Climate Refugees, Climate Crisis & Population Displacement - February 11th

Local STP and Health inequalities Jan 25th Bridge Park

You can register:

·        Online: https://brentnhshealthforum_Jan2017.eventbrite.co.uk
·        By emailing: brentccg.engagement@nhs.net

Failing Youth: 'London's lost youth service' special report by Sian Berry, Green AM

From Sian Berry, Green Party Assembly Member for London

My new report shows councils have had to cut more than a third of their youth services since 2011, and will have to make more cuts next year unless the Mayor steps in.

The report – London’s lost youth services – shows that London council youth services have lost a third of staff and £22 million in funding cuts since 2011.

Government cuts have hit all London councils hard, and youth services have been put on the chopping block across our city as a result. My findings include that the average council has cut youth service funding by nearly £1 million since 2011, and that plans are in place to reduce 2017/18 budgets by another 25 per cent on average.

The impact of these cuts could be devastating. Good quality youth services help young people develop skills, be creative and live positive social lives, and make them less vulnerable to falling into crime or the exploitation of groups like gangs.

The Mayor does fund some youth initiatives through policing budgets, but these are mainly targeted at knife and gang crime, and many of them also depend on the general youth services that are seeing the deepest cuts being available once young people decide to make changes to their lives.

This Wednesday at Mayor’s Question Time, I’ll be asking the Mayor what he can do to help. He has a fund worth £18 million a year that puts £3 million into services for young people – the London Crime Prevention Fund – but it needs expanding. It was started in 2013 and recently renewed by the Mayor for four years, but only at the same level of funding as under Boris Johnson.

Saving youth centres and youth workers would genuinely help to improve young people’s lives in London and would also help achieve Sadiq Khan’s goal of real crime prevention.

My report , ‘London’s lost youth services’, is based on a freedom of information request to borough councils. It reveals that youth services, which are non-statutory and not protected from austerity cuts, have been cut back dramatically in the past five years.

Between 2011/12 and 2016/17:

• Across London more than £22 million was cut from youth services budgets.
• The average council in London has cut its youth service budget by nearly £1 million – an average of 36 per cent.
• More than 30 youth centres have been closed.
• At least 12,700 places for young people have been lost.
• Council youth service employment has been reduced on average by 39 per cent – from 738 full-time equivalent staff across 20 councils to 452 in 2016/17.
• Funding to voluntary sector youth work has also gone down – by an average of 35 per cent in councils that were able to provide data.

Brent Cabinet 'thrilled' by land deal with off-shore companies

A Cabinet meeting tonight, which devoted about 3 minutes to each item on the agenda, approved the Council's controversial Stonebridge-Bridge Park land deal with off-shore companies.  The Lead Member for the issue is Muhammed Butt, Leader of the Council, who now appears to be leading on Regeneration, and he spoke glowingly of the project, the removal of the 'eye sore' Unisys and the opportunities it offered to the Council.

In a rushed but stumbling speech Cllr Butt claimed that the off-shore risk was mitigated by  the creation of a UK subsidiary company by the off-shore GMH with off-shore Harborough Invest acting as the second guarantor.

The issue was covered by the Kilburn Times LINK today as well as by Wembley Matters LINK a week ago but this stimulated no questionning by any members of the Cabinet and Deputy Leader Margaret McLennan outdid her leader in euphoria declaring that she was 'thrilled' by the deal. No questions were asked and no discussion took place before the proposal was rubber-stamped.

For 'those who have eyes to see' there were plenty of between the lines reservations in the report from Officers and I have heard the Cabinet's decision described as 'ill-advised rather than illegal'.

All other business went through without any discussion apart from expressions of mutual admiration from  Cabinet members.

The Scrutiny recommendations on the controversial Sustainability and Transformation Plan (a cover for cuts or a brave new integrated world) were about process rather than content and were approved:

1. An update be provided to the committee on the OnePublic Estate, including an update on the Central Middlesex and Willesden Hubs.

2. Efforts be made to engage with health scrutiny across north-west London with regard to the Sustainability and Transformation Plan.

3. Consideration be given to collaborative work with Healthwatch groups to support engagement around the Sustainability and Transformation Plan.

4. A regular progress report on the Sustainability and Transformation Plan be provided to the committee, the first of these to be provided six months from the date of the current meeting.

There was no discussion on the One Public Estate Plan where the position of voluntary organisations being charged market rents for use of NHS Estate's property has caused much consternation in the sector. Muhammed Butt is also the Lead Member on this issue.

The Budget Task Group's recommendations would be 'taken into consideration' and Cllr Southwood promised dialogue but made no promise on the Task Group's opposition to bulk collection charges.

Cllr Mitchell-Murray, lead member for Children and Families sent her apologies to the meeting LINK. Muhammed Butt took over her role in December with the Council stating that she hoped to retrun in January 2017.

New lead member for Regeneration, Cllr Shama Tatler was present and seemed extremely happy to be at the top table but made only a very minor contribution. The demarcation between her role and that of Muhammed Butt, which led to the conflict between Butt and Cllr Mashari, still seems unclear.

Will Brent be paying interpreters enough under the new contract?

Brent Cabinet will tonight award a new interpretating service contract to DA Languages Ltd. Although the report does not mention the rate the company pays to interpreters, and the information is not readily available on their website. However, I have ascertained they pay at the lower end of such provision, at £12 for the first hour and £10 per hour after that, paid at 15 minute intervals. If you take off costs of travel and travel time the rate is much lower.

