Harrow council prides itself for being one of a minority of councils in the UK that is ‘not expecting to raid its financial reserves next year’ – despite facing massive cutbacks in government funding.
Cllr Sachin Shah, leader of Harrow Council, said, “I take being careful with your money very seriously. Reserves are for emergencies. That’s why we are cutting our cloth to what we’ve got”.
But opposition leader councillor Paul Osborn questions the council leader’s budget assertion.
“In their Final Revenue Budget 2018/19 which they approved at Cabinet and Council in February, it makes it clear that the only reason they have not touched the reserves this year is because they are not allowed to do so” says Cllr Osborn.
In his budget statement, Cllr Sachin Shah also said, “We are making hard choices every day. Some councils, like Northamptonshire, have run out of money – with disastrous consequences. Our job is to make sure that doesn’t happen in Harrow.”
In responding to the council leader’s stated approach to keep the council in a healthy financial state, Cllr Osborn points out overspend in this year’s budget, resulting  in running down reserves as the Quarter 3 figures in the budget show ‘a draw down from reserves of £2.815m’.
Commenting on the appropriateness  of the administration’s financial decisions, Cllr Osborn said, “They have run the reserves down to a minimum whilst also making Harrow residents pay £421 more on average on Council tax since Labour took control of the Council”.
“They have not been careful with public money and cannot be trusted to do so” he added.
Like many local authorities, Harrow Council has raised Council Tax this year by 2.99% plus 0.5% in a government-authorised precept to pay for rising costs of adult social care.

It looks that some opposition councillors with little knowledgeable of planning matters are making most noises in Harrow that ‘Labour cannot be trusted on planning’, all because these Tory councillors don’t like the developments needed to meet the challenge of housing shortage in the borough.
They seem to be more interested in point-scoring rather than appreciating the housing needs in Harrow.
According to the recent information from the Harrow council, there are 329 homeless in temporary accommodation in the borough and 47 outside borough. Total on waiting list for council accommodation as at 07/12/17 was 1995 – average waiting time for being re-housed in permanent accommodation could be anything up to eleven years.
It is interesting that the Tory councillors on the Harrow planning committee can vote against a planning application but cannot produce good reasons for a refusal, using the local, regional or national planning policies, when needed to overturn officer recommendation to grant a planning permission (pity that the planning-able Tory councillor who could effectively do so has been kept away from the planning committee by some in her group since her return to the council in a 2011 by-election).
Similarly their attack on London Mayor for granting some housing developments is immature.
According to London Councils’ analysis of housing statistics from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and Greater London Authority, 526,000 new homes are needed to be built between 2011 and 2021 in London just to keep up with current housing demand.
It is easy to outcry ‘green belt’ but building on just 25% of the green belt land inside the M25 would allow for just over one million new homes to be built. This would be a substantial gain in the current housing crisis.
[Green belt is not necessarily open countryside; green belt designation is an issue of policy and not necessarily always applicable to the wider countryside].
It can only be good that Harrow council plans to build almost 6,000 new homes during 2017-2022. Numbers of anticipated houses and sites as per LBH housing plans, 2017-22, are – to maximise the use of available land and to attract developers, tower blocks are unavoidable.

News is coming  that Harrow councillor Pamela Fitzpatrick has been selected as Labour parliamentary candidate for the Harrow East constituency.
Amongst others, Cllr Fitzpatrick enjoyed support from the key trade unions, Labour party Momentum as well as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell MP who came to Harrow to endorse her at an event and said, “Jeremy and I would be proud to see Pamela in Parliament alongside us”.
The result indicates the end of Tony Blair era of Labour right in Harrow and increased hold of those who firmly believe in social justice.
Cllr Fitzpatrick says she is a community activist and a proud trade unionist, and that as Chair of the Harrow Labour Group on the council, she has witnessed the ‘brutal consequences of austerity and privatisation on our communities’.
Cllr Fitzpatrick adds that as director of the Harrow Law Centre and chair of the National Law Centres umbrella group, she has focused on ensuring that justice remains accessible to all.
Cllr Fitzpatrick believes that Harrow East needs someone who will resist unlawful eviction rulings for working class families, and break down the divides between politicians and the community.
Harrow East is a traditional marginal seat between Labour and the Conservatives, and has remained so despite the growing numbers of Asian voters. The constituency also has the sixth highest proportion of Jewish residents of any seat in the country.
Cllr Fitzpatrick stands for social justice for all which is important considering that the sitting MP Bob Blackman uses the divisive politics to exploit the foreign situations like Kashmir and Palestine to secure votes from the Indian and Jewish background communities.
In a motion last year, Harrow council condemned Mr Blackman for hosting a divisive Indian Hindu-nationalist at an event at the UK Parliament.
Mr Blackman’s majority was heavily slashed by Labour at the last general election.

