Brent Connects - Kingsbury and Kenton Forum

The next meeting of the Kingsbury and Kenton Brent Connects will take place on Wednesday 3rd Febuary at 7pm. The venue will be Kingsbury High School, Princess Ave. NW9.

The main item for discussion is likely to be Brent Council future budget and wether the Council should increase Council Tax as Government Chancellor George Osborne is suggesting or make further cuts to services to residents.

These decisions affect you and your opinion is important, please try and come along and listen and take part in the debate.

Fryent Councillors

Cameron cuts mean bigger dose of medicine.

In a few weeks time, 8th July, the Chancellor George Osborne will announce swingeing cuts in a post election budget. Preparing the ground  Cameron, Osborne and Duncan Smith are briefing the press about big cuts in welfare benefits, whilst saving pensions, child benefits and disabled benefits - allegedly?

What`s left you might ask, it`s clear from press speculation that the "working poor" or families on low incomes will clearly shoulder a large burden. This makes a mockery of "all in it together" - tax breaks and give aways for the very rich, cuts in tax credit for the very poor. Press reports indicate a cut as much as £1400 a year for low income working families.  I must have missed this Tory pledge during the last election campaign?

David Cameron was reported to say in a speech a few days ago "we have to deal with the symptoms of the problem" I think he was referring to those working families on low income. The message this appears to send to the nation is - It`s not the medicine that`s the problem - he just hasn`t given low income working families a big enough dose!

Taking about medicine reminds me that part of the 12 billion cuts will include the Health budget but not the NHS itself. No prizes for thinking the Public Health budgets, now part of local Government, will be clobbered. Local Government is also braced for another round of cuts. 90 million since 2010 and a further 54 million over the next 2 years - and thats just Brent! More and more reductions in services to the frail and elderly are inevitable over the next few years as the bulk of Council expenditure is on Adult Social Care.


Fryent Councillor George Crane

BRENT BOROUGH PLAN 2015 - 2019

HAVE YOUR SAY


Fryent residents are being asked for their views on what local Council  services should be provided in future. It also asks  what can Brent Council do to improve the borough given the continuing squeeze on budgets.

Why are we asking residents? Your views are important, its your borough, its your council Tax, and they are your public services.

The Government have cut money that they allocate to the Council to provide services to residents of Brent. Over the last four years we have re organised the way we provide services, sometimes this has meant services reducing, like the number of libraries.  

Over the next 4 years our budget is being cut even more, the total spending will have to halve by 2019, a 50% reduction. We are faced with a growing population, elderly people are living longer and more babies are being born. What do we do with less money but more demands? It is likely that some services we currently provide will be stopped or reduced or run by voluntary groups.

Should residents pay more Council Tax to pay for local services, should individual households pay for certain services? An example of this is the recent decision to charge for garden waste to be collected from next spring. Are there current Council services that people think are so important that they would pay more to keep them? Some services are statutory, this means we have to provide a service, normally due to a law being passed by Government.

We want to know what you think is most important for Brent, bearing in mind that prioritising means we will have to do less in some areas – or stop doing some things altogether. We are also looking for your ideas on how we can deliver services more innovatively, working with others to protect services – this includes working with you.

Will you help us decide, your views matter? Go to the link below and fill out the questions.

It is also likely that it will be an agenda item at the next Brent Connects to be held on 4th November 2014at the Sattavis Patidar Centre, Forty Lane, junction with the Avenue, Wembley starting at 7pm.    Make a note in your diary.

Thank you for your help, and please pass on to others and suggest they help. The moe responses we get the better the representations.

 http://brent.gov.uk/your-council/the-borough-plan-consultation/


Fryent Councillors,
George Crane, Ruth Moher and Shama Tatler.

Brent Council Freezes Budget for Third year running.

