Although the Harrow council has not yet provided a contact point* for care and support for the Coronavirus hit residents, including vulnerable, it has published the service status:
*[Westminster council sets good example:
If you are concerned about anyone who you think requires care and support please phone 020 7641 1444 or 020 7641 1175 or email adultsocialcare@westminster.gov.uk
If you or anyone in your household has symptoms you are advised to stay at home. If you are staying at home and need help please email westminsterconnects@westminster.gov.uk]

• Harrow Recycling Centre (closed until further notice)
• playgrounds, outdoor gyms and sports courts in all Harrow Parks (closed until further notice).
• Harrow Leisure Centre, Bannister Sports Centre, and Hatch End Swimming Pool (closed until further notice)
• school children should stay at home to limit the spread of the virus
• Vaughan Neighbourhood Resource Centre (closed until further notice)
• Kenmore Neighbourhood Resource Centre (closed until further notice)
• the Bridge Day Centre (closed until further notice)
• New Bentley Day Care (closed until further notice)
• Wiseworks (closed until further notice)
• all appointments in the council one-stop-shop have been postponed
• elections and Democracy running a limited email service
• allotment services and pitch bookings phone lines closed
• Planning and Building Control phone lines closed
• bins, waste and recycling phone lines closed
• Council Tax phone lines closed
• Business Rates phone lines closed
• Housing running a limited phone line service
• Benefits will continue to operate their phone lines as normal
• Cedars Youth Centre (closed until further notice)
• all Harrow Libraries (closed until further notice)
• Harrow Arts Centre (closed until further notice)
• Headstone Manor Museum (closed until further notice)
• Kingsley High School (closed until further notice)

Source: Harrow council

In responding to the concern about the lack of any obvious Harrow council plans to help and support the residents who are or will be in the government imposed Corona isolation, Paul Hewitt, corporate director people services, simply said “We are taking very seriously our public service duties in this matter”.
On further enquiry to understand what “seriously” means, the council press office sent a link to the Harrow council leader’s generic statement about  the Coronavirus which contains a link to a Harrow council Corona web page.
The leader’s statement and council’s web page broadly repeat information about the medical aspects of the Coronavirus which is already in public domain nationally. These contain no information about how to seek Corona specific care and support from the council.
Such a Harrow council shortcoming is highly concerning considering that at least 16% Harrow population (39,200) is aged 65 and over who are likely to face Corona isolation. Added to this profile, at least 36,677 Harrow children are on free school meals who will be without schooling from this Friday for an indefinite period – many families hit by the school closure are single parent families with or without social services involvement.
It is unbelievable that the Harrow council has failed to adopt Corona specific good practices by some councils – like planning to coordinate schools and community centre kitchens for out of school children, coordinate help and support organised by the community groups and teaming up volunteers to ensure that the council is reaching as many people as possible across the borough.
Another big council failure is not to reassure residents through positive messages – for example, like those well publicised by Westminster council:
[If you are concerned about anyone who you think requires care and support please phone 020 7641 1444 or 020 7641 1175 or email adultsocialcare@westminster.gov.uk
If you or anyone in your household has symptoms you are advised to stay at home. If you are staying at home and need help please email westminsterconnects@westminster.gov.uk ]
Harrow MPs can also play a positive role (instead of issuing meaningless PR emails and tweets) by working with the council to form a well coordinated Corona unit to actively provide care and support for those facing Corona implications.

As the Cabinet Office announces it would be bringing forward legislation to enact the elections delay in England, including the London mayor election, a leaflet from Shaun Bailey, Tory candidate for London mayor, has arrived.
He focuses on the level of crimes in London. Burglaries are up (including in Harrow), knife crime is up and assault is up, he informs. He fails to identify why things are as they are, except blaming Sadiq Khan and his community initiatives for the increase in crime in London.
His derogatory comments about multiculturalism are fresh in minds!
In a 2005 paper titled ‘‘No Man’s Land: How Britain’s inner city young are being failed” for the Centre for Young Policy Studies with support from Institute for Policy Research, he wrote “You bring your children to school and they learn far more about Diwali than Christmas. I speak to the people who are from Brent and they’ve been having Muslim and Hindi (sic) days off. What it does is rob Britain of its community. Without our community we slip into a crime riddled cess pool.”
His long wish list includes more police, re-opening some local police stations, free burglar alarms for over 65, and 24/7 police patrols.
His ‘emergency plan’ looks less credible as it  has no indication of cost or where the money is coming from to implement  it, especially in view of the government cuts which amongst other ills, create environment for crime.

