A satirical local activist presented Brent Council's Cabinet members with a leak each just before the formal start of last night's Full Council meeting at Brent Civic Centre.
The presentation followed mounting concern in Brent Labour Party over leaks from the Labour Group and meetings of the party to Wembley Matters.
The councillors instantly realised what was meant by the gesture and took it in good part, appearing to laugh it off:
Most of the meeting went according to the script published in my previous blog
LINK with planted questions from backbench Labour councillors and pre-prepared answers from Cabinet members. There was what appeared to be a genuine question from Cllr Neil Nerva asking about the extent and quality of consultation over the Constitutional Amendments that had been tabled. He was concerned about the impact on whistleblowers. One of the amendments, as Cllr John Warren pointed out for the Brondesbury Park Tories, bars council workers from talking to councillors about employment issues.
The report of the chair of Scrutiny Committee was noteworthy for its almost complete lack of content.
The Council approved without discussion a report on Council Tax Support. Although this put put forward only minor changes it proposed a full review before the 2016-17 financial year.
This follows a report on the same day that revealed that Brent Council had only spent 20% of its local welfare assistance fund which is meant to be crisis support for vulnerable families.
