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.

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.

(Probably) My Last Word on CEHRNN

I've written quite a bit about the withdrawal of Council for Equality and Human Rights Nottm & Notts' funding already. However, following NCC's reluctant compliance with a long-running FoI dispute, there are a few last little details to fill in.

There is another whole story behind this request which I may write about in the future, if you're very good boys and girls, but I finally got hold of the portfolio holder's decision, made by Cllr Chapman and then Cllr Hassan Ahmed  to withdraw CEHRNN's funding at a stroke, becoming heroes of the EDL in the process. This decision had previously been kept secret and was only provided after NCC ignored my FoI request for nearly nine months. And it's probably no co-incidence that CEHRNN has closed in the meantime.

Anyway, one thing that the decision document confirms is that NCC considered that ALL wards would be affected. As such the matter should not have been eligible to be decided by a portfolio decision, according to NCC's constitution. Still, nobody gives a fuck about such things do they? Certainly not the opposition councillors at the time anyway.

The next item of interest is that the supporting report demonstrates that NCC knew that they were legally obliged to carry out an equalities impact assessment of any decision to reduce funding to CEHRNN (para 8.2 of the supporting report). Yet that never happened. What NCC did was carry out an EIA on CEHRNN as they were operating before the decision to stop their funding, not of the funding decision itself. I discussed the dodgy use of EIAs in the debacle in more detail here.

So far therefore we have an inappropriate use of portfolio decisions (coincidentally these require no debate, not that there would have been at a full committee meeting mind you) and an effective failure to carry out a proper Equality Impact Assessment. That's a breach of NCC's constitution and an illegal omission so far.

It's probably fair to say that CEHRNN was an organisation with problems. However the report repeatedly remarks on the areas in which improvements had been made, before seeking to belittle those attempts e.g. -


"CEHRNN has been providing a service at an individual and grassroots level that has made a difference for some individual citizens and groups and targeted relevant local issues. However, despite interventions by officers, Board members and the Chief Executive challenging the circumstances, there are still clear indications that CEHRNN has not been able to prevent staffing problems from continuing"

and

"Although some work has been carried out to broaden Board representation, the Board is still predominately weighted towards race as is the membership of the organisation."

"Since the October 2009 review meeting the organisation has achieved some limited progress around staffing and governance issues - however there are still real concerns about the long term ability to deliver effectively against the SLA."

Furthermore, this was a key criticism -

"the organisation has effectively failed to move from a race focus to a broader equalities remit (as agreed in their SLA"

and yet one of the recommendations is as follows -

"The strategy proposes inviting bids from consortia as well as individual organisations, in recognition of the challenge of providing an all-encompassing equality and human rights service."

An acceptance that CEHRNN was set an impossible task? It was never a large organisation, the report mentions four full time posts. Certainly since they were only allocated the funding in December 2008, and this would most likely only have been payable from the beginning of the next financial year i.e. April 2009, it seems odd that the report notes that the above 'concerns' were being noted from May 2009. How quickly can an organisation be expected to solve all its problems?

Another interesting little corner of the EIA says the following -

"There were two similar examples [in the past] where organisations delivering equality related SLAs had experienced staffing or other difficulties. The learning from these examples had been that in these cases, stepping in early to remove funding if an organisation isn’t functioning properly is likely to be an appropriate step to minimise disruption if opportunities to address the issues have been given and the issues remain unresolved."

Does this mean that NCC believes that the need to dive in and remove funding at the first sign of trouble only applies to organisations 'delivering equality related SLAs'? I can say with certainty that there are countless grant aided organisations in Nottingham that have had appalling problems, including huge staffing issues, even embezzlement, yet NCC hasn't said a dicky bird. Frankly the issues that my old team within NCC were as bad as it can get, when I started there were four (out of 11) people off sick, all of whom returned strangely close to the 6 month limit for full pay with nobody raising an eyebrow. And I may even write a whole post about the team member who refused to provide a services for clients with learning disabilities. She's still there, my managers and HR wouldn't let me instigate disciplinary action despite her approach putting the council at risk of legal action. And I haven't even brought up my own Employment Tribunal. Oh, sorry...

