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Gilbert wields the axe as senior posts go on Brent Council

The proposed structure - click to enlarge

There was a flurry of consternation at the Health Partnerships Overview and Scrutiny Committee the other evening when members were shocked to discover the Director of Adult Social Care had seemed to suddenly disappear. A muttered explanation was not audible to the public gallery.

Christine Gilbert

An explanation seems to lie in the Brent Council Management Restructuring paper that is going to the General Purposes Committee on March 28th. The paper from Christine Gilbert, Interim Chief Executive proposes the amalgamation of a number of departments which include a new Education, Health and Social Care Department.

The proposals aim to take advantage of the move to the Civic Centre to defragment services, restructure in line with the shrinking Council and save about £900,000. A new post of Assistant Chief Executive is created.

There will be consultation on the changes before the first take effect in May 2013.

To save readers from navigating around the Brent website I have made the paper available below.

12 year old student gets national coverage on poor state of Copland's building

In a piece recorded the day before the recent Ofsted, Copland High School 12 year old student Khadija was on the World at One today. She had raised the issue of the school's crumbling build with David Cameron a year ago in a face to face meeting and he had promised to investigate. Little has happened since.

The DfE were unable to supply a spokesman to answer her criticisms.

There are pictures on the World at One Facebook HERE You do not have to have a Facebook account to see them,

Natalie Bennett on Question Time with Michael Gove tonight

Natalie Bennett, Green Party leader, will be taking part in Question Time tonight on BBC1 at 10.40pm. You can watch here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01rgszs/Question_Time_21_03_2013/

Other panelists include:

Michael Gove MP
Emily Thornberry MP

Mark Littlewood, Director General of IEA

Anthony Horowitz, Author

Brent students take on the challenge of climate change

The first Brent Student Climate Change Conference was held yesterday attended by around 200 people including students, campaigners, authors and local politicians. Here are some of the images from the day to give you a flavour of the event:

Children's author Caren Trafford sets the scene

Competition prize winners with Mary Arnold, the Mayor and Muhammed Butt

1st Prize Winner Suraj Velani Y8  (Dual language PowerPoint presentation)

Runner up Joshua Herskovitz-Wong Y7 (Poster)

Equal runner up Antonino Cafiero-Regueira Y7 (PowerPoint presentation)

After film, presentations and a panel discussion in the morning students used the knowledge gained in workshops in the afternoon to make their own presentations on campaigns to combat climate change. They worked in mixed groups drawn from the colleges and schools attending. Here are some of the results:

Thivya Jeyashanker and Edison Lasku of the Brent Youth Parliament ended their presentation with this slide. During the lunch interval many students volunteered an interest in joining the Youth Parliament.

Lucas: Time for 'PLAN G' after failure of austerity budgets

RESPONDING TO THE BUDGET ANNOUNCEMENT, GREEN MP CAROLINE LUCAS (BRIGHTON PAVILION) SAID:

Amidst the tax breaks for shale gas and boastful road building pledges, there is one huge green economy-shaped hole in this flailing Chancellor's Budget.

With the UK's green economy now worth over £120bn - 9% of GDP - providing nearly a million jobs and generating a third of our most recent economic growth according to the CBI, it is completely inexplicable that George Osborne keeps pretending it doesn't exist.

Given the huge potential of green industries and clean energy generation to provide British jobs and prosperity, as well as the obvious environmental benefits they will deliver, it's time to drop austerity and go for Plan G.

There's no doubt that the cuts have failed - now we need urgent investment in nationwide green infrastructure to stabilise the economy, tackle the environmental crisis and deliver clean and secure energy for the future.

TAX BREAKS FOR SHALE GAS “A COSTLY GAMBLE”

LUCAS CONTINUED: 

 This should also mean the Chancellor ditching his irrational obsession with gas. It's outrageous that the Government is willing to gift yet more tax breaks to companies drilling for hard-to-reach shale - a costly gamble that risks keeping the UK addicted to polluting fossil fuels at precisely the time we should be leaving them in the ground.

A Government which really cared about bringing energy bills under control and improving energy security would put its money on renewables - where the costs are predictable and falling - and agree to recycle carbon tax revenue into a jobs-rich energy efficiency programme, rather than deepening our dependence on gas, where prices are set to keep rising.

Going all-out for offshore wind, for example, instead would save £20bn by 2030, create 70,000 more jobs, and lead to both lower climate emissions and lower fuel bills.

And with the new nuclear facility at Hinkley announced yesterday expected to come with a £14bn price tag, this Government should urgently think again before ploughing ahead with its deeply misguided nuclear strategy. For the cost of one nuclear reactor, it's estimated that 7 million households could be lifted out of fuel poverty.

With the negotiations for a strike price for nuclear operators getting on for double the current price of electricity - to be paid by households and businesses already struggling with high bills - it's clear that the main beneficiaries of this policy will be EDF and the French state.

CORPORATIONS GET TAX CUTS AS MILLIONS STRUGGLE WITH RISING HOUSEHOLD BILLS

With the Joseph Rowntree Foundation warning that tax rises, welfare cuts, and wages freezes will push over 7 million children below the breadline in the next two years, it's scandalous that this millionaire Government is still so reluctant to make the richest in our society pay their fair share of tax.

