Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
All 3 Haringey paddling pools out of action
To save anyone else the same faff we’ve just encountered - please be aware that ALL THREE of Haringey’s paddling pools are currently out of order! All of them were due to open today - but none of them have (and Priory Park is out of action for a longer period). What with Clissold Park also being out of action for potentially the next 6 weeks, it’s not looking good for children’s water play in our local area. (My additional particular irritation is that when I checked on the pools and opening dates literally 2 days ago, they were all still anticipated as opening - hence my fruitless search for cooling down options today…!)
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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I raised the concern with the council
Councillor Jenner *is* the council. Or, with other elected persons, at least part of the council.
This would have been better as, I raised this with council employees. Or better, I have asked the Cabinet member for Culture and Leisure to direct staff to get this fixed by X date.
Unless the new Green Group grasp the power relationships quickly, they may end up as did the previous crew for years, pleading for action from their employees, on behalf of residents.
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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It’s good advice Clive from someone who’s walked the walk but Councillor Jenner is new to the role and must be allowed a little time to learn the job. He has, as he promised before the election, been very quick to respond and take action. At this stage, that is all I ask.
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LIZ, I accept what you say about some time needed to make sense of the role—i.e. understand the power relations.
As a Ward Councillor, I once asked for a signpost to a library. I thought it a quite modest request and in the public interest. I was Opposition spokes on Libraries. 12 months later this was actioned. The then Cabinet Member for Finance even wrote to note to me, apologising for the 12 months' time it had taken.
A wise Labour Councillor once told a previous Haringey Chief Executive (at an induction?) that they did not work for the CEO, they worked for the public.
IMO, the new Green Group need to absorb this principle as quickly and deeply as possible. I write this in the hope that some Green Council Members may read this and pass it on.
It this is absorbed, then we may look forward to action and improvement.
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Thanks D. That's all I was asking about. The time for "good lucks" and "settling in" has passed (again for all parties) and I'm now interested in how quickly people are getting responses to their issues. Councillors have powers to put in Members Enquiries that must be treated as high priority. The council's own definition of this is
"Member Enquiries on behalf of constituents are essentially complaints about a service that has been received (or ought to have been received) that a Member is taking up on the resident’s behalf. These require an officer in the service to investigate the service failure and provide a formal response, as they would if the constituent had made a complaint directly to the council on their own behalf."
They can also put in service requests, less urgent, that get things like street light repairs or dumped rubbish sorted out.
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What are councillors for if not to take that burden of dealing with council departments from us, or have I misunderstood the role?
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Liz, you've put your finger on it!
This is why I've often written that residents should not waste their time emailing staff members or trying to negotiate with employees near the bottom of the council's hierarchy. Some may want to help, but their hands are tied.
Council employees are responsible—not to residents who indirectly pay their wages—but to their immediate managers and so on, up the chain of command.
For example, Events Team bosses ordered parks staff to tear out saplings around the Richard Hope Play Space in FP: young trees, planted by volunteers. They did so, not because they thought the destruction was in residents' interests, but because NatureThugs ordered it. The council's big and busy PR Department followed through, on behalf of the bosses, by dissembling to the Press.
On the other hand, Councillors are responsible to residents. Every four years, residents can either retain them or sack them.
Too often under the previous Administration, Labour Councillors saw their role as representing the council to the residents and not representing residents to the council.
It's been a rough start, but I hope this attitude may change.
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I think *most* council employees understand their role as public servants and want to do their very best for the residents but, as you correctly stated, Clive they are often over ruled by their bosses. I’ve been in meetings where a good and hard working council employee working with residents has been *publicly* chastised for this by someone much higher up the chain. Needless to say, I expressed my disgust at this lack of respect for the staff and their high handed attitude but I think it was a window on what council employees may face daily.
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a good and hard working council employee … *publicly* chastised for this by someone much higher up the chain.
Liz, I think I heard about this local example. Whether or not its the same one I'm thinking of, it was truly bad form and it speaks generally to the quality of some of the managers that Haringey chose to employ, who may be unemployable elsewhere. The management principle is you praise (employees) in public and criticise in private.
In the council there are managers who are kiss-up and kick-down guys and gals, and I can easily think of a few. They may be adored by the Cabinet Members they can flatter but are resented by their "underlings" (who are often better people than their bosses).
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Permalink Reply by Justin Guest on
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I am with you on this Clive, but I also feel that councilors are not meant to be full time professionals.
