Newcastle City LP member calls for Brent to follow their lead on ethical procurement

Message from a Labour Party member in Newcastle on the Ethical Procurement Motion covered in an earlier blog

Some great news: our Ethical Procurement and Pensions Investment motion has now been passed by Newcastle City Council - passed overwhelmingly at Wednesday night's council meeting - so is now council policy to campaign against the changes being proposed by the Tories.

If you can do whatever you can via your Labour Party contacts in Brent and surrounding boroughs to push it down there and get Labour groups to adopt the motion and take it to their respective councils that would be great.

The motion as Passed by Newcastle City Council

Response to Government’s attack on a Councils’ right to follow an ethical policy in relation to procurement and Pensions Fund investments

Council notes with alarm the recent statement from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) confirming that new guidelines will be introduced early in the New Year which will curb councils’ powers to divest from or stop trading with organisations or countries they regard as unethical.

Council further notes that the new guidelines, which will amend Pensions and Procurement law, follow on from the government’s announcement made at the beginning of October 2015 that it was planning to introduce new rules to stop “politically motivated boycott and divestment campaigns” (Greg Clarke, Secretary of State for the Department of Communities and Local Government).

Council recognises that the focus of these new measures may be on procurement and investment policies and that they may have profound implications for Councils’ ethical investment policies more generally.

Newcastle City Council is proud of its’ commitment to human rights and to putting this into practice through such measures as an ethical approach to its relationship with business as outlined under  Newcastle’s Social Value Commitment.

Council believes that the proposed measures now being outlined by the DCLG will seriously undermine the Council’s ability to implement its commitment to ethical procurement and pensions investments.

Council also notes that the new guidelines represent a further, serious attack on local democracy and decision-making through a further restriction on councils’ powers. This is directly contrary to the government’s own stated commitment to the principle of localism, given a statutory basis by the Localism Act of 2011, which holds that local authorities are best able to do their job when they have genuine freedom to respond to what local people want, not what they are told to do by government.

Newcastle City Council therefore resolves to take all legal measures possible to oppose these new measures, including:

·       Writing to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to express Council’s unequivocal opposition to the proposed changes as part of the consultation

·       Working with any other local authority, the NECA, the LGA or other appropriate forums as well other partner organisations (such as local trade unions and community groups) who share these concerns to raise awareness of the implications of the proposed measures and to campaign against their introduction

Newcastle City Council reaffirms its commitment to an ethical basis to its procurement and pensions investment policy.

'Nuclear Disaster - The Aftermath' Feb 4th Meeing

Ealing

 

Are hosting

Nuclear Disaster

The Aftermath

A talk by Mrs Kei Ikezumi

(Director of the No-Nuke project)

Kei has been living with the thousands of evacuees still living in temporary accommodation 5 years after the Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power plant disaster in Japan. Kei will speak about the impact of the disaster and the dangers imposed by nuclear power

Thursday 4 February 7.00pm for 7.30pm

The Forester pub (upstairs function room)   Leighton Road, West Ealing W13 9EP

Brent CCG A&E Ad ruled misleading and potentially harmful in victory for Brent Patient Voice

Congratulations to Brent Patient Voice in succeeding with their complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority regarding Brent Clinical Commissioning Group's poster telling residents to use A & E only for 'life threatening emergencies':

This is the full finding:

Ad

A poster and claims on the advertiser's website www.rightcare4u.org.uk, seen on 5 October 2015:

a. The poster stated "For emergency use only ... A&E is for life-threatening emergencies only ... Other NHS services are available that will help you more quickly. For more information visit: www.rightcare4u.org.uk".

B. The website stated "For emergency use only ... A&E is for life-threatening emergencies only ... If you use A&E when you could get help somewhere else, you are taking NHS staff time away from life-threatening cases. Other NHS services are available that will help you more quickly ...".

Issue

Brent Patient Voice challenged whether the claim "A&E is for life-threatening emergencies only" was misleading and potentially harmful, because patients with serious medical conditions/injuries that were not necessarily life-threatening may be wrongly discouraged from going immediately to their nearest hospital A&E.

