Councillors Paying Council Tax

Brent Labour Party has now selected all its Council candidates for next year's elections.  I imagine the other parties are in the process of doing the same.  Among other things, they may wish to consider the rules on disclosing non-payment of Council Tax.  Essentially, councillors do not have the privacy a member of the public might expect, which may come as a shock to some.

Community Land Trusts

Following the news that Wembley appears to be subjected entirely to market forces, forces that have demonstrably failed to meet housing needs in the UK over decades, I though it might be useful to look at an example of a community land trust here.  The details of this scheme may not readily translate to Brent, but it is the sort of thing a progressive Council might be expected to promote.

Grade II listing for Willesden Jewish Cemetery

Buildings in the Willesden Jewish Cemetery have been given grade II listing in the 150th year of the United Synagogue.  It follows an earlier grant for the cemetery.

Brent Conservatives Renew Controversial Endorsement

Martin Francis tells us that Bertha Joseph is selected as a Conservative candidate in Brondesbury.  Presumably he has good sources in the Tory Party.

Bertha Joseph was elected as a member of the Brent Labour Group in 2006, but defected to the Tories in 2007 on the grounds that she had not been invited to the Queen's Garden Party at Buckingham Palace.  She subsequently found herself accused of misdirecting charitable donations to a children's hospice to her own use, a view that was upheld first by Brent's Standards Committee and then by an appeal Tribunal.  The Tribunal's comments struck me at the time as pretty damning.  The complaint was made by the late Rocky Fernandez, a convicted fraudster with whom she had a close association which subsequently turned sour.

She was elevated by Boris Johnson to an important post on the London and Emergency Fire Planning Authority (LFEPA) in order to vote through cuts to the London Fire Service.  Shortly after voting through the cuts, she resigned.  Subsequently, the Tories withdrew their endorsement of her in the 2010 election.  Her candidature as an independent in that election proved unsuccessful.

Pushing Brent Residents Away

Martin Francis has picked up on a government grant for build for rent properties in Wembley.  None of the units appear to be "affordable", let alone socially rented.  The Conservative minister Alok Sharma is quoted as approving this scheme.  Cllr Muhammed Butt, normally keen on publicity, does not seem to appear in the coverage I have seen.

Of course, now that the Council has delivered planning permission to the developers as well as money for substantial public realm improvements, Brent Council has no real leverage in trying to get anything else.  The Council appears to have consigned itself to irrelevance.

The minister and the developer meanwhile are looking forward to a massive expansion in car parking in the Wembley area.  This threatens to reverse the gains made in recent years in air quality, worsen traffic congestion which is increasing anyway because of Spurs and return the area to the failed car dependent model that made the area require regeneration in the first place.

When the Stadium was first up for rebuilding, Brent Council (under Paul Daisley's leadership) successfully argued for more than £100 million of public transport improvements to deliver a public transport venue.  It appears his successor has failed even to get a seat at the table.

Meanwhile Polly Toynbee suggests that Brent loses £178 per week for each family in B&B.

Willesden Junction Expansion

One possible development worth keeping an eye is a possible expansion of Willesden Junction Station.  I have argued the importance of this for years.  However, one shouldn't get too carried away with the present study as these kind of proposals take many years before anything gets built, if indeed they go forward at all.

Leaseholder Bills from Brent Council

I am concerned at the political gesture of the overhasty decision to spend £10 million on fire safety at Brent housing properties without securing any money from the government, or even knowing what the money will go towards.  In the end it will come from the pockets of the tenants and one other group of people.

The other group are the leaseholders.  These will be people who have either bought through the Right to Buy or the open market.  Many of them may well be of modest means, but be about to be hit with a substantial bill with very little warning.  Although the government does warn of these sort of dangers, not everyone is always aware of them, and Brent's current splurge will have come completely out of the blue.  I hope the Council arranges a generous payment plan for those who struggle to meet such an unexpected cost.

Incidentally, I have been told that when full Council voted this spend through only one Councillor declared a close relationship with anyone living in a block.  That is not as bad as the Leader of Kensington and Chelsea, but it does suggest to me that the councillors probably need some education about how Brent housing works. 

