Wembley High Road works finished at last

This is how Wembley High Road looked earlier today following the completion of the Thames Water sewer works and the making good of the surface where excavation took place. At that time the diversion at Parlk Lane was still in force.

Throw out '80% of market rent' definition of affordable, Sian Berry urges Sadiq Khan

Problems with the term 'affordable' regarding both rents and house purchase, have featured regularly on Wembley Matters. Here Sian Berry, Green London Assembly Member, tackles Sadiq Khan's failure to issue clear guidelines. First published on Sian's City Hall website.

Is the Mayor going to break his promise to redefine what ‘affordable’ rent means for the average Londoner?

The importance of setting a new definition of ‘affordable’ rent in London cannot be overstated. In my response to the Mayor’s draft Housing Strategy, just published, I’ve voiced my concerns that the Mayor’s efforts to define a London Living Rent include loopholes that break his promise to sort this out.

These loopholes mean Boris Johnson’s ‘80 per cent of market rent’ definition will still be the norm in most new developments, leaving Londoners out in the cold.

In recent years, under Government policies and those of the previous Mayor, the ‘affordable’ component of many developments has been entirely made up of shared ownership and ‘affordable’ intermediate rented units.

The rents in these homes are able to go up to “no more than 80 per cent of the local market rent,” as defined by the Government in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

We have uniquely high private market rents in London. Rents here are nearly twice as high as the median for other regions of England (see the chart below, taken from evidence in the draft strategy).

The impact of this runs right through the housing crisis, preventing Londoners saving for deposits and pushing many people into homelessness.

With rent inflation also outstripping wages, the the case for defining affordability in terms of incomes not market rates is overwhelming.

‘No more than 80 per cent of the local market rent’

This year, I have spoken in committees and the Assembly with the Mayor and Deputy Mayor James Murray about strengthening the definition of ‘affordable’ in London.

I have asked them to make the case to Government more strongly that London should be able to set a definition of affordable that is below this maximum and, ideally, defined in terms of wages not market rates.

The Mayor says strongly in his draft strategy that he doesn’t believe the Government’s definition is right for London. He has also defined, as part of his funding programme, a new London Affordable Rent at social rent levels (though these would be higher than the current average paid by social tenants in London) and a new London Living Rent, set at a third of average local household incomes.

However, this strategy and the London Plan will apply not only to homes funded by the Mayor but also to the private developments that are expected to meet most of London’s affordable housing needs, through the contributions they make to gain planning permission.

I am therefore very concerned to see that section 4.22 of the draft Housing Strategy includes the comment: “All intermediate rented homes should provide at least a 20 per cent discount on market rents.” and to see the 80 per cent of market rates definition appear in the glossary. This is the old definition plainly stated when it was supposed to be abolished by the new Mayor.

The actual policy sections for affordable housing then say the Mayor will be: “supporting a range of other types of intermediate rented homes as long as they are genuinely affordable to Londoners, generally meaning that they should be accessible by those whose household incomes fall under £60,000.”

With the Government’s 80 per cent definition also included in policies in the draft London Plan, I think we’re looking at a broken promise from the Mayor – maintaining a loophole that developers will exploit, and failing properly to move away from the old definition of ‘affordable’.

Redefining ‘affordable’ for London

There are two ways London could seek to set a more realistic upper limit of ‘affordable’ rent that would apply across the board:

1. In the Mayor’s discussions with Government for devolved housing powers, he should seek to allow London to set its own definition of affordable within both our funding programmes and planning policies, based on the very high cost of market rent in London. This would be the most effective way to achieve our goal as any new definition should be set in relation to wages, rather than market rates, and this requires a clear deviation from the NPPF.

2. Through the London Plan, we should define intermediate ‘affordable’ rent at a lower maximum proportion of the local market rate. This would still be compliant with the NPPF, as it would not be above 80 per cent, but there is enough evidence to convince an examiner of the validity of a policy that required a lower limit in London.

Councils are already messing with the definition of Living Rent too

I’m a borough councillor in Camden and there the council has set up its own housing company to rent out some of the new flats it is building on estates. These were promised at a Living Rent but, now the first flats have gone out for renting, it’s clear that these aren’t following the Mayor’s definition of a London Living Rent, especially not for families.

