Tag Archives: Rokhsana Fiaz

Paul and Beckles quit

16 May

Cllrs Terry Paul and James Beckles

Before the mayor had the chance to announce her new executive team two members of her previous cabinet announced their decisions to stand down.

First was Cllr Terry Paul

It’s been an honour to serve the residents of Newham since 2018 as the Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Services, but with regret, I have declined the offer of a different role in Cabinet.

I’m proud to have restored Newham’s financial sustainability and improved its governance and reputation. I have left Newham’s finances in a better place than when I found them, and Newham is in the best financial position to face the challenges of the future.

Over the last four years there are many achievements I’m proud of, but my personal highlights were:

  1. The Covid-19 response: Newham spent £30m keeping services going and protecting residents. This was meaningful to me as I had to shield during the early stages of the pandemic;
  2. The London Living Wage was given to 700 care workers across Newham to the London Living Wage, making sure that those caring for our most vulnerable residents were rewarded fairly for their work. Thanks to this, we were also able to sign up to UNISON’s Ethical Care Charter.
  3. Restructuring the Council finances to provide more money for services: through more efficient use of council funds, we found ways to improve funding for Young People, Children & Adult services, and libraries.
  4. Taking on the banks: Newham renegotiated better terms on its disastrous LOBO loans of circa £435m, reducing our interest payments to the banks and freeing up money for council services.
  5. Addressed the need for improved temporary accommodation in Newham, developing a Temporary Accommodation Housing Programme over 18 months to provide quality homes for people in urgent need.

I’d like to thank my Cabinet and council colleagues for their commitment to making Newham a better place. No one goes into local politics without a desire to improve their local area, and that is apparent in the work all my fellow councilors do for their communities.

It’s a privilege to have the trust of Stratford’s voters, and I intend to continue working hard and speaking up strongly for them over the next four years.

The digital ink was barely dry before Cllr James Beckles announced that he too was returning to the back benches:

After nearly 3 and a half years in the cabinet, I will be stepping down as the Cabinet Member for Crime and Community Safety. It has been a privilege to serve the people of Newham leading a front-line service that has positively impacted the lives of many of our residents.

I’m proud of a number of things that have been accomplished in my three years including:

  • Launching Newham Council’s Women’s Night Safety Charter with Stratford Business Crime Reduction Partnership.
  • Maintaining a council-funded Met police team, able to respond to council priorities.
  • The Days of Action every six weeks tackling ward-based anti-social behaviour.
  • Newham’ Trading Standards, Licensing, and Regulatory Services team winning a National Hero Award from the Chartered Institute of Trading Standards for their rigorous inspection work during the pandemic.
  • Launching our council’s Modern Day Slavery Strategy.
  • Co-ordinated work with the Met Police to disrupt and arrest drug dealers in Stratford Park.
  • A Violence and Vulnerability Reduction Action Plan commended by the Mayor of London’s Violence Reduction Unit.

All this could not have been achieved without the dedication and hard work of council officers who are the backbone of our organisation and turn our political ideas into reality.

I’m looking forward to the new term and working for the people of Custom House, who have put their trust and votes in me and my ward colleagues.

Reaction from across Labour’s political spectrum was swift and consistent.

Rita Chadha, recently elected in Canning Town North, said on Twitter

 

Known @Terrympaul for more than 20 years, not always agreed, but you would be hard pressed to find a better representative and public servant. A big loss to the cabinet in Newham

 

Former councillor Daniel Blaney, very much from the left of the party, tweeted

 

Unbelievable! Me & Terry are on different sides when it comes to Labour Party NEC elections and argue all the time, but he delivered progressive policies like London Living Wage for careworkers. This is disappointing news.

To misquote Oscar Wilde, “To lose one cabinet member, Ms Fiaz, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.”

