Haringey Council raids schools budget to close funding gap

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Over two million pounds have been stripped away from money for Haringey’s schools after the Labour cabinet, last week, decided to spend it on street lights, highways and parks. Local Liberal Democrats have expressed their concern at the decision, saying that Haringey’s Schools Budget, which is already under severe pressure, should not have been raided to fund a financial gap created by Labour’s recession.

On Tuesday (8th September 2009) Haringey Council agreed to divert £2.238 million of money originally allocated by the Government to Haringey’s schools, as part of an attempt to cover up a £5 million black hole in their Capital Budget.

Haringey’s children already receive over £1,000 each less in funding from the Government than neighbouring boroughs.

Cllr Gail Engert, Liberal Democrat Children, Schools and Families Spokesperson, comments:

“Haringey have stripped the council’s coffers clean of cash and are now spending on streetlights, highways and parks money that was allocated to Children’s Services and needed by our children for items such as urgent repairs to our primary schools.

“Labour’s recession hens are coming home to roost and, in Haringey, Labour’s financial incompetence means that, like old Mother Hubbard, the cupboards are bare.”

Lynne Featherstone MP, adds:

“Haringey Council has tried to dress this issue up as Labour bringing forward spending, but it is little more than covering up a massive hole in Haringey Council’s budget created by the effect of Labour’s recession on council finances.

“Our Fair Funding Campaign highlighted the fact that that every child in Haringey already receives over £1,000 less funding than children in neighbouring boroughs. We do not want to now see Haringey Council taking money away from investment in our schools.”

£5m raid for troubled Haringey ‘Decent Homes’ project

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Money set aside to repair local residents’ homes was raided by Haringey Council’s Labour Cabinet last week, after it was  forced to pump yet more taxpayers’ money into the troubled ‘Decent Homes’ programme. Over £5 million was diverted from Haringey Council’s Major Repairs Fund to plug a gap in the Decent Homes budget, due to a Labour overspend on digital aerials and pitched roofs.

Only last month it was revealed that the Decent Homes project was £26 million in the red. The Homes for Haringey Gateway Report showed that the project overspent on items that were not shown in the original budget. This threatens work to homes still to be improved by the four year Decent Homes programme.

Local Liberal Democrats, concerned at the continual problems with the Decent Homes programme, have questioned Labour’s ability to control such large financial projects.

Cllr Matt Davies, Liberal Democrat Housing Spokesperson, comments:

“This project is rapidly descending into a financial farce. Sadly, once again, it is the Haringey taxpayer and council leaseholders who will have to pick up the tab for Labour’s financial incompetence.

“The Council’s own report shows that the Decent Homes project is over-budget, thanks to the massive overspend on digital aerials and pitched roofs.

“It may be desirable to have these, but you do not spend money that you do not have and which was never in the original budget.

“Now, Labour have had to dip into the Major Repairs Fund, which was already allocated for urgent repairs, to bail out the Decent Homes Project. It clearly demonstrates yet another Labour financial project that is out of control.”

Lynne Featherstone MP adds:

“This is more evidence of a council in crisis. Council leaseholders are being used as a cash cow, to hide Labour’s financial incompetence in the Decent Homes programme. They have had to fork out over £1000 each, to fund Labour’s reckless spending.”

Lap Off!

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So – finally – the licensing meeting to decide the fate of the lap-dancing club application at the Music Palace in Tottenham Lane, Crouch End, happened last Thursday evening.

The gallery was packed, literally packed, with those who had come to support those objectors who were presenting their case to the licensing committee to try and get this application refused.

The Chair started by asking the applicant’s representative to distinguish between lap and table dancing – which in the end it transpired was not hugely different – other than lap dancing was direct to the client’s lap (sort of obvious) and table dancing was at a table.

And then to the presentations by objectors. First up Cllr Dave Winskill (LibDem) who gave the background to the campaign, described the location (and in the end it is the location that makes this application ungrantable – if that’s a word) and put the application in context of the high level strategies that are meant to guide councillors and officers in how to achieve the sort of borough we want for ourselves and our children.

Local parent Lindsay Wright, who lives a stones throw from the proposed site (and who is two weeks short of giving birth to a baby) gave the most brilliant rational for refusal around Haringey’s own licensing policy – and showed that the application would run a coach and horses through it. When the Council’s own licensing policy says that there is a duty to promote safety and wellbeing etc……… She also, despite the difficulty, described explicitly what lap-dancing was (unlike the applicant’s answer above) with precise detail about proximity and touching – too explicit for me to put on blog.

Four further objectors the addressed the key licensing objectives: avoidance of public nuisance, protection of children, prevention of crime and disorder – and told us about the effects that the granting of this license would have on their neighbourhood, their schools, their town centre and their children.

Then the Head of Hornsey Girls School gave a fluent and effective argument against granting the application for the well being and safety of the 1400 girls at Hornsey High – just around the corner.

