HRA have seamlessly become a minority administration. Opposition leaders Keith Prince and Keith Darvill were absent and only Martin Goode provided scrutiny. He understands ‘opposition’. The key ingredients: turning up and doing homework.
New cabinet member Natasha Summers spoke via Zoom (7 minutes).1 She then switched off her Zoom connexion. Someone should have asked a question to see if she’d left the meeting. (Cabinet members usually stay throughout meetings by-the-by.) Natasha’s presentation avoided the complex financial regime underpinning the contract for social housing (11 minutes) so perhaps that’s why she left.2
Ray Morgon wanted Chris Wilkins to be great. Chris dodged the bullet. His contributions at 1, 15, 18, 23 and 26 minutes were soulless readings of officer statements. Unlike Question Time super-star Barry Mugglestone, Chris doesn’t convince when he’s reading. Martin tried probing questions which Chris sidestepped, leaving answers to officers. Bizarrely3 (26 minutes), in an unscripted comment, he said he was going to lobby the new government. Good luck with that!
The £54M borrowing facility is untouched. It’s very expensive and could be a major expansion item in 2025-6. The systemic growth of Adult and Children’s services currently consumes 79% of the total budget (Gillian Ford 26 minutes). This is an increase of nine percentage points4 in two years. Avoiding the budget-killer £54M loan can’t be done.
Worst Team Player: Paul McGeary, who didn’t wear a green tie but at least his wasn’t red!
Notes
1 Annotator Player (mediasite.com) All times relate to this webcast
2 Officer presentation. Natasha reappeared at 20 minutes
3 The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Albert Einstein
4 This is 12.9% growth
Politics in Havering 
while I admire The Rainham 3 beating Durent and co. 2 years ago and were never really wanted by Romford conservatives so understand their switch and i felt the zeimford conservatives who switched should’ve called by elections , I never thought I’d say this but if A Harold Wood party councillor was the only scrutiny of the Council
good for him
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I think that the Labour group will learn how to be an opposition.
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If using the £54m loan can’t be avoided, then taking out £300k for libraries should be included.
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Totally agree. The £300K is petty cash in the scheme of things but the damage is disproportionate.
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