Brighton Green Party and GMB move a little closer on cityclean dispute

Senior members of Brighton & Hove Green Party have issued statements in response to the GMB's stated intention for their members in cityclean to go on strike for a week starting this Friday 14th June.

Leader of the council and convenor of the Green administration, Jason Kitcat, said:
 
"I am disappointed by the GMB decision to begin industrial action this Friday. I understand the strong feelings involved and am committed to ensuring there is a negotiated solution to resolving the difficult historical equal pay issues for the council's pay and allowances. The council's negotiating team is engaging openly and regularly with both recognised trade unions.

 "During the forthcoming strike week, which starts on Friday, the environmental health of the city and its residents is clearly essential and council officers will continue to meet their public health legal obligations but this administration will not sanction the use of agency or contract workers to do the regular work of legitimately striking council staff whilst those staff are out on strike.

"Accordingly, I am able to announce that all agency workers currently engaged in refuse collection and street cleaning will be withdrawn from service by 10pm on Thursday night, the day before the strike is due to begin, and agency workers will not be deployed in these areas during the strike week.

 "The Council continues to invite both recognised unions to negotiating meetings. That offer is being made daily. I urge the GMB to return to the table."

 Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion, said: 

"I know from my postbag that residents in the city are worried about health issues and also about the fair and proper treatment of striking cityclean workers, so I welcome Jason's announcement. This is good news and I hope that now the position on this has been made clear, GMB negotiators will be prepared to return to negotiations before Friday."

On behalf of Brighton & Hove Green Party, chair Rob Shepherd said:

"It is with a heavy heart that I realise industrial action is imminent. But the Greens in Brighton & Hove have been saying all along that agency staff will not be used for strike breaking during next week's strike and Jason has confirmed this unambiguously. With this said, and with the agency workers being withdrawn well before the strike begins, I join Caroline and Jason in encouraging the GMB negotiators back to the table before Friday."

In response the GMB issued this statement:

GMB has welcomed a commitment from the leader of Brighton Council that no agency or contractors will be used during any period of industrial action. The commitment was made in an e-mail from Council leader Jason Kitcat who said:

“This administration will not sanction the use of agency or contract workers to do the regular work of legitimately striking Council staff whilst those staff are out on strike. Accordingly, I am able to announce that all agency workers currently engaged in refuse collection and street cleaning will be withdrawn from service by 10pm on Thursday night, the day before the strike is due to begin, and agency workers will not be deployed in these areas during the strike week.”

As a result of this commitment GMB has confirmed that it will engage in negotiations with the Council to see if a way forward can be found.

Mark Turner, GMB Branch Secretary said:

“This is a small first step for the Council on the way to resolving this dispute. As a result GMB has confirmed that it is willing to attend talks to listen to what the Council have to say.

I will however say that there will need to be substantial movement in their position for industrial action to be averted. Whilst our members do not take strike action lightly, they cannot be expected to accept these reductions to their take home pay. I would like to thank those Councillors in the administration who have supported our members and brought about this decision.”

Mysteries, mavericks and mistresses

The Kilburn Times LINK reports that Carol Shaw, Lib Dem councillor for Brondesbury Park  has defected back to the Conservatives. Shaw hit the national headlines last year when she revealed that she had been mistress of Bob Blackman when they were both Tory councillors.  Apparently the affair began when they were stuffing envelopes together. She subsequently stuffed him in the Sunday Mirror  LINK enraged at his comments on the sanctity of marriage.

Whatever party label she has worn Shaw has always been a maverick and can get on quite a roll denouncing all political parties. She has a good reputation as a case worker and was one of the more responsive councillors to the Save Willesden Green and Save The Queensbury campaigns.

As I reported in a previous blog relationships are pretty tense amongst some of the Lib Dems in the south of the borough and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see another defection, but this time to Labour, by a councillor not intending to stand in 2014. Shaw had said this would be her last term as a councillor but perhaps she will revise that now she has defected. Certainly the present Conservative leadership in Brent could do with a shot of adrenalin - or something more potent!

