Minutes:
The Leader of the Council, Councillor George Meehan, gave the following “State of the Borough” address:
Mr Mayor, fellow Councillors, Chief Executive, Officers, ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to stand before you once again in this chamber as Leader of this Labour administration, to report on the state of the borough at the end of this municipal year.
Mr Mayor, Haringey today is a place where people from all corners of the world can find a welcome and become part of our community. We are one of the most diverse communities in the country, if not in Europe, but we are a cohesive borough, where eight out of 10 of our residents agree that people from different backgrounds get on well together.
In a time of continuing tension worldwide, with communities too often divided on religious or ethnic lines, this is a considerable achievement.
And it is an achievement which has not come about by accident. It is the result of our continuing commitment as a Council to equality, to listening to all our people, and to acting in the interests of all.
Mr Mayor, I was forcefully reminded of that commitment in October, when the eyes of the world were on us as we celebrated the life and achievements of one of our most famous residents, Oliver Tambo.
On that day I had the privilege of unveiling the memorial at Albert Road Recreation Ground, with the First Lady of South Africa Mrs Mbeki, the Secretary of State for Justice Jack Straw, members of the Tambo family, and other dignitaries from home and abroad.
Mr Mayor, the Tambo family came to Haringey to escape persecution, and found a community that embraced them and supported their struggle. And many families over the years have made that same journey, to find a welcoming home in our borough.
In celebrating the life of Oliver Tambo on that wonderful day in October, we and our people were re-affirming our values of equality and fairness for all.
Those are the values that underpin our commitment as a Council, and we will continue to assert those values as we move forward, working together with all our people, and with our partners.
We can improve services and meet the needs of all our residents better by harnessing our resources and the resources of our partners so we move forward together. Maintaining the strong effective partnerships we enjoy with public bodies and private organisations, is an important priority for this council.
That is the way, Mr Mayor, that we will deliver the best possible services for our residents: in partnership. Formally co-ordinating our work and pooling our resources through the Haringey Strategic Partnership - and informally, on a daily basis with residents, community groups, businesses and other public authorities.
And equality is of course central to our Partnership vision, to make Haringey a place for diverse communities that people are proud to belong to.
To that end, on March 3rd this year, I will launch a new, borough-wide Social Cohesion Forum – where people across our communities can meet, talk to each other, and to the council and other agencies, understand their differences and their similarities, and their shared rights and responsibilities as citizens of Haringey.
Mr Mayor, this new forum will again put Haringey at the forefront of local authorities meeting the challenges of our constantly changing society.
Because in Haringey, as in the country as a whole, we face big challenges – climate change, global competition, the rising aspirations of individuals, caring for and protecting our young and our older people, and the desire for stronger, safer more sustainable communities.
It is these challenges we set out to tackle when we successfully put ourselves forward for re-election in 2006, on a clear platform:
Our children achieving more;
Our council tax low and stable;
Our streets bright and clean;
Our communities safer;
Our environment greener
Our young people respected and included.
Mr Mayor, I can report today, some two years into our administration, that we are successfully putting our pledges into action.
Mr Mayor, before I look in detail at our achievements, I have some good news on investment – news which will transform the quality of life of many thousands of our residents.
Mr Mayor, in the last few days we have received confirmation that we have won some £200 million in funding under the Decent Homes programme, to transform our council housing and make it fit for the 21st century.
Mr Mayor, we pledged that we would deliver these improvements for our tenants, and we will do so.
On top of this money, we are already moving ahead with £178 million investment in our secondary schools under the Building Schools for the Future programme.
We have an £18 million programme to deliver our network of children’s centres, and we are actively winning money for our parks and opens spaces – almost £3 million to transform Markfield Park, for example.
And our plans to regenerate our under-used sites in Tottenham Hale and the Haringey Heartlands, developing much-needed new housing and creating new jobs for our people will attract even more investment, private and public, to benefit our communities.
Mr Mayor, in total we are looking at a billion pounds of investment in Haringey over the coming years.
This is the result of our commitment, working to deliver the pledges we made.
Mr Mayor, for us on this side of the Chamber, these pledges are not plucked out of the air, to get a headline, or because they are the latest bandwagon to jump on.
