The country may be experiencing the worse floods for decades and chaotic weather conditions becoming the rule rather than the exception but Brent Council seem to have barely noticed. As it becomes evident that we need to prepare for climate change they are moving in the opposite direction as this guest blog by Sussed Green shows.
Brent Council are again restructuring their departments. One recent example of the re-structure of the Environmental Projects & Policy team is a typical example of how Brent Council wastes money. The restructure included 4 staff. The 2 staff leading on Carbon Reduction - where we are miserably failing with having only reached 11% instead of 25% promised - were not affected and assimilated.Of the other two, one took voluntary redundancy because of the evening and weekend work involved. The other person, who only last year achieved a personal staff achievement award, was incremental in achieving the long awaited Fairtrade Borough status, led on outreach work with residents via the Brent Sustainability Forum and achieved 69% of positive biodiversity management was let go because she didn’t ‘pass’ the interview that was set for her, even though she is a model for effective cooperation between the Council and civil society in Brent. The Council will now have to pay two sets of redundancy and pay to recruit a new member of staff at extra expense. The decision raises serious questions about the Council’s commitment to Fairtrade, sustainability and value for money.