Lib Dem councillors in the London Borough of Haringey are demanding answers from Haringey Council over what it proposes to do to provide alternative local school places for around 77 reception children in the Crouch End area for September 2006.

Lib Dems say that a shortfall of 77 places has arisen because the Council rashly hoped to provide 60 extra places at Coleridge School as early as this year.

The 2006 date for the proposal has now been moved to 2007 by the Schools’ Adjudicator to whom the plans were referred and who held an official hearing in Crouch End on Monday. The Schools’ Adjudicator still needs to rule on whether the proposed expansion should go ahead at all.

Lib Dem Education spokesperson, Cllr Gail Engert, who was at the hearing, says Haringey Council must answer for why it did not assess the risks of offering such early provision at the Coleridge site. Lib Dems also want to know what ‘plan B’ the Council has for the provision of these places should the Schools Adjudicator turn the expansion down. In particular, the party wants to know what would be the time frame for any alternative proposal.

Cllr Gail Engert comments:

“I am disturbed that the Council does not seem to have thought through the timing on this issue, which was wholly unrealistic right form the start. The entire proposals will be the subject of a lengthy planning application, so there was never a realistic chance that places could have been provided for this year- and even for next year, the timetable looks very tight indeed. “

Local Lib Dem MP and Muswell Hill councillor Lynne Featherstone adds: “All this means disappointment and heartache for local parents who thought there would be more places availablethought so – because they were told so by the Council.It is yet another example of bad planning over the school places issue, with the Council seemingly unable to look into the near future, let alone planning for school places on a sensible, ten-year cycle.”

Haringey Labour failed on Monday night to support moves that would have encouraged the Government to increase the maximum sentence for carrying a knife in public without good reason from 2 years to 7 years.

In a motion proposed by Lib Dem Opposition Leader Cllr Neil Williams, the Council would have pushed for the maximum sentence for carrying a knife to be brought into line with the maximum sentence for carrying a firearm – but Haringey Labour voted against that motion.

Cllr Neil Williams (Lib Dem, Highgate) comments:

“It is very disappointing that Haringey Labour chose to try making this a party political issue. Knife crime is a serious problem around London and it needs a serious solution. Current maximum penalties are insufficient – whether you are killed by a knife or by a gun, the end result is the same and the law should reflect that. “

The Lib Dems are pointing out that Haringey Labour tabled a party political amendment, containing untruths and misrepresentations of Lib Dem policy – both concerning the original motion and a range of other subjects.

Every Haringey Labour councillor present in the chamber at last night’s Full Council meeting voted for a motion that had been exposed as containing a blatant falsehood.

In an amendment to the Lib Dem motion designed to help tackle knife crime, Haringey Labour stated that Lib Dems in the GLA had voted against the introduction of Safer Neighbourhood teams for every ward in Haringey (and across London). Despite the Council meeting being told that this was completely false, the Labour councillors still voted through the amendment.

Cllr Matt Davies (Lib Dem, Fortis Green) comments:

“It really beggars belief that Labour councillors would pass a motion ‘deploring’ something which never actually happened – despite having been told that the statement in the amendment was untrue, with documentation to back that up.

“As in every year on the GLA, the Lib Dems this year proposed more spending on police, which the Mayor rejected. The Lib Dems proposals matched all the funding put forward by the Mayor and fully supported the roll out of Safer Neighbourhood teams. We actually proposed extra police in London: an extra 272 British Transport Police, but the Labour Mayor cut this down to just 89. The Lib Dem budget amendment proposed absolutely no cuts to the police service budget.

“Our Lib Dem colleagues at the GLA voted against the Mayor’s Transport for London budget, his core GLA budget and the LDA budget – as these are areas where he is unnecessarily pushing up the amount of tax Londoners pay or failing to spend their money wisely.However, the vote on the Mayor’s police budget was unanimous. Everyone in the GLA from all parties, including the Lib Dems, supported it. “

Cllr Neil Williams, Lib Dem Leader, comments:

“The Lib Dems fully support all extra investment in London ‘s police service including the money which will allow the Safer Neighbourhood rollout. This has always been the case and is backed up by everything our politicians around London have said and done – and backed up by plenty of official documentation too.

“For Haringey Labour to help the Mayor to spread these falsehoods makes them look at best very foolish. Like the recent rewriting of history they have been trying with their u-turn on plans to double the environment PR budget, it just shows that they are trying to fool Haringey residents. It won’t work.”

Local Lib Dems have expressed dismay at Haringey Labour’s callous disregard for the huge Council Tax burden now being placed on local residents. Lib Dem Leader Neil Williams says that the Labour Leader’s expression of “delight” at keeping the rate “low”, and the Lead Finance Member’s description of the charge as “affordable” was an insult to local residents and shows how totally out of touch the Labour party has become in the borough.

Last night’s charge set at the Full Council meeting including the hefty increase levied by the Labour Mayor, raises Haringey’s band D council tax to £1,383 pounds, fully £400 more than it was four years ago – a massive 41% increase that local residents can ill afford to pay.

Neil Williams says the charge is a double blow to Haringey residents, already struggling with huge electricity and gas bills this winter. They will also have to do without the £200 sweetener handed out by the Government last year as a pre-election bribe.

Cllr Neil Williams comments:

“I find the complacency of Labour over the Council Tax staggering. They should join us in efforts to press for change. To express delight at the charge, or to call it affordable is simply an insult to local residents, many of who can ill afford to pay. At least local residents will be able to give their verdict on this extraordinary inflating tax at the ballot box in May.”

