Democracy in Brent – are Cabinet Meetings a Charade?

 

Guest Blog (by Philip Grant in a personal capacity)

 

I watched the Live Stream recording of Brent’s Cabinet Meeting on 7 February 2022, as I have an interest in housing matters, and wanted to see how the petition from residents about the Council’s “infill” plans at Kilburn Square was dealt with. Martin published a “blog” about this, and underneath it you can see in the comments that I sent a follow-up email to the Leader of the Council.

 

My email to Cllr. Muhammed Butt linked his attitude at that meeting, and claims that building new Council homes was his top priority, to Brent’s plans to only provide 37 affordable rented homes in the 250-home development on land that it owns at Cecil Avenue in Wembley. Cllr. Butt replied, and his full response was included in my “guest blog” on 9 February.

 

At the end of his email to me, Cllr. Butt wrote: ‘I look forward to hearing that you will be watching the next Cabinet meeting; it is a fantastic thing to see more people actively involved with local democracy.’ But how much “local democracy” do we really receive through these Cabinet meetings?

 

Margaret, on behalf of the Kilburn Village Residents’ Association, was allowed to speak to the Cabinet. This was one of the democratic “improvements” which Cllr. Butt introduced after his Labour landslide win in the May 2014 local elections. He told our local newspaper soon afterwards: ‘New proposals allow the public to speak in council meetings for the first time ever is aimed at bettering how the community engages with the council and allows residents to hold us to account.’

 

But how much difference did what she said to them make? How much difference could it have made? I’m afraid that evidence I’ve recently received, under a Freedom of Information Act request, suggests that the decisions supposedly made at public meetings of Brent’s Cabinet, which people can watch and even participate in, have already been made beforehand, at meetings between Cabinet members and Senior Officers behind closed doors.

 

 

Regular readers will know that I have been trying to understand the justification for Cabinet’s decision on 16 August 2021 to allow a private developer to profit from the sale of 152 of the 250 homes on Brent’s Cecil Avenue housing scheme. This is the main site in the Council’s Wembley Housing Zone (“WHZ”). It was difficult to discover the reasoning, partly because most of the supporting documents were “exempt” (= secret), and partly because Cabinet members (and their Officers) were reluctant to provide explanations.

 

Extract from the WHZ report to Cabinet on 16 August 2021.

The statement that ‘Cabinet Members were consulted in July 2020’ was the subject of my latest FoI request, because there was nothing about that in the minutes of the Cabinet Meeting held on 20 July 2020! 

 

I asked for details and supporting evidence about that “consultation”, and the results were a surprise (to me at least). These showed that, as well as the formal public meetings of Cabinet, for which we can see the agenda and reports and watch a broadcast, there are at least two other types of regular meetings of Cabinet Members and Senior Council Officers, to which we are not invited.

 

Heading from the WHZ Report to the internal Policy Co-ordination Group meeting in July 2020.

 

The “consultation” which the 16 August 2021 Cabinet Report referred to actually happened four days before the 20 July 2020 Cabinet Meeting, at a meeting of the Policy Co-ordination Group (“PCG”), a body that I had never heard of before. In many ways, it appears to be very like a Cabinet Meeting, except that the public are not made aware of it, and are not invited! This is the “preferred delivery option” paragraph from the WHZ Report to that meeting:-

 

 

From this, it appears that the “preferred option”, to involve a private developer who would sell half the WHZ scheme homes for profit, had been on the cards since at least December 2019! It is not only the Report that looks very like one prepared for a Cabinet Meeting. The written record of this meeting, though described as ‘PCG Meeting Action Points’, looks very like the minutes of a Cabinet Meeting. I received this document in response to my FoI request, although Council Officers treated it as an Environmental Information Request, which allowed them to redact one paragraph in it.

 

 

Extract from “minutes” of the Policy Co-ordination Group meeting on 16 July 2020.

