Labour shifts budget meeting to support anti-fascist unity demonstration

The Deputy Leader of Brent Council, Cllr Michael Pavey, has confirmed that the Budget Meeting scheduled for tomorrow will now start later at 2pm to enable councillors to attend the counter demonstration in Cricklewood.

North West London United  has called for supporters of Cricklewood's diverse but united community to assemble at 113 Cricklewood Broadway from noon tomorrow.

The community is opposing a demonstration by a small extreme right-wing group, the South East Alliance, who are returning to the area after their failed march several weeks ago. The SEA Alliance recently took down their Facebook page which had much evidence of their Islamophobia in comments and photographs and have started a new sanitised page.

Opponents remain in no doubt of their true nature and are determined that they should not disrupt and divide our community.

Dawnites strengthen position in Brent Central CLP

Michael Calderbank

Supporters of Dawn Butler, made an almost clean sweep in elections to Brent Central Constituency Labour Party  General Committee last night.

Michael Calderbank, who was banned by Brent officers from the local election count in May, becomes Secretary. Terry Hoad was elected Chair but Cllr Janice Long survived as Vice Chair and Membership Secretary. Ivor Etienne was elected Vice Chair, Campaigns.

Cllr Ketan Sheth, former chair of Brent Planning Committee had already resigned. Karin Barrett, a powerful figure in Brent Central did not stand again  and Graham Barrett was ruled out for Treasurer by the GC gender balance rule.

Cllr Tom Miller defeated Graham Durham for the Trade Union Liaison post. Araz Moiz is the new Treasurer.

I understand that former councillor James Powney, who has been very concerned about leaks from the Labour Party to Wembley Matters, was rather perplexed by the rules, but all was sorted out eventually.

Former councillor Jim Moher, who recently had a  run in with the news editor of the Kilburn Times, will be Dawn Butler's election agent for the 2015 General Election.

Brent NHS CCG takes its toys away

Guest blog by Nan Tewari

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In the most extraordinary spectacle I have ever witnessed in over 40 years of attending public meetings and meetings of public bodies (two different things) on Wednesday evening, Brent NHS Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) fell out spectacularly with its patient representatives. In short, the CCG refused a perfectly reasonable, unanimous patient request to change the order of the agenda items of the patient engagement meeting and in the face of patient disapproval, decided to close the meeting with no business having been transacted. The badly run meetings (by a CCG public appointee) had failed consistently to run on accepted lines, namely, apologies, approval of minutes. matters arising etc. and as a result, minutes of meetings held in November 2013, March 2014 and May 2014 have never been approved and therefore cannot be put onto the CCG website for the benefit of the public at large.

The law requires CCGs to consult with patients and the public on proposed changes to the delivery of health services.   Failure to comply with the requirement can be serious with the CCG being challenged by providers as well as by individual patients and groups of patients who perceive changes as being detrimental.  Even if the CCG is confident that it is making the best decision, it still needs to go through a proper and proportionate public engagement process.

In order to meets these legal obligations, the CCG set up a committee of its Governing Body called the Equality, Diversity and Engagement (EDEN) Committee to provide itself with assurance that its public involvement activity in the multiplicity of proposed service changes was as robust as it should be.

My fellow patient reps and I (some, appointed by the CCG and others, elected by fellow patients) worked really hard to help the CCG and pointed out where it could be open to challenge.  We take the view that we are neither a rubber stamp nor nodding donkeys, and it is our duty to withhold the desired assurances if patient involvement is unsatisfactory.  The CCG did not appreciate this one little bit and started a smear campaign against patient reps saying that we were failing in our duties.

The CCG is effectively rewriting the rules to tell patient reps how they must act. In the course of doing so, they are also breaching all of the accepted rules of public body committee procedure and have stated that their particular public body (the CCG) does not have to act in accordance with these norms.

