The questions which have been received from members of the public for this Council meeting are set out in the attached report.  A maximum period of 20 minutes is allocated to this agenda item.

 

The following questions and in each case a supplementary question were put and were responded to by the relevant Executive Member:-

 

6.1       Question from Mr Terry McGrenera: 

 

Does the Council’s Constitution or the legislative introducing the Executive Mayoral system permit an alternative way to elect a Chair of the Council, a Councillor, other than by Councillors?

 

Response by Councillor Rabina Khan, Cabinet Member for Housing and Development

 

[Note:  Before responding to Mr. McGrenera, Councillor Khan stated that it was with sadness that she informed the Council of the death, earlier in the day, of a long-serving member of the authority’s development control staff.  Councillor Khan paid tribute to the officer’s service and offered her condolences and those of the Council to his wife and family.]

 

Thank you Terry and apologies.  The answer to your question is simply ‘no’.

 

Summary of supplementary question from Mr McGrenera

 

I was expecting that response and I would like to explain the reason for my question. My question arises from the regrettable events that took place at the previous council meeting in September. At the September meeting there were two adjournments for legal advice, one walk-out and zero respect for the democratic process on occasions. That said, since the decision to have a directly elected mayor the position of Speaker has become inherently a more difficult one in no small part because of the circumstances surrounding the fallout from the decision to have a directly elected mayor in 2010.

 

In these circumstances is it not time to change the constitution regarding the way the speaker is chosen in order that they are equal to the changed conditions in which the council conducts council meetings. In my opinion it is no longer tenable that the position of Speaker is seen as a sinecure or used for symbolic purposes by whichever party has the greater number of councillors. Also under the present arrangements the speaker is chosen without appearing before any committee, for example, the Overview and Scrutiny committee, so that their suitability can be tested. In summary I am asking that the council’s constitution is changed in order to help prevent any regrettable incidents taking place in the future?     

 

Summary of Councillor Rabina Khan’s response to the supplementary question

 

That was very interesting. It was the Blair administration that introduced the elected Mayoral system. People have to trigger a yes for Mayor vote and that happened in 2010. Most famously the Labour Party does have a track record of imposing Mayoral candidates, sometimes Councillors and possibly MPs as well. But what they don’t understand is that it is their own ideas which is in the democracy which is operating in this Borough. True democracy allows opposition to operate. You can see it in this Borough you can see it in Tower Hamlets that the opposition here enjoy democracy because they are able to operate, they are able do the things that they care about such as put up motions and do the things they want outside the Council Chamber.

 

 

6.2      Question from Mr. Stuart Madewell:

 

Has the Mayor estimated what the likely cost to Council Tax Payers in Tower Hamlets will be for the three Commissioners imposed by the DCLG and supported by the Labour Party?

Response by Councillor Alibor Choudhury, Cabinet Member for Resources

 

Thank you.  In short, I think the Mayor is not in a position to negotiate with the commissioners on their salaries and fees. This is something that will be undertaken by the champion of transparency, the man who gave a £1M contact to Price Waterhouse Cooper in one night. It will be left to him to negotiate the terms with the commissioners. However, we have done a bit of a desk top assessment of how much it could cost. We have looked at other Authorities that have had commissioners. Obviously there are variations in commissioners for different things. But they have cost in excess of a £1000 a day. So if we have three commissioners that is £3000 a day. Five days, that is £15000 a week of your hard earned money which could be used more sensibility on dealing  with some of these cuts and protecting savings. So the bottom line is we haven’t got an accurate figure for you, but you can expect a hefty bill.

 

Summary of supplementary question from Mr Madewell

 

Thank you.  The Council is facing £100m-worth of cuts in the next financial year imposed by the Tory Government.  Now we learn of the £1m from the cost of the Price Waterhouse Cooper report. And on top of this, Councillor Choudhury is now telling us that we do not know the costs of the commissioners but it could be in excess of £3000 per day. My question is does he agree with me that the Labour Party have now made their choice to loyally support Eric Pickles’ commissioners. Councillor Rachael Saunders has made it clear that she thinks it would justify sending in the commissioners as Labour lost the election in May. Does he also agree with me that if you compare Tower Hamlets with a Borough like Rotherham where there was a child abuse scandal which the Labour Party did nothing about and no commissioners were sent in there. My question is this: Will the Overview and Scrutiny Committee make sure for the tax payers there is value for money from the commissioners that are sent in?

 

Summary of Councillor Alibor Choudhury’s response to the supplementary question

 

You’ll find that everyone on this side of the Council totally agrees with what you are saying. I want to make one extra point.  We are talking about public monies here and we are talking about several hundred thousand of public money if not more which has to usually go through a process. It’s our intention to ensure any money agreed in terms of salaries and fees goes through a very public process so the public can see exactly how much the Labour Party has cost you.

