Category: Ealing and Northfield

I do like to record my actual experiences with council services as most of them are well delivered and we only tend to notice when things go wrong. It is my antidote to all that “the council is crap” stuff which is overdone sometimes.

On Sunday lunchtime I very conveniently and painlessly ordered 3 new garden waste bags online and was promised automatically by e-mail that:

Your order will be delivered within the next 5 working days.

As good as gold 3 garden waste bags appeared on my path this lunchtime. I think that is 3.5 working days. Good job!

I can’t make the Northolt Leisure Centre Library meeting tonight as I am stuck at home on baby sitting duty tonight.

When I went to the first library consultation meeting in Perivale a couple of weeks ago council leader Julian Bell said something about the Northolt Leisure Centre library that made my ears prick up:

There is the opportunity to provide something else that will generate more income on that site.

Last week in the Gazette there was a letter from one of the Labour councillors for Northolt Mandeville, Chris Summers, asking for an open debate on libraries and that we think creatively. In his letter though it sounds like he has already given up on his own ward’s library:

But I accept that cuts have to be made and I can see why it makes sense to close the leisure centre library, when there is an excellent alternative less than a mile up the road, on the other side of the Target roundabout.

This sounds like a bit of a “let them eat cake” argument to me. He goes on to say:

If the leisure centre library does close, I see it is an opportunity to use that space for an alternative purpose and hope local people will let me and my fellow councillors know what they want there – a children’s soft play area? An internet cafe and study area (perhaps with a mini-library)? A bar and restaurant?

It sounds like the Labour politicians have already made their minds up.

Sorry to keep going on about libraries but this one really is worth fighting.

The senior officers have had some of the smaller libraries in their sights for some years. In the 2007 budget round they came for Hanwell. The Tories said no. In the 2008 budget round they came for Perivale. The Tories said no. In 2009 they knew better! We did though take £400K out of the back office and re-invest some of it in the front office.

With a relatively new, inexperienced administration in charge the officers have come back for five frontline library services this time around.

In the 2010 Tory manifesto we promised to complete the library modernisation programme started under Labour, continued under the Tories and now brought to a juddering halt. We said we would “modernise Acton, Hanwell, Perivale and Southall libraries”.

I do think that the new (not so new now after a year) Labour administration has been badly advised by officers in respect of the libraries. There are other ways of taking costs out of the library service besides closing the smaller libraries which do not perform as badly as some people would try to tell you. In fact I would suggest that it is the larger libraries that are hiding the productivity issues.

There are something like 125 FTE staff still in the library service of which some 21.5 FTE are what I would call back office staff. Seven of those back office staff are very expensive managers who in turn report up through another three layers of management within the council. Two years ago, when I was in charge of the libraries, we took £400K of costs out of the back office and no-one even noticed, except for the fact that we used some of the savings to put resources back into the front office to increase opening hours! I have obtained the following figures for library staffing levels from officers:

The size of the libraries varies a lot. The Ealing Central figure includes the dedicated manager.

If we then take the output figures from the library consultation document we can start to get a grip on productivity. The first chart below shows library productivity in terms of 2009/10 visits per FTE.

Four libraries (Jubilee, two Northolts and West Ealing) were closed for refurbishment during this period so can be forgiven. Both Hanwell and Northfield are in the top five. Both Acton and Greenford have more than 10 staff and Ealing Central has 27 but even with automation they cannot achieve economies of scale and out produce these tiny libraries. On first look the 50 odd FTE at these three libraries could be made more productive.

The next chart is library productivity in terms of 2009/10 issues per FTE.

Again the four part closed libraries perform poorly obviously. Without automation and only 3.6 FTE Northfield comes out on top. Perivale and Hanwell are in the top 5. Employing 35 FTE Acton, Greenford and Southall look weak.

The final chart is library productivity in terms of forecast 2010/11 visits per FTE. This is the most up to-date information so could perhaps be given the most weight but we all have good years and bad years so we shouldn’t forget the previous year.

Ignore Wood End as it is closed for part of the year. Northfield and Perivale compete even with their small staff and lack of automation. Although Hanwell and NLCL are laggards they both beat Acton, again with its large staff.

The conclusion I draw from all of this is that the council should look at front office work practices in the large libraries. It should be easier to get economies of scale out of a large workforce dealing with large volumes, especially when there is automation using RFID.

There are 62.7 FTE working in our four largest libraries. There are only 11.5 FTE working in the four slated for closure. I know where I would look for my savings.

PS The Jubilee Gardens library which combines a doctor’s surgery with a library looks like a stunning success. Its 3.6 staff manage double the productivity of some of the larger libraries.

The Northolt Leisure Centre library consultation meeting takes place tomorrow at 7pm. It takes place at the Northolt High School NOT the library itself. The council leader, Cllr Julian Bell, finance head, Cllr Yvonne Johnson, and the councillor in charge of the libraries, Cllr Kamaljit Dhindsa, will be there.

See you tomorrow at Northolt High School, Vincent Centre, Gate B, Eastcote Lane, Northolt, UB5 4HP. Map below.