I have taken up this guest blog spot, courtesy of Martin Francis, because there is nowhere officially in Brent CCG for patients to air their views on matters of public involvement in proposed changes to local health services as is required by s14Z2 of the NHS Act 2006 as amended by the Health and Social Care Act 2012. It would be interesting to hear what others patients and members of the public have to say.

Why I support assisted dying

I joined Dignity in Dying shortly after the death of my mother. I had shared care for her in her final years with my siblings and had watched her descend into vascular dementia, bedridden and often terrified.

Commentary has often focused on pain, but the nightmarish world of mum's dementia was mental torture: searching for lost crying babies under the bed, imagining there was a stranger in her bed, asking me to chase horses out of her room when Black Beauty was on the television, claiming she was being poisoned by carers, violently fighting the carers as they tried to wash and change her.

She cried out in pain when her almost fleshless body was  lifted in a hoist, spat out her medication and eventually pushed food and liquid away.

Clutching my hand she said, 'Why is it taking so long (to die)? Can't you help me?'

Earlier she had confided that she wished she 'hadn't woken up' after fall which had left her unconcious. Instead she had to endure a further two years when her mental and physical world shrank so that she could neither control her mind nor her body.

Despite the care of professionals and families, that period was certainly 'undignified' to say the least. Thankfully, she had signed a 'do not rescuscitate' form in the presence of a doctor during a lucid spell and her final two days were peaceful as pneumonia took hold.

We were able to play music and read her favourite poetry as we held her hand in the last hours.

However a peaceful death did not make up for two years of a living death and I wish that we had been able to let her die in her own way earlier. I feel guily about all the times I cajoled her into eating or sucking water from a wet sponge when she appeared to be doing it to please me, rather than because it was what she wanted. Joining Dignity was something I could for others in mum's position

I recognise that the issue is complex and it is not even clear that my mother's case would meet the criteria in the Bill.

I am aware of the concerns of some disability campaigners LINK about passing such a law in a period of austerity when the disabled are under attack and losing their benefits. I recognise worries about the elderly requesting assisted dying so as 'not to be a burden' and issues around unscrupulous relatives with their eyes on a legacy.

However, I am persuaded that there could be sufficient safeguards to ensure that these concerns are addressed LINK

Tomorrow the House of Lords will be voting on Lord Falconer's Bill. The sole Green Party peer, Jenny Jones, will not be present as she has a long-standing engagement to attend a 100th birthday party, but she has expressed support for the measure. In response to requests on her attitude to the Bill she said:

As a representative of the Green Party, this is an issue I take an interest in. I believe that people deserve choice, comfort and dignity in death, and would welcome any changes in law that would enable that.

Brent School Improvement Service sets out changes as interim head leaves

Rebecca Matthews, Interim Head of Brent School Improvement Service, is ending her contract and will be leaving tomorrow. Sara Williams is currently trying to find someone to cover the role. Clearly given the events at St Mary's RC in Kilburn and the concerns raised in the report of the Education Commission, a quality permanent appointment is essential.

Matthews today wrote to Brent headteachers announcing changes in the core offer made by Brent School Improvement Service: 

One of the main changes to the Core Offer reflects our determination to get the right level of support to schools as soon as possible.  To that end, link advisers and school improvement leads will be undertaking data analysis during July and August as soon as provisional data are available.  

If this early analysis raises concern, at the start of the autumn term, we shall write to you and visit your school as soon as can be arranged so that we can discuss the appropriate levels of support.  It may of course be the case that provisional data will change as there are always marginal changes when dis-applications are taken into consideration.  However, we agree that waiting for Raiseonline data in October/November means that we lose critical months.  Evidence shows that the sooner we can establish Rapid Improvement Groups, the better the progress within the school, and the greater the involvement of governors, the school improvement service and other relevant partners, including school to school support.

For some schools this will mean a change in their School Improvement Partner, an individual who monitors and supports the school.

The accompanying document sets out the role of the local authority: 

Brent is committed to working with schools to ensure that all are good or outstanding. The School Improvement Service recognises that much of the expertise to ensure this happens resides in schools.   It also recognises that the pressure on schools to secure or retain good and outstanding judgements requires focussed effort and the danger of stretching capacity too far can result in a fall in standards.  