So not only was CEHRNN treated in a different way to most grant aided organisations (which was arguably discriminatory due to such treatment only being applied to 'equalities' organisations), it's not as if NCC is in any kind of position to lecture any organisation on governance or staffing matters anyway, having acted illegally, unconstitutionally, in a discriminatory manner and being managed incompetently itself.

So, what has NCC managed to put in CEHRNN's place, seeing as this was a big focus of the report? Well they've given a pile of money to Nottingham Equal as we know. And they are supporting a new hate crime reporting initiative but that's it as far as I can see. Not a lot, especially as one of those is run by a crook former 'friend' of the council. What about measures to support people with disabilites or the LGBT community?

We'll have to wait and see I suppose but bearing in mind the cuts I suspect such groups will be left wanting. And the last thing NCC will want to do when it is cutting services to the disabled is to fund a voluntary group which might encourage service users to mount a legal challenge to those cuts.

Nottingham Plays 'Pin the Red Rosette on the Donkey. Any Donkey'

Well it's pretty clear that nobody listens to me.

Whatever your views as to which party is best for Nottingham I defy you to argue convincingly that the virtual removal of all opposition to Labour on NCC is a good thing.

As you probably already know the Lib Dems have paid the ultimate price locally for their national leadership's hunger for power. Former Leader Gary Long has made no secret as to what he thinks the solution is, although he's apparently bottled out of repeating that on the national stage too knackered to do Newsnight. The loss of decent campaigning councillors like Tony Sutton and Alex Foster is a real source of regret and gives the impression that voters don't want to know about corruption in the council and will punish you by voting you out if you wake them from their slumbers.

There are still five Tories which means that Nottingham's golf courses continue to have their advocates in the city, although they will have to find a new leader as Andrew Price got his marching orders.

In my ward the odious former 'high class' (self defined) escort Cat Arnold kept her seat. My bet is that she'll be on the new Executive as she's been crawling up JoCo's arse for years. Mick Newton, who ran as an independent, didn't make it which I think is a shame. Again, a red rosette means more than a record of actually getting out into the community and doing your job it seems.

It has to be said that, despite some best efforts, the corruption issues haven't gone away. The District Auditor is set to report on alleged Future Jobs Fund dodginess, the Harold Tinworth affair is still ongoing (and hasn't he earned his money) and as Tony Sutton has a bit more time on his hands I suspect he won't let that go. I've got FoI requests regarding the funding cuts to CEHRNN and whatever went on between NCC and Nottingham Studios over Radford Unity Complex. These issues could be embarrassing for JoCo and his sidekick Chapman. Could there be resignations?

Addendum - nearly forgot, the NCC website has a rather impressive results information portal. It's only missing turnout figures so far (as a %) but the votes cast numbers indicate a much higher turnout than 2007.

Snippets

Another round up of bits and bobs that don't really warrant a post on their own...

It seems that JoCo has invented time travel. On 13 April the Save Supporting People peeps tweeted that he'd blown out an appearance at a 'Fighting the Cuts' debate that evening. On Sunday JoCo blamed this on being "too knackered from having run the London Marathon raising money for charity!" inducing guilt trips in us all. Except of course, the marathon was four days after the debate Save SPServices were talking about...

Remember NCC refused to allow the use of the Council House for the 2010 East Midlands Vegan Festival, resulting in its cancellation? They claimed excessive 'wear and tear' was the reason but there was already some doubt on that and now they've held a wedding fair which, with nearly a 1000 people attending would presumably result in a bit of wear ant tear, especially with all those brides to be trying on their wedding heels. Still, fobbing off the little people is one thing but when there's a need to promote Nottingham's hottest new (moneyspinning for NCC) wedding venue that's a different matter entirely.


Looks like Nottingham Equal are being funded for another year for helping with 'community cohesion'. However, it seems that 'community cohesion' only extends to race and religion in NCC's eyes. Of course, that was very similar to the criticism they made of CEHRNN before withdrawing its funding in its entirity, resulting in its eventual shutdown.

