Agenda item
Questions from the Opposition and other Non- Executive Members
Questions will be put to the Executive
Minutes:
Councillor Hopkins asked if it was felt to be appropriate for long serving staff who did not face any allegations of misconduct to be asked to collect their belongings and leave the building within an hour of being made redundant. Councillor Butt replied that the question overlooked that the Council was being forced by the Government to make many cuts amounting to £100M. It was not appropriate for him to comment on staffing issues as they were matters for management and staff had access to trade union advice and could use the policies and procedures put in place by the Council to deal with such matters. Councillor Hopkins asked how, if someone was removed from the building, they were supposed to resort to using what she considered to be the Council’s failing HR policies. She could not see how funding cuts could be the cause of treating people poorly. She was concerned by what she was hearing about staff restructuring involving TUPE and new contracts. Front line staff were being cut back while the PR department was being expanded. She felt some existing staff were being treated poorly.
Councillor Harrison asked how many children in the borough had yet to be offered a school place. Councillor Pavey replied by referring to reports in the press in 2013 that over 600 children in Brent did not have a school place. He stated this was a completely unacceptable situation and thanks to the hard work of the Children and Families Department and the schools the situation had much improved. Twenty nine new forms of entry had been opened and as a result only 33 children were still without a school place. He acknowledged this was still too high a number but blamed it on underfunding by Government and the refusal by Government to allow local authorities to open new schools. He had written to the borough’s three MPs to raise this matter and thanked Barry Gardiner and Glenda Jackson for their replies; he had not yet received a reply from Sarah Teather. Councillor Pavey submitted that young people had been hit hard by the actions of the Government but the Council was doing its utmost to ensure every child in the borough received the best possible education. Councillor Harrison responded by saying that there would continue to be a shortage of school places and that plans were still needed to provide more places.
Councillor HB Patel submitted that within all the talk about cuts, one of the Council’s main sources of income should be from the disposal of Brent Town Hall. He had twice written asking what price had been obtained from the disposal of the Town Hall without reply and therefore asked again what the sale price for the town hall was. Councillor Crane replied that he did not have the information to hand but would write to Councillor Patel and all other councillors with the information. Councillor Patel wondered how long it would take to get the response and was surprised that he had not received an answer to his earlier enquiries. He felt that the information should long since have been made public so that local residents could be re-assured about the Council’s actions.
Councillor Cummins asked what assurance could be given that the views of residents would be listened to about the traffic calming measures in Donnington Road and how the Council got into the position of spending a large amount of money with such little effect. Councillor J Moher replied that he wanted to set out the facts. The issue started with the submission of a petition from local residents which was considered by the Highways Committee in December 2011 when it was agreed by everybody that a traffic calming scheme should be extended into Chambers Lane and Harlesden Road. After a delay, the scheme was implemented in June 2013 and residents started to complain about excessive noise caused by buses and lorries going over the speed humps. The problem was immediately identified as some of the speed humps being too wide. The situation was then rectified in August 2013 and residents were involved in the discussions about this. Broadly the scheme was a successful one but the situation had been exploited for political reasons. Councillor Cummins thanked Councillor Moher for his reply and had nothing further to add.
Councillor S Choudhary referred to the expected freezing weather conditions and the budget cuts forced on the Council by the Government. He asked what action the Council was taking to ensure local health services would be able to deliver the required level of service to the more vulnerable residents in the borough. Councillor Hirani acknowledged that this was a matter of life or death. He had recently chaired an urgent care summit of representatives from the various parts of the health service and the Council. This took place as figures showed that NHS England was missing key targets on waiting times in A&E. There had also been a low uptake of flu vaccinations in the borough and there was the danger of the increasing elderly population putting more pressure on A&E. The meeting had produced a 50 point plan to ease the crisis facing local residents and to deliver a whole person care approach. This included increased GP opening hours, a guarantee that senior managers would be on the hospital floor, including at week-ends, more hospital beds provided, more physio and occupational therapists and social workers to prevent bed blocking in hospitals. Councillor Hirani added that the summit wanted to make sure every contact with residents would also look at their housing and social needs. Councillor Choudhary added that he was pleased to hear what was being done but feared for the more vulnerable in the borough.