It is therefore essential for the local authority to retain a leadership role; as the guardian of quality and standards for all schools; a coordination role in order to capitalise on expertise in schools and facilitate its use to ensure that standards are not diluted elsewhere; and a brokerage role to identify and sign post good practice.  

The partnership between the School Improvement Service, the Brent Schools Partnership (BSP) and the two local Teaching School Alliances offers an exciting and creative opportunity to develop new ways of working that will benefit all schools, leaders, teachers, children and young people.  Such partnerships are best developed over time, and this core offer is revised in July 2014 following the first full year of implementation, learning lessons from the past year and receiving feedback from schools and school improvement staff involved in the process.  During the course of the coming academic year, ways of working collaboratively will continue to develop.  

It is the LA's responsibility to maintain a full overview of the effectiveness of all schools including sponsored academies, converter academies, free schools, the local college and training providers.   This responsibility is fulfilled through desk top analysis as well as through visits to all schools.  All schools are allocated a link adviser who will respond to the statutory responsibilities through at least one visit per year to each school.  

For maintained schools, we will deliver a differentiated Core Offer which departs from the more universal offer previously in place. The purpose of this Core Offer is to provide an appropriately differentiated offer for the most effective and efficient use of public funding.  It will ensure that the best schools are able to define and develop their improvement journey as they see fit, purchasing support from the LA or elsewhere as required.  For those schools not yet good or outstanding, intensive, skilled and purposeful support and monitoring will challenge and encourage the school to improve at speed, and result in intervention if this is not successful.

Where academies, free schools, the college and training providers fail to provide the standards required, it is appropriate for the LA to hold these establishments to account.    This will be through robust discussion with the head teacher and sponsor or trust representative and for 16-19 institutions, with the principal or director.  For academies the LA may raise concerns about performance directly with the Department for Education. (Schools causing concern; Statutory guidance for local authorities; May 2014)

Brent has had several schools now which had been judged 'Good' by Ofsted previously now being down-graded to 'Requires Improvement' or 'Inadequate'. An early-warning system for such schools is essential and the document sets out what will be provided: 

For schools which are good or outstanding, and whose data shows improvement, the LA’s involvement will be light touch.  Once a year, maintained schools will be visited by the school’s link adviser.  Other institutions will be visited by a local authority officer.  The meeting will address a range of issues, depending on the context and situation of the school.  These could include:

·    Standards at the end of each key stage

·    Attainment and progress at the end of each year and for all groups

·    The impact of the pupil premium for low achievers and the more able

·    A review of Ofsted key issues

·    A review of previous recommendations from the School Improvement Service

·    The school’s key priorities

·    Moderation of the school’s self-evaluation

·    A learning walk to judge the quality of teaching and learning

·    The opportunity to identify good practice.

This visit will ensure that the LA can validate the school's own assessment of its strengths and areas for development.  It will also allow for an assessment of the school's capacity to sustain its position and bring about further improvement.  We will support and challenge good and outstanding schools where specific improvement is required and we will celebrate good practice and disseminate it across all schools. 

This will lead to a short report providing an annual ‘health check’ for the school with any recommendations that result from the meeting.  Support to implement the recommendations could be purchased by the school from the School Improvement Service or any other provider or brokered through the Brent School Partnership or with the Teaching School Alliances.  Opportunities for support still exist for these schools, but they will be provided through the traded offer.

It is noteworthy that Brent now recognises and claims a role in monitoring academies and free schools and it will be interesting to see how this develops and whether doors are opened to LA officers:

Academies and 16-19 institutions judged as requiring improvement, serious weaknesses or special measures will also be offered the RIG process without cost, but if they accept, they will be expected to source their own additional support which could be from the local authority or elsewhere.  If an academy or 16-19 institution chooses not to accept the RIG (Rapid Improvement Group), the local authority will ask for details of the actions that the trust, corporation or board will be putting in place to secure improvement, and would request a termly update on the impact.

