Waste Strategy Challenged

Elaine Henderson of Friends of the Earth made a well researched and cogent critique of some aspects of the Council's new Waste Strategy at last night's Scrutiny Committee.  The Lib Dems had called-in both the Street Cleansing and Recycling proposals.

Elaine made the case for making reducing landfill  costs the main focus of the strategy. She said that adopting co-mingled (mixed) collection of recyclables in place of kerbside collection and sorting, would mean that the material would be contaminated and less acceptable to UK based processing companies.  She had talked to Aylesford, Brent's current buyers of paper waste, who had said they did not knowingly buy paper from co-mingled collections. She said that co-mingling would make it more likely that Brent's waste would be sent abroad for processing. This would reduce the price paid by processing companies for Brent's recycled waste.  In answer to a claim that it would be too costly to extend kerbside collection at the price offered by Veolia,  she said that another waste management company, May-Gurney. could offer a kerbside service at the same process as co-mingled.

She criticised the Council's Brent Magazine and on-line consultation as not making it clear that residual waste would now only be collected fortnightly and that residents would  have to have  another large wheelie bin for dry recyclables rather than the green box. The new containers will cost the Council £1.7m.  She suggested that the council should consider the use of large reusable bags for paper as used by other boroughs. She cited the ambiguous language of the survey and its inaccessibility to residents not fluent in English. Elaine made it clear that comment about the possibility of a Judicial Review on the issue that she had made at an earlier meeting, was raised as a member of a Residents' Association, and was not the policy of Brent Friends of the Earth.  She presented the committee with a two page alternative Friends of the Earth Waste Strategy.

A rather irked Cllr Powney was caustic in his response and claimed that it had been a 'good consultation' and compared well with similar Brent consultations. He said that he had personally appeared at all the Area Forums to explain the strategy and that there had been articles in the local press about it. He claimed that the new strategy was not a reduction in service but an enhancement as it would now extend to 28,000 more households. He said that the waste once collected by Veolia was their property and where it was processed was no concern of the council.

Cllr Lorber (Lib Dem) who was chairing the committee said that he agreed with Brent FoE that the consultation was not fair or reasonable and suggested referral to the Local Government Ombudsman. In the debate there was much discussion of numbers and recycling rates as well as practical issues about how people with small gardens would cope with three bins. Cllr Moher tried several times to get further discussion on the co-mingling verus kerbside sorting issue, rather than the consultation, but had little success. Cllr Lorber said he did not want to see at some future date a TV documentary showing Brent's waste being sorted by child labour abroad.

Earlier the committee had discussed a reduction of in the sweeping of residential streets from three times a week to twice a week. Officers claimed that there would be no reduction in standards because Veolia would still be held to a Grade a or B standard of cleanliness. Independent surveys had shown public satisfaction with the standard of street cleanliness and these surveys plus increased monitoring should maintain standards.

At the conclusion of the meeting Paul Lorber used his chair's casting vote to put forward recommendations to the Executive to reconsider key aspects of the Waste Strategy, in the light of projected savings being over and above those required. However, Cllr Powney's vociferous defence of the strategy seemed to indicate that the recommendations would be rejected.

Hard Times Ahead for Education in Brent

Brent Council, faced with having to make 'savings' of £90m by 2015 is undertaking a 'fundamental review of purpose' headteachers and chairs of governors were told at a briefing last night. Krutika Pau, Director of Children and Families, said this would involve deciding what services the council will continue to offer, reduce, stop or provide in partnership with others.  The council's 'One Council Programme' was designed to both reduce costs and protect front line services. What counts as 'front line' will need to be reviewed.

The Children and Families Department will lose £1.8m in-year grant reductions. Grant information is not yet available and school budget figures for 2011-12 will not be available until February or March 2011, only days before the start of the new financial year. This will make forward planning by governing bodies extremely difficult.

Capital spending for buildings will be reduced by 60% over the next 5 years and will be limited to spend on demographic pressures (additional children) and maintenance - not new build or rebuild.At the same time Brent  is facing an unprecedented increase in pupil numbers and a 55% increase in referrals to Children's Social Care. 1,000 additional children have needed school places in Brent since August.

