Council 4

Mayor Lutfur Rahman gave his report to the Council (the Council voted, after he was elected, that he should have five minutes to report to each Council meeting).  Mayor Rahman went briefly through the “Pickles process”, pointing out that the PwC report had found no wrongdoing but some weaknesses – and he considered Eric Pickles’s response was disproportionate and often not in response to anything covered in the report.  He stressed that Tower Hamlets had in fact done very well in delivering the vast bulk of its services.
He also spoke about the latest developments in the borough which would deliver social  homes, as he had promised.  The Cabinet had recently agreed to expand Olga School.  Housing and education were the important services in the borough which people cared about, more than petty political point scoring.
Mayor Rahman said the Council would work with Sir John Cass to deal with Ofsted concerns.  The Council had little power over the independent schools, but would help them where it could.  There had been an educational awards ceremony last night, and the new Bow School had opened last month.  Investing in education continues to be a priority.
The Whitechapel project was going well and would help deliver positive improvements.
Mayor Rahman paid his condolences to the family of the cyclist killed on Monday, whom he had visited earlier this week.

Cllr Saunders spoke on behalf of the Labour Party.  Labour had not forced the mothers to petition the Council over cuts to nurseries.  It was not racist to comment on the fact that PwC had found causes of concern.  She welcomed those asking public questions, many of whom had stood as Tower Hamlets First candidates.  (Maybe she has forgotten the appearance by former Cllr Doros Ullah, who has begun commenting in the press as a “former mayor”.) She then moved that motion 12.3 should be taken now, before the Tory Leader got to make his reply to the Mayor’s report.

Cllr Peter Golds moved the motion 12.3.  He stressed that Tower Hamlets was exceptional because there were problems with governance rather than service delivery (as had been the case in other councils).  He stressed that there was nothing islamophobic about the action being taken against Tower Hamlets.  He said that the PwC report had found so much maladministration, it needed looking into – he conceded that the Commissioners, if sent in, would not look at front line services, but he thought there was still plenty for them to do.

Cllr Chris Chapman pointed out that Labour and Tory MPs supported the PwC report.  Only George Galloway MP had been tabled in support of this Administration, which he didn’t think amounted to much.  (He has not asked where the MPs who spoke got their information from, nor has he said whether the commissioners are a proportionate response.)

Cllr Rachel Saunders spoke to an amendment she had tabled.  She stressed that grants had been taken away from worthy organisations in her ward and given to “richer organisations who needed it less”.  She condemned the Mayor for spending money on lawyers – making a “joke” that the mayor had probably spent more time in court since he had been elected mayor than he did when he was a solicitor.  That is probably true: solicitors, after all, don’t go to court often – barristers tend to do that.  Cllr Shiria Khatun seconded Cllr Saunders’s amendments.  She blamed the mayor’s “misdemeanours” for leading to the commissioners being brought in.  She was concerned that the Mayor had gone against officer recommendations as this had led to grants going to organisations which they should not have gone to.  She wondered whether the mayor had made these wrong decisions because he had enjoyed too many Irish coffees.

Another Labour Councillor then said something about money being better spent on services than various things the mayor did. Another Tory Councillor then spoke about a Council building in Mellish Street which he thought was operating as a secret mosque.  He said the Muslim population needed a place to pray but the Council could not provide a religious facility.  He said the population of the Isle of Dogs would probably triple in the near future and perhaps some of the new buildings could offer multi-purpose community facilities.  He did not seem to understand the community centre nature of mosques.

Cllr Joshua Peck said the mayor could have spoken about how we could all go forward together: rules allowed him to speak, but he would probably put his head in the sand.  He and Cabinet Members had no answer other than to say everything was racist – the Labour Party, the BBC, Eric Pickles.  He said the last four years had had a bad effect on the officer corps in the boroughs – the maladministration in the PwC could only have happened with officers acquiescing.  For example, officers had hidden papers from O&S.  He had raised concerns about Offcom finding that the Council had paid for a party political broadcast, officers had told him Offcom did not regulate the Council.  Officers had helped the Mayor subvert the budget.  He understood these officers had been under pressure to support the mayor because they probably had no other jobs to go to, but it was still not acceptable.  We need a totally different approach from senior officers who need to recognise where they have gone wrong and we need to support officers who have been pressured to behave as they have.

