Category: Ealing and Northfield

Council leader Julian Bell turned up at the end of the Borough’s Youth Conference today to take a photo. He could have been there from 11am if he had really been interested in “listening to our young people”. Instead he was prioritising door knocking in Northolt.

Like many of the capital projects that have been completed recently the Westside Youth Centre was kicked off under the previous administration when Cllr Ian Gibb was in charge of childrens’ services. The youth conference was initiated under Ian and he made a point of leading it. The focus of Labour’s capital programme after schools is council offices, IT and a car park in Southall.

Meanwhile the current person in charge of childrens’ services, Cllr Patricia Walker, was also late. She pushed into the lunch queue ahead of me and various young people at 1:20pm (Four legs good, two legs better!). Instead of listening to young people she had been out getting votes for Ken Livingstone in Central Acton this morning. She had previously accidentally sent out an e-mail saying:

I am required to do a campaigning session that day but will try to come by about one o’clock.

The photo above taken by Labour activist Josh Blacker and tweeted @jkblacker at 12:44pm on Saturday.

Every year the one of the most eagerly awaited cabinet papers is that laying out the annual road resurfacing programme. Labour has halved this budget, this year it will spend £3.5 million, or about £10 per head of population. You can see the papers here, here and here.

Shockingly the Labour councillor in charge of this budget, Cllr Bassam Mahfouz, has awarded 27% of the entire Borough budget, some £938K, to his own ward of Northolt West End. In contrast Northfield, the ward I represent, will get one footpath done for £65K. Mahfouz’s ward is one of 23 so you might expect it to get about 4% of the budget on average.

It looks like Labour is seriously favouring its own areas with this budget. Last year the five ward of Southall (22% of wards) got 52% of the budget. This year Northolt with 2 wards (9% of wards) got 51% of the budget. The wards that have been starved of new roads and pavements are the eight wards held by the opposition (central Ealing plus Southfields). Last year these wards only got 13% of the budget in spite of being just over one thirds of all wards. This year their share collapsed further to 7% – this is one fifth of the share they might expect if the spending was evenly distributed.

Last night at the Overview and Scrutiny Committee (OSC) we spent an hour looking at the council’s budget. This is due to go to cabinet next Tuesday and then will be signed off by the full council on 28th.

Council finances are complex and opaque but you can probably get 90% of everything you want to know about them by studying this document (or more properly set of documents). Take a look at the papers here, here and here. They are hard work but will reward your effort.

The main headline is that Labour are freezing council tax for the second year running but bitching that central government is only funding the freeze for one year. This is good news for residents.

With this budget the council has pretty much finished the job of taking £85 million of savings. Although Labour are calling this number a government cut the actual cut is only some £50 odd million. Labour is taking an additional £30 million for its own purposes and running budget surpluses which it is putting into capital projects such as the notorious Southall car park – more on that later.

At OSC there was lots of doom and gloom from Ian O’Donnell, the council’s executive director of Corporate Resources. As the council’s chief financial officer it is his job to be risk averse and to see the downside of things. One bit of good news that, unaccountably, the council officers and Labour councillors did not highlight is that whilst the council is having to shell out £300 million for school building, driven mainly by rising birth rates, some £200 million of this is being provided by central government in spite of Labour’s flimflam about the cancellation of its outrageously wasteful BSF scheme.

A great new innovation in this year’s budget is a complete review of all of the council’s fees and charges, see Appendix 12 here. This idea goes back to a meeting I had with Ian O’Donnell in July 2009. I suggested that there was no overall management of the council’s fees and charges on an annual basis. This appendix is a welcome attempt to pull that altogether.

Scrolling through appendix 12 the thing that catches my eye is CPZ charges, at the top of page 27. Going up again in April. People in the short hour zones will wonder why their charges is going up by 12.5% whilst the all day zones are only going up by 3%. Is there an unstated convergence policy? I am sure you will come up with some more observations.

I have been tracking Labour’s so-called Housing Commission, see here and here.