 

I understand, and accept, that there does need to be some co-ordination of policies across the different service areas of Brent Council, but does this really need a quasi-Cabinet Meeting to achieve that result?

 

My FoI request had asked for details and evidence of any other discussions of the “preferred delivery option” between July 2020 and the official decision on this at the Cabinet Meeting on 16 August 2021. The response to that produced evidence of another type of internal “Cabinet Meeting”, referred to as a Leader’s Briefing, held on 26 July 2021. This “briefing” appears to be effectively a trial run-through for the Cabinet Meeting, but held three weeks before the public meeting!

 

As well as all members of the Cabinet, the FoI response gave details of the Senior Officers attending:

 

‘16 Council Officers were invited to attend the briefing, positions below :

 

 

Chief Executive; Head of Executive & Member Services; Strategic Director Children & Young People; Personal Assistant to the Leader of the Council; Director of Finance; Head of Communications, Conference & Events; Strategic Director Community Wellbeing; Strategic Director Customer & Digital Services; Director Legal, HR, Audit & Investigation; Assistant Chief Executive; Governance Manager; Strategic Director Regeneration & Environment; Scrutiny Officer; Head of the Chief Executive Officer; Senior Administrator; Operational Director Regeneration, Growth & Employment; Head of Regeneration.’

 

 

It is interesting that the Head of Communications attends these Leader’s Briefing meetings. Could that be so that he can prepare the publicity for the Cabinet decisions, in advance of them officially being made? 

 

 

The “minutes” of the Leader’s Briefing meeting on 26 July 2021 are in the form of an email from a Governance Officer, and I will ask Martin to attach a copy of that document at the end of this article, should you wish to read them. You will note that there may, or may not, be amendments to the Reports which Cabinet members have received for the briefing, before they appear along with the agenda for the official Cabinet Meeting on 16 August. There was also mention of another PCG meeting, scheduled for September 2021.

 

 

The reports that went to the Leader’s Briefing meeting were marked “Restricted”. This may be because they might be changed, or because they should not be “leaked”, which would reveal that Cabinet members had already considered them before the official meeting. There was actually a slight change in the wording of the “preferred delivery option” paragraph 3.5.1 between the two dates. 

 

 

In the 26 July report (below), members had ‘endorsed’ Delivery Option 2 a year before. In the 16 August report (see third image above), they had ‘indicated a preference’ for it. This may only seem a small difference, but it gives the suggestion, in the first publicly available document, that no final decision had been reached before Cabinet officially considered the matter in August 2021.

 

Extract from the draft WHZ Report to the Leader’s Briefing on 26 July 2021.

 

What happened when Cabinet did consider the WHZ publicly on 16 August 2021 (having previously considered it in private several times since December 2019)? There were problems with the Live Streaming of that meeting, and the recording is only available towards the end of the WHZ item. 

 

 

We hear Cllr. McLennan speaking about the ‘really, really good news’ that WHZ includes a number of larger homes for families in housing need, and that ‘many of them will be affordable’. Cllr. Butt then starts by saying ‘this is actually great news’, and goes on for over a minute, commending how well the Council is doing with its housing programme, and delivering homes for people who need them on its waiting list.

 

 

The Council Leader speaking about WHZ at the 16 August 2021 Cabinet Meeting.

 

The Leader of the Council was actually talking about a Brent housing scheme, on Council-owned land at Cecil Avenue, where 152 of the 250 homes would be sold for profit by a private developer, 61 of the so-called “affordable” homes would be for shared ownership or Intermediate Rent, and only 37 would be available for rent to local people in housing need at London Affordable Rent level! On the other WHZ site, across the High Road, although the 54 flats would be for London Affordable Rent, only 8 of them would be family-sized.

 

 

To me, that performance was just misleading “grandstanding” – playing to the public gallery over a decision that had been made in advance of the formal Cabinet Meeting, and which he hoped no member of the public had actually read the detail of the Report (and could not read any of the details in the “exempt” Appendices to it).