Odd things going on with recruiting Michael Williams' replacement as Corporate Director of Communities. The Appointments and Conditions of Service committee has just handed the post to someone on a six month temp contract. There's no mention of that in an earlier report setting out the recruitment process. How much more will this extra stage cost us, not to mention that a temp appointment will probably be paid at a higher rate than a permanent postholder.

Golf Wars and Other Secrets

Bulwell Hall Golf Course. Anybody give a shit? Some people apparently do.

Nottgirl did a piece on it a year or so ago, basically saying that the Jack Barker Golf Co got a rather generous deal when they took over the running of the place. She mentions that a commenter on a 'Post' article also expressed concerns but the comment was later removed.

The grounds maintenance part of the agreement has recently come up for renewal recently and portfolio holder Cllr Trimble has made a decision to bypass normal financial procedures and simply agree an extension. This seems to have upset the Tories who have had the decision subjected to call-in.

So far so dull. To me, golf is just a way to spoil a nice walk in the park and the reasons for extending don't seem too suspicious. I'm not even in a position to wonder about the VFM aspects of the original agreement as I don't know the going rates for golf clubs. However, this affair does cast a bit of light on some aspects of how both the Labour and opposition councillors' respective worldviews.

In a seemingly unrelated move, NCC has just released its latest whinge about revealing financial information (explaining 'once and for all' as they put it on Twitter, like we are all a bunch of rather thick schoolchildren).

In this rather unconvincing rant NCC says -

"...that the information published by other local authorities and the Department for Communities and Local Government does not improve transparency or accountability because it doesn't let people judge value for money or the need for the expenditure."

This is of course bollocks and this particular portfolio decision shows why. You see, NCC routinely makes all financial aspects of these decisions i.e. the cost to us, the local taxpayers, confidential under sch 12A of the LGA which allows councils to withhold information -

"...relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information)."

among many other things.

I'm not convinced that the purpose of this part of the act is to keep details of the amounts of money paid to contractors secret and it could of course mean that all sorts of woes are kept hidden. In fact if NCC's interpretation is correct Eric 'Buffoon' Pickles' demands to release all expenditure over £500 would be unlawful.

Could it be that JoCo and the team's fear of accountability stems from the fact that we would at last be able to make a judgment on the value for money of some of their decisions*?

The second thing this issue tells us is that the Tories on NCC care more about golf clubs than organisations such as the Council for Equalities and Human Rights Nottm and Notts cos they didn't lift a finger when Hassan Ahmed cut their funding and that has now resulted in its closure. Talk about fucked up priorities.

*In this case, somebody who knows about golf courses obviously, not me.

Hassan Ahmed's (Hopefully) Last Victim

The Post reports today that the Council for Equalities and Human Rights Nottm and Notts is to close due to lack of funding. Previously known as Notts REC, it had been active in the city for 55 years.

It was of course Hassan Ahmed who jointly made the decision to end their funding last year. The decision was kept secret for reasons that remain unclear. I've got a FoIA request outstanding on that (and other issues) but NCC is simply stalling, having provided no response to my request which was sent on 2 September 2010 and so far ignoring an order from the Information Commissioner's Office to respond by 15 February 2011.

In a possibly connected matter, let's remember that One Nottingham are refusing to disclose who was involved in making the decision to award funding to Nottingham Equal, an organisation of which Ahmed was a founding member and whose Chief Exec is his bezzy mate Tyron Browne.

No doubt Cllr Ahmed will be very proud of his achievement, closing one of the most respected and certainly long lasting equalities groups in Notts.

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

Equality Impact Assessments and CEHRNN

There was another interesting little snippet in the progress report on RUC recommendations that I discussed in my previous post. It concerned the use of Equality Impact Assessments and said -

"The corporate report writing guidance has also been amended to be clear that EIAs are needed for reports relating to new or changing policies, services or functions..."

In other words, if you a considering a change in policy, operations or whatever, as EIA is carried out to assess the potential impact on equalities issues and maybe make changes as a result.

