Labour and Green councillors secured a narrow victory in securing an investigation into low pay for cleaners, care workers and dinner ladies at Camden Council.  Despite opposition from ruling Lib Dem councillors, on the casting vote of the Labour chair of the Resource & Corporate Performance Committee the influential committee decided to press ahead with an investigation into the matter.
 
In a disputed decision, the Tory/Lib Dem run council will now research the issue of low pay at Camden Council in time to discuss the tendering of part-time worker contracts in July 2009. 
 
Cllrs Linda Cheung (Lib Dem, Hampstead Town) and Cllr. Nick Russell (Lib Dem, Kentish Town) voted against reviewing low paid contracts and the possibility of introducing the £7.60 an hour London Living Wage at Camden, while Cllr. Theo Blackwell (Labour, Regent’s Park) and Adrian Oliver (Green, Highgate) voted in favour.  The decision to go ahead with 2-2 was made by the casting vote of the Chair.  No Conservatives were present at the meeting.
 
Chair of the Committee and Opposition Finance spokesperson Cllr. Theo Blackwell said:
 
“It doesn’t surprise me that the Lib Dems are against the London Living Wage, they also oppose the National Minimum Wage.”
 
“The council outsourced residential caretakers and now wants to privatise Talacre sport centre staff.  They are doing so without a commitment to pay people a decent London minimum.  Everyone knows if you depress wages at the bottom it impacts on wages higher up the scale.  If you carry on like this pretty soon you’ll have a recruitment crisis, or no local people will be there to do these jobs.”
 
“It’s clear that the view from on high is that the council doesn’t want to open what it sees as a can of worms.  The council legal advice is suspect.  They say it can’t be done, despite other councils committing to this and the Mayor of London seeing the higher London rate as good morally good and for morale and productivity.”
 
In the 2009 Budget Labour proposed an amendment to stop bonuses for senior council staff (totalling £300,000 a year) until the issue of low paid had been addressed.  They also argued against proposals that 3 Lib Dem backbench councillors should be paid an extra £5000 a year for their work.
 
Cllr. Blackwell added:
 
“High wages and bonuses are no problem for the council, but when they consider low pay it suddenly becomes all to expensive.  Camden’s own figures for school cleaners, cooks and low paid carers show that this would cost £1 million, about 1% on council tax.  Last year Camden made a surplus of £13 million through cutting services and higher charges for the very services they continue to pay people poorly.”
 
Background
1.  Research into low pay will be discussed at the July 21 meeting.
 
2.  The Resources & Corporate Performance Scrutiny Committee had previously discussed a report in October 2008 on the Council’s contracts to assess whether the London Living Wage is the minimum paid by the Council and it’s contractors.  This also examined whether there is a legal basis for Camden to ensure that contractors pay the London Living Wage and for a review of the performance of the cleaning contract, including health and safety issues, and to assess whether there was a correlation between lower rates of pay for staff and performance.  It was agreed, subject to the new Committee’s agreement in the next Council year, that the issue would be looked in more detail.      The Camden report stated that the National Minimum Wage is the minimum paid by the Council and its contractors, rather than London Living Wage.  Camden’s initial report gave the view that, based on a small sample of indicative figures, applying the London Living Wage as a contractual requirement would result in a financial impact which could amount to a 20% increase on costs on contracts or £1 million a year (approximately 1% on council tax).  Low paid Camden care workers, caterers and cleaners are currently paid more than £1 an hour under the London Living Wage. 
 
3.  The National Minimum Wage is set at £5.73 and the London Living Wage, called the “minimum acceptable quality of life in the city” by Boris Johnson is now set at £7.60 (a difference of 30% between the National Minimum Wage and the London Living Wage).  City Hall estimates that currently almost half (47%) all part-time staff working in London and 15% of full-time workers are still paid below the London living wage. One in seven London employees is paid less than £6.65 per hour.

Tags: Low Pay.

The Camden Labour Party last night selected Nasim Ali, a 40 year old two-term councillor and community organiser, to lead the Party forward in next year’s local elections.  Ali, a well known figure and former Mayor of Camden, grew up on the Regent’s Park Estate, NW1 and helped pioneer Camden United Football project to bring local young people from white and asian communities together in south Camden. 
 
As a councillor Nasim, known as Nash, was instrumental in pressing for major community benefits in his ward from the large British Land development in Osnaburgh Street .  This resulted a substantial contribution which has helped to rebuild the Samuel Lithgow Youth Club, providing a new community facility for local young people on the Regent’s Park Estate. 
 
