It was the monthly Cabinet meeting at Havering Council last night and I spoke on two reports as the opposition spokesman for the Environment for the Residents Association group.
The first report was a serious of recommendations from the Environment Overview & Scrutiny meeting; this group, which I was part of, met approx 5 times from October 2006 through to May 2007. The idea was to review what went on in Havering Trade Waste & Enforcement Department and in the process look at initiatives to reduce fly tipping.
However, Tory Chairman Cllr Binion was not interested in finding best practice or learning from other Councils across London, as she consistently refused my requests to make any such visits, thus failing the topic group from the beginning, as you can not challenge our own officers on what they are saying.
I feel justified in these comments when you look at the recommendations of the group, the only new initiative was to introduce a 360 litre wheelie bin to business users across the borough, that should help clean up the streets then !! All the other recommendations were to support the officers in initiatives that they are already doing, which we would do as a matter of course anyway.
I spent a lot of my own time working on ideas for improvements and e-mailed suggestions to Cllr Binion, who was the Chairman, but alas, all of my recommendations were knocked back, which is a shame I feel. As my day job involves me working for another London Borough in the trade waste area, my own experiences could have been invaluable in producing a report we could all have been proud off.
I have to say though, that my old adversary, Cllr Barry Tebbutt has said he is willing to sit down and listen to my views on how to improve the services that we deliver for the Borough, which I am pleased about, as it is a cut above the petty party politics in the Environment Scrutiny Committee.
The second report was an update on Havering’s Enforcement Policy, which I introduced in April 2006 whilst I was the Cabinet member for StreetCare. This report updated some of the polices and fixed penalty notice, issues that the Council has power to issue.
The first report was a serious of recommendations from the Environment Overview & Scrutiny meeting; this group, which I was part of, met approx 5 times from October 2006 through to May 2007. The idea was to review what went on in Havering Trade Waste & Enforcement Department and in the process look at initiatives to reduce fly tipping.
However, Tory Chairman Cllr Binion was not interested in finding best practice or learning from other Councils across London, as she consistently refused my requests to make any such visits, thus failing the topic group from the beginning, as you can not challenge our own officers on what they are saying.
I feel justified in these comments when you look at the recommendations of the group, the only new initiative was to introduce a 360 litre wheelie bin to business users across the borough, that should help clean up the streets then !! All the other recommendations were to support the officers in initiatives that they are already doing, which we would do as a matter of course anyway.
I spent a lot of my own time working on ideas for improvements and e-mailed suggestions to Cllr Binion, who was the Chairman, but alas, all of my recommendations were knocked back, which is a shame I feel. As my day job involves me working for another London Borough in the trade waste area, my own experiences could have been invaluable in producing a report we could all have been proud off.
I have to say though, that my old adversary, Cllr Barry Tebbutt has said he is willing to sit down and listen to my views on how to improve the services that we deliver for the Borough, which I am pleased about, as it is a cut above the petty party politics in the Environment Scrutiny Committee.
The second report was an update on Havering’s Enforcement Policy, which I introduced in April 2006 whilst I was the Cabinet member for StreetCare. This report updated some of the polices and fixed penalty notice, issues that the Council has power to issue.
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