Mencap on Impact of Cuts

Brent Mencap has circulated this message:

Here at Brent Mencap we are very concerned about the effect that public sector spending cuts will have on the lives of people with a learning disability in Brent. Even in the "good times" people with learning disabilities didn't get paid jobs or as good medical treatment as the rest of the population. They were discriminated against by service providers in many other ways.

We think the cuts and changes to things like

• Disability Living Allowance
• Incapacity benefit.
• Social Care services and Community based support
• Housing benefit cuts and longer waits for their own tenancies
• Cuts to transport staff, police, libraries, sports centres, colleges and other public services

will make it much harder for people to feel safe in their communities or access community services. We also think it will slow down the reasonable adjustments that service providers need to make to enable people with a learning disability to access the same services that you and I take for granted.

As a campaigning organisation we are going to hold some meetings for Brent people with a learning disability of all ages and their families . At these meetings we will talk about the kinds of cuts and changes the Government and Council are planning and support people to decide what action they want to take. Please circulate details of these meetings to people you know with a learning disability and their families. The times may not suit some people and we could hold similar meetings at different times if there was enough demand. Please contact ian@brentmencap.org.uk about this.

Please circulate the flier (see under Pages) to your contacts who work with people with a learning disability and their families.

We are looking for volunteers to help support people with a learning disability voice their concerns. If you are interested in volunteering with us please contact Leanne@brentmencap.org.uk

Brent Mencap recognises that other vulnerable groups and the general public will also be badly affected by these cuts and changes. We would encourage other voluntary sector groups, residents groups and other people to also get involved in the local anti-cuts campaign. The next local meeting to plan action against the cuts (organised by Brent Trades Union Council)  is on Wednesday 8th September at 7.30 at the Apollo Club, 377 High Road Willesden NW10 2JR. We would encourage people to attend and also to plan their response to the cuts. For more details of the public meetings please contact Sarah Cox on scox05@toucansurf.com

At the recent meeting we heard that Camden Councillors and their workforce (and parts of Islington Council) will be demonstrating against the cuts on October 20th, the date the comprehensive spending review report is published. To date there seems to be no similar action planned in Brent and it appears as if the cuts will go ahead here with little Brent statutory or voluntary sector public response about how this will badly affect Brent residents

Good News from Chalkhill

The temporary swimming pool at Chalkhill Primary School is nearing completion ready for opening on September 13th.  The pool will be used for school swimming groups during the day and for the community after school.  It will be in place until December.

Meanwhile the plans for a community swimming pool on the site of Dexion House, Empire Way, Wembley have been approved but it is unclear when the redevelopment will take place.








Work is expected to start in the Autumn on the new community park on the Chalkhill Estate.  It is being built on land vacated by the old Chalkhill Health Centre opposite the ASDA car park and will include two children's play areas, adult exercise circuit, a water feature and kickabout area.

Coalition of Resistance Meeting September 2nd

MEETING FOR SUPPORTERS AND SIGNATORIES

OF THE COALITION OF RESISTANCE STATEMENT

HELP BUILD THE RESISTANCE TO THE CON-DEM CUTS

7pm, Thursday 2 September, Room 3A, University of London Union, Malet St, WC1E

(Euston, Russell Square, Goodge St. tubes)

Brent Anti-Cuts Campaign Set Up

Twenty people attended Wednesday's organising meeting to set up a Brent Anti-Cuts Campaign. The twenty included members of the Labour Party, Green Party, Social Workers' Party and even the ex-leader of the Brent Democratic Conservative group. They included members of Unison, Unite, RMT and the NUT and workers from the public sector and voluntary sector.

All were agreed on the serious threat posed by the cuts on ordinary working people and vulnerable groups. After discussion of the main areas of cuts in council services, health, public transport, education, welfare benefits,housing benefit,  school building programmes, legal aid the meeting agreed an organisational structure.

Brent Campaign Against Cuts will be broad and inclusive, including workers and users, community groups and all opposed to the cuts. It will be pro-public services and attempt to be proactive, looking at alternatives to the cuts, rather than just reactive. It will recognise that Coalition government policy is the source of many of the cuts even if implemented at local authority level.

The meeting agreed to lobby the Brent Council Labour group to follow the example of Camden and Islington Labour councillors in agreeing to join their workers in the protest march against the Autumn Review on October 20th.

More than one way to fight the cuts?

Tonight's meeting at the Brent Trades Hall to discuss organising against the cuts will be vitally important. One important issue will be the type of action that can be taken. The problem with strike action, although a key weapon, is that such action by public sector workers can impact on the very people we are trying to defend. As today's report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies made clear these are poor families, women and those with disabilities. In the last period of mass anti-cuts action in the 70s and 80s there were attempts to bring together workers and users of services to not only defend public services but also to agree ways that they could be improved. As public sector workers we have to be prepared to admit that public services as presently constituted are not perfect.

In the summer in which Jimmy Reid of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders occupation died, occupations should again be considered as a way of fighting cuts. The UCS occupation inspired other occupations across the country. As a young teacher I was involved in a small occupation when Fulham Baths (both a swimming pool and a public baths for those who at the time lacked bathrooms at home).  The baths were occupied by workers from the baths, trades unionists and members of the local community. As a local teacher and NUT member I joined the occupation and slept in a sleeping bag at the side of the swimming pool overnight and then went in to teach the next day. Now I cannot imagine how I coped with a full teaching load! The occupation was fully supported by local people, especially children as the photograph shows, and I used to take my class to swim in the pool during the occupation. We were determined to keep a resource used and valued by the community. We didn't save that particular building but we did help ensure a new pool was built nearby.