 

 

I asked in the title ‘are Cabinet Meetings a charade?’ You may know “Charades” as a game involving guessing words from acted clues. I think that Brent’s Cabinet are playing a game with the borough’s residents. They are acting at their meetings as if they have considered and decided the Reports attached to their agenda, after hearing what any members of the public or backbench councillors have to say at the Cabinet Meeting.

 

 

A charade (singular) is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘an absurd pretence’. If the items on the Cabinet’s agenda have been considered and decided in advance, at a Policy Co-ordination Group meeting or Leader’s Briefing, then Cabinet Meetings are a charade.

 

 

Philip Grant.

 

Brent Elections Returning Officer steps into skips row

 

Carolyn Downs, who as well as being Brent Council CEO is also the Returning Officer for the May 5th local elections, wrote to party returning officers this afternoon:

 

Dear all

You will be fully aware that purdah starts on 24th March. All councillors including those who will be seeking re-election have been advised of this and to be very careful of any publicity used in the near run up to that date. A particular issue has been drawn to my attention.  The council has been working with the community and residents associations on a programme of community skips located in wards around the borough where people can take rubbish. This initiative is warmly welcomed by the community. We have a few more to take place between now and 24th March and we have advised all Councillors not to promote themselves through their own or party publicity in relation to these skips. I am sure that you, as agents, would agree that prospective candidates who are not currently Councillors should desist in doing so as well to avoid this valuable initiative being marred for the community by [political] controversy. I would be grateful for your cooperation.

 

Carolyn Downs

Chief Executive

Brent residents on District Heating Networks face unsustainable rise in bills as the energy crisis worsens

District Heating Networks (DHN) promised a more environmentally sustainable heating system through a single heating plant for multiple properties rather than expensive individual gas boilers.

 

Research published as long ago as 2002 LINK concluded:

 

The result is that, although the DHN is affected by much higher embodied energy (mostly for piping and civil works) than that required by domestic gas boilers, the energy consumption and the polluting emission rate is so low as to balance the difference with the competing technology in a few years.

 

By 2015 Which LINK was discussing some drawbacks:

 

Many of us don’t trust energy suppliers, but what if you were stuck with one supplier for as long as you lived in a property, with no control over the price you pay? This is the reality for many district heating customers.

 

More than 200,000 homes across the UK are connected to a district heating network. This is where heat from a central source is distributed to properties through a network of pipes. And its use is growing, particularly in built-up urban areas. The Government thinks district heating could provide heat to eight million homes by 2030.

 

There are benefits; it can be low carbon and there’s no need to maintain a gas boiler. However, there is currently very little protection for consumers living in properties connected to district heat networks.

 

They have no choice in who they get their heat from. No access to an ombudsman should they have a complaint. And no control over the price they pay.

 

We’ve uncovered unacceptable detriment

 

Over the past year we have been conducting a major investigation of district heating. We spoke to customers on district heating networks, including those of you who shared your views here on Which? Convo. We found widespread dissatisfaction, with cost a major concern.

 

The people we surveyed had concerns ranging from worry that they had been mis-sold district heating, to confusion around what was included in their bills. Many of them felt let down and frustrated by poor customer service and complaints handling procedures.

 

It’s an emotive issue, as one private homeowner from London told us:

‘We are stuck between the supplier and the developers, with each blaming the other for the lack of hot water. All the while we … face numerous outages and so have to boil a kettle to wash or bath my two and a half year old in.’

 

We also looked at the cost of district heating and found a huge difference in the price paid by customers. Some were paying up to 25% more for their heating than if they’d been on a standard gas deal, and that includes all the additional costs of installing and maintaining a gas boiler. In many cases, district heating customers couldn’t understand why they were being charged a high standing charge, despite not having the heating on and using little or no hot water.

 

District heating – what’s the solution?

 

We have been working with the industry on Heat Trust, a voluntary consumer protection scheme. Heat Trust aims to replicate many of the protections available to those with gas or electric heating, such as access to an ombudsman and guaranteed standards of performance. However, as a voluntary scheme, it won’t cover all consumers and it won’t tackle the issue of fair pricing.

