Category: Ealing and Northfield

Last night was the first real council meeting since the election and a noisy affair it was. It took us almost an hour to get through the oral questions. The new Mayor seemed to be particularly pleased that there were supplementary and second supplementary questions for all seven questions.

In one exchange on Labour’s housing manoeuvres the Tory group managed to establish that Labour intends to renege on its previous promise to give tenants a full ballot on all the options for the future of their homes. The Tory group put out the following press release last night:

LABOUR BREAKS PROMISE ON HOUSING BALLOT

Labour has broken one of its first promises as a Council administration by refusing to honour a pledge to offer Council tenants and lessees a ballot before making any changes to the way Council housing is managed in the Borough. Council Leader Julian Bell moved the following motion at a Council meeting on 20 October 2009:

Council agrees that before any change is made to who owns or manages council housing in the borough, tenants should be involved in full and proper consultation on the options and should have the right to decide on the best alternative in a ballot.

Less than eight months later, Labour has abandoned that pledge, and has now said it will force tenants and lessees to accept a return to in-house management against their will if necessary.

At tonight’s full Council meeting Conservative Housing spokesman, Cllr Colm Costello asked the Housing portfolio holder when the ballot promised by Labour would take place. He was told that Labour no longer had any intention of holding a ballot, and that the words of Cllr Julian Bell just eight months ago could not be taken seriously. Councillors were told that Labour would now do as it liked as it had won the election. Cllr Costello complained:

It is this sort of U-turn without any pretense of justification that really gives politics a bad name. Cllr Bell could not have been clearer before the election that he wanted Council tenants and lessees to have a ballot on how their housing is managed and run. Yet at the first Council meeting after the election he and the rest of the Labour Group totally overturned their promises of a few months earlier.

The future arrangements housing management is of vital importance to thousands of people in Council homes across this Borough. If they deserved a ballot before the election, they deserve one now. Labour are running scared by the fact that if people are given an actual fair say they may not pick what has already been chosen for them.

18 days ago George Osborne announced some £6.2 billion of in year spending cuts for the current financial year 2010/11. Yesterday the Department for Communities and Local Government spelt out where the axe would fall in individual local authorities, see their press release here.

It looks like Ealing is going to lose £1.8 million this year or 0.4% of its central government grant made up as follows:

Department for Education Area Based Grant (ABG) £1.496 million
Supporting People Administration ABG £172,000
Prevent ABG £102,000
Cohesion ABG £18,000
Home Office ABG £46,000

This will be a blow to the new administration in Ealing and it will cause some local services to change, probably for the worse in most cases. In year cuts are always awkward because they are unplanned. The Labour group in Ealing will no doubt jump up and down and tell us how terrible the coalition is to impose these cuts on Ealing but let us be clear where the blame lies…

… as confirmed by Liam “there’s no money left” Byrne and Lord Myners:

There is nothing progressive about a government that consistently spends more than it can raise in taxation and certainly nothing progressive that endows generations to come with the liabilities incurred with respect to the current generation.

After the street cleaning announcement today came another one from the council on Southall Manor House.

This press release re-announced one from February here.

Again, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it seems like Julian Bell’s cabinet are busying themselves having photos taken in front of Tory projects rather than getting on with their own stuff.

Update: Ooops. Apparently I am wrong about Bell wasting time running around getting photos done. On closer inspection it seems that Acton resident Bell saved a little time and money here by getting himself Photoshopped into a picture of Southall Manor rather than actually going there himself.

It is good to see the new Labour council carrying on enthusiastically with Conservative policies. Today Bassam Mahfouz, cabinet member for Transport and Environment, announced that 52 miles of streets in the north of the borough, which have their rubbish collected on a Friday, will have their streets cleaned on a Saturday. Hooray!

Bassam said:

At the moment, rubbish can build-up across the weekend, which can be unpleasant for residents and their visitors. We’re committed to making Ealing cleaner and I think residents will really notice the difference. I’m keen to receive feedback from residents on how the service establishes itself across the north of the borough.

