Brent Council seeks £3.3m cut in Council Tax Support scheme with 'potential risk of a disproportionate impact' on disabled people, ethnic groups and (possibly) gender

Brent Council is to consult on proposals that would cut the current Council Tax Support scheme by £3.3m. The proposals are for three potential options  1) an increase of 19% claimant contribution (the percentage of the full Council Tax that the resident actually pays) for all working age claimants including the vulnerable who are currently exempt; 2)  current exempt remain protected but working age non-exempt will pay 51% of the Council Tax;  3) taper off entitlement as income rises so that the number claiming is reduced.

The Council is set to increase Council Tax by 5.99% in the financial year 2019-20. These proposals would take effect in 2020-21 with consultation on the changes taking place between June and September 2019 and going to Full Council in December 2019.

It is worth noting that the report to Monday's Cabinet commits to an equitable scheme but notes under Equality Impact Screening that:

...That said, there is a potential risk of a disproportionate impact in certain groups, in particular disabled people, ethnic groups and (possibly) gender.

Extract from the Report to Cabinet

£3.3M net saving (£3.96M gross)

i.                Additional 19% claimant contribution for all working age claimants. Current exempt (“vulnerable”) claimants pay 19%; non-exempt claimants pay 39%;

     Or:

ii.              Current exempt claimants remain protected; additional 31% claimant contribution for all non-exempt working age; i.e. Non-exempt claimants pay minimum 51% of Council Tax liability.

      Or:

iii.             Introduce mechanisms to taper off entitlement more steeply as income rises, therefore making the saving from reduced caseload volumes, rather than the rebates that the remaining claimants receive.

The above options all represent extremes which are unlikely to exactly represent the eventual scheme design, which will be more nuanced, with many aspects – in particular those claimants treated as “exempt” - under review and likely to be changed. However they illustrate the difficulty in maintaining the current size of caseload while attempting to protect the most financially vulnerable. The new scheme is therefore most likely to incorporate option (iii) to either fully or partially meet the saving while allowing the scheme still to protect the most financially vulnerable within it.

Key risks and mitigations

The Council must be able to show that meaningful consideration has been given to meeting the saving from alternative measures, e.g. increasing Council Tax, cutting other services, etc., and why it is proposing to meet the saving by changing the CTS scheme. If it cannot show this, it leaves itself open to significant legal challenge.

·      Ensure that consultation includes meaningful consideration of the of alternative funding methods to meet the saving 


·      Ensure that Cabinet and Full Council reports explore the alternative funding methods in sufficient detail and evidence that that Members have actively considered these 
Financial hardship for residents – 


·      the scheme will be designed to protect the most vulnerable, but will 
necessarily will overall be harsher than the current scheme 


·      consideration of a discretionary hardship fund within the scheme 


·      consideration of transitional protection for the most impacted claimants 


Council Tax collection decreases –
- review Council Tax collection processes to enable greater engagement with CTS claimants before enforcement action commences

Scheme is not agreed by Full Council by the deadline – - robust project management

IT systems unable to provide the desired solution (on time) –
- early engagement with IT providers and strong project management

Scheme is subject to legal challenge –

·      robust scheme modelling 


·      engagement with stakeholders 


·      sufficient time taken over drafting the formal scheme with Legal Services input 
Revised scheme does not deliver sufficient savings and / or further cuts required in following year

·      model alternative schemes including one providing a larger cut 


·      design a scheme with further changes for Year 2 built into it

 Equality impact screening


The proposed scheme has not been designed yet and there are several options, so it is not possible to be precise at this stage, however one of the design principles is to build a scheme that is equitable and proportionate across protected groups (and other claimants), so specific impacts will be tested in due course and any inequities reviewed accordingly. That said, there is a potential risk of a disproportionate impact in certain groups, in particular disabled people, ethnic groups and (possibly) gender. There is considered to be a much lower risk in the other protected groups, as no potential scheme designs will feature these factors explicitly, and the chance of an unintended consequence is thought to be low – although all aspects will be considered in the EIA. 


Bridge Park community comes out fighting for its rights, Council's new plan offers less than Bridge Park currently offers

“Brent, don’t take our gold and only give us sand. 


