WEMBLEY MATTERS

Saturday 30 April 2011

Thursday 28 April 2011

Brent Library Closures - the final act?

There were gasps from the public gallery at last night's Scrutiny Committee last night when Cllr James Powney strode into the Council Chamber in what appeared to be an early 20th century beige Amazonian rain forest exploration costume. The gasps (of admiration or incredulity?) soon turned into gasps of shock at the man's sheer audacity when he responded to objector's representations on the closure of half of Brent's libraries.

He accused the chair of Brent Youth Parliament (see below) of not having read the hefty document on the Libraries Transformation Project and described their request as 'superfluous'. Cllr Helga Gladbaum drew mutters from the public when she said she liked the way students used tables and chairs in the Town Hall for studying. Kishan Parshotam had pointed out that during the Easter holiday there had been over-flow from the Town Hall library because of the number of students and asked what the impact would be on these numbers if six libraries closed. The BYP's request that the Executive ensure suitable study facilities be available during the 2011 examination period was reworded into a recommendation that they consider what provision could be made during the current examination period and was approved with three votes for, 1 Labour against and three Labour abstentions. There were four Labour councillors on the committee, 2 Lib Dems - including the chair, and one Conservative. Labour voted down the other two recommendations as a block and did the same for all subsequent recommendations.

The criteria for alternative business plans were the subject of a long debate when the Preston Community Volunteer Library proposer spoke of the difficulty of getting financial information from the Council in order to formulate plans. Her request for details had been treated by officers as a Freedom of Information request with a timeline that meant the data was not available before the submission deadline. A legal investigation as promised on whether that was lawful.

The council was also criticised for not making the criteria on which the plans would be judged public before the campaigns worked on them. Instead the plans were submitted before the criteria were published and it was therefore no surprise that they did not meet them. As if this was not enough Cllr Powney said they would all have failed anyway because proposals had to all to be at no cost to the council and that any handover of council buildings would be at an 'exorbitant' cost to the council. In other words the volunteer proposers would have to purchase the buildings. A recommendation that the Preston Community Library proposal be reconsidered after the proposers had time to reformulate it was rejected. A similar request from Kensal Rise Library campaigners was rejected as were requests that the timescales should be clarified in order to ensure there was no gap in service (the six libraries will close imminently but extended hours and other changes will take a long time to implement) and that school staff and students should be consulted further as so few has responded to the original consultation.

This latter caused a further debate. Only 8 of 79 schools had responded to an e-mailed survey. Preston Library campaigners over the last 24 hours had found that at least 10 schools had said they had not been consulted. Cllr Powney insisted that they had all been consulted and that in addition a meeting had been held with school literacy coordinators. He claimed that they may not have responded because they were happy that the Transformation Project would be an improvement but also that 'administration in the schools may not be effective'. Cllr Lorber retorted that the likelihood of a response would have been reduced if the e-mail did not make clear that the proposals were about the closure of six libraries. Sarah Tannburn, in the absence of library officers who were on holiday, confirmed that the title of the e-mail referred to 'Transformation' but 'as I recall' some of the 15 questions referred to closures. Lorber said if the the letter had been explicit about closures, schools would have responded.

A final recommendation from Paul Lorber that the Neasden library closure be reconsidered as the library's profile did not fit with the closure criteria and that Dollis Hill residents were faced with closures at both Neasden and Cricklewood, was rejected.

Cllr Powney concluded by saying that consultation respondents were not representative of either library users in particular or residents in general, consultations were not referendums and that the council could not merely comply with consultation outcomes as they would be in breach of regulations about council efficiency, securing best value, and other legislation. He was sure that the proposals would result long-term in an increase in library usage, study space and IT provision.