 

 

6.3       Question from Mr. Stephen Beckett:

 

Why did Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles, send auditors to the Council?

 

Response by Councillor Alibor Choudhury, Cabinet Member for Resources

 

Thank you Mr Beckett.

 

It is widely known why Price Waterhouse Cooper came to our Borough. But for those who don’t know it was a politically motivated move on behalf of our colleagues opposite who felt that they could not win an election unless they smeared this Mayor, unless they cooked up lies which would confuse and cloud the minds of voters in the last election. The bottom line was that the Price Waterhouse Cooper report was the act of Mr Pickles. It came in and found nothing but cost you £1M.

 

Summary of supplementary question from Mr Beckett

 

Other Local Authorities have been shown to be corrupt, incompetent and callous, far beyond the allegations made against Tower Hamlets. Do you think that the media, the DCLG Secretary, aided and abetted by local politicians are fabricating a moral panic, a fake outrage that heavily relies on Islamophobia to divert attention from the failure of government policies and the deeper and more serious abuse, corruptions and cover ups at Westminster and elsewhere? 

 

Summary of Councillor Alibor Choudhury’s response to the supplementary question

 

Absolutely. I want to add that the Government, who shout about how they are clamping down on corrupt Councils have obviously overlooked their own Councils. I will give you some examples.  If you look at Basingstoke and Deane, where their own internal audits found issues with their grants processes. There was no intervention at all from Mr Pickles. Furthermore, you can look at Tory Croydon. They forgot to collect £40M in Council Tax owed to them, again overlooked by Eric Pickles. There is another one:- Kensington and Chelsea, where there are claims, rife claims of corruption and also failings in their disability services.  Again, another one where they decided to overlook. They decided to pick on Tower Hamlets for exactly the reasons you set out.

 

 

6.4       Question from Mr. Mickey Ambrose:

 

What did the Police say about the allegations of fraud and corruption that PWC came in to find at the Council?

 

 

 

Response by Councillor Alibor Choudhury, Cabinet Member for Resources

 

I see this as a waste of Police time. The Police, and I will quote verbatim, when they were handed the file after the politically motivated Panorama programme, they responded within a week by saying that there was no credible evidence of criminality within the files to provide reasonable grounds to suspect that fraud or any other offence has been committed.   

 

Summary of supplementary question from Mr Ambrose

 

Should then an apology be made to the people of Tower Hamlets for running the Borough through the mud, because what’s disappointing is next week I am attending an awards ceremony for a football club that has been in this Borough for over 30 years who have produced over 170 football players.  Senrab Football Club have been nominated for the Pride of Sports Awards and it’s very disappointing that every week we just hear about the smears and allegations which are ruining this Borough -  the Borough I was a milk boy delivering for half a crown in Poplar High Street. It’s disappointing tonight that people are not supporting what the Mayor is trying to do and so on.  So I am just asking the question should people here apologise to the people of Tower Hamlets for the disgraceful way that our name has been run through the mud and I just like to say that if Senrab do win the Pride of Sports Awards we will have some good press. The Mayor has already spoken to Sharon and Tony Carroll at surgery and has sent his support to them.

 

Summary of Councillor Alibor Choudhury’s response to the supplementary question

 

The short answer is yes but I want to make this point. They tried to smear the Mayor, they tried to lie about Tower Hamlets First to stop us winning at the ballot box and now they have decided to get Eric Pickles involved so that they can intervene in a Council which is functioning perfectly well and delivering some of the best services in the Country.  The idea is to delay or even stop certain services from being provided to the community. I think the opposite benches did not think through what they were doing at the time. Now what they have ended up doing is punishing the community. Because the bottom line is that if they affect our delivery, it hurts out there in the community.  That’s exactly what they have done. For that, I think that they should apologise profusely. 

 

 

6.5  Question from Mr. John Allison:

 

Residents are rightly concerned how the recent PwC report and Eric Pickles’ comments have portrayed the borough.  Can the Cabinet Member assure us that Council services aren’t being affected by this?

 

Response by Councillor Alibor Choudhury, Cabinet Member for Resources

 

Thank you Mr Allison I would love to give you a guarantee that none of our front line services in future will be affected but for the time being none of our front line services have been impacted.  We intend to keep it that way.  Despite the report not finding any fraud or criminality they are going to send in Commissioners and Commissioners are here to do a job.  They could help us or they could hamper us and I can’t predict the future and I’m hoping they will help us despite some of the antics from the colleagues opposite.

