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Friday 31 October 2014

Brent Council in Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs

I see that Brent Council has featured in Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs.  In the bad old days of the 1980s and 1990s, this was a regular event.  When I got elected to the Council in 2006, I recall an officer proudly telling me that "Bent" Council had not featured in Rotten Boroughs for some years, so it is sad to see the circle turn.  The cause this week is the finding of racist bullying in an employment tribunal, although the curious relationships of members and officers are also mentioned.  This strikes me as more damaging to the Council's reputation than an article a little while ago that mentioned the curiosity around the disposal of the former Tokyngton Library.

UPDATE

Another anon comment on libraries, I see. In fact, I don't think Brent libraries ever featured in the Rotten Boroughs column, although it did occasionally appear in "Library News".  Of course, Private Eye doesn't do positive stories so we won' t be seeing many mentions in future of how satisfaction is rising and both visits and loans are up, or the numerous other improvements since 2011.

ANOTHER UPDATE

Really the world of anonymous comments is an odd one.  The comment from 17.19 on 1 November complains of the opening hours at Kilburn Library post transformation.  Actually, the Libraries Transformation Project ensured for the first time that all Brent Libraries were open seven days a week.  Previously, Kilburn Library had been open only five days a week. As for "security staff", I don't believe Kilburn Library has any, it is staffed by Library staff for all its opening hours, as it was when I was last there on Saturday.

It really is odd how people makes things up and then start believing them.  Perhaps, Kilburn Library deserves another post of its own to highlight the benefits of its refurbishment.  UPDATE: I have now done another post on Kilburn Library here

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You seem to have forgotten that Bent featured in Private Eye regularly while they, sorry - you, were closing our libraries in 2011.

Anonymous said...

and no Librarians to help you when Kilburn Library is open late, only security staff.
Some Transformation!

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