The Leader of the Council's diary - October 2006
Tuesday 31 October 2006
Part of my job as Leader of the Council is to try and win a better deal for Lambeth. We don't do too badly as Government funding for councils has gone up 40% in real terms over the last nine years. However, Lambeth is an area with high levels of deprivation so we need all the funding we can get.
It's unusual, though, to get to speak to two government ministers in the same day. On Monday morning, I had a meeting with the Local Government Minister, Phil Woolas, at his office in Westminster. I had a good discussion with Phil about how Lambeth's on the up and how ambitious we are for the borough with record levels of investment in schools, homes and policing. I told Phil we'd like his support for a £30 million bid we've put in to support small businesses and voluntary organisations in the poorest parts of the borough. Phil used to live in Lambeth and seemed genuinely impressed by the progress we're making.
Later in the evening I met with Gordon Brown. It's not every day the Chancellor of the Exchequer comes calling! Gordon and I were due to speak at a meeting in the council's Assembly Hall, where 250 people had gathered for an open forum to quiz the Chancellor. But first, I had the chance to welcome him to Lambeth – and I didn't miss the chance to ask for help with our ambitious plans to increase investment in youth services. Lambeth's youth service is good, but there's not enough of it after years of under-funding. The Chancellor said he might be able to help. He's planning to make some money available from a pool of unclaimed assets in dormant British bank accounts. He said he'd send me more details when they were ready, and his staff have already been in touch. I'll be sure to follow this up to see if Lambeth can win some extra funding to provide more things for our young people to do – something that I know local people really care about.
Friday 27 October 2006
I spent a very enjoyable afternoon in West Norwood on Monday. First stop was the day-care centre on Central Hill where I met some of the older people who go there every week. They're a cheerful bunch, and they made me feel very welcome. It was a particular pleasure to meet Lilian who, at 101 years of age, is one of Lambeth's oldest residents. We had our picture taken together, and then I chatted to some of the other residents about bingo, Christmas, and how much they value being able to come to the centre to socialise.
From there, I went to a half-term play group for young children at Kingswood School. It was wonderful to see the kids enjoying themselves on go-karts, making collages and playing football. A group of them seemed a bit disappointed that I wasn't the mayor! They were all looking forward to firework's night in two weeks' time – I told them I was too.
I asked to be shown round the Vale Street depot and municipal dump site. The site is due to house the council's waste fleet for two years until a new permanent site is made ready. Sadly, the popular play area (officially called a MUGA or multi-use games area) is due to close because the land it stands on is being redeveloped for housing. At the request of the local MP, Tessa Jowell, I wanted to see if there was space to relocate it elsewhere – something I'll be raising with the council's senior managers.
Then it was on to the site of the new Elmgreen School, a brand new secondary school that Lambeth's building. The school is the result of years of campaigning by a 'parent promoter' group who will help run the new school. The newly appointed head, Asma Mansuri, and parent campaigner Tony Pizzoferro, showed me round the site and impressed me with their determination to make the school succeed.
From there, I joined local police constable Jackie Maxwell and support officer Dan Galloway on a walk along Norwood Road while they explained local crime concerns to me. Julie and Dan are part of the area's new Safer Neighbourhood Police Team which will eventually see a team of six uniformed officers led by a sergeant in every ward in Lambeth. By the time we said goodbye at the library, Julie and Dan still had a long stretch ahead of them as they were due to stay on duty until midnight.
Library manager Marcia Bogle-Mayne showed me round the facilities. It's Black History Month, so the library is joining in by hosting a series of talks and promoting their stock of black-interest books.
From the library, I went back along the high street to the excellent Lancaster's coffee bar and restaurant on the corner of Lancaster Road. In there, I spoke to people who run local businesses or community organisations. They wanted to see better parking for shoppers, more youth provision, and more investment in West Norwood.
Walking back to the bus stop, I had a look in some of the shops. West Norwood has some great shops, but I could see why people were telling me the shopping area needs to improve. West Norwood deserves more support from the Council to back up the hard work that local people are putting in to make the area an even better place to live.