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Consolidation and concentration

11 Nov

Newham’s Labour group of councillors met on Monday evening, as they do before every Council meeting, in private. This is one of the few arenas where political disagreements can be aired and the Mayor can be challenged. Decisions are taken at Group and then in the council meeting itself the Labour position is whipped, so the public sees a (theoretically) united front. Given every councillor is Labour and there is no formal opposition party, this has the potential to be a a powerful body.

But the reality can be somewhat different, due to the patronage powers held by the executive mayor. Appointments to the executive – cabinet members, deputy cabinet members, commissioners – are entirely within the mayor’s gift. Those who hold these positions, and those who aspire to in the future, are heavily incentivised to back the Mayor in any vote where they have a strongly held view.

Most Labour Groups on other councils have observers from the local party to report back to members, but that doesn’t happen in Newham. Both local constituency parties are suspended and there has been no functioning Newham-wide Labour Party body since before the end of the Robin Wales era. There is no accountability to local members.

Monday’s meeting was well-attended, at least according to the participants list on Zoom, although only a minority had their cameras on. A number of ‘attendees’ were simultaneously at a GLA party in city hall in Southwark hosted by Unmesh Desai AM. I understand a room was set aside to allow partygoers to vote.

The agenda included some items of business left over from the Group AGM earlier in the year, including proposed rule changes to improve the independence of Group from the executive.

The first proposal was put forward by the Labour Group secretary Susan Masters. The amendment suggested a limit on the number of group officers – chair, secretary, treasurer, women’s officer, equalities officer etc – who also serve on the Council executive. This would be a progressive step away from the practice of the previous mayor, where Group was chaired by a ‘mayoral adviser’, whose career and pay was in the hands of the Mayor. So Labour Group business was rushed through before any time for dissent.

Although proposed by Cllr Masters, this idea had been discussed through a working party and appeared to be uncontroversial; there were no speeches against. But when the votes were counted the proposal was defeated. So the officers can continue to be entirely drawn from councillors whose livelihood is in the hands of the Mayor. If the proposal was so objectionable, why couldn’t those opposed to it put forward a single speech to explain why?

Next, Cllr Daniel Blaney proposed that deputy cabinet members (appointed by the Mayor and given £19,242 per annum as a result) should not vote in group elections for the chairs of council scrutiny committees. These are meant to hold the Council executive to account and, obviously, need to be entirely independent. The mayor and cabinet members already do not vote on nominations for scrutiny chair and Blaney’s amendment would have extended this.

During the May 2021 governance referendum the campaign to keep the mayoral model insisted that scrutiny was a crucial function that ensured proper checks and balances in the system, so there was no need to change things. This is obviously undermined if in practice the executive chooses the who does the scrutiny. The previous regime elevated this practice to an art form! [link: https://forestgate.net/2016/05/13/visions-of-scrutiny/%5D

Cllr Blaney, alongside his ally Cllr John Whitworth, was a prominent campaigner for the committee system last May. That Cllr Whitworth recently lost his role as scrutiny chair in a vote, including those cast by deputy cabinet members, is no doubt a coincidence.

There were a number of speeches against the amendment arguing that deputy cabinet members had so little influence it would be nice if they could vote in the scrutiny elections! If that is indeed the case, what it is that they do that justifies their generous special responsibility allowance?

Blaney argued this was obviously problematic because of the inflated number of jobs being handed out by the mayor and the role of patronage. It was, he said, reminiscent of the Robin Wales era, and a far cry from the promise of a smaller executive she made in her 2018 manifesto. To be fair to the mayor, it isn’t correct to say she has as big a ‘payroll vote’ as Robin Wales. Not quite.

Sadly, Blaney’s amendment was lost.

Finally, there was a proposal to add a new role to the Labour Group officer team: a ‘deputy leader’. But who would the deputy leader be? The leader is the mayor, a role she holds ex-officio under Labour Party rules. Does this mean the deputy mayor (who is appointed by the mayor) must be the deputy leader? Neither the proposer, the mayor herself, nor the seconder, deputy Mayor Charlene McLean, could say.