Cllr Julia Dockerill said people in Wapping have little faith about how things are done in this Chamber.  She said Tower Hamlets had been investigated because of concerns expressed in this Chamber.  She quoted the PwC report, where it stated that there was insufficient documentation of variation in grant giving.  She thought the PwC report was hard evidence, but she also had heard anecdotes about unfairness in grant giving.  Poor grant giving broke the Community’s trust and we needed a whole new system.  Grants were given from taxpayers’ money.  There were concerns that big changes would lead to a bottleneck in funding, but she thought the mayor had to respect the need to change.

Cllr Rabina Khan referred to Eric Pickles, calling us, in the House of Commons, a “rotten borough”.  That was an insult to the people of the borough and our heritage.  The higher the barriers grow in Parliament, the higher the people in this borough will grow to overcome them.

Cllr John Pearce said he was disappointed because the mayor had not taken the opportunity to explain the grants process.  He quoted examples of groups who had received grants.  He thought the mayor was using taxpayers’ money and buildings to persuade people to vote for him, which was wrong.

Cllr Chowdhury replied, saying that this motion was a pantomime.  Councillors should focus on the facts, not rhetoric.  The PcW audit was supposed to be a best value review (though Pickles did look at publicity and other things too).  Councillors have to work with officers, not just rubber stamp what officers do.  He thought it was wrong that Cllr Peck had attacked officers.  He thought it important to remind the people of the borough that no fraud was found, no wrong doing.  No bias in how grants were distributed were found.  185 properties had been disposed of, but PwC had raised questions over only three of them.  The Council will not be shy about admitting shortcomings.  Procurement policies had been found OK.  The desire to have a chief executive: PwC and Labour did not agree.  Cllr Saunders said that in the PwC report it said that the mayor had interfered in a specific procurement.  She invited Cllr Chowdhury to give a proper, considered response.  The only reason that process had not been condemned was that an officer had put a stop to what was being done.

A Labour councillor then referred to the PwC report and said that PwC had found nine instances of fraud. He thought the mayor was hiding behind his Muslim identity.  He said that because of the Mayor’s conduct, he had brought Ofsted into the borough.  Cllr Alam replied, stating that the previous speaker was no Muslim scholar.  Cllr Shiria Khatun tried to move a point of order.  Cllr Alam continued.  He thought services were good but all this good was being squandered by the poor reputation that Labour and the Tories were (undeservedly) earning for Tower Hamlets.  Cllr Khatun got in with her point of order and complained about Cllr Ahmed having been called a puppet.  There was more puppet calling.  Cllr Saunders proposed that Cllr Alam be “no longer heard” (not allowed to speak again this meeting) because he had called two councillors puppets.

Cllr Danny Hassle said he was not interested in what Pickles or Livingstone or Galloway had had to say about the borough.  His concern was that the people of Bow thought they were an afterthought.  Organisations in his ward had applied for a large amount of funding and officers recommended that £86,000 be awarded but only £56,000 was. Money went elsewhere – though Cllr Hassell did not identify where this other money had gone or why people in Bow thought they had been skimped on.  Cllr Hassell then spoke about an extra funding stream that PwC had looked at.  He didn’t know where the money had come from (not having been on the Council last year).  He said the report had condemned this fund.  He thought it was suspect.  He called Cllr Chowdhury a “puppet master” (which led to various heckles about whether Cllr Hassell should be “not heard” any more).

Cllr Amina Ali was next.  She did not welcome the Commissioners, but the mayor was solely responsible for them being here.  The people of Tower Hamlets had been let down because the mayor had been too busy trying to win elections  in a corrupt way.  She had worked in a law centre which had been cut though people needed it: that was rotten.  This Administration, she thought, was good at dividing the community but instead the mayor should stop burying his head in the sand and not talking to people whose services he had cut.

