Brent Civic Centre's 'Vanity Road' cost £852,000 and an extra £2,777 so far to repair

Collapse of the 'Vanity Road'

Brent Council has admitted that the block paving road outside the Civic Centre  on Enginereers Way cost £852k which was funded through Section 106 money. The cost of repairs to date is £2,777. In a response to Paul Lorber the Council said it did not keep records on the cost of officer time dealing with individual matters such as this. They confirmed that no costs had been recovered from the contractors and other third parties for the defects and repairs.

Following up the issue Lorber said that the cost seemed high for such a short stretch of road and asked for the comparable cost in tarmac. In addition he asked if the Council intended to pursue the contractor for the cost of repairs.

Value for money? Brent councillors' attendance record

It is interesting to look at the attendance record of our councillors as recorded on the Brent Council website before last night's last last Full Council meeting of this administration.

Attendance is recorded as how many meetings each councillor was expected to attend, how many they actually attended, and how many they attended where they were not expected. The latter may be because the councillor has a particular interest in the topic or it is of relevance to their ward.

Expected attendance is as low as 3 (Full Council  meetings) for those councillors without any committee or other responsibility to 23 for the councillor with the most responsibilities.

The councillor with the highest attendance was Cllr Shafique Choudhary with 19 out of 19 expected attendances and 3 additional ones. Cllr Pat Harrison and Cllr Janice Long at 18/18 and 17/17 had 100% attendance with the latter also attending 2 additional meetings.

Bottom of the table were Cllr Sabina Khan with only 2 attendances out of an expected 9 and Cllr Aisha Hoda-Benn with 2 out of 8. This means that they pocketed over £5,000 for each meeting.

The councillor with the highest number of expected attendances at 23 was Cllr Mary Daly and it appears that workload was too much as she only managed to attend 12 meetings.

On the Tory side Cllr Reg Colwill had the best attendance at 11 out of 11 and 2 extra meetings and  Cllr Joel Davidson who made only 5 of the 12 meetings he was expected to attend.

Table of attendancee HERE

Duffy puts forward his budget ideas for Brent

By Cllr Duffy

Over the last 10 years we have seen major cuts in government support. To a degree it is amazing how the council have successfully delivered services on many fronts particularly in Adult Social Care (indeed all social care) against the backdrop of an increasing demand. In my opinion we have also delivered improving services in our housing department, by taking the service in-house. Also the MetPatrol plus scheme seems worth while and should be affective once it fully operational , both of these without cutting workers wages.

However in my opinion the administration has made many mistakes, their first mistake was the failure to increase the Council Tax in 2014/15 to ensure we kept up with inflation and mitigated some of the government cuts. The first budget I was involved in 15/16 was frozen, while at the same time we were arguing the government had cut our grant to excessively. It is strange that the Leader of the council argued against raising the council tax with one member close to the leader saying they had to make "sandwiches for children at their school" and those pupils would suffer (they must have never heard of pupil premium ) if we put up the Council Tax by 25p a week.It very strange the same member  who is now a member of the cabinet is putting it up 84p a week tonight and says nothing now...I could never understand that argument as it lack any financial or intelligent basis and was a serious mistake. 

The mistake cost Brent Council over £4 million pound of income, over the last three years. If the Labour group had a financial and intelligent debate instead of the leadership steamrolling  the decision through, the council would be in a better financial position for the last 2 years and  would have more freedom on the level of council Tax tonight.

The administration somehow fail to understand because of government cuts it is important we produce policies that produce VFM,looked for additionally and even partnerships and above all  smart management to improved service outcomes. The Labour administration fail to understand their role is to instruct officers on the priorities of our residents and not for officers to instruct the administration on their priorities.The Cabinet continue to believe if their policies fail they can always make the resident pay via the council Tax to fund their failures.

For instances the attempted to privatise the Environment Enforcement Service employment by employing Kingdom Securities and cutting wages by 40% cost the council over £100k. So to make the money back the cabinet have decided to punish the residents for their own mistake.They have introduced a £35 charge for Household Bulky collections. The charged should be dropped because in the medium and long -term it will increase street dumping and residents should not be punished for failed policies.

The other problem remains that the cabinet have no co-ordinated approach to Environmental Enforcement, a schools environmental awareness programme or a street cleaning protocol and just rely on increasing costs to the residents. These issue are of low cost and should be funded by partnerships.

