Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Why has this post been closed? "Council to invest in extra local police officers"
Here: Council to invest in extra local police officers
I was awaiting further responses to the questions posed but then realised it has been closed.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Nick G-T on
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What a peculiar question Thérèse. How would you like me to distinguish myself from the masses?
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Clive, this is scary. How do political parties turn previously independent-minded people into subservient I-slavishly speak-the-Party-Line machines?
Before raising this supposedly high priority issue, what checking have you done? Have you yourself seen the evidence which supports this proposal? For example, is it actually legal for a local council to offer a cash concession to Special Constables? If it is, is there any local authority in the country which does it and what effect did it have? How much would it cost? If Special Constables don't live in the borough will Haringey pay them half the Council tax of their own borough? What happens when Special Constables move home? Which other categories of volunteering will get residents the same concession?
Do you even know the basic fact of how many of the Special Constables allocated to Haringey by the Police actually live in the borough?
Obviously Haringey LibDem Leaders carefully checked all this before making the proposal. So did they brief you before you posted on HoL?
Or maybe they didn't check?
Clive, some friendly advice. If you get elected to the Council you're venturing into a playground where grown-ups are encouraged to behave like naughty children. As John McMullan says, it's the red gang and the yellow gang. You don't have to join in by sticking out your tongue at the other lot.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Alan, thank you for your interest in the proposal about the council tax reduction for special constables. BTW I agree that this should be about policing, rather than about a candidate who may or may not be serious.
Like many of us, I depend in part on others' views about things where I believe they know more about a subject than me. In this case, it is the Borough's leading police officer.
Clive, this is scary
As it was voted down by the Majority Group, the Special Constable proposal represents no danger to you, but I suspect that if your party again forms the Majority Group, it could become policy in six months or so.
Had there been a will to do so, I suspect that that the administrative objections you've raised could have been worked around.
The objections you've raised now, were not those raised by Cabinet Member for Finance (Cllr. Goldberg) who stated in the local paper that a council tax discount for Specials at the budget meeting was too late and that it should have been forwarded as part of the council tax reduction scheme in November.
This appears this conflates two separate things as the reduction scheme is about a change in government funding for council tax benefits.
The discount proposed could have been proposed under Discretionary Relief legislation, which is separate from the reduction scheme. The mechanism could have been a budget proposal, that, if it had been accepted by the Administration, would have needed a policy change in the scheme in either the March or April Cabinet.
We all depend in part on the opinions of those more knowledgeable that ourselves and in this case, I would cite the Haringey Borough Police Commander (see article).
This article claims there are 62 Special Constables working in our Borough.
Cllr Goldberg's OBOF ideas fund was supposed to encourage new ideas, but as far as the majority group was concerned, the policy was promoted by the Opposition. I believe this is your real objection and accounts for the level of scorn.
The policy would have been a way of saying thank you to the Special Constables, a way to encourage more and would have been a practical, pragmatic response to the current pressures on policing – which is probably why it had the support of the Borough's Commander.
(if Mr Ryan had remained to discuss his good news posting, I'd want to ask if his (pre-election) announcement could not have been made six or 12 months ago or more and if not, why not?)
The need for policing doesn't follow the electoral cycle.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Only ONE of them was eligible! All those special constables you meet DO NOT live in Haringey (apart from one of course). In many cases they are unpaid interns for the police force.
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Is it possible, Thérèse, that the "specific" police officers you meet "on their patch" may be Police Community Support Officers? If so, they do get paid. Here are Dev and Fred our Tottenham Hale PCSOs with the different uniform they wear.
Here's Fred joining in the fun at our local park festival. The "Specials" wear the usual helmets.
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Permalink Reply by Cllr Emina Ibrahim on
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Hi Therese
Yes the two officers you describe are PCSO's and they are paid so I hope this clears up the confusion.
I am sorry you feel that way but ultimately Clive Carter needs to be willing to answer questions about a policy he is promoting because he is often more then willing to ask them but less willing to answer. Clive i am sure he will agree is no political wallflower as you will see from often confrontational and accusatory posts. It is quite right that any opposition candidate should question and challenge other candidates and ruling group policies. It is also however quite right that a candidate from a party which is in government should expect the same scrutiny.
