Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Lease plans for Crematorium and Cemetery sites
Following the earlier discussion on the site, Haringey Council has today made the following press release:
Haringey Council's Cabinet has agreed to offer the running of its crematorium and two cemeteries to an outside contractor through a lease agreement.
The Cabinet has agreed:
A number of other options for the sites were considered by the Cabinet, including selling one or all of the sites.
A lease-based agreement with an external operator would allow the council to build in controls covering issues such as opening hours and access to facilities, safety and security as well as the future use of existing grave space.
The council has limited capital resources and a range of competing demands and priorities for those resources. The Government is also tightening controls over the ability of local councils to borrow money. This will further restrict Haringey's ability to fund capital investment in the sites.
Options set out in the report to the Cabinet would cost between £6.6m and £13.4m.
Cllr Dilek Dogus, Cabinet Member for Adult and Community Services, said:
"We understand the concerns of the bereaved and their families, but with the Government cuts that are being imposed on the council, we think that private sector funding is the most sensible option for us, so that the necessary work can be carried out at the sites.
"Enfield Crematorium needs a minimum capital investment of £6.6m to upgrade equipment so that it complies with new emission standards and to provide new burial spaces.
"We expect that this decision will mean that families and mourners will be offered just as good a service. It’s also important for people to remember that the sites will be leased – not sold."
The reports to Cabinet can be accessed on Haringey Council's website.
Haringey Council's Cabinet has agreed to offer the running of its crematorium and two cemeteries to an outside contractor through a lease agreement.
The Cabinet has agreed:
- that Enfield Crematorium, Tottenham Cemetery and Wood Green Cemetery be leased to a specialist operator
- that officers should seek planning permission for new burial space at Enfield Crematorium.
A number of other options for the sites were considered by the Cabinet, including selling one or all of the sites.
A lease-based agreement with an external operator would allow the council to build in controls covering issues such as opening hours and access to facilities, safety and security as well as the future use of existing grave space.
The council has limited capital resources and a range of competing demands and priorities for those resources. The Government is also tightening controls over the ability of local councils to borrow money. This will further restrict Haringey's ability to fund capital investment in the sites.
Options set out in the report to the Cabinet would cost between £6.6m and £13.4m.
Cllr Dilek Dogus, Cabinet Member for Adult and Community Services, said:
"We understand the concerns of the bereaved and their families, but with the Government cuts that are being imposed on the council, we think that private sector funding is the most sensible option for us, so that the necessary work can be carried out at the sites.
"Enfield Crematorium needs a minimum capital investment of £6.6m to upgrade equipment so that it complies with new emission standards and to provide new burial spaces.
"We expect that this decision will mean that families and mourners will be offered just as good a service. It’s also important for people to remember that the sites will be leased – not sold."
The reports to Cabinet can be accessed on Haringey Council's website.
Tags for Forum Posts: public spending cuts
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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Notable for absence - will there be any control over the cost of cremation and burial ?
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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It’s also important for people to remember that the sites will be leased – not sold."
"Lease" – I suppose this term is technically accurate but I suspect it is more than a little misleading. Elsewhere it has been described as a long-term lease, or for a minimum of 15 years.
Lease sounds better than sale, but for most intents and purposes, a genunine long term lease has most of the attributes of an outright sale. For example anyone owning a flat leasehold, knows that they borrowed or could have borrowed a large sum against it, to go towards the purchase price.
All this begs the question, what is in it for the Lease operator? I do not ask this question out of any sympathy for the operator.
I ask because, not only does control revert to the council (in theory) but the operator is meanwhile expected to invest large amounts of money.
The private operator will not unnaturally want to make a return on their intevestment – where is the profit coming from? If the Leasehold could revert to the council in as few as 15 years, what on earth does the leaseholder do to extract a return in that period? A return that is at least as good as other alternative investments?
What are we not being told?
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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What are we not being told?
As usual. Clive, it puzzles me why you and others don't formally ask questions you'd like answered. Okay, to quote the poetry of Donald Rumsfeld:
"There are unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know."
So start with the known unknowns. Deliberative democracy doesn't mean getting together to moan about what you don't know and haven't been told. Ask questions; share information.
St Heather of Brooke has blazed the path.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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formally ask questions you'd like answered
You go and tell that to David Lammy, Alan. I believe he is all too aware that the world of Haringey belongs to the most articulate well organised letter writers and heads of residents associations.
I also would support the Haringey People if it was edited by Claire Kober and took "letters to the editor".
St Heather of Brooke can say "look at me" all she likes, she's just an example of how to get things done that is unavailable to most people.
Clive, I am not supporting you in yet another tirade against the council here, just objecting to an official telling you to ask "officially".
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I'm not telling anyone to do anything. John. And Clive Carter is the last person on HoL I'd try to instruct. I invite and suggest. Clive often declines. (But you never know.)
