One Nottingham And Its Voluntary Sector Representatives

While we're on the subject of One Nottingham (see previous post wrt workfare issues) I thought we might have a look at the categories of voluntary sector reps that serve on its board because it's a bit odd.

As mentioned previously the board has a 'faith' representative, a BME representative and a 'general' representative.

Personally I think this is a bit odd. I absolutely agree that an organisation such as One Nottingham should have at least one board member representing BME communities but why is this only as part of the voluntary sector? Don't black people work in banks too?

I also wonder about whether a faiths representative is justified. Yes, I know the majority of people in Nottingham identify with a religion but I suspect only a tiny number of the 44% of Nottingham people identifying as Christian actually bother turning up of a Sunday. I'm sure levels of devotion in other religions is much higher but I suspect there's a lot of overlap between BME and non-Christian faith issues. Maybe combine the two?

That said, a sound justification for having a 'faith' representative is that, like race, it is one of the protected characteristics in discrimination law. However, that opens several worm-cans as One Nottingham appears to have no representation for the other major categories of women (yes, I know it's actually 'sex' but it's generally women who face the discrimination side of things), disability, older/younger people and LGBT communities, other than via the 'general' VCS rep. It's this that concerns me the most and I have no idea what the justification is. Please feel free to write in if you do.

It seems to me that a better way of doing things would be to have board reps representing the above sections of the community, based around the protected characteristics rather than on a particular service sector. Don't get me wrong, a voluntary sector rep is still justified as they are important service providers in the city. However I think it's wrong to assume that the interests of that particular business sector are necessarily the same as the people they serve.

What got me thinking about this is the current elections to the VCS reps on the ON board. While looking into this an aspect of the organisation of the vote for the BME rep concerned me a little and that is the involvement of Nottingham Equal;-

"The BME candidates will be elected by an electorate who have been notified to ON primarily (but not only) by Nottingham Equal."

Why does Nottingham Equal play such an important role? I've written quite a lot about this bunch in the past, largely due to its connections with two of Nottingham's dodgier characters, Hassan Ahmed and Tyron Browne, as well as the coincidental rise of this organisation concurrent with the demise of the former Racial Equality Council, more recently the Council for Equalities and Human Rights Nottm and Notts, which had Ahmed's fingerprints all over it. Browne is, of course still involved with NE. He is/was also involved with PATRA which did quite nicely out of the Future Jobs Fund (Prop. Hassan Ahmed).

I seem to remember that NE 'facillitated' the VCS BME rep election where the Chief Exec of CEHRNN was voted out of the role back in 2010 which left a bad taste in the mouth. Now they appear to effectively be the gatekeeper for the BME rep this time round.

With this latter point in mind it seems quite astonishing that one of NE's own board members, Prof Cecille Wright, is running for the BME rep post on the ON board. Have they never heard the phrase 'perceived conflict of interest'? Prof Wright is also a board member for PATRA too which is quite a coincidence.

So Nottingham Equal seems to have the entire BME sector in Nottingham in lockdown, quite an achievement for an organisation little more than three years old. How much of this is down to Browne's influence cannot be quantified but it's certainly true that NCC, and thus One Nottingham, have a very big motivation to keep him on side. After all, nobody knows better where the housing allocations scandal bodies are buried.

One Nottingham VCS Board Member Elections and Workfare

One Nottingham, the 'strategic partnership' has a management board with various posts reserved for representatives of particular sectors e.g., business, higher education and the voluntary sector. Currently, elections are underway for the voluntary sector posts which include a 'faith' representative, a BME representative and a sort of general 'everybody else' representative. More on the choices of these categories another time, maybe.

In the meantime, let's concentrate on the 'general' post. One of the candidates is Andrew Redfern, the Chief Exec of Framework HA which has deservedly attracted controversy and outright hostility for its participation in the Tories' take on modern slavery that is workfare. Have a look at their Facebook page to see some of the comments.

Because of this involvement in workfare, it would send a message if Redfern was sent packing in this election. Therefore, if you have any influence at any voluntary sector organisation in the City I urge you to persuade your organisation not to vote for him. It would also be very useful if any organisations exercising their vote in this way made it very clear why.

