Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity
The purpose of the committee, from Brent Council’s website.
In a guest post last May, I set out the efforts I’d made to get a proper
explanation from the Council about why 152 of the 250 homes at the Council’s
housing development on the former Copland School site in Wembley would be built
for a “developer partner” to sell at a profit. And why only 37 of the remaining
98 homes (less than 15% of the site total) would be for “genuinely affordable”
rent to Council tenants (with the other 61 being for shared ownership).
I asked ‘Where is the Scrutiny?’ Proper scrutiny was needed, because all that Cabinet members and
Officers would tell me was that it would not be viable to offer more affordable
homes at Cecil Avenue. That answer did not appear to make sense!
Illustration from Brent’s April 2021 Wembley Housing Zone “Soft Market
Testing” exercise.
The Council already owned the site (so none of the high land costs they
use to justify the “infill” schemes on existing Council estates). They already
had millions in funding from the GLA for their “Wembley Housing Zone”, as well
as £5.5m extra for this scheme. And they could borrow money for the
construction from the Public Works Loans Board at historically low interest
rates.
Of course, the Council would not let me (or any other citizen of the
borough) see their “Viability” report, not even under the Freedom of
Information Act, because it was “confidential”. But councillors on a Scrutiny
Committee would be allowed to see it, and question the relevant Cabinet
members and Council Officers about the figures; and about why Brent could not
offer more affordable homes on this development for the families in housing
need that they claim to be so keen to build “New Council Homes” for!
My old parody Brent publicity photo for its Cecil Avenue Council Housing
scheme.
I’d been trying since a guest blog in January 2022 (“It looks bad. It looks wrong!”) to get one of Brent’s Scrutiny Committees to take a close look at the
Cecil Avenue project. And I did manage to include this as part of in a deputation to the 9 March meeting of Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee about the Poverty
Commission Update report.
It took two months for the Council to provide a written (partial) reply
to my deputation, by which time there had been local elections, and a new
committee with a new Chair, Cllr. Rita Conneely. I wrote to her on 12 June,
recommending that she include “Brent Council’s Cecil Avenue Housing Scheme” on
her committee’s agenda for 19 July. I explained why, and said:
‘Senior Council Officers and the Lead Member(s)
involved do need to be put on the spot, to explain how they arrived at this
apparent "giveaway" of much needed genuinely affordable Council
homes, and if they can't give a satisfactory explanation, to come up with
something better.’
Extract from minutes of the 9 March 2022 meeting of Resources &
Public Realm Scrutiny Committee.
I received no reply, but after the minutes of the 9 March meeting had
been published with the agenda for the committee’s 19 July meeting, I wrote to
Cllr. Conneely again. I pointed out that the written response to my deputation
totally ignored my points on Cecil Avenue. The claims made at the 9 March
meeting about moving forward on the Poverty Commission recommendations, and
‘all homes being ring-fenced as being at affordable levels of rent’ were also
false. The 2020 Poverty Commission had recommended Social Rent level, and no
New Council Homes were yet being built for Social Rent!
The Social Rent recommendation from the Brent Poverty Commission Report.
On 18 July, Rita Conneely replied to me, saying: ‘Many thanks for your
follow up on this. I am looking into this & seeking relevant additional
information for the committee & its members.’ She referred to this, under
“Matters Arising”, when those minutes were considered at the 19 July meeting,
and indicated that this would be dealt with when the committee met in
September.
I was looking out for the agenda for the 6 September meeting, and when
it was published there was no mention of the Council’s Cecil Avenue housing
scheme on it. Worse than that, this is what the minutes of the 19 July meeting
showed:
Extract from the minutes of
Resources & Public Realm Scrutiny Committee meeting on 19 July.
“None”! I wrote to Cllr. Conneely on 30 August, including a transcript
of what she had said at the 19 July meeting (from the webcast, beginning at
3.35 minutes into the recording):
‘And then we’re going to do “Matters Arising”.
After our paper (?), so we have received …. Prior to this meeting we received a
deputation from one of our residents, Mr Philip Grant, in regards to a
presentation which was made to this committee in our previous municipal year,
on the Poverty Commission. We’ve received some further information from our,
from the Housing Department, in regards to that which the committee will be
looking at in future, and we’ll be commenting on any of our further
recommendations at our September meeting.’