Clive Heaphy, nine weeks into his job at Director of Finance and Corporate Services, presented the picture on funding. The DfE will receive cuts of 10.8%. Funding for the schools budget will increase by £3.6bn in cash terms by the end of the Spending Review period, a 0.1% increase in real terms each year. However pupil numbers will increase by an average of 0.7% per year equalling a cut  in spending  per pupil of 0.6% per year, a total of 2.25% over the five year period. The  'increase' will also have to cover the  £2.5bn pupil premium.  Schools wil be expected to find procurement and 'back office' savings of around £1bn. The public sector pay freeze is expected to 'free up' another £1bn.

The ring fences around previously centrally allocated budgets will be removed and hard-pressed schools may have to use the funds for basic purposes. These headings include:

• One to one tuition
• 'Every child' catch up programmes including Every Child a Reader
• Extended schools
• School lunch grant
• School Standards Grant
• School Development Grant
• Special schools grant
• Ethnic Minority Achievement grant
• National Strategies budgets
• Dedicated schools grant
• Academies running costs

The council will be reviewing Children's Centres. some of which have only just been opened, as SureStart funding is likely to be reduced. Krutika Pau said that funding will now target the most vulnerable Under 5s and that there will be a need to 'redefine Children Centres' core offer'. A new provision that will need to be funded is the allocation of 15 hours free nursery education per week to the 'most deprived' 2 year olds.

Questioned on academies, Kruika Pau said officers would remain neutral in terms of the debate but she promised to model what would happen to funding of Brent schools if some became academies. As academies attract funding that would otherwise go to fund central services there will obviously come a tipping point where there will insufficient funds to run effective central services. The services would become too expensive for schools remaining in the local authority 'family' when other school pulled out, and the services and those functions of the local authority would no longer be viable. Cllr Mary Arnold said she had already made her position on academies clear at a previous meeting but didn't seize the opportunity to 'rally the troops'. However, members of the Teachers' Panel who attended the meeting as observers were able to give out a leaflet about the issue.

Rik Boxer, Deputy Director of Children and Families, gave a briefing on the achievements of Brent LA. At the end of the reception year Brent children were below national and London  averages, but by the end of Key Stage 2 (11 year olds in Year 6) they were above the national average. At GCSE  Brent children are 6 percentage points above the national average. He said that much needed to be done and that there would be a strong focus on schools moving from an Ofsted rating of 'satisfactory' to 'good'.  He said current proposals on academies and free schools presented a real danger of fragmentation and emphasised the need fop overall coherence, strategic planning, collective responsibility and collaboration.

Added to the financial and organisational uncertainties, and a basic lack of concrete information, are the 'reviews' that the Coalition government have announced. These cover child protection, early years, capital spending, child poverty and early intervention. Alongside this schools and governing bodies have to cope with 'policy on the hoof' which I feel are really stabilising. Over the last few months there have been several policy changes on Academies which  the Anti Academies Alliance summarised:

• On the 4^th November Michael Gove announced that the government would use its powers to turn schools in Special Measures into Academies.
• On Friday 12^th November the FT reported that the White Paper, expected during November, would pave the way for every school to be directly funded from the government,meaning every school would effectively become an Academy.
• But then on Wednesday 17^th November the press reported that Gove was inviting every school to become an Academy, as long as they were partnered with an ‘Outstanding’ school.

In addition the announcement that in future the government would fund schools directly, by-passing the local authority, was quietly reversed last weekend.


Schools face a difficult task as it is and all these uncertainties need to be sorted out quickly so that they can get on with their central task of educating the next generation.

Audacious action on cuts

David Cameron will get his "big society" quicker than he thinks, judging by the huge attendance at a conference called last Saturday 27 November by the Coalition of Resistance to Cuts and Privatisation.
 
Over 1200 delegates packed the conference, which brought together MPs, trade unions, campaigning organisations from across the country, student activists, representatives from pensioner groups -- all corners of societyfacing government plans to cut public services to the bone.
 