Brent Youth Parliament 'Disregarded' on Library Closures

Kishan Parshotam, chair of Brent Youth Parliament made a presentation to the Scrutiny Committee yesterday setting out BYP's position on library closures. The BYP's recommendations are reproduced below:

Brent Youth Parliament’s Recommendations to Overview and Scrutiny
• BYP comprises of 72 elected members who represent the 72,000 young people of our borough’s young people.
• As a body, we understand that cuts do need to be made in the budget. However, cuts to libraries should be reconsidered, as they will have a detrimental effect on Brent’s educational standards and the young people you represent.
• Around 50% of the libraries’ regular users are young people aged 19 and under – the group that has suffered most from central government cuts already
• The sudden withdrawal of these services will hit this vulnerable group at a time when it is most needed.
• Students who responded to BYP’s “Have Your Say” forms were deeply concerned about library closures and wanted us to make it a priority to keep them open.
• Brent Town Hall, one of the libraries set to stay open, has seen overflow of study spaces for many years now. It is not acceptable to see young people studying on the stairs of the Town Hall.
• My local library, Barham Park, has been packed throughout the Easter break with students and young people of all ages. The impact on young people is going to be very substantial
• The Consultation at Brent Youth Parliament on 22nd February 2011 was ignored by the Head of Culture and Environment, who disregarded the views of young people on the day. In this meeting, the issue of study space for students was mentioned on numerous occasions – yet no proposal has been given as to how the impact on young people will be subsided.

Therefore, on behalf of Brent’s 72,000 young people, I would like the Scrutiny Committee to make the following recommendations to the Executive:
1. The Executive to ensure that the existing Libraries or suitable alternative local premises continue to be available for young people throughout the 2011 exam period
2. The Executive to look again at the implications and consequences of closing six libraries on young people living in the areas nearby
3. The Executive to consider provision of facilities of access to computers and revision space during exam periods in subsequent years in those areas where libraries are being closed. In addition, the Executive should ensure that as far as possible young people are made aware of these facilities.

Since the establishment of the Youth Parliament in 2007, the borough’s youth have
been encouraged to shape their communities. Please do not take away such a large
chunk of these same communities without considering the impacts.

Monday 25 April 2011

Sign up to save the NHS

I’ve just signed a petition to Save the NHS. Right now the government is rushing through plans which experts, and groups representing doctors and nurses, warn could break the NHS up and hand control to private health companies. It's also a huge waste of money at a time when funding is already squeezed with beds and wards being cut.

It worked when enough of us signed the petition against privatising England's forests. The more of us that sign up to Save the NHS, the more chance we have of winning. Please sign now:

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/NHS-petition

Debate AV in Kilburn on Wednesday

From Yes to AVA Campaign

Next Wednesday, April 27th, there's a debate on AV taking place at St Mary's church in Kilburn.

It will be chaired by Geoff Martin, Editor of the Ham and High newspaper, and will feature Andrew Marshall and David Aaranovitch arguing for a Yes vote, and Chris Philp and Terry Paul for a No vote.

You can book your place here: http://avhustingsstmarykilburn.eventbrite.com/

This is a great opportunity to introduce anyone who is still undecided to our arguments, so if you have friends or family who are not quite sure, please encourage them to come along.

The organisers are also asking for people to submit questions in advance. Make sure the right things gets discussed by contacting the host via the website http://avhustingsstmarykilburn.eventbrite.com/

Download the low-down on threat to NHS

Download this very useful broadsheet HERE

Green Party Urges Nurses to Unite Against Health Reforms

The Green Party's health spokesperson has called on nurses to unite against the draft Health and Social Care Bill.

Stuart Jeffery, himself a registered nurse, has written to the Royal College of Nursing's president, Andrea Spyropoulos, and its general secretary, Peter Carter, calling for the RCN to come out fighting against the devastating changes to the NHS being driven through by the coalition government. He has pointed out that the internal market deprives the NHS of up to half a million nurses.

Stuart Jeffery said: "At a time when nurses are propping up the NHS with increasing levels of unpaid overtime and clinicians are becoming concerned about the NHS reforms, the RCN needs to take a strong stance against the government's NHS reforms. The quality of care is suffering as cuts bite into the NHS, and yet the government wants to waste even more increasing the scope of the internal market and in privatising more hospitals. This is simply immoral.

"There is enough money tied up in running the internal market to fund up to an additional 500 000 nurses, far more than we need, yet the government is wedded to the idea that a market can run the NHS. It is time to challenge the 'market knows best' attitude which will spell the end of the NHS. I have written to the RCN urging them to come out fighting against the immoral health bill and to fight to save the NHS. I hope they take note.

