Like many previous plans, Harrow Council Corporate Plan 2014-15 reads well though its effective implementation in real terms seems less secure because:
Priorities: although the priorities are well defined but the means to achieve these (20 statements) are too many, most are long term processes and can hardly deliver the outcomes like safeguarding vulnerable adults and children in the life of one council as has been the case for the past many years where Harrow has been struggling for prompt, efficient and effective procedures to assess and address special or specific needs, including narrowing the gap in children’s learning.
Community & families: ‘community engagement’ is also a long-term process and essentially needs public confidence gained through the ethos of valuing and treating residents as customers with more and better means to inform/ be informed – for example, a user-friendly website and caring/respectful attitudes from those assessing needs, benefits and entitlements.
Councillors: the plan says that councillors should be ‘leaders in their local community, acting to deliver those things that make a big difference to communities’ -– don’t know what this actully means!
Political parties councillor candidate selection process, political group Whip and the council decisions really being made at the group meetings as well as a highly manipulative ‘cabinet system’ of governance, are not the recipe to develop effective leadership in the councillors or enable them not to tow the party political lines.
Businesses: the two bullet points give little sense of encouraging, promoting and supporting a wider range of businesses – a close study of the Brent’s commercial/ shopping structures could indicate how big, medium and small businesses are successfully catered for.

While many GP practices display the Patient Access posters informing that you could ‘View your health records where ever you are’ and ‘Book GP appointment at any time wherever you can connect to the internet’, the reality is somewhat different.
Many surgeries don’t offer all the following features if not subscribed:

Mostly one GP appointment could be booked and even that becomes impossible if there is already an appointment for other reasons like the blood test or consulting the practice nurse.
Many practices have not subscribed to viewing the medical record and therefore patients cannot avail this very helpful NHS provision.
Previously we have reported that Harrow GP practices are not doing as well as the neighbouring boroughs because Harrow has more GP practices in Band 1 risk. We have also raised concerns about a number of NHS specific issues in Harrow.
Since then, one practice in Rayners Lane has been closed down and a Stanmore practice was assessed ‘inadequate’ (failed to meet the fundamental aspects of good care) by the Care Quality Commission.

Politically Harrow is much quieter expect for the ‘library closures’!
In going for a political kill, Harrow East MP has said nothing about his government’s doings that are responsible for the library crisis in the country. Wonder when Mr Blackman MP used a library last!
“Government is hiding behind the patchwork nature of local government spending cuts, which is covering the true extent of library closures,” said library campaigner Desmond Clarke. “The problem is much bigger and more widespread than the picture at an individual local level suggests.”
Library services are on the brink of disaster and can only be saved if they become more like coffee shops with wi-fi, sofas and hot drinks, according to the Independent Library Report for England, which was commissioned by the Government – – could the council budgets allow these facilities?
A combination of funding cuts and declining attendance threatens the viability of the library network unless urgent action is taken, says the report.
There are 4,145 libraries in the UK, according to Public Library News, down from 4,622 a decade ago. At least 324 libraries have closed since 2011, and about 400 are now run by volunteers.
Moves to hand over library administration to volunteer groups have met with success in some areas but, while Arts Council England has expressed a desire to provide a single point for help and advice for those wanting to run libraries, it has yet to unveil any concrete plan – the Chancellor has not spared the arts council. Therefore, in some cases book loans from libraries taken over by volunteers has halved.
Library campaigners claimed last year that more than 1,000 libraries could be closed by 2016.

Speaking at the Commons on 27 May, London Mayor hopeful Gareth Thomas, MP Harrow West, reminded, “London did not vote for cuts—to our police, our schools or the services our councils provide—on the scale that is set to befall our great city”.
“Londoners need to be able to lead London’s future”, he said.
Considering the diversity in London –- 44.9% White British and 36.7% Asian and Black – what Mr Thomas has not said is that all Londoners should be enabled to decide London’s future to avoid the concerning socio-political situations that have different implications for different groups of Londoners.
For example, there is a London plan in the form of the Mayor of London’s Spatial Development Strategy, but in truth, there hasn’t been a proper London plan for some time.
Therefore, no surprise that while London has economic dominance, it has some of the highest levels of poverty in England, particularly child poverty where 4-10 children live in poverty which is 12% above the national average.
More than half the boroughs in London have over the England average for pupils registered for free schools meals, a deprivation indicator, and it is not uncommon for boroughs to have double the national rate.
London is home to the greatest concentration of poverty in Western Europe. At least two of its boroughs – Hackney and Tower Hamlets – are among the ten most deprived in England.
If London belongs to Londoners, then it has to be for the benefit of its population and not as a powerbase that makes people feel remote from the decisions that affect their lives, as the Chancellor has recently articulated and which he said “is not good for our prosperity or our democracy”.
Given such feelings, perhaps Mr Thomas could consider why not move parliament somewhere more affordable, to a place where MPs won’t need huge housing allowances to be able to live and work while distancing their lives from those of their constituents?
Hope Mr Thomas would have a meaningful agenda, more than a vision, to address the needs of a real London.