This is old news though. This policy was first announced on the 13th February by the old leader, Jason Stacey, at the Annual Streetwatchers’ Conference. Sue Emment, the old portfolio holder, used a supplementary question at the full council on the 20th April to confirm the 12th June as the starting date.

Labour’s election platform echoed the messages the Tories had been using for four years so in spite of not being in control the Tories can take some pleasure in the fact that Labour are happy to plough the same furrow – for now.

Nice picture of Bassam. Has he got a height thing? Why else be photographed so far in front of street cleaner Peter Richter? Or maybe there is some four legs good, two legs better stuff happening here?

Local MP Virendra Sharma has been even quieter than usual lately. Maybe as a fellow opposition politician I should have some sympathy, but hey! He stopped his Tweeting before the general election and has not been much in evidence since. He raised himself to ask a question about Pakistan on 2nd June, see TheyWorkForYou.com here.

Today the Daily Mail is really going for fellow Labour MP Keith Vaz about his involvement with disbarred lawyer Shahrokh Mireskandari, see here. They have totally nailed Vaz as a liar. You may remember that in June 2008 Sharma jointly signed a letter which Vaz wrote to a judge urging the High Court to delay proceedings against Mireskandari.

Rather pathetically Sharma said at the time:

I am a new MP. I will be more questioning before I sign a letter in future.

It was no coincidence that Vaz was on his selection panel when he became the Ealing Southall Labour candidate in 2007 so you have to assume there was mutual back scratching going on here.

Ealing North MP Stephen Pound seems to be making a habit of using references to homosexuality to insult people. I ignored the recent Daily Mail piece because I thought it was a bit unnecessary to comment any further but yesterday’s piece in the Gazette starts to look like a bit of a pattern. Pound said:

David and Nick do seem to have forged a close alliance and it’s like the opening scenes of Brokeback Mountain to see them strolling through the sunshine in their matching suits and gently contrasting pastel ties.

Maybe you can write off his comments at the football as being a spur of the moment thing. In this latest case he sat down with a pen and paper, reviewed his work and sent it off for publication. It is one thing playing the fool. It is another to be stupid and nasty. For good measure here is a photo of Pound in a pastel tie. No-one would assume that he is gay (work that one out for yourselves).

After last night’s annual council, or mayor making (sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings I know), the new Labour council leader has been swift to launch his new team. It is interesting to see him taking a more collegiate approach compared to his last two predecessors, Conservative Jason Stacey and Labour’s Leo Thomson.

Bell listed five priorities:

– making the borough safer
– improving public services
– securing jobs and homes
– making the borough cleaner
– delivering value for money

It is good to see three out of five of these are taken straight from the previous administration’s list of three:

– cleaner streets
– safer communities
– value for money

The two new priorities look like a serious dilution. One reason we were so proud of what we did over the last four years is that the council managed to improve in our three focus areas where we put in more resource such as extra street cleaners and additional police officers but we also improved social services, parking, etc. This was the genius of not trying to do too much at once – at the time our opposition accused us of being un-ambitious. Ambition is good, delivery is better.

Now Labour talks about improving public services? Which ones? Just those delivered mainly by the council? Working better with partners? It is likely that under the new coalition government we are going to see a large scale de-centralisation of power from central to local government. Many of the council’s erstwhile partners may find themselves being handed over to the council wholesale in the years to come. Our new administration will have to discard many preconceived ideas and be very quick on its feet. The government will tend I am sure to hand on responsibilities with only a part of the money – the rest will be kept at the centre.

The securing jobs and homes priority sounds nice but is likely to be pie in the sky. The council will have little choice about shedding labour in the next few years and its influence on the wider jobs market is limited I would say. Homes? Even under Alistair Darling’s rather rosy economic assumptions we were looking at net investment halving – it will be worse than that and housing will suffer. Again more sacred cows will have to be sacrificed if the council is going to make progress on housing. The insourcing of the ALMO is not a good place to start. The previous administration had some very good people working on housing who moved at pace to progress the development of our high intervention estates. The council needs to keep up the pace with these and prove it is a capable partner.

