Havering’s Annual Council, 22nd May 2024

Normally this is a snore-fest and it remained so until the vote for Mayor. Stephanie Nunn said she liked being Mayor. She praised people who’d helped her raise £20,000 for First Step. She praised her chaplain and her consort. But she didn’t praise her deputy mayor. This was a hint of what was to come.

Ray Morgon indulged in Jesuit-style treachery. Because his agreement to alternate Labour – HRA mayors was verbal, it was disposable. Gerry O’Sullivan ousted Labour’s Pat Brown.¹ But shock-horror! Among the abstentions was Labour’s Paul McGeary. To make sure everyone understood he was a maverick, he abstained on Labour’s Matt Stanton vote for chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Board. An interesting way of resigning from the party.

Ray Morgon’s (35 minutes)² tour d’horizon was a sea shanty without music. It desperately needed music. HMS Havering has ‘passengers’ going on a voyage. He revealed (38mins)³ it will have a huge deficit over four years. He didn’t reveal where the £82m⁴ is coming from. His ‘wish and a prayer’ strategy relies on Starmer winning on July 4^th.⁵

Best Team Player: Robbie Misir wearing a green tie

Notes

1 Sue Ospreay has 62% attendance, which isn’t a qualification for deputy-mayor Councillors attendance summary, 1 December 2023 – 25 May 2024 | The London Borough Of Havering

2 Annotator Player (mediasite.com) All times refer to this webcast

3 loc.cit

4 Actually £28m as he’s already borrowed £54m

5 “The proposals to reduce the number of libraries is one of many painful decisions we will need to make until we get a better financial settlement from government which accurately reflects the borough’s changing population and need.” Havering welcomes a new Mayor, addressing concerns about the library consultation, arson attack at the Town Hall – 12hedonic@gmail.com – Gmail (google.com) As Conservatives caused this disaster, he must mean Starmer.

Libraries or 30 Minutes Free Parking in Hornchurch and Upminster?

By maintaining the remaining six most visited libraries….the borough will save more than £300,000 per year, with these essential savings going towards the Council’s responsibilities to meet a balanced budget.

Have your say on the future of Havering libraries, disruptions to waste collections, good luck to Romford FC – 12hedonic@gmail.com – Gmail (google.com)

Ray Morgon has identified four libraries that are on life-support machines. As an act of mercy, he’s going to put them out of their misery. Luckily, the resources freed up will create a new Golden Age for the remaining libraries. Even better, they will also help in the battle against bankruptcy. That’s the story.

Balderdash!

What’s actually happening is that the unaffordable 30 minutes free parking period in HRA/Labour’s heartlands will continue. HRA/Labour voters are being rewarded, unlike those in Conservative Romford. The revenue savings from the closure of the libraries is trivial at £300,000. Trivial? Free carparking costs a cool million. Ah, but what about the “balanced budget?”

Balderdash!

HRA/Labour have borrowed £54m at 7% over 20 years. The annual interest to be paid on that is £3.78m. £300,000 doesn’t touch the sides. The Administration is trying to dig itself out of a hole by not taking up the full loan. (This explains the recent sale of four car parks by the way.¹) They are suffering from ‘buyer’s remorse’ when a supposed triumph turns into a nightmare.²

A helpful suggestion

Sell the Marks and Spencer site in Romford.³

Notes

1 Havering’s Impending Bankruptcy: selling carparks – Politics in Havering

2 Buyer’s remorse – Wikipedia

3 Damian White and Romford Marks and Spencer (M&S) July, 2019 – Politics in Havering

Havering’s Impending Bankruptcy: selling carparks

The Council borrowed £54m to pay its bills in Spring 2024 (see Addendum). They are also selling carparks to avoid (postpone?) bankruptcy. Four are going.¹The Romford Recorder ² says they’re worth £9m and that’s why they’re being sold. The other reasons are,

“…they are underused and the aim is to have a better use of the land that can help the council reduce its waiting list backlog for affordable homes..”³

“Underused” is slippery. Two figures need stating, (1) target income, and (2), how big was the shortfall? How long will it be before the lost income equals £9m and, will the council tax from the new properties compensate?

