Government minister hits out at Brent charges increase

The political blame game over cuts and increased charges in Brent has taken a new turn with local government minister Grant Shapps criticising Brent's increased fees introduced on January 1st - including the 127% increase in allotment fees which put the price of a small allotment up from £33 to £75. Shapps said councils "should not be using residents as cash cows."

Full story on the BBC website 
More on Brent charges on this blog HERE

Curious Consultations

When Cllr James Powney stated from the platform at the recent Town Hall meeting that 'There is no alternative' to the library closures, someone heckled, "Then why are you consulting us?" Other speakers were equally disenchanted with consultation suggesting that major questions were already decided ahead of consultation outcomes.

A little cynical you may think...

However there was a statutory consultation before the holiday on the proposed expansion of Preston Manor High School so that it will also provide primary education in the future. A report on the consultation outcomes will go to the council Executive on February 11th 2011 and they will decide whether to approve the expansion. Obviously they will approach the issue with open minds and take note of the submissions?

However this month the Council is consulting on a planning application for a new 2 form entry primary school on the Preston Manor High School site - to be decided no earlier than January 20th 2011. (An earlier date had been given but residents protested that consultation letters arrived late because of the Christmas post.)

When we queried why the Council was seeking planning permission before the Executive had discussed whether to expand the school, Brent Council told us:

"The Planning Application has been submitted in advance of the Executive approval to ensure that  the statutory proposal can be implemented on time."

I will leave you to decide whether the statutory consultation was genuine or just another exercise in ticking the boxes.

Mental Health Day Service Cuts

The Agenda for the Jan 17th Executive has just been published. It includes Decommissioning of the Mental Health Community Networks Day Care Service.

The introduction  states:

To reflect the shift towards independence and personalisation within Adult Social Care a review of all services is being undertaken to ensure services are appropriate and sustainable. Given the changing environment and the need for efficiency savings by the Council across Mental Health and the wider organisation a plan to decommission the Community Networks Day Care Service has been proposed. Community Networks provides Day Care to approximately 175 mental health clients in the Brent Borough.

The report gives the following risk assessment:

Possible risk implications
• Reduced care package support may lead to bed blockages and delayed discharges
• Limited capacity to move people on from secondary care services to non statutory
local support
• Longer lengths of stay in supported housing due to lack of capacity to move service
users on to independent living
• Fewer staff to steer service users through the SDS process, which will impact on
Council performance targets
• Current support into employment will be reduced and will therefore impact on the
Council’s performance target.
• Possible local opposition to closure of long-established direct day care provision
• Increased pressure on Mental Health Care Coordinators caseloads

'Flakman' under fire on library closures

Cllr Powney certainly lived up to his nickname of Flakman when he appeared at last night's library consultation in front of a passionate, vocal and rebellious audience. This followed his appearances at Area Forums last year when he had a tough time defending the Council's Waste Strategy. Powney took the flak last night from the stage while other Labour councillors sat quietly in the audience.  He made a valiant attempt to defend the indefensible (the closure of half the borough's libraries) but ended up quoting Margaret Thatcher's TINA mantra (There is no alternative).

In fact the audience came up with quite a few alternatives including abandoning the expensive Civic Centre project, getting rid of highly paid council officers, reducing opening hours rather than the number of libraries, and refusing to implement Tory-Lib Dem Coalition cuts.

Contributors emphasised the importance of libraries to the cultural life of local communities and particular emphasis was placed on their importance to young people, the economically disadvantaged and older members of the community. I stressed the importance of children having a library within independent  walking distance of their homes and described the buzz at Neasden library on a Friday evening with a homework club in progress, people working at computers and others borrowing books. Children from Braintcroft Primary School and adult learners using the recently installed ICT resources will be deprived of a vital resources which could change their lives.

After the meeting I spoke to a pensioner who despaired at losing community facilities that had been in place for years and helped many generations of Brentonians. Libraries are particularly valuable to older people because they provide both stimulation through books and valuable social contact. It is also important for them that they are within easy travelling distance.

A borough-wide 'Save Our Libraries' campaign would be one way of resolving some of the differences in approach that were evident  amongst residents at the meeting.  There is a particularly active campaign around Kensal Rise Library (45,755 visit per year at a cost of £4 per visit) and the group seemed ready to form a volunteer force to help save the library. Others were against this idea, wanting a full, properly funded service.  Such volunteer support may not be available in less affluent areas such as Neasden (117,604/£2.30) but where the library is vital to raise the life chances of the local population.  Another area of potential conflict is the '40% proposal' where all  libraries would cut their opening hours by 40% rather than closing some. It was suggested this would safeguard the future of the buildings which would otherwise be disposed of or revert to  trusts such as All Souls College, which originally provided the land. A reduction in opening hours would still impact on accessibility and jobs.

