Agenda item
TO RECEIVE WRITTEN QUESTIONS FROM MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL
The questions which have been received from Councillors to be put at this Council meeting are set out in the attached report. A maximum period of 30 minutes is allocated to this agenda item.
Minutes:
The following questions and in each case (except where indicated) a supplementary question were put and were responded to by the relevant Executive Member or Committee Chair:-
8.1 Question from Councillor Asma Begum
As Chair of the Health and Wellbeing Board, how many of the meetings did the Mayor attend in 2014? Does this reflect his commitment to the important issue of Health in the borough?
Response from Councillor Alibor Choudhury, Cabinet Member for Resources
Thank you Councillor Begum. I’d say that he has attended all of them really because he attends them through us. He has four Councillors on the Committee; they include Councillor Gulam Robbani, myself and Councillor Asad who chairs the meeting as well as our Executive Advisor, Councillor Mahbub Alam. The Mayor is clearly committed to the health agenda and he will do everything he can to make sure that we improve people’s health and wellbeing in the borough.
Summary of supplementary question from Councillor Asma Begum
It’s a shame that the Mayor has not prioritised the health of the Borough; it’s his Vice-Chair that’s chairing it, not the Mayor. And will the Mayor commit to attending any other meetings of the Health and Wellbeing Board?
Summary of response from Councillor Alibor Choudhury
I remember sitting and observing the contribution of my opposition Councillor, Councillor Denise Jones who is happy to turn up to some of these meetings, sometimes for 10 minutes, sometimes for a bit more than that. But she hardly says anything. So I think it is quite hypocritical for you to have a pop at the Mayor and a pop at us when we make a valuable and meaningful contribution.
8.2 Question from Councillor Abjol Miah
Could the Mayor highlight any steps, policies or initiatives that he has taken to put money in people’s pockets in this Borough despite huge Tory cuts?
Response from Councillor Alibor Choudhury, Cabinet Member for Resources
Thank you Councillor Miah, I’ll go straight into the initiatives shall I? The Mayor has helped in many ways. He has provided Council Tax discounts for pensioners and those that are on low incomes so they equated to £245,000 in 2012/13 and a further £575,000 In 2014/15. He froze Council Tax for the last five years. He absorbed the 10% cut to our Council Tax benefit reduction scheme which cost us £2.7m. He provided free school meals and then he rolled them out to benefit more primary school children.
He provided the Mayor’s educational allowance which is something that the government took away. He provided university bursaries which were to the tune of £1,500 for each student and this benefitted 400 university students.
His DHP (Discretionary Housing Payments) continued to be supported and that cost us £1m and helped a variety of people in poor or dire housing situations. And he has set aside a further £1.3m over the next 2 years to help women back into work.
Summary of supplementary question from Councillor Abjol Miah
Can the Mayor highlight, provide steps or policies that the opposition Tory-Labour coalition have actually done in order to take money out of Tower Hamlets’ residents’ pockets.
Summary of response from Councillor Alibor Choudhury
Thank you Mr Miah I don’t want to repeat everything that I said about what the Tory Government and their partners, the Labour Party in Tower Hamlets have done to us over the last 5 years in terms of budget reductions. But I can say that because of the opposition, mainly the Labour opposition and their co-defendants the Tories, in Tower Hamlets, we have seen £1m taken out of our budget to pay for the PWC investigation. We have had hundreds of thousands of pounds in litigation costs to pay and again this would have benefited many of our residents and kept a lot of people in work and again and again. I’ve got to say this Councillor Saunders, it is because of your behaviour that we end up seeking Judicial Reviews.
8.3 Question from Councillor Craig Aston
Will the Mayor inform the Council as to how much money the Council wasted on failed judicial reviews and other failed legal cases in 2014?
Response from Councillor Alibor Choudhury, Cabinet Member for Resources
I think Councillor Aston, wasted is a harsh word. I think it’s prudently spent to be honest with you and I’ll list you everything that we spent money on in relation to judicial reviews.
So the first one is the permitted developments rights challenge that we did with Islington as the Lead Council. The second was the Mayor of London’s affordable housing policies. Again we went in a consortium led by Islington Council. The third was the fire station closures. Again these are all Tory policies that we had to fight because of you. People would have been in trouble and we had to act. The fourth one was the Best Value inspection which cost £38,000. There’s the disrepair case and the possession action all a lot less than £10,000. So that’s your list for you.
Summary of supplementary question from Councillor Craig Aston
I think the one the Lead Member missed out was £70,000 on the Judicial Review against DCLG’s intervention, a case that the Judge dismissed as hopeless and the Lead Member says that’s prudently spent. Well I beg to differ.
