Haringey Cuts

ADGS

Re: protecting libraries, there is a big sit-in/gig thing at Hornsey library (Crouch End) on March 5th:

Night At The Library

Book in a night at Hornsey Library, where we will be staying up all night to celebrate what Haringey libraries mean to all of us.

Join us throughout the NIGHT for live music, films, readings, debate, collaborative writing, drawing and dreaming
...
5.30
Award Winning novelist LINDA GRANT in conversation with GILLIAN SLOVO

7.00 – 10.00
Live music and readings from notable locals including
Mediaeval Babes,
Nick Marsh of Urban Voodoo Machine
Ronnie Goulden
JC001 World’s Fastest Rapper

10.30 AFTER DARK DEBATE
Diana Edmonds, Head of Libraries,Haringey Council
Chris Meade, Unlibrarian and Director of if:book, the future of the book
and special guests discuss the library of their dreams – what could libraries be in the 21st Century?

12.00 onwards
Films (in the gallery):
· Fahrenheit 451 (1966) cert. PG
· Wings of Desire (1987) cert. PG
· Shorts from the 2010 Wood Green Film Festival

Throughout the night (in the main library):
· Call & Response will be playing their eclectic mix of ambient sounds
· Acoustic sets from local bands (tbc)


The Book of Dreams
– in the Unlibrary, a new centre for co-working and collaboration at Hornsey Library

Chris Meade and Kati Rynne of if:book curate the making of a digital book.
Come and help us write, edit, illustrate and publish writings on the subject of dreams.In just twelve overnight hours, you’ll work with other writers and web geeks to create a
beautiful published set of writings, based on your own experiences of dreams, good or bad. All you need to bring is your laptop, creativity and sleeping bag.

Paper Installations:
Local artist Kiki Machado (who makes beautiful art out of things other people throw away) will be turning Hornsey Library into a giant, rubbish art installation.

Book Knit:
Join Sara Noble (our knitting tutor, and general maker of lovely woolly things) and her knitting club friends as they knit a library Love Poem, throughout the night!

Book In a Message:
Throughout the night we will be filming a compilation of you telling us, in 20 words why you love Haringey Libraries. Keep it short, sweet and incredibly passionate!

Books Back:
We are having a fines amnesty! Return your overdue books anytime between Saturday 5th March 5.00pm and 12noon on Sunday 6th March and we will delete your fines on that item.

Breakfast Picnic and Jazz (in the Foyer):
Pack your bagels, baguettes, marmalade and… blankets, and head down to Hornsey library for a massive Sunday morning picnic. You bring the blankets; we’ll play thelive jazz!

Book Night Give Away!
Paul Higgins of Make Friends With A Book and Sally of Piece of Plenty (The Library Café) will be giving away free books for you to read right through the night.

Children’s Things
Crafts and nursery rhymes in the Children’s library from 5-9pm on Saturday with films from 7.00 on Sunday morning.

miss annie

It is World Book Night on that evening. Many libraries and bookshops will be giving away books including fiction, poetry and history titles from a list including One Day, Life of Pi, A Fine Balance, The Blind Assassin, and All Quiet on the Western Front. Here is a link to the website. <http://www.worldbooknight.org/>; Those with children will certainly already know about World Book Day which encourages children to read by giving out £1 vouchers in schools, which can be spent on the special selection of £1 books supplied by publishers to bookshops.

dion

@Ali - and are budgets so sacred in the public sector that they have to be adhered to at all costs? Sounds inflexible, unresponsive and still riles me that their priorities are nonsensical. Thanks for info though!

Roy

@dion: well, in most if not all councils the budget is approved by the elected councillors sitting in full session. In fact, in
the modern 'cabinet'-style council system it's one of the few functions of 'back bench' councillors.

I imagine there will be a process for amending the budget but the democratic process certainly can't just be casually ignored.

Also, I don't know if it applies in this case but in many aspects of policy councils actually have rather less freedom to make choices than you might imagine, given their legal obligations to perform certain functions in certain ways, etc.

-roy

dion

@Roy - well, they should hold an extraordinary session then! Just to blindly follow a budget set over 12 months ago is slightly absurd given the changes in the funding of councils announced over the last few months. And they had plenty of time to see it coming.

