Brent Increases Ward Working Budgets

On Monday, Brent Council decided to increase ward working budgets from 20,000 to 40,000 pounds.  This was moved as a late amendment at the actual meeting.

Both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats opposed the move.  I suspect that, as with recycling, Cllr Paul Lorber is once again leading his party down a dead end.  Whereas the Tories opposition is, I think, populist opportunism, Cllr Lorber's hostilitity to ward working is longstanding and heartfelt.

When he was in opposition before 2006, he would routinely call for the entire ward working scheme to be scrapped.  On attaining office, he was unable to fulfill this ambition as the other two parties opposed him, but he did scale back each ward's budget from 30k to 20k.  The budget decision the other night now puts each ward's budget up to 40k.

As far as I can see, Cllr Paul Lorber simply does not understand the logic of the policy, which is that frontline councillors will only be taken seriously if they can bring some sort of budget, however small, to bear on a problem in their wards.  He claimed that ward working had been unsuccessful in his own ward of Sudbury.  If so, I am inclined to attribute its lack of success to him.  Where councillors actually engage with the ward working agenda, it has been used to back all sorts of useful community projects.

SackBoris2012.com

One of the joys of an upcoming election is a proliferation of online campaigning.  A new web site has been dedicated to London Mayor Boris Johnson.  Its political angle is not hard to discern.

I particularly liked the "Turing Test" feature.

What are Fightback doing?

This photo of the Fightback group outside Brent Town Hall makes them look more lively than they actually were.  I still haven't heard from them what they mean by "not lie down".  Set an illegal budget?

UPDATE:

Responding to the comments below, there has been a long standing problem with local government in the UK that it is financially dependent on central government.  There fore it has limited room for manoeuvre.  the idea that it can just stop central government policies is just pie in the sky, but I do think having a Labour Council makes us significantly different from the previous Tory administration.  For example the Tories and Liberal Democrats have explicitly opposed our new recycling system, failed to push for Fairtrade status, andshowed no interest in the carbon emissions issue.

Brent Council Budget Passed

Last night's budget setting meeting turned out to be a less charged event than last year.  Cllr Ann John gave the best speech, and (I thought) Cllr Suresh Kansagra the worst.  I was on the Planning Committe with Suresh for some time, but I am afraid he let his party down last night.

Cllr Paul Lorber attempted to make a number of specious amendments.  Part of his argument depended on taking money from ward working, which we instead voted to increase as a budget.  I suspect Cllr Lorber's long standing dislike of ward working is contrary to the position of many of his colleagues.  Nonetheless, they voted for his proposals.  He also made yet another proposal on libraries.  Both these subjects probably deserve their own post.

I was struck at how demoralised both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats seemed to be.  Cllr James Allie, the Liberal Democrat who chairs the Budget Scrutiny panel, chose not to attend and did not offer apologies.  This despite him having a specific slot in the budget debate.  One would have thought he might at least have arranged someone else to speak on his behalf.  However, even some of the normally vocal Liberal Democrat councillors who did make it to the meeting chose not to speak.  They seem really to have had the stuffing knocked out of them.

Council Budget

Brent Council will be setting its budget tonight.  I suspect that, as last year, the Liberal Democrats and Tories will not offer a serious alternative but simply a set of eye catching amendments.  But we shall see.

South Kilburn Regeneration Proceeding

Work is forging ahead on the redevelopment of South Kilburn after years of drift and delay.  The next area to be brought forward is the space to the south of Queens Park station (where the 187 bus stops).  Details can be found here.  McDonald House is finished.  The Carlton Vale roundabout, George House, Swift House and Merla Court are underway.  Planning permission has been granted for the Cambridge Avenue development, as well as Woods, Bond and Hicks Bolton Houses. This is an impressive amount of progress at a time when resources are under such pressure.  Eventually, the hge bison blocks that are the least loved aspect of South Kilburn will be demolished.

Housing Disaster

The Guardian report on the growing scale of London's housing problem doesn't really convey the extent of the problem.  Cuts in housing benefit from last year, and the grossly overinflated prices of housing in London will force Councils to move people many miles from their communities.  The areas that they will be forced to go to are likely to be poorer and have fewer employment opportunities.  Thus, the Tory government is creating social upheaval and undermining the economy as a whole.

Dollis Hill House Replacement

The demolition of Dollis Hill House has now been completed.  Rather than just grass it over, we decided to make a feature of some of the remains to enhance the northern part of Gladstone Park.  The drawings and some artist impressions of the feature can be seen here.

Willesden Green Library Redevelopment

I thought it might be good to highlight some of the things going on around Willesden Town Centre.  Details of the consultation on the redevelopment of Willesden Green Library Centre can be found here.  There is also a Brent Council page on the project here.  Incidentally, the Library redevelopment ties in well with the regeneration work on Willesden Town Centre as a whole.  There is another web site covering Windows on Willesden here.

