Vulnerable students abandoned as Copland closes Mentoring Department

Guest Blog 

Last week a special event was held at Copland Community High School to mark the closure of the Mentoring Department at the school.  The Department, which has changed pupils' lives, is a victim of the spending cuts at the school and perhaps also of the different educational philosophy and priorities of the new management.

The event attracted an audience of more than 100 in contrast with the consultation meeting on a takeover of the school by Ark academy attended hby only 15 or so. Perhaps that showed what parents and the school community really value about Copland.

The event was opened by narrators who said:

The core of the work within the Department is dealing with emotions and relating to one another. The first time you step in, you pretty much learn to acknowledge whoever is in there by greeting and acknowledging the others existence. Just from this simple ethos....the popularity of the Department grew. Student would would come down from all different backgrounds, regardless of their 'demographic label'. Whether you're African, Indian, Somalian, Polish, Romanian, English, Caribbean......a talker, are silent, a shaker, a mover or dancer..... 

The respect and love which spills through the Department is universal, indiscriminative and is available to ALL. But then.....there is your height I guess....many tall people will have learned the hard way of being greeted by the low ceiling. Most important of all....during a very unsettling time of changes within the main school structure....one core aspect if the school has been consistent and predictable....the Love and Commitment of backbones of the department.....

Our Hearts have always been open and available to serve you.....students, ex-students, university placement students, parents and carers, Copland staff and Brent external agencies.What you all would not realise is that the Team  had support for each other by meeting regularly, ritually having clinical supervision and sharing the same ethos used with service-users towards each other...which is why it all worked. 

We are not only a Team, but a family....who are....finally....flying the nest. 

To mark this 'flight' you will be mesmerised by a colourful collection of memoirs from you....the true examples of achievement and positive impact....as we prepare to leave our symbolic imprint....please ensure your mobiles are on silent, you are sitting comfortably and are ready for the curtain call performance on behalf of Copland's very Beloved Mentoring Department. 

What will happen to these vulnerable young people? Why do specialised and seasoned home-grown staff have to leave Brent and be welcomed into neighbouring boroughs? Discussion is fruitful and healthy ..., voices need to be heard because on the night of the significant news that Nelson Mandela had passed, there was a resonating message from the Lead Learning Mentor and Dramatherapist to 'fight the academy fight in order to defend what is right!'.

Green Left: It's time to make a stand and refuse to implement Coalition cuts

As councils across the country prepare their 2014-15 budgets and are confronted by the need to make savage cuts that will  drastically affect the quality of their poorest residents' lives, Green Left has issued the following statement:

The Green party of England and Wales fought the 2010 general election in opposition to the savage public service cuts supported by the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. The Green party offered a different approach to reducing the country’s debts, which included making the wealthy (people and corporations) pay their fair share of tax, investing in the economy to produce sustainable growth through the Green New Deal, some cuts for example to Trident and pledging to protect public services particularly for the most vulnerable in our society.

Unfortunately, we did not win the general election and so are unable to put these policies into practice, although Caroline Lucas has almost single handedly taken the opposition to the Coalition government cuts agenda. The ideologically driven shrink the state policies of the Coalition government aim to reduce public spending and turn most of the public services over to private corporations. Our elected representatives in local government are on the front line in the assault on public spending, with local authorities having their funding from central government cut by around a third since 2010. 

Councils of all political stripes are hurting and they worry about whether they will even be able to fund their statutory duties in the future. Local government is under serious threat and everyone involved in it knows this to be true, despite the blithe statements about local authorities making efficiency savings and encouraging local business growth to pay for services, trumpeted by the Coalition central government. All the easy savings and many not so easy have been made now, and a future of even more of the same is daunting.

We in Green Left say enough is enough, and call on all of our existing elected Green party local councillors and any that are elected in the 2014 local elections, to firmly refuse to implement these Coalition government cuts to essential public services. If the government sends civil servants to carry out their dirty work then the responsibility for the cuts will be firmly in the public view, and our elected representatives can be in the forefront of a popular campaign against them. The time has surely come to make a stand, in solidarity with our communities that depend so heavily on the services provided and with the local authority workforce who have endured cuts in wages if not redundancy.

