Lack of Leadership

As predicted, Brent Council is proposing a Council Tax increase this year.  There are no plans to cushion people claiming Council Tax Support, which adds to the general feel of rudderlessness at Brent Council.  The Scrutiny Committee has picked up on this lack, saying: 

"Our main broad critique of the Package is that it lacks a common thread or philosophical story.  The package instead appears to be a collection of disparate ideas brought together in order to reach the final figure required."

Ultimately, that is a failure of political leadership.

Brent Council and Pub Protection

Some time ago, the campaigners around The Queensbury started a call for Brent to adopt a "pub protection" policy.  This would not have had any actual effect on The Queensbury decision, which involved retention of the pub, but it is commonly advocated in other authorities.  The Queensbury campaigners, however, claim to have encountered considerable obstruction by the Council.  This is despite their apparently being told by the Council Leader that he supported a pub protection policy.  I found it puzzling that, having apparently promised support, nothing was done to create such a policy _ which has certainly been done elsewhere.

What I had forgotten was the The Falcon Pub in Queens Park.  Brent is very keen to develop this site as part of the South Kilburn regeneration.  In fact, without that land, the whole development would grind to a halt across the whole of South Kilburn.  This gives an extra perspective as to why Brent Council has no great desire to strengthen planning protection for pubs. 

Scrutinising Waste Solutions

Martin Francis has picked up on my post about changes to the Scrutiny report recommendations.  The remarks that were critical of the then lead member didn't refer to me but to Roxanne Mashari, who did indeed appear in photo opportunities in a campaign targeted at prosecuting residents for various environmental offences.  

I was involved in a different campaign, related to trade waste, which has subsequently discontinued.  I am not sure why.  The figures indicate that it was effective in reducing waste, but I know that it was also labour intensive so it may be that a cost/benefit analysis showed that resources were better used in other ways.

If so, I have no problem with that.  The advantage of being transparent with such things is that if a given scheme doesn't work, lessons can be learnt and a new solution can be attempted.  That kind of pragmatic approach is more productive than just deleting unfavourable references.

Willesden Library Opening Hours

I am glad to see that Martin Francis has finally noticed that there is a new library at Willesden Green despite his determined campaign against it.  It is a shame, but perhaps predictable, that his attitude should continue to be negative and critical.

However, it is a fair point that longer opening hours would be a major benefit, and would not necessarily be expensive.  The room hire should be able to offset some of the cost, and it may be possible to charge higher rates at peak times such as Friday and Saturday evenings.  It would also benefit library usage, even if it was only a form of limited availability such as the unstaffed hours at Wembley Library on weekday mornings. 

Mysterious Change in Scrutiny Wording

There is a curious change in the forthcoming Brent Council Cabinet report on fly tipping (which the Council now want to call illegal rubbish dumping (IRD) on the erroneous supposition that that term is jargon free).  The Cabinet report follows a Scrutiny report which said, among many other things:

"Future publicity about IRD should be continuous, mainly word-of-mouth and not confined to one-off PR campaigns. The last major PR campaign in 2013 involved large, difficult-to-read signs under which rubbish was dumped. It also saw photo opportunities to show the lead member was determined to deal with the issue, but officers confirm that it had little tangible impact on levels of IRD."

The wording in the Cabinet report, which generally follows the Scrutiny Group's wording closely, becomes:

“Future publicity about IRD should be continuous, mainly word-of-mouth and not confined to one-off PR campaigns.”

Am I alone in finding this change of wording interesting?

Brent Council Tax Rise Likely

I hear that Brent Council is likely to go for a Council Tax rise this year.  This has seemed to me to be the only sensible course for some time.  The rise will still only make a modest contribution to protecting Council services but it is better than nothing. 

It also helps to protect the longer term finances of the Council.  Each year the Council Tax has been frozen, the base revenue of the Council has been reduced not just in this year but for future years.  With the government talking about abolishing central government grant altogether, a continued freeze would simply run the Council into the ground.