Community Project Funding

Brent Council is looking for interested bidders to fund community projects.  Details can be found here.  The number of bids put in generally exceeds the amount of money available, but hopefully many organisations will still be able to beenfit.

Temporary Libraries

I notice that the Liberal Democrats are now complaining that Ealing Road library is being refurbished without a temporary library being set up during this period.  In fact this is merely a continuation of existing policy.  Thus, when the last Tory led administration closed Barham Library for three months, no extra temporary provision was made.  Brent Council has only provided temporary library services during long construction periods (as with Harlesden Library).

Michael Gove in Another Pickle

Michael Gove is trying to exempt schools from their duties under the Equality Act by saying it does not apply to the curriculum.  My understanding is that the Equality Act applies to "public authorities" in the exercise of their functions.  I would have thought a school funded by taxpayers' money would be covered by that definition.  I wonder what Sarah Teather thinks?

DCMS Response on Brent Libraries

I am surprised that the DCMS response to the Brent litigants has not attracted more publicity.  For the past year all sorts of campaign groups up and down the country have called on the Secretary of State to intervene.  Until now the department was silent, prompting at least one group to send a complaint.  The Brent letter gives the first indication that I know of on the Department's reasons for not intervening.

There are two main grounds.  Firstly, Brent Council did a thorough and rigorous assessment of needs in making its decision.  Secondly, the Brent Strategy is not merely a finance driven programme of cuts, but a genuine transformation project, which will see a number of improvements.  These improvements have not had the attention they deserve, but include:

• Seven day opening at all Brent libraries
• Improved levels of bookstock in all Brent libraries
• An improved outreach service
• Substantial investment in all Brent's library buildings.

Brent Libraries Comprehensive and Efficient

I blogged before that two days after they told me that they were extremely reluctant to engage in litigation, I found that Friends of Kensal Rise Library had sent in a legal threat to the Secretary of State.  The threatened action was about non-determination of whether Brent was following its duty to have a "comprehensive and efficient" service.

The SoS has now responded.  He has now determined that Brent's library service is indeed comprehensive and efficient.  I find it hard to imagine what other result the litigants expected.

Astro Turfing

Adam Bienkov has an interesting piece on astro-turfing and political campaigns here.  As he says, this is a long established practice, but becoming much more sophisticated.

January Recycling at Brent Council

The recycling figure for Brent in January 2012 was 43%, compared to only 23% in January last year.  I see this as another confirmation that our new system is on the right track.

Library Legalities

Anyone wondering about what is happening next on Brent's Libraries TYransformation Project?  The answer is we are trying to get clarification from All Souls College about various legal issues.  In the meantime, the stock is being redistributed around our six libraries.

Decorum

Reflecting on the last Brent Executive, I am struck at how uncivil meetings can often become.  I first noticed this tendency at a Planning meeting over the Tenterden MUGA a couple of years ago.  That meeting shared two striking characteristics with the Willesden Library protesters on Monday.  Firstly, there was a lot of shouting.  It appears that some people think the best way to make a case is raw aggression.  Secondly, there was little attention to what was actually on the agenda.  In the Tenterden case, the MUGA was agreed in principle, the application was merely about the details; nonetheless, a crowd of about forty people turned up to shout the committee about their opposition to the whole scheme.  Similarly, the several speakers who denounced the Willesden Library Development ignored the actual subject of the call in _ the interim library arrangements _ and spoke instead about things like the retail offer, which are surely better covered in the pre-application consultation.

Big Society Problems

The Guardian reports on some of the problems with local authorities assessing "Big Society" offers.  On the whole, it underestimates the extent of the problems, especially in today's increasingly litigious climate. 

Particularly on procurement, the piece does not give the full flavour.  Challenging the award of contracts has become increasingly common.  This is helped by a change in practice.  Previously, a successful challenge would simply lead to a rerun of the tender.  Now you can claim compensation for the profits you would have made.  There are plausible rumours that companies are building a few successful challenges into their business model.  Of course, that tends to benefit major players who can afford smart lawyers.  The more local, volunteer type groups often have little expertise in putting bids together.  It is hard for officers to help them because (a) resources are stretched (b) Too much help to one group can itself breach procurement regulations.

Other problems the article does not cover include planning service provision.  The availability of volunteers does not necessarily match the areas of need.  Given that there are virtually bound to be hidden costs in any scheme in terms of management, all kinds of business support and so on, that is likely to lead to services being planned according to who shouts the loudest rather than on a rational basis.

The other big omission is "moral hazard".  If the service is much valued, government is always likely to step in if a group fails.  If you take Southern Cross, it would hardly be politically possible for the government to leave the people in Southern Cross homes to just fend for themselves.  Hence the private sector could take as many risks as they liked knowing that the taxpayer would pick up the pieces.

Brent Executive Tonight

I suspect that the Brent Council Executive this evening will be lenghty.  As well as the budget, we have an item on Willesden Green Library Centre and Charteris Sports Centre.  There are also a lot of other items that will probably attract less attention, but are extremely important (like the report on helping victims of domestic violence).