Caroline Lucas is Wildlife MP of the Year

Caroline Lucas has been voted Wildlife MP of the year by readers of Mark Avery's 'Standing Up for Nature' blog.

The full results were:

Caroline Lucas 39%
Owen Paterson 23.5%
Barry Gardiner  13.5%
Zac Goldsmith 11.8%
None of the Above 5.2%
Joan Walley 4.5%
Nick Clegg 2.5%

The Tories seem to have mobilised for badger hunting, climate change sceptic Owen Paterson. Maybe they do have a sense of irony.

Greens condemn 'greenwash' in Brent Cross development plans

The proposals for the redevelopment of Brent Cross seem to have been going on since the turn of the century. Like many recent developments it is just over the border from Brent and has received opposition from Kilburn, Dollis Hill and Cricklewood residents.

This is the Barnet Green Party's submission:

Barnet Council is currently considering a massive planning application for the Brent Cross Cricklewood redevelopment, including a huge extension to the shopping centre and a whole new residential town.

Barnet Greens say the BXC plans are full of utter ‘greenwash’, seeking to create a false impression about the environmental sustainability of this multi-billion pound project.

Here are the main objections we have submitted to the council:

1.These plans must be suspended until the development partners pledge to make the whole site carbon neutral and set out measures they will take to achieve that target. Sainsbury’s has already opened its first carbon neutral store (bit.ly/1bjnRQG) and plans to open more, showing that the technologies are available to make the Brent Cross shopping centre and the housing developments completely carbon neutral or carbon positive.

The proposed buildings are likely to exist for several decades at least and there is no way whatsoever that the British government will achieve its aim of a 60 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 if concrete giants like the Brent Cross shopping centre are still belching out carbon dioxide from heating, lighting and air conditioning.

This scheme is an ideal opportunity to install energy conservation measures and sustainable power facilities right from the beginning. There is plenty of scope on the site for enough wind turbines, solar arrays and ground source heat pumps to make the whole area carbon positive, never mind carbon neutral.

So why aren’t they doing it? As well as benefitting the environment, carbon neutrality would save money for the people who live in the new town and for the businesses, as their energy bills would be much lower – they might even make money by feeding electricity back into the grid.

Can it be that the developers are more interested in building cheaply than in saving on running costs for the future occupants of the homes and commercial buildings?

2. At a time when neighbourhood shopping areas are under threat all over London from post office closure, cut backs to libraries and the marginal viability of many small shops and pubs, Barnet Council should be making a broader study, paid for by the developers, of the likely impact of Brent Cross Cricklewood on other shopping areas in the borough.

The scheme is not just about new housing and a so-called town centre, the whole thing is based on “an expanded and improved shopping centre”, with an “enhanced retail offer including new stores at Brent Cross Shopping Centre”, to cite the developers’ own documents.

3.When the council has assessed the likely impact, it should order the developers to pay whatever it costs to ensure the sustainability of Hendon, Golders Green and the other nearby centres: better street layouts, improved public transport, more greenery, more public toilets, more benches to rest on or whatever it takes to ensure that these neighbourhood areas remain available and attractive for local residents to use.

4. As for the transport issues surrounding the new plans, of course there should be a direct rail link to the expanded shopping centre rather than more car parking. The developers say they expect cars still to be the main way that people get there but why is that? People will no doubt continue to want to shop at Brent Cross but why should they necessarily go by car? Do people mostly go to Oxford Street or Westfield shopping centres by car? Of course not, because they are properly served by London Underground lines and by buses.

The Brent Cross Cricklewood developers should be instructed to provide attractive and adequate Tube/train/tram, bus, cycle and pedestrian links for there to be a likelihood of far fewer than the projected extra 29,000 car journeys per day in the area.

5.The Clitterhouse Farm buildings should be saved. Preserving them would only require minor alterations to the overall plan.