NCC's EIA guidance says that priority services will also be subjected to an EIA according to a yearly timetable, more of an equalities review from what I can see. As a former manager who used to be involved in such things I'd question that. Services never stand still and will be subjected to a general review from time to time (and NCC certainly loves its reviews) and it seems somewhat fragmentary to have a separate EIA process happening at different times, better to carry out an EIA of your service review I'd have thought. Best practice is to have EIAs integrated into policy making and service development. But I digress.

Which brings me back to NCC's treatment of the Council for Equalities and Human Rights Nottm and Notts whose funding was removed by Cllrs Ahmed and Chapman ostensibly following an EIA which found the group wanting.

Let's have a look at the background here.

Firstly, Notts Racial Equality Council (CEHRNN's former handle) were awarded grant aid of £122k pa for three years at the Executive Board Meeting on 16 December 2008, the funding due to start in April 2009. The EIA looking at CEHRNN was started in November 2009 which means someone decided to do so some time before, when isn't known. The EIA document itself also confirms that it wasn't on the list of routine 'review' style assessments.

So why carry out an EIA on a funded external organisation only a few months after you've handed them £122k for 3 years? Why wasn't an EIA carried out as part of the decision to fund them i.e. before any money was handed over, if at all? What does it say about NCC's grant application procedures when so much money is handed to an organisation when, only months later, problems are found which are supposed to be so serious that they warranted an instant decision to withdraw that funding, a course of action which is pretty much unprecedented in the history of NCC's relationship with the voluntary sector? And why has that decision never been made public?

I've said before that an EIA is an inappropriate tool to use to review an organisation's overall effectiveness and this adds another element of inappropriateness to such action.

The EIA report notes that the initial decision to move from a purely race based organisation to one covering all equalities strands in 2007 and that the process was completed in Summer 2009. And yet one of the concerns highlighted in the EIA was that they had taken too long to widen their remit. Why wasn't this picked up in their funding bid if it was such a concern?

What's more we know that NCC had fabricated a complaint from the police about CEHRNN's involvement in protests against the EDL and were forced to withdraw it from the report. You have to wonder why they did that. And even if such a complaint had been made a) that's no proof that it was justified and b) CEHRNN is an independent organisation who can campaign on any issues it chooses, the only relevance to the grant aid would be whether it breaches the service level agreement between them and NCC.

And there's the rub. There was a contract. As far as I know there has been no explicit claim that CEHRNN was in breach of that contract by missing targets or failing to produce agreed outcomes. Do you think that's why they had to find another reason to remove the funding instead?

The multiple ironies are that NCC carries out an EIA which alleges that CEHRNN hasn't been carrying out its remit adequately so the funding was withdrawn in its entirity and the work is now not being done at all. Where's the Equalities Impact Assessment of that decision? And, despite the complaints that CEHRNN was only concentrating on race and not its wider remit, NCC/One Nottingham has since funded a new organisation, Nottingham Equal, which has no track record and only deals with erm, race issues. It does however, include Cllr Hassan Ahmed among its founding directors who only resigned when the Post busted him for not declaring the fact on his register of interests.

And so the ingredients which point to this being a stitch up are -

• Lack of concerns at the time of the funding decision
• Inappropriate use of EIA
• Cllr Ahmed's non disclosed involvement with a potential competitor organisation
• ...and involvement in the decision to withdraw funding
• That decision being withheld from the public, what have they got to hide?
• The competitor organisation later being awarded significant funding

Well, I'm afraid I'm convinced. I believe that the decision by Ahmed and Chapman to end CEHRNN's funding should be made public without delay so that as much light can be shed on this sorry matter as possible. I'm working on it.

Differing Fortunes

I've previously written quite a bit on the decision by NCC to cease funding the Council for Equality and Human Rights Nottingham and Notts but there was an interesting aspect that I'd missed.

Councillor Brian Grocock used to be on CEHRNN's board. His annual report from 2008/9 confirms he was an NCC appointed member of Notts REC (CEHRNN's previous name prior to its widened remit) and I have been told that he was there right up to the decision to stop the funding before resigning.

Now NCC have made all sorts of claims and criticisms about CEHRNN's service (a few of which they accept) so, assuming the principle of collective responsibility, surely Grocock is as much to blame as anybody?