One might ask why Cllr Butt has been so bitterly opposed to a rise for so long.  Even to the extent of ignoring the vote of the Labour Group altogether, which was such an undemocratic measure that I am sure no previous Labour Group would have stood it.  I wonder whether it will come back to bite him in May.

Certainly, his reasons can not have been to protect vulnerable residents, since he was fully behind the Council Tax Support Scheme which inevitably hits those least able to pay.  Indeed the rise for those residents in the first year was so large it would have been impossible to raise the Council Tax by that much across the tax base as a whole. 

Looking at future rises, it would be interesting to see a graph of what level the Council Tax would be is it had increased at the rate of inflation since the last Council Tax rise in Paul Lorber's last budget back in 2010.  That might give some sort of benchmark as to what is reasonable to charge people.  This is necessary as there is always a suspicion among the public that politicians simply want to ram up taxes and charges as much as possible.  Certainly as far as the Council Tax goes, this has not been true, but recent decisions on parking charges in CPZs in Brent probably haven't helped the perception.  Indeed I find that people generally think the Council Tax has been rising even though it has been frozen.  The Council really needs to reassure the public that rises are considered and value for money.

Boycotts and Sanctions

The Guardian reports that the government is seeking to tighten up the rules on political boycotts by Councils.  This sounds to me like another example of DCLG spin exaggerating the newness of a policy.


In fact Council are already restricted from awarding contracts for political reasons.  This was amply demonstrated when Brent Council awarded the waste and street cleaning contract to Veolia.  In that case there were also other good practical reasons why the campaigners' demands were impossible.  However, the primary objection was that political boycotts are unlawful under EU procurement law.  This were widely explained, but some people didn't want it to be true so decided it wasn't.  That is not a good basis for policy making.

Kensal Green By Election Result

The Kensal Green by election result held few surprises.  Labour won comfortably with 53% of the vote.  That is slightly down from the 63% of the vote in 2014, but still a good result.  The Liberal Democrats will probably be slightly pleased at second place with 24% of the vote, which is a lot better than their calamitous performance in the General Election.  It does signal, however, that their chances of becoming a major force in the Borough are slight.  Quite possibly they were helped by Brent Council's proposed steep rise in parking charges next year. 

I think the Tories should feel disappointed at only 15% of the vote and third place.  The small UKIP vote had no real impact, so they can't blame a split vote.  It does not bode well for Cllr Joel Daviodson's attempt on the GLA seat next year.

However, the Greens probably had the worst performance with only 6% of the vote compared to 7.2% in 2014.  The 2014 comparison actually flatters them since the only parties fielded multiple candidates.  The poor Green performance is also in line with their failing in various other Council by elections around the country.  If there ever was a Green surge it has ended and the tide is going out.

Wembley Art Society at The Library in Willesden

Willesden Library continues to show its strengths with a new exhibition by the Wembley Arts Society.  I find it extraordinary that so much is going on there given the negligible budget

Co-operating in Brent Libraries?

Lambeth is apparently contemplating a staff mutual for its libraries.  Working out the detail of such arrangements is complicated, and there would be a big risk to the staff if it failed.

Brent has yet to reveal what the rather cryptic mention of libraries in the last budget process actually meant.  I think a user based Co-operative might be worth considering.  Brent libraries have a ready made pool of potential co-operators in everyone who has a library card, and they can be proven to have an active relationship with their libraries through the records of book borrowing and computer use.  Such an arrangement, I think, would be able to exploit the tax avoidance device of not paying business rates which is the cash saving that Brent identified in the budget as (apparently) the main advantage of the proposal. 

Whether this cash saving is worth having I think is rather questionable.  As business rates are going to be localised, at least if George Osborne gets his way, any rates not collected on Council buildings simply reduce Council revenue, so it isn't really a saving at all.  The saving, however, remains a line in the budget so I take it that Brent libraries will have to find the money by some other means.  that again underlines the importance of Brent libraries putting together a proper library strategy now that the Libraries Transformation Project has been implemented. 

Brent Fall in Recycling Worst in London

It is surprising that the news of falling recycling levels in London have not had a greater impact.  Unfortunately, Brent has had the biggest fall in all London (5.6%).