The Chief Whip, Cllr Anamul Islam, suggested that the matter be deferred pending clarification. He wanted confirmation first that this would be a new post elected by the group. The alternative would further entrench mayoral patronage in the Labour Group, adding another payroll vote to the officer team. However Cllr John Gray, group chair, said it had been proposed legitimately and would be voted on. Unlike the earlier proposals which sought to limit the power of patronage, this was successful.

At the end of the meeting the chair noted a request that Labour Group start meeting again in person. He suggested this would be perverse while councillors are working on a rota basis to attend Full Council in person. I think this is the right call, but the case for continued remote or hybrid meetings is seriously undermined when a number of councillors attend a busy indoor party while logging remotely into a meeting on their phones.

We will have an executive mayor for the next ten years (at least). But it won’t always be Rokhsana Fiaz. Councillors who voted to consolidate the patronage powers of the the mayor within Group may regret their decision if the next mayor – be that in May 2022 or 2026 – is a less benign figure. There are certain figures in the local party with aspirations for office who would not hesitate to use these powers to their advantage.

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Newham Transformed

13 Feb

New blog post from Cllr Daniel Blaney (East Ham North), on Rokhsana Fiaz’s first budget and the “change of direction after Robin Wales”:

“The Mayor [of Newham] has set out a clear ambition for housing in Newham, with a particular focus on increasing social housing stock in the borough.  This will require significant Council capital investment to complement the £107 million Greater London Authority grant under the Building Council Homes for Londoners programme.”  That is the introductory paragraph of a paper at the December 2018 meeting of Newham’s Cabinet, approving a business plan for Newham’s “Housing Revenue Account” – the obligation to account separately for Council-owned social housing.  Its technical material, and language quoted is a little dry, but perhaps it illustrates best the political change emerging from the replacement of Sir Robin Wales as Mayor in May 2018 with Rokhsana Fiaz.

The February 2019 budget is new Mayor’s first budget.  She and her cabinet colleagues regularly tout this as a ‘transitional’ budget, clearly frustrated it doesn’t in itself demonstrate the sum of the political ambition, but marks a significant change of direction. A more radical, transformative 2nd budget is to be prepared over the next twelve months.

In reality, the housing aspects of this first budget are already radical and transformational. The fact that the “Housing Revenue Account” business plan is being transformed, is a demonstration of the role of actual council housing in the new Mayor’s priorities, both in terms of investment by building new council housing, and in investment in existing stock, improving the housing of existing tenants in their current homes.

There’s much more detail in the full post, covering free school meals, the London Living Wage and changes to funding the Every Child… programme.

Good stuff.

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Repairs and Maintenance

15 Jan

This morning Newham Council published the papers for its extraordinary meeting next week on the mismanagement of the repairs and maintenance service.

Anyone who takes the trouble to read the report will be appalled by the scale of financial and project mis-management, which has resulted in a loss of AT LEAST £8.78 million.

The vast majority of this was in the RMS Highways Services, in particular after it started to undertake the work on the Council’s Keep Newham Moving programme in early 2016. Poor practice was also found in other areas, but RMS was – overall – financially viable; the £8.78M overspend was caused by using external contractors to deliver the Keep Newham Moving programme at a higher cost than the price agreed with RMS.

Keep Newham Moving was one of the previous mayor’s flagship initiatives, supposedly a ‘prudent investment’ of the council’s resources to improve the lives of residents. It was a ten year, £100million capital programme to “improve the quality of roads, footways and street lighting in Newham…”

The council decided to put the work through RMS, on the grounds that this would deliver “efficiencies of around 25-30% as compared to the previous contractor.”

Clearly, this was a risk, but it was agreed that a Risk Register (a common tool in project management) would be compiled with the Cabinet Member for Building Communities, Public Affairs, Planning and Regeneration (Cllr Ken Clark) and the Mayoral Adviser for Environment & Leisure (Ian Corbett, who is no longer a councillor). This would be monitored and updated throughout the life of the project.