Councillor Hunter referred to the recent small business exhibition held at the Civic Centre and asked if her disappointment was shared over the small number of people it attracted and how let down many stallholders felt after being given assurances that it would attract a large footfall. Councillor Butt replied that the small business forum formed part of many initiatives the Council was running in an effort to help small businesses in the borough. From the feedback he had received from the stallholders the event had been viewed more positively than Councillor Hunter suggested. Rather than making it an annual event it had been requested that another one take place in six months’ time. He was therefore surprised at the question and stated he would be happy to receive suggestions on what more could be done to help small businesses in Brent thrive. Councillor Hunter responded by saying that the sustainability fair held in the Civic Centre had the same problem. She felt that if events were tucked away out of sight they would not attract sufficient visitors. A lot of feedback indicated that the signposting upon entering the Civic Centre was not prominent enough and this meant not enough people were being attracted to the events. She stated that there was a lack of a proper strategy designed to capture people entering the building.
Councillor Van Kalwala asked whether, following the latest local government financial settlement, it was felt that the present Government was serving the people of Brent or whether the people of Brent were serving the Government. Councillor R Moher replied that she felt that at the moment the people of Brent were serving the Government because more money was being taken away from them than in most other authorities within the country. She explained that the Government had decided to cut a percentage of grant and this fell heaviest on those authorities who received most of their income through government grant. Those authorities that got most of their income through Council Tax did not suffer in the same way. Despite Government saying that it would give money in other ways this had been cut back as well. Councillor Van Kalwala responded by agreeing that the Government was failing to help the people of Brent. He stated that local government was being cut by another 10% in real terms and for Brent this meant another £20M in lost council funding. Tough times needed tough decisions but Councillor Van Kalwala stated that the Government was taking most from those that needed most. He referred to the Audit Commission reporting that councils serving the most deprived areas had received the largest cuts to their funding. The local community was either getting richer or poorer and this was not what a Labour council wanted to see. This was why Brent had frozen Council Tax for four years, introduced the energy co-operative, and made Brent a living wage borough.
Councillor Brown referred to the blitz on fly tipping which he welcomed in view of the fact that in the past he had criticised the state of the borough’s streets only to be given meaningless statistics trying to disprove this. He wondered if this represented a disagreement within the Executive or was it because the Council had been derided for the filthy condition of the streets. Councillor Mashari thanked Councillor Brown for his praise for the campaign against fly tippers which was high profile and reflected well on the work of the enforcement officers behind it. Culprits were being tracked down, named and shamed in the toughest action yet on fly tipping. Councillor Brown responded saying the state of the streets was still disgusting and he submitted that the Administration had failed to meet its pledge to get the streets cleaner as it had also failed on meeting its recycling targets and closed six libraries.
Councillor Mitchell Murray asked what the financial cost to the average Brent resident was of the swingeing cuts to the Council’s budget made by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Government. Councillor Butt replied that the Council had already lost £100m from its general funding and £85M from its schools building programme. The cost to the average Brent resident was £256; to the average household this was £710. By the end of 2016/17 the figure for the average resident would climb to £426; the average household climbing to £1100/1200. He added that the onslaught from the Government was continuing and added to this was rising costs and stagnate wages but the Council would continue to look at ways it could support the most vulnerable in the borough. Councillor Mitchell Murray thanked Councillor Butt for his reply and had nothing further to add.
Councillor Lorber stated that the Council had received £55M from the Government to provide school places. He asked what assurance could be given that this would be put to work effectively for the many school children in Brent who needed and wanted a good education. Councillor Pavey replied that it would be the same commitment that had resulted in reducing the number of children needing a school place from 600 to 33, through sheer hard work and commitment to provide school places where they were wanted. He added that if the Government was successfully lobbied for additional funding more places could be provided. Councillor Lorber stated that when public money was at stake anybody would look at how it was being spent. He referred to the expansion of Sudbury Primary school as a fiasco. He submitted that the project had been disastrously managed. In light of this he had sought assurances that the Barham Primary school project would not be the same. However, having agreed to the expansion along with Mitchell Brook and Fryent schools none of them was delivered on time or to schedule. He complained that local councillors were not kept informed of what was going on and that the scrutiny function of the Council was inadequate and ineffective.