In deciding its 2018-19 budget last week, Harrow Council agreed that the authority will not spend beyond its means in the coming year.
Therefore, like most local authorities across the country, Harrow Council also raised council tax this year. The rate is rising by 2.99% plus 0.5% in a government-authorised precept to pay for rising costs of adult social care.
In the council election year, many UK councils use their reserves to overspend and keep council tax down to keep the voters happy but Harrow did not! Such a bold step indicates that Labour is confident to retain the council without bribing for votes.
As part of the budget, Harrow Council will provide £9 million in new spending for the most essential services that the borough’s most vulnerable residents rely on. This includes almost £3 million for children’s services and nearly £6 million for adults and social care.
“We believe Harrow people want to care for the vulnerable and make our borough clean – and we will continue to devote our efforts to those causes, within our means” said the council leader Cllr Sachin Shah.
Harrow has announced £7.4 million of budget savings – partly found by reducing services and funding to external organisations, and partly found through back-office cutbacks and creative and innovative ways of making the council more efficient.

Contrary to Harrow East MP Bob Blackman spread that the UK economy is good under Tories, the UK economy expanded by less than previously thought in the last three months of 2017, official figures say.
The UK’s year-on-year growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2017 was 1.4%, making it the slowest growing of the world’s wealthy nations.  The UK is also growing more slowly than the Eurozone and is last among the major economies.
GDP grew by 0.4% in the October-to-December period, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, down from the initial estimate of 0.5%.
One significant problem for the UK has been a lack of productivity growth since the financial crisis of 2007.
Despite the ONS highlighting slow growth in production industries, Bob Blackman tweets and re-tweets have been propagating that ‘manufacturing output is now at its highest level’.
In 2017 as a whole, the economy grew by 1.7%, also slightly lower than previously thought and the weakest since 2012.
But  again the divisive MP Bob Blackman (photo) who is in panic because of the possibility of a Harrow East Labour parliamentary candidate who is equally popular amongst his targeted communities that he cleverly exploits,  wrongly asserts that the Tories continue to create a ‘strong resilient UK economy’.
The national economical situation hits part of Harrow hardest.
Harrow has a population of 247,130 people with significant pockets of deprivation mainly around the centre, the south and east of the borough, and least deprived areas being in the north and west of the borough.
The government austerity measures and welfare cuts have hardened the deprivation in the wards like Roxbourne, Greenhill, Marlborough and Wealdstone which also has the highest level of employment and income deprivations in the borough.

Labour is in the final stages of selecting its female only parliamentary candidate for Harrow East.
Two out of the three candidates shortlisted are Harrow councillors. Both are canvassing well, using the social media and individualised social event.
Kiran Ramchandani says she has spent her whole life fighting for social justice – at a housing association in the UK, in international development, and now as a local councillor in Queensbury.
“I couldn’t be prouder to have received the endorsement of my union, the GMB, to be Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Harrow East” said Cllr Ramchandani. The GMB is one of the three largest affiliates to the Labour Party.
Cllr Ramchandani is also supported by Jewish socialists – after her visit to Israel, she said, “I’ve long considered myself a friend of Israel”.
She assures that by working together, we can win here and help deliver a Labour government that will make Jeremy Corbyn’s radical manifesto a reality for everyone.
Pamela Fitzpatrick says she is a community activist and a proud trade unionist, and that as Chair of the Harrow Labour Group on the council, she has witnessed the ‘brutal consequences of austerity and privatisation on our communities’.
Cllr Fitzpatrick adds that as director of the Harrow Law Centre and chair of the National Law Centres umbrella group, she has focused on ensuring that justice remains accessible to all.
Cllr Fitzpatrick believes that this constituency needs someone who will resist unlawful eviction rulings for working class families, and break down the divides between politicians and the community.
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell MP came to Harrow to endorse Pamela Fitzpatrick at an event and said, “Jeremy and I would be proud to see Pamela in Parliament alongside us”.
Whoever wins the candidacy on 25^th this month, needs to assure inclusiveness and work hard to undo the adverse impact of the divisive politics of the sitting MP Bob Blackman (photo) who takes side to secure certain votes.
Harrow East has a large Asian population, mostly Indian and Hindu. It also has the sixth highest proportion of Jewish residents of any seat in the country.