CAP Code (Edition 12)

1.33.13.3

Response

Department of Health trading as Brent Clinical Commissioning Group (BCCG) explained that the ads focused specifically on diverting unnecessary cases away from local A&E departments to more appropriate settings, such as Urgent Care Centres and Minor Injuries Units. They said the primary aim of the ads was patient safety. They had based the core message on nationally available NHS information, in particular the NHS Choices website. They provided an extract from that website which listed some examples of life-threatening emergencies and included loss of consciousness, persistent severe chest pain, breathing difficulties and severe bleeding that could not be stopped.

BCCG said that in contrast to A&E departments, Urgent Care Centres could treat sprains and strains, broken bones, wound infections, minor burns and scalds, minor head injuries, insect and animal bites, minor eye injuries and injuries to the back, shoulder and chest.

BCCG said they had received clinical approval for the campaign. They accepted that there may be a few exceptions, for example, the ones cited by Brent Patient Voice, regarding some specific situations which might require A&E treatment in non-life-threatening situations. They said that was why there were well-established protocols in place in order to safely refer all patients requiring A&E treatment who presented at Urgent Care Centres. They believed the question was one of risk and, in the case of the ad campaign, communicating clearly to a whole patient population about the appropriate use of A&E overall, given the potentially serious and significant impact on those patients who genuinely required A&E treatment by those patients who would be better off (both for themselves and others) reporting to non-A&E services. They said it was important to emphasise that it was not their intention to present misleading information. They were seeking to educate people who might consider going to A&E for situations which were non-life-threatening and who could be treated more appropriately elsewhere.

They offered to remove the word "only" from the claim, in order to provide for those few situations which might require A&E treatment for non-life-threatening emergencies in the context of the A&E service overall being for life-threatening situations, as set out on the NHS Choices website. They believed their amendment was a reasonable and proportionate response to the complaint.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA understood from Brent Patient Voice and BCCG that there were certain medical conditions and injuries that were not life-threatening but nevertheless required treatment in A&E, for example, some broken bones (e.g. ankle), facial injury requiring maxilla-facial surgery, saddle paraesthesia and serious eye injuries. We understood that those conditions and injuries could not be treated in Urgent Care Centres or Minor Injuries Units. We acknowledged that the intention behind the ad campaign was to encourage the appropriate use of A&E services, so as to ensure the proper allocation of NHS resources and patient safety, and was not to deter individuals from accessing A&E services if they genuinely required them. However, we noted that the claim "A&E is for life-threatening emergencies only" was an absolute claim, even though there were exceptions, and we were concerned that individuals presenting with the conditions listed above might be deterred from seeking urgent treatment at A&E as a result of seeing the ads. We considered that the amended claim, which omitted the word "only", did not resolve the complaint because there were certain conditions and injuries that were not life-threatening but which nevertheless required treatment in A&E. For those reasons, we concluded that the claim "A&E is for life-threatening emergencies only" was misleading and potentially harmful.

The ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 1.3 (Social responsibility), 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading advertising).

Action

The ads must not appear again in their current form. We told Brent Clinical Commissioning Group to take care not to inadvertently make misleading and potentially harmful claims about the scope of A&E services in future.

Could Brent Labour follow Newcastle's lead on ethical procurement?

Brent Council during the apartheid era took action over severing links with companies that benefited from South African contracts.  More recently they declined to take similar action regarding the Public Realm contract with Veolia which at the time was providing infrastructure support to illegal settlements in Palestine.

Now the government is seeking to curtail the powers of local councils to have an ethical pesnions and procurement policy.

Newcastle City Labour Party has passed the following motion unanimously and expect to get it through Full Council.

I hope that Brent Labour group will take a similar stand.

Here is the motion which could easily be adapted for Brent:

Response to Government’s attack on a Councils’ right to follow an ethical policy in relation to procurement and Pensions Fund investments

Council notes with alarm the recent statement from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) confirming that new guidelines will be introduced early in the New Year which will curb councils’ powers to divest from or stop trading with organisations or countries they regard as unethical.

Council further notes that the new guidelines, which will amend Pensions and Procurement law, follow on from the government’s announcement made at the beginning of October 2015 that it was planning to introduce new rules to stop “politically motivated boycott and divestment campaigns” (Greg Clarke, Secretary of State for the Department of Communities and Local Government).