If you would like to contact me, you can do so by emailing sreed@lambeth.gov.uk
Wednesday 25 October 2006
Lambeth's main decision-making committee is the Cabinet. Before the election it was called the Executive, but we renamed it because people were confusing the role of Executive members (elected councillors) with executive directors (senior managers). The roles are quite different. Councillors set the policy objectives while managers are expected to deliver them.
Cabinet meets once a month, and as Leader of the Council I chair it. The meeting is open to anyone who wishes to attend as, by law, key decisions have to be taken in public. Very few residents turned up to this month's meeting where the main item of business was to agree Lambeth's renegotiated parking contract. The contract was originally signed in August 2003 and it immediately became highly controversial. It was criticised for including thresholds that linked the contractor's income to the number of tickets their parking attendants issued. People feared that, in effect, this was a financial incentive to issue more and more parking fines. Complaints about overzealous and unfair ticketing rose dramatically in the months after the contract was introduced.
There's a principle at stake here. Is the primary purpose of parking enforcement to keep the roads clear of illegally parked traffic, or is it a means of raising additional revenue? In my view, it's the former. Parking has to cover its costs, and there's an argument for charging car drivers for the environmental damage their vehicles cause. But the council has to play fair. If residents are worried that the council's parking contract is encouraging parking attendants to hand out tickets to cars that are perfectly legally parked then something has to change.
So it was a pleasure to congratulate my colleagues, Cllr Lib Peck and Cllr Nigel Haselden at Cabinet this week. They set the political objective, and Lambeth's transport team completed negotiations within just five months of the council elections. Thanks to their work, the financial incentives have been removed from the contract and monitoring of the contract will now focus on ensuring that parking enforcement is fair, courteous, and keeps our streets free of illegally parked vehicles. Many other councils with similar problems are watching us to see how well our new 'fair parking' contract works.
If you would like to contact me, you can do so by emailing sreed@lambeth.gov.uk
Monday 23 October 2006
It's five months since I was elected Leader of the Council, and I have to admit that I'm enjoying the job immensely. It's unbelievably busy and leaves me with almost no free time, but it's a great privilege working to change Lambeth into a better council.
A lot of people have been asking me what being Leader of the council involves – so I thought I'd start a weekly online diary here on the council's website. That way, if you're interested, you can check in and see what I've been up to, and I hope you'll send me your comments back.
It's very important to stay in touch with what people who use the council's services are thinking. So I spent all day Monday talking to some of our tenants' representatives. These are people who live on Lambeth's estates and generously give up their free time, spending hour after hour in long meetings making sure that Lambeth's housing managers are doing their jobs properly. We couldn't do without them, and have the deepest admiration for all they do.
The issue we're grappling with is how we can improve the quality of our council housing. We've told the Government we'll bring all our housing up to minimum standards by 2010. As things stand, over 10,000 council homes are sub-standard – meaning they are not secure, weatherproof or heated, suffer from damp, or have inadequate kitchen or bathroom facilities. It's unacceptable that people have to live like that. To put it right will cost the council well over £200 million, and that's money we just don't have. So what can we do? Well, we've put in a bid to the Government for the money.
But they won't just hand it over without strings attached. After the massive fraud scandal that hit Lambeth housing last year, they're worried the council might not spend the money properly. So they've asked us to set up a separate management organisation at arms' length from the council to guarantee the money will be spent where it should be spent – on tenants' homes.
The key thing is that this is not privatisation. Every single home would still be owned 100% by the council. But doing it this way would mean we'd have a chance to get the money we need to improve people's homes. How can we say no to that? But our tenants' reps have some concerns. They want to know how the new organisation would be accountable to them, who would sit on its board, whether underperforming staff would simply be transferred over together with the good ones, and what guarantees there are that it's not a step towards privatisation (which they want to avoid, and I agree with them).
So we talked through the issues, I listened to their concerns, and I'm going to raise what they said with the council's senior housing managers. I'm convinced that if we all work together, councillors and tenants, we can come up with a structure for the new organisation that will suit everyone. But for me the heart of the matter is simple: people deserve to live in decent homes with affordable rents, and it's my job as Leader of the Council to do everything I can to make sure that happens.
If you would like to contact me, you can do so by emailing sreed@lambeth.gov.uk