 

We are a resilient Borough, we’ve always come back fighting, the cuts are going to bite soon if not already and we hope to continue with our provision of front line services at the levels that they are currently.  Things will be tough in future but we hope that we have a steady ship and we deliver for the people of Tower Hamlets.

 

Summary of supplementary question from Mr Allison

 

| wondered if the Councillor would agree with me that I really find it astounding that a time of swingeing cuts like this and rising demand for Council services, Councillors have been spending so much time and energy on such negative campaigning in the Borough its astonishing.

 

This administration has been delivering amazing successes and instead of concentrating and focusing on trying to alleviate  the distress caused to their constituents by these cutbacks they’ve been engaging in this negative campaign.  It’s definitely time to move on and work together for the benefit of all the residents in the Borough.  That’s the question.  I wonder if Councillor Choudhury agrees with me.

 

Summary of Councillor Alibor Choudhury’s response to the supplementary question

 

Sorry short answer as well.  I totally agree Mr Allison but the point here is that we have people here in this Council who are very self-centred and are very ignorant of what is going on out there.

 

And I hope that they will be educated today and they will grow up, move on and do what is right for the public of Tower Hamlets.

 

 

6.6    Question from Mr. Mohsin Uddin:

 

There are reports that Eric Pickles has sent a “hit squad” to Tower Hamlets Council and has taken over the running of the Council. Can the Lead Member confirm is this is true?

 

Response by Councillor Alibor Choudhury, Cabinet Member for Resources

 

Thank you Mr Uddin I can confirm that these stories are absolute nonsense. They are unfounded and they usually form the part of the rhetoric that you’ll get from the colleagues opposite and the colleagues in the far back who also thrive on misleading people.  I can confirm we are talking to Commissioners.  Their intention is not to come in and take over the Council or take over the running of the Executive.  Their remit in so far as I understand it is to assist.

 

So their remit is to support the Council in continuing to deliver services of a high quality. Thank you.

 

Summary of supplementary question from Mr Uddin

 

My next question is if the inspectors are coming in and if they do attempt to intervene in our key services and undermine the Mayor and the Councillors, would the public be made aware of this?

 

Summary of Councillor Alibor Choudhury’s response to the supplementary question

 

I think I can say for the record that this Council operates transparently so whenever the Council is delivering its services the public will be aware of how they are delivered and who they are delivered to, so I am sure that whatever we do or whether we work in tandem or they oversee, you will be aware of what is going on.

 

 

6.7     Question from Ms. Kathy McTasney:

 

Which Organisations received MSG funding from the Council? Was it just Bengali and Somali groups?

 

Response by Councillor Alibor Choudhury, Cabinet Member for Resources

 

The list of organisations that were awarded MSG funding is available on the Councils web site. One hundred and seventy five organisations were funded across a broad range of ethnicities within the borough.

 

Thank you Ms McTasney I will say very briefly that it was about where funding was required to serve a purpose.  It was about need.  It was about making sure that people across the whole borough got a service.  The majority of grants went to organisations who served the whole Borough or a large part of the Borough.  I’ll give you some examples so you are clear about what I’m saying.  We are talking about Age Concern, the Tower Hamlets Law Centre, the Citizens Advice Bureau, Tower Project, Bromley-by-Bow Centre, City Gateway, The Royal Society for the Blind, Mudchute Farm.  There are many more.

 

There are a mix of organisations who cater for all sorts of people that live in our borough and even the PWC report says that there was no bias when it came to awarding funding for these organisations.

 

Summary of supplementary question from Ms McTasney

 

Why would the coalition of councillors, Tory and Labour suggest some community groups received more grants than others?  Who are they that they believe are more deserving?

 

This has created a community tension within our community and many of our residents and I would hope the Mayor and the Council are doing all they can to set the record straight.

 

Summary of Councillor Alibor Choudhury’s response to the supplementary question

 

Tower Hamlets is renowned for serving its poor communities and it has been doing that from the time that history began.  It’s very clear that the coalition this unholy alliance between the red socialists or the blue socialists sorry they’re not red they’re blue and the red Tories were interested in just politicising the whole grants process.  They weren’t interested where people were suffering or where needs needed to be met.

 

It was more about dividing our community, pitting one community against another and they did a very good job using the media to divide us.

 

It is very clear and it was said earlier by a person where you’re standing.

It was about Islamophobia.  There was a lot of race played and there were a lot of things that were very uncomfortable and I don’t think I should be talking about right now but they weren’t along the right lines so yes it was about a coalition that were here to cause trouble and not do anything and in fact they did a great disservice to the community by playing it that way.

 

 

Questions 6.8 to 6.10 were not put due to lack of time. The Service Head, Democratic Services stated that written responses would be provided. [Note: The written responses are included in Appendix A to these minutes.]