the councillor had died on January 29th. On March  11th his death was announced by the Council. LINK  (WM note -The announcement posted by Brent Council on March 11th did not mention the earlier date of death).

Cllr Oladapo's death was not officially registered by his mother until May 11th.  Carolyn Downs had then been able to convey her and the Council's condolences.

Councillors from all sides of the chamber paid tribute to Cllr Oladapo. Cllr Stopp was not called but his tribute appears HERE .

Later in the meeting some Labour councillors abstained on a vote to recognise the Conservative Group as the official opposition. This is the group based in Kenton now led by Cllr Reg Colwill. Earlier the Brondesbury Park Brent Conservatives  had failed in a bid to occupy the front  bench seats currently occupied by the Conservative Group.

A senior councillor told me that  the Brondesbury Park Conservatives would make a better, and much needed, Opposition. Apparently some felt that it was an abuse of Labour's huge  majority to use it to install a tame opposition that would give the ruling group an easy ride. It was better to leave the seven opposition councillors to decide between themselves. That would of course have Cllr Helen Carr wielding the casting vote..

Abstainers were Cllrs Perrin, Nerva, Collier, Chan, Marquis, Stopp, Long, Thomas, Tatler, Kelcher, Duffy  and Ramesh Patel.

Cabinet posts approved were:

Butt (Leader), McLennan (Deputy). Farah (Housing) Hirani (Community Wellbeing), Mashari (Regeneration, Growth, Employment and Skills, Mitchell Murray (Children and Young People), Pavey (Stronger Communities) Southwood (Environment).

Mashari adds Regeneration to her portfolio while Pavey's post is a clear demotion after his leadership challenge.  It is not clear whether McLennan will take on the Finance and Human Resources responsibilities previously led by Pavey.

The key Planning Committee,  is still chaired by Cllr Marquis but the membership is relatively inexperienced with the exception of Cllrs Long and Moher. Other members of the Committee are Agha, Hylton, J Mitchell Murray and newly elected Kilburn councillor Pitruzzella.

Joining the controversial Cllr Allie on Standards are Collier, Kabir (former whip) and Krupa Sheth. Collier will have his work cut out to persuade his colleagues to adopt a strong stance in dealing with any referrals. Mandip Johal was recommended for appointment as an Independent Person.  The recommendation said that Mandip had over 10 years experience of dealing with professional misconduct complaints within the legal profession.

In an almost one-party Council strong Scrutiny Committees are essential and the memberships announced this evening slightly better than I feared.

The Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee is chaired by Ketan Sheth and other members are Hoda-Benn, Conneely, Hector, Jones, Nerva and Shahzad.

Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny is chaired by Cllr Kelcher. Committee members are Aden, Choudhary, Ezeajughi. Miller, Tatler and M Patel.

Cllr Stopp, previously on the Scrutiny Committee has now relegated to Alcohol and Entertainment Licensing  (with Cllr Perrin) and the  Trading Standards Joint Advisory Board.  Duffy remains out in the cold.

The 'Tale of Two Tory groups' continues at next Brent Council Meeting

The sllocation of opposition committee places is on the agenda for the next Full Council meeting on June 22nd.

In addition to the 8th Scrutiny Committee place the other positions are:

At the AGM the Council voted to recognise the Conservative Group (three Kenton Conservatiev councillors) as the principal opposition group. They now have to allocate committee places between that group and the Brent Conservative Group (recognised as the official opposition by Conservative HQ and consisting of three Brondesbury Park Conservative councillors).

The Liberal Democrats are not recognised as a group because that requotes two or more councillors and they have only one.

Clearly these 6 places can be divided equally between the two groups giving each councillor a role. It will be interesting to see the distribution of 'compliant' and 'awkward squad' places.

How has your Brent Councillor done this year?

The end of the year is a good time to review our councillors' performance. The table below gives an overview of attendance at committees between July 8th and today. Some councillors have many more committees to attend than others and opposition councillors often complain that the present system gives them very little voice (and thus motivation to attend?) when decisions are rubber-stamped by the Labour only  Executive and committees with in-built Labour majorities.

The Green Party has policy on this:

The Green Party believes that local authorities run by single party cabinets, or by directly elected mayors, are not in the best interests of local democracy. They take decision making powers away from councils as a whole and place them in the hands of a few individuals, leading to the disenfranchisement of those councillors who are not in the ruling party and the citizens they represent. We would therefore reintroduce the committee system across local government at all levels, which provides for direct member involvement in decision making.

The Greens also have a policy of recall if 40% or more registered electors request it.

