Leeks the most interesting item at Brent Council meeting

A satirical local activist presented Brent Council's Cabinet members with a leak each just before the formal start of last night's Full Council meeting at Brent Civic Centre.

The presentation followed mounting concern in Brent Labour Party over leaks from the Labour Group and meetings of the party to Wembley Matters.

The councillors instantly realised what was meant by the gesture and took it in good part, appearing to laugh it off:

Most of the meeting went according to the script published in my previous blog LINK with planted questions from backbench Labour councillors and pre-prepared answers from Cabinet members. There was what appeared to be a genuine question from Cllr Neil Nerva asking about the extent and quality of consultation over the Constitutional Amendments that had been tabled.  He was concerned about the impact on whistleblowers. One of the amendments, as Cllr John Warren pointed out for the Brondesbury Park Tories, bars council workers from talking to councillors about employment issues.

The report of the chair of Scrutiny Committee was noteworthy for its almost complete lack of content.

The Council approved without discussion a report on Council Tax Support. Although this put put forward only minor changes it proposed a full review before the 2016-17 financial year.

This follows a report on the same day that revealed that Brent Council had only spent 20% of its local welfare assistance fund which is meant to be crisis support for vulnerable families.

More details emerge on Brent Council's investigation into Kensal Rise Library emails

Guest blog by Meg Howarth

New information has come to light about the data Brent Council handed to the police in the case of the Kensal Rise Library alleged fraudulent email affair. In a response to a query about the five ISP addresses used to post the fake comments in support of Andrew Gillick's original planning application, a senior council officer has revealed that 'the Council did provide the Police with all the IP addresses and details of how Council officers had linked these to Mr Gillick or his company via open source research'.

This is the full text of the response:

Dear Ms Howarth

I write further to your previous emails resting with your email dated 16 January 2015 and I apologise for the delay in responding to you.

In response to your query,  Council officers did not obtain the ISP subscriber details. The Council does not have the power to force the ISP Providers to disclose the subscriber details. However, the Council did provide the Police with all the IP addresses and details of how Council officers had linked these to Mr Gillick or his company via open source research.

As for the Police and the CPS, you will need to raise those queries with them.

As I stated previously in my e-mail dated 23 December 2014, if you have any queries regarding the decision of the CPS not to pursue this matter, they should be addressed to the partnership Brent Borough Chief Inspector, Andy Jones.

Yours sincerely

As stated on a previous blog (No prosecution in the Kensal Rise Library case - December  23rd 2014) 'it seems that the key to ultimately tracking back an IP address to a user is to engage with the ISP and get it (or force it via a judge) to release the data showing which client was issued with what IP address at a particular time of day'.  The question is, therefore: did Brent police seek the ISP subscriber details before handing over its dossier to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)? If not, why not? 

It was on 19 December 2014, in the run-up to the Xmas holidays, that the CPS advised Brent's Audit and Investigation Unit that 'there is insufficient evidence to proceed against Andrew Gillick'. In a New Year's Day interview with the Brent and Kilburn Times, a CPS spokesman elaborated: 'Having carefully considered all the material supplied we have decided there was insufficient evidence to support a realistic prospect of conviction in this case. The evidence did not prove this to the required standard and we therefore advised the police that no further action should be taken'.

So if Brent police didn't seek the ISP subscriber details, did the CPS do so instead? If it didn't, how could it conclude that the 'required standard' of evidence for a prosecution in the fraudulent email affair was unproven? A reply from Brent's partnership borough chief inspector and the CPS is awaited. 

Seething behind the scenes at Brent Council's meeting tonight

The format of Brent Council meetings these days is pretty predictable.  LINK The Leader makes a speech extolling the virtues of Labour members, outlines the difficult conditions caused by Coalition cuts and berates the opposition and then reaffirms the administration's commitment to protecting the vulnerable. Often adding that none of us became councillors to make cuts but we have to obey the law'.

The Tories refer to the mess left by Labour, wastefulness of the Council and go on about parking charges.

Questions to Cabinet members now have to be sent in advance so answers are carefully crafted. Backbench councillors ask prepared questions (often read out in stilted fashion) to Cabinet members that enable the latter to preen themselves and boast of their achievements with the opportunity for an additional swipe at the opposition.

