Newham Labour activists (mostly councillors, if you look closely) have been out, pounding the pavements, ahead of May’s London mayoral and assembly elections. And of course they’ve been posting pictures of themselves all over Twitter and Facebook.
But one very prominent local member is conspicuous by his absence.
Where’s Robin?
Spot the difference
At last night’s full council meeting members agreed to grant an extended leave of absence to long-serving Canning Town councillor Sheila Thomas.
Cllr Thomas hasn’t attended a meeting since last September due to ill health. If last night’s motion hadn’t been passed she’d have been removed from office on 21st March and a by-election called to fill the vacancy.
All very fair and decent. After all, it’s not Sheila Thomas’s fault she’s too poorly to go to meetings.
So why, I wonder, wasn’t the same courtesy extended to Charlene McLean last year when she was unable to attend after giving birth to an extremely premature baby, who required months of intensive care and attention? Cllr McLean believed she was on maternity leave. No-one bothered to tell her she wasn’t or to organise getting her to a meeting. She was expelled from the council. Happily, she regained her seat at the subsequent by-election.
Let’s be charitable and say that Newham Labour has learned its lesson. The alternative explanation is altogether less appealing.
Labour party members in Manor Park had to cancel their Christmas social at short notice last week because the mayor couldn’t attend.
The ward party chair sent round an apologetic email, explaining that the social couldn’t go ahead because of Labour party “rules”:
I have to inform you, regretfully, that after an emergency meeting, the Manor Park Social Event for next week (17th), has been cancelled.
This is due to three rules: firstly, one of our guests cannot attend. (If our Mayor cannot attend then we cannot proceed with the social). Secondly, branches are not allowed to officially socialize as part of the Labour Party, only CLP. Finally, no guests outside of Newham are allowed to be invited to a Labour Party social event and there was some doubt about the music and choir at a Labour Party event.
This is very disappointing, as it was discussed and agreed at our branch meeting three weeks ago.
However, I have asked the Chair of East Ham CLP if we can have a social event in 2016 for all of East Ham branches and this can go ahead. So we can look forward to this event.
I am very sorry for any inconvenience this cancellation may have caused.
My sincere apologies.
Anyone searching the Labour party rule book will, of course, come away empty-handed. There are no such rules. It is straightforwardly an attempt to control and stop East Ham members meeting up and working together ahead of the trigger ballot to confirm Sir Robin, yet again, as the mayoral candidate. Divide and rule!
The ward chair was instructed to cancel the event, but maybe she should have seen it coming. She is also East Ham’s social secretary and has previously complained to the CLP secretary, Mariam Dawood, about the impossibility of organising activities without access to the full list of party members.
These shenanigans are an interesting contrast to the West Ham party, which has held many events open to all Labour supporters, mostly without the mayor. Some have included non-Newham guests – and even non-Labour people (disclosure: I’ve been to a couple).
Members in East Ham ought to be asking themselves about the motives of the people running their local party. Whose interests are they looking after?
Somehow it escaped my attention until a few days ago that Cllr Hanif Abdulmuhit had once upon a time been secretary of Newham Liberal Democrats.
That was before he joined Respect, for whom he stood successfully for council in 2006, defeating the incumbent Labour members. He also stood in 2008 as the party’s candidate for the London Assembly seat of City & East.
As Respect disintegrated he reinvented himself again, serving out the remainder of his term as a Labour councillor. He had to sit out the 2010 elections before returning as a thoroughly reconstructed representative of Newham Labour in 2014. He is now mayoral advisor for Building Communities (Adult Care Integration) and community lead for Green Street.
But he obviously never stays in one place too long, so Newham Greens should be on the lookout for his membership application any day now.
(hat-tip to Gary Stevens for the image)
[And in case you were wondering about the title: At home he’s a tourist – Gang of Four]
Sir Robin has written to councillors to announce some changes to his team of ‘mayoral advisors’, including a couple of additions to the already bulging executive payroll.
Cllr Ellie Robinson (Forest Gate North) is taking over responsibility for Commercial Opportunities, leading “work to make the Council more commercial, to ensure we have a strong income stream to mitigate the loss of government funding.” This probably means resurrecting the mayor’s crass MoneyWorks payday loans idea, flagged in the 2014 manifesto but largely forgotten since. The other money-spinning manifesto promise, a kind of BrightHouse competitor to flog white goods to the poor on the never-never, has also vanished from sight. Perhaps Ellie will be tasked with reviving that too.
