Brent Labour fail to grasp nettle of Davani pay-off

I missed last night's Brent Council meeting but checking the Twitter feed it is clear that Labour made no attempt to address the issue of a pay-off to Cara Davani, controversial head of Brent HR, who resigned recently:

Ahead of the meeting Philip Grant had writtent the following email to his ward councillors:

Dear Fryent Ward councillors,

You have probably heard that on Wednesday a Council spokesperson confirmed that Cara Davani, Brent’s Director of HR and Administration, is leaving the Council at the end of June, to take a career break. If you had not heard, you can read the announcement, and reaction to it, at:

http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/cara-devani-leaving-brent-council-to.html

While the Council’s statement praises ‘the significant contribution that Cara has made over the last 3 years’, it does not mention Ms Davani’s misdeeds, such as her vicious actions against a Brent employee as shown by findings of fact in the Rosemarie Clarke Employment Tribunal case. That case has already cost Brent Council probably a six-figure sum in legal fees, and will land the Council with a further bill, quite possibly a seven-figure sum (i.e. more than £1 million) in compensation, damages and costs when the remedy hearing makes its decision (likely to be in about three months time).

Given this background, and the serious damage done to Brent’s reputation by the finding that the Council “racially discriminated” against Ms Clarke, I am seriously concerned (as are many others) about the financial terms on which Ms Davani may be leaving the Council’s employment. She is leaving at the end of June, and I would not seek to interfere with her salary entitlement up to that date (even though any decent person would have resigned when the judgment was published last September, and any other Chief Executive would have either insisted on that resignation or taken immediate action to dismiss her for gross misconduct). However, that last salary payment should be the only further financial reward that Cara Davani receives from Brent Council.

There should be no other “payoff” or leaving payment of whatever description made to her. If Ms Davani has been “persuaded” to leave now, there is talk of a possible “compromise package” - which, I understand, following changes made to HR procedures during Ms Davani’s reign, would normally be agreed on by either the Director of HR or the Chief Executive. As she is the Director of HR, the Chief Executive (Christine Gilbert) is her friend and former colleague from Tower Hamlets Council and Ofsted, who she helped to bring into Brent in 2012, the interim Director of HR is to be Mildred Phillips (another former colleague, first brought into Brent as an interim consultant, then given a permanent position and promoted by Ms Davani to be her deputy), it would not be possible for the amount of any payment, even if one were deserved (which it most certainly would not), to be arrived at on an arm’s length basis. It may be that she is leaving now, while she still has “friends in high places”.

[And please don’t suggest that the terms of any payment might be agreed instead by Brent’s Principal Employment Lawyer - Ms Davani’s personal and business partner, Andy Potts - or by its Chief Operating Officer, Lorraine Langham, another former colleague of Ms Davani and Ms Gilbert at Tower Hamlets and Ofsted. It is the extent of this “cronyism” at high levels in Brent Council that has previously allowed Ms Davani to get away with her actions against Rosemarie Clarke, and other now-former employees of the Council.]

The is another financial aspect of Cara Davani’s leaving Brent which councillors need to ensure is handled properly. The full title of the Rosemarie Clarke Employment Tribunal case is Ms RC Clarke v. 1) The London Borough of Brent and 2) Ms Cara Davani. Ms Davani is a separately named respondent in the case, even though it appears that she did not have separate legal representation at the full Tribunal hearing, with Brent’s barrister (at Brent’s expense) effectively defending her as well. There should be no agreement made under which Brent agrees to pay, or indemnify Ms Davani in respect of, any award of compensation, damages or costs made against Cara Davani personally as the second respondent in the case. I also believe that Brent should make clear to Ms Davani that she will need to arrange and pay for her own legal representation in the case after she leaves the Council’s employment at the end of June. 

At first sight, this may sound vindictive, as the case relates to actions she took while Brent’s Head of HR (although she held this role up to 31 March 2013 as a self-employed interim consultant) and as interim, then formally appointed, Operational Director of HR. However, it is clear from the evidence and findings of fact in the Tribunal judgement that her actions against Ms Clarke were totally contrary to the Council’s HR policy and practices, and that her victimisation of Ms Clarke was done for reasons of personal spite, as a result of Ms Clarke complaining of being bullied and harassed by Ms Davani. Her actions were therefore not in the proper performance of her duties, particularly when those duties were of Brent’s most senior HR officer, who should have been leading by example.

