Brent Council deny Twitter feed censorship

I published a story earlier this week suggesting that critical Twitter comments were not getting posted on Brent Council's Twitter feed during the live webcasting of Monday's Council Meeting. LINK 

The feed displayed simultaneously displayed on the Council website beside the webcast appeared to be dominated by council friendly tweets including those from @BrentLabour and Cllr James Denselow.

I also suggested that the Council's 'House Rules' included a catch-all sentence that seems to rule out critical comments about the council itself.

If you’re offensive about the council, or anyone who works for us, or runs the organisation, we will remove your comments. Comments that are likely to bring the council into disrepute will be removed

Since then there have been various suggestions about how this happened including the feed not recognising the hashtag #BrentLive if it was not capitalised. It was pointed out to me that some of my comments did get through to the feed and thus it was clear there was no censorship - but others did not. I put this down to the censorship not being carried out very efficiently but now a Council spokesperson has issued the following statement:

We are very excited to be the first London council to integrate webcasting and Twitter for important meetings. Social media is providing new ways of making local people aware of what their representatives are discussing and enabling them to join in the debate.  

More than 300 people watched this successful first Full Council webcast and Twitter feed, more than normally attend council meetings, so this initiative has already made local democracy more open, and we hope more people will watch and comment in future. 

Brent did not censor or stop any tweets from going out on www.brent.gov.uk/democracy. We have investigated and this is down to an unexpected technical problem with Twitter itself, a problem other users have reported here https://dev.twitter.com/discussions/11765

 

We are working to have this fixed for the next Full Council meeting. 

The house rules are designed to support discussion of the council and its policies regardless of whether tweets are critical or not. The aim is to stop anyone abusing the Twitter feed by, for example, trolling individuals or bombarding it with tweets unrelated to the debate.

There were some problems with the councillors' microphones which will be fixed for the next Full Council meeting.

Lucas: PM's 'green crap' comment betrays his contempt

Commenting on reports that the Prime Minister has dismissed fuel bill levies that fund energy efficiency measures, as “green crap”, Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, said:

“These levies include funding for energy efficiency measures which help low income households cope with soaring energy prices.

“Whatever language the Prime Minister has used to describe them, his determination to roll them back says everything about his contempt for the most vulnerable, and his lack of interest in serious action to tackle climate change, or to bring down fuel prices in the long term

“By focusing the debate on green levies, which represent only a fraction of energy bills, the Government is obscuring the real reason for rising costs – which is the increasing wholesale price of gas, and the profits of the Big Six energy companies.

“If the Prime Minister really wanted to help families with their fuel bills, he’d be investing in a major energy efficiency programme to super-insulate the country’s housing stock.  This would bring nine out of ten homes out of fuel poverty, quadruple carbon savings, and create up to 200,000 jobs.”

London Green MEP Jean Lambert also  added her voice to the debate.

Ms Lambert has challenged the Prime Minster to set out some alternative proposals for reducing energy use and helping fund the next generation of clean, renewable power generation.

She said: "Given that the green taxes Mr Cameron is today reported to have described as 'green crap' are designed to reduce energy use and help pay for the next generation of power through clean renewable sources, the question is: how will he achieve those goals by other means?

"As over 60% of the rise in bills is due a rise in wholesale prices of energy from 2010 to 2012, how will bills be reduced if there is no comprehensive effort to reduce energy consumption and provide alternative, domestic renewable resources?

"There is much the Government could do to improve the way in which this money is spent in order to reduce the amount of energy people use and they should concentrate their attention there, not on cutting revenue for essential measures - unless they plan to pay for them in other ways, in which case - let's hear those proposals, if they exist."

Fundraiser: Walk the Walk to enable Copland to Talk the Talk

The Anti-Academy Working Party at Copland School has organised a pub walk to take place on Friday 22nd November around London Bridge.

The purpose of the walk is to raise £300 to book a room for a public meeting.

Those wishing to take part should gather in the Old King's Head (King's Head Yard, 45-49 Borough High Street, London, SE1 1NA) from 6 o'clock on Friday.  The walk will start at 7 o'clock.