We consult seriously; we listen to local people; we take mature decisions; and we deliver.
And Mr Mayor, I can announce today that our performance in delivering the improvements local people want and deserve has been clearly recognised by local people in our latest residents’ survey:
Let me give you some headlines:
70 per cent of residents now say the Council is making the area a better place to live – significantly above the results for London as a whole.
70 per cent of residents say the Council is doing a good job – up six per cent, and three per cent better than in London as a whole.
The number of residents saying the Council is efficient and well-run is up by 10 per cent.
The number of residents saying that the Council provides value for money is up by eight per cent.
And the number of residents saying that the Council listens to their concerns is up four per cent and now eight per cent higher than in London as a whole.
These figures are proof again that we are listening, and delivering.
Mr Mayor, may I now remind the Council of what we have achieved over the past year.
We said our children would achieve more, in line with the aspirations of our people:
Our young people’s GCSE results continue to improve year on year at more than twice the national rate, with 56.2 per cent of pupils achieving five or more A star to C grades in 2007.
We are closing the gap between east and west, we are closing the gap between minority ethnic and White UK pupils, and we have boosted the GCSE performance of our looked after children to more than two and half times the national average.
Our new Sixth Form Centre opened on time and on budget in September, the first outcome of our planned investment of £178 million in secondary education.
This spectacular new Centre is already helping our young people to improve their skills and realise their potential. Mr Mayor I am proud to report to the Council that since it opened the numbers of our young people not in education, training or employment have reduced by almost a third, from 14 per cent to 10 .4 per cent.
Our bid to open a new comprehensive community school for the Haringey Heartlands was successful, and that is a major tribute to our ability as a Local Education Authority to deliver high-quality education for the 21st century. The school is scheduled to open in 2010.
We are on track to provide 18 children’s centres by September – an investment of £18 million providing one of the most extensive networks of children’s centres in the country.
I can announce that an extra £800,000 funding will be available for youth work in Haringey over the coming year, thanks to additional money from the Mayor of London. It is my intention that all of this money will be spent on improving youth provision.
We listen – and we act.
Mr Mayor, we said we would deliver the stable budget and low Council Tax that local people want.
Today I can announce that the proposals we will put to the Council later this month for the 2008/9 budget will again see a Council Tax increase of no more than three per cent – or 63 pence a week for a Band D taxpayer – and a prudent, balanced budget delivering value for money and investment in key priorities.
We listen – and we deliver.
Mr Mayor, we said that our streets would be brighter and cleaner, and our communities safer, two of the top priorities for our residents.
The percentage of streets with unacceptable levels of litter has halved in the last year, and we have issued more than 1,000 penalty notices for flytipping, littering and dumping.
Through popular schemes like Clean Sweep, encouraging local people and businesses to join with us in cleaning up their neighbourhood, and initiatives like our new litter-picking service, we continue to improve our streets.
Mr Mayor, I can also announce today that in response to our extensive Road to Improvement consultation, we are putting an extra £500,000 into repairing and resurfacing our roads -£300k capital and £200k revenue.
We listen to our residents – and we deliver.
On crime, Mr Mayor, the figures show that reported crime in the borough has fallen for the third year in a row, and our people feel safer than before, and over the last year there has been a 20% reduction in personal crime in the borough.
Every ward has a Safer Neighbourhood policing team, and council staff as well as ward councillors work closely with these teams to identify and tackle local issues.
Every secondary school has a Safer Schools officer, and we have actively extended our services for young people, particularly in the school holidays.
None of the progress we have made could have been achieved without the help and hard work of the Met Police. We have a close relationship which benefits us both. Mr Mayor, this is a challenging area, and despite the reductions, crime remains a serious issue. We continue to find new ways to move forward with our partners.
We have extended and improved our network of CCTV cameras.
Our Anti-Social Behaviour Action Team has launched parenting support for challenging families and is pioneering estate-based work, including our first ever Good Neighbour agreement.
On the issue of domestic violence, as I promised last year, we have introduced a free night time helpline service, and before Christmas our unique Hearthstone centre received a major award for its work from the Mayor of London.
Again Mr Mayor, we are listening, and we are delivering – and we will continue to do all we can to make our borough safer.