You state you offer our Community a friendly hand...

then don’t sell our Land”

The meeting where the BPCC campaign was launched

Statement from Bridge Park Community Council February 4th 2019 about Brent Council's sale of the land at the Bridge Park Leisure Complex

The Restriction

We successfully lodged an RX1 application in September 2017 with the Land Registry, as a declaration of interest in the land on the South West Side of Brentfield Road, Stonebridge, Willesden (“Bridge Park”) Title No: NGL426015.

Brent insisted that unless we withdrew the application, they would escalate matters to the courts. They have continued to reject all our offers of cost-effective resolution, which included negotiation, ADR and HMLR Tribunal.

The Covenant

Bridge Park Community Leisure Centre (BPCLC) is a former 3.5 acres bus depot that was converted into a Leisure Centre in the 1980s using GLA funding. It has been managed by the Council for at least the last 12 years and offers 37 business units, multi-faith centre, nursery, dryside multi court sports hall, 2x Gyms, professional music studio, bar with restaurants, function hall, conferencing and meeting rooms. The Bridge Park site had a protective covenant on it, to keep it in the hands of the community. Brent Council worked with the LB Bromley (as successor body to the GLC) to have this removed.

Proposed Redevelopment of Bridge Park Community Leisure Centre

See the Brent Council Report from the Strategic Director, Regeneration and Growth and the Strategic Director of Environment and Neighbourhoods 17^th February 2014

Planning

Brent Council have hidden the exchanges and correspondence with GMH and Brent Council’s Planning department – Bridge Park is community used, owned and of huge community interest. Brent council’s dealings should be made public and particularly all related planning and pre-planning exchanges. Bridge Park currently has more facilities than that offered by Brent in their latest revised plan announced 1^st February 2019.

Conditional Sale Agreement (CLSA)

We now have possession of the CLSA ‘sale’ document. Brent are supposed to be Publicly accountable – yet, Brent Council are not operating open-handedly. All key information as to the Land sale has been removed and some 95% of pertinent details have been redacted.

The Community have said overwhelmingly that:

•       they do not wish for Bridge Park land to be sold to private developers 


•       they support BPCCs community vision 


•       Brent should observe the protective covenant schedule titled The Community 
Project that was entered onto the original HM Land Registry Title NLG426015 of 1982. 
Brent refers to consultations held in October/November 2017 in Harlesden and Stonebridge. Both meetings were attended by BPCC members, the public and the press was present. The meetings did not cover public consultation on the areas that Brent now states as the reasons for recent changes in their latest plan. The above meetings were in fact Brent Council officers, the Leaders and senior executives, in apparent partnership with the developers GMH, both presenting the Vision for the future use of the land. One contentious area was that 5% affordable housing would be made available to the community 30 of 600 homes. The consultation session and documents presented simply provided the community with options on how they wanted the gym surfaces and facilities arranged, similarly same with the planned swimming pool. The exercise was explained by Brent’s architect with the aid of drawings laying out their proposed redevelopment of the site. 
The community overwhelmingly disengaged with the consultation exercise and demanded that Brent Council not sell Bridge Park. 


The community’s restriction on the land sale places Brent Council under extreme pressure to complete the deal with GMH within deadline. We feel Brent Council have adopted a number of tactics to try to get past the court process and speed up the usual court timetable. The latest of which was an unexpected revised acceptance of our longstanding offer of mediation, in that Brent agreed to look at mediation within the month of February but on the terms that they would alongside, and at the same time apply for Summary/ Strike Out hearing of our restriction. This is set for 11am 27^th February 2019, at the Rolls Building, High Court EC4. The Strike Out is a technicality to get the case thrown out before it can be heard at a full trial, thereby rendering any mediation before 27^th February 2019, non- binding and ineffective. We see this as Brent’s attempt to get around our accusation that they have not made real or reasonable efforts to seek settlement ADR with us. 

The Conditional Land Sale Agreement (CLSA) puts Brent Council in some difficulty with settlement talks, as they will likely face huge issues if they do not go through with this commercial deal.

In summary, Brent knew prior to the sale that the community objected to it. We were not happy with the level and lack of consultation also there was no real community involvement in the process. Brent pushed through with the sale of the land and have now realised that the community effort to block any sale and our wish to be fully involved with the process is to be taken seriously.