Education: The battle of the Michaels about control, curriculum and creativity

Michael Gove's ideas on education and schooling have been taken on by two other Michaels this weekend. Michael Rosen's You Tube interview goes to the heart of the issues around competition and curriculum while Scottish Education Secretary, Michael Russel, demonstrates the dialogue with teachers that is entirely missing in England. LINK

SCOTLAND'S Education Secretary Michael Russell  has accused his Westminster counterpart of running a school system in England so centralised that it rivals the control of teachers during the Cultural Revolution in China.

Scottish Education Secretary Michael Russell addressing the AGM of the EIS teaching union in Perth yesterday Photograph: Alan Richardson

Russell's comments, during a speech to the annual general meeting of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) teaching union, follow an attack by Westminster Education Secretary Michael Gove on the Scottish school system.

Gove, who was schooled in Scotland, accused the new Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) reforms of lacking rigour and urged Russell to remove the "Nationalist blinkers", and learn from what he described as an international trend in education towards more testing.

Describing the attack as a "badge of honour", Russell said criticising the CfE was tantamount to attacking everybody in Scottish education who had been working so hard to deliver it over the past decade.
"His definition of the word 'rigour' is essentially systematised rote learning in which you politically decide the content of the curriculum and apply what one might describe as 19th-century teaching methods to it. That is not where we are going in Scotland and it doesn't work," he said.

"A lot of his approach is based on a misunderstanding and he doesn't even know how the Scottish system works. It has changed quite a lot since he was in Aberdeen."

Russell said the approach to CfE in Scotland was collaborative, which he contrasted with the top-down model in England where there has been continual conflict with teaching unions.

"Conflict doesn't work and we know that too clearly from looking south of the Border. Two weeks ago my counterpart condemned the English teaching unions as Marxist because they opposed his education reforms, but I fear even the most ideologically driven education system in the world – that is probably in the Cultural Revolution in China – involved less prescription."

The row with Gove came as Russell became the first education minister to address the EIS annual general meeting for 167 years.

This week, EIS delegates backed strike action before the end of the year to protest over their growing workload associated with the roll-out of CfE, and Russell was attacked in a number of speeches.
However, he was greeted with respectful applause when he stood up to deliver his landmark speech and only a small minority of members briefly heckled him on the issue of workload, with one shouting "rubbish" when he told them support materials were in schools.

Russell, who said later that he did not think strikes were helpful, went on to promise that "needless red tape" would be stripped from teachers' workload.

He also told the meeting in Perth that the Scottish Government would work closely with the EIS and other key players as part of a new group to identify the key issues and come up with ways to reduce "needless workload and bureaucracy".

"My ambition and the ambition of the Scottish Government is to allow teachers the flexibility to plan and deliver high-quality learning and teaching," he said.

"The Curriculum for Excellence is about freeing up teachers to deliver the best-quality education to help young people succeed in the global workplace and assisting in the development of skills. It is not about burdensome paperwork."

EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan welcomed the commitment, saying: "Much of what he had to say was well received by teachers and lecturers in the hall and we welcome his comments on bureaucracy and pension negotiations.

"Overall, although delegates clearly did not agree with everything that the Cabinet Secretary had to say, it is positive that he was willing to speak to teachers and lecturers directly and also to listen to their concerns about education in Scotland."

Professor: academies are failing black students

An interesting article from Voice on Line LINK which gives pause for thought as the academisation of Brent secondary school nears completion:

A LEADING academic has said that black pupils achieve worse GCSE results in academies than in local authority schools with a similar intake.

Professor David Gillborn, director of the centre for research in race and education based at the University of Birmingham, pointed to the Government’s data which revealed that while other ethnicities performed better, attainment among black pupils leaves much to be desired.

According to the Department for Education’s Equalities Impact Assessment: Academies Bill published in 2010, 37.1 per cent of black children enrolled at academies achieved five top GCSEs including maths and English.