Towards the end of the meeting Motions are put by Labour, Conservative Officials (Kenton) and Conservative Provisionals (Brondesbury Park). There's some Punch and Judy exchanges with the lone Lib Dem councillor looking a little lost; and then the Labour motion is approved and the Conservative motions defeated.

The unpredictability lies mainly with the voting of the Conservative groups and whether the Officials support the Provisionals or remain loyal to the Labour Group who granted them official status.

Tonight Cllr John Warren is moving a motion that regrets the fact that Standing Order changes mean that they cannot propose a vote of 'No Confidence' in Councillor Butt.

Warren will not have endeared himself to the Kenton councillors with the tweet he sent out in the early hours this morning:

 Kenton Conservative Councillor Bhiku M Patel died recently while on holiday in India.

Hardly tasteful tweeting.

Underneath all this there are real issues that could be raised. One is an update on the progress of appointing a new Chief Executive Officer. The Minutes of the September 2014 meeting record:

The Leader referred to the decision taken in June 2013 regarding the appointment of a new Chief Executive.  He stated that the external auditors were reporting back on how the Council was operating and whilst there was progress being made, stability within the Council would enable further progress to be made.  The current arrangements would therefore remain in place until a recruitment process began in the new year which would tie in with the launch of the new Borough Plan.

There has been little sign of any recruitment process and it now looks as if there may be an argument that Christine Gilbert should stay on until after the General Election because of her role as Returning Officer.  The fact that her partner Tony McNulty is actively campaigning for a Labour victory in Brent is not seen as a conflict of interest.

Another issue is of course that around the Employment Tribunal case and the finding that Brent Council racially discriminated against a council worker, victimised her and constructively dismissed her. Christine Gilbert will not countenance any disciplinary move against Cara Davani who was the second respondent in the case. Cara Davani, head of Human Resources. Cara Davani drew up Christine Gilbert's contract when she replaced Gareth Daniel  as Acting CEO, that included payment into her private company Christine Gilbert Associates. At the time Davbani wa sbeing paid a daily fee of £700 into her private company.

It would be interesting to have an update from Cllr Michael Pavey, Deputy Leader, on his internal review of Human Resources policies and processes. Two issues came up during the debate about his review including whether workers would have confidence that there would be no retribution over what they said and whether they could communicate with councillors over their concerns.

In Item 13 (Constitutional Amendment) a new clause has been added:

So Councillors approached by workers with concerns about racial discrimination, victimisation or constructive dismissal have to report them to Cara Davani, Head of Human Resources, who was the second respondent in a case where Brent Council was found to have racially discriminated against an employee who was victimised and constructively dismissed.  Cara Davani will be managing the redundancies consequent on the latest round of cuts.

Cara Davani is of course leading on the senior management restructure which has seen packages agreed for Fiona Ledden (former head of Legal and Procurement) and Ben Spinks (former Assistant Chief Executive Officer who was only appointed in 2013).

I understand that there has been one slight change in Gilbert and Davani's proposals. The original consultation ring-fenced the post of a senior legal officer to replace Ledden. Cara Davani's partner, Andy Potts,  was one of three employees thus eligible for the post. It was the only ring-fenced post in the whole reorganisation. Now the post will not be ring-fenced but only advertised internally. This seems to make little real difference in terms of who might be qualified for the post, so may just be a cosmetic change.

The Labour Group has its own internal tensions and a Labour councillor recently suggested to me that Muhammed Butt's support had declined to about 50% of the group against 75% a few weeks ago. It does not seem to be political opposition so much as distrust following recent machinations.


In the same week Pavey's Review will be put before the General Purposes Committee.

So if you have the staying power to watch the Council meeting on livestream tonight, just remember what is seething beneath the surface. Livestreaming failed last time but is supposed to have gone through an upgrade. To view from 7pm follow this LINK

Brent North CLP want to see rethink of Ed Balls' austerity-lite strategy

Ed Balls reacts to the Brent North motion (not really!)

As the Green Party positions itself as the only anti-austerity party in the forthcoming General Election, and recruits hundreds of  ex Labour voters, many in the Labour Party are dismayed that Ed Balls seems to be painting them into an 'austerity-lite' corner.