And yet, while CEHRNN has had to resort to m'learned friends and making redundancies, Grocock has been rewarded with a posh new frock and an extra £25k in his new role of Lord Mayor.

Considering that Grocrook was fingered in the housing allocations scandal and is being (very slowly) investigated by the Standards Committee over that, you have to wonder exactly what it is he's doing right in order to warrant such resilience.

Nest of Vipers

Quite a lot of noise and information flying about concerning the mess that seems to be circulating around Cllr Hassan Ahmed, Nottingham Equal and the Council for Equality and Human Rights Nottm and Notts.

Firstly some good news. CEHRNN have managed to get a critical report about them amended, according to the Post. The report, purportedly an 'Equalities Impact Assessment' was a major trigger factor in CEHRNN losing their funding from the council.

Have to say, in my experience as a manager, I've never before seen an EIA used in such a way before. As CEHRNN's entire reason for being is equalities, the EIA became a wholesale review of the organisation's operations which isn't really what they are for.

But I digress. The original report claimed that the Police had been critical of CEHRNN's decision to demonstrate against the EDL, whereas in fact no complaint was ever received from them. As a result a paragraph was changed from this -

"Nonetheless, the general feeling shared by NCC and the Police was that the CEHRNN’s presence and strategy on 5th December 2009 was unhelpful and was contrary to that agreed by the local authority and its partners."

to this

"Nonetheless, the general feeling was that the CEHRNN’s presence and strategy on 5th December 2009 was unhelpful and was contrary to that agreed by the local authority and its partners.

Comes across as a bit begrudging huh? But pretty much all of the weight of the conclusion is lost by the fact that there is no evidence that the police shared it. Yet you'd hardly notice from the rather paltry amendment of the report.

Anyway, as I say, CEHRNN had their funding cut in a decision in which Cllr Ahmed was involved. I've written before that Nottingham Equal might well be a competitor organisation to CEHRNN so there might be a bit of a conflict of interest there. What's more, Nottingham Equal were one of the organisations that Ahmed 'forgot' to mention on his register of members interests, he was in fact a company director. He had added it by the time of the decision on CEHRNN's funding but only because the Post forced him to by blowing the lid on it.

Ahmed has since resigned as a director of NE. And now, with some inside knowledge, Nottgirl writes that NE are to get a significant chunk of funding from the council. The decision has yet to be published but it will be interesting to see if Ahmed's fingerprints are all over it. Perhaps he can be of more use to NE in an informal capacity?

And finally, and again thanks to Nottgirl as following her hint I went and spent a whole pound of my own money on a Companies House document, I've found out a little more about who really is behind Nottingham Equal. The latest return shows that their Chief Executive Officer is none other than Tyron Browne, formerly of Nottingham City Homes dodgy tenancy slam dunk fame. Isn't it reassuring to know that public money is going to such safe hands as these two eh?

Update - well worth reading this by Alan a Dale, which fills in some further gaps in the web of intrigue

CEHRNN are Fighting Back

There was a report in the 'Post' recently saying that The Council for Equality and Human Rights Nottm and Notts were challenging NCC over the decision to stop their funding. However, apart from saying the challenge was based on an opinion that the decision should have been made by a committee there wasn't much info.

I was interested to know what the nature of their challenge was so I emailed them to ask and one of their board members rang me today, which was good of her.

It seems that CEHRNN have started action for a judicial review of the decision made by Cllrs Ahmed and Chapman. Well, I say CEHRNN have but, as is standard practice, one of their service users has done so on their behalf. Doing it this way means that, if the action is unsuccessful, the service user's legal aid will cover the costs. This is possible if the service user can be said to have sufficient legal standing in the issue, something normally accepted by the courts for someone who is reliant on the service that would be lost or adversely affected.

And I am actually quite proud to say that the basis for the action is that it was unconstitutional for the decision to be made as a portfolio holder decision, as I had suggested in a previous posting here. You'll be pleased to hear that, as it's such a good cause, NCCLols has waived its (normally considerable) consultancy fee on this occasion, because deep down I'm such a nice guy!