So £100 million was allocated to RMS despite there being no evidence they could manage the work and no serious assessment of how they could outbid Conways by 30%. It turned out they couldn’t:

[The] significant overspend of £8.78m was a result of RMS under-pricing its Keep Newham Moving Highways activity and then failing to manage contractor costs resulting in increased capital costs to that originally budgeted for. This was a very serious and significant mismanagement of public money. None of the investigations found sufficient evidence of criminal activity to bring proceedings but the Council remains willing to consider any further evidence brought to its attention.

The report describes how RMS managers avoided proper financial controls by splitting invoices so they fell below the procurement threshold and within the level of authority granted under the Scheme of Delegation. The accounts were seriously misrepresented, so that it appeared RMS was making a profit, when in fact it was running a substantial loss.

It is worth noting that although RMS was an in-house service it was being considered for outsourcing under the previous administration’s Small Business Programme or (CSSB, as it was known). This programme looked to outsource Council services into Council-owned companies.

RMS operated with significant autonomy over the management of its accounts, payments to staff and contracting with external businesses ostensibly for it to work on a “commercial” basis as part of Mayor Wales’s CSSB outsourcing programme.

Whether their ability to operate in this fashion was explicitly supported or encouraged by very senior officers and by a Mayor / Cabinet member decision or whether it simply evolved through weak internal controls is unknown. It is also possible that this was an element of the CSSB outsourcing programme encouraging services to begin to operate with a more commercial mind set as they were progressing towards outsourcing.

On 2 February 2017, approval was given by Mayor Wales to outsource RMS following an options appraisal. This was later suspended and RMS didn’t rejoin the programme. Rokhsana Fiaz abolished the CSSB programme following her election in May 2018.

Timeline

  • 2011 RMS was brought in-house. It carried out repairs to Newham’s housing stock. 
  • 2014 (Oct) RMS started taking on highways work from external company Conways on a two year pilot (no evidence of evaluation/review of pilot being carried out)
  • 2016 (Feb) Cabinet commits to (mainly) borrow £100m to ‘Keep Newham Moving’ delivered by RMS which it states is 25/30% cheaper than Conways. Cllr Clark and Corbett are lead members and named as agreeing and monitoring risk register (this is before two year pilot due to end)
  • 2016 to 2018 RMS is unable to deliver work itself and is subcontracting out work resulting in it being charged more than they were receiving per job (and definitely not making 25/30% savings)
  • 2017 RMS misrepresents 2016/17 accounts
  • 2017 (June) Whistleblowers make allegations, resulting in an internal investigation
  • 2017 (July) External auditors (Mazaars) appointed
  • 2017 (Aug and Dec) Mazaars reports does not find any criminal fraud
  • 2018 (Jan) QC advises insufficient evidence to meet criminal fraud
  • 2017/18 RMS overspent by £8.748m in 2017/18 accounts (in highways contracts; housing repairs is profitable)

So, where in all of this was the Audit Board?

In the 2017/18 financial year RMS was only discussed once. As appendix 1 (Chronology) makes clear, requests by councillors for an update were regularly fobbed off. Finally, inNovember 2017

Briefing and documents presented by internal Audit in closed session [of the Audit Board]. Chair LH [Lester Hudson] declined requests for further discussion at meeting. Concerns raised and recorded in minutes by Cllr’s Paul and Fiaz that item could not be debated

Lester Hudson was both Cabinet member for Finance and, simultaneously, chair of audit board. This is generally not regarded as best practice in local government finance.

Audit Board finally got to discuss RMS in March 2018 and the minutes have now been published, with some redactions to protect whistleblowers. They show councillors were absolutely furious about what had gone on. As a footnote to the minutes notes

At this stage in the proceedings, Cllr Paul resorted to expletives and offensive language to underscore the point he was making, informing the clerk he could minute his comments “in any way you like”.

and Cllr Julianne Marriott stated that

… in her view, the Audit Board was complicit in the failings of the Council as there had not been a meeting of the Audit Board since November 2017. If the Audit Board was not meeting on a regular basis, the public could not have any confidence that Members of the Board were holding the Council to account on their behalf, as residents.

