FA claims Wembley events in 2017-18 contributed £150m to Brent's local economy

The FA has circulated a report on the economic impact of the Wembley Stadium 2017-18 season. One local resident immediately said, 'Do you belive any of this? I am sceptical.' I leave it to readers to make up their own minds and welcome your comments.

I wanted to share with you the Wembley Stadium economic impact study we commissioned on the back 2017/18 season – a unique season for Wembley Stadium marking the 10 year anniversary of the new stadium, welcoming our 10 millionth stadium visitor and of course hosting Tottenham Hotspur FC for a full Premier League season. 

We entrusted Deloitte to analyse the economic impact of the stadium during this period – 58 major events, which, in addition to football, saw boxing, Rugby League, NFL and music concerts come to London.

We are looking forward to building on these successes with some of the biggest events in world entertainment, such as UEFA EURO 2020 and UEFA Women’s EURO 2021, just around the corner.

Report Summary

§  The 2017/18 season at Wembley saw a record 58 events and was the first time a Premier League football team had taken residency at the stadium. This higher number of event days resulted in an unprecedented amount of visitors to Wembley Stadium and the surrounding area.

§  Findings shows that Wembley’s events led to a boost of £150m to the local economy of Brent, £424m to London and £615m to England.

§  The 58 events attracted 3.8 million spectators, including 350,000 visitors from overseas. The project therefore reaffirms Wembley’s status as one of the leading event venues in the world that attracts significant numbers of visitors to England, London and Brent.

§  Deloitte’s analysis shows that the economic impact from the 58 events supports 1,800 FTE jobs in Brent, 4,900 across London and 6,100 across England.

§  Gross Value Added (GVA) is a common way to look at the value added to GDP by the production of goods and services. The GVA contribution of the 2017/18 event season was £83m to Brent, £231m to London and £334m to England as a whole.

The full report is below. Click bottom right for full screen version.

Confusion over alternative education provision at Roundwood Centre

On Thursday I published an article on the Counci's plans for the Roundwood Centre which, according to the Budget Scrutiny Panel  included the building accommodating a Pupil Referral Unit  to be run by the Brent Special Academy Trust LINK.  This would mean handing over the £5m asset to the Trust. The Panel must have got this information from somewhere because the original budget documentation merely said:

Site to be used for an Alternative Provision educational setting with evening and weekend activities being provided by the voluntary sector. 

There could be community concerns about the future arrangements. However the transformation of the Roundwood site to an educational setting with a wrap-around activity offer will mitigate community concerns.

According to several sources at the Labour Party meeting on Thursday evening Cllr Muhammed Butt said that the PRU (Alternative Provision) would be run by the Local Authority and was not suitable for a school.  He then muddied the waters by vaguely commenting that the authority was part of a consortium looking to set up a free school.

I sought clarification from Muhammed Butt asking:

I've heard that you told LP meeting last night that PRU at Roundwood Centre will be run by the LA and not a MAT. Is that correct? If so does Roundwood remain the property of Brent Council? I'd like to put the record straight if the Budget Scrutiny Report was wrong.

Butt replied, somewhat unhelpfully, that he never discussed Labour Party matters externally.

I have requested clarification from Brent Council's Press Office.

Barnet Trades Council and Barnet Alliance for Public Services 'dismayed' over Brent Council's Capita contract

Barnet Trades Council amd Barnet Alliance for Public Services (BAPS) have issued the following statement LINK regarding Brent Council's decision to renew its business rates collection contract with Capita which we reported earlier today LINK

Barnet Trades Council and Barnet Alliance for Public Services are concerned and dismayed that Brent Council wants to renew its contract with Capita. Our experience of Capita is that it has delivered appalling service and therefore we, together with our local Labour Party, are campaigning for all services run by Capita for Barnet to be brought in-house forthwith. #kickoutcapita is our grass-roots campaign.

Examples of Capita’s misdemeanours in Barnet include:

• A two million pound fraud carried out by a Capita employee, Capita’s lax and opaque processes completely failed to detect
• A call centre which has consistently failed to answer residents’ calls in the required time
• Incorrectly withdrawing travel passes from disabled and vulnerable people
• Actually cost taxpayers more money than in-house services would, through extra charges and “gainshare” payments designed to maximise their profits at public expense
• Performed extremely poorly in audits of the council and brought down the overall standards of council services

We urge Brent Council not to renew its contract with Capita. Capita, along with other failed and failing outsourcing giants like Carillion and Interserve have proved to be entirely failed models. We want to Kick Out Capita from Barnet and bring all services back in-house and under local democratic control. Brent Council should do likewise. The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell has spoken brilliantly about how properly funded, democratically accountable in-sourced public services are the future for the country and we agree. Together we are stronger.