I hope you will agree with the two propositions which I have highlighted, and that you will take early action to see that these are put in place. I would suggest that you could ask for “Departure from the Council of the Director of HR and Administration” as an item to be put on the agenda for the Full Council meeting on 22 June, with the current Chief Executive (or her representative, if Ms Gilbert is not available to attend) making a statement about Ms Davani’s departure, and then giving members the chance to comment or ask questions. The Chief Executive should give at least outline details of any planned payments, over and above her basic salary to 30 June 2015, which are proposed, and in particular, be asked to confirm that Ms Davani will be personally liable for any award made in respect of her as the second respondent in the Rosemarie Clarke Employment Tribunal case, and that Brent will not pay, or indemnify her in any way, in respect of such an award against Cara Davani personally. I am copying this email to the Chief Executive, for her information.

Please acknowledge receipt of this email, and let me have at least a brief response to my comments, which reflect the views of many people, even though I am the one articulating them to you. Please feel free to forward this email to any of your fellow councillors, if you wish to seek their views before deciding what action you should take in response to it. Thank you. Best wishes,

Philip Grant

The Education Bill: A solution that will harm schools

Henry Stewart published this useful background article on the Education and Adoption Bill yesterday before the House of Commons meeting on the Bill organised by the Anti academies Alliance. First published by Local schools Network.

Today is the second reading of Nicky Morgan’s Education and Adoption Bill. The main purpose is to speed up the conversion to academy status of “inadequate” and “coasting” schools, It will force local authorities and governing bodies to implement an academy order, whether or not they feel it is in the best interest of the children.

And the evidence increasingly suggests it is not in the best interest of those children. The education select committee, chaired by Graham Stuart of the Conservatives, carried out a thorough review of academies and free schools and found no such evidence. “Academisation is not always successful nor is it the only proven alternative for a struggling school,”

Announcing the bill, the Secretary of State claimed to have “education experts who know exactly what they have to do to make a failing school outstanding.” I have submitted a Freedom of Information request to ask how many schools rated “Inadequate” by Ofsted have been converted and how many of these have since become Outstanding. I await the response with interest. 

A study of the current Ofsted listing of the most recent inspections for all secondary schools suggests she is unlikely to find many. For secondaries the number of schools going from Inadequate last time to Outstanding this time is precisely zero. For primaries there are eight schools listed as making that remarkable transition but none are academies. All are local authority or voluntary aided schools (“maintained schools”).

The Ofsted list, which shows the current and previous inspection, shows that a secondary school is far more likely to improve its Ofsted rating if it is not a sponsored academy. With academies that have had two Ofsted inspections since conversion (as the report does not list a school’s rating pre-conversion) we find:

Sponsored academies twice as likely to stay Inadequate

For secondary schools previously rated as inadequate, sponsored academies are twice as likely (18% v 9%) to stay inadequate as maintained schools. Non-academies are over three times more likely (27% v 6%) to move from Inadequate to Good or Outstanding than sponsored academies.

Sponsored academies twice as likely to fall from RI to Inadequate

For those previously rated “Requires Improvement” they are more than twice as likely (20% v 8%) to fall to Inadequate if they are a Sponsored academy

Non-academies three times as likely to move from Good to Outstanding

For secondary schools previously rated Good, they are almost four times as likely (19% v 5%) to fall to Inadequate if they are Sponsored academies. At the same time they are more than three times as likely to become Outstanding from Good (16% v 5%) if they are a maintained school as opposed to a Sponsored academy

These dramatic differences are only true of sponsored academies, generally schools that were “underperforming” and sponsored as an academy by another school or by an academy chain. “Converter academies”, where a school is generally Good or Outstanding and chooses to convert, perform as well as maintained schools.

This analysis appears to show that conversion of a school that is rated Inadequate is likely to slow its improvement. Indeed, rather than helping it, becoming a sponsored academy is more likely to lead to a school falling back to being Inadequate and less likely to become Good or Outstanding.

There is no data to back up the Secretary of State’s claims. The Bill is very clearly based on ideology not evidence. As the Education Select committee also stated, “the government should stop exaggerating the success of academies”. It is advice that Nicky Morgan would do well to take.

Note: This analysis only includes secondary schools. The reason is that, to qualify, a sponsored academy must have had two Ofsted inspections since conversion. While this is true of 211 sponsored academy secondary schools, it is only true of 2 sponsored academy primary schools.

Kilburn councillor launches blog with email revelations over Brent HS2 vent meeting

Cllr John Duffy, Labour, Kilburn ward has launched a blog site this morning, Kilburn Calling,  LINK which states as its intention 'A blog that speaks out about the issues and concerns of people who live in the Kilburn area of the London Borough of Brent'.

Cllr Duffy attempted to persuade the Labour Group to raise Council Tax during the pre-budget consultation, arguing that to do so could prevent some of the worse of the cuts, particularly the ending of funding to Stonebridge Adventure Playground.