Framework has repeatedly refused to answer key questions about its use of workfare, particularly about whether it has reported participants for transgressions, putting them at risk of benefit sanctions and thus homelessness. It is an extraordinary course of action for an organisation which is supposed to be helping the homeless.

In the meantime, you may be interested in joining in with an internet blockade against Framework during the upcoming week of action against workfare.

Housing Benefits - The Council Answers?

I got an email today confirming that my question to full council about housing benefits WILL be answered at the next full council meeting.

So, if you're not doing anything on 11 June at 2pm pop down to the Council House and live tweet it...because I don't think I can make it myself and I'd like to know what they say! Oh, botheration...

Anyway, I am genuinely interested in the response and when the minutes come out I will do a post quoting it in full with any commentary that I deem necessary. Such commentary will include 'well said' etc if justified but will also include links to evidence-based rebuttals if that's what the answer requires. If it turns out to be mostly the latter the resultant blogpost will be sent round to all councillors.

In all seriousness, I am genuinely interested in the answers. The question was drafted from around three years of research and certainly was not intended to be a tripping up exercise; the points I raised really do need both answering and tackling. I really do hope that this raises awareness among councillors about the reality of benefits administration in Nottingham and that real improvement is triggered.

In a related issue, NCC is having to gear up to some big new responsibilities as a result of the government's 'welfare reform'. The Post has already written a very good article about one aspect of this, the replacement of the national Council Tax Benefit scheme with a local one, but another development sees the responsibility to administer the discretionary social fund (including crisis loans etc) transferring to councils like NCC.

Both developments are extremely worrying. As far as the Council Tax Benefit change is concerned, the big issue is that it masks a 10% cut in central funding for the scheme and councils look like they're being set up to be the fall-guys for that. Less attention has been focused on NCC taking over a local version of the social fund. I'm particularly worried because the last time NCC took charge of a discretionary benefit scheme it didn't go so well. And it still isn't. You've presumably guessed that I'm talking about our old mate the Discretionary Housing Payments scheme here?

At least NCC appears to have realised there is an issue as it has apparently set aside funding for a new policy officer to do the thinking on these two issues (not DHPs natch). So far Lisa Black and the policy officer responsible for failing to mention DHPs to One Nottingham have been in charge of NCC's welfare reform response. I'm sure it would be unfair to see this new resource as being evidence that they're not up to the job but hey...

However, it looks like the job will go internally and I'm not convinced the expertise is there. And before you ask, no of course I'm not suggesting I should be able to apply for it, I'm still not medically fit, I also have a major skills gap and there's no bloody way I'd go for any job which requires me to report to Lisa Black again cos she's not fit to lick my boots.

So. None of this is looking good. Even if we do get good answers to my big question, it's all changing soon with Universal Credit and these new local responsibilities. It really is not the time to be on benefits believe me.

Some Are More Equal Than Others

It's been a while since I last wrote about Nottingham Equal. I've been chasing up a few Freedom of Info requests here and there which has shed a bit more light on the help they have received with their fundraising activities.

I have been writing about concerns with possible conflicts of interest between NCC's decision to end funding for the now closed Council for Equalities and Human Rights Nottm and Notts and the funding of Nottingham Equal for some time. These were initially based around Hassan Ahmed's involvement in the NE and jointly making the CEHRNN funding decision.

Let's have a bit of a recap. Ahmed and Cllr Chapman made the decision to stop CEHRNN's funding immediately in March 2010. In October that year a portfolio decision was published to fund Nottingham Equal to the tune of around £70k which seemed a bit of a coincidence. This funding came via One Nottingham. In April 2011, a further year of funding was allocated, the decision to do so citing 'satisfactory monitoring information' as a justification.

I was quite interested in this 'satisfactory monitoring information' so I put in a FoI for it. An interesting point this revealed is that the monitoring information concerned a period from April to December 2010 and reported on performance on a service level agreement which was only signed by representatives of Nottingham Equal (one of whom was Tyron Browne) on 19 January 2011. In other words, we have a report on outputs and outcomes before those outputs and outcomes were even agreed. Odd that.