Having passed over the commercial brief, Cllr Forhad Hussain (Plaistow North) will be able to spend more time with Ken Clark, working on ‘Community Neighbourhoods.’ Lucky man.
Ellie’s previous role as lead for OneSource, the partnership with Havering council to share back office services, will be taken up by deputy mayor, Cllr Lester Hudson (Wall End). According to Sir Robin, this “will enable us to better harness the synergies between strategic and operational finance work.” Beings as the perennially useless “Three Jobs” is already cabinet lead for finance AND he chairs the audit board AND he chairs the investment and accounts committee, this further consolidation of financial responsibility looks like a governance disaster waiting to happen.
Cllr David Christie (Beckton) gets responsibility for the “Newham 2020 transformation programme” and the “reconfiguring of our services.” Which will make him the public face of everything that goes wrong in local public services for the next five years.
Joining the ’special responsibility allowance’ gravy train for the first time are Cllrs Julianne Marriott (East Ham Central) and Tonii Wilson (Beckton).
Cllr Wilson will be taking Ellie Robinson’s seat on the OneSource board. With 14 previous directorships – all at companies which are now dissolved – she brings a wealth of boardroom experience.
Cllr Marriott is a surprise addition to the team. As recently as last June she was one of nine councillors excluded by the mayor from a budget pow-wow at a swanky hotel in Chigwell. But time (and money, no doubt) heals all wounds. Like Forhad Hussain she will be spending a lot of time with Ken Clark in her new role. The mayor assures councillors that her appointment to the Regeneration brief “will give us more capacity to ensure we are delivering regeneration that genuinely transforms people’s lives.” Perhaps by scheduling extra buses to ship them out of town before their homes are bulldozed to make way for yet another ‘luxury development’?
Residents interested in finding out what any of these ‘jobs’ actually entails or what councillors will be doing to prove they are worth their additional allowances will be out of luck. There won’t be anything resembling a job description on the website for months. And even then nothing by way of performance targets. Luckily for our mayoral advisors, if there are no targets they can’t miss them. Trebles all round!
The mayor’s vision for scrutiny in Newham
Every cloud has a silver lining and Sir Robin Wales has found a very shiny benefit to the £50 million of cuts he has to implement: the excuse to slash funding for Scrutiny.
The seven scrutiny committees, which cover all aspects of the council’s activities, from health to crime & disorder, are now supported by a single officer.
As a consequence, the number of scrutiny meetings has been severely curtailed. Some committees, including the Health and Social Care Scrutiny Commission, haven’t held a public hearing since June. This is despite the many pressing health issues facing the borough, fundamental changes in the funding and delivery of Adult Social Care and serious concerns over the quality of services delivered by our local hospitals.
Councillors who actually want to do the only real job they were elected for – scrutinising the executive and holding the mayor to pubic account for his decisions – are becoming increasingly frustrated. The lack of support means things that members want to look at have to be ‘prioritised’ as part of an overall ‘work programme’- a mysterious process that is managed by the chair of overview & scrutiny, Tony McAlmont. As Cllr McAlmont owes his position and the significant ‘special responsibility allowance’ that goes along with it to the mayor, his view of ‘priorities’ may not be entirely independent.
Even when work gets ‘prioritised’ it has become nigh on impossible for committee chairs to schedule public meetings. The mayor’s new, legally dubious ‘scrutiny protocol’ (which councillors obediently nodded through in September) requires all requests for witnesses to be made via the mayor’s office, with at least 15 working days notice. The mayor then gets to decide if the requested council officer or Executive member will attend or provide only written answers. Witnesses can suddenly become ‘unavailable’ at very short notice, or substituted with someone of the mayor’s own choosing, rendering the hearing pointless.
One scrutiny commission chair has written to the council’s chief executive and Cllr McAlmont to express their concern:
We are all trying very hard in scrutiny to work within the new regime, forced upon us by government cuts, but I feel that we are being blocked at every turn. When scrutiny of the council’s business is now more important than ever, our capacity to do our work is very constrained through lack of resources.
I must urge you to […] do everything in your power to support scrutiny before we lose all but the statutory minimum of functions.
Nothing will come it. Sir Robin hates scrutiny and holds the entire process in contempt.
At last week’s Cabinet he threw his toys out of the pram when a scrutiny report suggested his pet ‘Every Child A Musician’ programme might have some issues with variable quality in delivery. He blasted the committee for the ‘markedly lower quality’ of their research (compared to well-funded, full-time professional academic researchers he had previously paid for!) and rejected out of hand a recommendation that the aims, objectives and expected outcomes of the programme be reviewed, saying this would be a waste of money.
