February - a month to challenge Lambeth

It has been an extremely hard month for the Labour administration and Lambeth police, with the murders of 16 year old James Smartt-Ford at Streatham Ice Rink on 3 February and 15 year old Billy Cox at home in Clapham on Valentine’s Day. We organised public meetings to listen to the concerns of the community, which were intense, emotional occasions which allowed people to share their fears and ideas.

The eye of the world’s media was fixed on South London and gun crime, particularly with the further killing of Michael Dosunmu, aged 15, in neighbouring Southwark on 6 February.

Three teenagers who had no idea they would never see March.

In Lambeth we have been very clear that the answer to this terrible waste of life lies in the community. We as council can do all we can – and we will - the police can do all they can – and they will - but in the end it is behaviour that needs to change and families that need to become stronger, taking greater responsibility for their young people.

That’s a tough message, hard to say and hard to hear, but it’s true.

The faith community has been an excellent support over the past few weeks, and the march which took place between Peckham and Brixton, which Cllr Steve Reed, Cllr Lorna Campbell and I took part in, was a testament to the growing sense that together with police and the community we must stand, as one, to eradicate gun-enabled crime from our streets, and to encourage young people, in the words of participants in the recent protest march between Peckham and Brixton, to “pick up your future and put down your gun.”

It was encouraging to visit a youth project called The Palace in Streatham Hill (their website is at www.palaceroad.com) which is just starting up, having had to wait for Section 106 monies to be released to them for necessary works on their building. I went away and made some calls and wrote some emails and the delay seems to have been sorted, so I was pleased to assist Glen Neil, the director, to get things moving.

On my visit I met an award-winning film-maker called Alastair Pirrie, who works with the youngsters on film projects, and who proposed to me a film on gun crime to be shown in all Lambeth schools. Called “Fast Train to Fool City”, it has been made by young people in a very short time, calling in all sorts of favours from professional crew members, and hopefully it will send out a strong message that guns are not cool fashion accessories, but evil instruments of death and waste.

I spent a lot of the month in negotiation on the tasking and deployment of the new PCSOs we are buying in to replace the council warden schemes, including a scrutiny call-in of the decision which had very little to do with scrutiny and was essentially just an excuse for the Streatham Lib Dems to attack the Labour administration and Lambeth police for trying to make the streets safer and have them patrolled by people with appropriate powers and police back-up.

The Labour administration held a sustainability conference, where local people concerned about climate change could come in and talk to experts, as well as put forward ideas for things Lambeth could be doing better – turning down the ferocious heating in the Town Hall would be progress – and watch the Al Gore film, “An Inconvenient Truth”. Labour announced a 20% cut in carbon emissions in Lambeth in 5 years, which is ambitious and, I trust, achievable. This includes staff walking to work or using public transport rather than their car, which obviates the need to make streets safer.

The Town Hall was also the scene, on 28 February, of a 450-person demonstration against proposed changes in eligibility criteria for adult social care, timed to coincide with Full Council. It’s a proposal that has been put forward very reluctantly and we are still looking at avenues which might allow us to avoid this change, including enlisting our three Labour MPs to lobby government. Nonetheless, Full Council was a night for difficult speeches, emotional arguments, and decisions, despite Liberal Democrat efforts to cynically divert attention from their responsibility for the financial mess Labour inherited, a mess which has brought us to this point. It’s also important to remember that there was no financial cut in care services. We are putting in an extra £1.9million. The problem is, even that huge amount is not enough to meet the growing demand.

There are two separate elements to this issue. Firstly the eligibility criteria and secondly the reductions in voluntary sector funding. On the latter of these two issues, Cabinet colleagues and I are absolutely clear that savings are unavoidable. If local circumstances (including the financial mismanagement of the previous administration which left virtually nothing in reserves) and national spending settlements are forcing Lambeth Council to tighten its belt in a number of areas, it is right and realistic that some of these savings must also be made by the voluntary sector. Of course these savings should not be made without regard to the important service provision of the voluntary sector, but those organisations cannot be hermetically sealed from the spending pressures we – and many other local authorities – face.

Failing to take these decisions would have left the Council unable to balance its budget. People may doubt our hearts and our values, but we had no alternative given the massive rise in demand and costs which we had no way of paying for as a result of Lib Dem recklessness in setting a 0% Council Tax increase last year as a cynical election bribe, as if anyone could forget their cumulative 38% Council Tax hikes in the previous years.

In the midst of this, the Audit Commission published Lambeth’s CPA rating, taking a star away. This judgement, based largely on assessments carried out before Labour was elected in May 2006, puts us in the eccentric position of now being a one star authority which is “improving well”, with 75% of services getting better.

Ah well, we always knew it would hard to close the book on the damage of the Lib Dem years. The one star is their final chapter.

2 Comments »

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Gina said,
Streatham

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 - 11:12 AM

I can't believe that the Lib Dems are attempting to say that they prefer 'wardens' to neighbourhood policing. I have NEVER seen a warden in my life and in fact did not realise they still existed. Good on you for being brave enough to face down the Liberals opportunism in order to get a better deal for local people. Why are the Lib Dems so anti-police?

John said,
Mon, 19 Mar 2007 - 9:58 AM

The lib-dems were delivering leaflets yesterday saying that the poor star rating was all labours fault. Labour needs to counter this with their own leaflet. Also people in Streatham and other area affected by kerb-crawling need to be enlightened about the Liberals attitude to the issue. Basically they want to decriminalise it. People in the areas affected o have the right to know about the rubbish the Liberals are spouting.