We said we would act to make our environment greener.
Mr Mayor, recycling rates in Haringey are now at record levels. From April to December last year we recycled 25.4% of our household waste –above the London average, and we will be extending recycling facilities in the coming year so that everyone will be able to recycle as easily as possible. We are also making excellent progress in decreasing the amount of waste we send to landfill.
We are the joint London leader for Green Flags for our parks, with eight awards, judged by independent assessors.
And we have more school travel plans than any other London borough, helping our children get to and from school safely, improving their health and the environment.
We were one of the first councils in the country to introduce residents’ parking charges based on carbon emissions.
We carried out a pioneering aerial survey of heat loss across the borough, and we are following that up with targeted work to help local people reduce their heating costs.
Mr Mayor, I am proud to announce that through this work we expect to help more than 1,600 residents on low incomes with their heating costs – tackling fuel poverty and climate change at the same time. This has been achieved through the ‘Warm Front’ scheme, run with British Gas, yet another example of the close partnerships we have with both public and private bodies.
And on climate change we are leading by example, with a far-reaching staff travel plan to cut down on car use and encourage environmentally friendly travel alternatives.
Again, Mr Mayor, we listen – and we deliver.
We said that our young people would be respected and included.
I’m proud to report that our Youth Council has gone from strength to strength, and that young people across the borough are now having a say about services that affect them and playing a full part in our community.
I would like to highlight in particular the Youth Council’s campaign on bullying, “Make Bullying History”, which was launched with a march and rally in November, attended by pupils from across our secondary schools.
Organised by the young people themselves, the event included presentations, theatre, music, talks and discussion, and is now being followed up with a poster and leaflet campaign in schools.
For me, this was a moving example of children and young people taking up a serious issue, and at the same time celebrating the shared positive values of young people from different backgrounds and cultures in Haringey.
Young people are our future, and we owe it to them to work together for that future to be safe and sustainable.
Mr Mayor, there is more:
We have a new regeneration strategy, around the theme of People, Places and Prosperity, looking to move ahead with our plans to bring much needed homes and jobs through developing our major sites, and getting our people into productive work through the innovative Haringey Guarantee scheme.
Our libraries have gone from strength to strength, with the opening of a new gallery at Hornsey, and Wood Green library recently confirmed as one of the 10 busiest in the country.
We are an award-winning Council – a national award for our WOW scheme recognising excellent customer service, the Most Improved Transport Borough in London award, our Domestic Violence award I’ve already mentioned, a Cemetery of the Year award for Wood Green, and others too numerous to mention.
Internally, we were proud to receive whole council Investors in People re-accreditation, against tougher criteria, for our training and management of staff, and we were the first London borough to receive the Member Development Charter, for our member learning and development programme.
Mr Mayor, this Council has proved its commitment to maintaining Alexandra Palace for the benefit of the people of Haringey and beyond over many years.
We have supported the Palace financially, and we have worked hard to find appropriate ways to generate the massive investment needed to secure its future – and shift the burden from the taxpayer.
We will consider very carefully the way forward, and we will continue to work in the interests of preserving the Palace and its unique facilities for generations to come, while at the same time working to shift burden from the taxpayer.
To those who have opposed these plans, and to Members opposite who predictably say one thing in one meeting, and another thing publicly, but never anything constructive, I make no apologies in saying: Now is the time to start living in the real world.
Mr Mayor, I hope you will agree that the achievements I have outlined here indicate clearly that we are listening, and we are delivering.
So, Mr Mayor, it has been a good year for Haringey – a year of achievement, of pledges fulfilled. I fully expect it to be yet again confirmed by the audit commission that we are a three star council and improving well.
As I said earlier though, we face many challenges. Some of our wards remain among the most deprived in the country, and we need to plan our resources carefully and make the most of all our opportunities over the coming period, so that we can deliver a sustainable future for the whole of Haringey.
I believe that today we have the solid basis, of strength in diversity, to make the progress we need – and that this administration – experienced, committed, in touch with the needs and aspirations of all our people – can take us forward. We listen, and we deliver.
The Leader of the Opposition spoke in response.
RESOLVED:
That the Leader of the Council’s “State of the Borough” report be received and agreed.