Council recognises that the focus of these new measures may be on procurement and investment policies and that they may have profound implications for Councils’ ethical investment policies more generally.

Newcastle City Council is proud of its’ commitment to human rights and to putting this into practice through such measures as an ethical approach to its relationship with business as outlined under  Newcastle’s Social Value Commitment.

Council believes that the proposed measures now being outlined by the DCLG will seriously undermine the Council’s ability to implement its commitment to ethical procurement and pensions investments.

Council also notes that the new guidelines represent a further, serious attack on local democracy and decision-making through a further restriction on councils’ powers. This is directly contrary to the government’s own stated commitment to the principle of localism, given a statutory basis by the Localism Act of 2011, which holds that local authorities are best able to do their job when they have genuine freedom to respond to what local people want, not what they are told to do by government.

Newcastle City Council therefore resolves to take all legal measures possible to oppose these new measures, including:

·      Writing to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to express Council’s unequivocal opposition to the proposed changes as part of the consultation

·      Working with any other local authority, the NECA, the LGA or other appropriate forums as well other partner organisations (such as local trade unions and community groups) who share these concerns to raise awareness of the implications of the proposed measures and to campaign against their introduction

Newcastle City Council reaffirms its commitment to an ethical basis to its procurement and pensions investment policy.

BBC - Don't Shut Out the Greens who give a voice to the voiceless

Shahrar Ali and Amelia Womack at the BBc today

 The Green Party’s Deputy Leaders today handed in an official appeal to the BBC Trust urging the BBC to re-consider its initial decision not to grant the Green Party of England and Wales a Party Political Broadcast in England.

The Green Party has also launched a petition this morning calling on the public broadcaster to include the Greens LINK .

Amelia Womack and Shahrar Ali, Deputy Leaders of the Green Party of England and Wales, handed in the appeal on behalf of Nick Martin, the Green Party's Chief Executive Officer.

Last week, Martin wrote to the Director General and Director of Editorial Policy and Standards of the BBC to argue that the current proposals, which shut out the Greens and allocate three broadcasts to the Liberal Democrats, fail to recognise the pattern and direction of political support in England. That appeal was rejected and the Green Party has today lodged a further appeal with the BBC Trust, to be heard by the Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee.

Speaking at the hand-in, Womack said:

This time last year it was the public that ensured our inclusion in the televised Leaders Debates. Now we need that support again.

The Green Party’s membership has grown and the Green Party’s vote has grown. It’s time our public broadcaster reflected the general public’s support for the Greens.

This petition represents an opportunity for us to make sure that the Greens’ unique voice gets heard so we can send more elected Greens to the Welsh and London Assemblies.

Ali said:

The BBC is a public service broadcaster and we feel they have an obligation to treat all parties on an even keel.

By continuing to exclude the Greens from the PPBs it is our contention that the BBC is not fulfilling its duty to ensure balance by communicating the full range of political opinions to its audience.

We have been the only Party giving a voice to the voiceless and it is deeply ironic that the BBC thinks it is okay to exclude us from these important broadcasts.

PETITION HERE

Helen Carr speaks out against 'draconian' PSPO extension in Chichele Road

A proposal to extend the Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) in Chichele Road and the surrounding area in Mapesbury ward has drawn opposition from Brent's lone Liberal Democrat councillor,  Helen Carr.

The PSPO makes it an offence for any resident or small business to pick up casual labourers within the restricted area, and aims to remove the need for people to congregate outside B&Q and similar areas.

The Community Safety Team are looking to extend the PSPO which expires on March 20th to December 20th 'to allow us to continue enforcement'.

 A 6 week consultation began on January 28th. 

More information can be found HERE and the consultation can be found HERE 

  

Helen Carr wrote:

I oppose this extension on the following grounds: 

This is a draconian measure not originally intended as a response to the complaints of, what I understand it, are a handful of people, albeit they have clocked up more than 400 complaints in a year. This does not mean people should not complain - I myself continually alert the Transport police to Romanian beggars on the underground (a losing battle ..) who when challenged in Romanian, can become aggressive. 

