Fairer treatment for those in Council Tax arrears after Brent sign Citizens Advice protocol

The Brent CAB Team

Brent Citizens Advice Bureau has announced that Brent Council and its Council Tax collection enforcement agencies, Equita and Capita, to the Citizens Advice Bureau Council Tax Protocol.

The protocol if followed will ensure fairer and timely treatment of those who fall into arrears:

Council tax payers receive a better level of service when local authorities, enforcement agencies and debt advice agencies work closely together.  Early intervention and proactive contact with people struggling with bill payments can help prevent them incurring further charges and help alleviate stress. It can also potentially help reduce both collection costs and calls on local public services, particularly mental health services.

The full protocol is here:

Brent to sell off surplus residential properties

Brent Cabinet on Monday LINK will be asked to approve plans to dispose of surplus Council property 'at the best value that could be currently obtained in the market. The disposals would generate capital receipts to support corporative objectives.'

Some of the properties will be disposed of to the Council's wholly owned company Invest for Brent (I4B). See LINK for background of Invest for Brent.

The property is varied:

8 Coniston Gardens. NW9 OBD - former 3 bedroomed school keeper's house for Oliver Goldsmith Primary School.Will be sold to I4B at market value for use in the privately rented sector (PRS) programme.

67 Woodheyes Road, NW10 9DE - terraced house compulsorily purchased by the Council's Empty Property Team last year.  Will be sold to I4B at market value under PRS scheme.

Property X (address not revealed to safeguard personal data of owner).  Will be sold via an arms-length transaction on the open market to realise funds for payment of the owner's residential care fees.

27 Claremont Road, W9 3DZ - ex mental health hostel handed back to Council as surplus to requirements by Adult Social Care in December 2015. Unsuccessfully marketed for conversion in 2016.  Cost of internal decoration and modernisation rendered many alternative options unviable. Recommended to take to market in its current un-refurbished condition.

3 Kent Road, Stantonbury, Milton Keynes, MK14 6BA - managed by Milton Keynes Council under historic arrangement with Brent.  To be considered for I4B programme in first instance, if not suitable to be sold on the open market for a capital receipt.

18 Alliance Close, HAO 2NG - flat managed by North West London NHS Foundation Trust. Handed back to Council as no longer fit for purpose for client group. Being considered or I4B programme and it not suitable will be sold on open market for capital receipt.

It would be useful to have some further information on how the capital receipts will be used.

Hear Alan Monaghan of 'The Soldier's Song' at Preston Library on Friday

As fuel poverty increases the lifeline Energy Solutions closes

Planet House bathed in Autumn sunshine

Brent Council has confirmed that Energy Solutions, based at Planet House in Birchen Grove, Kingsbury has closed. The Council cuts its £50,000 grant in 2015 despite it having saved its clients in excess of £717,000 in disputed or refunded gas and electricity bills, trust fund applications and ECO funded affordable warmth measures (heating and insulation) since 2012 and contributing to the borough's carbon reduction programme.

I made the case for the continuation of the grant in January 2015 but to no avail. LINK

The charity soldiered on seeking alternative funding and curtailing its activities but finally appears to have decided it couldn't go on, much to the loss of the local hard-pressed community.

 Energy Solutions was based at the end of Birchen Grove in a building that was constructed as a chapel for the lawn cemetery which had been planned in the 1930s but never materialised. I understand that the surrounding area, which includes the Welsh Harp Environmental Education Centre (taken over by Thames21 after it too lost its grant) and allotments is still consecrated ground.

A Brent Spokesperson said today, 'Energy Solutions is unfortunately closing down. Brent Council is planning to market Planet House on a leasehold basis.'

Here is a reminder of  Energy Solutions' valuable work. I am sure that readers will join me in thanking the staff for all that they did for the community.

 

Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group protest over Kilburn and Neasden Job Centre closures

 Video by Shootroot LINK

The Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group (KUWG) demonstrated outside the Department of Work and Pensions on Monday against the closure of Job Centres including local ones in Kilburn and Neasden.

KUWG said:

 Our local Jobcentres, Kilburn and Neasden, serve one of the most deprived areas in the country. If they are closed then over half of the borough of Camden and around two thirds of Brent will be more than half a mile from the nearest jobcentre, i.e. more than a mile round trip. These areas contain heavily populated areas: a lot of people are going to be affected.

In amongst the people who can't use the internet are hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their disability benefit because they aren't disabled enough for the Tories. They may be able to walk just 200 metres, or sometimes panic when out and get lost, or nor be able to plan a journey to places they don’t know, or have epilepsy. They may be seriously depressed or suffering from brain fog brought on by medication or illnesses like Fibromyalgia. They may be recovering from cancer or waiting for a heart operation. They may have variable conditions that mean that they can't guarantee being able to go out at all on any particular day.

