Camden should implement partial job freeze immediately

I spotted (the joys of twitter) some jobs currently being advertised on Camden Council's website.

These include:
- A head of engagement and research at £45-48,000
- A senior press officer at £35-38,000
- A senior committee clerk at £38-40,000
- An executive assistant at £35-38,000

These are among about 40 jobs being advertised at present including social workers, a deputy head teacher and a project manager for our new elderly persons homes.

Now it is quite often the case that the baroque titles given to some posts actually make them sound less sensible than they actually are. It's also true that some of these posts and others are on a fixed term basis. And of course councillors shouldn't try and micromanage the council's 7000 staff and management structures.

But all that having been said, I think given the scale of cutbacks now coming (and indeed already implicit in Labour's budget in the spring) that the Council should now implement a partial job freeze - covering all senior roles not directly providing service delivery (such as social workers). After all, there is likely to considerable restructuring coming to reduce posts in many areas, and this well necessitate redeployment of existing staff.

I know how hard most Camden staff work, and I realise that a job freeze in some areas will put more pressure on staff, and will necessitate a reduction in the quality/quantity of service that is delivered. But I just don't think we can justify recruiting to the posts I've highlighted above in the current situation.

I also would question whether we should really be hiring an executive assistant at that salary level.

I will be pursuing staff costs further at the full council tomorrow - Labour shows no signs so far of being aware of the scale of the fiscal challenge they face in Camden - especially as they have just increased their budget gap by £110m through their irresponsible, populist action on void home selloffs.

The press continues to focus on the very small number of council managers earning over £100,000. Of course we need to look at these salary levels very closely, and in our local manifesto we wanted to reduce the number of top staff at this salary level by 25%. But in fact, in terms of the overall salary bill, it's the much much larger number of staff on say £30-50,000 that really count. That's where we need to stop doing some things, and to do things more efficiently, and to keep taking out management layers. A lot has been done over the last four years but there's a lot more to do and the current financial crisis will require tough decisions.

Swiss Cottage Open Space update

We've had quite a few queries about the open space and the fact that the grass lawns weren't open for. Obviously the good news this week is that the temporary fencing has been removed and the lawns reopened for the summer (we just need the weather again now!)

Below is an update from senior council parks officers on the plans for the open space:

"We have since last autumn undertaken major restoration works to the open space. These include improvement works to the worn out lawns, including resoling and reseeding and some areas have had new turf. The flower beds have had new plants to fill the gaps and some areas have been completely re planted and finished off with new organic mulch. Also, any dead trees have been removed and replaced.

"The site is very heavily used and along with erratic weather conditions has proved very difficult in bringing the site back to an acceptable standard and better able to cope with the heavy use...We will be undertaking more improvements in the next planting season this coming autumn."

Upcoming Swiss Cottage public meetings in June

Here's a quick reminder of what's coming up in June.

7th June – councillor advice surgery, 7-8pm at the Crossfield Centre, 8 Fairhazel Gardens

8th June – Safer Neighbourhood Police meeting, 7pm, Crossfield Centre. Please come and give your views on crime concerns and policing priorities. Chief Inspector Louis Smith will be present and speaking as well as our local team.

14th June – CRASH (Combined Residents Assns of South Hampstead) AGM, 7pm, Crossfield Centre. English Heritage speaker and Camden Conservation officer present to update on the conservation area and Article Four directions. Please note that CRASH is looking for new committee members - if you care about the gardens area of South Hampstead, please do consider this. The workload can be pretty flexible and we as ward councillors rely greatly on having an effective, apolitical residents association in action, helping us and indeed lobbying us and the council.

19th June – councillor advice surgery, 10-11am, Swiss Cottage Community Centre

We're also attending a few smaller residents and tenants association AGMs in June - do let us know if you'd like us to attend.

Camden Labour's New Housing Investment policy - no new ideas

While CamdenLabour has got some headlines for stopping the sale of void properties to fund Decent Homes, the report going to the new cabinet on 9th June shows that Labour councillors have actually not be able to add any new ideas to those already on the table, which are appropriately outlined by council officers. The options are:

"seek government funding"
"review the scope of the Decent Homes programme"
"additional borrowing"
"Create a Council owned community investment agency"
"Increase the funds generated through estate regeneration"

Taking those briefly in turn:

- seeking government funding was exactly what the last administration was doing.
- The report explains that reviewing the scope of the Decent Homes work could mean work on kitchens and bathrooms for tenants being cut back.
- Additional borrowing of £5m would be an additional massive burden on the HRA and hit tenants.
- A council-owned community investment agency is (clever) code for renting out council properties at market rents for 30 years to generate capital for housing investment.
- Increasing the funds generated through estate regeneration would be highly speculative as a source of funding. The last administration identified four estate areas but found it incredibly difficult to make progress to generate £100m net in value from regeneration. Increasing this sum further, by perhaps up to £100m, would inevitably mean a major increase in housing density on many estates, with less open space.

There are no easy solutions. Which is why the previous partnership administration said there are no easy solutions.

This report effectively stops the sales programme without coming near to identifying how the shortfall will be filled, so it must put Decent Homes at risk. All the report does is state that a future report on financing options under the five headings above will come forward, and note that there is no timing of that report.