The measure was not successful: at 7am, when I usually set out for work and pass through the Broadway, it did not take long for the small groups of men hoping to gain casual labour, had resumed unchallenged. The measure ensured they congregated elsewhere and in cafes etc. As I understand it, this is an historical issue and originates long before the arrival of Romanians, who are, as I understand it, the new Irish in terms of no skilled and low skilled casual labour. 

I appreciate and agree with residents who claim the police are unable to implement the measure - they have more serious issues to attend to. But this sets a very bad precedent. In the UK, policing is by consent. Servants not masters. In Romania, as in other new democracies of E&C Europe  I have lived and worked in which are only recently free of totalitarian rule, the police are a generally viewed as bodies to be feared. They operate by  a mixture of dazzle, bribery and intimidation: coercion not persuasion and consensus. We need to use these measures sparingly if the tolerance and co operation of our own police are not to be considered weaknesses and vulnerabilities to be exploited. 

Would we be quite so happy to introduce these measures if we called these men 'blacks' not 'migrants'? I think not. 
Many of these men are exploited physically and financially, and to be pitied, not despised.  
Cllr Dr Helen Carr

Contrary birds and squatting squirrels in the Big Garden Birdwatch

I settled down for the Big Garden Birdwatch yesterday with pen and paper and a cup of coffee and achieved meagre results on a wet and windy grey morning. When I tried again later in the day a grey squirrel decided it had squatter's rights on the feeder and kept most birds away,  apart from a brave pair of great spotted woodpeckers.

I have up.

But today, while writing at my computer,  in a short space of about 15 minutes (rather than yesterday's hour) I glimpsed  8 long-tailed tits, loads of great tits and blue, tits,  a pair of nuthatches, robin, dunnock, blackbird, magpie, great spotted woodpecker, wood pigeon and jay.

You can blame them for any typos on today's posts.

There's a lesson to be learnt here...

Big Garden Birdwatch

More of a jungle than a garden - but nature friendly

Where do Fryent councillors stand on Council Tax Support Scheme Review?

There's a Brent Connects meeting in Willesden tonight where there will be a 'consultation' on the Brent Council budget despite the fact that the budget proposals going to Cabinet have already been written and appear on its agenda.

We now know that this proposes a Council Tax increase increase of 3.99% year on year for 3 years.

Cllr Duffy appeared to be very much in the minority in wanting to raise Council Tax by 1.99%  in 2015 but I notice on the Fryent Councillors' blog that they now claim to have argued for an increase: LINK:

Brent Council tax has been frozen for the last 6 years - no increase since 2009.

Your Fryent Councillors have argued for an increase in previous years because our base budget is years out of date. The Government has given the Council 1% in the past to freeze Council tax but this has not kept pace with funding additional or even existing services.

This is not an easy decision, we realise that it will impact some residents adversely. The Council will have to review its Council Tax support scheme to protect the most vulnerable residents. The Council will still have to make cuts and make huge savings because of continued Government austerity measures.

So why should Council Tax increase? Any public service has to be paid for - if the Government reduces the grant it previously gave to the Council the money has to come from somewhere. Brent has cut £145 million from its budget - this is money the government has taken away from Brent residents over the last 4/5 years. Brent has made efficiencies, transformed services, shared services with other boroughs, cut jobs and some services and increased and added new charges, the payment for collecting Green waste , is an example. The cuts are so severe that the Council is now faced with cutting services which will adversely affect people lives, particularly the elderly housebound, residents with a disability, and environmental services such as street cleaning and repairing pot holes.

I didn't notice them arguing for an increase last year and seem to remember a passionate speech by Cllr Tatler on the impact an increase would make on the poorest pupils in her school.  

In the second paragraph they imply that the Council will have to review the Council Tax Support Scheme if they put up Council Tax but their leader Muhammed Butt told me at the Civic Centre Consultation that this would not be possible for the 2016-17 financial year.

Scrutiny Committee had argued both for an Council tax increase and for a review of the Council Tax Support Scheme to protect those on lowest incomes.

There are no proposals for a review in the Cabinet papers although improvements in the scheme would address the issues Cllr Tatler raised last year.

Where do the Fryent councillors stand on this?