A Close Run Thing

This morning there is a meeting of the Alcohol and Licensing Committee.  This will give Cllr Sabina Khan, a new appointee to that committee, a chance to attend.  This is fortunate as it will be her first official attendance of a Council event since 14 February, which brings her perilously close to being absent from any events for six months.  Any Councillor who does not attend a Council event in their official capacity for six months automatically forfeits their seat and forces a by election (which costs the taxpayer about £20k to £25k).

Brent has come too close for comfort on this in more than one case.  While it is certainly true that councillors should be, and I am sure are, doing many things outside these "official" duties it is not a good sign that several councillors have come so close to the wire without any special reason. 

EU Negotiation

The sheer indiscipline of the Cabinet over the past couple of weeks shows how dysfunctional our "strong and stable" government has become.  How on earth are the UK negotiators, whether male or female, supposed to negotiate when they don't even know what outcome they are trying to negotiate?  The government surely needs to decide what its objectives before any meaningful progress can be made.

Manor Park Road Again

The Manor Park Road development has returned I see.  I regretted the withdrawal of the former proposal.  While the principle of developing this site remains good, it is disappointing to find the affordability of the units reduced.

Is Brent Council Getting a Good Deal from Quintain?

Right at the end of last week's Brent Council Cabinet there is a document recommending a £17.8 million spend on the public realm around Brent Civic Centre.  That is a lot of money by any standard. 

I have long been an advocate of a high quality public realm around the Civic Centre, and Wembley Library in particular, so you might think I would simply welcome this.  In fact I have already welcomed the existing surroundings.  The burden of the changes would partly fall on the Council and partly on Quintain, and it leaves me wondering whether the Council is getting the best possible deal.

I am not not reassured by the opacity of Quintain's relationship with the Council, or what often strike me as the perverse judgements of Cllr Muhammed Butt in planning matters, or the degree to which the Planning Committee is independent of the Council Leader's influence.  The days when a Council Leader was subject to an investigation for a (false) accusation that she was seeking to influence a planning decision appear to be far behind us. 

The contribution to Quintain is phrased as being in return for concessions, but it is not clear what these are or why Brent wants to change its previous policies.  In the past, there have been strong pressures for more parking spaces near the Civic Centre, with little apparent understanding that urban planners regard the provision of more spaces as just generating more car use and therefore more pressure for parking spaces.  I am really not at all clear that the current political leadership of Brent Council is sophisticated enough to negotiate with a major company such as Quintain. 

Brent Chief Executive on Housing Investment

Further to yesterday's post, the Chief Executive's letter makes clear the difficult state of housing finance in Brent.  It correctly blames certain government policies such as the central fixing of rents and the "high value void" sell off policy as undermining the finances that maintain the condition of Council Housing, but the chances of getting any money from central government have simply been thrown away.

Funding and Fire Safety

Brent Council is currently rushing through £10 million of spend on "fire safety" without knowing what it is going to be spent on.  A report was brought before the Cabinet on 24 July without the normal notice period of three/four months on the pretext that the whole thing is of the utmost urgency.  This recommends a programme to specify the works.

One would have thought specifying the work that needs to be done should precede spending the money, but the Council has already approved the spend at full Council.  That report says that the £10 million is equivalent to all the fire safety spend for Brent Council's dwindling housing stock over the past five years.  If it is really the case that that amount needs to be spent now, there must be a serious backlog that has been allowed to build up.  If so, councillors should be asking why such a backlog has built up and whether people have been put at risk. 

The chances of ever recovering this money from central government are negligible because the government has a default that Council's should rely on their own resources.  The DCLG web site states:  "The government’s expectation is that, as landlords, local authorities and housing associations will fund measures designed to make a building fire safe, and will draw on their own resources to do so."
Brent's decision to spend the money has effectively undermined any effort to lobby central government.

That means the money will come from the tenants either in higher rents, or via cut back in investment.  Really something that should not have been rushed through as a panic measure.  More detail on how local authority housing finance works can be found on the Red Brick Blog. 

Employment Tribunal Victory

Yesterday's victory for Unison on Employment Tribunal Fees is a huge victory in preventing victimisation of people.  Amidst so much gloom it provides welcome relief to everyone except unscrupulous employers.

