Another data breach by Brent Council - this time Kilburn Square consultation

According to Life in Kilburn Brent Council has again breached data regulations by open copying residents' email addresses into an email about the Kilburn Square development consultation. This means that each recipient has access to all the private emails.

To make matters worse the send claimed in response to a complaint that it was impossible to send zoom details via blind copy (bcc) which zoom users know is not the case.

Life in Kilburn told Wembley Matters:

There were 21 residents on one invite but same issue on the invites to 2 similar meetings on different dates. It has also probably been happening to all previous residents invites to Zoom meetings for all infill developments, where the "consultation" is managed by this individual.

 This is the second case in just a few weeks and appears to be the same department.

 June 19th 2021:

Nearly 40 years on the Brent battle for the NHS continues as new campaign set up - join the protest tomorrow

 

Nearly 40 years on  from the above, the battle for our NHS continues.  Last night was the inaugral meeting of Brent Keep Our NHS Public part of a national campaign against privatisation of the Health Service. Last night, as in 1982, it was supported by some Brent councillors (I am not sure if there is official backing from Brent Council itself).

Cllr Neil Nerva, Lead member for Public Health, Culture and Leisure,  introducing the Trades Council sponsored meeting said that on the doorstep there was currently more concern about  access to NHS services than privatisation, but went on to list the various threats from privatisation. Cllr Janice Long said that not only was it important that this was a cross party campaign but that it should reach a much broader audience.  She said it was important to keep the message simple and was doubtful about the effectiveness of Patient Participation Groups, but GP Jonathan Flaxman urged people to get involved with them to overcome the powerlessness of patients. Cllr Ihtesham Afzal urged more street protests: There is one tomorrow:

 

 Other councillors who attended were Cllrs Thakker, McLennan, Dar, Kabir and Hylton along with Trades Council members and other activists.

If you would like to join the campaign email:  brentkonp@yahoo.com

 A website will be set up soon.

Residents accuse Brent of 'playing games' over Kilburn Square infill project and launch petition for smaller plan

 

From Keith Anderson, Chair, Kilburn Village Residents Association

Brent is playing games with both local neighbours and estate residents over the huge “Infill” project for extra housing on Kilburn Square

·       After superficial “consultation” on the Estate for months, Zoom meetings with local community groups were due in early May…

·       … then postponed for two months while the project team “reviewed the designs”

·       They led us to expect that a smaller Plan B, which they clearly now have in the drawer, would be what we discuss next week

·       But no, the meetings will be based on the original Plan A

·       Cynics are connecting this with the likely shortfall in the GLA money they can spend, and the net extra units that will be achieved there; I make no comment

·       But we have now launched a petition for a smaller project: http://chng.it/xwxLyYcDhP

·       Please sign and share!

 

And if any reader lives in Kilburn (Brent), Kilburn (Camden) or Queen’s Park Wards and would like to get involved, please email me at streetgroups@mistral.co.uk

 

This is the wording of the petition:

 

Brent wants to build an extra 180 council homes on the existing site in North London, including:
•          A second 17-storey TOWER, next to the highly polluted Kilburn High Road
•          A 5–7 storey Extra Care building
•          Three more new 5-storey blocks, removing mature trees, a playground, a football pitch and open green space
 
Including a new block just completed, this would be an increase of over 80% on the original estate population – on exactly the same footprint. 

This would mean real overcrowding, huge impact on the skyscape and light and privacy for both residents and neighbours, damage to our neighbourhood’s precious Green Lung, concerns about security, more on-street parking, pressure on local services, huge noise and disruption for the whole area during construction.

This simply does not make sense!

We have seen no supporting surveys or analyses, and it’s NOT in the Local Plan. Estate residents are being ‘consulted’ on details; but not on the scale of the scheme. They have worked hard to create a friendly, well-balanced and crime-free estate. A plan on this scale would completely transform its character and the sense of place built up over decades, and impact the local community as a whole.

We recognise Brent has an acute housing need, but this plan is much too big. The Council should revert to the smaller plan being studied last summer, while prioritising the improved housing units for current tenants.

Brent’s Director of Housing told a recent Scrutiny Committee meeting Brent ‘would not want to force homes on anyone’ – we ask that he honours these words.

So, we call upon Brent Council, and the Greater London Authority, to
1.     Reduce the size of the development to 70–75 units and protect the open space for the resident and local community, to meet GLA and Brent best design practice.
2.     Set the housing proposals within the wider context of the plans for upgrading the Kilburn High Road frontage.

 

 
 
Please join us and sign our petition! HERE

 

To find out more, visit https://save-our-square.org or email us at savekilburnsquare@gmail.com to join the campaign. See also: https://www.kilburntimes.co.uk/news/kilburn-residents-against-over-development-7979330

 

Labour's Annual Women's Conference calls for future Labour Government to re-establish community control of schools through LAs

 A welcome development given Labour's ambivalence over academisation but we can't afford to wait for implementation by a Labour Government - the campaign must begin now.

The Socialist Educational Association (SEA) won a stunning victory at Labour’s Annual Women’s Conference on 27^th June when the Conference agreed that a future Labour government should end the academisation of schools in England and re-establish community control of schools through local authorities and the involvement  of parents, education staff and students.

The SEA’s motion, tabled with Thirsk and Malton Constituency Labour Party, also called for co-ordinated action and resources to challenge sexism and gender-stereotyping in schools and colleges which research from UK Feminista and Ofsted have confirmed is widespread.

Composite Motion: Early Years and EducationDownload

Pam Tatlow, the SEA’s delegate to the Conference, said ‘A fractured, fragmented school system dominated by Multi-Academy Trusts and edicts from the Department of Education will not deliver the progressive agenda that students deserve or the collaborative framework that schools need to tackle the deep-seated and historic problem of sexism in schools.’

James Whiting, General Secretary of the SEA which is the Labour Party’s only education affiliate, said ‘We warmly welcome the support of the Women’s Conference for our “Give us back our Schools” campaign.

The long-standing issues of disadvantage and discrimination that impact on opportunities and life chances of women will not be resolved by the marketisation and privatisation of education or the unaccountable academy system which have been features of the Conservative government’s education agenda for the last decade.

Our call for the return of local authorities and an end to sexism in schools was supported by over 96% of Labour women at the Conference but also by trade unions such as Unison, Unite and GMB which represent thousands of education staff, many of them women.

We hope that Labour ‘s shadow front bench team will now commit to bring schools in England into an integrated, cooperative, transparent and non-selective education system under the aegis of accountable local authorities.’

Independent SAGE: The unequal impact of Covid-19 on women. Is 'herd immunity' the policy for school children?

 

 

The June 25th edition of the Independent SAGE  breifing was particulalrly valuable and interesting so I am sharing with Wembley Matters readers.  In addition it covers other forms of inequality and refreshingly also looks at the political background, including the impact of increasing centralisation of the NHS and its lack of internal democracy. One telling points waas that if 1% of DDP was invested in the social care sector it would produce more jobs than if the same amount was invested in construction.

Well into the session there is a discussion about the rising number of Covid-19 Delta variant in schools and in answer to a question about whether this was a policy of developing 'herd immunity' through children a scientist replies that they don't know if it is intentional, but  if that is what she wanted to do, that is how she would do it.

Another contributor mentions that there are 250,000 children missing school at present because of Covid and of those 8% are absent due to school closures. 

Disbelief in expressed that more is not being done to ensure proper ventilation in schools and a contributor mentions that in New York, a website gives parents the ventilation status of every classroom in every school which is vital given that this is an aerosol spread virus.

There is concern that the government has said secondary children do not have to wear face coverings in schools any more ,whilst advice is still that adults should wear them inside and outside.