 However action by the local authority if such interventions are unsuccessful is limited as academies and free schools are directly accountable to the Secretary of State and FE colleges have their own management boards.

Ironically, academisation, which reduces the LA's powers of intervention is listed as a possible solution for failing maintained schools:

The production of the action plan will be the responsibility of the school, working with the link adviser.   The content of the action plan will lead to the implementation of a support programme, with help from the School Improvement Service, the Brent Schools Partnership or the Teaching School Alliances as appropriate, which will be monitored and reviewed at each half termly meeting.  The plan should be specifically tailored to the needs of the school to include support for leadership and management, teaching, learning, inclusion and governance.

Improvement for schools in these circumstances must be swift and embedded in sustained good practice, recognised by Ofsted monitoring visits or LA reviews.   If improvement has not been demonstrated, the LA will use its powers of intervention to ensure improvement.

LA powers of intervention for maintained schools include:

·      Requiring a governing body to enter into arrangements to secure improvement

·      Appointing additional governors

·      Appointing an Interim Executive Board

·      Suspending the delegated budget

·      Considering academy status.

Michael Pavey, previously lead member for children and families in Brent, when first taking over the role had opposed academies and free schools but later acquiesced in the forced academisation of Gladstone Park Primary and actively supported Copland High School's take over by Ark Academy. Little is known of the new lead member, Cllr Ruth Moher's views, but a policy of forced academisation in a Labour authority is bound to be controversial.

Finally there will be efforts to ensure the quality of 'school improvement specialists' and the move to 'school to school support' will continue:

The local authority is well placed to have an overview of quality in the borough.   It will broker school to school support as required.  We recognise that we will not be the only agency involved in this work, but we can offer a broad overview of all schools when required to identify appropriate support.  We will work with the Brent Schools Partnership and Teaching School Alliances to secure leadership capacity and appropriate support to accelerate improvement.  We will work with partners to assure quality and review the impact of support, training and service delivery.  We will share our findings with head teachers and chairs of governors.

We will work with partners to increase leadership and governance development opportunities. Together, we will provide an enhanced range of support and training as required through a needs analysis.

We will provide support both from school improvement specialists and encourage school to school capacity.  We will ensure that school improvement specialists are highly qualified and experienced, most having recent and relevant headship or senior leadership experience, Ofsted training and wide experience of school improvement strategies from a variety of contexts.  We will involve schools in the appointment of these staff and look to secondment opportunities as appropriate.

Not mentioned sufficiently in the proposals is the funding implications of the proposals with the Brent Council budget expected to be under severe pressure next year.  The School Improvement Service has already suffered cuts, the financial compensation for schools engaged in 'school to school support', and the capacity of sufficient numbers of schools to buy into the Brent Schools Partnership are all issues to be addressed.

After all, Michael Pavey claimed that forced academisation of Copland was necessary because Brent Council did not have the capacity or resources to manage the school improvement process itself, and needed Ark to do the job

Barry Gardiner speaks out on Israel's 'barbaric' actions in Gaza

Barry Gardiner, Labour MP for Brent North, a former vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel, made his most forthright comments on the actions of Israel in Gaza earlier this week.

He said LINK:

Israel’s right to defend itself, of which the Foreign Secretary speaks, is not an unconstrained right, yet Israel’s response has been unconstrained. It has been disproportionate and wrong. Heavy bombing in a densely populated area with 100,000 civilians, causing the death of 170 people, a third of them children, is not self-defence, it is barbarism. What leverage does the Foreign Secretary have and will he now apply it to make the Israeli Government reappraise this barbaric and unproductive strategy?

On Saturday July 19th there will be a 'National Demonstration for Gaza' meeting at 12 noon in Downing Street and marching to the Israeli Embassy. Brent and Harrow Palestine Solidarity Campaign will be supporting the demonstration.