The Council will also try and move the service to telephone rather than face to face, to save money, although it does not evaluate this in terms of the client's interests:

Whilst demand can be managed in some areas, for example by encouraging customers to be accompanied by family members who are able to interpret, there are many situations where this can’t be done, particularly in CYPS where an independent professional interpreter is needed. In this area, there is demand for interpreters for:

• Social work safeguarding assessments
• Family Court proceedings
• No Recourse to Public Funds assessments
• Assessments of Unaccompanied Asylum seekers

It is clear that this is skilled work where any errors could have a profound impact on clients' lives. The question is will the rates DA Languages pay be sufficient to attract the most highly skilled interpreters.

The Cabinet report states:

 Based on the volumes from September 2015 to August 2016, the annual cost of the new contract will be £224k, which represents a 6% saving of £14k. The cost of the contract over three years would therefore be £671k. This is less than the Council’s target procurement savings of 10% per contract. 


Spend through the contract can be reduced by encouraging use of the telephone interpreting service, which has no minimum charges, and no late cancellation charges. An interpreting appointment of less than 45 minutes will always cost less if telephone interpreting is used instead. 


Based on historic usage, 50% of spoken face to face appointments of 1 hour or less actually take 45 minutes or less. Moving these to telephone interpreting would save a further £6k. This would allow the Council to broadly meet its 10% procurement savings target on this contract. 


For comparison these are the fees paid by the Government from their website. LINK Note the much higher fee for the first hour and the travel expenses:  

Monday to Friday

First hour: £48 then:

• 8.01am to 6pm: £16 per hour
• 6.01pm to 8pm: £20 per hour
•  

Saturday

First hour: £72 then £26 per hour

Sundays and bank holidays

First hour: £72 then: £32 per hour

Minimum payment is for three hours. (You will only receive one minimum payment and one first hour enhanced payment in any 24 hour period.)

Telephone interpreting rates:

£10 for every 30 minutes 8.01am to 11.59pm

£20 for every 30 minutes midnight to 8am

Travel expenses

Car: more than 50 miles (one way): 23.8 a mile (for each mile in excess of 50 miles).

Actual car parking costs in all cases if most economical route has been taken to the office (to a maximum of £13 if short-stay car parking).

There are exceptions to the maximum car parking fee, for example airport car parking when air transport is a requirement.

We do not reimburse travel costs for interpreters whose travel from home to work and back falls within zones 1 to 6, as the cost of a return journey using an oyster card will be under £13.00 each day. (Interpreters are paid an enhanced first hour each day to cover the costs of any additional expenses incurred during your booking.)

Public transport: actual fare refunded in full if:

• tickets or receipts are provided; and
• most economical route taken; and
• fare (or season ticket if advanced bookings made in same period mean this is more cost effective) over £13.

Camden kids demand clear air

"I want a limousine. But an electric one" Short clip from our reportage on #London's fight for #cleanair. Replay via https://t.co/wIlmCiGPB7 pic.twitter.com/PJghhxp4D2

— Avenue de l'Europe (@avenuedeleurope) January 16, 2017

More questions than answers at Brent Council on school expansions and Bridge Park

I drew attention recently to the blackout on the apparent problems with some current Brent school expansion projects that the public have not been allowed to hear about. LINK

Information was withheld at the Cabinet meeting and the decision made in private session and now councillors have been told that the public will have to be excluded if the issue is raised at Full Council on January 23rd.

The issue is possibly about three current expansion projects at Byron Court Primary,  Stonebridge Primary and Elsley Primary schools. It is likely that the price agreed on the projects with contractors has not been viable and the Council is either left with having to pay out more or downgrading the designs.

The accountability issue is whether there was any fault by either side on the procurement of these works and at what financial or quality cost.

Item 9 is about decisions taken by the Leader and/or Cabinet because of their urgency before before Full Council.

Apart from the IT items clearly the Bridge Park Conditional Land Sale Agreement is important.  This involves Brent Council working with development companies registered in off-shore as covered on Wembley Matters LINK.

It is not entirely clear whether Full Council will be able to discuss this as the note above states, 'The matters before the Council are merely for reporting by the Leader of the Council.' Will the public me excluded from any discussion on this as well?

Lorraine King announces her departure from the Brent and Kilburn Times

Lorraine King

Lorraine King announced on Twitter over the weekend that she will be leaving the Brent and Kilburn Times at the end of this month:

Sad to say I'll be leaving the @bktimes on January 31 after many, many years. I'm really sad to go but as they  say onwards and upwards

Lorraine has been reporter, news editor and digital editor at the Kilburn Times and will be moving elsewhere in Archant.  Her tweet immediately drew tributes from Brent residents' associations, councillors and many  Kilburn Times readers.

Fans will still be able to hear her DJing on Colourful Radio on Saturday mornings. http://www.colourfulradio.com/

Lorraine's strength as a reporter and editor is that she is a Brent local with strong roots in the community and cares deeply about  what goes on in the area.

There have been times when her passion to fight for the community through campaigning articles has not made her popular with the local council (of whatever political hue) but the role of a local newspaper is to help hold politicians to account and that she did well.

These are difficult times for local newspapers and Archant is going through a second round of  restructuring and has reduced reporting staff with more pooled stories and a move towards 'digital first'.  The Brent and Kilburn Times has become thinner and distribution is sometimes patchy but I believe that it is essential that it survives for the sake of local democracy and part of the glue that holds a community together.

Here are some memorable front pages fom the Kilburn Times:

PS Lorraine, I resisted mentioning the shoes.