Mr Speaker, the Deputy Mayor isn’t with us but he always reminds us quite rightly that as Councillors, we should defend and protect officers and that’s quite right.
Councillor Choudhury will also be aware that no group of officers perhaps work harder in this borough than our Legal staff; so hard that our Monitoring Officer was nominated recently for the King’s Bench Walk Chambers Monitoring Officer of the Year Award.
I think the Lead Member will join us in congratulating the Monitoring Officer on that. So will the Lead Member then take the opportunity to apologise to the Monitoring Officer and the legal staff for wasting their precious and valuable time on forcing them on them on these spurious trumped up legal cases that have no chance of succeeding from the start.
Summary of response from Councillor Alibor Choudhury
The Executive Member has no intention of apologising and we still maintain our line that we have not wasted any money.
Will you apologise for Eric Pickles spending £76,000 on biscuits?
Will you apologise for him spending £500,000 on limousines?
Will you apologise for his China flight where he spent £4,000 in a couple of nights? And will you also apologise for Eric spending £90,000 fighting the Trade Unions?
Is that a good use of money? I don’t think it is Councillor Aston.
8.4 Question from Councillor John Pierce
Can the Mayor tell me how many times he has visited the Rich Mix Arts Centre in the previous year?
Response from Councillor Shafiqul Haque, Cabinet Member for Culture
The Mayor has not visited Rich Mix in the past year.
Summary of supplementary question from Councillor John Pierce
Given the lack of visits to the Rich Mix, can the Mayor explain why he has personally requested legal action to be taken by officers, including the spending of £29,000 of council tax payers’ money on external barristers, even though the Rich Mix has in September 2014 made a public offer to pay the sum in full of £850,000 and can he explain why he is the only elected member to have been consulted about this offer according to the Service Head for Legal Services, given that a significant part of the legal dispute to be implemented is regarding the Strategic Development Committee decision which, as has been noted by PWC, falls without the powers of the Executive Mayor?”
[Note: At this point the Interim Monitoring Officer indicated that he wished to address the meeting. At the Speaker’s invitation, Mr Sullivan-Gould advised the Council as follows.]
Advice from Mr Meic Sullivan-Gould, Interim Monitoring Officer
Mr Speaker, Members of the Council need to be aware that there are current proceedings going on, with a case management conference next week, to deal with the claim by the Council for repayment of a loan and also a counter claim by the Rich Mix for payment of an extra grant, so from that point of view I caution members discussing the merits of that because that would be prejudicial.
In response to a question from Councillor Rachael Saunders, Mr Sullivan-Gould confirmed that the case was currently sub-judice.
8.5 Question from Councillor Muhammad Ansar Mustaquim
Since the beginning of the year the national Labour Party has been ensuring that the electorate are given a proper choice at the general election. Will the Mayor join me in calling the local Labour Party to stop acting in coalition with the local Tory Party against the Mayor - and his left wing policies - that any Labour Council will be proud of?
Response from Councillor Alibor Choudhury, Cabinet Member for Resources
It is indeed strange that while the Labour Party are at war with the Tory party nationally, locally they seem to be hand in glove with them. Unfortunately in Tower Hamlets we have a Labour Party that operates hand in glove with the Tory group who fully support the Government’s assault on Local Government. They fully support a Government that is destroying our National Health Service. They fully support a Government busy blaming the poorest and most vulnerable in our society for an economic mess caused by the richest and most powerful.
So I join with you in calling on Tower Hamlets Labour Party to try and rediscover its founding principles which it’s long forgotten and I’m sure it won’t be able to connect to them again, not now anyway. I also join with this Administration in supporting progressive policies in this Borough. I also call on the Labour Party to stop its colluding with the Tory group in supporting its reactionary politics in this Borough.
(No supplementary question was asked)
8.6 Question from Councillor Julia Dockerill
On 8 December a motorcyclist tragically died after a collision with a lorry at the junction of Dock Street and the Highway. This junction has become of increasing concern to residents in Wapping, many of whom cross it to take their children to school in Aldgate. Will the Mayor inform the council as to what, if any, discussions he has had with Transport for London regarding safety improvements here, particularly in view of the proposed construction of a new school next to this junction associated with the London Docks Development?
Response from Councillor Shahed Ali, Cabinet Member for Clean & Green
Thank you for your question Councillor Dockerill. First of all can I say that it’s obviously incredibly upsetting for any member in this chamber and indeed the general public in general to have witnessed yet another collision and fatality on our roads. It is a TfL road, but obviously that’s no excuse to the responsibility we have as a Council and my sincere condolences to family and friends of the victim.
