Frontrunners emerge in Labour battle for Brent Central nomination

Patrick Vernon and Catherine West are emerging as front runners in the contest for Labour's selection of a candidate to challenge Sarah Teather in Brent Central at the 2015 General Election.

Cllr Roxanne Mashari who was mentioned in early speculation confirmed this morning that she will not be standing. Cllr Zaffar Van Kalwala, butt of frequent teasing about his job at an investment bank in the City but with excellent local credentials, has yet to reveal his hand. Sabina Khan is also holding back but promises a different,  if not unique, campaign. Amina Ali is due to address a Labour meeting soon and Dawn Butler has arranged a private Brent Central viewing of Ken Loach's Spirit of 45 in Harlesden on April 29th sponsored by the GMB and LFC.

Catherine West's address  to the Kensal Green ward meeting impressed a number of Labour Party members of different tendencies who are usually at loggerheads.  It was her record as a 'doer' with the policy giving free school meals to all Islingon Primary children a real winner, that convinced some of the audience that she had sufficient weight to take on Teather.

Her approach can be seen from this extract from her address to the Labour Local Government Conference:

If Labour are to return to power in 2015, I don’t think any of us are naïve enough to believe spending will return to pre-2010 levels. In the short term the next Labour government need to reverse the Tory policy of hitting the poorest areas hardest.

However, a message we all need to be communicating as local authority representatives is that the current model of local government needs to change. The financial model does not work anymore. We need a new relationship between central and local government that recognises WE are the people who know our own areas best and we are the people who should lead them. Going forward this means three things:

First, it is vital that the future way of funding social care is decided quickly with defined financial responsibilities for the individual, the NHS and local government. Without this, all Councils will be bankrupt within a decade. Thankfully Andy Burnham has already announced that Local Government will play a role in integrating social care and acute care and Liz Kendall is in conversation with us as local leaders about the exact design of that commissioning.

Second, recognise the limitations of national employment programmes and devolve the budgets and responsibilities to local councils either individually or as part of a consortium such as the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities or Central London Forward. Once again local government’s intimate knowledge of our areas and their jobs market makes us well placed to lead on getting local people into work.

Third, generate economic growth through much needed housing and infrastructure projects. But crucially, to allow more flexibility than the last Labour Government over the procurement of this work so all of the contracts don’t go to the usual same few major construction companies and myriad sub-contractors that leach money and jobs out of local areas.

Communication matters. Our experience shows that when we focus on the issues that resonate in our communities and we communicate a clear alternative to the governments slash and burn approach we can win the support of local people. This will help pave the way for a Labour government in 2015.

Risks in council's reduced role and restructuring

Long term out-sourcing reduces democratic accountability

 It was rather disconcerting during yesterday's Barnet Spring march to find a rather touching faith in the ability of the Labour Party to deliver something quite different to the Tory's Easy Council option. A speech from a libraries campaigning from Newcastle and chats with those of us from Brent, introduced a touch of realism into their expectations.

Of course Labour Brent and Tory Barnet are not identical but they do share some of the basic assumptions and I am under no illusions that the Greens in Brighton have fundamentally different views as to the future. They are all in different ways 'managing' the decline in financial and political power of local councils.

One way of doing this is to reduce the 'need' for local services through lowering expectations and reducing costs via out-sourcing to the lowest bidder. Out-sourcing is privatisation and  removes democratic accountability and further reduces the role of the council. What is required instead of accommodation to the Coalition agenda is out-right concerted defence of local government and local democracy.

This is how the Brent Council restructuring document puts it:

The changing role of the Council

The scale of the challenge to public services through the reductions outlined above is considerable. It cannot be managed by the traditional local government responses of streamlining staffing and restricting access or eligibility to services which may be of poorer quality than they are now. This can only lead to conflict and declining trust among local people. We must:

• find more innovative ways of preventing demand for public services arising in the first place

• do more to ensure that if a need arises, ways are found to meet it without relying on public services

• help people themselves self-manage a long term need, rather than relying on a service

• minimise duplication by integrating all services-not just those provided by the

council-around individuals, thereby facilitating a more personalised and coherent approach

• explore ways of enabling service users to improve services by commissioning services directly.

Barnet wants to do away with the local authority's day to day management role altogether with massive long-term contracts to then likes of Capita. However Brent isn't really that far behind if you consider the huge contract currently being procured for the Public Realm (street cleaning, waste collection, recycling, Parks and BHP grounds maintenance) as well as adult social care and parts of the education service.

Brent Council's restructuring of senior management is a response to the declining role of the local authority in service management but also reflects the growing role of major projects and regeneration as the Council seeks to sell the family silver (public assets) to remain afloat.

Under the proposals:

• The Corporate Management Team will be reduced from 9 posts to 5
• CMT Directors will be reduced from 8 posts to 4
• Assistant Directors will be reduced from 19 to 14
• A new post of Assistant Chief Executive will be created

A common theme is the creation of 'Strategic' and 'Operational Directors' in the new departments. As an example we can look at the newly created Education, Health and Social Care Department. As the name suggests this includes education, children and adult social care and the newly acquired public health functions. It is a huge remit and contains some of the riskiest areas of the Council's operations. BACES is transferred from education to the Major Projects and Regeneration Department.