Harrow council informs that a joint operation last month cracked down on rogues, people using the tip from outside the borough and businesses masquerading as residents to dispose of their waste!
Harrow council enforcement officers with the police carried out checks on vehicles recently using the tip on Forward Drive to dispose of waste.
The site had seen a rise in the number of people coming to the tip with no proof they are Harrow residents, provisional licences (with no L plate or instructor) as well as businesses masquerading as residents to avoid paying business rates to use the tip.
Trade waste licences were also being checked. Last month a vehicle driven by a provisional licence holder was seized, and a van trying to evade police – because he was uninsured.
The police also issued advice and warnings relating to offences such as seatbelts and number plates.
What this means is that along with Harrow resident ID, better carry a valid driving license, valid insurance certificate, check that the vehicle used fully complies with  MOT requirements and be prepared for tailbacks.

As expected Brent councillor and a council cabinet portfolio holder Krupesh Hirani won the race, defeating Momentum backed and a socialist Aghileh Djafari-Marbini by 5 votes despite she seemingly suffered triple jeopardy.
Delighted Cllr Hirani is a university graduate in politics and has good experience in the political sector where he held a number of posts.
During the Operation Black Vote Shadowing Scheme Mr Hirani was mentored by David Lammy MP. He seems to have good grip on a variety of socio-political matters, relevant to a wider society.
Though Cllr Hirani is seen more at certain cultural activities, he says he believes in representing all. He informs that he has spent his working life with organisations that support disabled people.
Cllr Hirani is proud of the local area and said: “I have been educated through the Brent state school system and am passionate about the area”.
Tory candidate for the seat is karate champion Molly Irene Samuel-Leport MBE from outside Brent or Harrow.

Over 30% of children in Harrow live in poverty where child poverty is rising to 40% in some wards – but there seems to be no urgency to solve poverty either by public or the authorities.
Harrow council report,  Child Poverty And Life Chances, reports that the poverty rises in some of the more deprived areas of the borough:  Roxbourne has the highest percentage of child poverty levels with 28.5% (before housing costs) rising to 42% after housing cost. Wealdstone, Marlborough, Greenhill, West Harrow, Queensbury and Roxeth have the next highest child poverty levels in the borough.
Harrow is a part of the system where there are 151 billionaires in the UK and 14 million people in poverty, including 4.1 million children in 2017-18 (Commons Briefing papers SN07096 and Child Poverty).
Children from Black and minority ethnic groups are more likely to be in poverty: 45 per cent are now in poverty, compared with 26 per cent of children in White British families, Child Poverty reported.
The Resolution Foundation’s projections suggest child poverty will rise within the next five years, and will be 6 percentage points higher in 2023/24 than in 2016/17: equivalent to an extra 1 million children in poverty, informs the Commons briefing report. This is bound to reflect in the Harrow profile as more and more social housing is provided in the borough.
The Child Poverty Act 2010 required local authorities and their partners to cooperate to tackle child poverty in their local areas but child poverty has never been high on the agenda in Harrow since the Act came into force because Harrow isn’t comparatively deprived at a borough average level.
Although the council budgetary situation does not help to allow to make valuable local connections across services and adequately focus on early intervention and prevention, Harrow has a child poverty action plan based on five priorities [including health and well being of children, support for families with housing, and tackling financial exclusion like debt management, financial literacy, affordable credit and maximise benefit take up].
However, the structure and programme to implement the plan is not impressive.
The Plan has no stated success criteria; for example, in terms of health and educational outcomes.  Actions and progress towards achieving unspecified outcomes is seemingly monitored by the child poverty task group (?) which reports into the health and wellbeing board who seems to have ultimate responsibility for owning the child poverty strategy and action plan.
Many say that the board gives sense of being a talk-shop which mostly notes reports rather than commanding improvement in the services.
Very odd that having identified strong connection between child poverty and child welfare, child poverty is not treated as a safeguarding issue and addressed within the Harrow structure of safeguarding children.

