Brent Council seeks £3.3m cut in Council Tax Support scheme with 'potential risk of a disproportionate impact' on disabled people, ethnic groups and (possibly) gender

Brent Council is to consult on proposals that would cut the current Council Tax Support scheme by £3.3m. The proposals are for three potential options  1) an increase of 19% claimant contribution (the percentage of the full Council Tax that the resident actually pays) for all working age claimants including the vulnerable who are currently exempt; 2)  current exempt remain protected but working age non-exempt will pay 51% of the Council Tax;  3) taper off entitlement as income rises so that the number claiming is reduced.

The Council is set to increase Council Tax by 5.99% in the financial year 2019-20. These proposals would take effect in 2020-21 with consultation on the changes taking place between June and September 2019 and going to Full Council in December 2019.

It is worth noting that the report to Monday's Cabinet commits to an equitable scheme but notes under Equality Impact Screening that:

...That said, there is a potential risk of a disproportionate impact in certain groups, in particular disabled people, ethnic groups and (possibly) gender.

Extract from the Report to Cabinet

£3.3M net saving (£3.96M gross)

i.                Additional 19% claimant contribution for all working age claimants. Current exempt (“vulnerable”) claimants pay 19%; non-exempt claimants pay 39%;

     Or:

ii.              Current exempt claimants remain protected; additional 31% claimant contribution for all non-exempt working age; i.e. Non-exempt claimants pay minimum 51% of Council Tax liability.

      Or:

iii.             Introduce mechanisms to taper off entitlement more steeply as income rises, therefore making the saving from reduced caseload volumes, rather than the rebates that the remaining claimants receive.

The above options all represent extremes which are unlikely to exactly represent the eventual scheme design, which will be more nuanced, with many aspects – in particular those claimants treated as “exempt” - under review and likely to be changed. However they illustrate the difficulty in maintaining the current size of caseload while attempting to protect the most financially vulnerable. The new scheme is therefore most likely to incorporate option (iii) to either fully or partially meet the saving while allowing the scheme still to protect the most financially vulnerable within it.

Key risks and mitigations

The Council must be able to show that meaningful consideration has been given to meeting the saving from alternative measures, e.g. increasing Council Tax, cutting other services, etc., and why it is proposing to meet the saving by changing the CTS scheme. If it cannot show this, it leaves itself open to significant legal challenge.

·      Ensure that consultation includes meaningful consideration of the of alternative funding methods to meet the saving 


·      Ensure that Cabinet and Full Council reports explore the alternative funding methods in sufficient detail and evidence that that Members have actively considered these 
Financial hardship for residents – 


·      the scheme will be designed to protect the most vulnerable, but will 
necessarily will overall be harsher than the current scheme 


·      consideration of a discretionary hardship fund within the scheme 


·      consideration of transitional protection for the most impacted claimants 


Council Tax collection decreases –
- review Council Tax collection processes to enable greater engagement with CTS claimants before enforcement action commences

Scheme is not agreed by Full Council by the deadline – - robust project management

IT systems unable to provide the desired solution (on time) –
- early engagement with IT providers and strong project management

Scheme is subject to legal challenge –

·      robust scheme modelling 


·      engagement with stakeholders 


·      sufficient time taken over drafting the formal scheme with Legal Services input 
Revised scheme does not deliver sufficient savings and / or further cuts required in following year

·      model alternative schemes including one providing a larger cut 


·      design a scheme with further changes for Year 2 built into it

 Equality impact screening


The proposed scheme has not been designed yet and there are several options, so it is not possible to be precise at this stage, however one of the design principles is to build a scheme that is equitable and proportionate across protected groups (and other claimants), so specific impacts will be tested in due course and any inequities reviewed accordingly. That said, there is a potential risk of a disproportionate impact in certain groups, in particular disabled people, ethnic groups and (possibly) gender. There is considered to be a much lower risk in the other protected groups, as no potential scheme designs will feature these factors explicitly, and the chance of an unintended consequence is thought to be low – although all aspects will be considered in the EIA. 


Bridge Park community comes out fighting for its rights, Council's new plan offers less than Bridge Park currently offers

“Brent, don’t take our gold and only give us sand. 