But in local authority-run schools with similar characteristics, that figure was 41 per cent among children of African and Caribbean heritage.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “These are not the most up-to-date figures. In fact, results in sponsored academies are improving at a faster rate than in other state-funded schools. Analysis published by the department last year shows that, in 2011, the proportion of black pupils achieving five good GCSEs including English and mathematics was 2.5 percentage points higher in sponsored academies than in similar council-run schools.”

For other ethnic groups including white and Asian, this pattern was in reverse with both groups performing slightly better.

Academies tend to have a higher proportion of black pupils than other ethnic groups. Gillborn, a guest speaker at the annual London Schools and the Black Child conference, said: “The Government claims that academies are going raise standards for everyone but, actually, its own data suggests academies are bad news for black students.

“When compared with similar local authority schools they do worse...this has not stopped the policy being rolled out across the country. [The Government] has taken no steps whatsoever to identify where this problem might be arising from, let alone taking steps to ensure that it doesn’t happen in every single new academy.”

Councillors and The Queensbury: The roll call of shame

Guest blog from the Save The Queensbury Group

This is an epic battle; good vs evil, David vs Goliath, community vs developer. It seems to also be a battle of resident vs councillor.

Several residents have asked us what our local councillors are doing about the threatened demolition of The Queensbury Pub. Given the huge public opposition to the plans, the response of our elected representatives has been, on the whole, rather shabby. We find it disappointing that they are so out of touch with public opinion and also surprising, given that we are now in the run-up to to next year's local elections.

We urge everyone to telephone and write to local councillors and ask them to take a stand against the loss of a valued community space. Note that some will say that they will pass your views on to the planners but have no view themselves (the "postman" approach).

This is not acceptable - as representatives they should declare a view and stand up for the interests of their residents. If they refuse you might like to ask them why they think it acceptable to remain neutral on (or even support!) the destruction of community facilities in the name of a developer's profit. Don't be shy to email or telephone councillors, remember they are supposed to work for us! You might also like to remind them of the upcoming elections which take place in May 2014.

We have listed local councillors in the four wards closest to The Queensbury, along with their known views and their contact details. If your councillor is one of those who is opposing the development it is still worthwhile dropping them a line thanking them and saying you support their stance.
You can find out which ward you're in here http://www.writetothem.com/

MAPESBURY WARD
146 of the formal objections to the original plans came from residents in the Mapesbury ward.

Councillor Hayley Matthews (Liberal Democrat)
Councillor Matthews' colleagues tell us she against the Queensbury development although she has not made any public statement regarding it nor, as far as we are aware, has she submitted any formal objection to the plans.
cllr.hayley.matthews@brent.gov.uk
Tel: 020 8937 1133
Verdict: Not good enough

Councillor Chris Leaman (Liberal Democrat)
Councillor Leaman is opposed to the demolition of the Queensbury and has submitted an objection.
cllr.chris.leaman@brent.gov.uk
Tel 020 8451 9072
Verdict: Good

Councillor Sami Hashmi (Liberal Democrat)
Councillor Hashmi is a member of the Planning Committee and so is not allowed to declare a view until he hears all the evidence at the Planning Committee meeting. This should not stop you making your views known as a resident and he should still acknowledge your comments.
cllr.sami.hashmi@brent.gov.uk
Tel: 07956 212 825
Verdict: N/A

WILLESDEN GREEN WARD
90 of the formal objections to the original plans came from residents in the Willesden Green ward.

Councillor Lesley Jones (Labour)
Councillor Jones is opposed to the demolition of the Queensbury and has submitted an objection.
cllr.lesley.jones@brent.gov.uk
Tel: 020 8452 3086
Verdict: Good

Councillor Ann Hunter (Liberal Democrat)
Councillor Hunter has so far refused to take a view and is taking the "postman" approach. She has claimed that some residents are supporting the development but has refused to give figures of the numbers of people who have contacted her either for or against.
cllr.ann.hunter@brent.gov.uk
Tel: 020 8830 2152
Verdict: Poor, and possibly dishonest

Councillor Gavin Sneddon (Liberal Democrat)
Councillor Sneddon has not so far taken a view on the demolition of the pub. In conversation he has expressed concern that the development may be inappropriate and too profit-driven but he has made no formal statement. When questioned recently he exclaimed "you can't expect me to make a decision right now!" and was silent when it was pointed out out that that the demolition plans had been in the public domain for 7 months.
cllr.gavin.sneddon@brent.gov.uk
Tel: 07407 155 438
Verdict: Must do better

DUDDEN HILL WARD
41 of the formal objections to the original plans came from residents in the Dudden Hill ward.