Majority of Harrow schools, including the state funded schools, are achieving higher, and some much higher, results than England average, according to the school performance data published on gov.uk.
However, A-level performance is broadly average.  Average point score per entry and AAB or above with at least two results being in “facilitating subjects”, most valued by top or mid-range universities, are not good enough and below Barnet or Brent.
Harrow leavers (as %) destination to mid-range or top higher education institutions like Oxford, Cambridge and Russell group of universities is therefore less secure which is likely to be a big disappointment for parents/carers who have high expectations of Harrow education.
The sixth form picture is concerning as most pupils move on to university on completion of their A-levels.
Further concern is that while Harrow pupils are generally doing very well up to KS4 and they progress to the sixth form mostly at the same school, why their performance is not sustained at the last stage of their schooling?
The sixth form pupil profile (or general population profile) in Harrow is not much different than that in some neighbouring boroughs which comparatively seem to be doing better.
Regarding the overall quality of the education outcomes in Harrow, healthy comparison could be with next door  Brent: Harrow is not, but Brent was included in the highest performing local authorities in 2017 and in 2018 it was included in best-performing academy trusts. In terms of ranking, Redbridge, Westminster, Brent and Kingston upon Thames were all among those performing above average in 2020.
Overall performance at end of Key Stage 2 (11 yrs) in 2019 – all pupils (58 schools):
At the end of Key Stage 2, 74% Harrow pupils met expected standard compared with 65% for England; and 15% of pupils achieved a higher standard (England 11%).
In 13 primary schools expected standards were much above England average, in 14 well above, in 8 above, 1 below and 2 well below the average – for others no data was available or applicable.
Overall performance at end of key stage 4 (16 yrs) in 2019 – all pupils (25 schools):
At the end of Key Stage 4, 50% Harrow pupils achieved Grade 5 or above in English & maths GCSEs (England 40%). Three high schools achieved much higher than England average; 4 above average and 3 below the average.
Harrow entered more in EBacc (65% – England average of 37%). Most schools entered well above, and two well below average.
The English Baccalaureate (EBacc) is a set of subjects at GCSE that keeps young people’s options open for further study and future careers.
Harrow Progress 8 is higher than England average – 5 schools well above, 2 above, 3 average and 2 below average. Progress 8 is government’s “headline measure” for judging schools. It shows pupils’ progress between primary school and GCSE in eight subjects.
Harrow Attainment 8 score at 50.9 was higher than England average (44.7):  8 schools’ score was above or well above the England average and 3 below the average.
A school’s attainment 8 score is the average of all of its secondary school students’ scores.
No data available or applicable for other school or college.
A level performance at the end of 16 to 18 in 2019 – all students  (23 schools and colleges):
Harrow is okay in A-level performance: achieving Grade C+ (pass 60-64%) in line with England average C+ (average grade: 2 schools had B-, 4 had C+,  2 gaining C and and two D+) but below England average in Point Score (33.14 against England 34).
Harrow A-level results are also below the England average in ‘AAB or higher in at least 2 facilitating subjects’ (12.2 against average 16.5) but slightly above the average in grade and points for a student’s best 3 A levels  (C+ 34.34 against average C+ 33.96).
From the data it appears that Harrow in not doing that well in A-levels at the state funded schools (vast majority academies).
Local authority & HSSE: given (a) the performance variations across the Harrow schools/education phases as well as secondary schools rank fluctuations from year to year, based on public examination results – in a few cases from ‘outstanding’ to a failing category (Ofsted) over time (b) few schools performance below average for long (c) the overall A-level performance dipping to average, Harrow School Standards and Effectiveness (HSSE) team and local authority roles become more challenging in monitoring school performance and ensuring that the schools maintain consistent and high standards across the education phases.
Hope professionals and politicians would work together to regain Harrow’s impressive position in education.