Returning to Controlled Parking Zones

I mentioned a hardy perennial policy proposal up at the last Brent Cabinet meeting, but not an equally hoary example, controlled parking zones.  These have been effectively frozen for several years, but the new report recommends either changing the existing CPZs or reintroducing new ones.

Significantly no one seems to advocate their abolition. 

More CPZs are likely to spread across the Borough over the next few years.  Partly, this will be incremental, partly down to new developments particularly in Brent Cross and Colindale, and partly down to what I would say was a seriously misjudged decision to expand operating hours at Wembley Stadium. 

Gap in the HRA

Tonight Brent Council's Cabinet meets and discusses future financial planning.  Among the concerns are the Housing Revenue Account (HRA), which is essentially the money related to Council properties.  Income is likely to go down as the government has prescribed a rent reduction and the number of properties is dwindling. 

As far as I can see the document pays no attention to the planned enormous increase in fire safety spending (up by 400%).  Given the limit on rents, this increase is going to force a reduction in general repairs, and or any new build and this should be acknowledged in forward planning.

SME Task Group

Brent Scrutiny has a task group report on encouraging small and medium sized businesses (SMEs).  I fear it is pretty short of positive policy proposals. Although limited, there are a number of things that Councils can do to encourage business such as: improve the public realm in High Streets to attract shoppers, use procurement in a way that is friendly to SMEs and helps "train them up" for contract bidding, hosting a variety of information and support functions including those available in public libraries, using meanwhile uses to keep footfall in Town centres, using intelligent planning and licencing powers to ensure a good mix of uses in High Streets, encourage life long learning in different forms in both schools and public libraries, and considering business needs when setting charges for things like parking controls.

It is a pity that the Task Group did not take the opportunity to make any specific recommendations on these.

Returning to a Zombie Proposal, Bulky Item Collections

Monday's Cabinet papers included a real old stager under the "New Options" appendix. This was charging for bulky waste collection.  The free collection policy was established under the 1998-2006 Labour administration, abolished by the Tory Lib Dem coalition of 2006-2010, and reinstated by the incoming Labour administration in 2010.  Introducing charging was considered by Labour in 2014/15 but again rejected. 

Officers are estimated the income at £250 thousand, although nothing like this has ever been obtained in the past.  When the charges were last introduced in 2007, the revenue was only £53k, and it went down subsequently.  Given that experience, there really is no excuse for Council officers to put forward an estimated income of £250k now. 

Mary Turner

I was sad to learn of the passing away of Mary Turner, long time President of the GMB and also a fixture in Brent politics for as long as I can remember.  Although she was unsuccessful in her bid to become MP for Brent East in 2001 she served more than sixty years as a trade unionist, including twenty years as GMB President.

Getting it Badly Wrong

I have been speculating about the election results, but perhaps a more important issue for the next six months is what is going to happen to the economy.

My view is that it has been drastically mismanaged since George Osborne embarked on his failed austerity project in 2010.  Conventional economists predicted this failure back in 2010, and it always seemed clear that either Osborne didn't understand conventional economics or he was putting his ideological belief in a smaller state ahead of sensible economic policy.

The result was that the UK undertook a sharp fiscal tightening at the same time as maintaining a very loose monetary policy.  The timing of this meant that growth was very poor, tax revenues declined and budget deficit worsened; the opposite of what Osborne set out as his objectives.

Several years later the political authority for yet more austerity is crumbling, as even the Tories are beginning to admit.  Indeed the scrabble among the hitherto defenders of austerity in the Cabinet to back pay rises for the public sector workers they so despise is one of the most striking aspects of the post election landscape.  This collapse was probably inevitable as it was clear that austerity could not continue forever.

Over the last several years a demand for better wages has been building up and is now turning into a recruitment and retention crisis for key workers.  At the same time institutions such as local government have been cut back to the point where they have difficulty functioning at all (as Kensington has graphically illustrated).  This looks like public services going toward catastrophic break down, which force ministers to spend more money at just the moment when that would be most damaging for the economy as it will fuel a surge in inflation _ the opposite of the Keynesian approach.