Brent Council has frozen its share of council tax again and will reduce parking charges after its 2013/14 budget was agreed on Monday night (25 February). The budget passed by Full Council sets out that the local authority will spend around £284 million net on the provision of local authority services in 2013/14, which will be paid for from central government grants, business rates and council tax. "Brent has now had the same rate since 2009/10 and brings welcome relief to hard pressed Fryent residents, who are struggling with falling living standards under this Government" said Fryent Councillor Ruth Moher. As part of this Budget a range of measures aimed at helping Business and Traders was also launched. Fryent Councillor George Crane welcomed a new enterprise initiative and he said at the meeting. "This new team will forge stronger links with businesses inside and outside of the Borough. It will provide small businesses in Brent with the support and advice they need to survive these difficult times. It will also provide us with a strong network through which we can push for more jobs, more apprenticeships and higher wages for our residents." The Council also agreed to fund reductions in on-street parking charges as part of the budget. This will enable the introduction of flat rate charges costing 50p per 15 minutes, with a lower charge of 20p for stays of up to 15 minutes. The net expenditure will pay for local authority services in 2013/14 including two sports centres, supporting the borough's voluntary sector, maintenance of around 22,000 streetlights, 13 million refuse collections a year, street cleaning, a recycling and waste service as well as adult social care and customer services. Brent Council Leader Councillor Muhammed Butt said: "I know how difficult it is for residents at the moment which is why we have taken action in this budget to help ease residents' financial pressures. We have frozen council tax again and will reduce on-street parking charges across the borough, and supported a new scheme to save you money on energy bills. At the same time we are striving to protect Brent's front-line services despite further cuts this year. "However, I want to be open with residents that the coming years will be very tough for the council and residents alike as costs rise and central government grant funding falls even further."

IFS say "More bad news for the economy."

More bad news for the economy as the respected think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies have warned that Government borrowing is likely to be £64 billion more than planned by Chancellor George Osborne only 2 years ago. With current Government policy cutting living standards, freezing  wages, more and more redundancies and job losses, price rises, cuts in welfare for those most in need.

If this was not bad enough, now we are faced with future tax increases. This is just a further example that the coalition economic policy is just not working. This talk of cutting the deficit all seems a bit hollow.

The IFS warned "tax will have to rise  and currently protected services like the NHS will be cut."

Despite frequent warnings on the problems facing the economy the Government continue to say they have no plans to change course.  "It`s not the medicine that`s not working," the Government say, "you just haven't had enough of it yet."     So now you know, keep taking the pills, and bitter pills at that.

George Crane.
Fryent Councillors

Brent Budget - Discussion

Local people are being invited to attend one of two public meetings about Brent's budget proposals for the forthcoming financial year.

The Brent Connects budget discussions will outline the difficult choices facing local government in the current economic climate and the council's proposals to continue making Brent a fairer borough and promote economic growth during 2013/14.

Local people will have the opportunity to question, and raise issues of concern, with Brent Council Leader, Cllr Muhammed Butt, and members of the council's Executive.

Both meetings will take place in Brent Town Hall, Forty Lane, Wembley, HA9 9HD on:

·         Monday, 4 February, 2:30 - 4:30pm, in Committee Rooms 1, 2 and 3

·         

     Thursday, 7 February, 7 - 9pm, in Paul Daisley Hall.

Anyone can attend. No booking is required. 

Fryent Councillors

Brent Council Budget Agreed

A BUDGET FOR SOCIAL MOBILITY AND LOCAL DEMOCRACY

Labour’s budget for 2012/13 has two main themes, social mobility and local democracy. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has cited the UK as one of the worst countries for levels of social mobility and this is in the number one priority in Brent.

Most Brent residents have incomes lower than the £26,000 benefit cap, 12,000 (9.3%) of them are unemployed and youth unemployment is a particular problem. One third of Brent children are living in poverty (that is living in households where the household income is below £15,000 a year) and the changes in the welfare reform bill and localisation of housing benefit will make the situation even worse. Children born into poverty are most likely to become poor adults.

In Labour’s budget proposals is a pledge to establish a Commission on Social Mobility to be chaired by an academic to ensure that council policy is geared towards enabling local people to achieve their full potential. Meanwhile, the Council is providing £350,000 as starter funding to develop a new employment service to work in partnership with other agencies to help local residents back into work.

Meanwhile, in order to address the democratic deficit caused by the Coalition government’s removal of powers from local government, Labour Brent is to double the budget for ward working whereby local people working with their local councillors determine activities and projects within their own communities. From now on every ward will receive £40,000 to spend on local initiatives that matter to them.

Brent Council’s Labour Leader, Cllr Ann M John, OBE, said:

“The gap between rich and poor is growing all the time with the top ten per cent of earners now earning twelve times as much as the bottom ten per cent. In Brent average earnings are only just at the national average whilst house prices are twice the national average. Social mobility and getting people back to work has to be our number one priority. But we are also giving local people a say in projects in their area by doubling the ward working budget. The government may talk about localism but we practice it”.