It is tempting to have a knee jerk response and blame obvious candidates like the decision to introduce charging for green waste, but this should be resisted.  Brent and other Boroughs need to take a long hard look at what works and what can be done to at least restore previous levels of recycling.  It is possible that the lower recycling may be partly down to welcome factors, such as the reduction in packaging (which is often recyclable).  Easy comparisons between Boroughs should also be avoided as encouraging recycling can be far harder with certain kinds of housing stock.

I notice that the Standard article also comments on the incineration of waste.  This is cheaper, and surprisingly more environmentally beneficial, than sending waste to landfill, but perhaps the shift towards burning is causing authorities to pay less attention to recycling?  West London, including Brent, will soon see almost all its waste being either recycled or burnt under a new contract that starts next year. 

Mischief Making in Kensal Green

Martin Francis is trying to stir up mischief in the Kensal Green By election I see.  He is seeking to imply that John McDonnell supports setting illegal budgets.  In fact John McDonnell has said:

“The situation the councils are now in is if they don’t set a budget, a council officer will do it for them. There is no choice for them any more.”

This may seem remarkable given John McDonnell's own past history, but it is simply a recognition of reality.  If a Council such as Brent refuses to set a budget, central government can simply appoint commissioners to do it instead.

"Opposing austerity" in the way Martin imagines he does, which in fact seems to consist simply of attacking Labour Councils, is nonsense. In fact, Martin should look at the various ways in which Brent Council has advanced progressive measures despite the financial cuts imposed by central government.  These include improvements to recycling which are unfortunately now under threat, the greenest public building in Europe, the transformation of Brent Libraries, improvements to carbon emissions, the delivery of regeneration in Brent's growth areas despite the Tories all out assault on housing, various improvements to parks in Brent, a step change in allotments management, a rebuilt Moberly Sports Centre and substantial investment in the Vale Farm Sports Centre as a result of the new contract. 

Of course, these kind of achievements would have been far easier if we had a Labour government as we did from 1997 to 2010.  Something that Martin might care to reflect on as he campaigns against the Labour Party.

Reflect on this

Another part of the government's all out assault on social housing continues with an amendment to do with away with security of tenure.  Perhaps those who ridiculously argue that Labouyr and the Tories are just the same should think about whether a Labour government would do this or many of the other Tory measures such as the Trade Union Bill, the take over of housing associations, the cuts to tax credits and so on. 

The Future of Brent Libraries

I mentioned the outstanding performance of Brent Libraries yesterday amid a national situation which is generally gloomy.  Numerous authorities are now contemplating shrinking their library services.  These include Fife, Croydon, Barnet, Camden and Hounslow.  It is all drien by George Osborne's 56% cut to local government funding, which is totally unsustainable coming as it does on top of massive cuts in the past five years.

Brent is likely to see continuing library expansion for this year and next year, but after that it looks pretty bleak.  The success of the Libraries Transformation Project in raising both usage and user satisfaction whilst cutting spending shows that a sound strategy is key to minimising the damage from future budget cuts.  That is why Brent Council should be consulting on its library strategy now, not letting the issue drift. 

Wembley Library Third Biggest in the Country

A Guardian analysis of public libraries has named Wembley Library as the third biggest in the UK.  That is an astounding achievement given that the old Town Hall Library wasn't even the biggest in Brent when the Libraries Transformation Project was started back in 2011. The scale of the change can be seen in the graph I posted here. 

At that time Brent Town Hall library had only 166k annual visits which rose to 200k in its final year.  The last annual total for Wembley Library, as published by CIPFA, show 1,169,735 visits, a colossal increase.  I wonder what those who called for Wembley Library to be scaled down, or even scrapped altogether, think of that?  Perhaps they will concede that whatever they think of other aspects of the project, Wembley Library has been a success.

Or perhaps they won't. 