Children marching in defence of Fulham Baths and swimming in the occupied pool.

Some of the occupiers outside the baths including a young Paul Kenny (last on right), then a local GMB organiser, and now leader of the GMB

Another occupation around the same time in which I was involved was that of Hounslow Hospital. Although the times were different and strategies need to be updated there is a useful Handbook on Hospital Occupations available based on lessons from that campaign: HERE  We should consider occupations for community buildings that belong to us but which may be closed down (Kilburn College), moth-balled (Children's Centres if funding is not secured after 2011), or sold off (Brent Town Hall?).

Other methods could include working but not charging the public (tubes, buses etc) and showing the public in advance how the cuts will hit services by having an open day and showing them how cuts will hit. I did this sucessfully in one school where we 'implemented' the cuts and showed parents the resulting increases in class sizes, crowded class rooms and sharing of resources. The result was parents with much more idea of what cuts would mean and increased support for the campaign - plus good local newspaper coverage.

We will also need to consider how to campaign on cuts which are not jobs but welfare benefits including disability and housing, and cuts of funding for future projects like the Building Schools for the Future and Playbuilder programmes, and those affecting voluntary organisations. 

A complicating factor is the impact creeping privatisation. In contrast the to the 70s there are private companies waiting like vultures for public services to crumble so that they can leap in as 'providers' and make a tidy profit. As services provided by Brent Council to schools for example, are cut as staff are not replaced or are made redundant, they become less efficient. Schools will then be tempted to 'buy in' services from the private sector and deprive the council department of revenue, leading to a further downward spiral and perhaps leading to the department closing completely as it will be 'uneconomic'. The private sector will then be free to charge schools higher fees. This is likely to happen with services such as Brent's supply teacher pool. At present teachers employed by schools via the pool get a higher rate than private supply staff because the private companies rake of a fat agency fee. As headteachers are involved in recruiting teachers to the supply pool they have some control over the quality of staff - this is much reduced with private agencies.

But perhaps the greatest contrast with the 70s and 80s were at the time we still did have some shipbuilding, iron works and coal mining. With most of that dismantled by Thatcher and her followers and the subsequent reliance on the financial sector, with the dire results that we are now grappling with, we need to look at alternative economic models. An anti-cuts campaign needs to be proactive as well as reactive and we need to be questioning the whole basis of the Coalition's policy of drastic cuts and paying off the debt within 4 years. This is like a family deciding to pay off a 25 year mortgage in 4 years by turning off the heating, living on bread and water, and not sending the kids to school to save money on clothes!

Instead we need to be putting forward the need for investment in green jobs, education and training as part of the transformation of the economy and press for cuts where it really matters - Trident, defence, bankers' bonuses.

Civic Centre details available on-line

Details relating to conditions of the planning consent for the new Civic Centre are now available on line.  They are easily missed as listed under the old site names of Palace of Arts/Palace of Industry rather than 'Civic Centre'. LINK  The case to be decided no earlier than September 13th 2010.

Let us have a say on the future of Brent Town Hall

After reneging on their election promise to reconsider the Civic Centre project, the new Labour administration is now looking at the future of Brent Town Hall. At last month's Members' Question Time, Ann John, leader of the Brent Council, said that the Local Development Framework recognised that the Town Hall is a statutory listed building and that therefore the 'existing building would substantially remain'. However, there would be scope to extend the building and develop the land to the rear. John  expected staff to be decanted to the new Civic Centre during 2013 and the site made available for disposal.

Cllr John stated that capital receipts for the disposal had been built into budget for the cost of the Civic Centre and that this had been risk adjusted to taking the current economic climate into account.

Brent Greens have argued that the Town Hall should be retained for community use and Ann John said that the Council had agreed a range or combination of potential uses which would also include residential, small scale retail, a hotel and offices.  She said that a more detailed planning brief would be prepared prior to the marketing and disposal of the site.

As there was very little public consultation on the Civic Centre proposal we hope that there will be full public consultation on these proposals so that the people of Brent have a say on the future of their town hall.

NHS Web Campaign Launched

38 Degrees has launched a web campaign to defend the NHS against cuts and privatisation. They say:

Money may be tight. But the government is still planning to find billions of pounds to fund new Trident nuclear submarines. These changes to the NHS are about ideology, not saving money. Some Tories have always wanted to trash the NHS.Last year, one MEP described the NHS as a "60-year-old mistake" and another MP said that the NHS "would not be out of place in Stalin's Russia".

But these hardliners have never managed to get their way, because the NHS is popular with voters.  People power has stopped them before, and it can stop them again.

We need to show that the NHS has the support of tens of thousands of people. Everyone has been touched in some way by the NHS. It's there at the start and end of most people's lives. Everyone who signs the pledge will be added to a map of the UK, so politicians can see for themselves how many thousands of people want to defend the health service from political attacks. Every MP will be able to see people in their own constituency who don't want the NHS to be destroyed. 

Add your name today - so politicians know how many of us are standing up for the NHS:

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/protect-the-NHS