Speakers at the conference -- from MP John McDonnell to Len McCluskey, the newly elected leader of Britain's largest trade union UNITE -- all had the same message, the spirit of which was captured by 15-year-old school Barnaby Raine, who joined last week's protests against education cuts:
 
"If the police think that 'kettling' students will stop us coming on demonstrations ever again, they are sorely mistaken. Students have only two choices: either they lay down and accept what the government throws at them,or they fight back."
 
The student protests and occupations are inspiring new levels of militancy and audacious action, which will be taken up across all the campaigns to stop the government cuts.
 
As MP John McDonnell told the conference, we will build a fast gathering, united movement of opposition, which will see strikes, demonstrations, occupations, direct action and campaigns of civil disobedience, on a scale not seen for a generation.
 
Tony Benn, who was elected president of the Coalition of Resistance, said David Cameron is going to see what a "big society" really looks like.
 
He spelled out the task we are facing: a government which aims to roll back 60 years of progress, and return to the dark days before the creation of the welfare state, must be stopped in its tracks.
 
The Coalition of Resistance will support all anti cuts campaigns and is calling for the widest solidarity with the national day of student protests on Tuesday 30 November. A national week of action against the cuts is planned for February 2011 and the Coalition of Resistance is committed to help make the TUC demonstration against the cuts on 26 March one of the biggest protests ever seen in Britain.

Waste Savings and Strategy Challenged

Tomorrow's Overview and Scrutiny Committee (7.30pm Council Chamber, Town Hall) will consider call-ins on the Street Cleansing Efficiency savings and Waste Collection Strategy decisions made by the Council Executive on November 15th.

The reasons cited for the call-in of the Street Cleansing Efficiency Savings are:

• The decision departs from the principle of protecting front line services.
• Consider the implications for the cleanliness of local streets.
• Consider the implications of prompt identifying of dumped rubbish and  their removal.
• Consider full and effective consultation with local residents on this.

The reasons cited for the call-in of the Waste Strategy are:

•  To discuss concerns regarding the nature and openness of the consultation and the possibility of full consulting residents.
• To consider the concerns of residents around the reduction in service and the implications of the increase in the number of bins.
• To discuss concerns regarding the co-mingling of waste and contamination of waste.
• To fully review the options available.
• To consider how to retain public support for recycling and not lose it by scrapping weekly refuse collections.
• To consider implications of fortnightly refuse collections on housing estates and properties in multiple occupation.
• To consider the risk of Judicial Review

Brent: Waste Capital of West London?

The West London Waste Authority, covering the boroughs of Brent, Harrow, Hillingdon, Ealing, Hounslow and  Richmond, is seeking to process and dispose of more of the rubbish in its area, in order to meet targets in the 2009 London Plan. It is suggested an extra 20 hectares of processing will be required on top of the existing 17 hectares in the WLWA area.

This will require new sites or the expansion of existing sites so that they process rather than merely transport rubbish. The Harrow Observer recently revealed the lists of sites being considered for this 'intensification'. Four are in Brent and another five in Park Royal, close to Ealing's border with Brent. That covers 9 of the 14 possibilities  (The others are one in Harrow, 3  in Hillingdon and one in Hounslow. There are none proposed in Richmond).

SITES

BRENT: Abbey Road, Park Royal; Rail Sidings, Premier Park Road, PR; Alperton Lane Industrial Area, Marsh Road; Hannah Close, Great Central Way, Wembley. 

EALING: Park Royal 8, Coronation Road; Park Royal 9, Coronation Road; Park Royal 2, Chase Road; Park Royal 1, Victoria Road; Atlas Road, Park Royal.

These proposals are for designating land and no details of the processing involved will be available at this stage in the consultation.  Therefore residents will not have access information on the possible health hazards of the processes involved when the sites are given planning approval. Brent sites are favoured because it is claimed they are not close to housing. It is like designating an area for a power station and not syai9ng whether it is coal, oil or nuclear.