I apologise for the rather poor photograph of a photocopy above, click to enlarge. Hilariously Labour leadership candidate David Miliband wrote to the leader of Ealing Council last week to congratulate him on Labour taking control of the council. Only he wrote to the old leader, Conservative Jason Stacey, not the new leader, Labour’s Julian Bell. You can see how the mistake was made – formally Julian Bell will not take over until tonight at the annual council meeting.

David Miliband’s staff aren’t the only people confused. I suspect that many of the people who voted for Labour councillors a couple of weeks ago thought they were voting for a Labour council that had magically improved over the last four years. If you pull out the residents survey published earlier this year, follow this link, and scroll down to pages 38 and 39 you will see that only 42% of people thought they knew who was in control of the council. Of these 76% got the answer right, ie the Tories. So, overall, only 32% of residents knew that the Tories were running the council up until May 6th. 68% did not! So maybe Miliband’s people weren’t the only ones who were confused.

A few hints about the new Labour Ealing cabinet were swirling around at last night’s council meeting. We know the leader will be Julian Bell and the chief whip Brian Reeves.

The finance portfolio will be taken by the old opposition Finance and Performance spokeswoman Yvonne Johnson. At the count Shittal Manro, a new-old councillor, was throwing his weight around and asking after reserves. At least Johnson has a bit of finesse. It may not stop her trying to clean out all the council’s reserves though.

My old portfolio is going to be taken by the old Labour shadow Kamaljit Dhindsa.

During his very confident maiden speech new boy Hitesh Tailor made reference to his taking over the housing portfolio. After last night’s meeting the portfolio holder will be known to all as Cllr Withani. On his Twitter profile Cllr Withani talks of being a housing researcher. In his past he has actually worked for Ealing as a housing officer. A case of poacher turned gamekeeper or a case of Labour being on the side of producer interests?

Another old shadow taking on a portfolio is Patricia Walker who is taking on Children’s. Cllr Walker is an academic, based at the University of East London, see her profile here. This is a big portfolio and one that is going to see huge change. It is also probably the portfolio that involves the highest risk decisions. Cllr Walker is given to using words such a “pedagogical” in her speeches. The word she will have to learn is no.

Tonight we had the first council meeting since the election. This was an extraordinary meeting called by the new Labour administration to discuss one motion:

This Council resolves that with immediate effect its support for privatising the Management Contract of Ealing Homes is removed. The Council mandates officers to immediately draw up proposals to return Ealing Homes to direct management by the Council.

There was a rumbustuous debate and this evening the Conservative group issued the following statement:

LABOUR SIGNALS INFLATION BUSTING RENT HIKES FOR TENANTS WITH COUNCIL VOTE

Ealing’s incoming Labour administration this evening signalled hefty hikes in rents for Council tenants to pay for the costs of bringing housing management to direct Council control.

At the first Council meeting following Labour’s win at the local elections, Labour councillors voted to bring Ealing Homes back in-house. This changed policy from the previous Conservative administration which would have let not-for-profit organisations with housing expertise manage housing, and given tenants the right to sack their manager if they were not satisfied.

Council Officers have said that the policy of the Labour administration will leave a funding gap of around £3M as increased costs are brought in-house as a result of changing systems and funding pensions. The increased costs will add around £165 to the average Council tenant’s bill if Labour chooses not to cut the maintenance budget or the regeneration programme started by the previous Conservative administration.

Leader of the Opposition, Cllr Jason Stacey said he was disappointed that Labour had not accepted his amendment to cap rents at a rate of increase not greater than inflation. He said:

“Labour have every right to change the way they manage Council services, but it was plain from the debate tonight that when it comes to Council housing they are driven more by ideology than wanting to keep down costs or improve the level of service for Council tenants.

“In four years of control, Conservatives managed to keep Council rent increases below the rate of inflation. The reason Labour can’t and won’t make this same commitment is they know that bringing the service back in-house will be more expensive for tenants.”