Hassan Ahmed Found Guilty of Breach of Members Code of Conduct

Blimey, I reckon I must be psychic. Barely an hour after finishing my post about complaints about councillors and codes of conduct the news comes in that Hassan Ahmed has been found guilty of breaching the members code of conduct by the Standards Board for England because he failed to declare a number of interests.

Despite this the board decided to take no further action accepting that -

"...there is an inherent risk for any member who is involved in the number of organisations that Councillor Ahmed is involved in, of inadvertently failing to consider the requirements of the Code to register those interests, declare those interests at meetings of the authority, and consider those interests when approaching officers of the authority."

Oh for fucks sake. How hard can it be? Harder than being an executive portfolio holder? Does he need someone to remind him where he lives? After all, he does own two properties, must be very easy for him to get them mixed up.

But in a spectacular combination of breathtaking arrogance and delusion he told the 'Post' -

"I am delighted that, after a thorough investigation, I have been exonerated. The Standards Board found that I had no case to answer."

Erm, no mate, you weren't exonerated at all you were found to have BREACHED YOUR CODE OF CONDUCT. That's not the same as being exonerated. Being exonerated would have meant that you were found to have NOT BREACHED YOUR CODE OF CONDUCT, which wasn't what happened.

Do you see the difference Councillor Ahmed? One is being exonerated, the other is being found guilty. You were the latter. I realise that telling the difference is almost as difficult as remembering which pies you've got your fingers stuffed in but keep working at it you bullshitting fucking twat.

One of the factors that helped Ahmed escape any sanction was that -

"The ESO found that there was no evidence that Councillor Ahmed had attended any council meeting, while a portfolio holder, at which one of his registered, or unregistered interests had been discussed or where funding or grants had been considered or approved."

Well no, he wouldn't have been. That's because, unless it was a very big grant (>£500k) virtually all funding decisions are taken by a single portfolio holder. Unless Ahmed happened to be that portfolio holder (and I think that would be too brazen even for him) he wouldn't be formally involved. But that ignores the informal influence that any councillor might have and the Standards Board should have taken that into account.

And of course, as we've written about previously, Ahmed was very much involved with a decision to suddenly end all NCC funding for the Council for Equality and Human Rights Nottm + Notts which is arguably a potential competitor to Nottingham Equal, one of the organisations Ahmed was involved with. Although this decision was made after he was forced by the Post to declare his interests, a councillor's involvement in an organisation is not only relevant to how NCC deals with that organisation but how it treats its competitors. It may or may not be relevant to note that the details of this decision was kept secret.

Interestingly, Ahmed has recently submitted a new register of interests which no longer lists Nottingham Equal as one of his interests. Wonder why that is? (older edition here)

NCCLols is Billy No Mates

I recently wrote to my three local councillors, Cat Arnold, Rob Lee and Mick Newton, as well as my MP Graham Allen about the CEHRNN debacle. Thought I'd update you on the response I've had so far.

Of the councillors only one has replied, Mick Newton. Not a peep from Cllrs Arnold or Lee, despite my sending a reminder.

I've written to Cat Arnold a few times now and I've never heard anything back. Previously I'd never bothered with Rob Lee after, having voted for him as a Lib Dem, he then defected to Labour over the issue of housing benefits sanctions for alleged anti-social behaviour. I put that to one side for this issue due to its importance but my initial assessment that he is little more than a worker drone for JoCo has yet to be challenged.

Who knows, they may well be so busy campaigning behind the scenes that they haven't found time to reply to lil ole me and if that turns out to be the case I'll be more than happy to take it all back.

As for Graham Allen not a peep, on this issue at least. I know that technically he has absolutely no jurisdiction over NCC affairs (and made that clear in my email) but he does have influence and surely would and should have a view,

On the other hand, today I got a rather chummy letter from him about the Robin Hood Tax. Thankfully, GA supports this measure and was obviously keen to highlight our common ground, a couple of days after the general election was called.

Maybe I'm asking too much, after all I'm only worth one vote.

