Fairtrade and Corporate Strategy

In the Summer, we rather strangely had a vote on a revamped corporate strategy for the Borough.  I say this is strange, because there doesn't appear to be any good reason to revamp th3e corporate strategy.  We subsequently had the Chief Executive in to explain the document, and I was rather surprised to find that she didn't seem to know what the targets referred to.  If no one knows what the targets are about, it is hard to see how anyone is going to know if they have been met.

Where a Strategy document such as this can be useful is in cascading changes through an organisation, and it struck me that Fairtrade is a good example.

The 2010 Brent Labour Party manifesto had a commitment to promoting Fairtrade, and that got into the Corporate Strategy passed after we won the election.  This helped me to push the issue with officers, who had rather given up on it following the failure to attain Fairtrade status by the Liberal Democrats and Tories in 2008.  This helped the Borough to finally attain status as a Fairtrade Authority.

However, it also helped drive Fairtrade further into detailed decision making.  For instance, it helped me persuade the head of procurement that Fairtrade should be part of the specification for the cafe franchises at the Civic Centre.  The fact that you can drink Fairtrade coffee is directly attributable to that specification.  It also helped when I wanted to make provision of Fairtrade goods a condition for Ward Working funding for the Night Shelter project, and for the Fairtrade artwork in Hazel Road Open Space. 

Somehow, I can't see the revamped strategy being used in the same way. 

Make Willesden Green

I notice that there are moves afoot to put up an independent candidate(s) in Willesden Green.  I think on the whole that is quite healthy.  Until people actually try it, they don't realise that standing for election is quite difficult.

Looking at the candidates' manifesto, I am struck that a lot of what he is talking about is fairly obvious stuff that is currently moving forward.  For instance, the call for a better public realm or traffic calming. He also calls for development of the Genesis site near Kingsley Court, something I might say myself.  As my own experience with Willesden Social Club shows, this tends to take a long time. He also doesn't seem to get how councillors involved in planning applications have to be careful about what they say.  Or that a single independent councillor may have difficulty influencing Council policy, which is afterall one of the main reasons we have political parties in the first place. 

St Jude Storm Damage and Street Trees

The St Jude storm has damaged a lot of our street trees.  Above is a tree I photographed in Palermo Road yesterday.  Currently, the Council estimate that the damage is worse than at any time since 1987.  The Council is estimating about 150 trees lost but there may well be trees that are still unknown.

Given the scale of the problem, it is taking a while to get around all the trees to clear them.  The Council is prioritising areas where a fallen tree is blocking someone in their home, or blocking a road.  I gather they were working up to midnight last night and from the early hours this morning.

Surprisingly, it does not always seem to be the youngest trees that get damaged the most.  I had a look at some of the new trees planted around Park Parade this morning and they seemed intact.  I recall that in the Kensal Rise tornado of a few years back, the hundred year old trees in the tornado area were destroyed.  Nearby the then very recently planted saplings on Buchanan Gardens were fine.

UPDATE

There is a list of street trees that the Council knows about here. 

FURTHER UPDATE

The relatively limited damage to Southern English woodlands is covered here.

Business rates and High Streets

There is a piece here about business rates strangling high streets, rather than parking charges.  This could well be true.  Certainly given most shoppers in places like Harlesden Town Centre come by means other than car, reducing business rates sounds like a better route than tinkering with parking charges.

Cllr Paul Lorber and the Downgrading of Wembley Library

The success of the new Wembley Library, Brent's first new library for twenty five years, causes me to reflect on how hard it was to achieve.  One of the striking things about the controversy over libraries was the deep seated hostility to change, even when it was obviously beneficial.

I have blogged before on Paul Lorber's numerous reversals of policy on the subject.  However I didn't mention that he actually proposed scaling back or perhaps entirely removing the new Library in Wembley in a letter to the then Chief Executive.

After criticising the new Wembley Library for being bigger and better than the old Town Hall Library, he goes on to say that:

"It is clear to me that the smaller local libraries are being sacrificed to fund the new and substantially larger Civic Centre Library which for many years will not be situated in a residential area and which will require a journey to get to.

This is not an approach that my group can support.  If existing libraries are under threat of closure then the size and capital and revenue cost of the proposed Civic Centre Library must be substantially scaled down. 

The Civic Centre Library must therefore make a contribution towards the £1 million revenue savings target being set for the libraries by substantially scaling down the new library proposed for the Civic Centre both in terms of revenue and capital costs."

I find the psychology at work here interesting.  Of course, had we followed this course, it would almost certainly have cost money rather than saving it.  The architects could have done a redesign, and the contractor rescheduled the building works, but they would no doubt have asked for compensation for the extra work involved.  Assuming the Civic Centre building remains the same size, I am not sure there would have been any saving in the overall running cost, we would have ended up with a much worse library.

More seriously, Cllr Lorber appears to be objecting to the very quality of the library, which we now know is one of its great attractions.  Granted, he made the unwarranted assumption that people would not travel to the Wembley Library, which we now know to be untrue.