There will be a Dickensian theme to the walk as participants will visit some of the places mentioned by Dickens in Barnaby Rudge, Little Dorrit and The Pickwick Papers.

Places familiar to Edmund Burke, Geoffrey Chaucer, Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Johnson, Samuel Pepys and William Shakespeare will be visited.

The walk will finish beside London Bridge tube station.

There will be a cost of £5 for joining the walk

Selective microphones and selective twitter feed threaten to bring Brent Council into disrepute

Last night's livefeed of the Brent Council Meeting was hailed as a breakthrough but was characterised by breakup of the sound. On Twitter Cllr Denselow, the Executive's own 'techie' blamed exhausted batteries for the failure of the microphones, but today said that wasn't the problem and the microphones would 'have to be sent back'.

The problem particularly hit Cllr Paul Lorber, leader of the Liberal Democrat group, while Labour microphones generally worked well, although during a particularly fine speech on Violence Against Women, former leader Cllr Ann John was at times inaudible.

The problem comes on top of IT and telephone problems, as well as a shortage of 'hot desks' that leaves some staff finding it easier to work from home, which some says, despite the £100m cost of the Civic Centre, was the plan all along. I hope the Council give the home workers an allowance for their winter heating.

Some may claim that there was a political bias in the microphone cut-outs, but there was more substance in the claim that the twitter feed on the Council website during the meeting had political bias. Many of my comments failed to appear on the Council feed, although they were available on the hashtag #brentlive in the public arena.

The result was a preponderance of pro-Council and pro-Labour tweets, which as I tweeted (but not published on the Council feed) rather made a nonsense of the idea of a public debate using social media.

In fact the Council's House Rules on Social Media severely restrict what can be said LINK with several catch-all rules including:

If you’re offensive about the council, or anyone who works for us, or runs the organisation, we will remove your comments. Comments that are likely to bring the council into disrepute will be removed

Personally, I think a selective twitter feed itself brings the Council into disrepute.

Now this Party knows how to react to unaffordable luxury housing!

As luxury flats, marked to foreign residents and investors, go up across London, including here in Brent at Willesden Green Library and in nearby Barnet at West Hendon, renters are taking action as local people are priced out of the market:

Pavey paves the way for privatisation

At last night's full Brent Council Meeting Cllr Michael  Pavey, lead member for children and families, moved even further towards a pro-academy stance, even though his Labour colleague Krupesh Hirani shortly afterwards castigated the privatisation of the health service.

Pavey read from Ofsted reports on Copland Community High School and Wembley Ark Academy, contrasting the dire nature of the former with the glowing remarks of the latter. What he didn't tell the councillors was that the Copland report was very recent and that Ark's last full Ofsted was in 2010.

He also didn't tell them at the time of the 2010 report Ark Academy only had a few year groups in the primary school and was only just admitting the first cohort of Year 7s in the secondary school. Ark Academy was inspected under the old Ofsted framework and Copland under the new stricter framework.

Brent Council wants to leave Council Tax Support unchanged despite summonsing 3,300

The demonstration outside Willesden Magistrates Court

Some Brent Council consultations get more publicity than others. This one on the Council Tax Support Scheme seems a little hidden away so I thought I would bring it to your attention. The present system resulted in 3,300 people being summonsed to Willesden Magistrates Court by the Council for non-payment and a demonstration outside the court which received wide publicity. Some of those summonsed incurred extra court charges of £90 or more on top of the amount owed.

This consultation started without fanfare on November 11th and ends on December 12th.

Now believe it or not the Council, with minor changes, wants to keep essentially the same scheme despite Muhammed Butt vowing that Labour would protect the vulnerbale at last night's Council Meeting.