Green bins another service that the cabinet continue to increase charges to cover-up their lack of management. I have always believed the rule is  when you raise an Environmental Tax's they were based on the polluter pays. However this administration have change they rule into Environmental tax's means the recycler pays .I believe by cutting the cost to £25 a year for a bin and increasing participation to above 45% would make it cost neutral.  

It is now clear they over the last two years we having been burying many residents in builders rubble ( including Asbestos) while charging them for burial in earth The cost of that unethical behaviour will cost up to £900k in lost revenue and the removal of the contaminated waste. As usual the cabinet have come with a scheme to cover the costs by putting up burial charges for residents when that are at their most vulnerable. Again the cabinet making the residents pay for their own mistakes , they did not transport the contaminated waste to  Paddington Cemetery the council did. The increase in  burial  charges should be dropped .I believe the costs for the remedial works in Paddington Cemetery can still be managed within excising budgets over a three year period, with increase revenue for new burials once the contaminated waste has been removed. The council should not increase charges until they can guarantee the internal processes within the Cemetery service have improved.

The Conservative party argue that we should cut the reserves, in my view the reserves should stay and they are should be earmarked for the upgrading of fire prevention council housing blocks. Its approx.8 months since Grenfell fire disaster and all councillors should remember the council  took the decision that the cost would not fall on the Housing Revenue Account alone and would fall on the general rates , if the government refused to pay for the improvements .

Also remembering after the fallout from Grenfell senior politicians from all political parties said they have learn the lessons and communities like Grenfell  will not be ignored .Therefore it is important that the cabinet are not allowed to raid South Kilburn CIL which is due to the area following the regeneration works .This money was allocated to Kilburn because the residents have lived in a building site over the last few years  and is their money .The Kilburn CIL should not be used by the cabinet to cover up their inability to get additional [funding] and sponsorship and should be earmarked for Kilburn or other areas of deprivation. I hope the other 2 Kilburn councillors will argue for this and show empathy and solidarity with the residents of Kilburn and not allow much needed resources to be robbed from those in most need.

I will be voting for the 3.99% rise,  as I remain hopeful the Labour group will call the cabinet to account and stop them passing the costs of their failure onto the council taxpayer. 

Mayor of Brent to make statement on cemetery asbestos tonight

In response to Cllr Duffy's request Cllr Bhagwani Chohan, the Mayor of Brent, will make a statement on the Paddington Cemetery issue at tonight's Full Council Meeting. The statement will be made under Matters Arising from the Minutes and is expected early in the meeting around 7.10-7.15pm.

Cllr Chohan has asked officers to update him on any issues raised by Duffy's request.

Call for support for London Parks Manifesto 2018

From Parks for London

At Parks for London, we love London’s parks and green spaces, and work with the people that manage, maintain and enjoy them.  Our mission is to ensure that London has a strong network of parks and green spaces, that are of high quality, safe, accessible, thriving, stimulating and beautiful spaces.  

Our vision is a London that is a healthy and sustainable world city; a place where parks and green spaces make a major contribution to the health and wellbeing of Londoners and to the environment in which they live and work. 


As such, we are calling on all of London’s candidates for the 2018 Council elections to support parks and green spaces in their borough by:

1.    Protecting and safeguarding parks and green spaces from loss or unwanted development
2.   Managing and maintaining parks and greens spaces to best practice standards
3.    Committing adequate long-term resources for management, maintenance and improvements
4.    Encouraging community and volunteer engagement in all areas, with specific reference to the health and well-being agenda
5.   Collaborating and cooperating across all London Boroughs to protect and promote our parks and green spaces

We would be delighted if you were willing to support our calls for action as you campaign ahead of the Local Elections. Please look out for our tweets this week@parksforlondon and please do tweet and retweet  to show your support & get the message out.

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Councillors to decide whether to increase their allowance tonight

Tonight's Full Council is the last meeting of this administration before the Local Elections in May. Apart from approving the Budget (you can see the Conservative amendment HERE) councillors will consider an officers' report on their allowance.

The Independent Remuneration Panel of London Councils  LINK is suggesting a basic allowance of £11,045 for 2018-19 this compares with the present allowance of £10,201.  Last year the allowance was uplifted by 1% rather than being set at the IRP's higher recommendation of £10,703.  If Full Council were to approve the IRP figure it would represent at increase of 8.27% on 2017-18.