6. If waste treatment facilities are to remain part of the plan, it should be specified that the priority should be sustainable systems such as anaerobic digestion and/or other systems from the growing range of alternative technologies.

7. It should be specified that no waste incineration should take place at the Geron Way cite. A new waste plan is under consideration for North London and it would be simple and cost-free for the designers of that plan to omit any proposal for incineration at Geron Way. This would in any case match the practicalities of the site, given the current objections by Bestway and others.

Check out the plans for yourself  HERE 

    

Council responds to complaint over Council Tax Support Scheme consultation

Brent Council has responded to the complaint by Robin Sivapalan on behalf of residents that its consultation on the Council Tax Support Scheme was not advertised widely enough and gave inadequate time for responses. The council wants to keep the controversial current scheme with some small statutory changes.

Here is the Council's reply:

Dear Mr Sivapalan,

I refer to your complaint about the way we are consulting on Brent’s Local Council Tax Scheme for 2014/15. Firstly, I would like to make you aware that we have extended the consultation period to 13 December.

The consultation that is currently under way is on the proposal not to change the Local Council Tax Scheme agreed by full council last year (except for statutory changes to the prescribed scheme for pensioners and a minor amendment to explicitly include a specific group as vulnerable and therefore protected from paying at least 20% of their council tax which had not been made clear in the original scheme for 2013/14). There
is no requirement for an Authority to consult each year on its local scheme if there are only statutory changes, but we felt that we did want to give residents an opportunity to make comments so decided that we would run a web-based consultation.

Although we had made a number of stakeholders aware of the consultation process during network and partner meetings over recent weeks, we hadn’t formally written to advice agencies before this week. As you acknowledge, this was due to a genuine oversight for which I apologise, however on that basis, we have extended the consultation period for a week as mentioned above to allow those that had been unaware on the consultation an opportunity to comment.

I regret that it is not possible to extend the consultation to the end of January, as you request, as the Council is required to determine its scheme for next year before the end of January.

As your complaint makes significant reference to those affected by the current scheme, I consider it appropriate to comment on the current scheme and how we have tried to help our residents during what we all agree has been a difficult time. Firstly, I must point out that there cannot be a reinstatement of the previous Council Tax Benefit (CTB) scheme as this was a national scheme funded by central government that has now been abolished. The scheme that we are proposing to carry forward into 2014/15 was the subject of extensive publicity and consultation last year including the following::

 · Publicity on the Council’s website and a special email account set up for queries;
· Text messages to 2694 existing Benefit claimants;
· Emails to 1770 Benefit claimants;
· A leaflet issued with 13,000 Council Tax bills;
· Meetings and presentations to over a dozen organisations including Mencap, Citizens Advice Bureau, Help Somalia Foundation, Private Tenant Rights User Group, Older Persons Partnership Board, Brent Housing Partnership, Brent Mental Health User Group, Willesden Mosque and representatives from Lynton Close Travellers Site;
· Emails to 600 Area Consultative Forum members and 640 Citizens Panel members;
· Paper copies of leaflets and documentation in all Brent libraries;
· Features on the consultation in both the May and July 2012 editions of the Brent Magazine and publicity in the local media including the Harrow Times and the Brent and Kilburn Times;
· Presentations to 267 residents at the five Area Consultative Forums;
· Letters and emails to all partner organisations in the borough;
· A wide range of posters and other publicity throughout the borough.

Following the consultation period and full council’s agreement for the scheme, we wrote to all our customers in advance of the start of the scheme, and included a special advice leaflet in all our year end bills where CTB was in payment. Officers embarked on an extensive exercise to speak to as many of the customers affected as possible especially those who were likely to have to pay something towards their council tax for the first time. Where we were unable to contact the customer by phone, we wrote to residents affected inviting them to contact us so that we could explain the scheme and how it affected them and also to discuss how best they could meet their financial obligations. We also made arrangements to allow council tax to be paid in 12 instalments rather than the normal 10 to help spread the cost.