Locally this has emerged in a motion tabled by Labour veteran Colin Adams at Brent North Labour Constituency Party General Meeting last Thursday.

The motion claimed that Balls' approach is 'hardly designed to  win over any of our potential voters who may be wavering, as it send a message that there is not much to choose between the main parties in their approach to austerity and its impact on the welfare state.'

I couldn't have put it better myself.

This is the full text as tabled:

Brent North CLP is extremely concerned that the Coalition government`s cuts to public sector spending are causing huge damage to the fabric of the welfare state. The Coalition parties have shown that their policies are not governed by economic necessity but by ideology. They are committed to shrinking the role of the state and allowing public services to be taken over by the market. In Brent, as in other councils, impossible decisions about which services should be prioritised for cuts are being forced upon local politicians.

Labour must go into the upcoming election with policies that show clear differences with the Coalition parties, otherwise there is a grave danger we will not win an overall majority. In particular we need to show that we are prepared to fund local services adequately.

We were thus dismayed at the recent statement by the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, that the election of a Labour government would not necessarily lead to an easing of the pressure on public services. This approach is hardly designed to win over any of our potential voters who may be wavering, as it sends a message that there is not much to choose between the main parties in their approach to austerity and its impact on the welfare state. It is electorally damaging to say we are going to stick with the existing government`s spending plans.

We call on the Labour leadership to rethink this strategy and state that, upon  the election of a Labour government, a new budget will be drawn up for immediate implementation with the aim of reflating the economy and protecting public services.                   

BREAKING NEWS! Brighton Green Party passes motion supporting 'No Cuts' budget - Join the resistance

Pic Bright Greens

Breaking news from Brighton

This is the full and final text (below) of the No Cuts motion passed by a large majority at a quorate and well attended meeting of the Brighton & Hove Green Party today.  The General Meeting sets policy for the party, but cannot "instruct" Green Councillors. However, given that the General Meeting is "the prime decision making and organisational body for the BHGP", and has now made this vital policy decision, the party expect Green Councillors to abide by it, and if they feel they cannot, to step down.  It remains to be seen what will happen when the Budget comes up for decision in late February, but the local party has now made its position very clear - Green Councillors should not vote for any cuts budget or abstain so as to allow one to pass; and after this the party and councillors should lead a campaign of resistance to imposed cuts. If Green Councillors vote for a cuts budget of any kind, then they would be defying the clear and democratically expressed wish and policy of the local party.

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This General Meeting notes the Motion passed unanimously (with one abstention) at the December 2015 General Meeting that the Brighton & Hove Green Party supports the production of an alternative Budget for 2015-16 that would protect local services and employment, not cut them. 

The cuts to local services required to "balance the budget" for 2015-16 are the direct result of massive and unprecedented cuts by central government to the local government support grant, cuts which could mean a further cut to the Brighton & Hove budget of over £100 million by 2020.  This will effectively destroy local services as we know them.

The cuts required to balance the budget for 2015-16 alone would require  a restoration of more than £20 million of government grant or a Council Tax rise of over 20%. The proposed 5.9% Council Tax increase is therefore not viable as a means to fight the cuts or defend the vulnerable. It is a regressive tax on the poorest, and it would hardly dent the massive cuts still required. To propose this rise in Council Tax in conjunction with a cuts budget would fatally undermine the Green Party's anti-austerity stance locally and nationally.  It is the worst of all worlds.

We are now seeing a "Green surge" and rising membership especially amongst younger voters, the primary reason for which is our inspiring anti-austerity message. If the only example in the UK of the Green Party in office were to implement a large cuts budget just before the 2015 General Election that would disillusion and alienate many of those new supporters. It is likely it would severely damage not only the local party but the national party's prospects in the election.   The Brighton & Hove Green Party will not support any Brighton & Hove Council Budget for 2015-16 that makes further cuts to local services. We support a no cuts budget identifying how much government grant now needs to be returned to Brighton & Hove to avoid horrendous damage to local services. It is therefore the policy of Brighton & Hove Green party that any budget that makes further cuts to local services should not be voted for by the Green Group of Councillors, nor abstained upon to allow it to pass.