You state you offer our Community a friendly hand...

then don’t sell our Land”

The meeting where the BPCC campaign was launched

Statement from Bridge Park Community Council February 4th 2019 about Brent Council's sale of the land at the Bridge Park Leisure Complex

The Restriction

We successfully lodged an RX1 application in September 2017 with the Land Registry, as a declaration of interest in the land on the South West Side of Brentfield Road, Stonebridge, Willesden (“Bridge Park”) Title No: NGL426015.

Brent insisted that unless we withdrew the application, they would escalate matters to the courts. They have continued to reject all our offers of cost-effective resolution, which included negotiation, ADR and HMLR Tribunal.

The Covenant

Bridge Park Community Leisure Centre (BPCLC) is a former 3.5 acres bus depot that was converted into a Leisure Centre in the 1980s using GLA funding. It has been managed by the Council for at least the last 12 years and offers 37 business units, multi-faith centre, nursery, dryside multi court sports hall, 2x Gyms, professional music studio, bar with restaurants, function hall, conferencing and meeting rooms. The Bridge Park site had a protective covenant on it, to keep it in the hands of the community. Brent Council worked with the LB Bromley (as successor body to the GLC) to have this removed.

Proposed Redevelopment of Bridge Park Community Leisure Centre

See the Brent Council Report from the Strategic Director, Regeneration and Growth and the Strategic Director of Environment and Neighbourhoods 17^th February 2014

Planning

Brent Council have hidden the exchanges and correspondence with GMH and Brent Council’s Planning department – Bridge Park is community used, owned and of huge community interest. Brent council’s dealings should be made public and particularly all related planning and pre-planning exchanges. Bridge Park currently has more facilities than that offered by Brent in their latest revised plan announced 1^st February 2019.

Conditional Sale Agreement (CLSA)

We now have possession of the CLSA ‘sale’ document. Brent are supposed to be Publicly accountable – yet, Brent Council are not operating open-handedly. All key information as to the Land sale has been removed and some 95% of pertinent details have been redacted.

The Community have said overwhelmingly that:

•       they do not wish for Bridge Park land to be sold to private developers 


•       they support BPCCs community vision 


•       Brent should observe the protective covenant schedule titled The Community 
Project that was entered onto the original HM Land Registry Title NLG426015 of 1982. 
Brent refers to consultations held in October/November 2017 in Harlesden and Stonebridge. Both meetings were attended by BPCC members, the public and the press was present. The meetings did not cover public consultation on the areas that Brent now states as the reasons for recent changes in their latest plan. The above meetings were in fact Brent Council officers, the Leaders and senior executives, in apparent partnership with the developers GMH, both presenting the Vision for the future use of the land. One contentious area was that 5% affordable housing would be made available to the community 30 of 600 homes. The consultation session and documents presented simply provided the community with options on how they wanted the gym surfaces and facilities arranged, similarly same with the planned swimming pool. The exercise was explained by Brent’s architect with the aid of drawings laying out their proposed redevelopment of the site. 
The community overwhelmingly disengaged with the consultation exercise and demanded that Brent Council not sell Bridge Park. 


The community’s restriction on the land sale places Brent Council under extreme pressure to complete the deal with GMH within deadline. We feel Brent Council have adopted a number of tactics to try to get past the court process and speed up the usual court timetable. The latest of which was an unexpected revised acceptance of our longstanding offer of mediation, in that Brent agreed to look at mediation within the month of February but on the terms that they would alongside, and at the same time apply for Summary/ Strike Out hearing of our restriction. This is set for 11am 27^th February 2019, at the Rolls Building, High Court EC4. The Strike Out is a technicality to get the case thrown out before it can be heard at a full trial, thereby rendering any mediation before 27^th February 2019, non- binding and ineffective. We see this as Brent’s attempt to get around our accusation that they have not made real or reasonable efforts to seek settlement ADR with us. 

The Conditional Land Sale Agreement (CLSA) puts Brent Council in some difficulty with settlement talks, as they will likely face huge issues if they do not go through with this commercial deal.

In summary, Brent knew prior to the sale that the community objected to it. We were not happy with the level and lack of consultation also there was no real community involvement in the process. Brent pushed through with the sale of the land and have now realised that the community effort to block any sale and our wish to be fully involved with the process is to be taken seriously.

Their recent plans do not address the fact that:

•       The community does not want Brent to Sell the land. 


•       Brent should halt the sale and now fully involve the community on the use of the 
land. 


Brent’s latest plan to sell would leave the community with significantly less facilities 
than that which Bridge Park currently offers.


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