The junction has been a source of concern for many years going back to the days when I actually used to work in Wapping, but I won’t go into that story now. We have always constantly consistently lobbied for improvements to various areas in The Highway. And you’ll be pleased to know that very recently this meant that they have introduced a pedestrian countdown feature on the traffic lights at that particular junction, and the phasing of the traffic signalling was also remodelled. The Police investigation into this particular incident is still ongoing and therefore it would be premature for me to comment on that aspect of the cause of the actual incident itself at this moment in time.
But obviously and naturally there are concerns of parents that live either side of the highway I would say no doubt that includes myself. I have children that go to school on the road that is parallel to The Highway, Cable Street. Although your question doesn’t focus on cyclists, it does obviously relate to collisions on the road if you like. So I think we also have a duty to educate our cyclists out there as well who tend to feel that cycle lanes also do not have to adhere to the normal traffic rules and regulations that motorists are expected to adhere to.
You’ll also be pleased to know that we have managed to secure an additional £200,000 from the London Dock Development towards further improvements to the pedestrian crossings onto The Highway and that will be located just west of the junction of The Highway and Wellclose Street. And also no doubt that will go towards further pedestrian improvements to that vicinity including Dock Street and Vargen Way.
I’m obviously very familiar with the ward as my colleagues Councillors Aminur Khan and Asad are. We represent the area obviously north of The Highway and therefore we have residents constantly bringing and raising these concerns so I’m glad that you’ve raised them yourself tonight as well.
And finally I hope that you will continue to highlight to us any concerns that you have from your constituents on the other side of The Highway and we will best work together to make sure that we address any safety concerns because I think regardless of whichever political spectrum we come from, safety is an uppermost concern for every single member in this chamber.
Summary of supplementary question from Councillor Julia Dockerill
Summary of response from Councillor Shahed Ali
Very briefly, at this moment in time that isn’t a consideration that has come to light. However there is other work that’s going on conducted by TfL. You’ll have heard recently that one of the Mayor’s pledges was to introduce 20mph zones throughout the Borough. As part of that exercise there is a lot more extensive work going on to do with The Highway itself. So again it would be premature for me to comment on specifics at this time no doubt although the Highway is a major concern and we are doing everything we can in our powers to make sure we can make it as safe as possible within the constraints we have.
8.7 Question from Councillor Ayas Miah
In St Dunstan's ward, particularly in the new development area, residents are having difficulties getting a new parking permit or renewing their existing permit because of the car free zone. According to PTS (2011) parking transfer scheme - if some families move to 3 bedroom or larger social rented car free homes they will get at least one permit but the reality is that they do not get a permit even if they have a 3 or more bedroom house. Can the Mayor explain this please?
Response from Councillor Rabina Khan, Cabinet Member for Housing & Development
Thank you Mr Speaker. First of all I’d like to remind you that the Car Free Development Policy is not a Tower Hamlets policy. It is a London policy which we have to comply with. The Mayor has gone further than any other Council to try to support residents who require a car parking space to meet the mobility needs of their family. The Permit Transfer Scheme which is known as the PTS was introduced to allow overcrowded families in the Borough moving to a car free social rented 3 plus bedroom home to transfer one existing on street resident car parking permit, if they held their on-street permit for at least one year prior to moving. This was to help more residents in the borough to move into more suitable homes and to alleviate the overcrowding register as well. Additionally disabled drivers living in car free homes are eligible for on street resident parking permits.
Residents who already live in a car free development, cannot apply for a transfer permit. But they should be advised before moving into that development that it was a car free development. Should you Councillor Ayas have any further queries, I’m quite willing to sit and talk to you and discuss them, but I would say that the PTS is under review to see what we have learnt in the past and how we can improve it in the future.
Summary of supplementary question from Councillor Ayas Miah
Even if there is a gap of one week or over to renew their existing permit, while someone moves in on the Ocean Estate from outside, the Council normally disallows them to renew their permit if they move from outside even if they have an existing permit for a number of years they are using. So I think there is a contradiction.
Summary of response from Councillor Rabina Khan
Councillor Ayas, I have stated before that this is under review and I would welcome any particular cases that you need to speak to me about. But let me remind you of something. That it was under Councillor Julia Mainwairing the then Leader of the Labour Party and Council to introduce the policy and was adopted in 1998. The Policy Number is ST28 and the UDP Policy which was the first introduction of the Car Free Zone policy. It was further approved in the Council’s Local Plan Core Strategy Document in 2010 whilst Councillor Abbas was the Leader of the Council under a Labour Administration. So you see Councillor Ayas, Mayor Rahman has had to pick up the pieces in order to benefit the residents of this Borough.