While millions across the country struggle to pay rising household bills, the Government is cutting tax for corporations like Amazon, Starbucks and Google - when they choose to pay it at all - to 25% next month, 23% by 2014 then 20% the year after.

The General Anti Avoidance Rule announced today will not be enough to stop the tax dodgers, as the tax QCs Graham Aaronson who worked it up has admitted it will be "narrowly focused", and apply only to the "most egregious tax avoidance schemes".

If the Government was really serious about cracking down on tax avoidance and evasion, including shutting down tax havens, it would have supported my Private Members Bill requiring all companies to publish what they earn.

It would also seek a strong international agreement to force all multinationals to report their tax practices transparently. HMRC has a duty to prosecute multinational companies who do not pay their taxes in the UK and it's right that offenders are publicly named and shamed.

Isolated Powney lashes out at 'Loony Left' Fightback

Sujata Aurora writes:

Last Thursday I spoke on behalf of Brent Fightback at Kensal Green Labour ward meeting. There were 11 or 12 people there, including all 3 ward councillors, and the response was very positive. This was not an anti Labour rant but I presented a few issues where I thought the council was lacking and Labour members could be exerting pressure.

These were namely  1) the closure of Central Middlesex A&E where I said that Labour should take a strong stand within the Health Committee and refer the decision up to the Secretary of State, and 2) the response to housing/benefit changes where I said the council should look at reclassifying homes to avoid the bedroom tax (as Knowsley Housing Authority has) and also adopt a policy of no evictions in the way that Dundee council has. (I did also mention a needs budget but its didn't get taken up in the discussion afterwards).

People were very receptive and interested to hear that there was far more that the council could be doing to fight the cuts. Many of them had not considered or even heard about some of the possibilities such as reclassification of homes.

Throughout the meeting I emphasised that that Brent Fightback saw its role within the broad Labour movement and wanted a dialogue with Labour members and councillors about how best to resist cuts.

Despite not raising a word of disagreement at the time, Councillor James Powney is now attacking Brent Fightback on his blog as the "loony left alternative" whose "main activity consists of attacking people in the Labour Party". This strikes me as more than a little dishonest and perhaps an indication of how isolated he is from ordinary members within his own party.

Join in the discussion HERE

Brent Labour shrinks from supporting Ealing on hospital reorganisation

A motion referring the Shaping a Healthier Future proposals to the Secretary of State, moved by Cllr Claudia Hector, failed to find a seconder at tonight's Brent's Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee.  The proposals will mean the closure of Central Middlesex A&E.

At the Labour councillors' pre-meeting an alternative motion was amended so that it read that the Committee 'noted' Ealing Council's decision to refer the proposals in case it should appear that Brent Council supported their action. Instead the anodyne motion from Cllr Pat Harrison, seconded by Cllr Helga Gladbaum, said that 'it was right'  that the proposals should be 'thoroughly examined'  and sought assurances that services would not be  reduced or closed  unless changes in infrastructure had 'proved to deliver successful outcomes for residents'. This was passed with Lib Dem support from Cllr Ann Hunter.

The motion was in stark contrast to the earlier passionate call for arms from Sarah Cox of Brent Fightback and Brent SWP who told the Labour councillors that they were heirs to the creators of the National Health Service and, reflecting the commitment of the recently released Spirit of 45,  it was not too late for them to stand up for the NHS, and for the people of Harlesden and Stonebridge, and refer the  decision to the Secretary of State.

Her speech was loudly applauded by Lib Dem councillor Barry Cheese, who went on to make his own heart-felt intervention from first hand sources about the inadequacies of the ambulance service at Northwick Park. He had been told by ambulance workers that two stroke victims in separate ambulances had been delayed treatment because the vehicles had been behind 12 ambulances already on the hospital ramp. As presentations continued he repeatedly called out condemning privatisation. He seems to have moved to the left of the Labour group - which, let's face it, isn't hard.

There was a tedious presentation from NW London NHS on 'Improving Healthcare for people in Brent' that nearly had Cllr Gladbaum chewing the carpet in frustration.  However,  embedded in it was the tiniest hint that there may be slightest of chances that the Central Middlesex A&E decision may only be about 98% final.

One slide read:

CENTRAL MIDDLESEX A&E

• The NWL Hospitals Trust has set up a project board to consider future  options for the A&E (includes senior representatives and clinicians from the trust and stakeholders)
• Commissioners expect to be fully involved in any decisions regarding the future of the A&E and would require reassurance regarding any future change in services around:

The reasons for any changes and the evidence behind this view
The likely impact on neighbouring services (eg Northwick park and Imperial)
The alternatives that had been considered
The monitoring that would be put in place
The involvement of stakeholders inc the OSC

The litmus test is whether a change of service would be safer that the current service

I read this as an opportunity for campaigners to continue to put on the pressure and make the case for the retention of the A&E. What we should also be saying though is that the 'current service' at Central Middlesex needs to be strengthened and its running down halted. This view is somewhat reinforced by news that the number of ambulances being directed to Central Middlesex had increased recently.

So let's not give up just yet - keep up the pressure.