Brent councillors were unhappy about the repercussions for Brent when the proposals were discussed. There are concerns that Brent will be handling waste from more affluent boroughs who will avoid any prcessing depots in their borough, increased lorry traffic and pollution. Brent, as the poorest of the boroughs will be dealing with the waste of the richer boroughs - without any financial compensation. It appears that the Alperton depot, owned by Veolia (controversial because of its pro-illegal settler activities in Palestine LINK), is likely to be a favoured option. It won the Camden waste contract largely because of the Alperton depot - Camden had sold off its own.

It is interesting that Brent is the most easterly of the WLWA boroughs. The east side of London was always the site of polluting processes historically because smoke and smells were taken away on the prevailing winds and did not affect the west of the city.

The West London Waste Plan  is behind schedule but key milestones for the contractors are:

March 2011 - Publication of the WLWP document and sustainability proposal

April-May 2001 - pre-qualification of bidders

May-June 2011 - WLWP examination in public

December 2011 - WLWP adopted

January 2012 - short-listing of bidders

June 2012 - possible further short-listing of bidders

September 2012 - final tenders

October 2012 - preferred bidder/tender award

2012-14 Planning

2014-16 Construction of new plants

2015-16 Plants operational

Brent councillors will have to have their wits about them if they are to fight for the rights of Brent residents in this process. We must not be bought off by promises of extra jobs if this is to the detriment of the long-term health and quality of life of Brent residents.

An independent blog-site has been set up to monitor the activities of the West London Waste Authority LINK

Agenda for tomorrow's Coalition of Resistance Conference

Agenda for tomorrow's Coalition of Resistance Conference against the cuts at the Camden Centre, Bidborough St, WC1 H8

AGENDA

10:00 - 10:30, REGISTRATION

10:30 - 11:45, OPENING PLENARY - Camden Centre main hall
Clare Solomon NUS, Andrew Murray, Jean Lambert MEP, Bob Crow RMT, Christian Mahieux (Solidaires unions, France), Heather Wakefield UNISON, Rachel Newton (People's Charter), John McDonnell MP, Lindsey German CoR, Ken Loach, Mark Serwotka PCS, Paul Mackney.

12:00 - 13:15, WORKSHOPS

1. YOUTH, STUDENTS AND EDUCATION - Camden Centre main hall
Speakers from school and student protests, Alex Kenny NUT, Jean-Baptiste Tondu (NPA France)

2. ANALYSING THE CRISIS - Camden Centre canteen
James Meadway, Stathis Kouvelakis, Derek Wall, Hilary Wainwright

3. ORGANISING AGAINST THE CUTS LOCALLY - School Hall 1
Range of speakers from anti-cuts and other organisations from around the
country

4. WHAT SHOULD POLITICAL REPRESENTATIVES DO? - School Hall 2
Liz Davies, Samir Jeeraj (Green Party), Billy Bragg, Laurie Penny

5. MOBILISING THE UNIONS - School canteen
Alan Whittaker President UCU, Rebecca Allen PCS, George Binette UNISON

6. WOMEN AND THE CUTS - School classroom
Katherine Connelly, Feminist Network and others

13:15 - 14:00, LUNCH

14:00 - 15:15, WORKSHOPS
1. DEFENDING THE WELFARE STATE Camden Centre main hall
Colin Leys KONP, Chris Nineham CoR, Dr Jacky Davis, Eileen Short DCH


2. ALTERNATIVES TO THE CRISIS - Camden Centre canteen
Ozlem Onaran, Richard Brenner, John Hilary (War on Want)


3. STATES OF INEQUALITY - School Hall 1
Zita Holbourne, Terry Conway, Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, Mary Davis (Charter for Women)

4. Coalition of Resistance: HOW AND WHY - School Hall 2
Andrew Burgin, Lindsey German, Joseph Healy

5. DEFENDING BENEFITS AND PENSIONS - School canteen
George Thompson PCS, Colin Hampton Chesterfield UWC, Pip Tindall Brighton
Benefits Centre