At the last council meeting on 31st January I asked the portfolio holder, Cllr Hitesh Tailor, for an update. His written answer (question 15) is here:

I would like to record my thanks to the Housing Commission Members who gave up their time to take part in the Commission. This was a good initiative on the part of the Administration to reflect on the changes in housing and the impact they would have upon Ealing.

The final meeting of Ealing’s Housing Commission was held on 19 January 2012. This meeting reviewed the draft report of the commission and discussed the key recommendations. A final draft of the report, reflecting the agreed recommendations of the commission, is currently being prepared and is expected to be complete before the end of February. Once the report is complete the commission’s recommendations and an action plan for implementation will be presented to Scrutiny for comment prior to going to Cabinet.

However, a number of actions that the commission has supported are already underway:
• The Council is reviewing its allocations policy so that those who are in employment or volunteer can get higher priority, so that we reward people who contribute to Ealing.
• A council led regeneration option is being explored for Copley Close
• The Council has consulted on its tenancy and rents strategy, which has been informed by the Housing Commission

The Housing Commission will cost £25K in total and we are on target to meet this budget. This includes the cost of:
o Secretariat for the Commission including minute taking, background papers, preparation of presentations
o Specifically commissioned research papers to support the work of the Commission
o No expenses are being paid to commissioners
o Writing of final report

The Housing Commission was set up to look at the key issues in Housing Policy at the moment. The Coalition government is embarking on some of the most radical changes to housing policy in recent history. At the same time it has cut capital funding for housing and regeneration by 75%. Therefore, the Council has decided to review its options so that it can continue to meet the needs of Ealing Residents.

His answer is typically defensive and gives little clue as to when the public will have sight of the commission’s final report (for which we have paid £25K). The last time I asked the schedule was year end.

Labour took £55K out of the scrutiny budget and reduced the number of panels from 9 to 5 (44%), see here. These are cross party meetings with published minutes and the opportunity for the public to attend and participate. With the Housing Commission they have blown £25K of public funds for a series of private meetings between Labour politicians which has produced no report so far.

Update: At Overview and Scrutiny Committee last night we were promised that the final report would come to scrutiny on 12th April. At last we will get to see what we get for our £25K from this private Labour party talk-fest.

If Julian Bell, as Labour group leader, signs off press releases that are lies at some point you have to conclude that Bell is a liar too. The latest press release from Ealing Labour tries to stitch together the odd line here and there from Conservative councillors to paint a picture of disarray. Julian Bell has personally signed off a press statement on Ealing hospital that says:

Cllr Phil Taylor has welcomed the closure. He said on his blog that of Ealing A&E:

“I would rather have a longer journey to a trauma centre.”

Of course I have not welcomed the closure of Ealing hospital. What I said was:

We have relatively few traumas in this country (thank heavens) but if I was a trauma victim I would rather have a slightly longer journey to a trauma centre than be killed by A&E at a district general hospital.

To suggest that this means I am advocating the closure of Ealing hospital is quite simply a lie that Labour’s leader has to take responsibility for. He signed off the press release so he is happy to tolerate lying. Indeed, that makes him a liar.

You can read the full piece here. My paragraph is at the end of a comment I made in response to another comment attached to a long posting. Decide for yourself. If Bell stops lying I will stop calling him a liar.

Another non-performer on the Labour cabinet in Ealing is Cllr Jasbir Anand who has the Health and Adult Services portfolio. Although the council does not directly provide health services it is responsible for health promotion and adult social services and in particular the interworking of the health system and social services. The council has a vital (and statutory) role in holding the health system to account to local people through the scrutiny process. This work is done by the Health and Adult Social Services Standing Scrutiny Panel.

Although Anand might argue that she is not required to attend these meetings her attendance is pathetic. Of 13 meetings that have happened since she was appointed as the portfolio holder she has only managed to attend four times and speak only twice. If Anand was harder working and more capable she would be using these meetings as a platform to speak for health improvement in the Borough and to convey the council’s approach to health improvement.

Members of the committee tell me that she only ever talks about Ealing Hospital and simply makes a statement without taking part in debate. I remember that when Anand was a member of this committee years ago she used to turn up late and leave early. Apparently she hasn’t got any better lately. When she does turn up she just says her piece and clears off.

