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A Parish Council for Forest Gate?

20 Feb

 

In 2007, the Government passed legislation which permitted the creation of community councils in London, with the aim of enhancing community governance in urban areas. These new community councils would have similar powers to the parish councils that exist elsewhere across the country.

Central government – both this one and its Labour predecessor – wants to encourage localism, a greater devolution of power and decision making to the lowest possible level. A Government white paper last year set out support for new parish councils and made it clear they wanted to see more councils established to take greater control over local services

Already local residents in Queen’s Park and London Fields have started campaigns to set up their own councils to change their community for the better.

Would it make sense for us to have our own council in Forest Gate?

It wouldn’t mean leaving Newham, just having some powers transferred into the hands of local people and an ability to spend money on the projects we consider priorities. For example, the new council would have to be consulted on any planning applications, such as the one submitted by Obsidian for the re-development of our town centre. The lack of effective planning enforcement is something that has long blighted Forest Gate Town Centre. Other possible powers which could have a positive impact on how we as residents could improve Forest Gate include managing community and leisure centres, establishing a ‘village hall’, street cleansing and community safety. It may even be possible to take over the local parking provision to ensure that it better reflects the needs and desires of the local population. 

The new council would be funded by a precept – an additional amount of money collected alongside the council tax. It might also receive a grant from Newham to enable it fund services it took over from them.

In order to establish a new parish council here Newham, as the ‘Principal Local Authority’, would have to first undertake a ‘community governance review’. They could decide to do this themselves, or we can petition them to do so. If 10% of the electors in the affected area signed the petition Newham would be legally obliged to carry out a review within 12 months. 

Together the existing wards of Forest Gate North and Forest Gate South are home to about 20,000 people, but the area covered by the council need not exactly match those boundaries. However, that makes a sensible starting point for thinking about this.

I think there are exciting possibilities here for local people to re-engage in the governance of our community, but what do you think? Is this an idea worth pursuing? Why not head over to Woodgrange Web and join the debate – http://bit.ly/yKo35I

 

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A Conversation with Councillor Gray

4 Jan

In a comment on John Gray’s Labour Blog (which is actually it’s title, not a description I’ve given it) I asked, in relation to what I perceive to be a lack of transparency in the way Newham council conducts its business:

Why is vital business always conducted behind closed doors at Labour Group meetings rather than in public council meetings?

Why were the public and the press excluded from the [council’s] discussion about the new £40 million offer to the OPLC?

Councillor Gray replied:

I am amazed that there is anyone who can question the huge overall benefit from the Olympics and that any council (especially a Labour Council) would not want to have a direct public ownership stake in the stadium.

I was a Council officer (in a different council) for over 15 years and political groups have always debated and voted on policies in private.

Unsatisfied by this response, I pressed the matter further:

You say “I am amazed that there is anyone who can question the huge overall benefit from the Olympics and that any council (especially a Labour Council) would not want to have a direct public ownership stake in the stadium.”

Apologies if I’m being a bit thick, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to enlighten me. Whilst I agree that there will be overall benefits to London and the UK from hosting the Olympics (even at the vastly expanded cost of £9 billion) and I am personally looking forward to attending a number of events in the summer, I cannot see why Newham council would want to have a direct stake in the future ownership of the main stadium once the Games are over. If the benefits are so obvious, why aren’t Greenwich, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest and Redbridge taking a similar stake? Why isn’t the Greater London Authority?

Of course the Olympic stadium should remain in public ownership, but the OPLC is a public body, so Newham’s investment won’t make the ownership any more public than it already is.

The question therefore remains, what additional benefits will Newham people derive from the proposed £40 million investment that they will not get if the stadium legacy is wholly funded by OPLC?

The answers to that may lie in the report that you and your colleagues considered back in December when you approved the £40 million investment offer, but that document has not been published and your meeting was held behind closed doors. Quite why an arrangement between two public entities should be regarded as ‘commercially sensitive’ is beyond me.

Councillor Gray again responded:

Again, purely in my personal opinion, I don’t know why (and maybe they are putting in a bid for all I know) but suspect that the simple answer is that the stadium is in Newham. I also think that the GLA have no legal ability to do what you suggest. Nor at this time the political inclination.

The OPLC is a “public body” at the moment, but that doesn’t mean that it will be always.

Look, I believe in public ownership, I am a believer in “Municipalism” and that the role of a Council is not just to be an “enabler” of services. ??????The potential of the Stadium is enormous and IMO (sorry BBM) it is quite right and proper that the Council wants to play a prudent role in its future.