6. RESPONSES TO CLIMATE CHANGE - School classroom
Chris Baugh PCS, Jonathan Neale CACC, Peter Robinson

15:30 - 17:00, VOTING, ELECTIONS AND CLOSING PLENARY - Camden Centre main hall
Dot Gibson (Pensioner campaigner), Lee Jasper (BARAC), Jeremy Dear NUJ, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Salma Yaqoob (Respect), John Rees CoR, Kate Hudson CND, Chris Bambery (Right to Work), Lowkey, Tony Benn

Kettling lessons - brilliant article

 Video showing mounted police charge on demonstrators (1min 10secs in)

Laurie Penny, writing in the New Statesman, vividly describes the kettling of children in Whitehall

It's the coldest day of the year, and I've just spent seven hours being kettled in Westminster. That sounds jolly, doesn't it? It sounds a bit like I went and had a lovely cup of tea with the Queen, rather than being trapped into a freezing pen of frightened teenagers and watching armed police kidney-punching children, six months into a government that ran an election campaign on a platform of fairness. So before we go any further, let's remind ourselves precisely what kettling is, and what it's for.

Take a protest, one whose premise is uncomfortable for the administration - say, yesterday's protest, with thousands of teenagers from all over London walking out of lessons and marching spontaneously on Westminster to voice their anger at government cuts to education funding which will prevent thousands from attending college and university. Toss in hundreds of police officers with riot shields, batons, dogs, armoured horses and meat wagons, then block the protesters into an area of open space with no toilets, food or shelter, for hours. If anyone tries to leave, shout at them and hit them with sticks. It doesn't sound like much, but it's effective.

I didn't understand quite how bad things had become in this country until I saw armed cops being deployed against schoolchildren in the middle of Whitehall. These young people joined the protest to defend their right to learn, but in the kettle they are quickly coming to realise that their civil liberties are of less consequence to this government than they had ever imagined The term 'kettle' is rather apt, given that penning already-outraged people into a small space tends to make tempers boil and give the police an excuse to turn up the heat, and it doesn't take long for that to happen. When they understand that are being prevented from marching to parliament by three lines of cops and a wall of riot vans, the kids at the front of the protest begin to moan. "It's ridiculous that they won't let us march," says Melissa, 15, who has never been in trouble before. "We can't even vote yet, we should be allowed to have our say."

The chant goes up: "what do we want? The right to protest!" At first, the cops give curt answers to the kids demanding to know why they can't get through. Then they all seem to get some sort of signal, because suddenly the polite copper in front of me is screaming in my face, shoving me hard in the back of the head, raising his baton, and the protesters around me are yelling and running back. Some of them have started to shake down a set of iron railings to get out, and the cops storm forward, pushing us right through those railings, leaving twenty of us sprawling in the rubble of road works with cracked knees. When they realised that they are trapped, the young protesters panic. The crush of bodies is suddenly painful - my scarf is ripped away from me and I can hear my friend Clare calling for her son - and as I watch the second line of police advance, with horses following behind them, as I watch a surge of teenagers carrying a rack of iron railings towards the riot guard and howling to be released, I realise they're not going to stop, and the monkey instinct kicks in. I scramble up a set of traffic lights, just in time to see a member of the Metropolitan police grab a young protester by the neck and hurl him back into the crowd.

Behind me, some kids have started to smash up a conveniently empty old police van that's been abandoned in the middle of the road. "Let us out!" they chant. "Let us out!" A 13-year old girl starts to hyperventilate, tears squeezing in raw trails over her frightened face, unable to tear her face away from the fight - I put a hand on her back and hurry her away from the police line, Her name is Alice, and she is from a private school. "Just because I won't be affected by the EMA cuts doesn't mean I don't care about the government lying," she says, "but I want to go home now. I have to find my friend."

As darkness falls and we realise we're not going anywhere, the protesters start to light fires to keep warm. First, they burn their placards, the words 'rich parents for all!' going up in flames, with a speed and efficiency gleaned from recent CV-boosting outdoor camping activities. Then, as the temperature drops below freezing, they start looking for anything else to burn, notebooks and snack wrappers - although one young man in an anarchist scarf steps in to stop me tossing an awful historical novel onto the pyre. "You can't burn books," he says, "we're not Nazis."