If Kim Bromley-Derry and Tony McAlmont want to keep their jobs they’ll say nothing – and do even less. For the mayor, defunding scrutiny is a dream come true.
“Discourteous, aggressive & threatening”
Tucked away at the bottom of the agenda for Monday’s council meeting is a Decision Notice of the Standards (Hearing) Sub-Committee. It is the outcome of an investigation into a breach of the code of conduct by councillor Ian Corbett, mayoral chum and ‘full-time’ advisor on environment and leisure.
Here it is in full:
The Complaint
On 26 August 2015 the Standards (Hearing) Sub-Committee considered a complaint made by a member of the public concerning the alleged conduct of Councillor Ian Corbett towards a Council employee at Newham Town Hall, East Ham on 3 September 2014.
A general summary of the complaint is that Councillor Ian Corbett acting in an official capacity spoke in an inappropriate manner and acted discourteously towards a member of staff in the reception area at Newham Town Hall. This conduct also took place in the presence of a member of the public.
The Independent Investigator’s report concluded that Councillor Ian Corbett had breached the Member Code of Conduct by his behaviour towards the member of staff which was discourteous, aggressive and threatening.
The Decision
Having sought and taken into account the views of the Independent Person the Standards (Hearing) Sub-Committee resolved that:
i) Councillor Ian Corbett had breached the Code of Conduct by not engaging with the member of staff in an appropriate manner and not treating the person with respect;
ii) The Monitoring Officer write to Councillor Ian Corbett to advise him on his future conduct and place on record the Sub-Committee’s disappointment and concern that he had failed to engage in the investigation process at any part of the procedure despite numerous requests which went against the spirit of the Code of Conduct.
iii) That the decision of the Sub-Committee be reported to the next available meeting of Council.
Just like the mayor last year when he was investigated – and found guilty – over his behaviour towards the Focus E15 mums, Corbett has completely blanked the Standards Committee investigation. Refused to cooperate in any way. The committee’s observation that this goes “against the spirit of the Code of Conduct” is barely begins to cover it.
Standards, like scrutiny, is being treated with utter contempt.
“If you look around the table and can’t tell who the sucker is – it’s you.”
The mayor has been on week-long trip to China with council chief executive Kim Bromley-Derry, paid for by Chinese developer ABP, and now he’s looking at investing in its Royal Albert Dock project.
The Newham Recorder asked him about the plans:
“We’re always looking at opportunities to invest in projects,” he said.
“…we will always look at opportunities to make money out of projects.
“Each project is judged on its merits of course, but if we can make money and there was an opportunity we’ll do it.”
Sadly this is not the first time the mayor has decided to use public money to play ‘Investment Bankers’ after being sold a dodgy business plan by a man in a shiny suit.
Back in 2012 the London Pleasure Gardens was, according to one of its directors
“going to be one of the coolest places to watch live sports, chill out and catch some amazing events.
“This isn’t just a commercial proposition – we want to be a whole new cultural hub for London and beyond.”
It turned out to be a fiasco that cost Newham council taxpayers close to £5 million for the five weeks it was open.
The company was bankrolled by a £3.3 million loan from the council, plus a further £800,000 because of interest and costs. The council also ended up paying £444,000 to Deloitte for administrators’ fees (graciously discounted from the £1 million they actually racked up) after the business went bust.
Unable to accept the reality of the situation a Newham council spokeswoman insisted:
“The council is continuing to discuss the future use of the site with relevant parties and remains confident that we will see a return on our investment.”
That, of course, never happened.
And awkward questions about what happened to the money, why what was delivered by LPG was so far from what was promised and the evidently hopeless quality of the due diligence carried out by council officers were never even asked by our feeble and supine councillors, much less addressed.
With £40 million of our money on the line with the Olympic stadium ‘loan’ and another £5 million already earmarked for ‘retail opportunities’ in the Queen Elizabeth Park councillors should be wary of indulging the mayor’s next investment fantasy.
Professional Pensions has reported on Sir Robin’s decision to overrule the recommendation of Overview & Scrutiny (OSC) and proceed to spend £500,000 on developing a ‘special purpose vehicle for Newham’s pension fund.
Forest Gate South councillor Dianne Walls, one of the OSC members who called in the original decision, is quoted at length:
She is concerned about releasing the funds without reference to the Investment & Accounts Committee which “should really look at all of these things very closely”.
