Tory group leader Cllr Hall has used the Tax Payers’ Alliance list of the council managers whose remuneration exceeded £100,000 to defend why her “previous administration abolished the expensive Chief Executive role”.
After the Labour regained the council last year, they restored the chief executive post that was “unilaterally and wrongly” deleted by the short-lived Cllr Hall’s administration – a fluke, forcing the chief executive Michael Lockwood to go.
Many say that the deletion of the chief executive’s post was not for the financial reasons but seemingly because of the ‘Punch and Judy’ style leadership of the Tory group.
Such was the nature of the show that the members of the Tory group were seemingly instructed not to attend the chief executive’s leaving party in any noticeable numbers to demonstrate that the leaving chief executive is not popular and would not be missed.
The other named officer on the list is the former corporate director of place shaping Andrew Trehern who remained on the Tory hate list seemingly because he had no appetite for some lead Tory councillors.
Both of these officers are known for their appreciation for the Harrow’s diverse community.
Cllr Hall seems to have wider unforgiveness: “we’ve noticed some senior officers have already been given new positions after their old ones were abolished” she said.
Chris Spencer, Harrow Interim Corporate Director, People whose previous post was deleted was the candidate who applied through the internal advertisement and has now been appointed as Corporate Director, People.

Central North West London NHS Foundation Trust says it will deliver mental health services in line with Harrow Council’s vision as the services ‘require improvement’ (a concerning category).
Reporting to the Harrow Health and Wellbeing Board on 5 November, Tanya Paxton, Harrow Borough Director of CNWL informed that the trust will provide safe and integrated care within the borough and all Harrow residents will be able to access mental health services.

The Care Quality Commission inspection of CNWL early this year found the area of greatest concern related to safety and responsiveness on the acute wards for adults of working age which were rated as inadequate (very concerning category).
The inspection also found that the services responsive to people’s needs require improvement (lesser concerning category).

For example, the pressure on acute beds meant that wards were over-occupied and there was not always a bed for patients and they slept on sofas or a temporary bed was used.
The 14 points ‘Must Dos’ for Harrow teams, include:
• 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
‘Should Dos’ for Harrow teams include:
• reduce 5 week waiting times for patients to be assesses
• further training for staff to support patients with personality disorders

This Shelter leaflet reminds that the next Mayor of London can build the homes that our children will be able to afford.

Demand for housing in Harrow is increasing, particularly as the changes to welfare benefits affect people who live both in affordable housing (renting from the council or a housing association) and private rented housing.
While there is a firm commitment by the Labour London Mayoral as well as Brent and Harrow London Assembly candidates to build more affordable homes, not sure about the Tory candidates except that Harrow East MP Bob Blackman has joined a group of campaigners in voicing his opposition to plans for 318 new homes on the former post office site in College Road, Harrow.
“The political game he is playing with his chums in Government will at the very least delay the supply of these much needed homes” said Cllr Glen Hearnden, Housing Portfolio Holder.
“To stop the building of affordable housing is criminal given the housing crisis affecting many of our residents” he added.

Shelter has organised a petition for more affordable homes and it can be signed here

David Cameron’s overreaction to the tax credits defeat in the Lords – promising a “rapid review” of the relationship between the Lords and the Commons – is a matter of concern for all democrats among us.
But this is not likely the reason why the Harrow East MP Bob Blackman voted to support a backbench motion from Labour MP Frank Field which called for the Government to “reconsider the effect on the lowest paid workers of its proposed changes to tax credits”.
He must have known that the government was not going to oppose the motion as they remained abstained.
In situations like this, usually the party whip allows space for their vulnerable MPs to impress their voters by staging a drama of defying the whip.
And of course, the Brent & Harrow London Assembly and London Mayoral elections are next year!
Under the tax credit, the state tops up the wages of the low paid, giving them an incentive to stay in work.
It is not Mr Blackman’s doing but the work of the Lords that an estimated 3.2 million families will be spared the miserable pre-Christmas shock of losing more than £100 a month (on average) that the government had in store for them.