The Brighton & Hove Green Party advocates a strategy of complete resistance to implementing further cuts to local services, including

• A massive communications campaign to explain a) why the Green Party is adopting this policy, b) the devastating effect of the level of cuts suggested for 2015-16 and the years beyond, and c) that Labour and the Conservatives will deliver those cuts because they have no policy or strategy to resist them. 
• Refusal to assist any officials sent by DCLG to enforce a cuts budget upon Brighton & Hove, and wide publicity to explain this refusal.
• Working with the Brighton & Hove People's Assembly, local campaign groups and trade unions to publicise and implement this strategy and to create a focus of resistance to cuts and the austerity agenda.

Brent library privatisation hits the front page and two men named James disagree about what it means

The Kilburn Times (above) puts the possible privatisation of Brent libraries management on its front page.  Management would be handed over to a charitable trust although details are not clear.

The story was first covered on Wembley Matters on January 4th LINK (Will privatisation of Brent Council's  library management damage the service?)  and I published an extract from a blog by Alan Wylie, veteran library campaigner, who made these points about the leisure companies or trusts:

What a Leisure Trust means in practice:

• Leisure services are outsourced to a separate organisation/company. 
• The Council retains ownership of the facilities, which are leased to the Trust.
• Virtually all the savings come from rate reductions and VAT savings, which are much smaller initially because of the high set up costs. 
• Direct democratic control of the service will cease - elected member representation on a trust is limited to less than 20% of the board.
• Company law requires that Board members must put the interests of the leisure trust before those of the local authority. 
• After a year the Trust will usually cease to use council services and will be responsible its own procurement and contracting or corporate and other services.

The move, ostensibly, is to save £160,000 in rates (trusts get charged 80% rather than the 100% the Council will pay), although this is a loophole that may well be closed.

Margaret Bailey, chair of Friends of Kensal Rise Library, told the Kilburn Times that privatising services often ends up costing more:

Savings made on the 80% (rates) rebate will be minimal   and certainly not enough justification for privatising the service. I wish local authorities would fight these cuts together - and harness the support of their communities to do this.

 I agree.

Cllr James Denselow, now in charge of libraries under his Stronger Communities portfolio claims its a change in management structure, rather than privatisation and  'saves us a huge amount of money with rate changes'.  He recognised the sensitive nature of the changes and said the Council would do 'only if we find it's the right thing for us, for our libraries..and our communities.'

James Powney, whose blog has become a lot more interesting since he left the Council, wrote a article on the issue on Thursday morning LINK

Cllr Powney of course was the lead member when half of Brent's libraries were closed. He said that the wording of the officers' report ('established trust') suggests an existing body and the obvious one is that which currently runs Ealing and Harrow libraries:

The phrase "transfer management" suggests something more ambitious.  Not just founding a Trust but having the management taken over by a private company as in Greenwich or Hounslow.  This would be a lot more complicated.  A full procurement would need specification of a contract and a full tendering exercise for what would be a sizable contract.  In itself that would be a substantial one-off cost.  The Localism Act appears to have made this whole issue even more complicated than it was before.  The redundancy of senior management is likely to make the whole process even more difficult. 

This option was discussed when I was on the Executive, and rejected.  The business rate saving was largely a piece of accountancy smoke and mirrors (I understand that the rules may have been partly changed since then), and it seemed to me that all the things a private firm could do to cut costs could also be done by the Council.  Of course, having direct employees also gives you more control and we wanted to ensure the success of the Libraries Transformation Project by having hands on management.  Therefore we only went for the Sports Centre part of the project. 

The two James clearly have different perspectives and it will be interesting to see how this pans out. Meanwhile library staff are rightly concerned about what these vague proposals mean for them, their working conditions and their pensions.  The public should be concerned about what it will mean for the quality of their library service when the number of libraries has been halved and the council are proposing to cut the amount spent on book stock.

Brent Council: Communicating Rubbish

I was incensed yesterday when I saw the leaflet about Brent Council's waste collection that had been pushed through my door.  It put such a gloss on the £40 annual  'garden tax' charge for green bin collection that many people must have thought that it was almost as good as winning the lottery!

It advertised a free bulky waste collection despite the fact that proposals are going before the Council to introduce a charge of £15 for such collections.