8.8 Question from Councillor Mohammed Maium Miah
Recently, Sir Michael Wilshaw raised concerns about the educational attainment of White British Free School Meals Pupils. Does the Mayor have any plan to tackle this issue in Tower Hamlets?
Response from Councillor Gulam Robbani, Cabinet Member for Education and Children’s Services
Good evening Mr Speaker and thank you Councillor Miah for bringing this important issue to the forefront. As you know education is very dear to us and we do everything in our ability to make sure all our children get the best education in the Borough. Tower Hamlets even though we are one of the high performing Authorities in terms of achieving locally and nationally in terms of comparing with the London average and the national average. We are performing much higher than the London average and the national average. However there is a group of pupils we understand they are not achieving as we would like them to.
Therefore as soon as I was given the job of Lead Member for education, I had a meeting with the Corporate Director and Head of E-School and Learning Achievement and gave them an instruction to make sure that we have a strategy to address some of those students who are not achieving as the rest of the Borough are achieving.
To this end, we want to have a conference very soon inviting national speakers and national people who have expertise as well as going to our local expertise to make sure all our schools perform to the highest standard. We will be looking in detail in terms of how we could improve the school standard for all our pupils. And therefore I would give an assurance to my Council and all the Councillors in this chamber that we will do everything in our capacity to make sure all our students perform and all our students achieve the highest and best to their ability.
(No supplementary question was asked)
8.9 Question from Councillor Chris Chapman
Will the Mayor comment on the two separate and independent reports from Thames Water and the external consultants LUC which confirm that the that the Isle of Dogs will suffer from low water pressure and possibly run out of drinking water in the summer as well as suffer from ‘more frequent and severe back surging of the sewage’ network because of overdevelopment overwhelming the existing capacity of the water network on the island?
Response from Councillor Rabina Khan, Cabinet Member for Housing & Development
Thank you Mr Speaker. Happy New Year Councillor Chapman. The Council will continue to meet with Thames Water as a key stakeholder and statutory consultee to discuss detailed applications and policy guidance in order to ensure comprehensive understanding of the water infrastructure issues affecting the island. It is important to note that water provision is considered a key piece of infrastructure and utility service which affects the plans beyond the South Quay area as it is a matter for the Isle of Dogs Opportunity Area Framework will aim to address this in further detail.
Summary of supplementary question from Councillor Chris Chapman
Yes thank you and Happy New Year to you. There was a lot there but not an answer. What I would say is may I ask the Executive Member if this is such a priority why there is no mention of it in the South Quay Masterplan Document which my colleague Andrew Wood has done considerable work on and has scrutinised. He can find no reference to this provision or this issue. Does it in fact demonstrate that this is very much business as usual in terms of the way this Administration has treated the residents of the Isle of Dogs which is pretty much with total disregard and disdain.
Is it not the fact that this Administration is continuing to treat these very hard working residents who’ve had to suffer multiple longstanding infrastructure issues? Are they not just attempting overdevelopment on the Island on a quite severe level and use residents as a cash cow?
Summary of response from Councillor Rabina Khan
Forgive me Councillor Chapman. Maybe I didn’t quite explain myself so let me rephrase it again to you. Thames Water is a statutory consultee and therefore plays a key role in offering advice and steer on planning and other strategic matters at a local and regional level. Therefore those matters fall under the GLA and under the Mayor of London’s responsibilities.
Let me give you an example of how this works Councillor Chapman. The Coalition Government and Mr Pickles approved the proposed Thames Tideway Sewer for a super sewer at the cost of King Edward Memorial Park and the unfairness of this on residents, despite local campaigners and the Administration working together to identify an alternative site, so your own Government supports Thames Water over residents.
8.10 Question from Councillor Helal Uddin
Does the Mayor have any plan to improve community cohesion in the borough further?
Response from Councillor Ohid Ahmed, Cabinet Member for Community Safety
Thank you Helal for your good question. Thank you. Just to say it’s a very straightforward answer. I hope you’ll agree that this Borough has a very strong track record on community cohesion. Over 80% of residents in this Borough according to the Annual Residents Survey, not my ward or your ward, our residents are saying 80% of people are saying that people from different backgrounds get on well together in our Borough and this is what our Residents Survey said. This is a 10% increase from 5 years ago when someone I don’t want to even name who is not here anymore, he was the Leader. But 10% increase from that time and we are working hard. We just want to increase more and more.
