Brent Council wants “to put people first”
This week, I was invited to an event where the leader of Brent Council and its chief executive presented a new way of working that will improve residents' lives.
It’s a plan full of promises that Brent Council presented to a small audience of Brent Council staff, councillors and community leaders in Kilburn on Monday morning. Since the summer, the council has been working on a new strategy that aims at “putting people first”. My understanding is that this initiative stems from Kim Wright, the chief executive of Brent Council who took over from Carolyn Downs in May 2023.
The philosophy behind Brent’s Big Bang that was presented to us on Monday is called radical place-based leadership. The name sounds rather pompous to me but the principles behind it make complete sense for someone like myself who has been involved in Brent’s local life for more than a decade.
“It’s about decision makers being embedded in their community”, Kim Wright explained on the stage of the Kiln. In my own words, it’s about council officers and local councillors showing humility by accepting that they do not know better than the people on the ground and therefore that they need to work in collaboration with community leaders and residents for the benefits of residents.
Another pillar of this new way of delivering public services that Brent is working on is to take into consideration residents as a whole rather than seeing them through the lens of only one particular need - housing for example - that they have at one moment in time. That requires breaking down barriers between different council departments and pooling budgets together to help residents in a more complete and human way.
The goal behind this new way of working - that is still very much a work in progress - is “to make sure that Brent is a place where people feel healthy, happy and safe”. This is the vision statement behind the strategy the council wants to implement.
Again, as a health campaigner, that sounds like divine music to my ears. In August, I wrote a column for the Brent and Kilburn Times about the urgent need for cleaner air in Harlesden where I live because “for Harlesden to fulfill its potential, we need to be as healthy as can be”. “Breathing cleaner air is one of the building blocks of a good start in life and healthy prospects”, I added.
Another very positive point, as far as I am concerned, is that Brent intends to test its yet-to-be-defined new public service delivery approach in the Harlesden neighbourhood where a great number of residents live in overcrowded houses, a majority of children leave primary school without reaching their educational targets and too many people struggle to make ends meet.
I am supportive of the draft plan that was presented to us but I am not clear, at this stage, what this radical place-based leadership will look like and feel like on the ground. Judging by the questions asked by participants in the audience on Monday, I think a lot of people were equally interested and equally sceptical about the capacity of Brent Council to deliver this brand new vision.
No extra money for local government
First, we have to keep in mind that this new way of delivering services results - to a large extent - from a stark reality that Brent Council has been grappling with over the last 15 years or so. Its annual budget has shrunk by 75%. Since 2010, cuts made by Brent have totalled the staggering amount of £222 millions and further savings are required to deliver a balance budget in 2025.
On Monday, on the stage of the Kiln, the leader of the council, Mo Butt, made it clear that he doesn’t expect Keir Starmer’s government to undo the last 14 years of austerity orchestrated by the conservatives. “Collaboration is the only way” because “we have to be honest, the local government is not gonna be given any extra money”, he said.
So the innovative way of delivering services that Brent has the ambition to deliver will need to be very cost efficient. In itself, it isn’t a bad thing. No one wants to see public money wasted.
Nevertheless, considering that 150 families each week ask for the council’s help because they have nowhere to live and that - it seems to me - the council have very few leverages to alleviate the housing crisis, how is adopting a “radical place-based leadership” going to help solve this major problem? The average private rent in Brent has gone up by 30% (!) between October of last year and last October. In the absence of rent controls, I struggle to imagine a local policy that could lead to a drastic reduction in the number of people being evicted from their accomodation in Brent.
I also fear that the one of the assumptions baked into the vision presented to us on Monday is that charities, non-for-profit organisations in general and also community groups can deliver miracles. And, yes, it is reminiscent of Cameron’s Big Society which never materialised…
Let’s be clear : the third sector has a role to play and I think that an organisation such as Cricklewood Library is a brilliant example of radical place-based leadership. The busy schedule of activities and events organised catered to the needs of the local residents. The issue is that Brent Council has some very unrealistic expectations about what those not-for-profit organisations are able to deliver.
I am aware of a community hall in need of some serious tender loving care which, somehow, is supposed to generate enough income by April 2025 to pay £75 000 in rent per year. According to the East Lane Theatre in Wembley, a long established amateur theatre also required to pay £75k in rent from next year, 13 other community groups are affected by this extremely steep rent hike.
This is the direct result of Brent's Property Strategy for 2024-2027 which was adopted by the council during a meeting in September. How does this strategy, that could result in community groups unable to run their activities, square up with the ambition “to make Brent a place where people feel healthy, happy and safe”?
Better food, better air quality
On the plus side, I can think of several ways that Brent can improve the lives of its residents while also managing its finances responsibly such as :
making sure that nurseries and schools provide healthy food - by which I mean non-UPF - to children and young people with the help of organisations such as Chefs in Schools,
more generally, creating a healthy food environment for children and young people by limiting the number of fast foods located near schools,
enabling more people of all ages to walk and cycle by improving pavements, adding pedestrian crossings and creating protected cycle lanes as well as very affordable bike storage.
It won’t be a surprise for anyone who knows me that I think clean air should be prioritised as part of the radical place-based leadership approach that Brent wants to implement. Concretely, that means making space for pedestrians and cyclists - and inevitably reducing the space dedicated to cars by creating Controlled Parking Zones (CPZ) and reducing the amount of parking space.
Getting around on foot and/or by bike is affordable, it’s good for our bodies and minds and it doesn’t create pollution. So it fits perfectly with the vision presented by Kim Wright on Monday - “to make sure that Brent is a place where people feel healthy, happy and safe”.
Many Brent residents are ready for a radical change that would enable them to cycle safely from one place to another in their home borough and keep more of their money in their pockets. Brent leadership needs to be bold and catch up quickly with their legitimate demands.
Brent news worth sharing
💰 Brent councillors to give evidence in House of Commons as they push for ‘urgent gambling reforms’ (Harrow On Line)
🩸Free eco-friendly period products are now available at 16 sites across the borough.
🚃 Plans for new Overground line in west London take major step forward (The Standard)
Events
🚲 Harlesden Mums Who Cycle (co-founded by the author of this newsletter) are organising a Christmas family-friendly bike ride. We’ll meet in Roundwood park (next to the old fountain) at 1.30 pm and we will ride together to Tiverton Green in Queen’s Park - and then back to Roundwood Park. There’ll be some hot chocolate and a few treats to share.