Walls believes it is important to look at the proposal in more depth rather than “spending lots of money without due process”.
She said: “It’s a matter of principal, mainly because there’s a lot of decisions made at cabinet and mayor level that have not been open and haven’t been scrutinised properly.”
She added: “As we’ve seen in the past, when decisions are made in haste or without due process, then we make mistakes and we lose money. This is not to say that this actual proposal is wrong – we just don’t know – we need to look at it very carefully before we commit half a million pounds.”
At a time when the council is being forced to make £50m in cuts, she said that spending public money without investigating properly raises the risk of making costly mistakes, which the council “cannot afford to make”.
Cllr Walls noted that call-ins are very rare – only two have been made in 12 years.
And both were on the subject of pensions.
“I know how this vote is going to go. If the motion was ‘the earth is flat’ councillors Rokhsana, Seyi, Kay and Susan would vote 4-2 for it,” thunders Lester Hudson, as he eyes the Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting. I’m so offended and shocked by this that I can’t help snorting, despite being in the public gallery.
Hudson continues as though nothing has happened. “If the motion was ‘Geoffrey Boycott is useless at cricket’ they would vote 4-2 for it.” Nobody’s laughing this time. His tirade continues: “I sincerely hope this time, common sense will prevail, but I doubt it.”
There is general uproar, and the female councillors who have been the subject of these personal attacks are rightly livid. (Later on I realise that John Gray – also a member of the rebellion against the Robin Wales regime – is spared the vitriol. Could it be that the Y chromosome is a safeguard?)
A chap to my left passes me a sheet of lined A4 notepaper, with “Attendance Sheet” scrawled at the top. There is a name and one signature on it so far. I pass it on without signing.
A few minutes later, an unnamed lady shouts “Has everybody signed the attendance sheet?”
“I’ve never been asked this before as a member of the public in a council meeting,” I say, annoyed. “It doesn’t say on it how the data will be used, so I didn’t.”
“I just need to know who is here,” she replies.
Well, that much is obvious.
This meeting has been called because Newham Council’s Cabinet have seemingly approved a dubious investment proposal without oversight of the Investment and Accounts Committee. Councillors heard about it in passing and were horrified. They have decided to ask the Mayor to reconsider spending £500,000 without due process.
Council Officers will not let members of the public (or even certain councillors) see more details of what’s proposed. All we know so far is that the Cabinet are attempting to reduce payments to the council’s pension fund – which already has a £238 million deficit – using a ‘Special Purpose Vehicle’. We understand that the council is using some of their buildings as security on a risky investment. How do we know it’s risky? Because their financial advisors are warning them against it.
It seems common sense to me that if the proposal were common sense, then the Cabinet would not resort to bending the rules to avoid scrutiny.
What I am seeing in action here is the Labour belief that Leader Knows Best, and democracy is merely a frustrating blot on the master plan. The belief that the people ought to shut up and take their medicine. The belief that is shown up at its worst in the Executive Mayoral system.
This is further confirmed when a member of the public stands up and questions whether the chair should be asking loaded questions of his own committee. The offender, Anthony McAlmont, says that members of the public are not allowed to speak, despite having allowed an earlier question. For some reason this breach of meeting protocol goes unnoticed by the Legal advisor present.
I hear the words ‘p&%$-up’ and ‘brewery’ emanate loudly from elsewhere in the public gallery.
With dogged persistence, the female councillors draft a resolution that no more money should be spent until the investment and accounts committee has had a chance to review the proposal in more detail. In the end, the meeting vote is 5-1 for this motion.
Hudson warns this is a waste of time. What does he know that we don’t?
During this fiasco, I am reminded of the botched Labour leadership elections. You can vote for anything, as long as it’s the right choice.
As if to reinforce this, the Mayor rejects the motion day after.
It would be easy to despair right now. But I’m seeing a new movement emerging amongst the people of Newham. I see it in the snowballing, hopeful tweets about Jeremy Corbyn. I see it in the growing bravery of left-wing councillors against their bullying leaders. I see it in the swelling numbers of Newham Green Party.
And it’s almost reassuring to observe some councillors in utter denial of this growing trend. It means we will win, and soon.
If you’re interested in helping the Green Party challenge Labour’s one party state in Newham, do sign up here. (NB: We have a No Purge Promise™)
Rachel Collinson is acting membership secretary for Newham Green Party, and a former General Election candidate.
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