Minutes:
The Leader of the Council, Councillor George Meehan, gave the following “State of the Borough” address:
Madam Mayor, fellow Councillors, Chief Executive, Officers, ladies and gentlemen.
May I start by saying how much pleasure it gives me to present to the Chamber the first State of the Borough Speech of this new Labour administration.
The people of the borough once again returned a Labour administration to run this Council on their behalf in May 2006 and my colleagues and I are proud to serve local people once again.
This State of the Borough speech means a great deal to me.
The more experienced Members in the Chamber will no doubt recall my previous State of the Borough speeches pledging, and reporting on, change, improvement, and progress for our residents.
This speech is different, for the achievements of Labour in transforming Haringey are now recognized nationally and this Council is now recognised as a high performing Council.
Recognition from the Audit Commission that we are this year, as an authority, "improving well", as we were for the first time last year, is testament to the determination with which myself and my colleagues have pursued improvements and driven through a transformation in the quality of council services.
What is more important, however, is that Haringey's residents share this confidence in their Council. Residents have also noted the improvements that we have achieved, and will continue to achieve, as demonstrated in the recently published Residents Survey.
Evidence, Madam Mayor, as if it were needed, that Labour are the only party capable of governing Haringey Council.
I truly believe that we are now well prepared to achieve in the next few years a four star rating for this Council.
I believe that we can, and that we will, reach our goal of becoming an excellent Council, not just in the eyes of the Audit Commission but in the eyes of our residents as well.
The passion of my fellow Labour Councillors, and as I am in a generous mood - Members on the opposite side of the Chamber too - together with the dedication of our Council's officers, suggests to me that we all have our sight on the same goal: delivering excellent services for our Residents to improve the quality of life for everyone in the borough. They deserve no less!
To those of us on this side of the Chamber, excellent services are not just an end in themselves. They are the means by which we deliver our programme of improvement for local people and through which we improve life chances for residents and transform our communities.
To us, excellent services are what enable us to achieve and drive forward the Labour agenda for which local people voted.
Haringey is the tenth most deprived local authority in England. This fact should unite all of us in this Chamber in our drive to improve the quality of life for our all diverse communities, to tackle inequality and to address the poverty that too often blights our communities.
We were re-elected on a manifesto that made clear our ambition for Haringey and our determination to achieve it. The last year was one of enormous achievement in Haringey and I am pleased to present to Full Council tonight some of those achievements and our ambitions for the future.
As Members will know, it is the policy of this Council to deliver the Labour Party's programme for Haringey, to ensure that in the Haringey of 2010, for all of us, we see
We pledged that we would see our children achieving more. We know that education is they key to breaking the cycles of deprivation and underachievement that can waste the lives of too many people in our borough.
Today, over half our primary schools achieve above the national average at Key Stage two. The improvement in the number of children attaining level four in all three core subjects outstrips the national average.
I must of course pay tribute to teachers, parents and the children themselves as the Borough’s GCSE results have improved at twice the national rate over the past five years, rising to almost three times the national rate in Tottenham.
Haringey's children and young people are full of enormous potential. I firmly believe that our Children and Young People’s Service, in conjunction with our excellent Head teachers and Governors, are in the position to provide a platform for our young to go on and be the young achievers that we know they can be.
The Haringey Sixth Form Centre project, to provide a better education and experience to our young people, is on target to open its doors in Autumn 2007.
It will be the first major scheme completed nationally under the Building Schools for the Future programme.
Haringey's schools are propelling a generation of our young people to the top. In this era when the role of local authorities in improving schools is often questioned, we should be proud of what Haringey has done to drive up standards, attainment and aspirations for our children.
Successive Labour administrations in Haringey have prioritized education. Something we are deeply proud of, as Haringey's performance continues to climb relative to other local authorities across London and across the country.
It is therefore no surprise that significantly more residents than at this time last year consider nursery, primary and secondary education in Haringey to be good or excellent.
To ensure this trend continues we will be adding eight children’s centres to the existing ten to improve provision for our youngest children in the crucial first few years of their lives.
As a Labour authority, working with our Labour government, we have secured no less than one hundred and seventy-eight million pounds of funding from the Building Schools for the Future programme, the largest single grant ever received by this authority.
A proportion of that investment will be made in a new secondary school, part of our careful planning to provide for future demand, which will open in 2010.
It is my hope, and that of this Group, that the Council’s proposal for a mixed comprehensive community school, forming part of the Haringey family of schools, will be the successful bid.
Madam Mayor, we pledged to keep our Council tax low and stable. This Labour administration is committed to achieving excellent services while keeping council tax increases stable and low, because it is families, as well as councils, that need to plan ahead.
We are committed to a stable level of council tax that continues to enable investment where it is needed, with low increases planned for this year and each of the next three years.
The balance between guaranteeing investment and achieving affordability is not an easy one to strike, but in concentrating on delivering value for money and improving the performance of services we have been able to satisfy both of these demands.
We are determined to develop and improve the services we deliver for local people. That will mean a real focus on value for money and efficiency savings, so local people get a better deal for their money, as well as further improving performance. This year we have identified some £7 million in efficiency savings.
Again and again when I meet local people on the streets of my ward and across the borough they comment on how clean and tidy the borough is these days. That improvement is by choice, not chance.
The "Be++er Haringey" campaign continues to be a fantastic success story for the borough. We have had real success in making the borough cleaner, greener and safer. The Better Haringey programme has made an enormous difference to the lives of the Borough’s residents.
The Better Haringey Campaign has re-invigorated a notion of civic pride in Haringey, embodying Labour's belief that community involvement in achieving change is central to its success and sustainability.