Below is an extract from the Council website. You can see the full consultation portal and submit your views HERE

Budget cuts, Veolia, Copland, racist letting agents and violence against women on Council agenda tonight

The most important item on tonight's Brent Council Agenda is probably the first reading of the budget which includes the cuts already listed on this blog LINK

Executive members will give reports as follows:

1. The opening of the LDO and update on appointmentof Ben Spinks (Cllr Butt)

2. New Public Realm contract (Cllr Mashari)

3. The future of Copland school (Cllr Pavey)

4. Integrated Care Pioneer bid and conference on adult safeguarding (Cllr Hirani)

5. Action taken on racial discrimination by local letting agents and private rented

 sector licensing (Cllr McLennan)

6. The live-streaming of Council meetings (Cllr Denselow)

7. Conference on khat (Cllr Choudry)

8. An update on parking (Cllr J Moher)

9. Regeneration tour of the borough by Deputy Mayors of London (CllrCrane)

10. Visit from the Mayor of Johannesburg (Cllr R Moher) 

Each party group has tabled a motion for this evening.  They are:

LABOUR

Tackling violence against women

This Council commends the work of the members’ task group on Tackling Violence against Women and Girls in Brent. This task group is committed to ending harmful practices by raising public awareness of issues such as female genital mutilation (FGM), forced marriages and honour-based violence. These practices, and all instances of violence against women, constitute illegal, intolerable acts and human rights violations.

This Council notes the positive influence members can wield within communities by encouraging individuals and groups to speak out against harmful practices, which impact on the wellbeing of women and girls in Brent. To ensure that members are fully informed on all these harmful practices and how to deal with them effectively, there will be a member development event held on Thursday 21 November 2013. Sessions will be led by the expert organisations FORWARD and the Asian Women’s Resource Centre.

Members also note the work of the White Ribbon Campaign day- a charitable organisation started by men which seeks to end violence against women. Members whole-heartedly support this cause and will sign the White Ribbon pledge to affirm that they will never condone or remain silent about violent acts against women. A Brent Council event marking White Ribbon Day – the internationally recognised day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women – will be held in the Civic Centre on November 25.

We call on all members to unite in the fight against these harmful practices, and resolve to end all practices which cause physical or emotional distress to women and girls in Brent within the 5-year target set by the Government earlier this year.

Councillor John

LIBERAL DEMOCRAT 

Cleaner streets in Brent

Council notes that Labour councillors have targeted street cleaning and waste collection for service reductions by:

        i.            Reducing the frequency of street cleaning in many residential streets from three times a week to once a week

      ii.            Reducing weekend street cleaning in High Streets

    iii.            Reducing refuse collections, even in areas with poor storage facilities for residual waste

     iv.            Introducing curtilage collections

       v.            Axing the streetwatcher scheme

Council further notes:

        i.            It is two years since Brent Council hit its target for tonnes of waste sent to landfill

     vi.            In five out of the last six quarters Brent Council failed to hit its target for the percentage of waste sent for recycling

   vii.            Brent Council has never (since the target was adopted as a KPI) met its target for Flytipping Enforcement: number of inspections and investigations

 viii.            Reported fly-tipping increased after Labour's street cleaning cuts, as dirty streets encouraged more people to dump waste

     ix.            There is considerable public concern about the cleanliness of our streets and the amount of fly-tipping in Brent

       x.            The failure to meet recycling targets has significant financial consequences

Council calls on the Executive to:

        i.            Improve Brent Council's recycling performance

      ii.            Step up enforcement in order to target more effectively those who disfigure our streets with litter and fly-tipping

    iii.            Use the resulting additional finance to increase street cleaning where it is most needed and work intensively with residents and managers of blocks of flats to address litter, fly-tipping and waste collection issues.

Councillors Lorber, Brown and Hopkins

CONSERVATIVE

Parking

This Council notes that the parking policy of this Labour administration is hurting Brent's economy as high parking charges on the local high streets and the abolition of visitor parking scratch cards continue to drive visitors away.

This Council also notes that as a result of these ill-thought out policies, shoppers are deserting Brent in favour of the cheap, easy and free parking that is on offer at Brent Cross and in neighbouring borough’s. 

This Council resolves to:

-          Introduce half an hour free parking on our High Streets

-          Ensure that event day parking restrictions only apply for 1hour before the event at Wembley Stadium

-          Continue the use of visitor scratch cards indefinitely,

Councillor Kansagra

You can watch a live feed of the meeting on computer, tablet or smart phone from 7pm HERE and tweet #brentlive