Read more about this on my local website: Camden Council pushes out families with high rents in its new ‘Living Rent’ scheme.

I’ve asked the Mayor in a written question this month what he thinks about councils undermining the term Living Rent in this way. He’s been very vocal about the previous Mayor’s definition of ‘affordable’ being nothing of the kind, and I think he should be standing up against people creating confusion about his new definition so soon after it was established.

Wembley High Road sewer works to be completed by end of the week. Discussions taking place with those responsible for the concrete blockage.

Residents and businesses around Wembley High Road as well as drivers and public transport users will be relieved to hear that relief is at hand! A spokesperson for Thames Water told me today:

 Our work on Wembley High Road is due to be finished by the end of this week. We’ve traced the source of the concrete and are discussing the matter with the third party who were responsible.

Thames were not prepared to name the third party.

Disquiet over developers could become election issue in May 2018

Looking back on  2017 it is clear that regeneration, particularly in the Wembley area, has been the most controversial issue reported on Wembley Matters.

Planning applications from Quintain have come thick and fast, sometimes several complex, multi-million schemes, have been submitted for one sitting of the Planning Committee. The Committee itself was weakened by the absence of Cllr Sarah Marquis on maternity leave. Her lawyerly independence as chair gave the Committee some much needed credibility but in her absence many far-reaching controversial decisions have been made on the casting vote of the current chair Cllr Agha.

Time and time again, despite opposition from residents, schemes have been approved that do not comply with the Council's own guidelines on  issues such as height and light. Officers give excuses such as good design makes up for the height or that students do not need as much light in their rooms as long-term residents. But most importantly the amount of affordable housing has been less than that advocated by Brent Council and the GLA, and the definition of 'affordable' has been manipulated to an extent that makes the term meaningless.

Rather than providing homes for families, Quintain has switched to all inclusive 'life-style' private rental schemes boasting super broadband access aimed at high income single people or couples without children. Meanwhile Brent's housing list becomes longer.

Given all this it is no wonder that residents were suspicious of Brent Council leader Muhammed Butt's unrecorded meetings with developers revealed in the response to Andrew Linnie's FoI response.  His claim  that the initial FoI response had got dates wrong did not dispel the suspicions and WM will be watching developments closely in 2018.

Similarly the meetings that Butt along with other councillors, including members of the Planning Committee, had with Tottenham Hotspur FC and the Football Association left residents feeling that decisions were being made, if not secretly, without their active involvement LINK. The increase in the number of events at the Stadium and higher capacity, continues to have a negative impact on residents.

The long-running saga of Brent Council's pay-off to former Head of Resources, Cara Davani, who had been found guilty of racial discrimination and bullying by an Employment Tribunal, was the subject of an objection to the the Council's accounts by a group of local residents, led by ex-tax inspector Philip Grant. The auditor eventually found in favour of the Council in a pretty unsatisfactory report LINK.  Philip is to be congratulated on the thorough case he painstakingly put together and a fair reading of his post on the issue suggests that the Council's case is far from convincing.

One of the interesting sidelights on the case is that part of the employment tribunal case against Cara Davani was that Rosemary Clarke, a black woman, had been treated unfairly compared with how Clive Heaphy a white man and former Brent Head of Finance had been treated in his case which involved a handsome pay-off of 140,508 as 'compensation for loss of office'.  The auditor's report reveals that the Clive Heaphy case was cited by Cara Davani to support her threat that if she did not receive a pay-off she would take action alleging that she had been sexually discriminated against  by the Council in comparison with Heaphy. She herself had been involved in the compensation package put together for Heaphy! As Philip Grant points out this all went back to the earlier conflict between Cllr Butt and Gareth Daniel where in an exchange of emails between Heaphy and Davani it was said, 'Mo owes us one' in an apparent reference to bringing in former Ofsted colleague Christine Gilbert as CEO.

Given all this how secure is Muhammed Butt in his role as leader going into the May 2018 local elections?   The thorn in Butt's side in 2017 was undoubtedly Cllr John Duffy who challenged the Labour Cabinet and officers over what he saw as mismanagement of the Council's waste services and the ill-fated outsourcing of enforcement of a littering strategy via fixed penalty notices. He made the case that the Council had failed to both provide an effective service and provide best financial value.