What is also apparent is how closely that Nottingham Equal matched its targets. The target for the number of organisations supoorted was 8 and the number of organisationas actually supported was 8. The target for getting individuals involved in 'dialogue' on decision making was 30 and, you'll never guess, the number of individuals who became involved with 'dialogue' was, happily, 30. One target was exceeded, they organised two meetings against a target of just one, but of seven targets, six were met exactly. There was a week between the SLA being signed and these outputs reported. Thank the maker for happy coincidences.

In the meantime I had been trying to get hold of the tender consideration meeting minutes for this decision from One Notttingham who eventually refused. I went to the Information Commissioner who decided that, although ON weren't subject to FoI, the council should have responded instead because I had copied them into my review request. Not the result I was expecting but I have now had the minutes of the meeting, held 10 May 2010, and they make some interesting reading.

Firstly, the attendees include Hasseeb Ahmed, NCC's Head of Equalities. He was CEHRNN's project officer and wrote the damning (and seriously flawed) Equalities Impact Assessment which resulted in CEHRNN losing their funding. He was also listed as Nottingham Equal's project officer on their SLA but whether he had become involved by the time of this meeting I don't know.

Secondly, the original NCC portfolio decision confirming funding for Nottingham Equal (see link above) said that funding an alternative organisation had been considered as an option but that 'no comparable organisations existed'. The minutes contradict this somewhat because there was an alternative tender from an organisation called 'HRN'. In the remarks it was noted that their 'delivery vehicle' was CEHRNN.

Now then, due to Haseeb Ahmad's previous involvement with CEHRNN there is a strong argument that he had a massive conflict of interest being involved in this decision. He cannot possibly have come to the discussion with an open mind and assessed a bid involving CEHRNN dispassionately. Two other members of the panel expressed 'concerns about the delivery vehicle - CEHRNN' which strongly suggests that HRN never stood a chance. Nobody expressed any concerns about Nottingham Equal, despite Hassan Ahmed being a founder member and at the time of the meeting being before Standards for England accused of breaching the councillors code of conduct, nor of Tyron Browne's involvement when he had figured rather large in the housing allocations scandal.

If you've followed the story of CEHRNN, Nottingham Equal and the associated individuals it is extremely hard not to seriously wonder whether it was a king sized stitch up to take the funding from CEHRNN, pass it over to a more friendly organisation in the form of Nottingham Equal and do it via One Nottingham to make it more difficult to scrutinise what happened. This latest information in the form of the tender meeting minutes only adds to that impression.

Discretionary Housing Payments - Any Change?

So then, back to my favourite obsession. Where had we got to?

Ah yes, last we heard was that in the 2009/10 year NCC got £59,639 from the government towards DHPs and, joy of joys, the total actually paid out went up for the first time in years to £66,677 from the previous year's £51,882.

Strange then that the 2010/11 central government grant dropped to £55,863. You see, normally, the amount allocated should be half way between the previous year's grant and actual expenditure so an increase in DHP payouts should pull the grant up. So I'm not sure what that was about.

Anyway that was the last year that the old rules applied because since then the lovely Tories have cut mainstream Housing Benefit even more and part of the 'sweetener' for the deal was an extra nationwide £10m DHP allocation (making £30m in total) to allow councils to apply a scrap of band aid. This extra £10m is not allocated via the normal formula mentioned above it is weighted in favour of councils who would lose the most from the cuts which, as I've posted before, kinda means Nottingham.

Now I have been ranting about this for a while because it means that tenants on benefits will be even more reliant on DHPs to keep a roof over their heads. One Nottingham failed to even mention DHPs in it's recent 'concern' about benefit cuts. So I was interested to find out how much Nottingham had actually got for the 2011/12 financial year i.e. the current one. Turns out it's £119,316 which is more than double that of last year. This implies that a big chunk of that is from this extra £10m. Councils are also allowed to spend a certain amount of their own money on DHPs and if NCC spent the maximum it is allowed to that would be a potential total fund of over £298k.