Why is this important?

Finance is paramount when facing bankruptcy and trumps other considerations.⁴ Will the sales help or hinder the council’s problems? £9m is 11% of the shortfall over two years: it’s a drop in the ocean. And the revenue is gone for ever.

Selling income generating assets to fund revenue is insanity. The government is privatising Havering by the deliberate under-funding of statutory services.⁵ Voters will notice when quality-of-life assets are lost. But by then no-one will be able to do anything about it.

The government is forcing Havering to sell assets. The government doesn’t want to fully fund statutory services which Havering must provide. They don’t like the truth that: Taxes are the price we pay for a civilised society.⁶

Addendum: The Loan

This is a government drawdown facility for unfunded statutory⁵ bills. The loan is charged at 7% for 20 years. The interest for 18 full years is £68m. In brief, it increases Council Tax until 2044.

Notes

1 Issue details – Site Disposals under the Asset Disposal Programme 2022-2028 | The London Borough Of Havering

2 Romford Recorder 26^th April 2024 front page

3 loc.cit

4 The massive negative response didn’t see it like that at all. p18

5 Statutory services are those that the council must provide before anything else.

6 Taxes Are What We Pay for Civilized Society – Quote Investigator®

Havering Council: The Merry-Go-Round

Ray Morgon cobbled an administration together from Havering’s many Residents’ Associations (RAs) in 2022.¹ They were rebranded Havering Residents’ Association. His second coup was a coalition with Labour. He’d filled the power vacuum left by the Conservatives and took power

And then the Merry-Go-Round began.

Sarah Edwards, Jacqueline McArdle and Sue Ospreay joined HRA a few weeks after being elected as Conservatives in 2022. Ray Morgon doesn’t care why. What’s important is they landed in HRA. The voters of Rainham weren’t consulted.

John Tyler is a Refusenik. He dislikes Labour and didn’t join the coalition, opting for ‘independence’ (or at least that’s how the story goes). Cranham is a hotbed of dissatisfaction. Phillip Ruck left HRA creating a political party² with John. He wants the Finance cabinet post and won’t get it, so why not rock the boat? The voters of Cranham weren’t consulted.

Robby Misir joined HRA after many years as a Conservative councillor. The end of Damian White’s pot-of-gold politics might have been a push factor. Who knows? Could self-interest have motivated him? The voters of Marshalls and Rise Park weren’t consulted.

St Andrew’s ward has stopped being boring. Paul Middleton, Gerry O’Sullivan and Bryan Vincent have fallen out. Paul isn’t in RA newsletters any more but remains in the cabinet. Is HRA strong enough to impose discipline on these apparently warring factions? Voters will be consulted in 2026.

Addendum

Three Romford Conservatives have joined HRA, this week, to escape that toxic zone. They are husband and wife team John and Philippa Crowder along with Christine Smith. Is this a reverse take-over by Romford who lust for power but can’t get it? This makes it seven Conservatives fleeing their party since 2022.
Notes

1 HRA = Havering Residents Association

2 Cranham Residents Association Independent Group

Havering Council: Budget Setting – 28th February, 2024

Question: Havering is going bankrupt.¹ What did councillors do in the budget?

Answer: Dug a deeper financial hole.

(They took a government loan of £54m, without increasing Council Tax to pay the £3.4m annual interest therefore adding to the shortfall.)

Chris Wilkins (11 minutes)² His dreadful speech showed a tragic lack of awareness.

Keith Prince (29) Two minutes of ‘Thank you’ name checks was ‘padding’. A more-or-less content free speech followed.

Keith Darvill (44) The government loan is expensive – £3.4m in interest – but the ‘only’ option. Otherwise, he made sound political points.

Martin Goode (56) His speech was hesitant and expressed dismay at the loan proposition.

Phillip Ruck (1 hour 05) He discussed the loan’s implications. The £54m will be consumed in two years followed by a death spiral!

Judith Holt (1:33) She pointed out the iniquity of the Residents Parking Permit for those living in terraced houses without off-street parking.