Otherwise the national picture for libraries is bleak.  Overall visits fell from 276 million to 265 million last year (down 3.9%).  They have fallen by 14% since David Cameron became Prime Minister.  In contrast Brent libraries have been rising in both visits and book loans, with an overall rise in visits that year of 27.6%.  I have been able to trace Brent library visit numbers back to 2007/8, and they are now at their highest level during the whole of that time.  Judging by the half year figures for this year, that trend is likely to continue, and I expect that the full year figures will go up the year after this as the complete effect of the new Willesden Library becomes evident. 

Treetops

It appears that the Treetops closure that I referred to earlier has been resolved.  What a curious turn of events. 

Treetops Nursery Closure

Treetops is threatened with being closed by Ofsted.  I remember when the current arrangements were set up.  Indeed I helped shaped them after some constituents contacted me.  To close the whole operation down over one unpaid invoice seems a massive over reaction.  I assume that there is a back story that has yet to be made public.

If Treetops does close, it will leave the Council the headache of an empty building for which there is no alternative use.

Desperate Liberal Democrat Bar Chart

I have mentioned before the notorious subject of Liberal Democrat bar charts.  The Liberal Democrats have made an art of distorting election results to mislead the voters.  Following the Kensal Green by election announcement, their first leaflet has an especially desperate example of the genre:

Whereas generally they show their opponents as way behind or about to be overtaken.  Here, they are reduced to pretending that their opponents don't exist.  I guess that they felt they still had to have some sort of bar chart in that place in their standard template, but the 2015 Brent Central General Election result just wouldn't do.  Nor would their dismal 2014 Kensal Green showing. 

Where is the New Brent Library Strategy?

Curious to see that Brent Council's Forward Plan still has no item on libraries.  The Libraries Transformation Project, which was effectively the Council's strategy from 2011 until now, has been completed with the opening of Willesden Library.  Officers should be given political direction on the long term future of the service so that they can plan service development, including whatever cuts councillors decide to make to the libraries budget.

The omission is curious, as the Budget included proposals to spin off libraries in some sort of undefined form.  Full scale privatisation would probably be politically controversial, and possibly technically difficult.  Certainly I think separating out the co-located libraries at Harlesden, Willesden and Wembley strikes me as a tricky issue.

The whole design of these three libraries is based on blurring the distinction between the library and the co-located service.  For example at Willesden Library, you have to go through the library to reach the Musuem, archives, one stop shop, art gallery and meeting rooms.  A new arms length arrangement goes in the opposite direction of trying to separate everything out again.

It reads to me as a line put in the budget by someone for financial reasons without really understanding how Brent Library services work. 

Brawl in Tubbs Road

Reports of a massive night time brawl in Tubbs Road.  Boris Johnson's massive cuts to local police in Brent and across London are hardly going to help deal with this sort of thing.  Andy Burnham has written to Theresa May to think again on the police cuts.  Lets hope she listens. 

Kensal Green By Election

Kensal Green is now gearing up for a by election following the sad death of Cllr Dan Filson.  There are five candidates standing, including what I think is the first ever UKIP candidate to stand in Kensal Green.  Only two candidates _ Labour and Liberal Democrat _ actually live in the ward.  Polling Day will be 17 December. 

Furness School Academisation

It appears that Furness primary school is drifting towards academy status.  I am not sure whether this is supposed to benefit the school or is merely a consequence of its linkage to Oakington Manor School.  Either way it doesn't seem satisfactory.

As I have pointed out before, the widespread conversion of schools into academies is making life impossible for local authorities.  They retain the responsibility for providing school places, but have almost no powers to create them.  They can't build new schools unless they create new academies, and they can't force an existing academy to take pupils.  If the academy fails financially (as some have) the local authority is left to pick up the pieces.

Brent Council sought to get around this by ensuring that new academies be part of the Co-operative network of schools.  Despite this being the official Brent Council policy, the Council appears not to be implementing it.  It is the closest that, under the existing government, we can get to the Labour Party's official policy of having schools under local authority control. 

I find it quirte baffling that the Council is not pursuing its duly passed policy.

New Exhibtion at Willesden Library

Willesden Library's gallery has a new exhibition called Déjà Vu.  I think it is greatly to the credit of the officers concerned, that this kind of project is still going forward despite the financial crisis.