So, we know that Nottingham is expected to do disproportionally badly out of mainstream HB cuts. We know that Nottingham's share of the band-aid is bigger than most. What we don't have is any evidence that NCC has anything approaching a plan for ensuring this extra money is used most effectively.

The result of this is that any mitigation of the worst effects of the HB cuts that would have been possible from this extra funding probably won't happen and we will see a big increase in rent arrears and evictions as a result. How many of these could be prevented by a decent DHP strategy is impossible for me to say but if only one person loses their home when there's money there to stop it I think that's criminal.

Note; if you are currently suffering a shortfall between your housing benefit and your rent I would strongly recommend that you apply for DHPs, even if you've been turned down before because of the increased budget.

The forms are available here. Note that the DHP leaflet there was prepared in 2005 and the contact address is for a building that doesn't exist anymore. That probably tells you all you need to know about the amount of effort NCC puts in and how much they give a shit about you becoming homeless.

Addendum; I've just found that One Nottingham have had further discussions on welfare issues at their May Meeting. A policy document is available but ON seem to have got bored of publishing their minutes. Obviously there was no mention of DHPs in that paper. It seems to be all about blaming the government which in itself is fine but it's more productive to discuss the things that you do actually have some control over.

Now One Nottingham Ignores Discretionary Housing Payments

One Nottingham discussed the potential effects of welfare reform at its meeting on 25th of March.

I've previously taken the piss out of ON's sudden panic at policies New Labour has been laying the groundwork on for years. Why weren't there briefings before?

This time there was an 'update' paper which spent quite a lot time discussing the effects of housing benefit changes without once mentioning Discretionary Housing Payments. Can you believe that?

We haven't got the minutes of the meeting yet but there is a new edition of the ON Bulletin out which reports on the meeting. However the welfare reform bit is a largely word for word reproduction of the above paper so it seems unlikely that anybody brought DHPs into the discussion.

Fuckwits.

One Nottingham and Freedom of Information

As you will be aware from my last post on the matter One Nottingham now claims to be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

I have submitted my complaint about this to the Information Commissioner and broadly my case is that ON is simply a part of NCC and thus is covered by the FoIA.

Following a comment on the above post and my reply explaining my understanding of ON's legal stature I thought I'd post up the grounds of my case and, well here they are -

"The respondent is refusing to provide details of the tender process for a decision it made to award funding to an organisation called Nottingham Equal. It has only provided copies of meeting minutes that vaguely discussed the project but I was hoping to receive details of why NE was awarded funding which would only be in the tender discussion documents, which the respondent has refused to provide. They do not appear to have made any attempt to carry out a public interest assessment.

The respondent is now claiming to be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act seeking, presumably, to rely on a claim that 'One Nottingham' is a separate autonomous organisation. This claim is not credible for the following reasons -

1. One Nottingham is an unincorporated body with Nottingham City Coucil as the accountable body (see http://bit.ly/fuW6UV).

2. All ON workers are NCC employees and its Chief Executive reports directly to the Chief Exec of NCC in NCC's senior management structure (see http://bit.ly/gN2D8E).

3. ON's own funding guidance states that it's documents would be subject to the FoIA (see Tender Panel Guidance Notes attached).

4. ON's website is a subsection of NCC's website.

5. The funding decision purportedly made by ON had to be ratified by a separate decision by NCC (see http://bit.ly/eWyPNF) .

With the above in mind my view is that the ON Board is merely an advisory committee for decisions that are ultimately those of NCC. As such those decisions are subject to the FoIA."

Of course that will give NCC's legal team a bit of a head start (and make no mistake, it will be them who are onto this unless ON decides to waste some public money on a lawyer who knows what they are talking about) but I don't mind that. I'll leave the 'rabbit out of the hat' thing to them.

One Nottingham Battens Down the FoI Hatches

Just had this email back from One Nottingham -

"We have been advised that One Nottingham is not covered by the Freedom of Information Act.

We will not release to you the minutes from the tender panel that you requested.

As previously mentioned the decison to award Nottingham Equal the contract was following the approved tender process that One Nottingham has followed for many years and this was explained in my email of the 2nd November."