1. Northolt Leisure Centre library only employs 2.6 staff.
2. It is very cheap to run – only £75K per annum would be saved by closing it.
3. The library service costs £6.7 million so the saving would be 1.1% of the library budget.
4. The library is the cheapest in the borough in terms of cost per item borrowed, the library is third cheapest in terms of cost per visitor.
5. The library only opened in January 2010 but council leader Julian Bell says he wants to “provide something else that will generate more income on that site”.
6. Because the library front desk is integrated with the leisure centre front desk it has very long opening hours – 48 hours compared to 33.5 for other small libraries, open 43% more than other small libraries but still the cheapest!
7. Again, because the library front desk is integrated with the leisure centre front desk it never closes when staff are sick, etc unlike the other small libraries in the borough.
8. Northolt Mandeville ward is physically divided from the rest of the borough by the A40 – it needs its own library.
9. The book buying budget is less than 10% of libraries spending and should be left alone. There is no point in keeping the buildings and staff and not buying books.
10. There are other ways of finding savings in the library service if required, for instance:
    • The library service employs 125 FTE altogether.
    • There are 7 senior managers in the library service who report up through three more layers of management.
    • The libraries back office still employs 21.5 FTE.
    • Ealing Central library employs 27 FTE.

Last night Ealing’s Conservative group elected David Millican as our leader. David was elected as a councillor for the second time in 2006, he has served as a portfolio holder for regeneration in the Conservative administration and has previously served as the association chairman for the Ealing Southall Conservatives. David combines energy and great political intelligence with being a thoroughly nice man.

David takes over from Jason Stacey who was leader for seven years, two years in opposition, four years as a leader of a council which was widely seen as transformed in is hands, and then, unbelievably, another year in opposition. The borough owes Jason a great deal.

I don’t know for sure which of the East Acton councillors is responsible for the East Acton Labour twitter account but the other two councillors are not noticeably twittertastic so I suspect it is Labour’s housing spokesman, Hitesh Tailor. I accept that he knows something about housing, or at least social housing and housing benefits, as he has a job working as a Housing Principal Policy Analyst for Islington council. I accept that his heart is in the right place but he might think through what he thinks before he regurgitates the latest announcement from housing charity Crisis, see here.

I did as Crisis asked and looked up the benefit (LHA) rate for a one bedroom flat for my area (£219.23) and compared it to the Shared Accommodation rate (£98.50). The complaint is that 25 to 34 year olds, who are currently entitled to the one bedroom rate will have to make do with the Shared Accommodation rate from January next year. On the face of it this is a 55% reduction of their benefits. Viciously unfair?

I don’t know. Often the middle class professionals who make the most noise on some of these issues don’t know how little most ordinary people are paid, even in London. These are the people who have to pay the taxes to pay the benefits. If you go and look at the ASHE (earnings) statistics you will find that the mean gross pay for all workers in the London Borough of Ealing is £591.60 per week or £30,763 per annum. For that person to pay out £219.23 after basic rate tax and NI they need to earn £16,522. In other words 54% of their pay. We simply can’t afford to give non-workers 54% of average pay just to cover their housing costs.

Is the new figure fair? £98.50. I went to look on Gumtree for a house share that would be acceptable to me. I found one immediately. It sounds great:

We have a double room to rent for a professional, social and tidy person in a friendly international house.

Located between Lammas Park and Walpole Park, the property is within walking distance to Ealing Broadway Station (Central and District line), Northfields Station (Piccadilly Line) and West Ealing Station (National Rail)

You will be sharing with easy going professionals from Spain, Italy, New Zealand and England. The atmosphere in the house is really good. Everybody in the house gets along very well and we all enjoy some drinks together every now and then.

The house has everything you need: 2 bathrooms, a huge kitchen with washing machine, dryer and dishwasher, a large living room, conservatory and a very nice garden perfect for BBQs.

The rent is £425 per month inclusive of all bills (electricity, gas, water,council tax, internet and sky tv).
It is a nice bright room with double bed, desk, wardrobe, drawers and there is loads of storage room in the house.

The pictures look great too, go and see here.

I think that most people will look at these numbers and say this is reasonable. I would be interested to hear the counter arguments.

I have been making a record of my trips to Southall lately. My standard journey is from the Sainsburys in West Ealing to the Herbert Road multi-storey car park. Council leader Julian Bell has noticed that I have been doing this and suggested that I am choosing my times carefully. I will try to go on weekend evenings when I know Southall gets busier.

This afternoon’s trip was dominated, as I have come to expect, by queing up to get across the Town Hall crossroads from Southall Park, with the buses bullying their way into my path as per usual. Southall was busy with children out for their Easter holidays. When I got to Herbert Road there was a rolling queue of cars at the entrance but within two minutes I had found a place. The car park was busy but it was turning over and I counted 35 free places.

My five recent trips are tabulated below.

Although two of these trips can be dismissed as being the wrong times I would suggest that Friday and Saturday afternoon are pretty peaky. Even when it is busy the overall journey time is dominated by the drive duration not the park duration.

I predict that Southall can only get more congested if people have a reasonable expectation of parking easily. Surely Labour’s £5.5 million car park will make Southall more congested?

I have just heard from Central Ealing and Acton MP, Angie Bray, that Ealing Council has been burying good news again:

Ealing council was awarded a £1.12 million New Homes Bonus grant last Monday by the government. I have waited in vain for an announcement by Ealing council of this good news but yet again the council seems intent on burying good news.

Only three weeks ago Ealing got £323K from the Department of Transport as a part of a budget announcement on repairing pot holes. Unaccountably this was ignored by the council too. It seems that Ealing council is only interested in bad news from the Coalition Government.

Read about the New Homes Bonus here and the pot hole money here.