Barry Mugglestone (1:39) Oblivious to budget problems. He loves 30 minutes free car parking in Hornchurch, where he lives, and £900,000 for five police officers.

Mandy Anderson (1:44) A considered speech. The budget is a ‘valiant effort’, which is damning it with faint praise.

David Taylor (1:47) He said the budget involved choices. He illustrated this with the million-pound subsidy for Hornchurch carparking.

Martin Goode (1:53) He liked the idea of government commissioners. Nothing would change as the council had no control anyway. The loan was dreadful.

Keith Darvill (1:58) Havering should grow the economy and, therefore, get more council tax. This is ‘a wish and a prayer’ economics.

Keith Prince (2:03) More nit-picking.

Ray Morgon (2:08) Summary remarks claimed it was a “budget of necessity”, which sort-of conceded Goode’s point.

Best Speech: Phillip Ruck

Runner-ups: Mandy Anderson and David Taylor

Audacious Proposition: Dilip Patel – a lottery to pay off the £54m shortfall

Wooden Spoon: Chris Wilkins

Notes

1 Havering Council Tax: Is It Too Low? – Politics in Havering This is four years old but the principal points hold good

2 Annotator Player (sonicfoundry.com) Time refers to when speech began

Havering Councillors’ Attendance: 1st August 2023 – 24th January 2024

A Councillor who is absent from all meetings of the Council and any committees of which they are a member for a period of six months automatically ceases to be a member of the Council unless they have been given leave of absence by the Council before the expiry of that six month period – s.85 Local Government Act 1972

Havering’s 55 councillors must attend committees¹ at least once every six months. Failure to attend means they lose their seats. (Councillors don’t lose their seats if they ignore their constituents.)

Councillors usually have legitimate reasons for missing meetings, which are accepted without challenge. In brief, they’re always given the benefit of the doubt.

Full attendance need not be onerous. John Tyler, Jacqueline Williams and John Wood attended four meetings each in six months for a 100% attendance record. Full attendance is the target but less than 50% needs explaining.

How did Havering’s councillors do?

Thirteen had full attendance. All parties are represented – seven HRA, three Conservatives, and one each East Havering RA, Independent and Labour. Just three out of nine cabinet members had full attendance.

Six councillors attended for 50% or less – four Conservatives² and two HRA. The worst attender is Sue Ospreay, HRA, with a shocking 28.6%. This implies incapacity or malaise. Either way HRA should get a grip to resolve this affront to democracy.³

The least the electorate expect is that councillors ‘turn up’. 50% attendance or less is a disgrace without exceptional circumstances.

Notes

1 Councillors attendance summary, 1 August 2023 – 24 January 2024 | The London Borough Of Havering Data base accessed 25^th January 2024

2 Robby Misir has defected to HRA. He’s currently got a 50% attendance rate presumably it will improve with his new colleagues.

3 Perhaps the problem is that Havering has too many councillors? See Does Havering have too many councillors? – Politics in Havering

Havering Council Meeting, 17th January 2024 (part one)

Keith Prince had a tour de force (1 hour18)¹ His motion was opportunist (see addendum) building on the anger that SEN children’s school transport should be ‘reviewed’. It’s believed this will reduce the quality of the service. (A clue is a possible £1.4m saving over four years.).²

Keith said HRA and Labour amendments were out-of-order. This isn’t a technicality. If they were out-of-order, HRA and Labour would be caught in a cleft stick. They’d have to vote FOR the motion and lose £1.4m. Alternatively, vote AGAINST and show they were ruled by accountants.³

The Monitoring Officer rescued them. In an excruciating passage he wriggled⁴ and produced a ‘solution’. HRA’s amendment was accepted and the review of SEN transport continues its ‘consultation’ period.

Oscar Ford (2:08) kept remarking on ‘cost effective’ transport and Havering’s financial position. Unfortunately, an option is Uber. Robert Benham (2:13) noted Uber allocates drivers randomly and many children need continuity or get distressed. David Taylor (2:28) commented on Uber’s surge pricing mechanism, which makes predictions impossible. Ray Morgon (2:41) quoted a comment from ‘someone’ who said cabbies were making ‘thousands of pounds’ from SEN transport to bolster his argument.⁵ No evidence, no names.