Ok, at least we know where we all stand. When I get a minute I'll start the process rolling to see if they're right.

One thing this proves beyond any doubt however. One Nottingham is little more than a front to hide dirty linen behind.

No, We Always Do It This Way, Honest

FINALLY got a response to one of my outstanding FoIA enquiries. They'd failed to provide a response within the statutory time limit so I asked for a review. The time limit for that is up today and, lo and behold, it appears. As such they took the absolute maximum amount of time without the involvement of the Information Commissioner.

Still, they take the opportunity to reassure me that -

"...we are currently carrying out a thorough review of all our office procedures to minimise the possibility of any future delays." 

That looks familiar. Let's have a quick look at a reply to an older query from June 2009 that had also been delayed -

"Please be assured we are currently carrying out a thorough review of all our office procedures to minimise the possibility of any future delays."

That's quite a long review! I imagine that no stone has been left unturned in finding a solution to these delays and that 'reports' and 'action plans' are being wielded as we speak.

Anyway, to the substance. I was trying to find out the current employment status of One Nottingham's Chief Exec, Nigel Cooke. He'd been described as 'acting' for a while which seemed odd. It may also be relevant that he is a very old mate of Jon Collins, erstwhile Chair of ON.

It turns out that Mr Cooke is now the permanently appointed Chief Exec but he didn't have to apply for the job or be interviewed. He was 'slotted in' to the job in June this year. It is, however, entirely above board -

"The restructuring procedures, agreed with the Trade Unions, involve comparing the job description of the post holder, whose substantive post has been deleted (in this case, Head of Service, One Nottingham) with that of the new post (Head of One Nottingham).

There was found to be a match of 66% or more and therefore the person at risk was eligible to be redeployed into the new post. No other at risk people were found to have 66% or more match and therefore no ring fence interviews for the new post were held."

You see? That's how they always do it.

It's worth a bit more of a look though. I did have some involvement in considerations of redeployment issues at NCC when I worked there.

First thing is you are comparing the posts rather than any individual postholder's skills so you're not supposed to include any task included in any 'acting up' capacity. It's also worth mentioning that Cooke's previous job was Head of Service and this post reported to the Chief Executive. In other words they are saying that there was a 66% overlap between two senior management posts, one of whom reported to the other.

If that really was the case then that was some serious top heavy management. The only other explanation would be that the redeployment process was rigged and, despite the fact that I'm sure JoCo wants to see his old mate do well and also to ensure that he leaves a friendly face at the top of ON when he departs the chair, I have absolutely no reason to believe that to be the case.

Last little fact of note. The salary is of the range £57,288 to £66,762. That's quite a bit less than the new Director of the Crime and Drugs Partnership (Alan Given's replacement) who I am reliably informed started on £89k.

Addendum; in case you think this all sounds a bit conspiracy theory you might want to bear in mind that Collins is onto his fourth Chief Exec at NCC with well documented rows with Michael Frater who then went on to uncover corruption and mismanagement at Surrey County Council. Shortly after Collins assumed the chair of Notts Police Authority the Chief Exec was hoofed out and it's widely rumoured that his current favourite Alan Given is being lined up for the job. And of course the arrival of Collins as chair of One Nottingham and the departure of previous Chief Exec Andrew Balchin occurred suspiciously close together with Cooke 'acting up' to the role pretty much straight away. Coincidence? Yeah right.

Shameless Cover Up

Kevin from One Nottingham has been back in touch, thought I'd heard the last from him. Here's what he had to say about my request for a copy of the tender meeting minutes and other documents -

"We have taken the decison not to supply the information you requested, in our considered opinion, release of this information would damage the commercial interests of Nottingam City Council, One Nottingham and the parties involved in the tendering process.

I would refer you to my email dated 2nd November 2010."

NCCLols translation service; "We're not giving you the info because that would let the cat out of the bag about the dodgy backroom deals we've pulled." 

Looks like it might be time to put plan B into operation. 

Lack of Engagement Woes...Again

Unfortunately I have to report that my initial optimism at One Nottingham's response to my request for a copy of the decision to award Nottingham Equal funding appears to be misplaced.