Local Fortis Green Ward Councillor Stephen Gilbert has resigned from Haringey Council. Stephen, who has represented Fortis Green since the local election in May 2002, is moving to Cornwall to be nearer to his father who is seriously ill.

Stephen said:

“I have thoroughly enjoyed the last four years on the Council representing Fortis Green and working with local residents.

“Working with residents I hope we have achieved much in the past four years.I’m particularly proud that we now have the new bus route the police station has been reopened.

“I have a very real love for London and its communities, but I will always be Cornish and I hope people will understand that it is important for me to be close to my family at this time.”

Colleagues have paid tribute to Stephen Gilbert’s work in Fortis Green since his election in 2002.Cllr Matt Davies, one of Stephen’s Fortis Green ward colleagues, said:

“We are very sorry to see Steve leave, but of course fully understand the reasons behind his decision. Our thoughts are with him and his family, and we wish his father well.”

Recently released figures published by the Department of Education & Skills show that Haringey’s Children’s Service has the second highest rate in London of children on the child protection (CP) register.

In 2005 Haringey had 240 children on the register – giving a rate of 48 children per 10,000 children under 18.Lib Dem Deputy Leader Wayne Hoban had put down an oral question for the Executive Member for the Children’s Service on these worrying figures at the last Council meeting. However, the question was not reached due to Labour filibustering, where the Labour Council Leader took 25 minutes to answer a single question.

Haringey is the only authority in the country to show an annual increase in CP registrations for each year between 2000, the year Victoria Climbie died, and 2004, when it hit the highest figure in England for the number of children per 10,000 on the register. The overall trend for England has shown a gradual decline in the rate of registrations since 2000, whilst in Haringey, the trend rose inexorably, climbing throughout the Climbie Hearing in 2002 and then rising sharply after 2003, when the inquiry report was published, to a peak in 2004.

Cllr Hoban states,

“It is clear that the shock of Victoria Climbie’s death and the ensuing public condemnation of Haringey Social Services caused Haringey to lower the threshold for CP investigations, with the intention of identifying as many children as possible who may be in need of protection from abuse. This process has clearly increased the number of CP referalls, often at the expense of protecting the interests of innocent parents who have been subjected to unnecessary trauma and suffering by the process.”

Cllr Hoban has dealt with several cases of Haringey families with children with disabilities whose children have been referred to the Children’s Service on suspicion that their children were in danger of serious harm, but who were subsequently found innocent.

Cllr Hoban comments:

“I want the Children’s Service to be far more open to the public about how it sets the threshold for identifying children it suspects are in danger of serious harm. It is clear that the Children’s Service has been placing more and more children on the CP register year by year between 2000 and 2004, when no other local authority was following this trend. The Children’s Service must be subject to greater scrutiny and openness if the public are to be reassured that they are acting responsibly when placing children on the CP register.”

Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone is demanding answers from the Government after she uncovered shocking figures showing that the number of constituencies for which key official election documents have been lost doubled at the 2005 general election.

The figures, in response to a written Parliamentary question to the Department for Constitutional Affairs, show that all or part of the marked register for the 2005 general election was lost for 98 constituencies, up from 45 in 2001.

After each general election, local returning officers are required to send in the complete marked register – which shows who has voted and is therefore a crucial safeguard against electoral fraud – to the DCA for safe-keeping. However, not only have large numbers of these documents been lost, but also the DCA has failed to investigate how the losses have occurred or who is responsible for them.

Lynne Featherstone MP said:

“I am appalled that the Government does not appear to give a damn about the fact that Woking’s marked register has gone missing and that 98 others were not complete. Even when I first raised the issue with the Government, their answer to my first written question was incomplete and half-hearted at best.

“We simply don’t know whether these documents are being lost locally, in transit or by the DCA’s contractors responsible for the central storage.Given in particular the recent high-profile concerns over electoral fraud, it is staggering that so many documents are being lost – and so little being done about it.

“The Government’s plans to have these documents stored locally in future (under the Electoral Administration Bill) will make matters even worse if the losses are happening at local level – because they we wouldn’t even have any national figures for the scale of the problem.”

Following reports of dozens of people being without phone lines due to a fault, Liberal Democrat MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, Lynne Featherstone has written to the Chief Executive of British Telecom demanding an urgent investigation.

The fault occurred in the early hours of 15th February and appears to have affected a number of businesses and residents in Crouch End, Hornsey and Muswell Hill, leaving customers without telephone connection.

BT’s stock response is that customers should report the fault individually to have the problem fixed and to claim compensation. But this is in spite of the fact that it is apparent that a significant number of people have been affected.

Lynne Featherstone comments:

“It is simply not acceptable that BT should have such a ‘can’t do’ approach to paying customers.

“If BT is aware of a widespread fault it should be doing everything in its power to make sure all customers are reconnected as soon as possible and then automatically compensated for the inconvenience caused. Treating people like second class customers is just not on.”

Lynne Featherstone MP, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson, responding to an independent investigation into the treatment of children in prison, led by Lord Carlile, said:

“The amount of force being used to restrain children in custody highlighted by this report is unacceptable.

“The training of staff should be urgently reviewed to so that they have the skills which means they do not have to rely on physical restraint to the same degree in the future.

“The report highlights why many children currently in secure accommodation would be better undergoing rehabilitation outside of what all too often amount to colleges of crime.”