At the last full Council Meeting (there is another tonight) he protested that Kilburn had become disenfranchised because none of its councillors had been allocated places on Council committees.

In a posting today LINK he reveals what he claims to be an attempt by a senior Brent officer to stop him informing residents about his attendance at a key meeting on the controversial HS2 vent issue.

This is what he says:

A funny thing happen to me over the weekend, I received a email from a senior officer in Brent council, telling me about a meeting to discuss the HS2 train link running under Kilburn and the placing of the vent shaft.

The email said:

“Please accept this meeting request for discussions on the HS2 Vent Shaft issue that has arisen.
XXXX has called this meeting to ensure you all have the opportunity to be factually briefed on the issue, especially from the South Kilburn Regeneration perspective.
The meeting will be held at xxxxx. xxxxx (full address below). Please ask for XXXX XXXX upon arrival”.

I accepted the invitation to the meeting and believed I should inform the Chair of the local residents to highlight the fact that I was attending and therefore assuring them that their voice was being heard. So I forwarded the email to the Chair of the local residents a Mr F and merely added “FYI”. Believing that I had acted as a good councilor, I then prepared to enjoy my weekend. 

However on Friday night I received this letter from a Senior Director, which he had cc the leader of the council. Saying that he noticed I had forwarded his email stating.

Dear Councillor Duffy,

This is a private briefing for the new MP, the Leader, and relevant Lead Members from the cabinet and ward councilors only. It isn't an open meeting for members of the public or wider party members. I would wholly expect one outcome of the meeting to be wider consultation and engagement on the issues and we can discuss the approach to this at the meeting.

Can I leave you to inform Mr F of this situation please?
 
Thanks - see you next week
 
I was initially taken back by what I saw of an invasion of my private correspondence with a Constituent. However it would seem that Brent council operate a system that traces any person to whom they have sent an invitation to and any other person that the recipient forwards it onto. This despite the fact that the email did not state it was private or secret.

Because of my concern about this I then forwarded this note to two other colleagues asking them to advise me about what I saw as intrusion into my private email correspondence with my constituents.
To my amazement I received another email from the Director, which was sent to all of the three of my constituents I had emailed. Which said:

Dear Mr P, Mr G, MR K,

I understand that you have been forwarded a notification of the above meeting by Cllr Duffy.
Regrettably this meeting is a private briefing for local politicians and therefore attendance is restricted and I am afraid that you won't be able to attend.
One of the purposes of the meeting is to discuss how we best engage and consult with the many different residents and partners who have an interest in this issue with a view to ensuring that everybody's voice is heard.  I will make sure you are all notified of the relevant consultation meetings when they are set up.

Many apologies for the misunderstanding.”

Summary


It is clear the officer involved believes he alone controls the meeting; his way of dealing with councilors is by dictating to them and believes he can instruct councilors to obey him, because presumably he is an officer.

The way the officer has handle this situation and the tone of his emails is of great concern to me, it reeks of “big brother ” and his interference by directly emailing my constituents is frankly unbelievable. It is as if I had been a very “ bad boy “ and he is telling me off. It is condescending and I believe undermines the respect officers should show to elected representatives.

I am sure there are many Cabinet Members and Councilors, who believe they should just obey officers’ instructions and do what ever they say, and do not stand their ground. This officer seems to have confused me with one of them. 

I was quite happy to attend the meeting itself. I never invited anyone else contrary to the officer’s wild allegation. This meeting is about the vent shaft for HS2.  There are two options being discussed: one in Queens Park  (next to the station) and the other in South Kilburn next to St Mary’s RC School in the middle of the regeneration area that has been blighted as a building site for the last nine years.
I however do not accept the implicit suggestion from these officers that this will be sited (as indicated in their first e-mail) in the South Kilburn regeneration area. These residents have lived on a building site for last 9 years and have been shafted by the Tory government over the years by cuts in services, the bedroom tax and family credits etc. So I will attend the meeting to do my best to ensure the residents of South Kilburn are not literally “Shafted” again by both the Tory Government and over zealous Officers.

Greens out in force at End Austerity Now! demonstration

The extent of the Green Party's recent growth was evident at today's End Austerity Now! demonstration as well as the youth of many of our new members.

There were high spirits as hundreds of Greens processed through the streets of London in the company of thousands of other anti-austerity protesters. The Labour Party was  notably absent apart from the presence of leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn.

Unconfirmed reports say that the Green Bloc was the biggest bloc today.

At the Green Bloc assembly point in Cornhill, City of London Photo: Mike Shaughnessy  

Green Party Trade Union Group  Photo: Shahrar Ali

Green Party leaders Amelia Womack, Shahrar Ali and Natalie Bennett Photo: Amelia Womack