The bulky waste collection charge has long been an issue between Labour and the Lib Dems. The Lib Dem-Conservative administration  introduced a charge of £25 and the incoming Labour adminstration in 2010 abolished the charge.

The arguments the then councillor James Powney made against the charge still stand.  LINK

Now Paul Lorber, Liberal Democrat Brent Council leader at the time of the £25 charge, has made a formal complaint to Council officers about the current leaflet. He suggests that the £15 charge was put into the proposals merely so that it could be withdrawn and show that the Council had listened to residents:

I have expressed my concerns as to how the scrapping of the weekly service and the proposed £40 charge for a reduced service has been presented. The latest leaflet delivered to residents continues to provide misleading and incomplete information.

I am disappointed that the misleading information produced by the Council and Veolia has continued. Please treat this email as a formal complaint on the following grounds:

I object to a reduced and chargeable service to be described as 'New' as if it was something positive when in fact residents are being asked to pay £40 for a substantially reduced service with collections just fortnightly during the summer and just monthly during the winter months.

On a separate issue I note that the leaflet is also advertising the 'Free' collection of bulky household items. This confirms the sham of the current budget consultation as the item to charge £15 for this service in the hope of a massive reduction in take up is just a 'sham' as this was put on the list simply to enable the Leader to claim later that this is one service "I have managed to save".

I think that the Council (officers and councillors) are showing a great deal of disrespect to Brent residents in the misleading way you are communicating with them. The leaflets are paid for from taxpayers money and should therefore provide honest information and not to reflect misleading information from the Labour Administration.
 

Brent Labour support campaign on cuts but not refusal to implement them

Apparently Cllr Butt recently advised fellow Labour councillors not to read Wembley Matters as it is 'the enemy'. He is still searching for 'leakers' amongst officers, councillors and members.

Anyway, everyone is going to have to be a lot more careful and not leave documents behind after meetings and avoid any other carelessness with information Muhammed deems the public should not know.

Interestingly, at Saturday's All Brent Labour Pary meeting, a motion was put which if published would go some way to improve Brent Council's tarnished reputation over internal policy.

So here it is.

This is the motion put by Kilburn branch:

This all-member forum notes that the £54 million cut in Brent Council’s funding over the next two years, on top of the £89 million already cut since 2010 will have a devastating effect on jobs and services in the borough. We cannot accept that the Labour Party and Labour Council should take responsibility for passing on this attack, which will inevitably hit the most vulnerable in the borough.
This cut in funding is not just a financial attack, but also an ideological one, stemming from the Tories declared aim of cutting back the welfare state, alongside a reduction of local democracy and centralisation. Their model for local government is the one promoted by Tory Barnet, where the role of the Council is simply to award contracts to outside companies.
 
This assault requires a political, not just a managerial, response from the Labour Party, both locally and nationally.
 
Therefore, the Brent Labour Party, together with Brent Labour Councillors, will:
 
1. Mount a campaign informing all residents of the effect which government cuts are having on local services and jobs, encouraging them to become involved in demanding the return of the money from central government:
2. Meet with Council and other trades unionists, service users etc. to urge them to mount a campaign with them against the cuts;
3. Approach other Labour Councils, in London and beyond, urging them to mount a similar campaign and to coordinate our efforts;
4. Incorporate this campaign into our efforts to win the general election, showing how coalition government policy is affecting jobs and services in the borough;
5. Urge, together with others in the labour movement, the national Labour Party to support such a campaign and to commit to restoring local government funding and democracy, including examining ways of placing the cost on the rich and corporations rather than the most vulnerable;
6. As an integral part of this campaign, Brent Labour Councillors will give a commitment to refuse to make the cuts demanded by central government

The leadership argued that they were already doing most of this and successfully substituted an amendment to Point 6, the most radical part of the motion.

I haven't got the exact wording of the amendment (please send it to me if you have it) but it was along the lines of recognising the difficulties councillors face in making the budget decisions and supporting their efforts.

I would support the motion as it was put (retaining the original Point 6) except for widening the appeal to all Councils as many other Councils under different political control, including the Greens in Brighton, want to see the restoration of local government funding and recognise the devastating impact of the Coalition's local government funding cuts.