Duffy failed to be selected to fight his ward in 2018 following a vote of Kilburn ward party members which I was told was not at Butt's behest but an independent decision. Butt was apparently pleased with the de-selection but when Duffy continued to challenge the Cabinet and built support for his claims, the party turned to disciplinary action against him based on allegations of bullying. The party removed the Labour whip from Duffy.  There have been calls from the public for him to stand as an independent in May but that appears to be unlikely.

Other Labour group members who had been critical of Butt have been quiet, with Cllr Pavey, who had challenged him for the leadership previously, adopting a low profile.  Stonebridge councillor Zaffar Van Kalwala, an earlier casualty of his leader's displeasure, has operated in a sort of limbo. He will not be standing in May but has put a lot of energy into community initiatives with young people in St Rapahel's and Stonebridge. Kalwala's fellow Stonebridge councillor, the ambitious Sabina Khan, has decided her ambitions lie elsewhere and has hardly attended any local meetings for months.

Elsewhere Cllr Jumbo Chan has impressed with his work on the Joint Teachers Consultative Panel in developing a Brent Teachers' Fair Workload Charter and in leading opposition to the academisation of The Village School.

Unlike Haringey, the surge in Labour Party membership and support for Momentum made little impact on candidate selections for the local elections and the slate for next year does not promise any radical move to the left. There is at least one Momentum candidate who is likely to get elected but that is one out of 63 and it could be a rather lonely and potentially vulnerable position unless rank and file members get behind her.

Brent Green Party has a new and young leadership and is likely to mount an effective challenge in a few target wards and it is crucial that there is some quality opposition on the largely one party council. The rival Tory groups have come together ahead of the local elections but won't be helped by the state of the Tory government. Lib Dems won't be helped by their lone councillor's decision  to go independent but they may target wards where they have a relatively firm base in the community.

Most intriguing is the prospect, raised in comments on this blog and some Brent Facebook accounts of the possibility of some independent candidates emerging from the various campaigns that have taken place over the last two years. If they are based on residents' associations they could be in with a chance - watch this space.

African Soldiers in WW1: A Journey of Research, and Remembering

Guest post byYewande Okuleye, first published on Operation Black Vote and reproduced with permission.

Did you know the first shot of WW1 was fired by the British, in West Africa? Well, I must share a secret with you. I did not know this fact also.

My role as curator for the exhibition – Back from the Western Front: African Soldiers of the Great War in Britain required it was imperative to become somewhat of an expert, on all matters concerning African soldiers in WW1. The first thing I learnt was Regiment Sergeant – Major Grunshi, who served with the Gold Coast Regiment (former British colony and modern-day Ghana), fired the first shot, when the British attacked the German colony of Togoland in 1914. 

My identity as a British/Nigerian female curator of an exhibition about African soldiers was quite significant on two levels. Firstly, this was my first paid job within the museum sector. Although I had volunteered for about 15 years in different museum settings; archives, education and exhibition planning, securing paid employment was something of a holy grail. I was at the point of giving up, when I received an email from a colleague with a link that simply said “Yewande, this job has your name written on it”. Secondly, I brought a unique perspective, informed by my lived experiences and insights about African culture to the project. For example, my ability to speak Yoruba, and my local knowledge of South West, Nigeria provided a different lens to interpret archival primary sources. In this instance, the surnames of soldiers recruited in South West, Nigeria seemed to ‘leap off the page’ demanding my attention. It was obvious to me, that soldier’s surnames had been replaced with names of towns and villages. As it transpired, this was a common British colonial recruitment practice. 
  

My curatorial remit was designed to facilitate community volunteers to access, interpret primary sources, and co-curate the exhibition. Therefore, I played an important role in shaping the ideas which informed the exhibition. This blog post unravels how an exhibition which sought to highlight a ‘forgotten history’, became a journey of discovery for all of us. Our main aim for the exhibition was to research, remember and commemorate African soldiers who contributed to WW1, however we soon started to ask a pertinent question. 