Councillor Aslam Choudry (Labour)
Repeated emailing finally got a response 6 months after our original inquiry. Councillor Choudry has stated that he supports the need for new housing in Brent. He has not responded to our reply that just 4 of the proposed 56 flats will be the affordable family-sized homes that Brent desperately needs, and that these could easily be incorporated into a design which preserves The Queensbury.
cllr.aslam.choudry@brent.gov.uk
Tel: 07958 732 384
Verdict: Poor and misguided

Councillor Krupesh Hirani (Labour)
Councillor Hirani has submitted a view that the current proposals do not have enough wheelchair-accessible homes and there is not enough disabled parking provision . He has not objected to the demolition of the pub but will adopt the "postman" approach to residents who send him their comments. In response to a tweet asking him if he supported demolition of the Queensbury he said he had "no opinion". A local politician having "no opinion" on the loss of a community amenity seems quite odd to us.

cllr.krupesh.hirani@brent.gov.uk
Tel: 07886 939 295
Verdict: Poor

Councillor Rev David Clues (Liberal Democrat)
Councillor Clues moved to Brighton over a year ago and has not been seen or heard from for many months. He remains a Brent councillor and is still entitled to collect his allowances. Many residents have complained to us about their emails going unanswered, his lack of response to residents is now the subject of a complaint to the Standards Committee of the council by one resident, another is promising to pay him a visit in Brighton with copies of her unanswered letters about The Queensbury.
cllr.david.clues@brent.gov.uk
Tel: 07957 140 372

Verdict: Absolute disgrace
BRONDESBURY PARK WARD
24 of the formal objections to the original plans came from residents in the Brondesbury Park ward

Councillor Carol Shaw (Liberal Democrat)
Councillor Shaw is opposed to the demolition of the Queensbury and submitted an objection early on in the process.
cllr.carol.shaw@brent.gov.uk
Tel: 020 8958 4436
Verdict: Good

Councillor Barry Cheese (Liberal Democrat)
Councillor Cheese is a reserve on the Planning Committee and prefers not to express a view as it may be grounds to disqualify him from voting. This should not stop you making your views known as a resident and he should still acknowledge your comments.
cllr.barry.cheese@brent.gov.uk
Tel: 020 8459 1716
Verdict: N/A

Councillor Mark Cummins (Liberal Democrat)
Councillor Cummins is a member of the Planning Committee and so is not allowed to declare a view until he hears all the evidence at the Planning Committee meeting. This should not stop you making your views known as a resident and he should still acknowledge your comments.
cllr.mark.cummins@brent.gov.uk
Tel: 07976 739 058
Verdict: N/A

Chalkhill celebrates opening of new park in style

We were lucky today to have beautiful sunny weather accompanied by a light breeze to celebrate the official opening of Chalkhill Park. Local residents came out in force to enjoy entertainment, food and good company. Cllr Bobby Thomas, the Mayor of Brent performed the opening ceremony and cut the ribbon. I commented that it was the only cut the council had made of which I approve.

The opening of the park is another step in the remaking of Chalkhill Estate which has become a warm and welcoming community. Special thanks go to the architect designer of the park, Garth McWilliams, who was there incognito under a baseball cap watching the performances whilst licking an icecream. It must be pretty amazing and fulfilling to watch people of all ages enjoy your creation.

Cllrs  Michael Pavey, Abdi Aden and Shafique Choudhary with the Mayor, Bobby Thomas