Whether you think it is a good thing or not all, public entities have a duty to negotiate to get the best commercial arrangement possible, whether it is a with a private or public body – so of course, you cannot make your negotiation position public.

Feeling that my basic question had gone unanswered, I tried again

You talk about potential and municipalism, but make no mention of concrete benefits to Newham people resulting from the £40 million we are putting in.

The business case for the investment that the council approved would have included some kind of benefits analysis as part of the return on investment calculation, so there must be a list of them written down somewhere. Why not just share that?

If this investment is such a great deal for the people of Newham, why aren’t the mayor and the council trumpeting it from the rooftops?

This prompted the following, frankly unenlightening reply

I honestly think that I have as much as is possible at this moment.

The key thing to remember at this time is that there is no “deal” to actually talk about. There is a proposal which is being negotiated. The proposal (as in any other negotiation) could be turned down, amended or withdrawn. In the midst of negotiations you just don’t generally trumpet things from the rooftops

And there I think we must leave it.

The post to which the comments were attached has sunk down below the first page of Councillor Gray’s blog and I sense that we’re really only talking to each other. To his credit John Gray has remained entirely polite in his replies to me, which is not a courtesy he always extends to commentors on his blog or others he perceives as political opponents. And at least he has a blog, which is more than can be said for the mayor or any of his other colleagues (as far as I am aware). 

Maybe at some point we’ll find out what we’ll be getting for our money, but I’m not holding my breath. Sir Robin is hell bent on taking some kind of control of the Olympic stadium, and spending a big chunk of our cash to do it. The idea that he might explain himself to the people who will actually paying for it is not one that will detain him, even for a nanosecond.

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Is Sir Robin channelling St George, or or turning into a Tory?

19 May

This is something I posted a few days ago on the e-Democracy web site:

The BBC is reporting that Newham libraries are to remove all foreign language publications, quoting the Mayor as saying the move will “encourage people to speak & learn English.”

The decision has, predictably, comes in for some criticism from members of communities that will be affected by the move. But the Mayor rejects this, saying, “English language is something that we’re pushing very strongly.

“Two things about the English language: You need it to get a job; secondly it brings a community together.

“Public money should be spent encouraging people to speak and learn English. Whenever I raise that with my residents they all agree with that.”

Leaving aside for a moment Sir Robin’s self-aggrandising description of Newham people as “my residents,” this is an interesting position, and much more in tune with current Conservative thinking, which rejects multiculturalism as a failure, than the view taken by the left since at least the 1960s.

In a speech earlier this year in Munich David Cameron said, “We have allowed the weakening of our collective identity. Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream.” He added that we need to make sure that “immigrants speak the language of their new home.”

I wonder if this apparent conversion to Tory thinking is a just an excuse for a bit of mean-spirited penny-pinching, trimming into the prevailing political wind, or whether the Mayor genuinely believes it. If so, will he follow up by axing the translation services that put the borough’s myriad communications into a variety of community languages, on the basis that if people want to transact with government they should do it in English? It would be controversial, but would have the merit of consistency.

There is some small irony in a Scottish mayor presiding over a London borough with an ethnically diverse population positioning himself as a champion of Englishness. It would be fascinating to know what other councillors think of all this, and whether they were consulted before Sir Robin decided on this latest campaign.

 

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The Big Society?

28 Feb

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A couple of weeks ago I had the dubious pleasure of listening to the Prime Minister re-launch his ‘big idea’ – the Big Society.

I must confess that after an hour of discussion I am none the wiser as to what it actually means.

But whatever it is, I’m sure it has nothing in common with Tory-run Westminster Council’s attempt’s to ban soup kitchens for the homeless near Westminster Abbey.

I Can’t Believe It!

6 Dec
Alex Brummer, writing in the Daily Mail of all places, comes out against tax avoidance:

Tax avoidance (organised by expensive teams of accountants) is perfectly legal. Yet it comes at the expense of millions of hard-working people who are not in a position to exploit such loopholes and have to bear the brunt of subsequent cuts in public services and increases in their own taxes.

Those workers on Pay-As-You-Earn tax arrangements have no means of lowering their Inland Revenue bills because tax is removed from their pay packets every month, along with their National Insurance Contributions (NIC) – which have now lost their original purpose as payments towards state pensions and social security, and are simply another form of income tax. Remember, too, that the vast majority of these ordinary taxpayers have had pay-freezes – and that the Government has not increased their tax-free allowances in line with inflation.

Read the full story here

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When Fascism Comes to America . . .

6 Dec
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