Air pollution UK-Client Earth taking Government back to court for the third time

From the Greener Jobs Alliance
  
The GJA welcomes the decision by Client Earth this week to take the Government back to court for the 3rd time over its failure to respond effectively to this public health emergency. LINK  
 
Unions need to add their voice to the call for action. The legal action was launched just after the release of yet more reports showing that pollution is at unlawful levels in most local authorities in the UK. The GJA calls for employers to take responsibility for the pollution generated by their business activities. There should be a legal duty contained in a new Clean Air Act making it a requirement on large employers to measure the emissions they are responsible for and draw up a clean air plan for their operations. This then needs effective enforcement. For example, construction companies are already under an obligation to show they are controlling pollution yet the lack of enforcement, often caused by staffing cuts, means illegal levels of particulate matter are contaminating workplaces and neighbourhoods alike.

The National Education Union NEU) has taken a lead by producing guidance this week in conjunction with the British Lung Foundation. LINK   

Unions can also put pressure on their local authorities to do more. For example this week Battersea and Wandsworth TUC issued a press release calling on the council to honour its policy commitment of ‘campaigning to national government towards a non-diesel economy’. This has been backed up by a huge citizen science campaign across the borough highlighting the illegal levels of pollution in Wandsworth.

Finally, the GJA is running a series of ‘Air Pollution as a trade union issue’ workshops across the regions. The first will be held in Manchester on Dec. 1st and the second one will be in Leeds on January, 26th, 2018 (contact gjacoms@gmail.com for details)

The murk behind Brent Council's Bridge Park deal that was opposed by the community last week

Bridge Park Complex with Unisys on the horizon

The Kilburn Times LINK today reports on a heated consultation meeting regarding the redevelopment of Bridge Park, Stonebridge, and the surrounding area including the Unisys landmark building. There were demands for the land sale to be halted.

The newspaper quotes Jay Martin of the Bridge Park Community Council as saying:
This is not a consultation, it's a fait accompli. It looks like this deal has already been done and decided. There are moral questions and legal questions to answer. There's the possibility that this whole thing might end up in a judicial hearing. 

 The moral and questions that Martin refers to are presumably directed at Brent Council's off-shore partners in this development.

The late and sorely missed Cllr Dan Filson who, while a Labour councillor, had a strong streak of independence, responded to Cllr Pavey's suggestion that tax havens had to be tackled at national level rather than local government, with this comment on Wembly Matters LINK:

I must say I was surprised that whilst mentioning the two companies involved were neither incorporated nor registered in the UK, the Cabinet paper did not mention that they were registered in tax havens namely Luxembourg and the BVI, nor that the leading shareholder in the holding company was a convicted fraudster. A quick Google search revealed this.

Possibly the council officers preparing the report felt these issues did not matter given the safeguarding phrase that the decision of Cabinet would be subject to meeting financial scrutiny (quite how these financial checks would succeed given that they had not succeeded in the months leading up to Cabinet was not made clear!).

The wider issue of the ethics of dealing with tax haven companies wasn't touched upon at all nor the fraudster angle. I understand Councillor Pavey's position that it needs government action to deal with tax haven companies (to say nothing of persons being company directors of overseas companies who, by my book, should be disqualified from holding any positions of trust in any company trading or owning land in this country).

However Brent can have its own policies; but what should they be here? The land south of the North Circular Road at Stonebridge Park has been a derelict eyesore for a couple of decades. Brent can engineer development here by intervention using such land as it has as a bargaining tool. If we take the ethical route and don't treat with tax haven companies will we get better or worse terms from other companies? Conceivably could Councillors be surcharged for not getting "best value" in a deal? Will any action happen on this site at all for another decade?

I don't know how I would respond on these issues. My disappointment was that no attempt has been made to address them before this particular decision came to Cabinet despite the identity of these 2 companies being known for some time, years even. So the Cabinet was obliged to agree to a deal involving these two companies without a financial appraisal in front if it and without a stated policy on dealing with tax haven companies. It leaves an unpleasant taste.

Ex Inspector of Taxes, Philip Grant, LINK revealed a link with Quintain:

 When offshore companies are involved, that will always raise suspicions about who is really behind them, and whether tax avoidance may be involved, although in this case you can read a little about GMH on Wikipedia:-

'The General Mediterranean Holding (GMH) is a financial holding company established in 1979 in Luxembourg City, in southern Luxembourg, founded by Anglo-Iraqi businessman Nadhmi Auchi.