He is currently Chair of the Healthy Families Partnership at King’s Cross, a governor of Netley Primary School and also Chair of the West Euston Partnership Planning Working Group.  Nash won the Camden Good Citizen Award, now called the EPIC, in 1998.
 
Cllr Ali said:
 
“I want to restore Camden ’s ambition to promote fairness and social justice in the borough I grew up in and am now raising my young family.  I am a product of our local schools and grew up in a Camden council flat.
 
“I want a positive vision for Camden Labour.  I am proud to be part of a Labour movement which nurtured excellent schools, established affordable childcare for the first time and supported the best and most vibrant voluntary sector in London .
 
“The Town Hall Lib Dems and Conservatives are short sighted and don’t share this vision, I have seen how they work and that’s why they need challenge. 
 
“The parents and pupils of Edith Neville, a very successful community primary school in Somers Town , were left high and dry by the coalition last year as part of a shabby political deal to rush through their school building programme in time for the 2010 election.  This alienated school governors and the local community.  They should be ashamed of themselves and how they have acted.
 
“They have also dragged their feet on more school places and a school south of the Euston Road , despite hoarding nearly 100 million pounds from budget surpluses, fewer community services and higher fees.
 
“The council stood by and allowed Boris Johnson to cut funding for major jobs and training schemes in Kings Cross and Swiss Cottage just at the time when people needed them.  Camden is currently taking money away from Kilburn Town Centre on the sly and has cut funding for successful projects in Highgate. 
 
“The number one priority for me will be more housing for local people.  Policies based on need must be restored to the centre of policy again, rather than the sight of council flats sold off or rented to the highest bidder.
 
“Community groups and youth clubs, the fabric of what makes Camden great, should be nurtured rather than run down.  Vulnerable members of the community should not be forced to pay for the recession through increased charges for council services like meals on wheels.”
 
Also elected last night as Deputy Leader of the Group was Councillor Jonathan Simpson, who added:
 
“Labour has a refreshed and exciting team going ahead.  It is representative of the community we serve and democratically selected, which is more than can be said for the other political parties. 
 
“We want to see changes at the Town Hall, which is increasingly stagnant and bereft of ideas for our borough.  All the coalition seem to be interested in these days is tactical advantage for the next elections, not community gain.”
 
Outgoing leader Cllr. Anna Stewart, who is stepping down in 2010 said:
 
“You don’t get much more local than Nash, he’s a Camden success story.  In his year as Mayor and then on Camden’s Executive he showed how we brings people from all communities together.  His positive, community-based approach will challenge the complacent politics as usual at the Town Hall.”
 
In other appointments Labour elected veteran Roger Robinson as Chief Whip of the opposition party; Theo Blackwell as opposition Finance spokesperson and nominee for the Resources and Corporate Performance Scrutiny Committee and Heather Johnson nominee for Chair of the Children, Schools and families scrutiny committee.
 
Notes:
 
Councillor Nasim Ali (Regent’s Park) Labour’s new Leader, has been a Labour Party Member since May 1993 and a Labour Councillor on the London Borough of Camden since May 2002. He is also the Chair of the Camden Bangladeshi Mela Committee.  Nasim grew up on the Regent’s Park Estate, NW1 and went to Netley Primary School and Sir William Collins (now South Camden Community) School.  
 
Nasim, 40, has been employed as a community organiser since 1995. He has a degree in Informal and Community Education from YMCA George Williams College where he is now a governor.  Since 2001 he has been the Executive Director of the King’s Cross Brunswick Neighbourhood Association, providing a range of services to improve the quality of life of local residents, young and old.  Nasim was appointed Mayor for Camden at the age of 34 (2003/4). He was the youngest mayor in the country and the first Bangladeshi and Muslim Mayor in Camden .  He also served on the Executive as lead for Community Engagement in 2005.
 
In 1995, he set up the Camden United Project, after the murder of Richard Everitt, a white youth, by a group of Asian youths.  The object of the project was to unite young people in Camden through their common interest in football diverting them away from racism, crime and conflict. 
 
Cllr. Jonathan Simpson (King’s Cross) has been a Councillor since 2002, originally representing Fortune Green ward.  From 2005 to 2006 he was the Chair of Camden’s Licensing Committee.  He now sits on the council’s Licensing and Development Control committees.  In addition to being a hard working local councillor, Jonathan works in the planning sector outside of Camden and is a former special constable.

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