Keith Darvill (2:21) politicised the issue in a telling speech.

Addendum: The Conservative Motion

“This Council calls on the Cabinet not to proceed with the proposed cuts and changes in service, proposed in the Home to School Transport consultation. It further recognises that such cuts would have a detrimental impact on both children and parents, causing them increased stress and anxiety.” (Public Pack)Agenda Document for Council, 17/01/2024 19:30 (havering.gov.uk) p39

Notes

1 Annotator Player (sonicfoundry.com) All times refer to this webcast The item begins at 1 hour 18 minutes and finished at 2:01 hours = 33 minutes of debate.

2 Several councillors noted they’d spoken to protestors outside the Town Hall. Specifically, Cllrs. Persaud, Taylor and Wise who made comments in their speeches

3 Typically this is known as a lose-lose situation

4 Giving a minute-by-minute timeline to ‘explain’ why the cock-up wasn’t his fault. And then discovered an arcane sub-clause ‘rarely’ used to defend the indefensible.

5 This is an example of Confirmation Bias where *evidence* is used to support an argument and countervailing points are ignored or downplayed

The Politics of Potholes

After 13 brutal years of Austerity, the Conservatives lost 1059 councillors in the May, 2023 local elections. Voters voted against the destruction of council services. The beneficiaries were Labour, LibDems and the Green Party. Worse, for the Conservatives, was lethal tactical voting.¹

This happened in Havering in 2022. 20 years of Conservative power ended with a coalition between HRA² and Labour. An example of the new political reality is Julia Lopez’s position. She has a massive majority and no Conservative councillors, in her constituency.

Havering finances have been hollowed out. The real reduction in funding since 2010, is £97 million p.a.³ An obvious consequence are potholes becoming more dangerous. They’re now causing significant damage to cars when they hit them.

Which brings me to The Politics of Potholes.

Resident Associations used to focus on street care. They reduced councillor allowances to supplement that budget. Now they must make political decisions about the use of resources. Unfortunately, they’re in hock to the ‘Law and Order’ lobby.

The HRA/Labour coalition continued Conservative policies. The Section 92 MetPolice contract at £300,000+ p.a. was renewed. They then turbocharged the CCTV surveillance system with a multimillion-pound investment. Both were agreed without meaningful debate.⁴

The problem is: What do HRA/Labour “Really, really want?”⁵. Havering’s roads are a disgrace and need millions of pounds of investment. The money could come from the CCTV capital programme.

Pothole Repairs or CCTV?

Both sides have passionate advocates and it’s the art of politics to prioritise and not lose support. Considering that HRA built their ‘brand’ on street care, it seems quixotic to plump for CCTV. Damian White binned the same CCTV propositions and he ‘won’⁶ the 2022 election. He only lost power because of a surprise coalition between HRA and Labour. Motorists experience potholes every day and many of them vote.

Notes

1 Tories swept out of Home Counties council after Labour and Lib Dems formed a ‘progressive’ pact (msn.com)

2 HRA = Havering Residents Association

3 Havering’s Budget and Rishi Sunak: 2023 – Politics in Havering

4 In a rare moment of sanity about CCTV, Barry Mugglestone gave Christine Vickery a quick lesson in cost/benefit analysis. Annotator Player (sonicfoundry.com) Go to one hour one minute (1:01) for the exchange.

5 So, tell me what you want, what you really really want. – Bing video

6 23 Conservatives; 19 HRA; 9 Labour plus 4 others

Havering Council Meeting: 22nd March, 2023

Damian White’s ten-month sulk is over.¹ He’s positioning Conservatives in their new opposition role. Damian is ‘Love-Bombing’ the HRA/Labour administration with helpfulness.

At Question Time there were 15 questions and four resulted in requests for further meetings or, even steering groups to help deal with issues. Paul Middleton (@50)² looked as if he’d been ambushed over the Leisure centre by Damian. Keith Darvill (@54) positively embraced Damian in his Climate Change role. Christine Vickery (1:01) was brushed off by Barry Mugglestone but came back for more over CCTV in Ardleigh Green. Finally, Joshua Chapman (@1:04) had a meeting of minds with Paul McGeary.