On the issue of volunteers and charities Michael Rosen, the children's poet and former Children's Laureate was absolutely clear in a recent Daily Mirror article:

It is a scandal. What this Government is doing is taking over where Thatcher left off. The library system took 150 years to build up and they are destroying it.

I am completely opposed to this idea of handing libraries over to charities and retailers. It is purely ideological and there is no justification for taking libraries out of public ownership.

Books should be free to all and not reliant on charity donations. However well-meaning, charities end up begging for money. It is another Tory attempt to break the social contract by which we look after each other through taxes

When I suggested that the Labour Council were not fulfilling their commitment to protect the most vulnerable from the Coalition cuts Cllr Powney outlined the dire  condition of the Council's finance (Readers of this blog will know that I have posted articles on this), demanded that we be realistic and said that if the Labour councillors refused to implement the cuts they would be replaced by others who would implement them away  - with the implication that they would do so less sensitively.

This is an argument that we are going to hear regularly in the Area Forums in the coming month when Ann John and Muhammed Butt appear to talk about the impact of the cuts on local services and the difficult decisions they will have to make.

Meanwhile, back to Michael Rosen and some reading for adults opposed to the cuts (from the Independent)

So angered is Michael Rosen by the Coalition's plans for welfare cuts, the children's novelist and poet paid the bulk of production costs for a new anthology called Emergency Verse, a compilation of protest poetry featuring work by more than 100 writers, including the Beat poet Michael Horovitz, Jeremy Reed and John O'Donoghue. Rosen says he is "very angry" at the roll-back of "advances" that softened "some of the worst effects of rampant capitalism", adding: "These rampant capitalists, who walk off with the majority of the wealth anyway, now want to steal our services too – people who have no other means of getting health care, education and social care will have it snatched away." The anthology was launched at the Southbank Centre's Poetry Library, and copies can be downloaded for £2.99 from www.therecusant.org.uk.

Prior to the consultation meeting Brent Fightback said:

Brent Fightback supports keeping ALL our libraries open. Once closed, they are gone for ever. We hope that, while pursuing their local campaigns, the libraries campaigners will unite and will become part of our broader campaign to defend jobs, services, pensions, benefits and the environment.

The Kensal Rise campaign can be contacted at kensalriselibraryusers@hotmail.co.uk and they have a blog LINK and a Facebook group 'Save Kensal Rise' library.

Preston library users are getting organised and I will put their details up when I have them.

The Friends of Cricklewood Library can be contacted via eric.pollock@tiscali.co.uk Information

Many authors and individuals including Alan Gibbons  and Michael Rosen have set up Campaign for the Book and Voices for the Library are asking individuals to send them statements on how important libraries are in their lives.

The Guardian has also covered the meeting using Kensal Rise as an example of wider closures  LINK

Great debate on the Cuts January 13th

Save Our Libraries

Brent Council call it the 'Libraries Transformation Project' - I prefer to call it the Libraries Closure Programme as it involves the closure of 6 out of Brent's 12 public libraries with the remainder becoming 'community hubs' (whatever that means).

The consultation programme begins this evening at Brent Town Hall with a public meeting about the proposals at 6.30pm.  This is followed by an Open Day 10.30am-1pm and 2.30 - 5pm on Wednesday January 12th at Willesden Green Library.

The proposals will also be discussed at the Area Consultation Forums. In addition. according to the local press, the leader of the Council Cllr Ann John and deputy Cllr Muhammed Butt will also attend to talk about council cuts in general.

AREA CONSULTATION FORUM DATES AND VENUES

HARLESDEN Tuesday January 11th 7pm All Souls Church
KILBURN AND KENSAL RISE Wednesday January 12th 7pm Queens Park Community School
WEMBLEY Tuesday January 18th 7pm Patidar House, London Road
WILLESDEN Wednesday January 19th College of North West London, Dudden Hill Lane
KINGSBURY AND KENTON* Wednesday February 9th, Kingsbury High School

I hope the Council will be challenged on how they have arrived at its 'footfall' figures - do libraries have someone standing at the door counting how many people enter? I doubt it and book lending figures don't include visitors who use the library for other purposes than borrowing books.  Another issue that has come up from some campaigners is reducing opening hours across the board rather than library closures. The figures of a 40% cut in opening times producing the required savings has been mentioned. It is argued this would preserve all the library buildings, six of which would otherwise be lost for good, and enable opening hours to be extended again in a more favourable economic climate. Clearly their are  pros and cons to this option but we need to know if its has been considered.  