Meeting to Help CEHRNN

The Council for Equality and Human Rights Nottingham and Notts are holding a meeting to drum up support following NCC's seriously dodgy decision to suddenly cut all their funding.

Hope to see you there.

Hassan Ahmed and Graham Chapman Provide Comfort to Fascists

Ahmed and Chapman's possibly unconstitutional decision to end funding for CEHRNN has raised the morale of fascists.

The EDL has posted up a vid on YouTube gleefully claiming that the cut was because CEHRNN had opposed the EDL and some local BNP chump also crediting the EDL for triggering the decision.

Well done Cllrs Ahmed and Chapman. Very well done indeed, I hope that you're proud of yourselves. Sad thing is you probably are.

CEHRNN and Hassan Ahmed - A Conflict of Interest?

Thanks to Alanadale who pointed out in the comments to an earlier post that Cllr Hassan Ahmed may have been involved with an organisation called 'Nottingham Equal'.

On checking Ahmed's register of interests confirms that Nottingham Equal is listed as an organisation "...of which [he is] a member or in a position of general control or management."

As Alan says, there could be some overlap between the two organisations' functions and one wonders whether Cllr Ahmed has been entirely unpartisan over his decision to end CEHRR's funding.

Mind you, at least he did register the interest this time, which is an improvement.

I would suggest that this decision is one which would be suitable for the underused 'call-in' procedure. It's totally inappropriate for such a major decision to be made by just two councillors, even if the decision itself were to be justified.

An article in today's 'Post' does give us a bit of insight into the reasons behind the decision. If factually correct they would give cause for concern. However, be that as it may the question remains as to whether it is within the council's constitution for such a major decision to be made under individual executive portfolio holder powers.

A Bit More on CEHRNN and Its Funding

A bit more digging around 0n this strange business of the apparent removal of NCC's funding for the Council of Equality and Human Rights Nottingham and Nottinghamshire (CEHRNN) has turned up the fact that its predecessor organisation Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Racial Equality Council (NNREC) was awarded £122k pa in the latest 3 year funding round i.e. no small beer. This was awarded to help them provide training, advice and hate incident monitoring.

As I said in my previous post I think that it's doubtful that a decision of this significance can be made by an Executive Portfolio Holder under NCC's constitution. If you look at p22 of this document from NCC's constitution, although it is within the financial limits of a portfolio holder decision, a decision that is significant in its effects on two or more wards in the city must be made by the Executive Board. As CEHRNN works across the city and is the biggest anti discrimination organisation in Nottingham I really don't see how that condition cannot be said to apply. I think this opens the council up to the possibility of legal challenge.

Almost as importantly, there is no justification for keeping the decision secret. The claimed reasons for doing so don't really hold any water. The fact that it "contains information relating to both the financial or business affairs of any particular person" would apply to any such decision and you'd hope that "information relating to consultations or negotiations, or contemplated consultations or negotiations" would have been completed before any such decision is actually made.

Council for Equality and Human Rights Nottingham and Nottinghamshire

Anybody know anything about this bunch? They don't seem to have a website although they do seem to be something to do with Nottm and Notts REC. It might even be their new name but it's difficult to tell because, at time of writing, their website is on the blink.

The reason for my interest is that Hassan Ahmed and Graham Chapman appear to have just made a portfolio decision to withdraw NCC funding for this organisation (see decision #659) but they don't want to tell us why. NCC's website claims the decision is exempt from publication.

In the light of a complete lack of information I can only speculate that there will be trouble ahead over this. Removing funding from what seems like an anti discrimination organisation would normally cause uproar. What's more, how NCC can claim that such a decision won't have a significant effect on two or more wards in the City, and therefore suitable for being decided by a portfolio holder rather than the Executive Board or full Council is a bit of a mystery to me, unless the NCC funding share is extremely small.

Can anybody enlighten me further? Comments or email, you decide.

Update; have now established that CEHRNN is the new name for the organisation that was Notts REC. Notts REC was effectively the local branch of the Commission for Racial Equality and I presume the local name change was due to the CRE's absorbtion into the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

In other words this isn't some two bit local community group. So what on earth is NCC doing pulling its funding?