GMH is a diverse business group with activities in Banking & Finance, Real Estate & Construction, Hotel & Leisure, Industrial, Trading & Pharmaceuticals, Communications & IT and Aviation.'

The (publicly available) details do not say in which overseas territory Harborough Invest Inc. is incorporated, or resident for tax purposes.

By chance, I have come across GMH's "agent", Nick Shattock, before, when I was an Inspector of Taxes, and he was a director of Quintain Estates and Developments Plc (having previously been a partner in a firm of City solicitors). That information is on public record, and (of course) I cannot disclose anything which happened when I was responsible for dealing with the Quintain group's company tax affairs, because of Civil Service confidentiality.

As a (past) director of Quintain (the developer behind Wembley Park), it is likely that Mr Shattock has already had dealings with Brent's Strategic Director of Regeneration and Growth, Andy Donald. The report to Cabinet proposes that negotiations over the "deal" between Brent and GMH should be left in the hands of Mr Donald (as the "deal" with Galliford Try over the Willesden Green Library Centre redevelopment was).

Persuaded? Definitely not!

In January of this year Cabinet approved the land deal for Bridge Park nd Labour defeated Cllr John Warren's move at Full Council to have it debated. The is an extract from my report of the meeting:

In the course of the resultant discussion Cllr Warren, speaking to Muhammed Butt, Leader of the Council, referred to 'Your friend Mr Auchi'.  Sir Nadhmi Shakir Auchi is Chairman of the off-shore British Virgin Islands company General Mediterranean Holdings (GMH) which is Brent Council's partner in the redevelopment of Bridge Park.  Muhammed Butt is the lead member for the conditional land sale of the Bridge Park site to GMH.

At the Brent Cabinet on January 16th Cllr Margaret McLennan, Deputy Leader of the Council, said that she was 'thrilled' by the Bridge Park deal. LINK

Auchi is controversial because of a 2003 allegation of  fraud LINK and of course the whole issue of tax havens and tax avoidance is a current political issue with Jeremy Corbyn promising action by a future Labour Government.

Cllr Thomas intervened to call for Cllr Warren to withdraw his statement about 'Your friend Mr Auchi' directed at his leader, as the Council Meeting was being streamed and he wouldn't want a 'wrong impression' to be given. Warren, saying he couldn't remember exactly what  he'd said,went on to say, 'Mr Auchi has connections with the Labour Party. Let me say that. That is what I was referring to.'

The alleged link goes back to 2001 when the Guardian published an article entitled 'A Tycoon, a Minister and Interpol' LINK and involved Keith Vaz MP.

Brent to compulsorily purchase Kenton property - more to come?

Residents of Brent will be aware of the number of empty residential properties in the borough and many voices have been raised urging the council to act to bring them back into use for family accommodation.

The Cabinet on Monday LINK will be asked to approve the compulsory purchase of a residential property in Kenton which has a long history of neglect and is currently squatted. The Council claim that the owner has made no determined and ongoing effort to bring the property back into use.

One might expect the Council if the CPO is successful to refurbish the house and add it to the stock of council housing. However, they appear to expect to hand it over to the private sector: ‘Acquisition by the Council and the subsequent sale and refurbishment will achieve a quantitative and qualitative housing gain.’ This doesn't seem to fit with the justification for the CPO in the report which points to the shortage of social housing while the sale and refurbishment will probably add to the over-priced private rental sector:

·      There is a shortage of social housing creating a greater dependency on the private rented sector and increasing the need for the council to make the most of the empty homes throughout the borough. Empty homes are critical in Brent, we are responding to complex needs for housing and working towards increasing this supply by returning empty dwellings to use. 

·      Brent has acute housing pressure, there are over 19,000 households currently on the housing register.
·      Brent has a culturally diverse population and needs a variety of types of homes – for rent and sale, for single people and for families with children. 

·      Current and future need for homes prompts us to make better use of all our existing housing resources, which include empty properties. 

·      Council tax records show that there are 1259 empty properties within the borough of which 859 properties have been empty for 6 months or more. 

·       Empty properties have a significant contribution to make in Brent’s development of a sustainable community, returning them to use helps to increase the housing 
 supply to meet our housing needs, improves the condition of the area and brings increased revenue through council tax. An empty property is a wasted resource especially when there is a need for housing and a shortage of supply

An additional document makes clear that there are risks and costs attached to CPOs where if the issue goes to a public enquiry additional costs of up to £55,000 beyond the purchase price could be incurred. LINK