Why was this history forgotten in the first place? My simple answer was history is not about recording all the facts. Historians are selective in constructing narratives about people and events. Historiography is biased, and the African narrative was a mere foot note in the script about WW1. My main motivation for this exhibition was to foreground aspects of the foot note. This was achieved by facilitating volunteers to question their assumptions, and fine tune their evidence gathering, and interpretations, to create a narrative which brought the voices of the people to the fore. For example, we wanted to share the story of Regimental Sergeant Major Belo Akure, a Nigerian soldier who was awarded a distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) for bravery in South Nigeria and a Military Medal award for bravery in German East Africa. Regimental Sergeant Belo Akure represented the intersection of the local, global, and colonial as a Nigerian representative at the Empire exhibition at Wembley in 1924.  

 

Regimental Sergeant Belo Akure Outside the African Wall City Empire Exhibition Wembley 1924, 
Curtesy Brent Archives

As our research progressed, it become increasingly difficult to ignore the nuances and complexities thrown up within this enquiry. This narrative was not just about heroic African soldiers awarded medals for fighting against each other, to advance British and German interests. This narrative was also about the vast number of non- combatants who built roads, bridges, worked in quarries, transported weapons, and supplies. The non-combatants did the heavy lifting at the Western Front and the African war fronts in Togoland, (Togo) Kameroun, (Cameroun) German East Africa, and German South West Africa. This narrative was also about the absence of women from the story. We did not have the evidence of embroidered silk postcards sent from the Western Front to their loved ones. (1) 

In this exhibition, we selected a photograph of women digging roads in the Tanganyika district of British East Africa (modern Tanzania). This image really brought the reality of war home to me. I was really disturbed to discover women, and children were ‘recruited’ to build roads. The notion of recruitment under these war conditions is not very clear, as some accounts suggest recruitment was predominantly forced labour. In this case, the account, and contributions of less important people, like women and children might never be recovered. The metaphor of the fleeting presence of this history is reproduced by the blurred spectral figures we can just about make out in the extreme wide shot of the photograph.

 

I was very pleased when midway into the project, I was working with volunteers who were curious, committed, and passionate about creating an exhibition which not only highlighted the foot notes from history, but also foregrounded narratives which people might just care about. We cared, when we discovered over 646 men of the South African Native Labour 

Corps (SANLC) died when the SS Mendi sank in the English Channel on the 21^st, February 1917. Although the sinking of the SS Mendi might have fallen into historical obscurity in the West, memories were kept alive through oral narratives which became embedded within the black South African collective memory. The SS Mendi also raised questions about how history is written, and why some events are forgotten. Dr Shawn Sobers film, African Kinship series  both articulated our questions and offered a fresh inflection of (re) presentations of remembrance and commemoration of the black South African non-combatants, who died in the SS Mendi maritime disaster.   

Still from African Kinship Series film by Dr Shawn Sobers

  

Back from the Western Front: African Soldiers of the Great War in Britain does not attempt to cover the whole story, it provides a space for the audience to absorb and reflect on different facets of the human experience of war. Themes of war were highlighted through a case study approach which provided vignettes from different parts of Africa. This was an attempt to lead the conversation away from the prevalent Eurocentric discourse which represents Africa as a homogenised, social, and cultural space which obscures contours of diversity, complexities, and historical specificity.  Although, the exhibition might increase awareness about the contribution of African soldiers, the impact of WW1 on the continent of Africa still requires inclusion in the wider narrative about the Great War.

Back from the Western Front: African Soldiers of the Great War in Britain is a photographic exhibition, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The exhibition is showing at the Willesden Library till the January 8^th, 2018.

Follow Yewande on Twitter -@Yewandeslondon  for conversations about  diversity, culture and lifestyle in London.

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[1] Fergus. Read, “Embroidered Silk Postcard,” Imperial War Museums, accessed  July 27, 2017, http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/first-world-war-silk-postcards. The embroidered postcards were very popular with British soldiers fighting at the Western Front, who often sent them home as souvenirs.

Brent Council and Cara Davani – The Last Post...(and, How much should the Council expect to pay for a bucket of whitewash?)

Cllr. Muhammed Butt and Cara Davani
(from a Brent Council photograph celebrating International Women’s Day, March 2015)

Guest post by Philip Grant (please note as this is a long article it has been posted with a continuation page. Click at the end of the article to read all.