Longer Library Opening Hours

No one seems to have noticed that, at a time when most authorities are reducing library hours as the only alternative to closure, Brent have extended them even further.  Seven day opening was introduced at all Brent libraries late in 2012, but now Wembley and Willesden Libraries open not from noon as in the other cases, but from 10am.

School Place Crisis

Among the reports at the next Brent Cabinet meeting is one on school places, with frankly terrifying implications.  It asks members to:

"Note that the demand for  Secondary Places will increase  from September 2016 with demand outstripping supply from 2018. depending on the size of sites, the equivalent of two or three additional secondary schools will be needed by the 2022/23 academic year."

I well recall the controversy over the building of the ARK Academy in Wembley which attracted some very strange debate.  The Lib Dem/ Tory administration in charge of the Council ordered a review of all the available sites, and none of them were brilliant.  I simply can't imagine where two or three secondary schools can be built.

It also illustrates a point I have made before that authorities still have a requirement to provide school places, but not the powers.  As the report says, Brent has no community secondary schools, and no power to demand an academy expands or ability to build a new school, except as an academy.  The Council is dependent on other parties to make things happen.  In the case of the Gladstone Free school, they simply didn't.  Altogether, it strikes me that such a system is unsustainable.

Play Streets in Brent

The next Brent Council Cabinet has an interesting piece on play streets _ temporary closures of a street to allow children to play in it.  This sounds like an interesting idea, and I look forward to seeing how it works in practice.

Ash Tree Die Back

Ash tree die back hit the headlines some time ago.  The melancholy fact appears to be that the UK will lose most of its current ash trees in the same way that Denmark already has.  I find the search for developing new strains of ash heartening as a solution to this problem, but it is sad to see that there is so much opposition to it simply based on the technology being new.  The Woodland Trust is quoted as saying that the "test tube" must be a last resort.  Why should it be presumed that the latest scientific research risks being disastrous?  Surely, whether a solution works or not should be assessed without worrying about whether it is based on old or new technology.

Boris Johnson Learns of Flooding Risks

Boris Johnson seems to be coming rather late to the the issue of surface water flooding.  As his Mayoral term peters out he seems to be desperately reaching round for some sort of legacy.  He has a reputation as something of a climate change sceptic, so that may explain why he has had so little interest in the subject.  Authorities like Brent have developed policies for reducing flooding over some years.  The effect of these can be seen in the use of permeable paving, tree planting, the use of sustainable urban drainage as a planning condition and the encouragement of soft planting. 

People sometimes blame the use of controlled parking zones for people paving over gardens, but I am not really convinced.  The expense of paving over a garden would take a while to recoup from the money saved on parking permits, and I suspect it has more to do with people wanting minimal maintanence for their gardens.

Scrutiny and Dumping

Thursday's scrutiny committee has a report on dumped rubbish, which is a model of what Scrutiny should be doing.  The Committee has taken a growing problem and major concern of residents, looked at in detail and with promptness, and come up with a series of imaginative recommendations.  That really is what the system is supposed to do, and it is a tribute to the recently deceased Chair that he got the Committee actively engaged in this way. 

Parking at the Willesden Sainsburys

In the Willesden Sainsburys recently, I saw they are advertising their car parking for customers.  I hope that they remember that they have a planning obligation dating back to the 1980s, they have to make some of their spaces available for general town centre use.

I have often argued that parking is not as central to town centre success as many people seem to think.  During the early stages of the Harlesden Town Centre regeneration, I was surprised to learn that 85% of shoppers travelling to a London Town Centre do not come by car.  I was less surprised to find that getting people to linger in a pleasant urban environment is seen as important to the success of a High Street.  Political debates about parking often fail to recognise these factors.

UPDATE

The comment below states that Sainsburys are ignoring their obligations on car parking.  If so the Council should remind them ofr their obligations and, if necessary, take legal action.  By the way, the land on the Willesden Library site was not "given away". It paid for the new library.  It is also worth remembering that it was not for general parking but specifically for users of the Library Centre.