Cllr Siraj Islam congratulated Cllr Ali on her passion.  He said that Labour had left a strong legacy, which the current Administration had built on.

Cllr Dave Chesterton thought the PwC report raised valid concerns.  He thought the Mayor making light of them was had and broke trust.  He agreed we did not have a rotten borough – but we did have a rotten administration.  Good administration had to be done and be seen to be done.  Cllr Clair echoed previous councillors.  She thought there was a real “head in the sands” culture: when councillors raised questions, they were just told things were OK.  When you talk to people outside the borough, they are amazed what goes on here.  We are facing unprecedented cuts but we can’t think about how to use O&S to improve procurement, like other London boroughs do – we have to spend all our time checking up on the mayor.

Cllr Amy Whitehead said each council meeting she went to got worse.  She thought Tower Hamlets First were shameful when talking to the community (though they claimed to be the community) – such as when the mothers earlier had left the room in floods of tears.  She criticised elements of what Cllr Chowdhury had said.  Her constituents were furious with what had happened because of the misuse of public funds.  She thought the least the mayor could do was to answer questions raised in their motion, otherwise they were disrespecting residents.

Cllr Peter Golds exercised his right of reply.  He said that the Cabinet had little power as the mayor retained 94.5% of decisions but made Cabinet Members answer for him in Council.  He thought the Waterlily rally had been a disaster (he had seen it on YouTube).  He referred to the application for judicial review of Eric Pickles’s decision, but it had been thrown out.  Our Council officers had a real problem because they have to deal with an amoeba.  He referred to Parliament and the Direction Notice: if the Council does not get statutory officers in place, they will be imposed.  Councillors had to understand that.  (Cllr Golds did not point out that appointing officers was a power the Council had retained rather than devolve to the mayor.)

The amendment to the resolution was passed, 24 to 15, with Labour and the Tories voting for and Tower Hamlets First against.  The vote on the substantive resolution was about to be taken, when Cllr Golds called for a recorded vote (he had almost always derided Tower Hamlets First when they called for a recorded vote).  No recorded vote was taken, but the amended motion was passed.

Finally for this bit, Cllr Peter Golds had a chance to give his Leader’s report which had been interrupted by the motion.

Cllr Clare Harrison asked the first Members’ Question: did Tower Hamlets First now regret not supporting Labour’s attempts to appoint a Chief Executive.  Cllr Chowdhury said that Labour had blocked the appointment, not encouraged it.  Cllr Saunders heckled, going “boring, boring”.

Cllr Abjol Miah asked if residents were getting value for money from the PwC report.  Was Eric Pickles picking on Tower Hamlets?  Cllr Chowdhury agreed that Pickles, colluding with Labour, was given us poor value for money.

Cllr Peter Golds referred to his written question, about a lease offered to a Docklands Community organisation which had been offered a lease on a property in Mellish Street.  Cllr Chowdhury said that had all been done in line with Council procedures. Cllr Golds referred to paragraphs in the PwC report which said that procedures had not been followed  – and the person running this organisation was a candidate for Tower Hamlets First.  Cllr Chowdhury said that procedures had been followed.

The next question fell.

Cllr Chris Chapman asked the next question, about why the Mayor had not attended the Remembrance Day Service.  Cllr Rabina Khan pointed out that Mickey Ambrose had been to the Sunday Service, but had done three other events around Remembrance Day this year and had attended it in other years.  Cllr Chapman asked if Mayor Rahman’s actions around Remembrance Day events in this and other years were acceptable.  What message did this send to war veterans.  Cllr Khan thanked Cllr Chapman for his emotion, but pointed out that the Tory Government was leaving vets homeless.

The meeting then ran out of time, which meant that the Council then had to vote on three reports on the agenda but without debating them.

9.1: substance misuse strategy, THF voted for plus some stragglers, others abstaining.

Treasury management report and pension fund management arrangements were carried.

Cllr Golds tried to make a further point of order, but he was stopped by the meeting breaking up.

 

Well, that’s it.  That’s our first live blog from the Council.  We hope you’ve enjoyed it!  We’ll be back next year…