At roughly the same time I recall him suggesting that Kilburn Library should be closed so I suppose one should not be surprised that headlines seem more important than reality.

Bad Pharma

I have been reading Ben Goldacre's Bad Pharma, which is in general a distressing take on the abuses not just of pharmaceutical companies, but also by academics, regulators and politicians.  However, it has a footnote on an experiment relating to titles.  A series of letters were sent out at random by a newly knighted doctor.  Some referred to him as "Sir"; others did not.  It made no difference to the likelihood of a response.  Somehow, the idea that someone thinks of doing such research gladdens me. 

Street Lighting in Brent

It was interesting to see a new product that might have the ability to do away with conventional street lighting (here).  I don't know whether Starpath is practical, but Brent will certainly have to do something about its street lighting.  In money terms, likely rises in electricity prices will make the bills for street lighting rise.  In carbon emissions terms, the success of the Civic Centre in cutting carbon emissions mean that street lights are representing a bigger and bigger proportion of the Council's carbon footprint.

Free School Failure

The LGiU has a blog asking whether there is a need for a "middle tier" to supervise schools, and whether local authorities should do the job.  The answer to both questions is surely yes.  Central government simply doesn't have the resource to supervise more than 24,000 schools effectively.  The policy of hollowing out local authority powers whilst leaving them with responsibilities simply means that necessary jobs, like providing school places do not get done.

Weekend Cleaning in Brent Parks

Another planned improvement in the new Public Realm contract is weekend cleaning at selected Brent parks in the Summer.  The parks that are felt to particularly need this are: Roundwood Park, Welsh Harp Reservoir, Barham Park, Roe Green Park, Woodcock Park, Butlers Green and King Edwards Park Wembley.  These are felt to be the most in need.  It shows you can still have improvements even within an overall context of reducing budgets.

Wembley Library Growth Not Unprecedented

My Sunday post on the growth of numbers at Wembley Library, which has been picked by the Kilburn Times, has led some to express surprise.

It is actually not that surprising if you consider the precedent of Kilburn Library.  Kilburn had a major refurbishment followed by opening on 10 September 2012.  The subsequent visit and loan figures are on the Brent Council web site here.  The relevant comparison is Quarter 3, which was the first full quarter after re-opening.  Visits went up by 226.9%, and loans rose by 71.7% in that Quarter.

A major refurbishment really does have a beneficial effect on the number of people using the library.  Such precedents bode well for the prospects of the new Willesden Green Library Centre in 2015.

Good Riddance to the Racist Vans

Just a quick post to welcome the good riddance to the racist vans put out by the Tories and the Liberal Democrats.  Our society is cleaner without them.

God and Mammon Meet in the Credit Union

I understand that the Bishop of Kensington, the Rt Rev'd Paul Williams, has enrolled in Your Credit Union (YourCU) as part of the Church of England's efforts to compete payday lenders out of existence.  YourCU mainly covers Kensington, but also covers Kensal Green and Queens Park.

I am impressed by the way the Church of England is taking this issue to heart, and making a major national promotion across thirty dioceses.

English Language Difficulties in Brent

One of the sets of stats in the report on the Public Realm contract that I have not seen before related to the numbers of people in the Borough who have difficulty with English communication.  It is broken out by ward below:

	Cannot Speak English Well	Cannot Speak English	Total	All Categories	% with Language Difficulties
Alperton	1,592	342	1,934	13,455	14.4%
Wembley	1,442	307	1,749	14,116	12.4%
Welsh Harp	1,054	197	1,251	13,103	9.5%
Dudden Hill	1,042	195	1,237	14,355	8.6%
Harlesden	1,269	220	1,489	16,154	9.2%
Queensbury	1,099	253	1,352	14,565	9.3%
Sudbury	1,129	188	1,317	14,251	9.2%
Tokyngton	1,102	243	1,345	14,509	9.3%
Dollis Hill	938	147	1,085	12,783	8.5%
Fryent	866	146	1,012	12,850	7.9%
Kensal	929	169	1,098	14,149	7.8%
Preston	1,023	187	1,210	14,793	8.2%
Stonebridge	1,008	200	1,208	15,998	7.6%
Willesden	1,046	180	1,226	14,885	8.2%
Barnhill	918	181	1,099	15,058	7.3%
Kenton	630	143	773	11,761	6.6%
Mapesbury	716	108	824	14,888	5.5%
Brondesbury	477	111	588	12,525	4.7%
Northwick	547	112	659	12,398	5.3%
Kilburn	580	112	692	16,230	4.3%
Queens Park	457	89	546	14,554	3.8%

The average is 8%, although the total of all the wards does not add up to the total population of the Borough.  I assume that this is because some people did not answer the census question.

These figures are actually somewhat lower than I imagined that they would be.  Lack of Engl;ish tends to be a major problem in my experience, and I thought it was more widespread than this.  There isn't any magic bullet to deal with it.  Not least because we have such a variety of languages.  In somewhere like Tower Hamlets, the non English language is generally Bengali.  In Brent, you can easily find half a dozen languages in the same street.