 

Access to affordable and reliable warmth and hot water is a fundamental right; we rely on it for comfort and health. Everyone deserves a fair deal and great customer service from their heat supplier. However, there’s a danger that district heating companies will take advantage of their unregulated, monopoly position.

 

By January  2022 Leaseholder Knowledge pulled no punches :

 

Leaseholders who get their heating and hot water from communal systems face price hikes of nearly 500%, and are unable to switch suppliers for a better deal.

 

They feel like “captives” who are being “extorted” by their “monopoly” providers, they tell the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership

 

A major issue is that properties in DHNs are counted as commercial rather than domestic entities and are therefore not entitled to the energy cap. In January of this year Energy Live News reported:

 

The government has been urged today to take urgent action to protect around half a million homes living on communal and district heating networks.

 

The Heat Trust suggests these homes could be hit hardest by the soaring gas prices because heat networks operators purchase gas on the commercial rather than domestic markets.

 

Commercial gas prices are currently around four times pre-crisis levels. The Heat Trust said commercial gas saw a 1000% price increase last year, rising from 1.5p per unit to 15p per unit before Christmas.

 

The report notes that consumers and landlords operating heat networks are already reporting examples of price rises of up to 700%.

 

The authors of the report called for the government to intervene by allowing heat network operators to purchase gas at the capped domestic tariff rates.

 

No action has been taken by the Government and the war in Ukraine is pushing up world energy prices leaving tenants in DHNs (large scale) or Neighbourhood Heating Networks  (covering a small number of buildings) facing unsustainable bills way beyond those outlined above from April.

 

However the starting point for residents in  a local network before those increases is still higher than domestic consumers:

 

These figures are for a one bedroomed property in South Kilburn:

 

Flat energy use - about £600 a year (to date, not reflective of upcoming increases)

Boiler/pump electricity - historically up to £750 a year (to date, not reflective of upcoming increases) 

Heating system maintenance - about £300 a year 

Sinking fund contribution for boiler replacement - £50 a year

Heating System Total: £1,700 

 

On top of this there is the bill for domestic electricity use.

 

The resident can switch suppliers for domestic electricity but not for the Heating Network.  The same applies to the insurance premium which is very high.

The freeholders of building or whoever owns the heating system (sometimes not the freeholder but another investor or energy company) get commission from the whoever they buy energy from and the electricity supplier. This means they do not have an incentive to seek a lower price.

 

SOUTH KILBURN NEIGHBOURHOOD HEATING NETWORK

 

Brent Council on environmental and cost saving grounds is installing a District Heating Network on new developments on the South Kilburn Estate. Attempts by Wembley Matters to ask Brent Council to comment on the repercussions of the current fuel crisis have not been answered. Questions are batted between the Council, housing associations and providers, This is a note from the Minutes of the South Kilburn Tenants Steering Group of 24th November 2021: 

South Kilburn Neighbourhood Heating

Francesca Campagnoli (LB Brent) Francesca introduced herself and provided an update on the proposed South Kilburn District Heat Network. The network is intended to provide heating and hot water for all new homes in South Kilburn in phases between 2024 and 2030. All homes would have individual meters and thermostats with heating and hot water available all year but only billed to individual homes based on usage. The heating will also be underfloor in all new homes with no requirement for radiators.

 

There has been no detailed reply from Fransesca but housing officers have been unable to supply estimates of future heating bills to would be tenants of DHN properties currently being allocated such as Chippenham Gardens, now known as Alphabet.  These are council tenants being moved from buildings due to be redeveloped and clearly would not be able to afford the uncapped energy bills that look likely. I have already heard of someone turning down a property here because of this factor. Tenants will come under the Octavia housing association with energy billed by GURU.