This was not a moral crusade – but an outpouring of the real worries about the damage that the local community would suffer if this lap dancing club were to open its doors at that location. And that was the real point – the scale of opposition was all to do with the location – near six schools, two churches, Action for Kids (vulnerable people with learning difficulties), the YMCA and right, slap, bang in the middle of a normal shopping high street in a highly residential area.

The law itself is changing. Currently, a lap-dancing club only needs the same license as a pub or ordinary club. The new law, which has gone through parliament, and which will soon be enacted – changes that. Lap dancing clubs will be counted as ‘sex encounter establishments’ which is exactly what they are. And that new law has come about because of the particular trouble and disorder etc that occurs around such places.

However, even under the old law, together with Haringey’s strategies and licensing objectives – this application can easily be thrown out. Only four months earlier the same licensing committee refused an application from Bar 22 – a similar establishment – on the grounds of proximity to residential areas.

If the committee refused that application – then how much more reason they have to throw this one out too.

However, after two hours – the hearing was adjourned because there would not have been time for the applicant to present their case properly and take questions etc. So now we have to wait for the whole thing to be reconvened.

It was very disappointing because the presentations were so overwhelmingly forceful – I have no doubt that the committee would have rejected the application – and am not totally happy that the applicant (having heard all the residents’ arguments) will now have a few weeks to prepare before the next session. However – quite frankly – the arguments against were so strong it is hard to envisage what on earth the applicants would be able to say or do to make their case.

Well done to Alison Lillystone, whose Fairfield Road home backs onto the site, and to Lindsay and Carol and Stuart – and all who made such a brilliant case.

To be continued…

Haringey didn't CRB Abdulla Achmed Ali

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Latest information that I have thanks to Cllr Gail Engert, LibDem Children’s Services Spokesperson on Haringey is about CRB checks.

It would seem that the foster couple were relatively long term foster parents and had something like twelve placements from Haringey previously. They are CRB checked (advanced) as is the elderly father of one of them who lives in the same house – and he has been CRB checked (advanced). They have four daughters – three of whom have been CRB checked (advanced) but the youngest is only eleven – and they don’t apparently CRB check at that age.

They have CRB checked the neighbours. They have CRB checked frequent visitors.

Seemingly the only person Haringey Council didn’t CRB check was Abdulla Achmed Ali. They say they didn’t CRB check him becuase he wasn’t a frequent visitor.

But as I understand it – he was living there. He had all his bomb-making equipment there and his books there.

More digging required I feel.

Haringey hid the truth!

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I don’t know where Andrew Gilligan got the information from about the fact that Haringey had placed a child to be fostered with the family where Abdulla Achmed Ali was living – but he must have phenomenal sources. Not a peep, not a dicky-bird had been said by the Council about this latest incident.

At this point whilst we are asking the questions that need to be asked of Haringey – we don’t know how badly or otherwise Haringey has performed in its duties to safeguard children it places in foster care – but unfortunately with Haringey’s track record we can only think the worst. And as there still has been no public inquiry into Child Protection in Haringey – we all suspect that there is much more of this under the radar as this revelation today has demonstrated.

However, what we do know now, is that Haringey Council has known about this for three years and not brought it forward as something that needs to be examined. Again we see Haringey cloak the whole incident in secrecy. Hide it away and hope that no one will find out. It is secrecy that has bread the breathtaking failures in child protection and elsewhere.

Robert Gorrie, Liberal Democrat leader on Haringey Council said of this latest shocking story:

‘Haringey Council vowed during the Baby Peter tragedy that they would end the silence and cover up in Children’s Services yet this shows a Council still committed to a culture of secrecy.

‘How many more cases of Council failures do we not yet know about? Who knew about this fiasco and was keeping it a secret and how many more cases of Haringey Labour failure do we not yet know about?’

Fostered in a terrorist house!

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Haringey Labour Council hit the headlines again today – courtesy of investigative journalist Andrew Gilligan of the Standard.

Haringey place a foster child in the family where – now convicted terrorist Abdulla Ahmed Ali of the liquid bomb plot to down seven planes lived! It beggars belief.

Haringey seems to lurch from crisis to crisis – all generally of their own making.

The child was fostered and Abdulla was living there – and apparently reading terrorist tomes which you might think would be a give away.

Of Course the secret services weren’t going to tell Haringey about their surveillance of the suspected terrorist. I know it’s been suggested that they should have somehow tipped the wink at Haringey so that they knew something was up – but the magnitude of the plot and the importance of the operation would have prohibited that. And with MI5 or MI6 watching the house – the baby was better looked out for than most in the borough.

So – it would be down to Haringey’s rigour in terms of their policy on checking on foster parents that was the only gauge as to whether there was anything recognisably untoward in the home. Would Haringey normally know who lives in the house of foster parents? Do they do background checks? Apparently the couple were already foster parents – but did Haringey know a male adult would be living there? Did they visit?

