Month: Oct 2007

Nine of the councillors spent the morning at Greenford High School today. As part of Local Democracy Week we were taking part in an event billed as political speed-dating. I am happy to report that there was nothing improper. Each councillor spent 3 minutes being interviewed by 2 or 3 sixth formers and then we moved on to the next group.

It was bracing and fun to meet 20 or so sixth formers from Greenford and Southall. They had a range of questions but a number of issues kept coming up: immigration was one and the effect it had on their ability to get part-time jobs, personal safety and in particular knife crime and facilities for young people.

You may know that Greenford High School has been completely rebuilt with £40 million of central government cash and this is the school’s first term in its new premises. One perceptive young man questioned whether the money had been well spent. Certainly the site looked great but Colm Costello for one could not understand why the refectory and the auditorium we were using were built on quite such a grand scale. It feels like the architect was happy to spread buildings around the playing fields – so much for obesity then. The sixth formers were very ambivalent about the new building and were sorry to see their old 1939 building being bulldozed. A frequent complaint was how long it took to navigate around the new campus and many felt that it was a bit ambitious for the 11 year-olds. I asked one group in particular if they thought that the institution itself had been strengthened by this investment. The answer was no.

Back to the event. Those taking part scored the councillors under five categories such as listening skills, would you vote for them, etc. The top three were:

1 – Councillor Bassam Mahfouz
2 – Councillor Colm Costello
3 – Councillor Shabaz Ahmed

Well done to Bassam, the winner for the second year in a row, and well done to Colm too for keeping the Tory end up. Thankfully the rest of us did not have our scores read out. I guess I have to accept that telling sixth formers what they want to hear may not be my strong suit.

Last night we had some rare excitement at the Overview and Scrutiny Committee (OSC). OSC is the committee that chases the rest of the council around with the proverbial bucket, cleaning up. Most of our work is not glamorous and excites little public interest.

The main item last night was a call-in. This is where a member of the council (ie a councillor) calls-in a decision made by a council committee to ask that it is reconsidered. This is a mechanism that allows council decisions to be reconsidered in the cold light of day.

Last night’s call-in related to a re-organisation of the ranger service, see Cabinet papers here and here. The council wants to re-organise Parks, Countryside and Events Service (PCE). Yes, this will reduce the headcount. Both council officers and the administration believe that this efficiency saving can be made without compromising services. They reckon that the having two bigger bases for this service will lead to a more effective and sustainable service. They want to consolidate on the two most modern buildings in Acton and Southall and give up dilapidated and not-fit-for-purpose buildings at Brent Lodge and Horseden Hill. The plan says the same number of rangers will be deployed differently.

The call-in was made by the tiny LibDem group of three. The meeting attracted some 20 or so people from Hanwell including LibDem activist Nigel Bakhai. The main speaker on behalf of the Lawns and Hanwell Village Green residents’ associations was Carolyn Brown

A number of times speakers and questioners alluded to the fact that the current ranger team of 20 was not at full strength – there are currently 16 working with one on long-term sick leave. Much was made of the fact that the service had gone slow on recruiting vacancies in the current financial year. The cash to fill them had been used this year to fight other fires in the service such as storm damage to trees. The portfolio holder, Nigel Sumner, made a commitment that these posts would be recruited next year.

I talked briefly and asked that the audience considered the council’s role and responsibilities in the round. The council is not talking about reducing service levels it is talking about an internal re-organisation which it thinks will be more efficient. The council needs to push all the time to be more efficient if it is to meet all of its commitments. Legal responsibilities to care for the elderly and young people for instance get more and more onerous every year as the number of elderly and special needs increase. The council got elected to clean up the borough so we are entitled to prioritise this area for additional spending as we have. At the same time the public has a limited appetite for increases in council taxes. The only way to square the circle is to do more for less – a discipline that applies equally in the private sector.

Although Labour councillor Bassam Mahfouz would not normally be considered a natural ally of the ruling Conservative group he noted in the debate that he sensed weaknesses in the current PCE structure that led to services deficiencies in his area. He welcomed the consolidation into two bases, although, to be fair, he called for guarantees that the ranger service would return to its full strength of 20 and that the redundant sites would be properly used in future.

At the end of the debate it was agreed that the re-organisation should proceed without it being referred back to cabinet for further consideration. Councillor Mahfouz abstained rather than vote against the majority group members which shows that these things can be decided on their merits.