On 5 December 2017, three hours before the start of an Audit Advisory Committee meeting, Brent Council’s auditor issued his decision letters on the objections against its 2015/16 accounts over the payment of £157,610 to its former HR Director, Cara Davani. I will ask Martin to attach a copy of the decision letter I received, so that it is in the public domain for anyone to read if they wish to. READ IT HERE

In summary the auditor decided that the payment was not unlawful and that he would not issue a Public Interest Report over the issues the objectors had raised. He did, however, say that ‘there are a number of governance areas that we consider that the Council should strengthen’, and made several recommendations, mainly over keeping formal written records of legal advice given and of meetings (a familiar problem at Brent!).

I am sure that the auditor believes he exercised his professional judgement properly in coming to his decision. According to his “progress report” ahead of the 5 December meeting, he had also submitted his ‘statement of reasons on the objection’ to his Regulator, PSAA (Public Sector Audit Appointments Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Local Government Association) for comment.

Maybe I am a “loser” who finds it difficult to accept that he was wrong. But I can’t help feeling that I, and the four other local people who objected to the £157k payment, have been let down by a system which is meant to ensure that local electors can challenge the potential misuse of funds by their Council through a ‘fair and impartial process’. I cannot change the auditor’s decision, but I can set out why I think it was wrong. 

At the heart of the objections were two decisions, both made by the then interim Chief Executive, Christine Gilbert. One, in May/June 2015, was to make the £157,610 leaving payment to Ms Davani. The other was not to take disciplinary action against Ms Davani in September 2014, and I will look at how the auditor dealt with that decision first.

Decision not to take disciplinary action against Cara Davani following the Rosemarie Clarke Employment Tribunal judgment in September 2014:

In the course of his “Findings”, the auditor says:

‘I conclude there is nothing to persuade me that this decision was not within the range of broadly reasonable decisions open to the Council.’

In fact, as all five objectors had pointed out to the auditor, the decision was not even ‘broadly reasonable’; it was so unreasonable that no reasonable person, or Council, in possession of the facts could have made it. The auditor had started his paragraph by saying:

‘Whether or not disciplinary procedures against Cara Davani should have been taken following the Employment Tribunal judgment was a decision for her line manager, Christine Gilbert, having regard to internal policies and guidance and taking account of the facts leading up to, and arising from, the hearing. We have been informed there is no documentation recording the decision on this.’

One of my fellow objectors, with experience of employment matters, had told the auditor that the evidence of Ms Davani’s actions in the judgment was ‘sufficient …to justify any reasonable employer to summarily dismiss Ms Davani for gross misconduct.’ The auditor had been given first hand evidence of Carolyn Downs, Brent’s current Chief Executive, admitting privately to the objectors in December 2016, that the Council should have taken disciplinary action against Ms Davani in September 2014, and that if she had been Chief Executive in those circumstances, it would have done.

The auditor had also been shown that Brent’s own Disciplinary Policy and Procedure documents made it clear that if an employee is found to have committed "gross misconduct", this will normally result in dismissal. The types of action by an employee 'which would result in disciplinary action for gross misconduct', as set out  in those documents, included four examples of actions by Ms Davani, made as findings of fact by the Tribunal in its judgment.

Because Christine Gilbert had not kept to Brent’s own policies and guidance when deciding not to take disciplinary action, it was pointed out to the auditor that she had also shown a number of the examples of actions which could have resulted in disciplinary action against her for gross misconduct. So why had she not taken the proper action against Cara Davani, and why was there ‘no documentation recording the decision’?

My submissions to the auditor in August 2017 gave the reasons why, but his decision letter dismisses these, merely saying: ‘whilst I have noted your allegations, I have not seen any supporting evidence.’ I had provided evidence, including text from a written statement made to me in 2016 by a “Civic Centre insider” who was involved at the time, alleging that Ms Gilbert and Cllr. Muhammed Butt had considered the matter in isolation, that they were actively protecting Cara Davani, and that they communicated over it through their private email accounts so that there would be no documentary evidence in the Council’s records.

I had to keep the name of the “insider” secret, as that person did not trust their allegations would be properly investigated, and feared the possible personal / career consequences of having their identity disclosed. I accepted that this meant their evidence was only “hearsay”, but in the absence of any documentary evidence from the Council, their evidence on the matter was also “hearsay”, so why was their version preferred?