The columns below in order list: Name, Party, Number of Required Attendances, Actual Attendances, Percentage Attendance and Additional Attendances at meetings where their attendance is not required. The latter are often meetings where a councillor represents the interests of his/her ward to the committee. Barry Cheese has the best record on that count.

Councillor Abdi Aden	Lab	12	9	75%	2
Councillor Michael Adeyeye	Lab	2	2	100%	0
Councillor Emad Al-Ebadi	Lab	9	7	78%	1
Councillor James Allie	Lab	5	3	60%	0
Councillor Mary Arnold	Lab	12	12	100%	0
Councillor Javaid Ashraf	LD	6	5	83%	0
Councillor Joyce Bacchus	Lab	5	4	80%	0
Councillor Eddie Baker	Con	10	5	50%	0
Councillor Jack Beck	LD	3	2	67%	0
Councillor Lincoln Beswick MBE	Lab	2	1	50%	0
Councillor Daniel Brown	LD	15	8	53%	1
Councillor Muhammed Butt	Lab	14	13	93%	2
Councillor Barry Cheese	LD	6	6	100%	10
Councillor Bhagwanji Chohan	Lab	9	8	89%	8
Councillor Shafique Choudhary	Lab	9	8	89%	6
Councillor M Aslam Choudry	Lab	11	9	82%	2
David Clues	Ex LD	5	0	0%	0
Councillor Reg Colwill	Con	9	7	78%	0
Councillor George Crane	Lab	15	13	87%	0
Councillor Mark Cummins	LD	11	11	100%	1
Councillor Mary Daly	Lab	6	5	83%	3
Councillor James Denselow	Lab	16	11	69%	0
Councillor Helga Gladbaum	Lab	10	10	100%	1
Councillor Simon Green	LD	5	2	40%	0
Councillor Patricia Harrison	Lab	19	16	84%	2
Councillor Sami Hashmi	LD	12	11	92%	6
Councillor Claudia Hector	Lab	10	10	100%	1
Councillor Krupesh Hirani	Lab	15	11	73%	1
Councillor Alison Hopkins	LD	12	11	92%	0
Councillor Jean Hossain	Lab	12	11	92%	0
Councillor Ann Hunter	LD	10	8	73%	0
Councillor Ann John OBE	Lab	9	5	56%	0
Councillor Lesley Jones	Lab	11	9	82%	0
Councillor Sandra Kabir	Lab	10	8	80%	0
Councillor Suresh Kansagra	Con	6	5	83%	0
Councillor Dhiraj Kataria	LD*	16	13	81%	0
Councillor Chris Leaman	LD	5	3	60%	0
Councillor Janice Long	Lab	10	10	100%	0
Councillor Paul Lorber	LD	9	7	78%	6
Councillor Roxanne Mashari	Lab	17	12	71%	1
Councillor Hayley Matthews	LD	6	2	33%	0
Councillor Margaret McLennan	Lab	12	12	100%	0
Councillor Jim Moher	Lab	14	12	86%	1
Councillor Ruth Moher	Lab	21	20	95%	1
Councillor Colum Moloney	Lab	3	3	100%	0
Councillor Wilhelmina Mitchell Murray	Lab	9	6	67%	0
Councillor Kana Naheerathan	Lab	2	1	50%	0
Councillor Benjamin Ogunro	Lab	4	4	100%	0
Councillor Tayo Oladapo	Lab	3	3	100%	1
Councillor Bhiku Patel	Con	4	4	100%	0
Councillor Chandubhai J Patel	LD	12	3	25%	1
Councillor Harshadbhai Patel	Con	14	11	79%	4
Councillor Harihar Patel	Con	7	6	86%	0
Councillor Ramesh Patel	Lab	11	8	73%	1
Councillor Michael Pavey	Lab	17	15	88%	1
Councillor James Powney	Lab	12	9	75%	0
Councillor Carol Shaw	Con**	2	2	100%	1
Councillor Ketan Sheth	Lab	18	12	67%	0
Councillor Krupa Sheth	Lab	6	5	83%	0
Councillor Harbhajan Singh	Lab	9	7	78%	0
Councillor Gavin Sneddon	LD	3	1	33%	0
Councillor Bobby Thomas	Mayor	2	2	100%	0
Councillor Zaffar Van Kalwala	Lab	11	8	73%	1

* Defected from Labour to Liberal Democrat

** Defected from Liberal Democrats back to Conservative

Clearly committee attendance is only one measure and the amount of casework and how much of it is successful is important as well as the degree of visibility and engagement of each individual councillor with their residents.

Please note some of these non-attendances may include illness. Apologies for absence are included on the Council website - click on councillor's name.