R4's Any Questions? Brent broadcast will include Caroline Lucas

 Caroline Flint, Sir Menzies Campbell and Caroline Lucas

Radio 4's Any Questions? is coming to Brent on Friday 26th April. The show will be broadcast from Claremont High School and panellists include Caroline Flint MP (Labour Shadow Secretary for Energy and Climate Change) Sir Menzies Campbell (Liberal Democrat) and Caroline Lucas MP (Green Party).

Questions are picked on the evening of the broadcast but with the two Carolines on the panel are likely to include issues relating to energy policy and climate change including the issue of nuclear power.

The programme follows the 8pm News on Friday and is rebroadcast after the 1pm News on Saturday followed by Any Answers at 2pm.

For FREE ticket ring Box Office 0844 850 0093

Shelter publishes updated housing statistics for Brent

Shelter today published its detailed housing figures for the fourth quarter of 2012  LINK a selection of which are printed in the table below. The situation will become much worse as a result of benefit changes introduced from this month.

Some figures from 2011 are also relevant. Brent's working age unemployment rate in 2011 was 12.10% compared with a London average of 9.3%. In 2011 Brent had 2,370 vacant properties registered for council tax purposes. In 2011-12, 850 affordable homes were built in Brent (London 17,260)

Average weekly council rents in 2011-12 were £95.43 in Brent and £89.17 across London. In 2011 weekly housing association rents in Brent were £101.46 (London £97.46) and are set to rise towards the private level. The average price of a home in Brent in Q4 2012 was £325,000 compared with £315,000 in Q3 2011 (London average £305,000).

The home price to annual income ratio for the lower quartile of house prices and income in 2011 was Brent 11.75 and London 8.96. For all incomes and house prices  the average ratio was 10.79 Brent and 8.54 London. The annual average gross income in 2012 was £28,703 Brent and £32,509 London.

Category	Area	Q4 2011	Q4 2012
Families with children accepted as homeless	London	2398	3118
	Brent	107	120
Households accepted as homeless	London	3460	4213
	Brent	136	154
Households in temporary accommodation	London	35920	38856
	Brent	3078	3220
Households on council waiting list	London	366613	380301
	Brent	14443	16735
Households with dependent children in temporary accommodation	London	27855	28393
	Brent	2620	2704
Number of children in temporary accommodation	London	54200	5490
	Brent	5930	5934
Possession claims by landlords	London	10260	12163
	Brent	415	589
Possession claims granted to landlords	London	6580	7780
	Brent	350	477
Housing benefit claimants council and housing assn	Brent	20000	20430 (Q3 2012)
-ditto- private tenants	Brent	16820	17290 (Q3 2012)
Mean private rents	London	£1281	£1369
	Brent	£1287	£1364
Median private rents	London	£1100	£1196
	Brent	£1200	£1250

Organising to develop a strategy on the housing crisis

With the Bedroom Tax protests at the weekend and publicity over the benefit changes, the press, TV and radio have at last woken up to the issues involved.

On Tuesday April 9th there will be a meeting in Brent to discuss next steps in a  local housing campaign. A report of the inaugural meeting follows:

Around 25 people attended the initial Housing Strategy meeting called by Brent Fightback, on Tuesday 19th March at the Brent Mencap offices in Willesden.

Attendees included the lead member for Housing for Brent Council, the Somali Advice Centre, the Counihan Family Housing campaign, Mencap campaigners, a tenants representative, a housing worker, and a high school teacher concerned about the cases arising at her school. Apologies were received from the Brent Law Centre and the Brent Private Tenants Rights Group and from some who attended the Health Scrutiny Committee.

It was a constructive and serious meeting, with information and experiences shared about the current situation and the general background to housing in Brent. Potential strategies and targets for campaigning were discussed, including:

GLA powers to set Rent Caps; advice and signposting training; "Bedroom Tax" strategies; the Right to Buy discounting; helping residents speak out and organise; mutual exchanges on properties; resisting evictions; linking up with other campaigners.

Janice Long, lead member for Housing has agreed to provide current local information of how changes are expected to affect people locally.

