The report of the recent equalities survey and qualitative interviews of Harrow staff and internal stakeholders on race that focused on racism/ institutional racism at the council as well as the over/under representation of the communities at the staffing level, found the need to ‘develop an action plan and consideration of a follow-up survey to see what progress has been made following this report’.
The most recent iteration of the council’s Workforce Profile:
“The resilience and commitment of staff is key which the senior political and executive leadership team need to tap into and engage around in tackling issues of racism and discrimination” the report points out.
“Following the publication of the Independent Race Review in April, we have engaged with over 230 staff to undertake a process of co-production, to design our approach to tackling racial inequality in Harrow and as a result, producing the council’s first ever, Race Equality Action Plan” said the Harrow Council.
Elsewhere leader of the Harrow council Cllr Graham Henson has said “Diversity is one of our borough’s greatest strengths and we will continue to work to maintain community cohesion so everyone who calls Harrow home can feel safe and welcome.”
Given that achieving community cohesion being an integral part in addressing ‘inequalities’, it is odd that the leader has appointed and defends a cabinet lead for the community cohesion who seems to be unsuitable for the job and claims victimhood when her doings are questioned rather than committing to respect her role and responsibilities.
Cllr Henson was asked a direct question by Cllr Ashton, deputy leader of the opposition, at the Cabinet meeting on 23 September:
“You do have a member of cabinet who’s in charge of community cohesion, who has tweeted that she will take up arms against the Afghan government and its allies (at the time in recent past), and labelled Israel is an apartheid state and spread doubts about the AstraZeneca as presented a vaccine. And so really my supplemental question is, do you condemn or condemn these statements and is this suitable to have someone who has these things and thinks it’s acceptable to tweet these things and think it’s acceptable to have that person in charge of community cohesion?”
The most recent iteration of the council’s Workforce Profile:
“The resilience and commitment of staff is key which the senior political and executive leadership team need to tap into and engage around in tackling issues of racism and discrimination” the report points out.“Following the publication of the Independent Race Review in April, we have engaged with over 230 staff to undertake a process of co-production, to design our approach to tackling racial inequality in Harrow and as a result, producing the council’s first ever, Race Equality Action Plan” said the Harrow Council.
Elsewhere leader of the Harrow council Cllr Graham Henson has said “Diversity is one of our borough’s greatest strengths and we will continue to work to maintain community cohesion so everyone who calls Harrow home can feel safe and welcome.”
Given that achieving community cohesion being an integral part in addressing ‘inequalities’, it is odd that the leader has appointed and defends a cabinet lead for the community cohesion who seems to be unsuitable for the job and claims victimhood when her doings are questioned rather than committing to respect her role and responsibilities.
Cllr Henson was asked a direct question by Cllr Ashton, deputy leader of the opposition, at the Cabinet meeting on 23 September:
“You do have a member of cabinet who’s in charge of community cohesion, who has tweeted that she will take up arms against the Afghan government and its allies (at the time in recent past), and labelled Israel is an apartheid state and spread doubts about the AstraZeneca as presented a vaccine. And so really my supplemental question is, do you condemn or condemn these statements and is this suitable to have someone who has these things and thinks it’s acceptable to tweet these things and think it’s acceptable to have that person in charge of community cohesion?”
Harrow Monitoring Group 
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