The public is entitled to watch service levels like hawks and demand that they get satisfaction. There is no way though that the council is required to keep the same people sitting in a building year after year just so residents around one park can feel they are getting a good service.

For other comments see stories in the Ealing Times here, here and here and Peter Wright on the Ealing Today Forum.

Another Labour politician is this week claiming credit for something he had nothing to do with. Earlier this week it was wannabe Bassam Mahfouz. Now it is has-been-before-he-started Virendra Sharma.

Sharma is quoted in an Ealing Times article about Crossrail as saying:

I think it is wonderful news. My whole election campaign was based on getting Crossrail, and now it seems the funding has been agreed.

I think that Sharma is exaggerating the extent to which Crossrail was at the centre of his campaign and certainly his influence on the outcome.

Being something of a local political train spotter I went through the pile of leaflets I got through my letterbox during the by-election campaign. I counted 7 leaflets, letters, etc from Sharma. One of these mentioned Crossrail twice. Hardly his whole election campaign then.

Sharma made his maiden speech on Monday, see here. Although Brown’s reputation was looking shaky even on Monday Shamra was still able to say:

My election in July was the first message that the British people gave to the Prime Minister of their resounding confidence in his ability and the courage of his convictions to lead our country in these difficult times to greater heights and to implement his vision for change.

After Brown’s absolute kicking from Cameron on Wednesday the “courage of his convictions” and “his vision for change” look like the smooth words of a courtier rather than the voice of a man who wants to raise up Southall.

For old time’s sake Councillor Sharma turned up at the full council meeting on Tuesday. He was an hour late but it was nice to see him anyway. Having seen effective Conservative government working in Ealing he will at least be well-prepared for the new regime if he gets re-elected at the next general election.

The main event at last night’s council meeting was a debate on climate change.

Labour member Bassam Mahfouz had put up a motion as follows:

This Council welcomes the Government’s pioneering Climate Change Bill which has now been released in draft form for consultation.

It notes and welcomes the Council’s decision to sign the Nottingham Declaration.

It moves to encourage the residents of Ealing to take steps that will help make a difference in tackling climate change.

The Conservative group were broadly supportive of this motion but did have problems with the Government’s Climate Change Bill. The problems are more than just point scoring. This draft bill is seriously flawed. See some comments on the bill here and here.

Three major flaws are:

• the bill proposes fixed five year targets. This is inflexible and dumb. What if we are overperforming? By law we would not be able to make the targets tougher. The Conservatives propose rolling targets
• the targets would be set by Government not an independent body – the current government has made no progress on reducing CO2 emissions in ten years in power. We need an independent body to drive the process
• the proposed independent committee, set up to merely monitor progress rather than to set targets, would be appointed by the Secretary of State so not exactly independent then.

The Ealing Conservative group accepted the last two paragraphs of Mahfouz’s motion but wanted the first paragraph to read:

This Council welcomes the principles behind the Government’s Climate Change Bill which has now been released in draft form, and we look forward to the final version which we hope will include a system of annual targets, scrutiny procedures to check on progress, and the establishment of an independent body to set, monitor and enforce these targets, taking the politics out of climate change.

Mahfouz used the platform offered by proposing this motion to witter on about how green the London Mayor was. He specifically mentioned the Congestion Charge and the Low Emission Zone, neither of which was conceived as CO2 mitigation schemes and were thus irrelevant to the debate.

New Tory councillor Greg Stafford made an excellent maiden speech. He had clearly done his homework and was able to critique the bill in detail. He dwelt in particular with the draft bill’s monitoring committee with it membership appointed by the Government.

I had not intended to speak on this matter until I heard Mahfouz’s attempts to talk up Livingstone’s green credentials. I pointed out that the Congestion Charge had wasted pretty much all the £930 million collected, it had nothing to do with climate change or it would not have been called a Congestion Charge and that the Mayor had spent £1.1137 million trying to rebrand it is as a climate change measure, in reality just electioneering paid for by us.

Similarly the Low Emission Zone has nothing to do with climate change. It is an expensive and inefficient health measure designed to bring down levels of NOX and particulates and bring forward by a few years health benefits that would accrue automatically in any case as commercial vehicles are replaced with more up to-date vehicles.

By all means let us tackle climate change but the Mayor’s schemes are irrelevant and a waste of money.

In the end the Conservative Group voted for the Conservative motion with both the Labour and LibDem groups voting against. This then became the substantive motion which was unaminously agreed.