It is hard to argue with that assessment.

In May the new mayor commissioned the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) to conduct a financial health check on the council (report). It found

There is a lack of Member involvement in financial reporting and budget control; Audit Board is non-decision making. Overview/Scrutiny has had almost no impact

This is no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention over the past few years.The Olympic stadium ‘investment’, the unbudgeted cost overruns on the East Ham Town Hall campus project, Newham Collegiate 6th Form, the London Pleasure Gardens fiasco, sleight of hand over the funding of ‘free school meals’… the list goes on.

Despite attempts to distract attention elsewhere, all of £8.748m overspend happened during administration under Sir Robin Wales – which included his cabinet member for Finance (and chair of audit) Cllr Lester Hudson and the Statutory Deputy Mayor and lead member for the £100m Keep Newham Moving Cllr Ken Clark. If either of them has any sense of shame or decency they’ll stand up next Tuesday, apologise for their failure and resign.

I’m not holding my breath.

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Season of Goodwill

14 Jan

Back in December the Newham Recorder reported that a number of senior managers in Newham council’s repairs and maintenance service (RMS) have been suspended and sacked for gross misconduct amid a catalogue of claims about financial malpractice.

It’s worth reading the Recorder piece in full, but some of the ‘highlights’ include:

  • Staff claiming allowances of up to £14,000 and separately for overtime which they may or may not have worked, including one claiming for up to 66 extra hours a week
  • One person caught making payments of £800 a day to an external consultant
  • Companies being issued fuel cards for Newham’s Folkestone Road depot to fill up with, leading to fuel costs soaring into the millions
  • Bonus and incentive payments dished out to plumbers and carpenters worth three times their basic salaries
  • One supplier carrying out bathroom fittings at triple the expected rate
  • Allegations of parts and equipment, including expensive pumps, being bought by RMS employees with council money and given to external contractors who would then re-charge the council to deploy them
  • An £8.7m overspend in just one part of RMS in the 2017/18 financial year
  • £423,770 paid in bonuses and incentives to 10 operatives in six months

This all happened on Sir Robin Wales’ watch and, entirely predictably, the former mayor tried to deflect the blame onto his successor, saying

“I am surprised that, seven months after taking office, and a full year after she became aware of the problem, the current Mayor has not commenced criminal prosecutions or announced that there is insufficient evidence to proceed.”

Equally predictably, Sir Robin’s supporters wasted no time in attacking his successor. Cllr Ken Clark, who was his statutory deputy mayor and held the cabinet portfolio for ‘Regeneration, Planning, Building Communities and Public Affairs’ emailed Rokhsana Fiaz, copying in all councillors:

Thank you for your email on the coverage of the RMS in the Newham Recorder.

Indeed the Recorder seems to know more about this situation than anything councillors are being told by this administration. Why do councillors find out via a third party when you should be reporting to labour members in the first instance and not as an afterthought.

Your constant blame of the previous administration – of which you were part – is noted. You blame the previous mayor for not sharing in full the historical details of this matter but in this same email you state you are unable to share full information with all of us due to ongoing investigations. Can’t you see how hypocritical this is. Don’t you realise that the same restrictions you are under now applied to the previous mayor during his tenure or are you just being deliberately obtuse.

It’s no good blaming fellow members for holding back information when you are in the same boat yourself. It seems unbelievable that your fellow cabinet member for finance, Cllr Paul, who held the housing brief in the previous administration and who would be likely to know the most about this matter did not bring you fully up to speed months ago.

As a former member of the audit board you were privy to confidential information not in the public domain or available to other councillors.