Their recent plans do not address the fact that:

•       The community does not want Brent to Sell the land. 


•       Brent should halt the sale and now fully involve the community on the use of the 
land. 


Brent’s latest plan to sell would leave the community with significantly less facilities 
than that which Bridge Park currently offers.


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£20.9m wiped off Brent's budget as younger children and environment lose out

From the report on the budget consultation

Brent Council is to implement a budget reduction of £20.9m out of the total of  £26.2m it recently consulted on. Finance Director, Conrad Hall, claimed that they had gone for the ‘least worse’ of the options in terms of service reduction. Cabinet will consider the proposals at its meeting on February 11^th.

Council Tax will be increased by 5.77% bring it to an annual £1,582.25 for Band D, £30.44 a week.

As with government budget reviews those responsible expect to fight for their departments. In Brent Council’s case Environment, lead member Cllr Krupesh Sheth, seems to have lost out.

ENVIRONMENT CUTS

The cuts most likely to be noticed by the public are ending litter picking in residential streets and  removing their litter bins, reducing parks maintenance to a ‘reactive’ service, dimming street lights, reducing the opening hours of the Recycling Depot and a review of staffing in the Regeneration and Environment department equal to £1.5m in 2019-20 and £450k in 2020-21.  This would remove 48 full time equivalent posts and would be accomplished by voluntary redundancies followed by compulsion if too few people come forward. The report does not make clear what the impact of this staffing reduction would be on services saying only: ‘This would be a ‘downsizing’ exercise that will make teams leaner and would require a remodelling of structures to mitigate the impact on service delivery.’

Officers admit that the proposals on litter would have a negative impact on ‘customer satisfaction’ and that reduced hours at the Recycling Depot  may lead to more dumping of waste.

The report on the outcome of consultation on the proposal notes:

The most popular theme was in relation to the local environment where over 20% of respondents stated refuse collection and clean streets were important to them.

EARLY YEARS HELP CUT

In Children and Young People services there is a proposal to cut Early Years help by two staff and to charge more for the service. The stated risks are:

·      Quality of local provision as measured by Ofsted declines. This is mitigated through ensuring charging is applied equitably and continues to fund high quality training for providers. The potential to join up Early Years services within the existing Setting and School Effectiveness and the Forward Planning, Performance and Partnership services is explored. 

 

·      Nurseries and childminders negative reaction to service changes. Mitigation in implementing the learning from recent Customer Services reconfiguration that provides a greater focus on a digital offer of support to childcare settings. 

·      Challenge to secure and maintain sufficient place provision to meet the 30 hour entitlement.

CHILDREN’S CENTRES CLOSURES

Even more worrying for people who believe that the previous Labour Government’s Children’s Centres were a success in terms of early intervention is the proposal to close Children’s Centres in 2020-21. At present there are 14 contracted out to Barnardos and 3 council run. The total will be reduced to 8 with just 2 council run left. They will be replaced by ‘Family Hubs’:

·      The aims and objectives of the Family Hubs will closely align with the agreed Outcome Based Reviews that considered children on the edge of care and involved in gang activity. The objectives will be closely aligned to key Public Health outcomes related to children and their families. 

This will leave a lot of families with young children out and the report recognises under ‘Key Risks and Mitigations’:

·      Disproportionate impact on most vulnerable families. The risk is mitigated by the creation of family hubs that will widen the age range of support available to families who require support and target the hubs in the areas of the borough that have the greatest level of need. 

·      Early intervention outcomes worsen for children. The risk is mitigated by ensuring the design of the new family hub model uses research findings to make best use of available resources and that these are broadened to cover school age children. This will allow greater reach of new targeted services into families than is currently possible with the existing model. 

·      Public reaction following service redesign. This will be mitigated by ensuring effective consultation and engagement with local communities and engaging them in the design and delivery process. 

·      Quality of work provided to families from the new model deteriorates due to lack of investment. This risk is mitigated by moving to a targeted model, focusing the available resource on those families who most require support

A risk worth taking with young lives when there is so much evidence that early intervention can stop problems occurring later in life? Look what tops the list of the themes (screen grab above) that emerged from the consultation!