Brent Council set out its proposals for billing in July 2020. LINK

Fuel Poverty Action are very concerned about the issue and published this valuable research last year on tenant action over high prices and unreliability of a DHN:

 

 

District Heating Networks are the preferred option for heating in developments across Brent and it is hard to predict whether in the future this will be the best option. Clearly there needs to be legislation to protect residents.

Meanwhile I would like to hear from tenants and owners of DHN buildings about their experience. Please comment below. 

Councillors warned about using skip programme for political promotion

I understand that all Brent councillors this afternoon received a warning from a senior Brent Council officer  that given political sensitivities during the pre-election period, and to avoid complaint, they should bear in mind that community skips are part of a well-established operation programme and not an opportunity for political publicity or promotion.

The message acknowledged that councillors might want to be at these events but that this  should not extend to using them for canvassing or promotional photographs on social media.

The communication followed Wembley Matters story published earlier today raising the danger of political  promotion via the Brent Council official  Twitter account.

Olympic Way tile murals will soon be on permanent public display!

 Guest post by Philip Grant. (Congratulations to Philip on this achievement as a result of his amazing persistence)

When I wrote last weekend about the heritage tile murals at Olympic Way being on display from 1^st to 21^st March, I mentioned that I was still waiting to receive a reply from Quintain to the New Year’s Day message I’d sent to their Chief Executive Officer.

 

Olympic Way murals on display in February 2020. (Photo by Mark Price, Brent Council)

 

I’m pleased to say that I have now received a letter from James Saunders at Quintain, and this is the good news:

 

‘Thank you for your letter dated 1^st January 2022. We have given your request careful consideration.

 

We share your commitment to celebrating the heritage of the murals and can confirm that when the current advertisement consent for the Spiritflex Vinyl coverings to the abutment walls outside of Bobby Moore Bridge to the South East (SE) and South West (SW) expires on 25^th August 2022 we will not seek to renew that consent.’

 

This means that these mural scenes, on the walls outside of the Bobby Moore Bridge subway at Wembley Park WILL be back on permanent public display by the end of August this year, after being covered with Quintain’s advertising, apart from short “reveals” since the autumn of 2013. 

 

Tile mural scenes on the east wall of the subway. (Composite by Amanda Rose, courtesy of Quintain)

 

I believe that this is an important step towards getting ALL of the murals, celebrating Wembley’s sports and entertainment history, back on permanent public display. But the battle for the murals on the walls of the subway itself (other than the “footballers” mural, which was put on display again in 2019, as a result of efforts by Wembley History Society) will be for another year.

 

The current “reveal” includes the remnant of the original Pop Music / “Live Aid” mural scene, on the west wall of Olympic Way, seen here in an old photograph:

 

The tile mural celebrating “Live Aid” as it originally looked.

 

Around 2006, TfL constructed a stairway down from the bus stop on the bridge to Olympic Way. In the process they removed much of this mural scene, apart from the drummer, and did a “patch up” with a different type of ceramic tile:

 

The “patched up” mural scene in 2012. (Google Street View image, courtesy of Quintain)

 

In his letter to me of 2 March, James Saunders wrote:

 

‘The newer (square format) tiling to the SW abutment staircase that was installed by TFL in 2006 was removed in c.2016 as the tiles were falling off the rendered wall. We would like to engage with you and the Wembley History Society to find the best solution for that area of the walls. The staircase would prevent a full recreation of the original section of the mural showing Mark Knopfler, Tina Turner and Freddy Mercury, but we are keen to reflect aspects of the original design, where possible.’

 

I’m sure that there are plenty of local people with more artistic and design skill than me! Before I take up Quintain’s offer to engage with them over possible design ideas, I would like to throw the discussion open to YOU. 

 

You can see the awkward, tapering shape of the area available for a restored (or new?) mural scene commemorating “Live Aid” at Wembley. Its scale at the subway end would have to fit in with that of the murals in the subway, which immediately adjoin it. Would it be best to retain the drummer section as it is, and design out from that? Or would it be better to replace, the drummer section, in order to give a larger “canvas” for a mural design? 

