At last night’s Cabinet meeting Ealing’s new council got on with its maifesto delivery programme by moving forward with the following programmes:
In Friday’s local papers they covered the fact that Ealing council has managed to take two direct debit payments from people this month (see Ealing Times story). This is a good old fashioned cock up. Someone pressed the wrong button and an old file got sent to the direct debit people (BACS). This will cause a lot of people to scratch their heads and moan about the council and a few will incur bank charges as a result of going overdrawn. The council sent the money straight back and has promised to reimburse anyone who incurs these charges. Fair enough. Some people have pointed out that the council will benefit from interest on the money. Yes, probably, but the amount is likely to be more than used up in compensating people and the extra admin involved.
I would quite like to know who pressed the wrong button but the officers close ranks in cases like this and are unwilling to give up the name. They are probably right in this case as it sounds like it was just finger trouble! Council leader Jason Stacey did the right thing by publicly apologising at the start of the council meeting last Tuesday.
Another story both papers covered was the proposed increase in allowances for all councillors including Jason. Although Jason’s allowance is going up considerably it will still only be £38,950 compared to a recommendation from the Association of Local Government that leaders should get £51,191. See Ealing Times story.
Although I work with and admire our chief executive, Darra Singh, and our executive director for finance, Richard Ennis, it is worth pointing out that Darra probably earns 4 times what is proposed for Jason and Richard probably earns 3 times Jason’s allowance. Whilst Jason was standing up to apologise Darra and Richard sat there and watched. Quite right as they are not councillors and not entitled to speak. But maybe Jason earns his cash too!
I must admit I have got it all wrong about the Londoner, the Mayor’s £3 million self-publicity exercise. I received a letter from him this morning detailing how the Londoner is funded. Apparently the letter was prepared on 11th July but not sent out until today due to an administrative error.
See letter: London Mayor 11-7-2006.doc
According to the Mayor spending on the Londoner was contained within its 2005/6 budget of £2,882,800. I had previously imagined that income from advertising charges for the 3/4 pages of display advertising from GLA bodies in each issue was in addition to this budget and that the budget was a GLA budget. I was wrong. Apparently the GLA only contributed £632,800 towards the Londoner. The rest comes from tax on the GLA “family”.
Transport for London are taxed £1,500,000. In other words £1.5 million of road safety projects are on the shelf to make way for this wasteful spending.
LDA are taxed £500,000 to pay for it. I really do not see how spending £500K on the Londoner helps promote London’s economy.
The Met have to make a contribution of £250K. Would they rather spend this cash on coppers? I would.
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Spin doctors reach 84
The Times today covers the publication of a written statement by the Prime Minister detailing the number and pay of the government’s spin doctors. Formally known as special advisers, these are the political appointments made by ministers of communications sidekicks who do dirty jobs like burying bad news.
There are currently 84 spin doctors with a salary bill of £5.9 million. This is the highest number since Labour came to power in 1997. When the Conservatives left office they only had 38 special advisors and the pay bill was way cheaper – £1.8 million.
This is not the only aspect of Government communications spending that has increased by a factor of 3 under Labour (see previous posting).
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New thinking about low pay
The way we tax the low paid and them give them back complex, means-tested benefits really does my head in. Those people in society who typically are least capable or inclined to deal with “the System” are forced to deal with it twice. Once to take money off them in tax. Twice to give them back their own cash in tax credits. This set up may suit Gordon Brown and the thousands of civil servants who have to maintain this system but it is hugely costly and just a waste of life. Low paid people waste their lives paying tax and reclaiming it and civil servants have miserable jobs doing all the admin.
Two stories tonight approach the same problem from different ends. The LibDems saying that the tax threshold should be £10,000 (see LibDem story) and David Cameron saying that the Tories should be about giving people time back as well as cash in tax cuts (see Cameron story).
Right now if you do a 37.5 hour week on the minimum wage of £5.05 per hour you will earn £9,847.50 or £10,000 pretty much. Linking the minimum wage with the tax threshold would ensue that the low paid were not mired in the tax and benefits system and would also have the benefit of keeping Government honest with the minimum wage.
At Tuesday’s council meeting I got to ask the first oral question. I asked the council leader, Jason Stacey, to report on his review of the Clean and Green contract. This is our contract with ECT to provide street cleaning, rubbish collection, fly tip removal and recycling services for Ealing. It is a £10 million contract so it is no small thing.
Stacey reported that the contract itself is pretty much up to snuff. The problem is in the area of performance management. The previous administration left little evidence that there was any proper performance management regime in place. Their relationship with ECT may not have been appropriately dispassionate; remember the Chief Executive of ECT, Stephen Sears, was a Labour councillor until May.
In Northfield the standard of street cleaning has not been consistent enough. All streets are meant to be cleaned weekly but the build up of dirt in the gullies is such that you could grow potatoes in many of them. Your councillors are driving the council to deliver improvements in this area and we are committed to making a monthly tour with our Envirocrime Enforcement Officer to ensure this. We don’t get many complaints about the current recycling system and we are committed to increasing what is recycled so I think this is probably an area that is improving adequately.