That pride in Haringey, that pride in community involvement, is central to our vision of a diverse borough made cohesive through a common purpose.
It is my hope that residents and resident groups continue to work alongside the council in the coming years so we can further improve the image of the borough and residents' quality of life.
Across our service provision we have been promoting and strengthening the involvement of the community in our decision-making.
We have streamlined the consultation process, rolled out integrated Neighbourhood Management teams across the Borough, and continued the programme of Area Assemblies. But perhaps the most important role of community involvement is in the regeneration that will transform our borough and have great benefits for all. It is our role to facilitate that by way of partnerships, funding and opportunities.
Madam Mayor, it gives me particular pleasure to update members on the progress made on our pledge to ensure our communities are safer. Across London it has been Labour that has blazed a trail for improving community safety and policing in the face of penny-pinching and short-sighted Liberal and Conservative opposition. As Members will be aware, the above-inflation rise in the proposed Mayoral budget this year will go primarily to fund extra police - and transport police - for London, a manifesto commitment of our Labour Mayor. I look forward to seeing how Opposition colleagues will react this year to the Mayor's final budget, and whether as in every previous year, their colleagues on the London Assembly will vote against the consolidated budget package that delivers those extra police.
Here In Haringey we are continuing to build safer and stronger communities. We now have the dedicated police Safer Neighbourhoods teams for every ward and we are seeing their contribution to an overall fall in crime, with particular successes in combating burglary and motor vehicle crime.
We are committed to working in partnership with the local police, the Mayor for London, and our other partners as well as Haringey’s residents to drive down crime in our borough.
We are determined that by acting together we will tackle the on-going problems of anti-social behaviour, violent crime, robbery burglary and the harm to individuals and communities caused by illegal drugs and alcohol abuse. Reducing crime against people is a particular priority and I am proud that in the last year, reported crime in Haringey reduced by nearly fifteen percent, with a significant drop in common assault, criminal damage, personal robbery and wounding.
In the area of knife crime, we are leading the way in education, prevention and enforcement. In particular, our performance on knife-enabled crime improved by twenty percent relative to the previous year.
Members will know, as I know, from speaking with residents in their Wards, that the fear of being a victim of crime is still there, but they will also know, from our record of success that this Administration has played a pivotal role in making the borough a safer place and this that will continue to be a priority.
I want to single out tonight the work we have done as an authority in close partnership with the police to close down over 90 crack houses and drive drug crime down, and also the work we do to tackle the scourge of domestic violence in Haringey.
This Labour administration is deeply committed to stamping out domestic violence. Members will have seen the advertising campaigns we have run to ensure it is reported and to see that no-one is any doubt that it is unacceptable.
We are proud that Hearthstone, our unique centre providing advice and support for women who are experiencing domestic violence, continues to be a valued support service for women who are victims of domestic violence. In March 2007, we will be introducing a free helpline service through the night that will be permanently advertised in our two Accident & Emergency departments.
Madam Mayor, we promised also to make our environment greener. It is our aim, as a Labour administration, for Haringey to be one of the greenest boroughs in London. We have recently signed the Nottingham Declaration on climate change, committing this Council to tackle both causes and effects of climate change. We have begun to remodel our parking policy to help us achieve this and we are working hard on travel plans for our schools and council staff.
We have completed a one point two million pound open space improvement programme, and as a result seven of our parks have now been awarded ‘Green Flag’ status - up sharply from 2005/6 and the highest number of any London borough.
As a Borough, we are now recycling twenty-two percent of household waste, an improvement on last year and on a par with the national average.
In an effort to increase this figure, our new recycling service for Haringey's estates made its first doorstep collections in December 2006. Once fully rolled nearly, four thousand households will receive a weekly collection from their doorstep, and a further fourteen hundred will benefit from near-entry recycling bins.
Last but certainly not least, Madam Mayor, this administration pledged to ensure that our young people are respected and included. It is Haringey's young people who are the future of this borough. As a Labour Council, we want to see our young people given greater opportunities with every passing year, with rising educational standards lifting aspirations and achievements. Better education for all is, we believe, the key to spreading power, wealth and opportunity throughout our society.
We are pleased to announce that the Youth Council has been established and elections have taken place, with members including representatives of secondary schools, special schools, social care and youth organisations. The aim of the Youth Council is to encourage Young People to get involved and feel included in their Community and to represent and push the interests of young people across the Council’s Services.
Much work this year has focussed also on increasing our infrastructure for supporting our young people. The Haringey Sixth Form Centre project is on target to open its doors in Autumn 2007 and both the Bruce Grove centre and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Centre in Wood Green are now open and offering a wide range of activities. We know that young people today have high expectations. We are determined to work hard to meet and exceed those.
Madam Mayor, a good council is a listening council and we continue to respond to the wishes of Haringey residents. Our seven area assemblies have looked to involve the local community in ward based projects, and thanks to the “making the difference” scheme, residents have been able to suggest projects that drive change in their community so that it genuinely embodies their dreams and aspirations.
Madam Mayor, in summary, at the heart of our ambitions for this borough and this Council is a commitment to putting people first, putting our concept of community at the heart of everything we do.
This Labour administration is determined to make Haringey an excellent Council. We will continue to work hard to drive up performance, improving efficiency and engaging with our communities more effectively. Continued development of partnership with the community, the police, the health service and all our other local partners will deliver for us now and in the future.
Together we can achieve great things, and I am certain we will.
With this, we will surely be part of creating a Better Haringey together.
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.