And I just want to ensure that our people get on well together. We work together for the betterment of our residents despite as I said before what the outside world said, despite what Eric Pickles said. Our people when there is a problem in our Borough we stand together. When the English Defence League made a threat everyone came together on the street to defend our Borough. When Eric Pickles with all due respect decided to send Commissioners a lot of people came out and demonstrated against the decision and it was not Bengali people it was more or less everybody. That shows that when there is a crisis, when there is a problem when there is a cut we are together and will be together in the future.
Summary of supplementary question from Councillor Helal Uddin
Yes Mr Speaker of course considering the current climate in this Borough there is a lot of exclusion and I find that the difficulty is to have that community cohesion in this Borough. I just wanted to know whether the Lead Member has any sort of idea what sort of mechanisms are in place to address and tackle social exclusion in the Borough. It would be very helpful to know what sort of mechanism he is planning, that people are working together to make it happen, if he could say some kind of example in place? Thank you.
Summary of response from Councillor Ohid Ahmed
As I said before I don’t want to repeat but we have three central themes
· Tackling inequality;
· Strengthening Community cohesion; and
· Building community leadership
And I think that if we can work on these areas we can build more community cohesion and we are working on it.
8.11 Question from Councillor Gulam Kibriya Choudhury
Can the Mayor highlight how he plans to fight the unprecedented and ideologically driven Tory cuts?
Response from Councillor Alibor Choudhury, Cabinet Member for Resources
Thank you Councillor Choudhury. The Mayor and Tower Hamlets First have made our opposition clear to the Government’s plans for austerity and to this end the Mayor has been very prudent with Council resources, he will protect public services where they matter to people. He will invest in community development. He will stimulate the local economy which the Government failed to do by promoting trade with local businesses and suppliers. He will foster growth and support the business sector and he will build more homes to increase our Council Tax base.
(No supplementary question was asked)
8.12 Question from Councillor Andrew Wood
Will the Mayor inform the Council what work has been undertaken following the 2014 disclosure of a decline in the percentage of primary school pupils attending local authority schools rated by OFSTED as Outstanding in Tower Hamlets, which according to the most recent OFSTED inspection has shown has continued.
Response from Councillor Gulam Robbani, Cabinet Member for Education and Children’s Services
Can I just thank Councillor Wood for asking this question. Can I just remind him that with the latest Tower Hamlets annual OFSTED report shows that the percentage of students attending a Good or Outstanding primary school in the Borough has risen since last year. We are one of the best performing local authorities in this measure. Those students who go to a Good or Outstanding school is 91% compared to the London average of only 85%. And the National average Councillor is 91%. Therefore we are massively ahead of the local and national level. Therefore stop painting a negative picture of our students. We are excelling in education and therefore you should be joining us in supporting all our schools including the primary and secondary schools.
Summary of supplementary question from Councillor Andrew Wood
I’m going to pass the Lead Member the actual statistics just to make it clear in Bethnal Green & Bow Primary Schools, only 9% of pupils go to a school rated as Outstanding. It was 29% 5 years ago. Lewisham’s percentage is 27%. Camden 33%. Newham is 24%. And just to make clear this is not ideologically driven, in Tower Hamlets Secondary Schools 53% of pupils go to schools rated as Outstanding so the secondary schools in Tower Hamlets are performing extremely well. Ok but what’s happening in Bethnal Green and Bow? Why is it that there has been a decline down from 29% to 9%? It’s the only Council in London where I can find this decline. Ok. I’ve raised this for the second time OK. What are you doing about it?
Summary of response from Councillor Gulam Robbani
Councillor I think I remember last time you were comparing us with Richmond. I’m clearly not doing that tonight. In terms of Government the way they measure us, they don’t just measure Outstanding. They measure with Good and Outstanding so he can forget the brief to add the Good. So if you look at the Good and Outstanding he will see our performance is 91%. In terms of secondary education yes he’s right. We are performing at 91% and yes in terms of what we are doing we are working very closely with the schools and we are working with the teachers and the parents and the governors. And this Council has a very strong track record of working with teachers, governors, the schools and everyone. And therefore don’t throw all these rubbish statistics at us.
Questions 8.13 to 8.22 were not put due to lack of time. The Service Head, Democratic Services stated that written responses would be provided to the questions. (Note: The written responses are included in Appendix ‘A’ to these minutes.)
Procedural Motion
Councillor Rachael Saunders moved, and Councillor Khales Uddin Ahmed seconded, a procedural motion “that under Procedure Rule 14.1.5, Rule 13.1 be suspended to enable an urgent motion regarding Wasted Public Money to be considered”. The procedural motion was put to the vote and was agreed.
Supporting documents: