Six Month Update

Six months ago, I wrote a post reviewing the previous six months, and so I thought I would do something similar again.  The two biggest things I identified were the emissions based parking permits and the changes to the waste management system.

Emissions based parking permits are now in place.  Unfortunately there was a glitch in terms of sending reminder letters, but I hope this has now been sorted.  The waste management system, essential to increased recycling, is now being planned for rollout later in the year.  This is likely to be one of the biggest challenges the administration faces over the rest of its term.

The two biggest issues of these six months have been setting the budget and passing the Libraries Strategy.  The Budget has been passed in the worst financial context that Brent Council has ever faced.  We have managed to contain some of the savings to areas of waste we inherited from the previous administration.  In particular, Brent Council had too many managers and a number of areas of genuine waste which could be cut.  Other cuts were much more problematic.  However, in short order we put together a package that makes unprecedented savings but still protects the vast range of services that the Council provides.

In terms of controversy, the Libraries Transformation Project has dominated the headlines despite accounting for a relatively small part of the Council budget. At the time of writing, this has been largely passed, although the Call In Committee made one recommendation about keeping up the number of study places during the 2011 exam season.  I thought this recommendation superfluous, as it is covered in the existing report, but there you go.

On the less controversial issues, we have made some progress on Fairtrade, some progress on developing our Arts policy (especially in relation to libraries), a fairly routine set of changes to gambling licensing has been agreed by the Executive and will go to full Council shortly, and the Placemaking Guide has finally been passed.  The Executive have also agreed the Site Specific Allocations of the Local Development Framework (LDF), which is much more interesting than it sounds, and is a crucial part of the Planning Framework of the Borough.  The next Full Council meeting will also make changes to Brent's procedures for planning applications, streamlining the process.
In terms of disappointments, I had wanted to make further progress on a carbon emissions target, but hopefully we will be able to publish one later in the year.  I had also been hoping that we would finally get to an end of the long running Dollis Hill House saga.  However, Eric Pickles delay in signing permission for demolition has pushed that date back as well (Although we now have permission).