Kensal Rise Library planning application approved with new conditions

Brent Planning Committe tonight unanimously approved the planning application for Kensal Rise Library submitted by Andrew Gillick. The Committee attached new conditions to the application with an amendment on the marketing of the D1 space. Cllr Shafique Choudhary and Cllr Dan Filson declared that they had made previous statements  of opinion about the application and withdrew from the meeting.

Cllr Sarah Marquis, chair, in a statement said that on further legal advice, as requested by the commitee's previous meeting, that they would not take the ongoing police investigation into fraudulent emails into account.

A supplementary report by officers, tabled at the meeting, made several key points:

1. The Heads of Terms would be changed so that instead of saying that if the marketing campaign failed to prduce an occupier of the Kensal Rise Library D1 space Brent Council would be given first refusal, after 'internal discussion' this would now give CVS Brent first refusal to prepare a bid for the space.
2. The naming of Friends of Kensal Rise Library as the 'actual' tenant rather than 'preferred' tenant 'is not an issue the committee should purport to determine as part of the planning process.'
3. The applicant will provide the D1 space as a plastered shell with the main services capped off plus an earmarked sum of £3,000 for the teant to fit out the space.
4. A member of the public had asked that committee members be made aware of the Option Agreement to purchase Kensal Rise Library made between All Souls Collge and the developer when considering the current planning application.

Jodi Gramigni made a representation pointing the the importance of the Asset of Community Value status of the Kensal Rise building. She said that the commitee should take this into account as a material consideration  and called on Brent Council to exercise the political will to make this status mean something.

Stephanie Schonfield for Friends of Kensal Rise Library disputed the supllementary officer's report's comment on the naming of FKRL as 'actual tenant' and said FKRL were 'thrilled and relieved' at the agreement and loked forward to occupying the space and endsing four years of campaigning.

Councillors questions mainly centred around detailed issues arising from their site visit. The Committe eventually voted for a number of conditions including widening the chimney breast entrance space to admit buggies and wheelchairs, increased parking space for cycles, and waste storage space to be provided on the ground floor rather than the basement thus reducing the need to use the list and thus reducing the £2,500 service charge.

Steve Weeks of the Planning Department suggested that due to the 'actual' tenant agreement and the giving of CSV first refusal if marketing failed, that the requirement to market the space could be reduced to a fall-back if agreement was not reached on the initial occupier.

No refence was made during the meeting to the Option Agreement, although it may have been discussed at the pre-meeting.

The meeting was subdued with no triumphalism apparent, and several of the people involved on either aside of the battle made concilatory comments to each other after the meeting.

It appears that after a bruising controversey the community will now try and make the best of what some regard as a not very good deal, and others the best deal available in the circumstance.

Meanwhile the outcome of the police investigation into fraudulent emails is still awaited...

Another Brent primary school's Ofsted rating plummets

St Mary's Roman Catholic Primary School in Canterbury Road, Kilburn has seen its Ofsted rating drop from Grade 2 'Good' to Grade 4 'Inadequate' and has been put in 'Special Measures'.

The report of the inspection carried out in March LINK gives Achievement of pupils, Quality of teaching and Bhevaiour and safety of pupils a Grade 3 'Requiring improvement' but Leadership and Management is singled out for a Grade 4 'Indequate'.

Under Ofsted guidelines a 4 for Leadership and Management (which includes senior leadership and governorship)  means that the overall judgement on the school must also be 4.

Most worrying from the point of view of Brent Council is that Ofsted report:

The local authority has not provided good enough guidance or support to help the school to improve

The support provided by the local authority was an issue for the Brent Education Commission  that reported last month and should be seen in the context of cuts in local authority funding leading to a reduction in School Improvement Services. Brent Council is due to offer only core support in future with the Brent Schools Partnership taking over many of its functions.

There is a risk attached to this and I would hope that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee will have a thorough look at the plans for the School Improvement Service, school-to-school support and the role of School Improvement Partners  to ensure that there is early warning through thorough monitoring and effective action when a school begins to show signs of decline.