"Nurses have key roles to play in health care. Fighting to keep the NHS running, and out of the hands of corporate sharks, is one of them. Let us hope the RCN takes up the challenge."

Defending the NHS in Brent - May a Month of Action

The 'thinking space' on NHS 'reforms' (privatisation) has provided an opportunity for local campaigning organisations to call a public meeting to enable local people to hear the views of GP, health workers, service users and MPs on the proposals.

Brent Trades Union Council, Brent Fightback and the Campaign to Defend Brent's Health Services have combined to organise 'Defend Our Health Service' to be held on Thursday May 12th at Willesden Green Library, 95 High Road, NW10 2SF.

The following extract from a blog by Russell Razzaque on the Independent website LINK sets out the reality of the reforms:

Working within the NHS today, I have witnessed first hand the sheer confusion and, in some quarters, borderline panic, that has ensued as a result of the governments recent announcements. PCTs were established as the purchasers in the system. These are massive strategic planning decisions that involve many billions of pounds. Overnight, the government plan to remove all of them, and hand the totality of their powers over to GPs. They have not described how GPs – with no training in accounting or management – can take up this role. They have not provided guidance as to how GPs might pool together to achieve this. As the so called “GP consortia” can be as large or as small as anyone chooses, a chaotic bout of “run around” has ensued with GPs trying to partner up with each other across boroughs and local boundaries, unsure which way to go.

The PCTs have already started to dismantle and in London, staff with no future are haemorrhaging in droves, leaving a skeletal operation alone to determine the allocation of billions worth of spending. The Chair of The Royal College of GPs has described the proposed changes as the end of the NHS as we know it. The BMA, the Royal College of Nursing and several of the specialist medical Royal Colleges have spoken out against it. Calls to phase it in and start with a series of gradually building pilots have fallen on deaf ears. No one is sure how it will work or how adversely it will effect patient care. The very people who will be tasked with implementing such rapid change are already utterly perplexed by it. That is because they are supposed to be. It is an engineered shock. All the while, waiting in the wings, with a metaphorical defibrillator, will be the private sector. The large American insurance based corporations are eyeing the soon to explode UK healthcare market with salivating mouths. The vacuum that is being created, is being created for them. They will be hired to do the commissioning by and instead of GPs who are, through no fault of their own, clearly untrained and unable to do it. And it won’t be long thereafter before these same private organisations start hiring themselves as providers instead of NHS Trusts, many of which will ultimately go bust.

The government are, in fact, proposing to rig the market in their favour by requiring every single contract to go for competitive tendering. This means that, even if there is a high performing Trust with which the local population is happy, they will still have to submit themselves for retendering to the commissioners on a regular basis who will then be legally obliged to consider private sector organisations as part of the process. Subjecting hospitals to the instability of a retendering process could be disastrous. I have seen it happen myself. Staff numbers will fluctuate wildly as doctors and nurses, unsure if their organisation will survive, start moving between providers – just as they do in, say, the banking sector. This will potentially destroy continuity of care, as well as in-patient and emergency service provision which relies on regular staff numbers round the clock. A hospital shutting down as a result of losing a bid to a private sector provider, who has undercut their costs as a way of breaking into the UK market – rather than failing to provide an adequate service – could be a potentially dangerous event resulting in the collapse of secondary health care provision for the entire local area. This is why unfettered free markets are a bad idea for health care, and why the US experience has led to a hard fought reversal away from marketization. This is also why, if they were asked to vote for it, the public never would. In fact, in the last election they clearly did not. The Conservative manifesto, with its “no major reorganisations” commitment gave exactly the opposite impression. The only way such drastic privatisation can ever be achieved is through a short sharp shock to the system. Nick Boles, the pro Cameron Conservative MP, laid it out starkly, “’Chaotic’ in our vocabulary is a good thing.” Friedman would be proud. As he himself said, “only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change”. This is clearly not chaos by incompetence. It is chaos by design.

Brent Fightback will be conducting a public survey about the proposals in Wembley in early May and are organising a contingent to take part in the 'March to Save the NHS' which takes place on Tuesday May 17th (Assemble 4.30pm at University College Hospital, Gower Street, WC1 to march to the Department of Health, Whitehall.

Further information on Keep Our NHS Public