Finally there is the puzzling proposal, not yet finalised to close Willesden Green Library for 2 years while the site is redeveloped to include revenue producing flats. This would mean the temporary  closure of the flagship 'hub' in the south of the borough as well as the permanent closure of 6 libraries. Strategic thinking?

Brent Fightback Meeting Tonight

Brent Fightback is meeting tonight at the Trades Hall/Apollo Club 375 High Road, NW10 at 7.30pm to plan forthcoming activities. ALL WELCOME

 

How can youth be sociable?

You may have seen laminated posters, complete with a map, fixed to lamp posts around Brent. These are Dispersal Orders, mainly aimed at young people and are are increasingly being deployed by the Council and local police. In Wembley alone there are Dispersal Zones, or have been, in streets around  Ealing Road, Wembley Central, Wembley Triangle and Wembley Park (including the Chalkhill Estate).

The Council has a standard press release on these zones which usually include fairly vague complaints from residents and shopkeepers about crowds of anti-social youth and drug taking, this is accompanied by statements from the police and the bLead Member for Crime, extolling the virtues of  such zones. Each Zone has an introduction date and an end-date.

The zones give police and police community support officers powers to disperse groups of people, instruct them to leave the area and not return for 24 hours, and to take younger people home. Despite the fact that no initial criminal offence has been committed, if those ordered to leave refuse, or return to the area within 24 hours, they can be arrested or fined up to £2,500.  Although there has been some community support for the Zones there has been criticism that they merely shift the problem from area to area and that they stereotype groups of young people as automatically threatening.

In 2009  Youth Justice published  research entitled Criminalising Sociability Through Anti-social Behaviour Legislation: Dispersal Powers, Young People, and the Police. Researchers found that generally young people, youth parliaments etc were not consulted before the Zones were imposed and that consultation if it took place was often of a 'ticking the boxes' type rather than 'an essential bedrock of legitimacy'. Young people surveyed felt safer in large groups and this was particularly true of girls, but they also recognised that other people did not feel safe when they saw them in large groups. The researchers said that the paradox of dispersal orders was that when the groups were broken up and ordered out of a familiar area (often with shops, transport hubs, meeting places, green spaces and substantial pedestrian flow) individuals became more vulnerable.  Research indicates dispropotionate impact impact on ethnic minorities but Zones are often in largely ethnic minority areas. On the ground in Brent local people will often assume the orders are aimed at particular groups such as Somalis or Tamils.

The current edition of Partnership News the magazine of Brenthousing Partnership, has contributions from members of the OUR SAY youth team about Dispersal Zones in Brent which I reproduce below:

Paul Nugent, aged 17: Well just like ASBOs, it is a bad idea as you are taking away one's freedom of assembling, which I am pretty sure is a human right. So it firstly breaks that and it also will mean nothing except that young people will find another place to hang out. It's as simple as that.

Peter Nugent, also 17: If you're going to stop people hanging around in groups all they're going to do is move on to somewhere else. It could be argued that a lot of young people have nothing to do in terms of activities in their spare time; therefore they hang around in groups. Instead of wasting resources on dispersal zones why not use it to create somewhere they can hang out and not be 'intimidating'.

Daisy Farci, aged 14: Ummmmm. It is a good and bad idea as I think that it is ok to hang around in a public area during the day, but not after it gets dark as it can scare people. If groups are making loud noises and causing trouble then I think they should be told to move.

 It seems ironic that when concern is expressed about 'postal area' gangs, when youth face attack if they move outside their home turf, that there is also an official version, via Dispersal Zones, which seems to say stay in  your area/stay at home. Youth are also often told that they should get away from their computers and their 'cyber friends' and make real friends and learn to socialise. They would be right to ask 'Where?'

Funding for youth facilities is likely to be cut and libraries, often a good neutral meeting place which serves both as a homework base and a safe place for socialising, are being halved. These facilities are badly needed and should be protected against cuts.

Meanwhile the Brent Youth Parliament's admirable campaign to break down negative stereotypes of young people must surely be undermined by the proliferation of Dispersal Zones which can so easily reinforce such stereotypes.