So Mr Blackman managed to retain his Harrow East seat not necessarily because of his ability as a MP but because of some local factors:

{credit goes to the Hindu Council UK for honestly informing, “we understand that the National Council of Hindu Temples UK is being investigated over an open letter endorsing the Conservative Party …. we have also read on social media that apparently other leading Hindu organisations have come out against the Labour Party and urging their members to vote for the Conservative Party alone””}

On times, voting because of what a candidate stands for is more important than the party votes where the candidate has serious shortcomings. Insecure, devious and divisive representatives use cheap tactics to gain votes and are only to benefit themselves. They can let down anyone at any time.
Mr Blackman (Con, Harrow East)

Having heard concerns about how Harrow council is ending its S193 duty (a part of Homelessness Legislation) and in the public interest, we made the following Freedom of Information request:
Number of cases each year since the 2010 council year where the Harrow council has said that it has discharged its housing duty under the Housing Act and therefore no duty will be owed to the applicant because they have refused an accommodation offer?
After a chase and well above the 20 days time limit (apparent confusions in and apologies from the housing department), we managed to get the following information:
Number of cases where S193 Duty ended because the offer refused: 11 in 2010-11; 10 in 2011-12 but then 20 in the subsequent years till 2014-15 (part).
This led to further questions:

The council answer to Q1 is that the rise in the upward trend is due to the expectation of customers regarding the quality of the accommodation, for example.
Difficult to believe a sudden increase in the ‘expectation‘ or could it be that in the last few years the properties offered are more of the unacceptable quality?
Very disappointing answer to Q2: “we do hold this information it is not available in the format requested””. The information about how many times a property has been refused could have indicated its overall suitability/ unsuitability.
In view of the council’s inadequate response in this case, the question remains: is the council not in a hurry to cleverly end its duty to the homeless for statistical purposes?
*

We feel sorry for some Harrow MP candidates who do a five-points turning and hit the curb frequently – a local newspapers asked them to give five reasons for their candidacy!
Uma Kumaran (Harrow East, Lab), Chris Noyce (Harrow West, Lib) and Gareth Thomas (Harrow West, Lab) are all Harrow grown candidates who also live in Harrow.
They claim they know Harrow and local issues very well – most likely they do, especially Chris Noyce and Gareth Thomas who have long experience of being a Harrow councillor. Uma Kumaran, not a councillor, is well known to have ample social interaction with the Harrow communities.
Hannah David (Harrow West, Con), not from Harrow, claims she knows Harrow problems and feels to do something about it. For example, that ‘Harrow has a real problem with litter and fly-tipping’ and boosts about her ‘Rubbish Friends campaign’ – sort of council related matters that her Tory group on the council should be dealing with – is she fighting for a parliament or a Harrow council seat?
Bob Blackman (Harrow East, Con) claims ‘I’ve lived in our area for more than fifty years and in that time I’ve been a local councillor’. Well, he lives in Brent where he was a councillor. Such is his geographical knowledge of Harrow that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) has found him guilty of making more than 700 inaccurate mileage claims for travels within his constituency for his so called ‘street surgeries’ and ‘community events’.
His councillorship in Brent: under his 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.
Both Uma Kumaran and Gareth Thomas sharply identify the pressure on Northwick Park that has been alarmingly growing, particularly waiting times at A&E, with a firm commitment to do something about it. Chris Noyce wishes to correct decades of underfunding for mental health treatments.
Hannah David is silent about local NHS problems and Bob Blackman cleverly implies that any funding coming to Harrow projects from the government’s pre-allocated funds for hospitals and schools is somehow his doing as an MP.
Both Bob Blackman and Hannah David talk about an extension of Crossrail that will stop at Harrow & Wealdstone station without showing vision for any adverse affects of such a development.
Not being local, seemingly they don’t know the local history. Wealdstone has been an area of high police focus. Increased railways activity adjacent to the Harrow Town Centre has attracted more outside criminal elements because of easy access. Their wish for the Crossrail and Hannah David’s concern about crime, look unreal in the absence of any mention of the level of cuts seen to the police, with 109 uniformed police lost in Harrow since April 2010.
On the other hand, Gareth Thomas says that he will continue to campaign for a safer community with increased police numbers to tackle anti-social behaviour and crime. While Hannah David boosts Boris Johnson has backed her campaign and has millions of pounds worth of funding available, Bob Blackman says that he has been fighting for desperately needed lifts at local stations – why Boris Johnson who could find millions of pounds for Hannah David has not obliged Mr Blackman? References to the London Mayor look unreal.
Alarming that the political template of these candidates has no space for enhancing and preserving Harrow’s heritage, including its landmarks, landscapes and parks!

Green party candidates seem to be more focussed!