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Privatisation marches on with PRU academy/free school at Roundwood Centre in Willesden

The multi-million Roundwood Centre

Readers will know that Brent Council cut their youth service leaving only the Roundwood Centre in Willesden which does not operate at full capacity and thus impacts on the council's revenue budget.

The Centre only escaped closure because Brent Council would have faced potentially having to pay back up to £5m representing the Lottery Grant that was awarded via the government's Myplace programme to fund the building. The fact that it resembles a group of white elephants is purely coincidental!

The proposal is to hand over the site to an academies trust with youth provision being delivered by an an external provider.  This could be the Brent Youth Foundation, a voluntary organisation  that was originally set up to help existing voluntary youth organisations apply for funding. It is funded itself via the Harrow School foundation arm, the John Lyon's Trust. Running youth services directly  would be a departure from the original remit. The Budget Scrutiny Panel suggested an examination of the long-term viability of funding from John Lyon's and the City Bridge Trust, presumably before the council makes a commitment.

In addition the council proposes that a PRU (Pupil Referral Unit) be set up in the Centre. This would provide for pupils temporarily excluded from school. It would be classified as a new school and as such would have to be a free school or part of a multi-academy trust. It is proposed that it be run by Brent Special Academies Trust (currently consisting of Manor and the Avenue special schools).

Given Labour's policy of not creating any new free schools and academies this is controversial within the local Labour Party. This is not only about the issue of lack of public democratic accountability of academies but also the very ad hoc way special needs provision is being developed in Brent and the backdoor privatisation of most of the borough's non-mainstream special needs provision. A practical issue is whether the BSAT has any relevant experience in running a PRU -  a different kettle of fish from managing special schools.

The Budget Scrutiny Task Force recognised this dilemma stating:

It is far from ideal in our opinion, that this new school would be a free school, but unfortunately the law ensures that new schools opening are always outside of local education authority control. Perhaps a change of central government policy [a Corbyn government?] in future may allow the school to one day become part of the Brent family.

The arrangement is also not perfect for Brent because the asset would transfer to Brent Academies Trust meaning any additional income they derive from hiring out other rooms on site would not be retained by the council, However we will retain some oversite (sic) of the organisations as a senior officer will sit on the Trust's board.

An asset worth £5m handed over in the form of a very long-term lease.

So far no academisation proposals have beend made for the local authority Phoenix School on St Raphaels which specialises in provision for autistic children and of course staff at The Village School are fighting academisation. If academisation went ahead there another multi-million Brent asset would be handed over to a Multi-Academt Trust.

I would argue that democratic accountability is even more important in special needs provisoon because of the particular needs and potential vulnerability of special needs pupils.

Brent grants permission for 8 extra events at Wembley Stadium up to May 2019

Fans leaving Wembley Park station for the stadium

Tottenham Hotspur will be able to play 8 additional matches at Wembley Stadium following a decision by Brent Planning Committee last night.  Up to three events will be up to 90,000 capacity and five at a 62,000  between 15th January and 12th May 2019. The 62,000 capacity crowd will now be able to use the upper tiers of the stadium.

Originally 17 events had been requested of which 10 were capped at 62,000 and 7 up to full capacity.

The Planning Committee approved the plans unanimously after receiving assurances about mitigation measures. 62 residents had objected to permission being granted along with a local residents association. Wembley Traders Association supported the application.

A substantial number of objections were from people living in the new Quintain development and the rest were spread fairly evenly in the area around the stadium.  Committee members expressed concern about the impact of mid-week evening matches at Wembley Park station when commuters and fans combined. Cllr Maurice said that there was over-crowding at Baker Street station on such event days. He was told this was outside the remit of the Planning Committee but that TfL had not submitted any concerns. Furthermore, when he told the Committee about the concerns of a fellow councillor in Harrow about the impact on Stanmore, when fans parked there and came into Wembley via the Jubilee line, he was told that this should be taken up with Harrow Council.

The Committee were told that action could not be taken against local residents who let their drives out to fans but that action was being taken over 'rogue parking lots', particularly in the industrial estate bordering the stadium. One appeal had been successful and the Council were taking it to the High Court. Officers did not mention that they were taking action against local schools that let their playgrounds out for parking to earn much needed additional income at a time of cuts.

If Spurs move to their new stadium early in the period the Committee were told that the additional events granted could not be transferred to another organiser.

Note: During the meeting I tweeted concern that the toilets at Wembley Park station have been closed for some time on the recommendation of the Metropolitan Police because of 'anti-social behaviour.' My requests for information on when they will re-open have not been answered.