Decision to pay Cara Davani £157,610 as “compensation for loss of office” in 2015:

The auditor concludes his “Findings” on this point by saying:

‘There was nothing in the documentation I have seen to indicate that any amounts paid to Cara Davani were unlawful.’ 

He had seen the original documentation held by Brent Council from May and June 2015 in relation to this payment, and received representations on it from the Council, but had not allowed me or the other objectors to see it.

I have already covered the reasons why this ‘material information’ could and should have been shared with us, so that we could comment on it fully, in a previous guest blog LINK . The information included not only legal advice, but also other correspondence and documents which would have set out what information was given to the QC, and what was not, on which the advice the Council relied on justify the payment was based. It was made clear to the auditor that it was impossible for us to support our objections properly without sight of that information.

The auditor’s response to this, in the “Background” section of his decision letter, was:

‘I am satisfied that the provisional views letter sent to you on 3 August 2017 read with the Audit Committee minutes and Conrad Hall’s letter dated 14 December 2016 gave you sufficient information in order to have provided comments to me, such that there has been no unfairness in not sharing the advice.’

In effect, he is saying that the primary documents are not ‘material information’, but that the interpretation of those documents given to him by a Brent Council officer is, and that it:

‘… contains the material facts on which we have relied upon when reaching our decision. For this reason and given that the Council has not waived its legal professional privilege, I have not shared the actual documents containing or recording the legal advice with you.’

In other words, the auditor has reached his decision based on what Brent Council has told him, and has not shared with the objectors any actual documents related to the payment we objected to because Brent Council did not want him to. I am sure any reasonable person will understand why I believe that the process by which the auditor reached his decision was neither fair, nor impartial.

As the auditor would not allow us to see the “material documents”, the objectors had to make their “further comments” on the best information available to them. In his “Background” section the auditor said:

‘Following the Employment Tribunal above, there was a breakdown in trust and relationships between some Members of the Council and Cara Davani.  … This was considered to be an ongoing reputational risk to the Council and that it was difficult to see how Cara Davani could be effective in her role as Human Resources Director, working with Members, going forwards.’

The reputational damage had already been done in September 2014, with the facts about the appalling treatment of Rosemarie Clarke by the Council and Cara Davani receiving wide publicity after the Tribunal judgment was published, and by the failure to take disciplinary action against Ms Davani. Given the situation described, why was nothing done about it until May 2015? My comments gave the auditor evidence of why – showing that Ms Davani was being “protected” by both Christine Gilbert and Cllr. Butt – but that by May 2015 the Council was selecting a new permanent Chief Executive, so that Ms Davani would soon lose that joint protection.

The auditor’s view of the prelude to the “settlement agreement” objected to, following on from the passage quoted above, is described as follows:

‘Meetings took place between the Leader, Chief Executive and various Members to try and resolve the differences but relationships did not improve.  We understand these meetings did not have minutes taken. Following discussions between the Leader and the Chief Executive, it was determined that it would be in the best interests of the Council if Cara Davani and the Council parted company and that legal advice should be sought on possible ways forwards.’

It does not appear that any documentary record exists of those discussions, but the next step is set out in the auditor’s “Findings” as follows:

‘Legal advice was sought in May 2015, which concluded the Council did not have a case to conduct a fair dismissal, noting that Cara Davani had informed the Council that she would take the Council to an Employment Tribunal for unfair dismissal if her employment was terminated.   Given no disciplinary procedures had previously been taken in respect of the findings from the Employment Tribunal, in these circumstances and given the legal advice obtained, it does not appear unreasonable for the Council to decide to proceed with a settlement.’

The ‘legal advice’ referred to was contained in an undated note, made by the Council’s Chief Finance Officer (why was the Council’s Chief Legal Officer, a solicitor, not involved?) about a discussion between Christine Gilbert and a QC, which he had been the only other party to. It was apparently not checked for accuracy by the QC who gave the advice, given the auditor’s recommendation that such advice ‘should be recorded formally immediately after the call and key issues confirmed with the legal adviser.’

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Small electrical goods recycling at the Tricycle Jan 2nd-7th

Task Group put forward ideas on Brent's 2017-18 budget

Brent's 2017-18 budget comes under scrutiny at the Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday January 9th. The Task Group's report appears to have been written before the Communities Secretary's announcement that larger local authorities could raise Council Tax by 5.99% in 2017-18 if 3% was earmarked for social care services. At present the Council intends to raise the tax by 2.99% - the maximum previously allowed without a referendum.

The Task Group, on the basis that the 2017-18 was largely decided last year, makes a number of recommendations on a longer term basis:

1.   Brent should dedicate some time and intellectual space to mapping out the potential consequences of Brexit for the borough, particularly in the areas of population, housing and manufacturing exports. 

2.   Brent should advocate a form of sub regional investment for the “strategic investment pot” produced in the London business rates pool, if the arrangement becomes permanent. The West London Alliance could deliver investment in our region of London. 

3.    The criteria Brent should adopt for strategic investment are as follows:

    ·      That the capital investment should have a spend to save rationale, and, in some way,      reduce Brent’s anticipated revenue spending in forthcoming years. 


    ·      That the investment aligns with the Council’s political priorities. 


    ·      That the investment should represent a sound long-term financial 
decision. 


    ·      That the money spent makes a significant positive impact on the lives of the most vulnerable  in Brent. 

4.   Brent should leave no stone unturned in attempts to grow the local private sector. Two ideas it should specifically look at are appointing a business champion and using the procurement system to support local businesses. 

5.   A report on progress in delivery of the new sexual health services for the borough should come before Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny in six months’ time. 

6.   The Council should always give due consideration to ensuring a geographical spread when strategically purchasing property. 

7.   The Council should set a target to keep bulky waste collection requests low in order to reduce costs and the amount of materials finding their way into landfill. 


8.   The special collection service page of the Brent website should be re- designed to give maximum exposure to alternative and sustainable options which residents can use to dispose of bulky waste, particularly charity retailers in the borough. Helpline staff should also be trained to offer alternative options in the first instance. 


9.  The Council should look to develop sustainable ways for people to dispose of mid-sized waste items as a way of reducing illegal rubbish dumping.   

        

10.  A report should be sent to the appropriate scrutiny committee in twelve months’ time, demonstrating how the change of contract due in July 2018 affects parking enforcement in the latter half of 2018. 


11.  The Council should look into the possibility of hiring an external partner to find more advertising space in the borough on a no-win no-fee basis.

 


12.  A review of pavement licencing in Brent should be carried out to see how much we could generate from this source. This should take particular account of price and enforcement. 


Brexit could reduce the population of Brent as EU citizens return home and thus reduce the Council Tax base as well as impact on local industry, particularly building, and reduce the number of pupils in local schools, creating falling school rolls.

The Task Group go into the issue of Business Rates in some detail as this is likely to be a major source of income in the future.  For a trial period there will be a pool system for London boroughs, the 'London Investment pot' led by the City of London, to distribute the monies. At the commencement there will be a one-off windfall of approximately £4.9 million for the borough and the Task Group suggest:

One potential investment which would meet these criteria (see 3 above) would be the building or purchase of more properties for use as temporary accommodation. The Council currently spends significant sums on rents in the private sector for those in Brent who are homeless. Running more of our own properties would reduce this annual revenue cost as per our criteria above. 
The properties would also not be subject to Right-to-Buy legislation which currently makes it so difficult for local authorities to build true social housing, as they cannot hedge their investment over a long period of time, knowing that 
they may be forced to sell any of their properties at a rate below market value just three years after building it. This idea would also have a clear advantage for the most vulnerable people in our borough.

 The Task Group acknowledge that the Council's initiative to raise cash through selling advertising space on its buildings has had very limited success, raising only £62k rather than the £300k anticipated. They advocate the Council fund an external partner to seek out such space.

The Task Group note that many Brent residents do not have cars and recommend that the Council introduce collection points for recycling mid-range  range goods. The Recycling Centre is not accessible by pedestrians:

One recommendation that may be controversial is 12 above. The Task Group remark that there is a lack of enforcement on shops and bars that spill displays and tables out into pavement space and suggest that income could be generated through a pavement licensing system. Businesses on streets such as Ealing Road and Kingsbury Road would be particularly affected.