As I said before, ON's PR chap Kevin Bartlett provided me with copies of board minutes but said that the decision to pick NE was made by a tender panel, a detail not mentioned in the NCC decision to provide match funding. That just mentioned a lack of other potential organisations.

I have written back to Mr Bartlett, twice, asking him for a copy of the tender decision and meeting minutes as their guidance says that this should normally be provided under the Freedom of Information Act and Kevin did say he would deal with my request under FoIA principles. Not a peep back from him sadly and he sounded so friendly at the outset.

What have they got to hide?

The next tactic I think is to test just how independent ON is from NCC by putting in a FoIA request to NCC itself. NCC's financial regulations state that contracts over £50k must have three bidders. The financial regs can be dispensed with if a justification can be provided but according to Kevin that didn't happen. We'll see what they say.

In other clamming up news, after encouraging all and sundry to write to their councillors about discretionary housing payments I made a point of doing so myself. Ten days ago I wrote to my own local councillors, Cat Arnold, Rob Lee and Mick Newton, the three party leaders and relevant portfolio holders Graham Chapman (resources), Eunice Campbell (adult services) and David Liversidge (housing).

Wanna know how many replies I've had? One, from Lib Dem leader Gary Long who said he would support DHPs being sent for scrutiny. Hats off to him at least. Nothing from anybody else, not even my own councillors which is an absolute disgrace. I've never had a reply from any of my local councillors apart from one from Mick Newton and that was when he was off sick.

These wasters are a disgrace to democracy. How can they complain about people not voting or otherwise engaging in political life when they steadfastly ignore people who do? How often do politicians howl in condemnation when people dare to take matters into their own hands and riot or stage other forms of direct action? We hear them mewling and puking that we should effect change by democratic means but ignore us when we do. It's not a party political thing, they're all part of the same disease, although we do have a particular problem with councillors being little more than vote fodder at the beck and call of the leadership in Nottingham. The last thing that elected representatives of that calibre want is for people to take an interest in what they're doing.

Nottingham Equal Funding Decision

At long last we finally have the release of a funding decision for Nottingham Equal's grant aid of £86k. The money is ostensibly to enable NE to develop a network for BME groups in the city.

I have no idea why it's taken so long for the decision to be made, especially since NE were confident enough of getting the money to have been recruiting some time back

As you can see these posts had already expired by 27 September.

Parts of the rationale behind the decision warrant a further look. 'Options considered' included 'not to provide grant aid'. This was dismissed because it '...could result in the winding up of Nottingham Equal...' Horrors! How would we survive without an organisation that was only incorporated in February 2009 and consequently has no track record of delivery?

Another potential solution was to 'fund another organisation' but this one was discounted because 'no comparable organisations exist'. This is explored further in the appended report; it points out that Nottingham Black Partnership no longer exists which is true and is a sorry story in itself. It then goes on to dismiss the possibility of funding the Council for Equalities and Human Rights Nottm and Notts on the basis that it is '...undergoing major change and difficulties resulting in both the City and County Councils withdrawing funding...' Regular readers will be aware that I have already written extensively about CEHRNN's 'difficulties' and I think it might be fair to say that the withdrawal of funding was more the cause of those difficulties rather than a consequence.

Interestingly, the report says that NE's BME network will '...complement other third sector networks being developed by NCVS'. Was NCVS invited to bid for the funds to set up the BME network as well?

Some of the money has been provided by One Nottingham so it's worth a quick look at NE's relationship with them. Part of the job for NE will be to 'support' the BME rep on One Nottingham's board, a job to which they are no doubt suited as it was them that facilitated the removal of CEHRNN's chief exec from the role.

Sorry, what I MEANT to say there was that NE facilitated the election in which CEHRNN's chief exec lost his place as BME rep on ON's board. Which, coincidentally, was a couple of months before NCC removed their funding.

I have been trying to get hold of a copy of ON's decision to pick NE as the recipient of their funding. As well as being sent copies of ON board minutes which didn't mention NE specifically I got this response -

"If you are after a written decison from the One Nottingham Board to award the funding to Nottingham Equal there is not one.