We have continued to try and engage with residents since the introduction of the scheme and take a sympathetic view with customers who are trying to pay their council tax.

Where residents are also affected by other aspects of the government’s Welfare Reform programme – the overall benefit cap or the bedroom tax restrictions - we have often been able to offer assistance with their housing costs.

Finally, in respect of the current consultative exercise, I do not believe that the process has been unreasonable and certainly meets or exceeds our statutory obligations.

We shall treat all responses seriously but will be subject to both time and financial constraints when considering any proposals for changes.

Yours sincerely,

Andy Monkley
Subsidy & Policy Manager

 

A perfect late autumn day on the allotment

Sunset over Birchen Grove allotments (St Andrew's Church and the Stadium Arch on the horizon)

It was a perfect late autumn day down at Birchen Grove allotments today and I made the most of it.  It was pretty amazing to be entering the second week of December and still able to harvest the last aubergine and chillies as well as the more seasonal parsnips and broccoli.

Even the couch grass was cooperative, slipping easily out of the soil with just a slight jerk of the garden fork. Often the London clay is much harder to work at this time of the year and it was satisfying to get a lot done before it adopts its usual heavy, gloopy, saturated, winter state.

However, allotment holders should know that Brent Council is expecting plots to be dug over between now and March. The regulations on non-cultivation have been changed and the Council now expects 75% of each allotment to be dug over or have crops on by March 2014. In fact they will inspecting allotments before March to see if progress towards the 75% target has been made with the possibility of issuing Non-Cultivation Orders, and the potential ending of the tenancy, if progress has not been made. Anyone who cannot comply because of personal circumstances should contact the Council.

The change reflects both the large number of people on the allotment waiting list and the difficulty some people have in finding time to cultivate their allotment in these times of long working hours or several part-time jobs.

Increasing number of allotment holders are sowing over-wintering 'green manure' which is dug in just before the plant flowers and I assume council officers will count that as cultivation - digging in may well take place after March depending on which green manure is used.

Brent Greens: Butler is a 'New Labour blast from the past'

Dawn Butler and Shahrar Ali at the Friends of the Earth Hustings, General Election 2010

Reacting to today's news that Brent Labour Party had selected Dawn Butler to fight Brent Central in 2015, Shahrar Ali, The Green's candidate in  2010, said:

Labour's selection of Dawn Butler to fight the Brent Central seat is as if they are proposing a blast from Blair's New Labour past. Let voters be reminded where Butler stood on a whole raft of hugely consequential issues.

In 2007, Butler voted against a motion calling for a new sense of urgency on climate change, and, in 2009, against our becoming a signatory to the 10:10 climate change campaign. On Nuclear deterrence, Butler voted ambiguously on the renewal of a Trident system (2007). On anti-terror legislation, Butler voted reliably with her Government throughout, and, in 2009, voted to keep the maximum period of detention without charge for terrorist suspects at 28 days (instead of a lower period).

On such fundamental political issues of the day, Butler's priorities were wrong or muddled. Labour Party members may be prepared to forgive her past mistakes but I doubt if the electorate will be quite as tolerant. Greens stand for a radical break from the barely distinguishable politics of the three main parties and we shall fight the General Election on that basis.

Labour selects Dawn Butler for Brent Central

Uniting behind Dawn?

Former Brent South MP Dawn Butler has been selected by Labour for the Brent Central seat, winning in the third round of voting. Butler lost to Sarah Teather in 2010.

Clearly more people like Marmite in Brent that I thought!

According to reliable sources Butler won narrowly from Sundar Thava, tipped by me as a possible outsider winner yesterday. There was only a handful of votes in it at the end of the day in which Sundar performed impressively but Dawn Butler was ahead on postal votes. Parmijit Dhanda and Sabina Khan were knocked out in the early stages.

With such a narrow margin the question is whether activists will line up behind Dawn Butler and get out on the streets for her. The prospect of another Tory or Coalition government may be enough to do the trick.