Tag: Havering cabinet

Havering’s Register of Interests: The Cabinet

Filling in the Register is a legal obligation and yet Havering’s councillors struggle. Havering’s councillors have professional assistance but seem disinclined to use it. The Cabinet are elite councillors so it’s very important they’re open to scrutiny. Question One is stupid simple and is routinely not answered, ignored, or misunderstood.1

Q1 “Prescribed Description: Any employment, office, trade, profession or vocation carried on for profit or gain.”

Cabinet members receive £35,000, which qualifies, “for profit or gain.” Surprisingly none of Havering’s cabinet members think so. There are other anomalies, which will be revealed in this survey.

Keith Darvill’s1 entry says he’s a self-employed consultant. He doesn’t remark he’s a cabinet member.

Gillian Ford’s entry says she’s an Associate of Shared Service Architecture Ltd. She doesn’t say she’s deputy leader of the Council on £37,500. She’s also a member of the Local Government Association’s2 City Regions committee earning £8,908

Oscar Ford ignores the fact he’s a cabinet member despite it being a substantial supplement to his pensions.

Paul McGeary’s entry says he’s Head of Estates, NELFT without adding he’s a cabinet member.

Paul Middleton owns Essex PC Fix without adding he’s a cabinet member

Ray Morgon’s entry says that he’s a “Full-time councillor”. That understates his actual position as Leader of the Council on £50,000

Barry Mugglestone answered ‘None’ for Question One. As a cabinet member he earns £700 pw

Christopher Wilkins agreed with Barry and answered ‘None’. He’s a cabinet member and a landlord (Q4).

Cabinet members earn more than many Havering Council employees who work full-time. If they can’t understand “profit or gain” what else can’t they understand?

Graham Williamson I couldn’t access his entry.

Notes

1 For Keith Darvill see Councillor details – Councillor Keith Darvill | The London Borough Of Havering All the other named councillors have identical access points.

2 Keith Darvill, Ray Morgon and Michael White are also on this association but aren’t paid. For paid members see SRAs September 2022 (local.gov.uk)

Havering’s Cabinet: A First Assessment

The cabinet complained about government under-funding,1 which is like sailors hating the sea. There was no discussion about the energy crisis, home-working and office accommodation, staffing and retention, interest rates and ways of dealing with any of this in 2023.

Chris Wilkins: (began2) He spoke repetitiously and occasionally lost his place. He neither highlighted pertinent issues nor contextualised them. He offered counsels of despair.

He hasn’t discovered he’s a policy maker.

Gillian Ford: (20 minutes) She leads the principal cost centre, Adult Services. Her brief comments included an anecdote about a quadrupling of staff for a care issue. Typical? Probably not – just pre-emptive shroud waving.

Her remarks were inadequate. Cabinet needed insights on her principal revenue vampire: staffing costs. (pro rata cuts would be £6.5 million of the £19 million needed)

Keith Darvill: (21) Keith didn’t comment on his budget, preferring waffle. Flooding is a significant problem but can costs be subsumed into current budgets? Ambitions needed outlining especially if involving capital and ‘Invest to Save’.

Keith’s speech needed preparing up front.

Ray Morgon: (24) Ray’s interventions gave momentum to the debate. He claimed that if the public understood that 70% of the Council’s revenue went on statutory services, they’d accept a deteriorating environment. Laughably, he thought Conservative MPs would lobby for more funding.

Graham Williamson: (32) His speech included the phrase ‘Perfect Storm’ to describe financial pressures. He was stoical about losing popularity when cuts bite. He worried about the Council losing control to Commissioners on the balanced budget issue.

The best speech of the night.

Barry Mugglestone: (42) He spoke about increasing car parking charges which, surprisingly, isn’t an increase at all – it’s a return to pre-pandemic charges. So that’s all right then.

He read his speech, which other cabinet members should copy.

Oscar Ford astonishingly didn’t speak. He’s lead member for Children’s Services, which destroys everyone else’s budget. Nothing! Not even, ‘Thank you’. (pro rata cuts would be £6.5 million of the £19 million needed)

Paul Middleton: (1:02) He ought to be aware that his budget is likely to be savaged. He supported the budget propositions as being responsible.

Addendum: Government funding 2010-2022

Government funding has declined from £70 million to £1.5 million. This decline began with George Osborne in 2010. If the £70 million had increased with inflation it would have become £96.4 million. The real shortfall is £94.9 million. Conservative governments have increased taxation by outsourcing it to local authorities. Havering’s two Conservative MPs have been the cheer leaders of this policy.

Inflation calculator | Bank of England

Notes

1 Cabinet meeting 28th September 2022

2  Annotator Player (sonicfoundry.com) Times when they begin speaking, are in brackets