There will be a Strategic Director of Education, Health and Social Care and s/he will manage the Operational Directors for 1) Education 2) Children's Social Care 3) Adult Social Care and a Director of Public Health (a statutory position) who will report to the Chief Executive.

This set-up may provoke some anxiety in terms of the complexity and associated risk factors in these departments, particularly regarding safeguarding of vulnerable children and adults. Both child and adult social care have huge budget pressures and as a new service it is unclear what the eventual financial position will be regarding public health.  Christine Gilbert's report claims that the reorganisation takes account of the Munro Review's recommendation that the role of Director of Children's Services should not have additional functions in order that the focus on vulnerable children should not be diluted. This proposal should be given careful scrutiny by councillors mindful of Brent's unfortunate history in this area, and the difficulty of recruitment to such posts.

The Department of Environment and Neighbourhoods will have a Straetgic Director and two Operational Directors for 1) Neighbourhoods and 2) Environment and Protection. It will now be responsible for Community Safety.

The already huge Regeneration and Major Projects department now takes on Brent Customer Services,  a new Employment and Enterprise function, and associated with the latter BACES is transferred from Children and Families. There will be a Strategic Director and four Operational Directors 1) Property and Projects 2) Planning and Regeneration 3) Housing and Employment and 4) Customer Services.

I have previously expressed concern that this department, currently head by Andy Donald, has a great deal of power and possible conflicts of interest, and my concern is not lessened by the reorganisation. As with Education, Health and Social Care, here are a great many eggs in one basket.

Butt confirms no 2% council tax rise this year

Mike Bowden, Assistant Director of Brent Finance gave a presentation to the Budget and Finance Overview and Scrutiny Committee in November 2012  that assumed a council tax rise of 3.5% for the 2013-14 council budget LINK. Shortly afterwards Eric Pickles established a requirement for a local referendum if increases were above a 2% threshold. Last year a number of councils of various political hues increased council tax below the 3.5% threshold that existed then.

I understand that there has been discussion in the Brent Executive as to whether to raise Council Tax with the benefit marginal after grant losses and  a reduced collection rate are taken into account. A rise above 2% would have incurred the cost of a local referendum.  It would of course have been another additional cost for people already suffering from benefit cuts and low or frozen wages. An alternative view is that calling the Coalition's bluff and triggering a referendum could result in a proper political debate about the need to adequately fund  local services and the iniquities of the Coalition's grant reduction to local authorities. Only a very small percentage of local government revenue comes from council taxes and charges.

Brent Council leader Muhammed Butt has confirmed via a Facebook interchange with me that there will not be a 2% rise this year. Asked about a possible lower rise he said that the Council was looking at the settlement figures as part of the budgetary process and considering the offer of the freeze grant.

Times will be getting harder in Brent in 2013

There was a flurry in the press over the holiday about local government cuts.  David Blunkett in the Guardian  LINK argued that the cuts were horrendous, an attack on local democracy and would reduce councils to providing only the statutory minimum of services but went on to state that ' the message of "austerity" has successfully debilitated the will to take on central government' and cited the failure of the 1980s fightback.

Ted Knight, late of Lambeth Council,  disagreed in his comment piece: LINK

In the 1980s, Labour councils like my own did organise a fightback. A price was paid, councillors were surcharged and forced from office. But resistance, far from being futile, mobilised communities. We won additional funds so that budgets could be set without cuts. Labour councillors today have the same choice – they can either lead a struggle against a vicious government or stand aside for those who will.

In Brent Cllr James Powney stated on his blog LINK 

This year's (Brent) budget, has fairly limited cuts but the failure of George Osborne's economic policy and the Conservative Party's hatred of local government mean that we will face massive fiscal pressures for years to come.

Brent Council is likely to respond to these by having a much tighter economic focus on everything we do.  This means that Council services will need to demonstrate a much more direct effect on economic well being than hitherto.  Local government has never had a challenge like it.

Meanwhile leaders of  Newcastle, Liverpool and Sheffield City Councils warned of potential civil unrest LINK

 The unfairness of the government's cuts is in danger of creating a deeply divided nation. We urge them to stop what they are doing now and listen to our warnings before the forces of social unrest start to smoulder.

There are seeds here of a possible fightback but there are clear divisions between those who will manage the cuts while complaining about the damage that they will do and those who want a proactive campaign against them.  The Labour Party nationally is very much in the former camp but the left of Labour, Gren L:weft, other left groups, the labour movement and the Coalition of Resistance are in the latter.

In Brent the Labour Group on the council are under pressure from the Labour left and the LRC but so far are managing the cuts in line with Powney's position. Unfortunately a leadership challenge to Muihammed Butt's leadership from the Ann John faction at the May annual meeting seems more likely than a successful challenge from the left. By that time the budget will have been adopted and any subsequent room for manoeuvre by a new administration will be extremely limited.

Although Cllr Powney intimates that the Brent budget will have 'fairly limited cuts' (we residents of course have been given no details and appear to have no say in the planned budget) the changes in housing benefit, council tax support and the postponed benefit cap, will also be hitting the least well-off.  It is yet to be confirmed whether Brent Council will be implementing a Council Tax increase and whether they will use their reserves to limit the cuts.