Since I moved into my current home I have come to expect that foxes would tear up bin bags overnight and I would have to clear up strewn rubbish from the street after the rubbish collection. On the morning of the council meeting my wife told me that the neighbours’ rubbish was all over the path. I was expecting to have to pull my rubber gloves on and go out to tackle the mess which was pretty spectacular. In the end the rubbish collection swept it all away. Fab!
As a part of the Clean and Green contract the rubbish collection trucks carry shovels and brushes to clear up after split bags. You should not expect to see anything left over after the rubbish collection anymore. As long as everyone follows the rules and only puts out their rubbish before 7pm on the day of collection we should be able to keep our neighbourhoods clean. We pay for this service so get on the phone to 020 8825 6000 if it is not delivered.
On Monday 5th June a new graffiti cleaning contract started. Out with Sgt Elam last Saturday I saw three pieces of street furniture that had been repainted under this contract. It seems like this is starting to work too. With the Police having collared two graffiti vandals in the last couple of months that problem is being tackled at both ends.
Our next initiative will be signs on all streets so that everyone knows which is their collection day. We will clean up Northfield and Ealing.
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On the beat with Sgt Elam
On Saturday morning the three Northfield councillors spent a couple of hours with Sgt Elam who leads the Northfield Safer Neighbourhood Team. Sgt Elam is an experienced officer with some history in the area as he used to run the Penny Farthing pub (now the Ealing Park Tavern).
The team’s priorities are:
- graffiti
- motor vehicle crime
- drug dealing
- anti-social behaviour.
The team has recently collared their second graffiti vandal so it sounds like they are making progress.
Unfortunately the team are not up to their promised strength. Sgt Elam’s team is short one PCSO. The Mayor promised that these teams would have a sergeant, a PC and 2 PCSOs by the end of April.
There is some talk of locating some of the Safer Neighbourhood Teams at Northfield tube station. The Northfield councillors want the Northfield team visible in the empty office at the front of the station. We will be writing to the Borough Commander, Collette Paul, to urge that this happens.
It goes without saying that the councillors are very supportive of Sgt Elam and his team.
Some idiot has sold Transport for London, Ken’s transport quango, the idea that they should develop their brand hence the Your TfL advertsing campaign currently running across television, cinema, radio and billboards.
I have been chasing TfL to fess up to how much this is all costing. TfL started using https://www.billboardadvertising.org.uk/outdoor/bus-stops to help advertise. After three e-mails Sheila Sachania from TfL writes today with the final pieces of the jigsaw. They are spending £2.6 million on the Your TfL campaign. This includes about £1 million for telly slots, £500K for cinema, £270K for production of the ad itself and £520K for billboard sites.
Livingstone, rather than let TfL spend so much on advertising can we either have some more policemen or please give us some of our cash back.
Councillor Mark Reen and I spent a couple of hours this morning with Bob Coombs, our Envirocrime Enforcement Officer. Bob has been with the council for 16 years and is currently responsible for the Northfield and Elthorne wards. Bob covers everything from abandoned vehicles, through graffiti and fly-tipping to skip licences. About half of his time is spent directly dealing with complaints from members of the public. He is also responsible for monitoring the effectiveness of ECT across this area. If you don’t know ECT is the contractor that provides street cleaning, refuse and recycling collection and fly-tipping removal in Ealing.
We had a chat with Bob over a cup of tea and then headed out into the ward to see what we could find.
Our first stop was a bin bag outside the cafe we had just stopped at on Northfield Avenue. A quick look inside revealed that it had come from an adjacent solicitor’s office. We trooped in and talked to one of the solicitors who was not really as embarrassed as he might have been. On Carlyle Road we had a word with some builders who were using the pavement to store waste before a skip arrived. Following up on a complaint from a lady in Chandos Avenue we looked at another flytip at the east end of the street. More rummaging revealed that one of the flats above the shops on South Ealing Road was being refurbished and the owner was dumping outside. From there to Hessel Road where another rummage delivered up the address of a shop that is To Let – presumably the owner cleared out the rubbish and dumped it on the street opposite. These look like two more good locations for Ealing’s roving flytip spy camera (see pictures from the east end of Graham Road taken in May and published in the July edition of Around Ealing).
To be fair to the council and its contractor ECT, most of the roads we traversed this morning were looking pretty clean. Where there was mess it was due to fly-tipping on the whole.
Your three Northfield councillors are committed to helping Bob make a real difference in this ward. One of us will be out on the streets with him every month.
We can all do our bit. If you see abandoned vehicles, uncollected rubbish or recycling, fly-tipping or graffiti, in fact anything that looks a mess call the council on 020 8825 6000. It may be a little laborious to record the problem but we can’t clean the place up if we don’t have the information.
See previous posting.
This morning I came across Ealing’s “Inadequate” performance in the area of adult learning. On 24th March the Adult Learning Inspectorate categorised Ealing as Inadequate (see their report).
6 weeks before the local elections this report got very little if any coverage so I guess that the issue does not have much resonance.
Phil Taylor 