I'm not asking everyone to be Heather Brooke. But to say that only she can succeed in battling secrecy and abuse of power is abject surrender without a single F.o.I. question being fired off.
I am an elected councillor, not an "official". My job first and foremost is to represent local people - quite often against officials of the Council. The biggest danger of the so-called "cabinet" system is when councillors are captured in the "gravitational field" of the bureaucracy; over-identifying with officers and taking what they say as holy writ.
I'm not David Lammy's post-person, John. If you have a suggestion for David, you can email or even go and see him as readily as I can. But in any case, is it David Lammy's task to build deliberative democracy on Harringay Online website?
"As a citizen, I ask myself, what would I prefer? To be told week after week by party leaders what will be good for the country and by implication good for me? Or to sit down with other members of the public, argue, debate, then finally agree what the issues are, and then together work out the best way to solve them? We have to find new ways of engaging people in politics; an invitation to vote every four or five years is not enough. Leaving it to the political class to decide the rules of the game, the shape and workings of our political system is not good enough." Helena Kennedy
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Clive, it puzzles me why you and others don't formally ask questions you'd like answered
Alan thank you for the suggestion to make a formal application for information about the leasing of the cemeteries. I have a little experience of making Freedom of Information requests to the council. It did cross my my mind in this case. However, I believe there is little point here as I am fairly sure the council would decline to answer, for the following reason.
As you may know the council is not obliged to answer every request and in particular, can and does refuse (rightly or wrongly) on the grounds of commercial confidentiality. It is likely that the council would refuse to provide useful information on those grounds about the cemetery Lease.
In practice, it is equally likely that the sum for which the cemeteries are being sold is a pittance, so small as to be an embarrassment, as much as the jeopardising of further sell-offs that the council might claim.
The reason we are not told any details is likely to be embarrassment and an inability to justify the terms, bolstered by "commercial confidentiality"
The attempted sale of Ally Pally via a lease of 125 was surrounded by intense secrecy. I made an FoI request in respect of the lease, that the council tried to sell off in 2006/7. This request was refused twice; I took the request to the Information Commissioner who 12 months later decided that Haringey's excuses were "not engaged" (?!) and I provided me with a Lease ... redacted for all financial information. The persistent rumour (neither confirmed nor denied) is that the sale price for our Charity's main asset, the seven and a half acre building on the hill, was to be £1.5m.
In practice, "Commercial Confidentiality" is often used to cover up disadvantageous contracts and to shield elected politicians from having to justify those poor agreements. The council often deals from a position of weakness but on top of that, appear to be dreadful negotiators. Generally, I think the legal exemption (commercial confidentiality) is regrettable as it shields the council/officials from scrutiny for poor deals that the council sometimes manages to contract when it contracts with the private sector.
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So the script goes like this?
Clive : "They won't tell us. They have a hundred-and-one reasons why not. Let's not even ask."
John McM : "As Bart Simpson wisely put it, 'Meh'."
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Alan I am curious as to what is involved because on the face of it, it doesn't seem necessarily to be in the public interest. That is why I asked, what are we not being told. We could ask, but I cannot easily think how a question could be framed so as to require a useful answer in this case.
The council's attitude to an FoI about the cemetery lease is likely to be treated in the same way as request for information about any commercial lease: refusal, on the grounds of confidentiality. Is there any reason why you think they would make an exception in this case? As a man with legal training, perhaps you could suggest such wording for an FoI or even ask as a Member's enquiry?
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And so we go round again. Do you actually want to know what's going on with the cemeteries, Clive? Or do you just enjoy griping publicly about not being told?
If the former, then nobody buys the: "Poor Clive . . not trained as a lawyer . . . doesn't know how to read reports or ask questions."
Dave Morris and Helen Steel weren't lawyers either. If you want a quick start on this issue have a look at the Federation's website. If you have time to dig, maybe chat with Dave and offer your help.
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Dave Morris, Helen Steel, Heather Brooke... When in a hole Alan....
At what point do the meek get a say?
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I've added - as an attachment - more detailed information and proposals sent to Cllr Claire Kober by Dave Morris on behalf of the Haringey Federation of Residents Associations, the Sustainable Haringey Network and the Haringey Friends of Parks Forum.
Dave attaches Claire Kober's reply.
I hope people will read through carefully. Though it contains considerable technical material which few of us may be able to judge, it also raises far wider issues. Not least it brings into question:
● The processes by which Haringey officials prepare and present such plans and proposals for a decision by the "Cabinet" and Council;
● Whether or not the mechanisms for gathering information; for evaluation; scrutiny; and public engagement are adequate for purpose.
As we are all aware, this is especially vital at a time where there's relentless and urgent pressure to make huge and damaging cuts in a very short space of time.
The attachment contains:
1. A letter of concern from borough-wide residents' organisations
2. The reply by Cllr Claire Kober, Leader of the Council
3. Sustainable Haringey's detailed analysis of the options, as presented to the Council's cabinet meeting on 16th November.
- Attachments:
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