Parents of young children with minor illnesses should take them to pharmacies rather than GPs or A&E, says NHS England’s Stay Well Pharmacy campaign that urges people to visit their local pharmacist first to help save the NHS money.
While there is such a high national emphasis on the role of pharmacists, the Harrow clinical commissioning group (HCCG) does not provide an opportunity for Harrow pharmacists to broaden their scope in the community through minor ailment scheme.
The aim of the Minor Ailment Service (MAS) is to support the provision of direct pharmaceutical care on the NHS by community pharmacists to members of the public for some common illness.
Dr Bruce Warner, deputy chief pharmaceutical officer for NHS England, said: “Pharmacists are highly trained NHS health professionals who are able to offer clinical advice and effective treatments for a wide range of minor health concerns right there and then.”
In Harrow, like elsewhere, the Harrow CCG has the commissioning responsibilities but with a difference that the walk-in centres and some GP practices, seemingly more represented at the Harrow CCG level,  are commissioned for the sort of MAS that the pharmacies could provide – also read about the conflict of interest  [1], [2].
We glen serious concerns from the local pharmacists that far from having the opportunity to broaden their scope in the community, there seems to be a systematic process in favour of the walk-in clinics and GP enterprise.

It looks that Lakshmi Kaul, a Tory candidate for 2018 council election, has been missing from the Tory canvassing activities for long – withdrawn from the political activities, including the Queensbury ward activities?
We previously raised the question whether she, who is far more active in the Indian nationalistic politics, was selected for the diverse and harmonious Queensbury ward because of her position as the ‘assistant’ to Harrow East divisive MP Bob Blackman at the time.
Most probably Ms Kaul helped Mr Blackman’s grip on her community and Mr Blackman helped Ms Kaul’s  access to the British politics. It looks that the greedy political deal is off.
Following Ms Kaul’s possible departure from the Harrow political scene, and after Mr Blackman was exposed for hosting a far right Indian nationalist, a big coincidence that he is apparently missing from the Indian high commissioner’s usual invites at the cultural/ religious events – perhaps a message for him to slow down his apparently over-done and chauvinistic Indian support rhetoric, an embarrassment for the Indian officials?
For example, following the nationally known Harrow council resolution condemning Mr Blackman for inviting an Indian extremist to an event at the UK Parliament, most probably facilitated by his equally divisive assistant, Indian background community leaders have spoken out.
We expect that Ms Kaul’s name would be removed from the Tory action team for the Queensbury ward soon or if the name remains, it would only be in a ‘paper candidate’ sense!
If what we understand is right, then we thank the Harrow East Tories for listening to us!

Good to see the Harrow’s first community mental health workshop on 31 January this year. The workshop was widely publicised.
The event was run in partnership with Thrive LDN, a citywide movement for mental health, supported by the Mayor of London. Community members including health professionals and faith leaders heard about the six aspirations of Thrive and how to achieve them in Harrow.
Sharing his experience of the workshop, Harrow Council interim chief executive Tom Whiting said, “We heard some great ideas for improving Harrow’s mental health, including something as simple as just smiling at each other more.”
Along with the local initiatives like this workshop, Central North West London NHS Foundation Trust which provides a wide range of mental health to borough of Harrow has also improved from being in the failing category in 2015 (for mental health provisions) to being overall good last year (the rating for acute ward for adults of working age and the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, although changed from inadequate to requires improvement, is still not good).
“In February 2015, we rated one of the sixteen core service as inadequate and a further two of the sixteen core service as requires improvement. At this inspection we found the trust had worked to make improvements and the trust had taken action to meet the requirement notices issued following the February 2015 inspection” said the Care Quality Commission.
The CNWL had previously identified several points ‘Must Dos’ for Harrow mental health teams, including:
• promote the privacy (phone calls) and dignity of patients
• reduce the number of times that patients are moved to other wards to sleep for non-clinical reasons, staff must ensure that a thorough handover takes place to promote continuity of care and patients must only be moved at reasonable times so that they are not adversely affected
• make sufficient staff available to work as care co-ordinators

Harrow council says that the installation of speed cameras is the responsibility of Department for Transport (DfT) and not the council but in any case the criteria for installing the cameras on Camrose Avenue are not met.
A petition containing 168 signatures presented to the council meeting on 30th November 2017 expressed concerns about speeding on the Camrose Avenue in the Edgware Ward and asked  for two speed cameras, one each way on Camrose Avenue between the church in Camrose Avenue and the traffic lights.
A report before the Traffic and Road Safety Advisory Panel on 8 February 2018 informs that for the speed cameras to be considered they are required to meet strict DfT guidelines and are only located at sites where there have been three or more fatal or serious speed related personal injury collisions within the last three years. The accident record for this location would therefore not justify a case for a speed camera.
Other types of road safety improvements are generally carried out by the Council at locations where the number of accidents involving personal injury is higher than average and where an analysis of the accident patterns indicates that changes to the road layout could improve the situation.
The council has examined the most up to date injury accident data  for the whole length of Camrose Avenue and the report concludes that “compared to other areas, Camrose Avenue has a good road safety record”.
Residents are advised to contact the local police safer neighbourhood team if concerned about speeding traffic as the police is responsible for enforcing speed limits on the public highway and may be able to advise of any initiates they may have planned in the area.