Damian’s new ‘Love-Bombing’ policy triumphantly concluded the meeting. Keith Prince (@2:01) accepted an HRA Amendment in its entirety. Keith’s skill-set doesn’t usually include sweetness and light and everyone reeled back. A political earthquake! The CEO was so shocked he took legal advice on what a composite motion meant in this situation. Four minutes later the wrong decision was made.

Judith Holt (@17) hadn’t read Damian’s memo. She presented a petition for anti-ULEZ warriors and read their diatribe even though it’s against Council procedure. The Mayor silenced her and was roundly booed.

‘New Conservativism’ is pleasing but what does Damian really have in mind? Endlessly fascinating.

Notes

1 See Havering Council Meeting, 18th January 2023 – Politics in Havering At this meeting the Conservatives opted out from the normal democratic process

2 Webcast is here Annotator Player (sonicfoundry.com) Times relate to the webcast. This is 50 minutes

Havering’s Cabinet ‘debates’ CCTV: 8th March, 2023

The estimated cost of this Upgrade and CCTV Relocation Proposal is £2.423m, to be funded from Capital and CIL monies.¹

As a minimum, a ‘debate’ about spending £5 million capital and £500,000+ revenue should include a discussion of effectiveness. Councillors were unaware there were questions to ask. They seemed equally unaware that officers had noted CCTV isn’t a legal obligation. The decision was made without considering the economics and effectiveness of CCTV.

HRA are obsessed with street care, so would £500,000 revenue help enhance meeting residents’ desire for clean and smooth pavements? What about £5M capital?² The three minute ‘debate’³ that was devoted to this critical issue is less than a new bike shed would get. But then they understand bike sheds. Don’t they? None of the economic points relating to an efficient use of council funds were mentioned. It was rubber stamped.

The Summary statement says CCTV makes, “Havering a safer place.”⁴The question is whether it will improve the current situation. Is there evidence CCTV makes a difference to levels of crime? Item 7, points 2-8,⁵is silent on whether CCTV successfully fights crime.

The CCTV programme is very expensive.^6,7 It is additional to £300,000+ pa for Havering’s five funded police officers.

Summary point 7 says, “…an effective and reliable CCTV system plays an essential part in assisting the Council to fulfil its duties under the Crime & Disorder Act 1998, which requires local authorities to work with the police and other partners to prevent and reduce crime and disorder”.⁴(my emphasis)

The police don’t think CCTV is that great.

“Overall, use of CCTV makes for a small, but statistically significant, reduction in crime, but this generalisation needs to be tempered by careful attention to (a) the type of crime being addressed and (b) the setting of the CCTV intervention. CCTV is more effective when directed at reducing theft of and from vehicles, while it has no impact on levels of violent crime.”⁸(my emphasis)

Havering’s CCTV has been superseded by 1,000s of private CCTV systems and 10s of 1,000s of smart phones. This cabinet ‘debate’ was abysmal.

Notes

1 (Public Pack)Agenda Document for Cabinet, 08/03/2023 19:30 (havering.gov.uk) Item 5

2 The 2023 Capital programme is interesting and demonstrates that £5M is significant Appendix 1 – Existing Capital Programme Detail.pdf (havering.gov.uk) The £5M just about doubles the road resurfacing budget from £6M to £11M. This would reduce the costs to residents paying for damaged vehicles.

3 Go to minutes 1-4 for the ‘debate’ Annotator Player (sonicfoundry.com) See also Report detail p21 para 9:1

3 p14

4 pp14-5

5 p17 para 2:7 main report £500,000 revenue

6 p18 para 6:3 main report £5,000,000 capital

7 p15 See Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (legislation.gov.uk) There is no obligation to fund surveillance equipment. This is noted at p20 para 8:1 There is, however, a duty to have a Crime and Disorder committee which Havering doesn’t have. Para 5:1c (a)

8 http://library.college.police.uk/docs/what-works/What-works-briefing-effects-of-CCTV-2013.pdf p2