Again an extract from consultation submissions make you wonder how much notice was taken:

Other popular choices included Children Centres and services around childcare and children. Over 10% of the respondents so far are in favour of keeping Children Centres. With reference to Children Centres one respondent stated:

‘Children Centres are very important to me and many others. It has been my link to gaining information and advice since my baby was born. I have made friends and shared experiences with other parents, I am a single mum and sometimes you feel so alone. The centre have been amazing I even did a course whilst my child was being looked after to understand how to introduce books to your child.’

Another respondent stated:

‘I believe Brent have some of the best Children’s Centres in the country, and the training and support we offer have a positive impact on the families in our Borough.’

COUNCIL'S ROUNDWOOD YOUTH PROVISION  DISCONTINUED

The proposal to stop council run youth provision at the Roundwood Centre is retained with alternative education provision being provided (it does not say who the provider would be) with the voluntary sector providing youth services as wrap-around. The council’s assessment is that the risk that central government may clawback the MyPlace funding used to build the Centre, if ongoing youth provision does not take place there, is mitigated by the fact that they have not taken action against similar schemes. 

END METROPOLITAN POLICE PATROL FUNDING

These are extra officers funded by the Council.There are two proposals one to reduce the number of officers from 12 to 6 from April 2020 and the other to stop funding altogether:

The 12 Met Patrol Plus officers known as the ‘Partnership Tasking Team’ (PTT) for year 17/18 have recorded over 4000 responses related to the Safer Brent Partnership priorities; namely, Anti-Social Behaviour, Gangs, Serious Violence, Domestic and Sexual Abuse, Child Sexual Exploitation, Offender Management and Hate Crime. Such responses have included various outcomes:

1900 disruptions, over 200 arrests, over 100 weapon sweeps and 200 PSPO/CPN/FPN warnings and fines being issues. As well as enforcement the PTT have also led positive Police engagement in our community, more than 120 times.

Risk and mitigation:

This service is over and above the existing borough Police provision. Borough Police have reduced numbers and focus the asset they do have on MOPAC priorities and more general targeted outcomes.

We will have reduced/zero Police asset to task/deploy and focus on our priorities based on the requests/needs of our residents.

STOP SMOKING SERVICE

The Council will decommission the ‘smoking cessation service’ from GPs and community pharmacies except for pregnant women and mental health service users. in 2017-18 1,143 smokers were supported to quit. Its on-line replacement has not performed well so far.

Key risks and mitigations:

Opposition from GPs due to potential increased consultations and prescription costs for nicotine replacement therapy. However quitters would still result in cost savings to the NHS.

Strong opposition from community pharmacies who would lose income (42 pharmacies received between £50 and £19,000 income from the service in 17/18)

Precedents have been set: Harrow and Havering have discontinued smoking cessation services, Ealing has recently consulted on plans to do so.

The Council would remain part of the London Smoking Cessation Transformation Programme which is testing on line, digital and telephone support. It should be noted the programme has produced very small numbers of quits to date but it has undoubted potential

CUSTOMER SERVICES CUTS

Brent Customer Services have already experienced considerable job cuts and changes in service and this will continue with a switch to mainly digital channels with a total cut over two years of £500k with 6 full time equivalents lost in 2019-20 and 5 more in 2020-21.

There is limited recognition of the danger of ‘digital exclusion of the vulnerable and the elderly:

Some customers unable to utilise digital offer –

·      Officers available to help with self-service 


·      Expansion of Community Hibs to support vulnerable residents 


·      Promotion of IT skills courses 


·      Appointments available for the most vulnerable 


·      Customers experience of self service is poor discouraging use of this

·       Continued improvement and promotion of the Council’s digital offer 


·      Feedback on current self service facilities is used to improve this 


·      Residents are involved in the design and testing of new self service facilities 


These are the headline items but there are is plenty more in the budget papers. I will cover proposals re Council Tax Support separately.  The proposal to cut library hours or close one altogether has been dropped along with the potential closure of all Children’s Centres. Reduction is adult social carers visit times has been dropped but there are proposals to reduce payment to providers which could result in some withdrawing or low wages being reduced further.

The full list of proposals is HERE

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