 

Close up view of part of a mural scene, showing how the tile designs are made.

 

It should be remembered that the mural scenes are made up of different coloured ceramic tiles which are oblong in shape, fixed vertically. The close-up example above (showing the way tiles were used to portray Michael Jackson’s dancing feet, in a mural scene currently hidden behind light boxes in the subway) gives an idea of how the mural designs are made.

 

This is the sorry state of the remains of the “Live Aid” mural scene now:

 

The mural scene, as “revealed” on a wet day in March 2022. (Courtesy of Quintain)

 

Can you help to design a much better tribute to “Live Aid”, please, which will grace the walls of Olympic Way as part of the murals celebrating Wembley’s sports and entertainment heritage for decades to come? If so, please suggest your ideas as a comment below, or send them (with a possible design, if you have one) to Martin. Thank you.

Philip Grant.

 

 

But, Brent Council, who's the guy in yellow?

 

PHOTO: Local residents celebrating the launch of the new One Tree Hill community garden along with Cllr Muhammed Butt, Leader of the Council (far right), Cllr Neil Nerva, Cabinet Member for Public Health, Culture and Leisure (in fluorescent green), Cllr Krupa Sheth Cabinet Member for Environment and Ward Member for Wembley Central (in red) and Chirag Gir, Chairman of Wembley Central and Alperton Residents’ Association (far left).

A press release from Brent Council dropped into my in-box a short while ago, neatly reinforcing the point I made about social media in the last post.

The caption supplied by the Brent Council Press Office names the Labour Cabinet members present but ignores the man in yellow - who just happens to be a local Alperton councillor who works hard for the community but is a Liberal Democrat.

The 'non-person' is Cllr Anton Georgiou and he commented to Wembley Matters:

It was good to be with local residents and members of Wembley Central and Alperton Residents’ Association (WCARA) who have worked so hard on this project. 

I’m proud to have supported residents over the past two years, particularly keen local gardeners, who want to encourage even more people to get involved in growing flowers and vegetables in the area. 

We all know how important it is for mental health and well-being to be outdoors, enjoying nature and I’m hopeful Brent Council will commit to installing more planters as a way of encouraging even wider participation. This is particularly needed given the number of people in Alperton and Wembley who do not have access to their own gardens. 

I’m not surprised that the Leader of the Council and two Lead Members were free to attend the photo op yesterday morning. They love the camera. It is however, slightly concerning that my presence was ignored in the official Brent Council press release. With local elections around the corner, I’ve expressed disappointment at what seems to be repeat favouritism by the Council of a certain group of Councillors. This needs to stop.”

Is Brent Council promoting candidates ahead of the local elections?

As predicted Labour candidates are promoting themselves on social media ahead of the May 5th Council Elections, nothing wrong with that although it can get rather boring - 0ne repaired pot hole too many!  I predicted lots of councillors  tweeting themselves standing next to the pre-election community skips  and this duly happened.

But it becomes more of a grey area when the official Brent Council Twitter account tags councillor's private Twitter accounts in their tweets:

 

Councillor Krupa Sheth (@kkrupas) who is transferring to Tokyngton ward to stand alongside Cllr Muhammed Butt, leader of Brent Council, seems particularly favoured.

But this is not all.  Paul Lorber has called Brent Council's CEO, Carolyn Downs' attention to a leaflet being distributed in Sudbury where an unelected candidate is described as 'Your local representative':

Of course it is those skips again!

Lorber wrote: 

Just wondering what else Brent Council will be doing to assist the Labour Party re-election in Brent just 2 months before polling day? 

I see that they are promoting one of their as yet unelected individuals “as your local “Labour representative”. 

Is Brent Council bothering to send letters to residents directly or was the expectation that Labour candidates would be allowed to take advantage of this? Doing these kind of things just before an election is the oldest trick in the Labour book and I am amazed that Brent Council Officers fell for it and allowed it to happen.