On Tuesday because of the 5pm Euro2020 match kick-off thousands of fans will be arriving at Wembley Park by public transport just when pupils from Michaela, Ark,  Preston Manor and  Lycee Winston Churchill will be crowding on to the tube and buses to go home.

'This is not OK', as Independent SAGE might say.

Twitter reacts to reports of a possible Labour leadership bid by Brent Central MP Dawn Butler (Later denied)

UPDATE FROM THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

 

 Click on image to view separately

Stepping up the campaign for the NHS in Brent on its 73rd anniversary - important events next week

 

Next Saturday, July 3rd there will be local demonstrations across the country in support of the NHS and its workers.  The Brent demonstration will be a static demonstration outside the Willesden Centre for Health and Care.

There is also a Central London demonstration outside UCL Hospital on the Euston Road starting at 11.45am.

 

Ahead of the demonstration there will be a meeting on July 1st to relaunch the Brent branch of Keep our NHS Public with Cllr Janice Long, Cllr Neil Nerva  and Dr Jonathan Fluxman speaking.

Brent KONP Time: 1^st Jul 2021  17:30h Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84178644772?pwd=bExBR1VVak1zZFlzb1plUmdUYTlmQT09

Meeting ID: 841 7864 4772  Passcode: 923609

The Green Party at its most recent conference passed a motion in support of the NHS pay claim for a 15% restorative pay award and the Green Party Trade Union Group  held a useful  briefing on how to support the NHS15 campaign and the background to the threat to the NHS.

Bullying and Racial Discrimination Safely Incubating in Northwick Park Hospital’s Maternity Unit

Guest post by Nan Tewari resident of Brent, and former Commission for Racial Equality officer.

 

Northwick Park’s maternity unit is once again in the news for all the wrong reasons.  One inquiry after another, going back decades - the most recent covering 2002-2005 and 2008 - has recognised ‘poor culture’ as a particular issue.  Yet none of these reports has made direct reference to how the absence of good staff management practice (also called human resource management) has adverse impacts on patient safety, patient experience and patient outcomes.

 

My own experience over a number of years of advocating individual patient cases at the London North West Healthcare Trust, has been one of the same mistakes being repeated with impunity, meaning that the Trust is content to just get by with paying lip service to learning the lessons of incidents.  There is a complete lack of will to tackle the underlying systemic issues, relying instead on sticking plaster solutions to cover over the cracks just long enough for the serving senior management incumbents to move on up the NHS greasy pole or collect their pensions.

 

In the face of the funding and resourcing cuts facing all areas of the public sector, it is unacceptable for staff to have to labour under the added burden of being bullied and racially discriminated against.  I have personally witnessed visible minority staff at Northwick Park being spoken down to by white colleagues and having their judgement openly questioned.  This means that staff will be reluctant to speak up for patients if they believe those higher up the food chain will hold it against them. 

 

Poor culture arises in any organisation from poor management – at all levels from board downwards.  It suggests nothing good of the honesty and transparency of the NHS that enforcement of these tenets is required by Freedom To Speak Up Guardians.  It suggests an ingrained penchant for lying that the NHS has to be told it has a ‘duty of candour’, i.e. someone had to actually tell them they need to tell the truth.  

 

BACKGROUND TO BULLYING CULTURE IN NURSING LINK

 

 Extract:

A bullying culture contributes to a poor nurse work environment, increased risk to patients, lower Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) patient satisfaction scores, and greater nurse turnover, which costs the average hospital $4 million to $7 million a year.  Addressing nurse bullying begins with acknowledging the problem, raising awareness, mitigating contributing factors, and creating and enforcing a strong antibullying policy.

PREVIOUS INQUIRIES AT NORTHWICK PARK 

 Investigation into 10 maternal deaths at, or following delivery at, Northwick Park Hospital, North West London Hospitals NHS Trust, between April 2002 and April 2005 LINK

 

An independent review of serious untoward incidents and clinical governance systems within maternity services at Northwick Park Hospital 2008 LINK