Hounslow Council 'Does Not Have Political' Will To Balance Budget

Councillor Gerald McGregor rebukes Labour-led administration, in this week's blog

Wonderful news from the other end of the Borough. A by-election win that now returns Conservative support in the Borough Council to double figures with 10 councillors. Only another 21 to go and we will be running an effective, financially secure Borough Council again.

Kuldeep Tak ( pictured above) was the Conservative and Unionist Party candidate in Feltham North in the Hounslow local election. He was elected with an impressive 2,025 votes. This seat was formerly held for more than a decade by Conservative Councillor Mark Bowen. Many thanks to Feltham and Heston Conservatives team for the work that was done in supporting our winning candidate.

Setting a budget

The Labour group is now belatedly engaging the councillors and electors of Hounslow with an outline of the budget proposed. Expect to see an increased council tax of 3.99% from the council and more piled on top by the Mayor for London and his cronies at the Greater London Authority.

In my previous blog talking about the budget, I mentioned Labour had claimed once again great cuts in revenue from the taxpayer via Central Government and we now have proof that they don’t have the political will to drive the savings required to keep the council in balance.

Tens of millions of pounds of capital investment projects and plans already budgeted for have not started as there are long-standing weaknesses in project management capacity across many departments of the council. These capital programmes are in the main designed to provide support for more efficient support for council staff and thus to deliver long term cost savings and there is little drive to get them in place and deliver a balanced financial outcome.

Gerald McGregor

London Borough of Hounslow as a Trader

Lampton 360 Ltd was established by the London Borough of Hounslow in 2012 with the objective of trading in local authority functions in order to generate financial surpluses and return those surpluses to the council. It is a company wholly owned by the council and with an aim of returning value to the council. (It was meant to represent a bold, new and ambitious approach by a London Borough.)

Once again, we hear that Lampton 360, the Labour-sponsored plc, is unable to deliver its current programme budget and provide the revenues promised by the cabinet to the council over and over again. The overdrafts involved are still toe-curling and in addition to the lack of capital projects starting, there are unfunded investments creating real problems for the council.

And now facilities management, including maintenance and security. As its chief operating officer said, “LFM 360 has been running as a wholly owned company of London Borough of Hounslow since April 2017. In this time we have undergone significant changes with increases in work streams as well as staff. Starting with 120 employees [!] and were only doing planned works [generally provided by the borough]. Now we have 300 employees and we are undertaking huge amounts of responsive repairs, grounds maintenance and facilities management as well as all the original planned works.” Is this success? And why change a “winning formula” as the management changes necessitated “a need to change the brand and name to more closely reflect the current and future aspirations of LFM 360”.

Hence coalo. The chairman of the new company tells us that the name “coalo” comes from the Latin and simply means sustain and nurture together, which is what they hope to do.

The ambition is to sustain the housing stock of Hounslow Council and nurture positive relationships within the target community and customers. He goes on to say, “We can also apply the same idea for all of us that work for coalo. We all want to work in a company that values development and

opportunities. As a company we have been, and will continue to be all about delivering on target and on cost with excellent quality”.

Well the jury is certainly still out on this one.

It is reminiscent of the 1990s Community Investment Partnership in Hounslow which had a constitution of four different entities and an opaque management relationship with the council. Perhaps the current administration (still smarting from this previous failure) wants to try again and prove that, by again using public money, they can manage a trading entity.

The latest quarterly performance statistics covering Hounslow Council will be out on 3rd February. Locate them on the website under cabinet. They might make pleasant reading … who knows?

Brentford Chiswick Border

Don’t expect relief any time soon from the chaos at Kew Bridge. The lack of good competent project management is well illustrated by the delays caused by the unthinking approach with one of three key Thames Bridges out of action and the Brentford development scheme now about to create the transport links with Chiswick that the scheme required. Obviously now is not the time to commence the construction of the much disputed Cycle Superhighway junction changes at Kew Bridge

Back to Hounslow and Co-operation

Meanwhile, as a sixteen-year-long councillor, delivering solutions and providing support are now concentrated on looking at the new budget year and co-operating with the administration on policies for the benefit of residents and their families and protecting council taxpayers.

This means better financial control, better investment, avoiding mad schemes, rebuilding confidence in constitutional practice, looking to improve education, meeting housing need, supporting leaseholders and Hounslow Housing, helping deliver the consultation on parking issues and, bearing in mind the crisis in the retail sector, acting to support the high streets and encourage multiple retailers to stay in Chiswick and Brentford and giving our independent traders and corner shops the support necessary for their survival.

So, while Labour maladministers a borough, we will do our best with our range of expertise and experience to advise … and hopefully to help avoid … what is a poor picture – a picture repeated from the ill-managing London Mayor spiralling like CS9 downwards into the activities of dodgy local councils across London promising a Socialist ideology or pretending that repeating past errors and mistakes will have a different outcome. (See Einstein’s response – but given the ferment in the Labour Party they currently won’t want to look.)

So, as well as our group helping with the budget, it’s more business as usual for all your Chiswick councillors.

DATES FOR DIARIES

· Chiswick Area Forum: Tuesday, 4th February 2020 at 7.00 pm at Chiswick Town Hall

· Borough Council meeting on the council’s budget: Tuesday, 25th February at 7.30pm at Hounslow House

SURGERIES

· Chiswick: Every Saturday from 9.30am to 10.30am at Chiswick Library in the upstairs room.

· Gunnersbury: First Saturday of the month from 10am to 11am at The Gunnersbury Triangle (Club, The Ridgeway, W3 8LN. It is usually a group discussion but p

February 1, 2020