Brent Council to instigate recording of legal advice & (some) meetings with developers in response to criticism

The Audit Advisory Committee is not the most high profile of Brent Council committees but is has an important role, not least in these times of controversy.  The Committee has a fairly independent membership so it is to be hoped they give matters a good airing.

Next Wednesday's meeting has three items relating to stories published on Wembley Matters where officers seek, in two of them, to respond to some of the criticisms.

Firstly there are recommendations made by the auditor following his consideration of the objections to Brent Council accounts regarding the payment made to Cara Davani, former Head of Human Resources LINK. Despite not finding for the objectors he did suggest some actions in areas highlighted in their evidence.

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The report puts on record Brent Council's  view of the initial case in which Cara Davani was found guily by a Watford Employment Tribunal of racial dscrimination and bullying of Rosemarie Clarke:

It remains the Council’s position that the sequence of events resulting in the unfair dismissal of Rosemarie Clarke reflect poorly on the organisation as it then was, and caused harm to the Council’s former employee. Lessons have been learned and new procedures have been implemented and the Council hopes that with this report the long-standing matter may now be brought to a close.

Another controversial issue has been Cllr Butt's meetings with developers, the lack of a note of what took place at the meetings and absence of any officers at these meetings LINK.

The Committee will consider proposed changes to the Brent Planning Code of Practice and will need to ensure that the changes are sufficiently robust as to restore public confidence in the planning process before they go to the Cabinet for approval.

The report states: 

There is a new section on ‘Discussions between members and meetings with developers or their representatives’. This in part incorporates into the code ad hoc advice issued by the Monitoring Officer to Members in the recent past and in part strengthens the Council’s commitment to being seen to be promoting good practice. The requirements aim to strike a proper balance between promoting public confidence in the integrity of the planning process and the legitimate reality of local government life. Of particular note is the requirement that pre-application discussions or discussions about undecided applications between Members and developers (or their representatives), are arranged, attended and documented by an officer.

This is the full section:*

Provided Members comply with the practical requirements  if this code and the Members Code of Conduct, there is no legal rule against Members, whether of the same group or not, discussing strategic planning issues, general policy issues or even future decisions.

Similarly, joint working, both formal and infornal, and dialogue between members of the Planning Commitee and members of the Cabinet is recognised as a legitinate reality of local government life. Members of the Planning Commitee need to ensure that when making planning decisions, they make up their own mind and on the planning merits.

Relevant members of the Cabinet are entitled to meet with developers or their representatives and other relevant stakeholders as part of their role to promote Brent and the regeneration, development and other commercial opportunities available in the borough.  In doing so Members of the Cabinet must always act in the best interests of the council and ultimately in the public interest, and in accordance with the high standards of conduct expected of Members, to ensure that the integrity of the planning process is not undermined and the council is not brought into disrepute.

Reasonable care and judgement should be exercised in relation to such meetings, taking into account the purpose of the meeting, the nature of the issues to be discussed and the timing.  In appropriate circumstances, exercising proper judgement may include ensuring a record is kept of the meeting. Cabinet members should make sure it is understood that their participation in marketing events or commercial discussions is separate from the adminstrative and regulaltory role of Members of the Planning Committee.

Although members of the Cabinet are entitled to express support or opposition to development proposed in the borough, they cannot use their position as a Member improperly to confer on or secure for any person an advantage or disadvantage.

As pre-application discussions or discussions about undecided applications require particular care, the following additional rules apply. An officer must make the arrangements for such meetings, attend and write notes. The meeting arrangements must include agreeing an agenda in advance. (my emphasis)

* The report on the Committee Agenda is a 'tracked changes' Word document converted into a PDF and very hard to read, particularly for anyone not versed in Word. Without a 'clean copy' I find it hard to see how it could receive proper scrutiny. See it HERE  It's ironic that a document trying to increase accountability and transparency is itself not readily accessible.

The last item is controversial and will remain so as Brent Council has restricted public access to the information. There is an update on the issues surrounding the asbestos contamination in Paddington Cemetery, first raised by Cllr John Duffy on this blog LINK but the update is not publicly available and the public will be excluded from the discussion about it.   No glimmer of light here.

Call for Brent Labour Group to declare opposition to The Village School academisation bid

The Trade Union Liasion Officers of Brent Central Constituency Labour Party have written ot the Labour Group on Brebt Council asking them to make a public declaration of their opposition to The Village School Governing Body's proposal  to convert the school into an academy. 

Their letter reads:

It was good to see many of you at the House of Commons in December celebrating the Brent Central election victory with Dawn Butler, Jeremy Corbyn, Ian Lavery (chair of PLP), Kate Osamor and others.

You will recall that the issue of the Governors’ attempt to privatise Village School through academisation was discussed.It was great to have an assurance from Jeremy at the meeting that the national Labour Party policy is opposition to academisation and Dawn has already made clear her opposition to this privatisation.

The National Education Union (formerly NUT and ATL) was forced to stage a one day strike on 14 December which closed the school.120 teachers at the school were on strike in order to prevent this huge resource and vital service (as one of the largest and most modern special schools in England it serves the whole of Brent and is rated Outstanding by OFSTED).

Sadly more strikes are being prepared for this month as Governors press on with a plan to take this resource out of the public sector (losing £millions of Brent Council investment).

We urge you at the Labour Group meeting on 8 January 2018 to make a public declaration of opposition to the Governors proposal and publicise this widely 

With best wishes for the New Year 

Graham Durham and Hank Roberts
Trade Union Liaison officers - Brent Central CLP

End Engineer's Way road surface disaster now

Engineers Way, outside Brent Civic Centre, today

 

Paul Lorber has written to Brent CEO Carolyn Downs calling on her to halt efforts to repair the expensive brick paving outside the Civic Centre and to tarmac the road, Engineer's Way, instead:

You will recall that I expressed my concern about the crumbling road outside
the Civic Centre recently.

You advised of repairs which were carried out but clearly did not work.

The road is a mess again and in my view both a danger and risking causing
damage to private vehicles driving over it. It is also a danger to
pedestrians who cross the road to get to the shops or the square opposite
the Civic Centre.

The materials used are clearly unsuitable for a road in the middle of a
permanent building site around Wembley Stadium.

I think the time has come to accept that a big mistake was made using the
individual stones for this road, that money was wasted but that time has now
come for dig up the stones and replace them with level tarmac road which is
not subject to constant crumbling as a result of the volume of large lorries
passing by.

Please confirm that action will at long last be taken to provide a safe road
in front if the Civic Centre and prevent Brent Council becoming a laughing
stock for allowing for this disaster to continue.

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.