My Community E-Purse project (MyCeP), went live in Harrow for all new service users in September 2014, provides an online personal budget and support planning tool that enables the users to receive a personal budget and purchase services from hundreds of providers, all in one place using a PayPal electronic e-purse.
Like other councils, Harrow council offers Personal Budget to all those eligible for social care support from the council, including people with mental health needs.
The E-Purse users can buy services like shopping, domestic services, prescription collection, and sitting and sleep in services.
“Harrow council has had a lot of interest in this model (project) and it is held up as an example of what can be achieved when focusing on the needs of the customer” said Cllr Anne Whitehead, adult and older people portfolio holder.
Since September 2014, there have been 716 users of MyCeP while there are an estimated 4000 potential users of the services and an estimated 8400 residential/nursing self-funders in Harrow. There are an estimated 24,000 unpaid carers as well.
A significant majority of the users since September 2014 are 65+ and 51.2% are from the Asian or Asian British background.
“The E-Purse initiative is good but more work is needed to reach out elderly, particularly the Asian elders, because of their limited computer literacy, access to the internet and online buying experience” said Kanti Nagda, a community leader who has been facilitating social care services from the long established Sangat Advice Centre in Harrow.
Things could improve as the assistant director Chris Greenway, head of safeguarding assurance & quality services adults social care, said that following the initial pilot phase, the E-Purse was introduced to all new community based clients and is gradually being rolled out to the existing community based clients.
“We are also developing the system to be able to broaden its appeal by offering all residential and nursing care clients a Personal Budget using MyCeP” Mr Greenway said. “We aim to introduce this functionality by April 2016” he added.
The project with 11 staff and costing £160,000, has saved £3m since the tool was introduced in 2012 as it reduces the need to generate invoices and pay the relevant supplier of the services.
The introduction of increased cap and raised threshold that determines whether a person is entitled to financial support will bring a significant new range of people into the local authority social care system, who previously planned and funded their care themselves.

Following the report ‘Shaky confidence in Harrow CCG transparency’, the under secretary of state for care quality Ben Gummer MP has noted concerns about a potential conflict of interest when awarding primary care services contracts by the CCGs.
Given the following information (mostly through the FoI process), a reassurance by the chair of the Harrow Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) is needed to promote public confidence that conflicts are well managed, and measures are in place to ensure transparency at the local level when making commissioning decisions.
The clinical directors on the CCG board (chair in £90-95K and others in £50-55K brackets) are responsible for leading the CCG’s business, making decisions on behalf of the CCG and contributing to or leading on addressing poor provider performance and service decommissioning. These pathways also enable delivering the CCG’s out of hospital strategy.
At least three clinical directors are from the practices that are shareholders of the services provider Harrow Health Limited, based at the Pinn Medical Centre. They are not only members of the Harrow CCG board, including its chair and vice-chair, but also the voting members at Harrow Health and Wellbeing Board, including its vice-chairman.
The CCG chair is the senior partner in the Pinn Medical Centre.
The Pinn Medical Centre provides walk-in primary care service seven days a week, and Alexandra Avenue, a part of Ridgeway surgery whose partner is involved with the Harrow Health Limited and is a member of the Harrow CCG, offers weekend walk-in service.
The performance of Harrow CCG clinical directors, including those involved with the Harrow Health, is appraised by the CCG chair who is a part of the Harrow Health as well.

Ambiguous traffic signs about restricted right turn at the junction of Gayton Road and Station Road, Harrow set in confusion.
Any vehicle, other than those permitted, seen contravening the regulation is recorded and subsequently served with a penalty charge notice (PCN) at a £65 charge which rises to £130 if not paid within 14 days. This location generates significant revenue for the council.
Such is the situation that one Harrow resident was issued five PCNs within a short period for innocently failing to comply with the prohibited right turn sign.
Although the signs for the restricted right turn are mounted, the right turn sign marked on the road, which is more readily noticed and followed by the drivers, is quite tempting and invites a right turn!
Not much point in drawing the drivers attention to the Highway Code since showing the combination of two opposing marking, i.e. ‘no right’ sign posted and ‘right turn’ on the road, is not an illustration in the Highway Code.
Moreover, the right turn marking on the filter lane is just the same as elsewhere. There is no indication on the right turn road marking of it being restricted to certain vehicles.
It is common to mark speed limit and other warning signs on the road, why then this is not practised in this case?
Harrow council needs to address such an ambiguity and sympathetically consider any appeals against the PCNs issued for mistakenly taking a right turn at this junction under somewhat misguided circumstances.