We agreed a next meeting time: 7pm, Tuesday 9th April, Brent Mencap offices, 379-381 High Road, Willesden. We will consider the actions that were suggested at the intial meeting and any further priorities, and estabish the name and aims of a local housing campaign.

Please forward widely.

Robin Sivapalan robsivapalan@hotmail.com 07974 331 053
Ken Montague kenmontague@msn.com

Battle for Brent Central Labour nomination livens up

This morning's April Fool from website Left Future LINK which said Ken Livingstone was to stand as Labour Candidate in Brent Central revived my interest in the current selection process.

The Guardian Diary recently reported that it was to be an open (i.e. not all women) list and suggested this left the way open for Cllr Muhammed Butt to thrown his hat into the ring. This I very much doubt.

However things aren't looking so good either for locally grown talent such as Cllr Zaffar Van Kalwala and activist Sabina Khan.  Instead  there seems to be a move in favour of a high profile canadidate from beyond Brent to take on Sarah Teather in one of Labour's London target seats.

Patrick Vernon with Trevor McDonald

One name mentioned is that of  well-connected Hackney councillor. film maker and equalities campaigner Patrick Vernon. Last year he was short-listed for the Manchester Central seat but narrowly missed selection. In November 2012  Brent Central CLP invited him to show his film 'A Charmed Life' to party members LINK and mutual interest may have grown from there.

You can find our more about Patrick on his blog HERE

Amina Ali

Another outsider cited is Amina Ali, this time from Tower Hamlets. Amina is a Somali activist who would create quite a stir. She is founder of Muslim Women for Labour and Somali Friends of Labour and has signed up to distribute Labour leaflets in Brent LINK.

This is rather out-dated but Amina talks about herself HERE

Meanwhile Dawn Butler continues to pop up all over the place as she continues to campaign for her 'Come Back' but it is hard to find many who back her wholeheartedly. 

Palace of Industry reduced to dust to make way for a car park

Palace of Industry 2013

Palace of Industry 1924

Inside the Palace of Industry

The remains of the last building left from the 1924 British Empire Exhibition will be a mountain of dust and cement blocks by the end of this week. Work began last week by developers Quintain Estates to demolish the Palace of Industry to make room for a car park despite pleas by local historian Phil Grant that the building should be reprieved for the 90th anniversary of the BEE that takes place next year. LINK

The lion gargoyles have been chiselled out and will be all that remains of the building. The memory of the BEE will live on only  in the names of Empire Way and nearby Empire Court.

Ann John's cultural leadership to be immortalised (2nd edition)

Please note this was posted on April Fools' Day - apologies to anyone who suffered a heart attack or high blood pressure on first reading (that includes the fictitious Cllr Jimmy Ponderous!)

Artists's impression of the new cultural centre

In a surprise joint press release over the weekend Brent Council and Galliford Try have announced that the £10m cultural centre that will replace the Willesden Green Library, Willesden Bookshop, Library Centre Cinema, Cafe,  the Brent Museum, Brent Archives, Willesden Green Open Space and the Library Centre car park,  will be named after Cllr Ann John, OBE.

Cllr Jimmy Ponderous, (Newish Labour, Kensal Cemetery) who more modestly will have the suite of council offices named after him, said

Ann John, OBE came into office in 2010 with a vision to transform the cultural landscape of Brent. The closure of half the borough's library was the first step in a radical plan that will culminate this year in the rebuilding of the Willesden Green Library and the opening of the Wembley Library at the Civic Centre.

The Ann John Cultural Centre will be a fantastic addition to the cultural offer in Willesden and will include a Costas Coffee outlet and a Tesco Metro. Customers will be able to pick up their groceries along with their DVDs. The new Wembley Library will be a major attraction for football fans  and concert goers attending matches at Wembley Stadium or performances at the Arena.

These  twin beacons of hope and enterprise were only made possible by Ann's determination to fight the enemies of regeneration and promise who litter the cultural landscape of Brent with their special pleading, whining and outmoded attachment to old-fashioned 'cardboard and paper' books.