Wembley Library The First Quarter

I mentioned before that Wembley Library seems to be a big success compared to the former Town Hall Library, but it is worth looking at the figures for the first quarter of operation for this.

The figures for visitor numbers are:

	2013	2012	% Change
July	49,769	20,689	140.6%
August	54,222	21,028	157.9%
September	42,376	17,539	141.6%
Total	146,367	59,256	147.0%

The figures for book borrowing are:

	2013	2012	% Change
July	16,549	9,489	74.4%
August	20,205	10,652	89.7%
September	15,262	8,466	80.3%
Total	52,016	28,607	81.8%

These are both impressive jumps in numbers, but I think it is also worth thinking about the qualitative differences.

Some people, like Phil Bradley, see the future of libraries as helping people to cross the digital divide and become more familiar with the latest information technologies.  You can get a sense of this in Wembley with the staff regularly helping people with the PCs and the fixed ipads available.  Less obvious is the ipad lending service or loans of energy meters, and training in things such as how to construct a web site. 

Incidentally, Wembley Library also features an impressive list of writer events, including Martina Cole on Wednesday.  You can find more Brent libraries events here.

Social Value and Procurement

The new Public Realm contract is the first really big contract that Brent has had with the Social Value Act in place.  I have expressed concerns before about how Brent Council can reconcile the need for financial savings, service performance and the desire for greater "social value" than before. 

Despite my skepticism, I have to admit, that the new contract does do a good job of improving environmental outcomes, and goes some way to help economic outcomes by providing apprenticeships and the possibility of the London Living Wage.  However, those who see Councils as just a pool of employment are likely to be disappointed as the greater efficiency which is inescapable in the current financial circumstances makes Spanish practices impossible even if they were desirable. 

It is also worth noting that the area of greatest difficulty in terms of low pay and lack of career progression is in adult social care contracts, and there seems next to no possibility of there being improvement there.

Carbon Emissions in the Brent Public Realm Contract

One of the innovations in the new Public Realm contract is a specific target to reduce carbon emissions, which I don't believe featured in the 2007 contract it replaces.  The target refers to emissions from office buildings, other operational buildings, vehicle fuel and "non-vehicle" fuel.  The intention is to cut emissions from 2,717 tons of CO2e per year in 2014/15 to 2,690 in 2016/17.

While this is welcome, it is small beer compared to the benefit of cutting the waste sent to landfill.  Landfill is a huge generator of methane as food waste rots in the grounds.  Even though modern landfill sites such as the one in Calvert in Buckinghamshire that West London uses, burn the methane for electricity it is still a major greenhouse gas contributor.  Thus, the reduction in actual waste is likely to be a more important factor than the direct carbon emissions of the vehicles.

Smaller Bins in Brent

I pointed out before that the new contract for waste is progressive in encouraging waste reduction.  Part of this is adopting 140 litre bins.  I recall this coming up during the consultation on introducing the blue top bins, and many people were quite keen on it.  I assume that the existing protocol around shared bins for (for instance) flats in a converted house would remain the same, but this is a point I need to clarify.

Food Waste

The huge waste of food world wide is covered here.  West London is pioneering food waste reduction as I mentioned a few days ago.  However, I find it ominous that the company building the power plant to dispose of WLWA's waste has done a lot of research and remains confident that at least 50% of the fuel they are supplied with will be food waste.

Measuring Library Performance

My Sunday blog on library performance suggested that our standard measurements are rather old fashioned.  The basic logic is that book borrowing is the core activity of libraries, and that all the other activities can be broadly captured by visitor numbers.

That is maybe a workable model for 1990, but hasn't the game changed by two big technology changes? I am thinking of the Internet and of wireless technology.

To some extent, libraries are used to the Internet, but our measurements still tend to assume that everyone goes to a building to access library services.  I often point out that many traditional library activities _ reading newspapers, borrowing books, searching a catalogue _ can be done online.  The amount of stuff this covers is much more extensive than people generally think.  Despite ebook borrowing being much slower to take off than I anticipated, getting on for a quarter of Brent's book loans occur without someone going to a library.  Therefore our footfall figures simply don't capture a lot of what libraries do, even by proxy.

The second big change is the rise of wireless.  Libraries are getting used to this.  All Brent libraries are wireless foot example, but we don't really capture it in measurements.  Of course, a lot of it is still quite new.  iPhones were launched only in 2007, and iPads only in 2010.  Whereas a few years ago, a library could monitor its IT activity via the log ons at desk bound computers, there is now a growing trend to bring in their own devices, which drives the growing use of soft furnishings rather than desks in library design.

We need to find ways of tracking all this activity, so that policy can be determined by evidence about how modern libraries actually work rather than childhood anecdotes.

Brent Libraries Gold Award

Congratulations to Brent Libraries for getting a Gold Award for its Six Book Challenge for the second year running!  We had 163 completes this year, compared to 157 before.

The scheme is run by the Reading Agency to encourage adult reading.