[Deleted User]

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dion

No, that is an Islington Cut

Ali

Good on them <http://saveharingeyyouthservice.weebly.com/index.html>;

Arkady

I attended a Friends of the Regents Canal meeting last night. The focus was on environmental policy on the canal, and in attendance were the Biodiversity Officers from Islington, Camden and Hackney. The subject of cuts came up, and I was interested to hear that of the three boroughs only Islington was cutting their Biodiversity Officer. Now I’m for prioritising the environment, and get rather twitchy when roles such as that are not considered ‘front line’, but still, it struck me as an interesting example of priorities. I would have thought that Islington was the borough most able to afford what some might see as a ‘nice to have’ in comparison to ‘human-focused’ services.

dorothy

Think they've made a lot of cuts on environmental stuff. They're rebranding their Green Living Centre on Upper St and giving over a lot of the space to the CAB. I wonder if it's payback to the Lib Dems and the fact there's no Green Councillor.

Arkady

Cutting spending on the environment to spend on social services is like spending less on your foundations so that you can afford taller walls.

Papa

Islington might like to cut this lot back down to size

<a href="http://www.islington.gov.uk/Council/councilworks/councilfinance/senior_pay_expense.asp">Senior staff pay</a>

And this propaganda rag that helps put local newspapers out of business by removing vital advertising from them should go too

<A href="http://www.kingscrossenvironment.com/2010/07/how-much-does-islington-councils-newspaper-cost.html">How much does Islington's council newspaper cost?</a>

That 'editor' on £46k for publishing this rubbish has a salary most proper journalists would be delighted with

<a href="http://www.islington.gov.uk/Council/CouncilNews/islingtonnow/default.asp">The rag in question</a>

Sorry, rant over.

*Post adjusted for linking, forgot first time

Ali

Gillespie Road Ecology centre is loosing most of its staff

ShaunG

Papa L - are you Eric Pickles in disguise?

Ian

None of this is easy for the council but I'll be pretty annoyed if the park gets cuts and gets into disrepair, given they could have raised income by letting out the run down part of it to the football company.

dion

Lynne's take on it: Last week I sent out an email about the cuts being made by Haringey Council, and our Liberal Democrat councillors' alternative proposals to protect frontline services. These amendments to Labour's budget would have stopped the closure of older people's luncheon clubs and day centres and reversed much of the planned 75% cuts to the youth service. Instead, my colleagues on the council called for larger savings in the Council's annual £16 million IT budget, the £2 million a year communications department and in the £20 million annual bill for senior managers. Sadly, at the Council's budget meeting on Thursday the ruling Labour group rejected our amendments, and decided to press ahead with plans to cut services for our most vulnerable residents. They even ignored last-minute pleas from a delegation of young people who spoke passionately and eloquently to the meeting about how much they benefit from youth clubs. Labour councillors cheered and clapped as they voted down our amendments and made the cuts, and seemed more keen to make party political points than make the best choices for Haringey residents. However, my colleagues and I are determined to continue the fight to save these services, and to persuade the Labour Council to think again. Officially the Council is still consulting on the closures and so there is still time to make the case for services that really help vulnerable people in our communities. Many local people have signed our paper and online petition to save the older people's lunch clubs. If you haven't done so yet please sign up here: <http://campaigns.libdems.org.uk/saveolderpeoplesservices>; Obviously this is a really tough year for local authorities, with central grants falling as Government focuses on reducing the deficit. In these tough times it is even more vital that Haringey spends its £280 million budget on the most important priorities, and cuts spending on back office costs.

helen

as some of you might already knw, we're losing a lot of the children's service in haringey (and I believe Islington too). After-school clubs are losing their funding and having talked to the Head at Stroud Green everyone is very worried on the implications on parents who can't work without after-school provision and equally on the likely increase in kids being on the streets after school as there will be nowhere else for them to go. The "consultation" on parent needs closes on tuesday (anyone with a kid at afterschool club at Stroud Green who hasn't filled in a form should do so immediately). After that the Head is allowed to start to talk about what's going on and we as parents and members of the community can start to develop a Plan B. The Hideaway is a great little building on separate land next to the school. It can probably be used for community events, lunches, Brownies (just saw the other strand.., etc). There's a nice large room, a good sized kitchen, quiet rooms and even a little outside garden.
If anyone has ideas or can help in anyway that would be great. We need to keep our kids safe and ensure that parents who work have the flexibility to do so, knowing their kids are safe.
Fighting this particular cut is almost inevitably going to fail...think we have to be realists about that...but we can do something about it and sort it out

ADGS

Ian - I find myself reminded of the classic Vietnam-era 'In order to save the village, we had to destroy it'. Better a dilapidated, free park than another place where only the moneyed are welcome.