The recording of the Planning Committee Meeting can be found here  https://brent.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/398566

Labour Brent Council awards contract to Capita as Tory Barnet consults on getting rid of them

Brent's Labour Council has awarded Capital a further 5 year contract, worth up to £3m, to collect its business rates at the sasme time as Tory Barnet Council is consulting LINK on ending its partnership with Capita (popularly known as Crapita in the borough) and bringing its services back in-house.

In November 2018 Capita agreed to pay Barnet Council £4.12m as compensation for poor performance LINK.

Capita's press release celebrating their new contract with Brent Council quoted Deputy council leader Cllr Margaret McLennan:

Thanks to the big improvements to business rate collection rates, we have been able to invest more in frontline services to make Brent a great place to live and work. The new contract we have signed with Capita will increase the level of business rate collections in Brent and enable us to deliver more efficient services to our residents.

In December Barnet's Kick Out Capita Committee had marked Capita's possible demise with a special Christmas song:

Butt offers Raheem Sterling meeting on Bridge Park in Twitter exchange

In a series of Tweets exchanged with former Brent and Kilburn Times editor Lorraine King, Brent Council leader Muhammed Butt, offered to meet with Raheem Sterling's team over provision at Bridge Park.  This follows an article in the Daily Mail where the Council was painted as less than helpful regarding Sterling's plans for a football academy on the site. LINK

Cllr Butt  returned to Twitter in December and at present only has 236 followers. He has recently had a tetchy exchange with Michael Calderbank of Brent Central Labour Party over the Time to Talk meeting on Brexit. Calderbank felt that that the meeting was constituted in a way that left no space for debate about the case for leaving the EU while Butt said that was not the purpose of the meeting.

UPDATE: Brent library hours cuts 'off the table for now'

Brent Council's deputy leader, Cllr McLennan, told last night's Scrutiny Committee that cuts in library hours has been 'taken off the table for now'. Questioned further she said that even though it was off the table this did not mean that the proposal was not being looked at in the background and it may have to be considered in 2020. With those cuts off the table the council will have to look for cuts elsewhere.

Cllr Nerva pressed the Budget Panel's case for consideration of transferring libraries to a Trust in order to save money without reducing hours, as well as handing some services over to volunteers to prevent closures.  Cllr McLennan did not rule out consideration of these proposals.

Philip Bromberg of Preston Community Library commented to Wembley Matters after the meeting:

If I understood Margaret McLennan correctly, all of the proposed cuts to the Library Service (which included the possible closure of one library as well as cuts in opening hours) are now 'off the table'. That's very good news. Unfortunately the committee seems to have felt obliged to recommend alternative savings. Their first two recommendations would amount to a radical transformation (yes, really) of the library service and, as I said at last night's meeting, would probably prove more controversial than the proposed cuts in opening hours.

I asked where their recommendations had come from - who had they consulted, and what evidence had they considered? The surprising answer was that these recommendations for major changes in library policy had arisen from 'discussions among the members of the budget scrutiny panel'. (Discussions which, incidentally, are held in private). Had they asked their own library service? No, they had not (even though the library service had looked at - and rejected - the idea of a trust three years ago). Had they consulted any of the existing volunteer-run libraries in Brent? Or elsewhere? No, they had not. But they had discussed it among themselves. And that, evidently, is how policy gets made in the London Borough of Brent.

But, for the time being, the threat of further cuts seems to have been averted. And, as I said, that is good news.

Philip Grant adds:

I am strongly against the suggestion that Brent's libraries (and Museum & Archives?) should be hived off to a charitable trust. Although this might appear to provide savings for the Council, the increased administration costs which would have to be incurred by an "independent" library organisation mean that the funds available for the front-line service would be greatly reduced. Brent's Libraries/Museum & Archives play an important part in delivering a range of Council services to local residents, and should be kept "in house".'

My opposition to such Trust arrangements is based partly on the experience of a member of my family, who was working for a local Council museum service in the Midlands. The City Council decided to transfer its Museum and Art Gallery to a Trust, for similar reasons to those put forward in the Brent Libraries proposals. 

Because it was now an independent entity, the Trust appointed a Chief Executive (of course, on a salary higher than any of the existing Museum staff), who then "had to have" a personal assistant, and staff to look after finance, HR etc. 

The end result was that they had to make big savings in other staff costs, and a number of existing front-line museum staff, providing key services for the public and ensuring that the museum objects and displays were properly looked after, were made redundant.So, Brent beware of transferring Libraries to a Trust!