Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Pickles Settles Confusion and Names Haringey 'worst authority'
Little love lost? Clare Kober, Leader of Haringey Council and Eric Pickles Minister for Communities and Local Government
Communities secretary Eric Pickles has issued a letter of correction after he wrongly identified Hackney as the worst performing local authority in the country in regard to planning applications on Monday. His correction instead puts Haringey in the frame.
In a House of Commons debate yesterday, Mr Pickles was asked by shadow secretary Hillary Benn during a debate on the Growth and Infrastructure Bill to name “one example of a so-called failing planning authority”.
Mr Pickles responded: “As the right hon. Gentleman knows and, more particularly, as other Opposition Members know, I have been more than helpful to those Members who have had trouble with planning authorities and I have done my best to move things along, but I am very happy to name the worst, which is Hackney.”
The remarks led to calls by Hackney’s mayor for Mr Pickles to apologise and issue a retraction. (See attached letter)
A ministerial correction has now been issued and is part of the Hansard official record, which stated that Mr Pickles meant to identify Haringey as the worst performing authority in regard to planning applications.
It remains to be seen what sort of letter Clare Kober will send the Minister.
Story picked up from Construction News
- Attachments:
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Hackney-Mayor-letter.pdf, 90 KB
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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So not at the bottom, just near the bottom (officially). Feel a lot better now.
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Permalink Reply by JJ B on
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HAringey is in the second to last decile. I guess she is proud of that! And I gather that the speed of processing applications is THE yardstick fro measuring how ggod a council is at planning! What about the number of complaints, how effective they are at producing sound and good policies, how thisa is reflected on the ground by the improvements in the quality of the built environment, etc, etc...
Give us the stats on that! I DO live in Tottenham - East Haringey!
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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I tried to cross-check the information in Claire Kober's reply to Eric Pickles and am having difficulty locating the published figures. Has anyone tried to do this who can help me out with some links?
Freedom of Information Act questions take twenty working days to be answered and I'd prefer not to be doing this over Christmas.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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It now turns out that, after all, Eric Pickles' figures were accurate. Cllr Claire Kober was supplied inaccurate data by Haringey senior staff.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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Looking at the pictures of Ms Kober and Eric Pickles, surely they must be related ? Is Clare Eric's long-lost lovechild ?
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No, she's his next tasty meal.
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Last night members of the Council's Regulatory Committee learned that the figures in Cllr Claire Kober's letter to Eric Pickles were - there's no easy way to say this - not whollly acccurate. So I'd like to take this opportunity to put this straight.
Because it’s obvious that many people have strong and pretty mixed reactions to some of the things I’ve written about Cllr Kober. But some of them told me they’re glad that at a time of real uncertainly I put aside my political differences with the Dear Leader to copy members of HoL with her letter to Eric Pickles about Haringey’s statistics on the performance of our Planning & Degeneration Service.
But I also meet people who are disappointed and angry that we couldn’t keep all our statistics accurate. All our statistics. Above all our statistic about the number of major planning applications complete within timescale. And to those people I say this.
When the Dear Maximum Leader stated that Mr Pickles had got the wrong figures she said this with the best of intentions. But it was a statement she shouldn’t have made without being sure it was accurate. And with the best of intentions I copied her statement to Harringaye Onlin.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. There’s no easy way to say it. I’m sorry. When we're wrong we hold our hands up. Will we learn from this mistaek? Is that what we will do? I accept that it won’t be enough for everyone. But I’ll leaf it to you.
(Tootenham Hael Ward counciillor)
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Alan I've a few straightforward comments or questions:
1. The PDF file above (a letter from Ms Kober to Mr Pickles) does not render right - the effect looks like all the lines are redacted, but I believe this is a technical problem. It's hard for me to comment on the letter at all, currently. For me, only Claire Kober's signature renders correctly!
2. What is the Council Regulatory Committee? Its a new one on me. I would have thought the council has more than enough committees already. How much time, effort and money is wasted by the multiplicity of meetings, especially committee meetings?
3. If you have, as you say "political" differences with the Leader of the Council Majority Group, are you in the right political party?
4. What does "de mob happy" mean? This expression has been used to characterise some of your recent contributions.
5. Do you think that, even if you disagree with her, there is a possibility you may have been gratuitously rude to the council leader? Is this seemly?!
6. Is there any chance that someone in authority (elected councillors, for example) might get to grips with the Planning Service (I confess to liking your description of the "service", above, even if it is a little rude). It all seems unseemly: what say you?
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Rude? Unseemly? You've gone all prim and proper, Clive. Been rereading Jane Austen?