Indeed I don’t know what officers have told you since you took office but I do know that as information is finally being released by officers into the public domain there seems little reason to avoid a police enquiry. Why don’t you call for one now?

I hear you are in the market for blunt emails at the moment so why don’t you put your money where your mouth is, stop pretending that the former administration is to blame for officer fraud, stop pretending that as a previous member of the audit and scrutiny boards you didn’t have a voice on council matters, and start taking responsibility in the job you now have. It’s time to call for a police enquiry into RMS and the way officers have behaved.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

His fellow Manor Park councillor, Salim Patel, also chipped in with his own seasonal message to all councillors:

Dear colleagues,

It is with deep concern for us all to learn of the massive scale of alleged corruption at Newham Council which has only been revealed as a result of the persistence of journalistic investigations by the Newham Recorder. Many of my residents have now raised this issue with me directly, so I wish to make my position on this matter very clear.

The revelation that over £9m of Newham tax-payers money was fraudulently siphoned off by some corrupt Council officers is completely unacceptable. It is also unacceptable that elected Councillors only found out about the sheer scale of this through the local press and that Council officers were investigating themselves. All these issues have been rightly highlighted by Councillor Clark and I understand that RMS has been discussed for some time at the Audit board but in private session, and with no visible outcome.

It is clear that over the past 18 months, Councillors have not been fully briefed on the scale of the allegations and the internal Council investigation. It is also clear that some Council officers have chosen to deliberately keep the full details hidden from members, even though we are the democratically elected representatives of the people of Newham. It also brings to light the question as to whether Council officers should have been allowed to investigate themselves in the first place when the crime was so huge.

Therefore and due to the severity of the matter, I am asking that the Metropolitan Police and the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) be asked to intervene immediately to properly investigate, charge and bring to justice the perpetrators of this massive fraud of local residents money.

We know that Councillor Terry Paul had direct involvement with and executive responsibility for housing which covered this service area, during the time when this huge criminal endevour is alleged to have taken place. That’s why its important that Councillor Paul immediately step aside from any current executive responsibilities, to ensure public confidence in the investigation and that it is totally free from even the perceived threat of any interference.

In the meantime, as elected Councillors we have a duty to work together to ensure the Repairs and Maintenance Service continues as a fully reliable public service, that the backlog of repairs are completed and that the service is fully protected from any threat of fraud in future.

Finally, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

All of which overwrought and hysterical nonsense prompted the mayor to respond (link added):

Comrades – thanks for your respective emails which I have noted, alongside today’s anticipated Newham Recorder article which followed the unsurprising email sent last night.

You’ll have received my previous Members briefing sent a short while ago, so please refer to the CIPFA report and its comments about RMS (slide 24) – namely: ‘Major issue over financial control in the repairs and maintenance division, RMS; Led to an overspend of £9m in 2017/18 due to poor pricing of highways work’.

What that means is that the majority of overspend actually happened in Highways NOT housing Services. Yes, the role of all executive members at the time yes should be examined; but be clear precisely whom; alongside the role of the then Statutory Deputy Mayor who would have been privy to issues emerging with RMS (including private executive discussions) and the non-statutory Deputy Mayor who was lead finance and chair of the Audit Board at the time.

Instead of the histrionics, I’ll remind colleagues of the old adage that before jumping to conclusions get the facts right.  That has been the process that we have undertaking since May: a judicious and exacting process of interrogating information being provided by officers including independent experts, during which period a live investigation relating to the range of allegations has also been taking place. The final phase of investigations are near conclusion and any ‘jumping ahead of that’ could risk any future legal proceedings we may be able to proceed with. Rest assured we are on top of this and as I said previously a major announcement will be made about this in the New Year as well – which was always the plan because this was an area being looked into by CIPFA. This will include providing members with a full briefing and an opportunity to discuss the issues.