In  addition to the basic allowance  councillors receive additional allowance for the roles they undertake. The Brent officers' report that  Brent pays an allowance to a higher proportion of councillors than the IRP's recommendations of 50%. 

Detailed decisions will be made after a review by the new administration but the report recommends the allowance for some committees to be paid only if the members take training and they recommend adoption of an additional travel allowance for councillors with disabilities.

The present Members Allowances can be seen in detail HERE

In addition to the basic  £10,201 the Leader of the Council, Cllr Muhammed Butt, gets another £39,748; Deputy Leader Margaret McLennan another £28,968 and Cabinet Members £19,087.

 

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College Green petition to be heard tonight at Full Council

A petition organised by the College Green Preservation Society is on the agenda for tonight's meeting of Full Council. The petition objects to the fencing in of the Green. See my report HERE.

Duffy calls for statement on Paddington cemetery asbestos at tonight's Full Council meeting

Cllr John Duffy (Kilburn, Labour) has written to the Mayor of Brent requesting that Carolyn Downs (Brent CEO) or Cllr Tatler (Lead Member for Regeneration) make a statement on the Paddington Cemetery asbestos issue at the begining of tonight's Full Council meeting.  The meeting will be live streamed HERE.

This is Cllr Duffy's letter to Cllr Chohan:

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 As you aware the issues of Paddington Cemetery has been highlighted by officers in this weeks Kilburn Times, saying the results of test for Asbestos is at a low level which is true, albeit he samples were taken after the Asbestos was removed and now only a trace of the Asbestos can be found. 

Whereas it true that tests now show a low level of Asbestos now, however the main issue has always been did the council knowingly dumped builders rubble in Paddington Cemetery. The truth remains the same once they found the 60 kgs of Asbestos in Carpenders Park, all consignment to section 3D in Paddington Cemetery should have been halted immediately .It was reckless for the council to continue to delivery waste without a full screening process being carried out to ensure no Asbestos or indeed builders rubble remained in the loads.

It is clear the council is fully responsible and the council in-house Audit Advisory Committee (AAC) Report clearly confirms this (now that it has been reluctantly released) when it states:

  "The Audit review report concluded that procurement procedures within the Cemeteries Service were inadequate at the time that work was undertaken at the cemetery ".

 In layman's terms this means the council had no procedures to ensure the so called London Clay (rubble), which was to be delivered to Paddington Cemetery, was screened and was safe to used for burials plots.

Mr Mayor, you may not be aware that at the moment residents pay approx. £3k for a burial plot, which is describe as being buried in Earth on the councils web-site. However what residents did not pay for or expect was their loved ones to be buried in builders’ rubble. Neither did they expect, that when a re-opening of a grave takes place the excavation has to be carried out by a specialist team in masks and protective clothing. This is clearly the legacy of the reckless mistake by Brent council of failing to   implemented adequate screening processes.

Mr Mayor I am the first to recognise and I am grateful that officers / Senior Councillors accept their past mistakes and have subsequently decided to publish the AAC report. I am also grateful to the officers for agreeing to interview all staff (which I assume is underway) that were present when the incidences took place in August 2015 and May 2017. This was a glaring omission from the AAC report and is ultimately the only way we can confirm how much Asbestos was discovered and indeed indicate how much asbestos remains. Hopefully this will also expose whether the workforce were instructed to work on the mound after the discovery of Asbestos on May 9th 2017 without protection. I furthermore believe the change in the council position to ensure that the council will now liaise with the school and local residents, before the removal of the rest of the contaminated waste takes place is welcomed by everybody concerned. This should ensure adequate safety measures are in place. However I believe it is important that the council continues to be transparent and does not revert to secret meetings where residents are banned from attending or even reading the report.

Therefore Mr Mayor I am hoping for the sake of clarity and transparency, you will grant time at the beginning of tonight’s Full Council meeting, to allow either the CEO or the Lead Member for the Environment to make a statement addressing the issues mentioned above concerning Paddington Cemetery. I am sure the statement will take less take less than 5 minutes and reassure residents/ grave owners of the transparency of the council. The statement should also include plans for compensation to the grave -owners who have buried love ones in section 3D who paid for soil /earth interment and ended -up with builders' rubble. I believe that head of finance should also give an estimate on the total cost to the council, which I believe will be somewhere around the 1 million pound mark.

Mr Mayor please replies to all people who have been copied in, as they have all indicated they are interested parties.