We understand that on Monday an incident took place at the Civic Centre where there was significant criminal damage to the building.
The entrance door and several windows at the front of the building were smashed and a parked police car was set alight.
A 40 year old male has been arrested and is in custody in a police station in north London.
We are waiting for the police confirmation.

The area has been made safe and the repairs are in progress. The Civic Centre is open as usual with no changes to services.

The achievement gap between the disadvantaged children and others in Harrow schools fluctuates but has remained a matter of serious concern.
Following is an emerging pattern (source):
A typical 17% gap in achieving the National Curriculum level 4 (average for 11 years old) in 2014 in a high achieving primary school and somewhat lower gap in a low achieving school.

The gap between the most disadvantaged children and the rest begins from as early as 22 months, depending on the socio-economic circumstances of the family.
The gap increases in the secondary schools – a typical 28% gap in 5 GCSEs grades A*-C including English and Maths in 2014, in a high achieving school. The gap remains concerning in a low achieving school.
The government defined disadvantaged children are those on free schools meals (FSM) or looked after or adopted for care.
The educational attainment data for the Corporate Parenting Panel informs that no Looked After Children (CLA) attained 5 GCSEs grades A*-C including English and Maths, despite that 84% of CLA are in ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ schools. Furthermore, none of the GCSE age CLAs are on track for 5 or more A-C*GCSEs.
“As of September 2015, there are 52 pupils in Key Stage 5. 21% (11/52 pupils) are ‘Not Participating in Education, Employment or Training’ (NEET). This is not satisfactory as national averages for 16-18 year olds is 15.7%”, alerts the report.

The expectations might be low but the disadvantaged children are not necessarily less able. The learning gaps developed in a classroom, are very difficult to bridge by the activities outside that classroom.

However, following a period of instability and interim arrangements, now an experienced Virtual Headteacher is in post since 1 July 2015 who has presented a promising Harrow Virtual School End of Year Report with strategies to improve the CLA performance by enabling and influencing the schools, and working closely with the well established Harrow School Improvement Partnership (HSIP) .

Good to see an education practitioner in the CLA structure that is over driven by statistics rather than the quality.

At the Conservatives London Assembly hustings, Brent Councillor Joel Davidson defeated Harrow Councillor Ameet Jogia by 17 votes, despite Cllr Jogia was heavily promoted by the Harrow East MP Bob Blackman and his associates, primarily to block Brent candidates.
The newly selected candidate for the Brent and Harrow GLA constituency is from a Conservative split group – the ‘Brent Conservative’, recognised by the Conservative party. His reported performance at the hustings was mature and much better.
Councillor Joel Davidson represents the Brondesbury Park ward along with his group leader Cllr Warren and deputy leader Cllr Carol Shaw whose sour relationships with Mr Blackman hit the national headlines. The other group of three is from Kenton, and are well supported by Harrow East Conservatives.
Under Mr Blackman’s leadership of the Conservative group at the Brent council, the number of the Tory councillors went down from 31 in 1990 to 15 in 2006 and 6 in 2010, seemingly due to the unpleasantness within the Tory ranks – a situation similar to Harrow under Cllr Hall’s leadership.
The divide amongst the six Tory councillors is so toxic now that the leader of the Brent council (Lab) had to write to the chairman of the Conservative Party to intervene.
Like the Tory candidate for Brent and Harrow constituency in 2012, who was a Barnet councillor and heavily defeated the Harrow candidates, Cllr Joel Davidson is unlikely to have a warm welcome by the Harrow Conservatives, music for the Labour candidate, the sitting assembly member Navin Shah.
Such is the lack of interest in and enthusiasm for Cllr Joel Davidson success that there is hardly any publicity of his well deserved win.