Author Archives: hmgupdated

London Mayoral candidates in place, now a buzz about the candidates for London Assembly elections next year. The Brent and Harrow constituency has never been short of dramatic events. In 2008, Navin Shah (Lab), a Harrow councillor at the time, beat the sitting GLA member Bob Blackman (Con), despite the Brent conservatives were not fullyContinue reading “GLA hopefuls”

While the corporate director community post was advertised internally and externally and an external candidate has been appointed, the corporate director people post has been advertised only internally with a predictable outcome. As expected, an internal candidate has applied for the £135,000 fixed term corporate director people post – most probably the interim corporate directorContinue reading “Council not testing the market for senior management appointments”

“Mental illness affects more of us than cancer. It affects more of us than heart disease or stroke. It affects more of us than diabetes” says the Case for Change report that provides the context for the mental health transformation programme in North West London. The study that has not carried out the Equality ImpactContinue reading “Case for Change?”

“The biggest cause of death in all deprivation bands is circulatory disease and this also shows the biggest inequality gap. The second highest inequality gap is in respiratory disease. The third largest inequality gap is in all cancers” informs the Harrow Clinical Commissioning Group (HCCG).. The prevalence of hypertension, stroke, coronary heart disease and diabetesContinue reading “Health inequality gap”

The council chose to rollout the Straight’s 7 litre kitchen caddy and kerbside caddy (food waste bin) to Harrow properties. Residents use their kitchen caddy to collect food waste in the kitchen and transfer collected waste into their outside kerbside caddy, collected every week. Cllr Henson, responsible for environment, said that everyone in the householdContinue reading “So they have arrived!”

Being neighbouring boroughs with similar population profile and inter community links, Brent and Harrow have opportunities to learn from each other, especially in the field of education. Therefore, an interest whether Harrow could learn from Brent once again, this time from the Brent’s education action plan (2014) based on the recommendations of the Brent EducationContinue reading “Tale of two boroughs!”

Interesting that the twenty six Tory opposition councillors are almost visibly invisible as far as the Harrow council work is concerned, while enjoying the councillor’s allowance. Occasionally Cllr Marilyn Ashton leads the way to come out of such a state of rigor mortis by noteworthy and planning specific letters in a local newspaper, showing herContinue reading “Why Cllr Ashton is not on the planning committee?”

Harrow council has made first appointment under its redone senior management structure. Tom McCourt, Hackney Council’s assistant director of public realm, has been appointed corporate director community. The directorate has responsibility for commissioning services, housing as well as environment, community and culture. Mr McCourt has progressed from a traffic engineer to head of traffic andContinue reading “Council’s new management structure shaping”

A motion before the next Council highlights how the government welfare cuts ‘will detrimentally affect Harrow’s residents’ (Harrow Council for Justice and Harrow Monitoring Group focussed on some of this months ago). Summary: Making 18 – 21 year olds exempt from housing benefit will further hit young people who are struggling to get on theContinue reading “A Council motion that could be argued well”

In responding to an opposition question today, David Cameron, who knows Harrow well, said, “We do need to see more affordable houses – much more needs to be done – encouraging the building industry to come up with innovative schemes”. This should be educational for Harrow East MP Bob Blackman who is opposing the plansContinue reading “Was Blackman at the PM’s question time?”