Ian

@ADGS a) nonsense, in no way would the park would become only for the moneyed, that is as you know a daft exaggeration but, if you believe that b) you should be fighting to close the café, the American Football ground, the tennis courts, the baseball pitch, the gym, the track and the boathouse then. We know what the park is like when it becomes dilapidated because we have been there not so long ago. Nobody goes.

sincers

Am I wrong in thinking there are political motivations behind the style of cuts. ie. Labour run councils are cutting services likely to "show" adverse results such as fewer youth centres = more kids on the streets = increase in crime, while protecting back office. comms, IT services etc. so they can say "told you so" to the coalition?

ADGS

Ian - I sat in the park and read then, just as I do now. If anything I preferred it then, it was quieter and there weren't fairs churning up the grass so often.

And that area of the park, where I sometimes like to wander and watch the sunset, where I see other people playing various games and driving remote controlled cars, would become an area just for people who paid, just to play one sport for which this city <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12637508">already bends over backwards</a>. Even if no element of slippery slope applies - which I think would be optimistic, because we've seen how those pound signs make councils' eyes light up in the whole CPZ farrago - then that would a change for the worse.

ADGS

Sincers - I'm not sure it's even that motivated, in most cases. Cuts are normally made by bureaucrats, who naturally protect themselves and the people they see every day over those remote and abstract creatures out on the front line. It may be exacerbated in this case by the chance of gaining party political capital, but it's the same thing which tends to happen anyway.

Emma

Whether it is politically motivated or not, it certainly helps Lynne take the heat off herself to insinuate as such. The whole lot of them are a depressing load of lying f#cks.

sincers

Agreed. And they can stop stuffing half a dozen copies of that god-awful "Haringey" magazine through my letter box. That would save a few hundred grand. All cellophane-wrapped and full of self-serving crap.

Ali

I believe the LibCons Gove is saying that he is considering giving schools in Haringey an extra £1300 a pupil with a decision being taken fairly soon. The teachers at SGC are paid inner London pay while grant per kid is out London hence the possible £1300 per kid. That is a lot extra of money so maybe the school will use some of that to fund an after schools service inside it own its own assets. The Hideaway is owned by the council and they have been trying to get rid of it to the school for some time but the school I believe doesn’t want the costs. I hope it is preserved as you can just see it being left to rot and get dilapidated before some one torches it or something. The other bad thing is that people will loose their jobs over this and I guess while doing the job they have built up trusted relationships with the kids in their charge. Our MP can blame the council for the way the cuts have been carried out but I thought it was a clear LibDem policy to push localism which is what old Pickles is certainly doing. When they don’t like what localism means they can’t have it both ways

helen

the extra money would be great - needed for teaching staff and resources - we're one of the few schools with only one teacher per class, no teaching assistants and it would be great to redress that situation.
some of the rest of what you say may not be necessarily true - the school tried to takeover hideaway in the summer on a service level agreement but the council shelved all of these suddenly (probably when they started trying to work out where the cuts might go) so it got left in limbo.
The school wants to ensure after-school continues BUT we have to help make it work as a going concern (and breakeven is fine) in order to make sure it doesn't become a drain on the school.
so ideas/connections anyone?
kids on the street is bad for us all as an alternative...

Siolae

One possiblity may be to outsource after school care to an outside agency which I believe is what happens in my kid's school. We are Islington and so far there has been no suggestion of after school provision being scraped. Personally I could not work without it and the breakfast club. It is such a short sighted saving as it is a relatively cheap resource yet means the difference for people like me between being forced to claim benefits or working and paying tax, council tax, national insurance etc. It is paricularly valuable in inner city areas where people often live away from family support networks and where working families provide a stable level of social cohesion to communities.

Brodiej

[Local & relevant. Could be any council really](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8365463/Death-by-a-thousand-cuts.html#)

ShaunG

Hateful man, Andrew Gilligan. I'm no cheerleader for Haringey Council, but this piece adds at least as much misleading prejudice as it does illumination.

Roy

Well, the Telegraph would hardly be the first place you'd look to find a fair and balanced critique of a Labour council. (Which is not to say that Haringey Council are in the right - I have no knowledge one way or the other.)