PDF file: I can't help how your fruit machine reads PDF files. Perhaps Marek can assist?
Haringey Regulatory Committee: Make Google your friend. Search: haringey regulatory committee.
Right Political Party?: I've been in the Labour Party over forty years. Many of our youngest members share the principles, values and passions which attracted me to join the party. (Though there are a few apparatchiks who appear to have no passion beyond burning personal ambition.) The party is happy to have a very wide range of members. While there are no compulsory beliefs there's a nice sensible paragraph on the back of the membership card. It has a tradition of grown-up debate. And good humour. (Tony Banks made a joke about not knowing whether to stand-up or kneel down when Blair made a speech at Party Conference. They made him a Lord.)
Demob Happy? This is Hugh's little joke suggesting I've got more critical lately. It's not true. As you know very well, when I disagree with something I speak up strongly.
Gratuitously Rude? This seems an odd criticism coming from someone like you who's fond of using the word "corrupt" to describe politicians. Claire Kober is not corrupt of course. Just almost entirely unsuited to be Leader of Haringey. For the record, I didn't disagree with her before May 2006 for the simple reason that before then she wasn't a councillor and I'd never heard of her. She became Chief Whip and did a reasonably adequate job. (Although her predecessors included ex-councillors Richard Reynolds and Alan Dobbie - who both defected to the Tories - so the bar wasn't set terribly high.)
Cllr Kober became Leader in November 2008 after the death of Peter Connelly and when George Meehan stepped down. As I've written before, at the time I thought Claire was rather brave. I and other people offered her our support and advice. It fact she asked my advice when dealing with Cllr Charles Adje and withdrawal of the Labour whip. (Unfortunately temporary.) However, her unfitness for the post slowly became obvious. If I had any remaining doubts, the riot and looting in Tottenham and Wood Green last year made it crystal clear. Cometh the hour faileth the leader.
The Planning Service. The usual drill for a council cock-up is to blame someone who recently left. (Google: 'Prepare three envelopes'.) But perhaps this time one or more staff in the service will be told-off. A severe: "Tut-tut". Or perhaps even: "Tut-Tut-Tut". If the sanctions are more serious you can be certain it will not be because of the mistake with the figures. What may not be tolerated is public embarrassment for the Dear Leader. Someone gave the empress an invisible suit.
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So, will she withdraw her demand that Pickles give an immediate apology, and apologise herself in turn for wasting his time ?
BTW Clive, the letter renders correctly on my Adobe reader.
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Thanks for your post John; following your note, I downloaded the file and was able to see the letter correctly via Reader (only).
I don't doubt that the council leader made the apology request in good faith and believed at the time that an apology request was justified. But like any head of a large organisation, she necessarily depends on the honesty, competence, professionalism and good faith of employees and what they tell her.
But it was a statement she shouldn’t have made without being sure it was accurate.
If every detail or statistic that employees report upwards, needs checking and independent verification, then running a large organisation with any confidence would become impossible.
From my own soundings, the performance of the Planning Service is in question. This is not the first time that issues of competence have arisen in this or in other departments. Can I suggest that the quality of staff employed is taken into consideration? Are people given jobs on the basis of other than competence?
I am aware of council 'officer' statements with poor English, poor spelling, grammar and comprehension, that together, give an impression of sloppiness. Does anyone care? Who is in charge?
I think that, despite some embarrassment, there are powerful lessons that can be drawn from this episode.
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Clive, I'm not proposing that a Chief Executive or Council leader checks every detail.
Even in the best run organisations — public, private not-for-profit — staff sometimes make mistakes, including spelling mistakes. I'm talking about parts of an organisation where the predominant culture tolerates and ignores errors, sloppiness and a lack of care. It's a Planning & Regeneration Department which is dealing with legal rights; property worth millions; and decisions affecting people's lives - possibly for many decades.
And where this tolerated sloppiness is a sad fact of life for other staff - and there are very many of them - who are competent, committed, efficient and care deeply about the service they provide to residents.
This sloppiness is not new. Don’t you remember the Planning consultation survey which asked about the “sale of crinks”; "visual rts events” (reclaim the streets?); and "Gender Reassingment" (the musical?)
I once mentioned a book you declined to read, Mark Moore's Creating Public Value. It included a case study of the Boston Housing Authority. Among numerous changes, the man appointed to turn it round demanded that typos in letters were corrected. But not because he was a pedant.
"That kind of thing was fundamental because the agency was so sloppy. [There were] just no standards whatsoever. In some sense this was ludicrous little stuff . [But] in another sense it says, 'This represents the quality of the work we do and this is crap'."
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