As I explained in the previous email, the ON Board approved the amount and purpose for the funding but not the delivery organisation.

A tender process was organised and the tender panel comprising of partner organisations involved with One Nottingham selected Nottingham Equal through this process."

I'm surprised that this tender exercise wasn't mentioned in the NCC portfolio holder decision or the supporting report but no biggie. 

Lastly, let's have a quick recap of some of the personalities involved. We know about NE's Chief Exec Tyrone Brown, he of 'legging it after NCH homes allocation scandal' fame and I would certainly question the wisdom of funding any organisation with him involved. Still, NCC are perfectly happy to throw money at his other little fiefdom PATRA so any concerns appear to be falling on deaf ears.

Similarly, Hassan Ahmed who was a founding director of NE but resigned when he got caught out not declaring it on his register of interests. He was jointly responsible for the decision to end CEHRNN's funding. I've been saying for a while that CEHRNN was a potential competitor organisation to his latest pet project and this decision provides the first direct evidence. He is now the chair of ON's 'Fairness Commission' which wasn't formally involved with this particular funding decision but, well, you know...

One last mention must go to NCC's Head of Service Equality and Community Relations. He was responsible for the dodgy Equalities Impact Assessment carried out on CEHRNN and was significantly criticised by CEHRNN for the manner of his involvement with them. He now turns up as a contributor to the report recommending funding of NE.

Addendum - NE has recently registered as a charity

Someone Does the Right Thing

Following my earlier post on Nottgirl's revelation that One Nottingham had passed a wedge of money to Nottingham Equal you can imagine that I was pretty keen to get hold of a copy of the decision.

But there was a problem in that One Nottingham is a Local Strategic Partnership, consisting of more than one public authority and the private and third sectors so technically isn't covered by the Freedom of Information Act.

So I had to have a bit of a think and I came up with a radical idea. Why not just ask? So I did and got this encouraging response -

"thanks for your email we are able to provide you with the information you requested and we will treat it as a freedom of information request. I will send you a copy of the decision by the 26th October 2010"

Good answer. There are a number of anomalies in the FoIA where certain organisations spending public money and shaping policy are exempt from FoIA and the more of them that voluntarily choose to act by FoI principles the better. Let's hope they follow this approach consistently.

Not sure why they need until October 26 though. (Oh come on, it wouldn't be me if I didn't have a bit of a moan).

You Still Here?

Talking of Collins, has anybody noticed that he shows no sign of resigning as Chair of 'One Nottingham', like he said he would be doing when he was elected Chair of the Police Authority?

(Un)Fairness Commission

One Nottingham has announced in its latest bulletin that it is to establish a 'Fairness Commission' (see page 4).

According to a report prepared for ON the Fairness Commission's role will be -

"...to research, promote and hold One Nottingham accountable on issues of equality and diversity."

The Bulletin announces that it will be chaired by Cllr Hassan Ahmed.

I'm sorry but has everyone gone mad? Hassan Ahmed in charge of a Fairness Commission? The very same Hassan Ahmed who decided at a stroke to end the funding for one of Nottingham's major anti-discrimination organisations whilst keeping the reasons secret? Hassan Ahmed, who was caught red handed by the Evening Post failing to declare a number of business interests and as a result was found guilty of breaching the Members' Code of Conduct by the Standards Board for England? Who, having been found guilty, not only failed to apologise to local taxpayers and the council but issued a bombastic and blatantly bullshit statement to the press claiming that he had been exonerated  and that the Standards Board had found that he had 'no case to answer'? Who, despite being arrested for a serious crime, kept this secret and failed to stand down from his portfolio holder position until, again, the Post rumbled him? (should make it clear that he was not subsequently charged)

Yeah, he sounds like the ideal person for the job. Dishonest and secretive, he should know a lot about fairness.

This seems to be a continuation of a trend in NCC of promoting crooks, following Cllr Grocrook's elevation to Lord Mayor. Does it always have to be this way?

Collins Connections

I'm already starting to tire of writing about JoCo but the truth is he gets everywhere so it's difficult to avoid. He's been in the news a bit recently but more on that later.