As I look around at this burnt-out children's crusade, I start to wonder where the hell the student activists are. Whatever the news says, this is emphatically not a rabble led by a gang of determined troublemakers out to smash things for fun. In fact, we could do with a few more seasoned radicals here, because they tend to know what to do at demonstrations when things get out of hand. I find myself disappointed in the principled anarchists and student activists I know, who aren't here because they've decided that the best way to make their presence felt is by occupying their own lecture halls. I realise that these school pupils are the only ones who really understand what's going on: even people my age, the students and graduates who got in just before the fee hike, are still clinging to the last scraps of that dream of a better future, still a little bit afraid to make a fuss. These teenagers, on the other hand, know that it's all nonsense. They sat their school exams during the worst recession in living memory, and they aren't taken by the promise of jobs, of education, of full lives and safe places to live.They understand that those things are now reserved for the rich, and the white heat of their rage is a comfort even behind the police lines in this sub-zero chill.

Smaller children and a pregnant woman huddle closer to the fires. Everyone is stiff and hungry, and our phones are beginning to lose signal: the scene is Dante-esque, billows of smoke and firelight making it unclear where the noises of crying and chanting and the whine of helicopters are coming from.

This is the most important part of a kettle, when it's gone on for too long and you're cold and frightened and just want to go home. Trap people in the open with no water or toilets or space to sit down and it takes a shockingly short time to reduce ordinary kids to a state of primitive physical need. This is savage enough when it's done on a warm summer day to people who thought to bring blankets, food and first aid. It's unspeakably cruel when it's done on the coldest night of the year, in sub-zero temperatures, to minors, some of whom don't even have a jumper.

Some of them have fainted, and need medical attention, or the loo. They won't let us out. That's the point of a kettle. They want to make you uncomfortable, and then desperate, putting your route back to warmth and safety in the gift of the agents of the state. They decide when you can get back to civilisation. They decide when the old people can get warm, when the diabetics can get their insulin, when the kid having a panic attack can go home to her mum. It's a way of making you feel small and scared and helpless, a way for the state's agents to make you feel that you are nothing without them, making you forget that a state is supposed to survive by mandate of the people, and not the other way around.

Strangers draw together around the makeshift campfires in this strange new warzone right at the heart of London. A schoolgirl tosses her homework diary to feed the dying flames. "I don't even know you, but I love you," says another girl, and they hug each other for warmth. "Hands up who's getting a bollocking from their parents right now?" says a kid in a hoodie, and we all giggle.

He's got a point. This morning, the parents and teachers of Britain woke up angry, in the sure and certain knowledge that the administration they barely elected is quite prepared to hurt their children if they don't do as they are told.

It's not looking good for this government. This spontaneous, leaderless demonstration, this children's crusade, was only the second riot in two weeks, and now that the mums and dads of Britain are involved, the Coalition may quickly begin to lose the argument on why slashing the state down to its most profitable parts and abandoning children, young people, the disabled and the unemployed to the cruel wheel of the market is absolutely necessary.

Let the government worry about the mums and dads, though - I'm worried about the kids.
I'm worried about the young people I saw yesterday, sticking it out in the cold, looking after one another, brave and resolute. I'm worried about those school pupils who threw themselves in front of the police van to protect it from damage, the children who tried to stop other children from turning a peaceful protest into an angry mob - and succeeded. I'm worried that today, those children feel like they've done something wrong, when they are, in fact, the only people in the country so far who've had the guts to stand up for what's right.

The point of a police kettle is to make you feel small and scared, to strike at the childish part of every person that's frightened of getting in trouble. You and I know, however, that we're already in trouble. All we get to decide is what kind of trouble we want to be in. Yesterday, the children of Britain made their decision, and we should be bloody proud of them toda

Brent school students kettled for more than 7 hours

Just heard that some of the Brent school students taking part in today's demonstration have been kettled since 12.30pm (it's now 7.45pm) and mobiles running out of juice.  They must be cold and hungry and desperately needing a lavatory. Presumably the police are trying to teach them a lesson....

Here's a solidarity message from Radical Education Summer 1979 (originally created 1973)