Consultation meeting to improve South Harrow this month gave rise to concerns how well the Neighbourhood Community Infrastructure Levy (NCIL) funds have been used as councillors assertively floated the idea of spending £20k to £30k each on three murals.
An attendee later said that the meeting felt like consultation on a pre-determined outcome –  little was known about NCIL!
The meeting involved councillors, police, residents, community groups and traders.
There appeared uncertainty whether like other councils, for example Brent, can Harrow community groups apply for the funds for the projects they consider more important, for instance those specific to  street furniture, upgrading of park facilities etc?
In helpfully responding to the Harrow Monitoring Group enquiry, David Corby, head of community engagement service, said: “We always welcome projects that will have a wider benefit to the local community.
The Neighbourhood Community Infrastructure Levy (NCIL) offers an opportunity for the council to engage with local communities to help fund small projects to support the local area – such as CCTV, gates for alleyways and improving Town Centres “.
He said the community engagement team engage with local groups to agree on how best to spend NCIL funding through consultation and engagement process such as community champions and park user groups.
Applications can be submitted to the Council’s Community Engagement team at community.engagement@harrow.gov.uk  but the information about NCIL funds or the process for the community groups to apply for the projects are not really publicised. 
The Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) is a levy on new developments to ensure that costs incurred in supporting the local area is funded by owners or developers of land.
Under the CIL Regulations 15% of CIL funds must be spent on projects that take account of the views of the communities in which development has taken place. But the downside is that the ‘view-seeking’ could be subjective, driving towards a pre-determined outcome.
CIL  Income and Expenditure  generally:
The amount of unapplied CIL brought forward from the previous year(s) to 2018-19 was £5,562,410 (comprising £3,926,240 borough CIL and £1,636,170 neighbourhood CIL).
A total of £14.5m of Harrow CIL has been received since 2013/14. Taking into account the 51 College Road infrastructure agreement, this increases to £17.8m.
Total expenditure or agreed allocation of borough CIL on infrastructure projects is £10.4m, or circa 89.5% of borough CIL receipts (£11.6m). Including the 51 College Road infrastructure agreement / new central library, this increases to £13.7m or 91.7%of total borough CIL receipts (£14.9m).
This expenditure is mostly on public realm improvements and parks / open space, and some capital programme.
Total expenditure or agreed allocation of neighbourhood CIL on infrastructure projects is £381,227, or 17.5% of total neighbourhood CIL receipts (£2.2m), mostly on public realm improvements or developing certain areas like Squares.
Harrow could do more to develop well publicised process for inviting community groups to apply for the projects under NCIL – Brent is a good example.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has instructed councils to fly the union flag on February 19 to mark Prince Andrew 60th birthday.
Some councils have already rejected the instructions being “wholly inappropriate in the prevailing circumstances“.
Harrow civic centre needs not to take any notice of the government’s directive as they have the right facility and do fly the union flag every morning anyway!
Andrew stepped down from royal public life in November after his disastrous Newsnight appearance, and the Queen cancelled her son’s formal birthday celebrations soon after.
The interview was criticised for showing a lack of compassion for sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein’s victims and failing to show regret over his friendship with Epstein.
Virginia Giuffre, formerly Virginia Roberts, claims she was trafficked by convicted sex offender Epstein and alleges the duke slept with her, including when she was a minor under US law.
Prince Andrew, who denies the allegations, is facing calls to talk to the FBI and US prosecutors.

Momentum backed Aghileh Djafari-Marbini (photo with Corbyn) and Brent councillor Krupesh Hirani are on the One Member One Vote ballot where the party members will decide who will be the Labour candidate representing Brent and Harrow. Voting will commence on 5th February.
Aghileh Djafari-Marbini, a socialist, mum, school governor, NHS worker and resident of North West London for the last 20 years, believes that Londoners need an Assembly that fights the inequalities and injustices in their city and works for all.
She recalls seventy-two fellow citizens burned to death in Grenfell Tower and over 87,000 children in London are homeless, and says that the savage Tory cuts have decimated our youth services and damaged our town centres.
“Now more than ever London needs a City Hall with a socialist vision and the energy to engage people across the city” she says.
It would be interesting to see how well she is supported by those less keen on Momentum or Corbyn.
Labour is going through the selection process because Navin Shah, the sitting assembly member with over 20,000 majority, has decided to step down.  Navin Shah has retained the seat since 2008 when he defeated Tory member Bob Blackman, now controversial MP for Harrow East (Navin Shah came very close to defeat him at the last general election).
Brent councillor and a council cabinet portfolio holder Krupesh Hirani (photo), university graduate in politics, has good experience in the political sector where he held a number of posts.
During the Operation Black Vote Shadowing Scheme Mr Hirani was mentored by David Lammy MP. He seems to have good grip on a variety of socio-political matters, relevant to a wider society.
Though Mr Hirani is seen more at certain cultural activities, he says he believes in representing all. Mr Hirani informs that he has spent his working life with organisations that support disabled people.
Mr Hirani is proud of the local area and said: “I have been educated through the Brent state school system and am passionate about the area”.
Two Harrow councillors, both previous Harrow mayors, failed to reach the final stage of the selection process.
Tory candidate for the seat is karate champion Molly Irene Samuel-Leport MBE from outside Brent or Harrow.