That aside, I will address other points in the two emails in the New Year, but large parts of what you both set out below are inaccurate. The issues relating to RMS happened before May 2018 and rightly serious questions should be raised and action should be taken to ensure that this never happens again. This is precisely what is happening now because we have and are putting measures in place in a service area that has always been part of the council  – just badly managed like a lot of things we have discovered eight months in and which we are keeping members updated on.

All – kindly note that I’ll be asking Cllr John Gray who is now leading on RMS oversight; plus Cllr Zulfiqar Ali as the cabinet lead responsible for shaping up Highways with Cllr James Asser to help me coordinate the RMS briefing session on my behalf in the New Year. So keep an eye out for details and direct any further questions about RMS to Cllr John Gray in the first instance from here on in.

Thanks.

So, despite an obviously coordinated effort to fit up Cllr Terry Paul due to his brief tenure as mayoral advisor for Housing, it turns out the biggest part of the problem was in Highways. And who had that in their portfolio, including the £100 million ‘keep Newham moving’ programme? Cllr Ken Clark. Whoops.

One person we haven’t heard from in all of this is the former cabinet member for finance and audit board chair, Cllr Lester Hudson. If anyone should be able to shed light on the massive failure of financial governance and control it would be him.

The police are now involved and an extraordinary meeting of the council has been called for 22 January, with a single agenda item: RMS. I am told councillors have already been briefed and that the report which will be discussed is due to be published tomorrow. 

The meeting will be at the Old Town Hall in Stratford, and theres’s plenty of seating for the public. I’ll be there.

 

Note: the original version of this post incorrectly said Cllr Terry Paul was briefly the cabinet member for housing; he wasn’t. He was Mayoral advisor for Housing and responsible for housing repairs. He was not a member of Sir Robin’s cabinet.

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Itchy feet

19 Nov

Having finally got rid of Sir Robin Wales, some Labour councillors are itching to ditch the directly-elected mayoralty altogether. A motion is being put to Labour Group tonight (Monday 19 November):

Motion for a change in Newham governance arrangements 

Since 2002, the London Borough of Newham has been governed using the directly elected Mayoral model of executive arrangement to determine how decisions are made in the Council.

This Council recognises that democratic engagement should be continually promoted and Newham’s system for local governance must always reflect the ongoing need for strong democratic engagement and accountability. It should also ensure that it has a model of governance that best ensures scrutiny and a rigorous series of checks and balances on the exercise of power.

The Council notes the Localism Act 2011 which permits the holding of a binding referendum on the abolishment of the directly elected Mayoral model and replace it with a Leader and Cabinet model.  

Therefore this Council commits to hold a binding referendum by May 2020, on a change of governance from a directly elected Mayoral model to a Leader and Cabinet model.

The motion is being proposed by Cllr Suga Thekkeppurayil, who is chair of the Labour Group, and seconded by Cllr Hanif Abdulmuhit.

Obviously, I fully support having a referendum and will campaign for abolition of the directly elected mayoralty. But this is already the policy of the new administration. At the election in May Rokhsana Fiaz promised to hold a referendum on the directly-elected mayoralty, saying:

The Directly Elected Mayor model of governance is broken in Newham. We will hold a referendum on its future before the end of my third year as Mayor.

Despite some councillors might think (or hope), holding a referendum in May 2020 instead of 2021 won’t end the directly-elected mayoralty any sooner. Whatever happens, any change to Newham’s governance arrangements won’t come into effect until the next local elections. Rokhsana Fiaz will be the mayor until 2022.

What might happen if a referendum is held in May 2020 is the election of a Tory mayor of London. Whilst Sadiq Khan is a popular mayor his re-election is not guaranteed. Every vote will count and there’s a lot of Labour votes in Newham. Do local campaigners really want to be distracted by having to spend part of their time canvassing to get rid of the Newham mayor while at the same time trying to get votes to re-elect the London Mayor? That’s a recipe for confusion.

Labour Group should amend the motion to read ‘by May 2021’ and pass it. Then, after (hopefully) re-electing Sadiq Khan they will have a year to plan and execute a successful campaign to return Newham to a more sensible form of local government.

