Can You Guess Which London Borough?

Having been assured repeatedly by the mayor, that the council is not in crisis, we learn from the LGC that Newham “will not be able to balance its budget for 2025-26 unless the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government approves an exceptional financial support arrangement.”

This will not be the first council to do this. Earlier in the year, Havering received £54m from the government, so Newham might be optimistic. Of course, this was before the new government discovered a £20bn black hole in the budget.

But fear not, Fiaz was quoted in the same article stating, “We have pledged to be open and honest about the issues facing us, and we are working hard to identify all savings. We are a well-managed, financially responsible council”. (It’s a bit like you have to keep saying it because people don’t believe it.)

The trouble is that this ‘well managed, open and responsible council’ has done nothing to mitigate its problems in the six years that Fiaz has been in post. Indeed, amongst the first acts that Fiaz did were to get rid of the Wales’ transformation programme and increase the size of the directorate, largely to promote her vanity projects.  But as we shall see in future posts, some of those are for the chop.

Newham Independents were quick off the mark with their response.

Of course, if you follow the mayor’s self-congratulatory ‘Weekly News’, this would not have been apparent. She opens the issue for 12th October, with the following.

“It’s been a week of talking about how great Newham is because of its people and all the exciting things happening in the borough which is driving lots of inward investment; and in turn, leading to opportunities and jobs for our residents.”

Being upbeat is one thing. But, and here we struggle for the most appropriate idiom, she is either putting her head in the sand or pulling the wool over the eyes of residents. She does go on to mention the small problem they have finding £175m, but that’s nothing to do with six years of mismanagement and it is all the fault of people who want council housing.

Thus, despite the mayor’s constant assurances that Newham is not in crisis and that Newham will not be issuing a s114 notice, it seems that Newham IS “facing bankruptcy”.

Quoted in the Standard, Finance lead, Cllr Zulfiqar Ali has an interesting perspective on the problem. Apparently, the current financial crisis has nothing to do with either him or his boss. It is “not be because we have failed in our financial management approach; rather past government policy and the inefficacies of the housing market in London and the UK has failed us.”

That sounds rather like a familiar refrain we hear from Fiaz and her acolytes. “It’s not our fault!”

It rather makes their oft repeated slogan appear rather hollow.

Perhaps it should more accurately be rephrased as “People will Pay for Everything We Do”.

The Cabinet Papers

The papers for the Cabinet meeting on 15th October outline the problem. 

So here is a brief look at the way Newham intends to cut its spending, increase its revenue and sell off its assets.

Debden House

A residential conference centre and campsite covering 50 acres, just outside the M25. It has long been a country escape for residents of Newham and latterly from across London. Now the plan is to sell it off. This will save £300,000 annually, apparently. We do not have a projected figure for the sale, but it is clear that Newham are approaching this as a fire-sale and have not sought ways to increase the value by say seeking planning permission for the site (or parts thereof) which would increase the value exponentially. The big money will be made by a developer who sees potential and is looking for something of a bargain. Particularly given the need for new housing in the south east.

Newham Dockside

The proposal is to sell off Dockside. The building was purchased under the Wales regime and should return a tidy profit. Newham staff will relocate to Stratford.

Of course, charges will go up and support will go down.

The council tax reduction scheme, the scheme to assist tax payers on low incomes is to be “scaled back”. And support to the voluntary sector will be reduced.

Parking charges are going up for diesel cars. And vans. Of course, residential permits for owners of diesel cars will have an additional £50 slapped on them.

Diesel surcharges to be introduced. Apparently, this will persuade drivers of diesel vehicles to make “greater use of alternative forms of transport, such as walking, cycling and public transport”. You would think  that this is an innovation to improve the health of the borough’s population by the way in which it is couched, which is rather cynical as this is just one of a number of grabs at the money in the pockets of the residents.

Fitness sessions for older residents are due to be slashed. And Children’s Centres are also under threat. We don’t know yet whether all of them or just some of them are to be axed. Support for the voluntary sector is to be dropped.

There are times when the language in which these reports are written simply belies belief. It is not uncommon to read and re-read sections to try to understand just what they mean, but there are times when you simply wonder at what was going through the mind of the author.

Just what does this mean? The “proposal is to undertake a combined review of the Council’s budgets associated with the voluntary and community sector (VCS) to shape a new approach that will reflect the Council’s emerging financial envelope, and our commitments to partnership working with the VCS, early intervention and preventative work, Community Wealth Building agenda and new commissioning models being developed.” 

Or take this one for example, reflecting on the impact of reducing the number of children’s centres. At the moment, the centres are located across the borough with a view to enabling every family to be withing 15 minutes’ walk of a centre.

“Reduction down to 4 or fewer sites will result in non-equitable offer, some parts of the borough will be far less able to access services. Most residents not within a 15 minute walkable distance of provision. The distance may be cyclable within 15 minutes, but consideration should be given to the feasibility of cycling with very young children.”

Seriously? Newham is going to expend officer time determining whether it is likely or feasible for mothers to cycle to the centre carrying a couple of pre-school age children?

As if to add insult to injury, we learn (p145) that Newham propose to spend £30,000 on a consultation about how many to close.

Children’s centres have been a remarkable success in equipping parents and preparing children for school. The following quote comes from Left, Right, Wrong. “According to Ann Longfield, the then Children’s Commissioner for England, nationally 40% of children continue to fail to meet their attainment goals when they enter school at age five. For children in receipt of free school meals, that number is 50%. Our sustained investment in early years’ provision meant that by 2018 Newham was the only local authority area in the country with no attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their more affluent peers at age 5.”

Mayor Fiaz joins the band of those who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

This article barely covers the content running to hundreds of pages, (some of which seem to be in pt 6, or even pt 4 script).

We will look at the implications of the cuts programme as more details are available after the cabinet meeting.

It is far from impossible that the trade unions will not react kindly to the suggestion that hundreds, if not thousands of their members will shortly be out of a job.