I believe they get paid like £10-11k to be a councilor, and more if they take on responsibilities. I am not saying you are suggesting this, but the issue here is not that councilors need to get things done, that is far too micro managing and operational for my mind. It is not good governance. Rather, officers and the council in general should be doing so efficiently, but are not. Councilors will quickly become overwhelmed and burnt out if they become the first line of filtering for all the things we (residents) have a problem with (as in this case here).
The key is a well functioning, efficient civil service bureaucracy supporting councilors in executing the strategy they set out.
Alan Stanton talked in the past about (I believe) failure demand- where the council's failure creates more demand for its services, leading to backlogs and an inability to respond, creating a doom loop of failure (have I got that right?). I fear this is where we are with so many things in Haringey. The service is just not efficient.
An example. I live in a School Street. In order to get an exemption each resident has to apply for an exemption- even though 95-100% of those residents (let's say 80 people) already have a parking permit. The council and every single car owning residents all have to engage in a dance to get the relevant exemptions. (Friction point and failure number 1). These permits (like the parking permits) are valid for only 1 year. The Haringey web sites states clearly "If you have an exemption, it will automatically be renewed unless w...." None of us have had any comms from Haringey saying we need to do anything at this point. All good so far. The end of year one comes around one of my neighbours asks the council whether we need to reapply, or will the exemption will automatically renew. That neighbour is emphatically told to renew (Friction and failure point number 2). So now there is confusion. Many neighbours start calling the council- some possibly go through the process of reapplying. Another 50-80 interactions occur that are unnecessary. That is over 100+ interactions that simply did not need to happen. Multiply that up across all the school streets (34 apparently) in the borough, and add in all the LTNs (3 covering literally thousands of residents - 16k in Bruce Grove alone it seems). Add this up and you have a massive number of interactions that - if replicated - just do not need to happen.
Now, where councilors do need to step up is to set out clear direction, tone and culture- holding senior managers to account, and frankly firing those under performing. Not sure I have heard of anyone being fired from Haringey for poor and under performance?
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JUSTIN you make a lot of good points.
Failure Demand that you (and Alan) mentioned is a concept I brought up almost in passing in my Court filing last December to a Tribunal. This is in connection with our Council's conduct and it has not yet been Decided. Here's part of what I wrote:
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Failure Demand—(AKA, avoidable contact). Haringey Council offers an instructive case in this concept created by occupational psychologist John Seddon.
After being adopted by the UK Cabinet Office as a national indicator of local authority performance, this has become widely applied in the UK public sector.
This is the demand on a service organisation, generated by that organisation’s failure to do something, …
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A wise Councillor who preceded me offered a note of advice when I started: there were three power centres at Haringey: the two Council Party Groups (then) and the Bureaucracy.
The enduring power of the latter organ is little appreciated by outsiders. Staff members see councillors come and go. They enjoy job security unlike anywhere else. Some of them become as contemptuous of elected persons as they are of residents.
And because one Party dominated for decades, things became cosy—too cosy—between the employer (the Council, i.e. Councillors) and their employees. Because of Labour's reluctance to fire anyone, we sometimes end up with councillors pleading with their employees to take action.
Councillors are paid a basic Allowance and this is actually treated as a payment to an employee (!?)
For many reasons, the new Council Green Group have an uphill task.
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D Jones: It does happen.
I sat on three-Member, Member Appeals, where council employees had the right to appeal against their dismissal.
Obviously I'm not going to identify anyone.
I had the impression this avenue was used by relatively junior or low-level staff. I cannot remember any senior employees going through this difficult if not humiliating process.
If a senior employee is removed from their position, then they are sometimes promoted sideways, or sent to another Local Authority with a glowing reference, risking the causing of terrible problems elsewhere. IMO, issuing such References in certain circumstances should be a criminal offence. Those with long memories may remember the few occasions when this reached the Press.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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D Jones you posted: "Nobody ever gets fired from Haringey Council"
I served on many Disciplinary panels during my 16 Years on the Council. I had once practiced as a solicitor so I was used to a legal framework. I'd also been a Trade Union rep in another borough. I tended to know when our union members had no case. And advised them as such.
I often chaired panels, so went to the tribunal as a witness if Haringey dismissed someone and they appealed.Maybe you worked in another borough which was not so careful in preparing cases as Haringey.
I hope you're not just assuming fantasy stuff. I never enjoyed sacking people. But if they weren't doing their jobs it had to happen. It took hours and was carried through with great care.Records are kept. You could have asked questions like: how many staff face disciplinary proceedings in a particular time frame. And how many are dismissed? Why the guesswork Aren't facts more satisfying?
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