UPDATE:

An amendment has been submitted by Cllrs John Whitworth and Daniel Blaney removing the specific date and replacing it with

in good time for any consequent constitutional changes to be factored into the 2022 Local Elections.

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Greens call on council to back a People’s Vote

7 Nov

Newham Green Party has written to Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz, calling on her and the council to publicly back a People’s Vote on the final Brexit deal, with the option to Remain in the European Union.

Research from Survation/Channel 4 has today shown that in a People’s Vote on the final Brexit deal, more than 65% of Newham residents would vote to Remain in the European Union, representing an almost 15% shift towards Remain, the largest shift towards Remain of any local authority in the country.

The campaign for a People’s Vote hopes to give the public the chance to vote again on the final Brexit deal, between leaving on the deal the government makes, leaving with no deal, and staying within the EU.

Newham Greens Convenor Frankie-Rose Taylor, who stood for the party in the recent Boleyn by-election, said:

“As one of the poorest and most diverse boroughs in London, Newham is exactly the kind of area that would be hurt most by leaving the European Union. It is no surprise to me that Newham has swung towards Remain by nearly 15%, in the largest shift of any borough in the country. We saw through the lies of Brexit campaigners when we voted to Remain in 2016, but since then their lies have only become clearer and support has only grown.

“I call on Newham Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz and her 100% Labour council to express their support for a People’s Vote on the final Brexit deal. Newham deserves to be protected from the hurt that we know Theresa May’s Brexit plan will bring.”

At the same time, the grassroots Remain Labour campaign is calling on its party’s MPs to vote down the Withdrawal Agreement and back a People’s Vote. Research that shows a majority of Labour voters in every single Labour constituency backs staying in the EU. In both Newham seats 77% of Labour voters now back Remain.

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Head to head

21 Feb

RoksvsRobin

Out with old, in with the new?

The Labour Party has written to local members to confirm the shortlist for the mayoral selection:

Last night, the selections panel for the process to select Labour’s candidate for Mayor of Newham interviewed candidates to decide the shortlist that members in Newham will select from.

Their decision is that the shortlist will comprise of:

Rokhsana Fiaz
Sir Robin Wales

Voting starts on 1 March and there will be at least one hustings event – details of which have not yet been confirmed.

In the meantime, party members can get a flavour of the two candidates by reading the in-depth Q&As each has had with London blogger Dave Hill:

Q&A with Rokhsana Fiaz

Q&A with Sir Robin Wales

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Challenger

29 Jan

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Councillor Rokhsana Fiaz OBE has announced that she will challenge Sir Robin for Labour’s mayoral nomination should the trigger ballot result in an open selection.

She broke the news in an interview with the Newham Recorder over the weekend, which they published this evening.

The Custom House councillor has thrown her hat into the ring ahead of the first wards casting their votes tonight in the re-run of the process.

She said: “I’m putting myself forward for this because I want to offer a fresh start for this council and a new ambitious alternative for Newham.”

Cllr Fiaz, who was born and brought up in the borough, was first elected as a councillor in May 2014 and currently sits as chair of scrutiny as well as a member of the council’s audit board and strategic development committee.

She explained that she was passionate about the issues facing a lot of people living in the borough, including affordable adult social care, the safety of young people and investment in early years education.

“I’m passionate about making sure there are genuinely affordable, quality homes for people,” she added.

“I’ve been working closely with an organisation called Peach, who are in my ward of Custom House, to allow residents to have their say during the regeneration.

“Uniquely, I’m also the only councilor who does regular youth surgeries for young people to come and meet me.”

The trigger ballot, also known as the affirmitive nomination process, is being held to decide whether to automatically select incumbent mayor Sir Robin Wales as Labour’s candidate for May’s election or whether to open it up to other prospective candidates.

Ward meetings in the re-run trigger ballot start tonight.

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