It doesnt matter which party one stands for the same rules and standards should apply to claims we make. I am more then willing to stand by claims I make on here and answer questions about them. What we shouldnt do is rush to give a party political answer that doesnt really answer the question at hand. Some times that might mean that we need to go back and question decision makers and it may take time. However I am sure you will agree that this better than a vaque response that doesnt answer the question.
I am also sorry that you feel that about Haringey, I don't however agree that Haringey is a rotten borough. I have lived here since I was a child. I grew up on a council estate through Thatchers 1980's and it was with the support of a borough which based its ideas on equality and access that i was able to get an education and a decent job and my mum could aspire o a better life for me than her generation. I am not going to patronise you and say its always been the most perfect place - as I arrived the year of the Broadwater Farm riots and saw the 2011 riots too of course.
I do however feel sad that young people now don't even have the same opportunities and services I did because every generation hopes that the next will have more opportunities then them.
Emine Ibrahim
The Labour Party Candidates
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The libdems ARE NOT in government in Haringey. They're in government nationally. The national elections are in 2015. It is lazy and disingenuous for the Labour Group to campaign on national issues such as the bedroom tax for this local election. I know you all want to be MPs but what about serving residents while you're councillors instead of building up your CVs?
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The Lib Dems sit on the Council in Haringey and cannot shy away from their responsibility to the people who elect them by saying we are not in the ruling group. What we are questioning here is the merits of a policy they have proposed. Also when we wear a rossette and knock on peoples doors its absolutely disingenous to imply that we are independant of our national party.
I have not seen any mention of bedroom tax on this thread. However lets be clear here there is a responsibility to campaign on issues that effect peoples day to day lives and the bedroom tax is one of them. If you are being thrown out of your home there is nothing more local then your house quite frankly. If someone is on a NHS waiting list for a hip replacement there is nothing more local than your hip! A debate about tax relief for special constables becomes slightly lower down the priority list. That is not to say its not important but suggesting it is one or the other is a false division.
On health, local authorities have public health and social care duties. On housing its the local authority that has the responsibility of collecting rent from families who cannot pay and rehousing families who are made homeless. To suggest there is some sharp divide between what a local council has a duty to provide and what is a national issue is strange. A national issue is by virtue national because it impacts someone in Manchester in the same way as someone in Haringey.
When I speak to people most of them are concerned about both and judge us on what we have to say about the things that they feel passionately about and they often do include national issues.
Emine Ibrahim
The Labour Party Candidate (Harringay Ward)
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I should have said the Labour Party Candidate! I have pluralised myself! :)))
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Thérèse, expressing myself in a "patronising and sarcastic" way was neither ny intention nor my thought.
On the contrary, I simply didn't know whether the police officers you'd met were in fact Special Constables or PCSOs. In fact I didn't know until a couple of years ago that Specials wear the traditional "bobby's" hats.
Over several years, Clive Carter and I have had a sometimes co-operative, sometimes combative, and occasionally jokey online relationship. One of Clive's great strengths is that he stubbornly thinks for himself. One of his great weaknesses is that when he gets something wrong he can go on stubbornly persisting in getting it wrong.
I am not ridiculing Clive as a LibDem candidate. I am sad that so early on, even before the election, he's on HoL repeating the party line.
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Hi Clive
Can we be clear here, there may be 62 Specials working in our borough but do they live in the borough? Where this scheme has been introduced it has applied to Specials who live and patrol in the authority area. Please could you elaborate therefore how many Specials you believe live and work in Haringey. Council tax discounts as you should know can only be applied by the billing authority. How can Haringey apply a discount to a bill produced by for example Tower Hamlets or Barking and Dagenham?
If the answer is the other way round and we have 62 specials that live here but patrol elsewhere this would be different to the schemes which have been introduced elsewhere. Please could you confirm which way round it is?
Also Specials do a fantasic job Therese I totally agree with you. However whilst they are not paid, Specials do recieve free travel which actually considering the current cost of public transport is quite valuable.
What i am slightly perplexed about however is why the Liberal Democrats did not propose this before November when the discretionary scheme decisions are made. Did it have anything to do with awaiting the run up to the election? No perish the thought :) Drive by campaigning ? of course not ! Its either that or the Lib Dems basically threw this together at the last minute after the deadline and didnt research how many people it would benefit. It all looks a bit like a back of a cigarette packet approach to policy.
Emine Ibrahim
The Labour Party Candidate (Harringay Ward)
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