Like her colleagues Cllrs Tailor and Walker you don’t get the impression that Cllr Anand is earning her £25,448.

Cllr Hitesh Tailor, the councillor that Labour has put in charge of housing in the borough, is complaining about his local MP. Tailor is also employed as a housing officer by Islington so you might imagine he would be across housing issues. Tailor is a Labour councillor for East Acton ward. The local Conservative MP is Angie Bray who represents the Ealing Central and Acton constituency.

Is Tailor saying he is the wrong person to raise Housing issues with in Ealing? Tailor draws allowances of £25,488 from the council. He could get on with the job and stop complaining.

If I was advising a resident of Acton who had a housing issue I would tell them that one of the Acton councillors is in charge of housing and if the system isn’t working for you, approach him. Of course, if Labour’s housing boss is telling us he is useless I had better modify my advice.

Cllr Patricia Walker is Labour’s Children and Young People portfolio holder. Most councils spend about half of all their revenue on children and in Ealing’s case that is about £500 million a year. It is a big job and she has to make most of the biggest decisions that Ealing council makes. Walker is a senior lecturer at the University of East London and has a higher education background specialising in studying international higher education.

Like Councillor Withani above she receives allowances of £25,488 but finds it all a bit hard it seems.

Only this week officers sent out a reminder about the Speak Out 2012 Youth Conference which is due to take place on Saturday 25th February, 11am. This is one of the key youth engagement events that the Borough runs every year and it is normally led by the portfolio holder. Walker’s response, which she inadvertently copied to all, was illuminating:

I am required to do a campaigning session that day but will try to come by about one o’clock.

This tells us a couple of things. Firstly, she prioritises sticking some leaflets through doors for Ken Livingstone above doing a very important job for which she is effectively paid. Secondly, she doesn’t have the gumption to tell her colleagues that she needs to do her political work some other time. Maybe she wants to be seen out by her Labour colleagues and feels that this will help motivate the team. “I am required” does not convey leadership though. Who knows?

When I challenged Walker about this in council on Tuesday she refused to tell council whether she would attend and lead the Youth Conference. Walker told me that “I should stick to your blogging” and finished her remarks with L’Oréal’s famous advertising slogan “Because I’m worth it”.

In response to her two assertions I am and she isn’t.

The tweeting Labour cabinet members in Ealing were notably quiet during tonight’s cabinet meeting. Maybe they have come to the realisation that it is unseemly to be diddling with their smartphones during public meetings?

The most important report tonight was the Budget Strategy 2012/13 and the most important element of this was the stunning £131 million of new general fund capital expenditure outlined by the council. Where is the money coming from you might ask? The answer is that £85 million is coming from central government mainly to be spent on providing additional primary and secondary school places. This council has been silent on the wall of money coming to Ealing from central government to help us tackle some of our most pressing problems.

It is worth looking at some of these programmes in detail, in Appendix 4 of the report here.

The biggest item of expenditure is maintaining and improving Ealing’s primary and secondary schools. Some £95.240 million of schools capital spending has been added to the capital programme. Of this £79.063 million (or 83%) is government grants. For all of Labour’s bluster about the ending of the wasteful BSF programme the government is providing vast sums of money to support the expansion of the Borough’s schools system.

Looking across the existing capital programme and the money outlined above some £291 million is currently programmed to be spent on the Borough’s schools of which some £185 million (or 64%) is coming from the Tory-led government as Labour now likes to call it. Don’t expect Labour’s lacklustre education lead, Dr Patricia Walker, to explain this to you.

The council’s new capital programme, outlined here, makes it clear that Labour is going to maintain the system of ward forums set up under the previous Tory administration. The new programme provides two more years of capital funding for 2014/15 and 2015/16, see page 3, item 12.

I was concerned that Labour would be be tempted to dismantle this system and I am glad that it will remain for a few more years. Personally, I would like to see the system expanded to give local people and their councillors more power to set priorities at a ward level.