Brent restructuring steams ahead but will have to be done again in 2-3 years

The proposed structure

I went to yesterday's Brent General Purposes Committee on a high - not in anticipation of an exciting meeting but because I was buzzing with optimism from an event I had just attended at Chalkhill Primary School. The Sports Hall had been full of families, not just parents but grandparents, aunts and uncles and children ranging from babes in arms to secondary school students.  The occasion was the graduation ceremony for the 8 week FAST (Families and Schools Together) course that had taken place at the school. Among those working with families alongside school staff was the chair of the Chalkhill  Residents Association. A real community effort. The hall was buzzing with chatter and lively with children dressed up for the occasion playing amongst the tables or tucking into food and drink while some adults were in dazzling national costume.. Real pride was on display when each family went up on the stage to get their certificate to cheers from the audience.

FAST aims to provide a fun and relaxed space for families to experience a mixture of play and learning activities, hands on coaching and support for parents and carers. Each week families can win a resource hamper to help support children's learning in the home. The programme has high success rates in improving family relationships and links between home, school and the local community. The project is run by Save the Children and funded by Morrison's.

So it was with renewed faith in our local authority community schools that I went to speak to the General Purposes Committee about the restructuring of the senior management at the council and the children and families department.

I had three main concerns. The first was by combining adults' and children's social care with education and public health that the Council was creating a 'high risk' department. One risk was that these were areas where things could go badly wrong as we know from previous child protection cases as well as concerns over the treatment of vulnerable adults. The second risk was that these are areas under huge budgetary pressures and the eventual cost of public health is not yet known.

The second concern was that that education and children's social care were being separated. They had not worked well together when they had been separate departments and as a headteacher I had seen improvements in processes when they came under one director. I said it was essential that there were clear lines of responsibility in terms of child protection and safeguarding. The operational director would be dealing with complex cases on the ground but the strategic director would have overall responsibility.

The third concern was much broader and about the current fragmentation of the local school system with academisation and free schools. I said that Gladstone Park Primary's experience had given other heads the jitters and it was essential that there was strong leadership in education that championed the role of the local authority and demonstrated that the LA had the capacity to help schools improve. In that regard the reduction in the role of the School Improvement Service and the creation of the Brent Schools' Partnership introduced a note of uncertainty underlining the need for strong leadership.

I noted that when the post of Director of Children and Families last became vacant that it was ring-fenced to existing council staff. At the time this was criticised  LINK on the grounds that schools by statute have to advertise vacant head and deputy head posts nationally so as to have the widest possible field to select the best quality candidate. I argued, recognising that there might be HR issues involved, that this should also apply to these vital posts - Brent children and adults deserve the best.

Christine Gilbert, responded to some of these points in her presentation. She recognised that this would be a 'high risk' department but said that the safeguarding aspects should carry on much as they are now. She said that the strategic directors would have to have a good grasp of the operational issues. Gilbert told councillors that there would need to be another restructuring in two or three years as further cuts were made in funding. Muhammed Butt, chairing the meeting, said that the only constant was change.

Cllr Mary Arnold challenged my suggestion that there was a risk in the Brent Schools Partnership lacking an independent critical voice and said that the partnership was with the local authority which would retain core services and offer services that schools could buy into: it was a schools partnership with the local authority.

Cllr Jim Moher expressed support for my call for strong leader for education in the face of fragmentation. Cllr Pavey spoke enthusiastically about the excitement he felt about the opportunities offered by restructuring. It's probably fair to say that his enthusiasm didn't set the rest of the room on fire.

Paul Lorber for the Lib Dems wanted more information about the role of the Assistant Chief Executive and suggested that perhaps it would be better to employ a director for one of the other service units instead. He was told that the delayed appointment of the permanent Chief Executive would go ahead in May and that the new structure, after consultation, would  help the appointment. Lorber also asked if the new structure at office level with fewer departments would mean a reduction in the size of the Executive with their parallel responsibilities. That has happened in Hounslow but not elsewhere.

Christine Gilbert asked for suggestions on alternative names for the new departments which would sum up their functions concisely.  Mary Arnold suggested that Economic Growth and Employment might better reflect the developing role of Regeneration and Major Projects.

The recommendations in Christine Gilbert's report were accepted subject to consultation on some aspects.

Caroline Lucas: Time to nail Coalition's biggest lie-TINA