James Powney's Blog

I suggested before that Scrutiny should have a bigger part to play in Brent Council than appeared to be planned at that time.  Subsequently...

My eye was caught by a discussion on the "comprehensive and efficient" library duty by a Lincolnshire MP.  A view has been expres...

Another anonymous and bad tempered comment can be found here .  It would be nice if people could sign their names, but I though I would do a...

Work appears to finally be starting on moving the Jubilee Clock in Harlesden Town Centre.  This is part of the last phase of works.

A former Green candidate makes a comment here .  It covers a disparate number of points.  The only one I want to pick up on is referring to ...

Yesterday's post on Brent Council decision making causes me some more reflection on the changes.  I understand that Area and User Forum...

A commentator asks me about whether I would have voted against the whip on the constitutional changes on 4 June.  My understanding is that ...

Arts Council England has published some research on the economic value of libraries .  I thought it would be interesting to look at it from ...

Localgovernmentlawyer reports that four Councils in Oxfordshire are considering having no staff whatever .   This is a vision that would gla...

The success of Labour in Hammersmith & Fulham has led to a call to review the Tri Borough arrangement .  Of course shared services can a...

I have been posting a lot lately on the dry subject of Brent's Constitution.  Whilst dry this is very important, and in my view the coun...

Returning to the Scrutiny arrangements that I posted on on Sunday , it is claimed that they are not to be as they appear in the report befo...

One of the most popular Council responses to the Library duty is now to hand them over to volunteers.  I have commented before that there a...

The next Brent Council meeting is rushing into a number of ill advised Constitutional changes without proper discussion.  I have commented b...

Edinburgh has become the latest city to announce plans for more 20mph limits .  Interesting that they are advocating them on air quality gro...

I have blogged before about Brent's contribution to the Arts Council's automatic library membership projects.  The evaluation repor...

The Liberal Democrats appear to be going through a political assassination whose bungling incompetence makes the murder of Rasputin look we...

I sat up to watch the European Election results last night, which thanks to Tower Hamlets, took far longer than they should have done.  It s...

Passing down Harlesden High Street on the 18 bus a few days ago, I noticed that the new block on the old service station site is now vir...

The elections for Brent Council are now complete, with Labour sweeping the board with 56 seats (up 15), the Lib Dems collapsing to just one ...