I doubt that many people have noticed but 'One Nottingham' seems to have been surviving with an 'acting' Chief Exec for rather a long time. Andrew Belkin left back in October 09, about 20 minutes after JoCo installed himself as Chair (there's usually a change in Chief Exec when Collins rocks up as chair of an organisation) and Nigel Cooke, who was previously the 'Head of One Nottingham Team' took over pretty much straight away. Approaching May 2010 and he's still there with no news of any effort to start a recruitment process proper.

Cooke was previously an Assistant Director (what would be called a Director now) in Neighbourhood Services at NCC but I don't think he survived the cull in 2004/5 when they all had to reapply for their jobs. But as you can see, he seems to be doing alright now.

It just so happens that Cooke is one of JoCo's oldest bezzy mates. Obviously no need to rush into a transparent recruitment process when you've already got the right man for the job in place.

Moving on to Notts Police Authority. Collins is apparently Chair of their 'Change Management Board' which I didn't know about before. They've recently appointed a new 'Change Manager' Alan Given. Given was previously Chief Exec of Nottingham's 'Crime and Drugs Partnership'. Guess who the Chair of that organisation is? Yup, it's Mr Collins.

Yesterday, the 'Post' reported on the dismissal of Jason Zadrozny, Lib Dem PPC for Asfield, from the Authority on the grounds of lack of attendance. For some reason JoCo was wheeled out to justify the decision which suggested that his fingerprints were all over the decision. Zadrozny is apparently a genuine threat to Labour in the election so it's a weird coincidence that a Labour member seems to be involved in his removal from the authority, a story that can only help Labour's chances on 6 May. Mind you, more fool Zadrozny for giving them the opportunity.

So more's the pity that any efforts that JoCo has made for the common Labour good appear to have gone unrewarded. Despite running what the 'Post' describes as a 'vigorous campaign', (which wouldn't have affected any of his 'proper jobs natch) culminating in a trip to Birmingham for his interview (my God they're really putting him through the mill), he failed to secure the nomination for Nottingham East.

Fact; of the three meetings of Nottingham CDP in 2009 of which I can find the minutes, it appears that JoCo didn't make it to any of them. Prior to stepping in as Chair he was the Vice Chair.

Snippets

A few odd bits and bobs that I found recently (and in most cases missed when they actually happened) -

It seems that Cllr Aslam's threat to appeal the employment tribunal decision in favour of former Chief Exec of Notts Black Partnership Aneela Asim was more than hot air. There was a hearing before the Employment Appeal Tribunal on 5 March (scroll to the end) (update; the judgment has now been handed down and Cllr Aslam's appeal was successful. That's not the end of it though as the grounds of appeal were somewhat technical around things like the burden of proof so the case is to be heard again from scratch by a new Employment Tribunal).

JoCo takes over the world pt 58. He's only gone and got his hands on the Crime and Drugs Partnership ain't he? Although it's claimed that it's just an interim measure until an Independent Chair can be found.

It's a good job that One Nottingham changed the governance rules for 'theme partnerships' (of which the CDP is one) to allow NCC Portfolio Holders to be appointed as chairs or he wouldn't be allowed to (see item 7).

JoCo takes over the world part 59. He's got himself onto the shortlist for Nottingham East. One way of looking at this is that, if he wins, he'll probably have to resign as leader and councillor and Nottingham East could therefore be said to be taking one for the team. Another way of looking at it is that he's got his fingers in so many pies he still won't be out of our hair and his ginning mug will be popping up on Parliament TV on a regular basis. Gawd help us all.

CEHRNN Chief Exec Afzal Sadiq was voted out of the BME rep post on One Nottingham's board in January. The election was co-ordinated by Nottingham Equal (prop. Cllr Hassan Ahmed). Just sayin'.

I decided to be a bit cheeky and emailed one of the people involved in 'Nottingham Studios', the possible new owners of Radford Unity Complex. I asked a number of questions about what they knew about the property's true market value, whether any of them had any connections with JoCo and whether it was him who made the initial approach to them.

Here's the reply I got -

"At this stage Nottingham Studios is not in a position to answer these questions.

Best wishes"

Hmmm.