In my email I asked that the minutes should be corrected, and also
wrote:
‘An opportunity to put the decision makers "on
the spot" at the 19 July meeting was missed, but I was led to believe that
this would be done at your September meeting. Please let me know how, and where
on the agenda, you will be doing that, so that I can request to speak on that
item, if appropriate.’
I heard nothing back from the Chair of the committee, but did receive a
promise from its Governance Officer (who my email had been copied to) that the
minutes would be corrected. The day before the 6 September meeting, the agenda
was republished. There was still no mention on it of the Cecil Avenue housing
scheme, but revised minutes showed:
Extract from the revised minutes of Resources & Public Realm
Scrutiny Committee’s 19 July meeting.
So what did happen on 6 September about the outstanding matters from my
9 March deputation, and especially the answers to the points I’d raised about
the lack of genuinely affordable housing proposed for the Council’s Cecil
Avenue development? There was no consideration by the committee, and no
recommendations. This is a transcript (from the webcast, beginning at 1hour 8minutes
and 25seconds into the recording) of the monologue from the Chair:
‘Next on my list – Minutes of the previous
meeting. Does anybody have any challenges to the minutes of the previous
meeting? [Pause – nothing heard] Lovely.
Matters Arising. I need
to confirm that following a deputation that was received by this committee,
historically, in the last municipal year as well actually. The deputation came
from one of our residents, Mr Grant, and it was primarily regarding issues of
affordability.
And I just want to flag in regard to that, as the
Chair has received information which, er I’m sorry I’ve lost my …, I’ve
received information which reassures us about the accuracy and the quality of
the information that was presented to the Scrutiny Committee.
However, I do want to flag, a bit like my comment
about acronyms earlier, affordability has a lot of different phrases now, and I
think clarity in our meetings is important, both from us as councillors when
we’re asking, that we’re clear what we are asking about, and that we try as
best as possible to use the up-to-date and accurate terms when that information
is being shared from officers.
So, we’d really, really appreciate an effort from
all of us to keep meetings as clear and transparent as possible, so residents
continue to be really as confident as possible in the information that is being
shared.
And again, just to reiterate that the issues of
affordability in our housing stock is of serious concern to this committee, and
the Community and Wellbeing Committee, and I know a lot of our residents as
well. And I know the Cabinet of this Council as well. So, thank you all.’
Tucked away in that statement is the key sentence, which slammed the
door shut on any consideration of the outstanding Cecil Avenue points (although
that scheme is not mentioned by name):
‘I’ve received information which reassures us about
the accuracy and the quality of the information that was presented to the
Scrutiny Committee.’
What information was received? And what ‘information that was presented’
did it reassure “us” about? Did other committee members even see any of that
information, or is “us” just the committee Chair? I think it’s fair to point
out a lack of transparency here!
And did you notice the hesitation before that sentence was read out? It
certainly sounded as if Cllr. Conneely had to find the piece of paper that
sentence was written down on – a carefully constructed form of words that
prohibited any further discussion of this “matter arising” by committee
members, without giving away any details of why that was the case. Did the
Chair write those words herself (and if so who advised her on the best words to
use), or was she just given the piece of paper by someone else, and told what
she must say?
In my blog about this back in May, I said: ‘Brent’s Cabinet
and Senior Council Officers do not want their Wembley Housing Zone proposals to
be scrutinised.’ Well,
they’ve got what they wanted, and Resources & Public Realm Scrutiny
Committee have allowed them to get away with it.
It’s not just on this issue that Brent’s
Cabinet and Senior Officers seem to control what the committee scrutinises. A
report to the Full Council meeting on 11 July, headed “Resources and Public
Realm Scrutiny Committee Chair’s Report”, but actually written by Council
Officers and signed off by the then Assistant Chief Executive, included this
section on the committee’s work plan for the year ahead:
Extract from item 11 on the Full Council meeting agenda, 11 July 2022.’
‘Scrutiny is the mechanism by which the Cabinet is held publicly to
account.’ But if Brent’s Cabinet is telling the Resources & Public Realm
Scrutiny Committee what subjects it can look at, those words are meaningless.
Scrutiny
– What Scrutiny?
Philip Grant.