And in the article it also says that someone says that Muslim children must be placed with Muslim foster parents. I don’t know if that is Haringey’s policy – and in an ideal world it might be a good policy – but if it means that there is any lessening of checks – then that cannot be acceptable either.

Many questions need to be asked and answered – because if Haringey could have known and should have known – then they are in the dock again. But we don’t know the answers to that yet.

I suppose that if I was being charitable I could say that Haringey was unlucky – but the amount of times appalling things happen in Haringey makes me believe that Haringey makes its own ‘luck’.

Save Election Night!

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Jonathan Isaby (Conservative Home) started this campaign against the rising threat of the count for elections starting the day after rather than on the night. Politicians from all parties have joined him to Save Election Night!

I’ve joined the campaign! No – it’s not just the excitement of the night nor is it about which day would be a better voting day – it’s because we will be betwixt and between.

If we want to count the day after an election then we need a change to the constitution. In America – there is no ultimate urgency in the count – because the new President, for example, is President Elect for a good couple of months before the new administration comes in.

Not so in our neck of the woods. We have no one properly in charge until the election result is announced. It is our system that is different and is the reason that the count has to take place that night – barring some tricky rural territories where it cannot happen that quickly.

We aren’t American!

On a personal note, and as someone who has generally been going since 4am the morning before delivering ‘Good Morning’ leaflets – I am knackered by the time the result comes through – but I still think it is right to have it on the night.

And it’s not only right, but is the one time in politics when the nation – or at least some of it – gets a little excited and has (and I quote) the ‘audacity to hope’. Let’s not extinguish that faltering flame.

There are lots of arguments save election night and you can back the campaign on Facebook by joining the group.

Opposition demands urgent investigation after new Haringey Children's Services revelations

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Opposition councillors have demanded an urgent review of Haringey Council’s foster care services after it was revealed today that a child was placed in the care of the family of bomb-plotter Abdulla Ahmed Ali in 2006.

Local Liberal Democrat MP, Lynne Featherstone, says that this is yet more evidence of a council in crisis and raises more questions over Haringey Council’s ability to look after children.

It also follows Haringey’s Ofsted report in July this year that said that Haringey Council was still failing to protect all vulnerable children adequately.

Lynne Featherstone MP comments:

“We knew that there is an on-going problem with Haringey Council’s ability to look after our children, but now we have new questions about Haringey Council’s ability to place children in safe and secure foster homes.

“We need answers now to ensure that no other child has been, or will be, in danger when they are placed in care.

“After the awful tragedy of Baby Peter and the clear failures made by Haringey Council, these new revelations show further evidence of the need for a root and branch review of Haringey Council’s Children’s Services that only a public inquiry can provide.”

Liberal Democrat councillors have written formally to the Chief Executive of Haringey Council, Ita O’Donovan, and Children’s Service chief, Peter Lewis, to demand assurances that no further mistakes by Children’s Social Services have been covered up.

Cllr Robert Gorrie, Haringey Liberal Democrat leader, comments:

“Haringey Council vowed during the Baby Peter tragedy that they would end the silence and cover up in Children’s Services, yet this shows a council still committed to a culture of secrecy.

“Who knew about this fiasco and was keeping it a secret and how many more cases of Haringey Labour failure do we not yet know about?”

Recycling batteries should be made easy!

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It’s a real problem. You know when you change batteries that you need to recycle the old ones and that you mustn’t put them in with the ordinary rubbish because they are hazardous – but there’s nowhere convenient in Haringey to do the right thing!

So my Liberal Democrat Haringey councillor colleague, Bob Hare (inveterate campaigner on all matters environmental) and I got together to illustrate our point.

In a bid to make it easier for local residents to recycle their household batteries, we local Liberal Democrats have called on Haringey Council to increase the number of battery recycling points in the borough.

Currently, residents can only recycle their batteries at Haringey Council’s two recycling centres – in Hornsey or Tottenham. In contrast, several local authorities across the country run successful schemes that give residents the opportunity to recycle their batteries in special battery recycling points on the streets or in local shops and libraries.

Why is Haringey Labour Council so bad at everything? The clue is in the phrase ‘Haringey Labour Council’!

Labour don't care about Finsbury Park residents

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A Haringey Labour councillor hasn’t attended the local regeneration board that she is on for nearly two years. Obviously not all councillors can be at every meeting they should be at for reasons of clashes or other commitments – but for a local councillor not to attend a single meeting for nearly two years of such a vital local Board as FinFuture – which is all about improving the Finsbury Park area – is a dereliction of duty and shows exactly how little importance Labour attach to improving the Finsbury Park area.

The local Liberal Democrat councillors say that Cllr Gina Adamou should step down as Labour clearly don’t care about improving the area and should make way for a local Liberal Democrat councillor who does!

Figures show that since 2007 Cllr Adamou has only attended four of the twenty board meetings that have taken place. Morevover this news comes on top of the announcement from Haringey Council earlier this year that they would scrap funding to improve the area.