Watchdog under fire over 'unacceptable' spending (From Harrow Times)
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Police watchdog under fire over budget spending
1:36pm Wednesday 13th July 2011 in News
A POLICE watchdog has come under fire over how it has been spending its £50,000 budget.
Councillor Susan Hall, leader of the Conservative opposition on Harrow Council, questioned items from the Harrow Police and Community Consultative Group budget over the last two years.
She said: “Looking through the accounts of the last two years, the amount of money spent on catering I find absolutely unacceptable.
“There's absolutely no question about there being any dishonest behaviour from any of the management committee, and I applaud the work Sonoo Malkani has always put into this group.
“But as a elected member it's absolutely right and proper that we challenge money being spent if there's a possibility it is not for the public benefit.”
Cllr Hall raised at Monday night's monthly meeting spending on catering for parties for the Mayor and Police Borough Commander, yoga workshops, as well as £200 listed for tickets to the Albert Hall.
But Ms Malkani, who chairs the group, reacted angrily to the issue being raised, saying: “We don't spend money on a knees-up.
She added: “I find this very distasteful, I thought in this country you are innocent until proven guilty, and I want evidence to see of Albert Hall tickets.”
The details came out in a discussion on the budget of the group, after it was asked to open its accounts by Harrow Council.
Ms Malkani said she had shared spending details in good faith, and has subsequently explaned any items of spending in full.
Cllr Hall refuted the suggestion that she was accusing the group of wrongdoing, but said she would not personally have spent some of the money in the way it had been spent.
Councillor Navin Shah, assembly member for Brent and Harrow, jumped to Ms Malkani's defence, saying: “The comment from the council is this organisation is viewed as an active and engaged group.
“I would have thought any concerns about the priorities and what funding it should get is something that should not be picked up on an individual basis. That's something that needs to be agreed as a strategic policy.”
Ms Malkani closed down the debate by saying she would decide whether an extraordinary general meeting should be held to discuss the accounts of the last two years.
Comments(5)
pravinshah1
says...
2:11pm Thu 14 Jul 11
As General and Legal Secretary of Harrow Council for Justice I made the following Statement:
Public statement 12 July 2011
Many member organisations of the Harrow Council for Justice (HCJ) were the founder members of
the Harrow Police and Community Consultative Group (HPCCG) and as such remain interested in the
work and welfare of the HPCCG.
More specific to the HPCCG meeting on 11/7/11, there are serious concerns about how this body
has now been treated by some. What should really matter is the work of the HPCCG and not the
personalities.
The HPCCG was an initiative under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) to involve
communities in the local policing matters. Over the years, it has developed wider relationships with
the communities, sharing some of its resources. If there are concerns regarding this aspect of the
HPCCG’s work, then these can be addressed in a non-confrontational manner.
The HCJ deplores any personal or political point scoring at the HPCCG meetings.
All communications to/ from
HCJ are public!
Public statement 12 July 2011
Many member organisations of the Harrow Council for Justice (HCJ) were the founder members of
the Harrow Police and Community Consultative Group (HPCCG) and as such remain interested in the
work and welfare of the HPCCG.
More specific to the HPCCG meeting on 11/7/11, there are serious concerns about how this body
has now been treated by some. What should really matter is the work of the HPCCG and not the
personalities.
The HPCCG was an initiative under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) to involve
communities in the local policing matters. Over the years, it has developed wider relationships with
the communities, sharing some of its resources. If there are concerns regarding this aspect of the
HPCCG’s work, then these can be addressed in a non-confrontational manner.
The HCJ deplores any personal or political point scoring at the HPCCG meetings.
All communications to/ from
HCJ are public!
SeaBee
says...
1:11am Fri 15 Jul 11
pravinshah1, Do you agree that the HPCCG's detailed expenditure should be made public or not?
Sonoo Malkani
says...
5:27am Fri 15 Jul 11
A devastating day for Harrow when a senior Councillor such as Cllr Hall receives a detailed and transparent explanation of the spends she expressed concerns over, from the HPCCG Chair, and says they are fine and then cynically proceeds instead,on the self-same evening,to present them in a manner which can only be described as thoroughly misleading---thereby DELIBERATELY INCITING the PUBLIC and MEMBERS
of HPCCG ,by MISREPRESENTING the factual information she held in the very palm of her hands.She has it all on her Blackberry and is showing it to unsuspecting folk!
It beggars belief that she has stooped to such levels to try and make out that we (the management)are dishonest or at best foolish and that she is the saviour of the people!She FORGETS WE ARE TAX-PAYERS too and DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY, exactly like everybody else.
Her bullying manner and intimidating tactics have not gone down well with us or many of our members who have been phoning and expressing their dismay at the aggressive mannner in which she attacked me publicly.We were thoroughly shocked by her confrontational stance.It is an attempt to DISCREDIT and DEFAME us.So much for the BIG SOCIETY!
We have a Code of Conduct which was definitely violated in full view of the gathered audience.What sort of message does that give to those attending?
We are a very small team of volunteers who have worked our socks off for our community and are totally astounded by the manner in which Cllr Hall has pretended to help us clarify our spend to members and then proceeded on a "witch-hunt!".
She requested permission to access our accounts,three weeks back,simply to help sort out our headings and make the accounts crystal clear.
I had no hesitation in granting her the permission but had no idea that she was upto no good and only wanted to make mischief.
We feel very betrayed and let down and feel our trust has been violated brutally by the leader of the Tory party in Harrow.I feel particularly devastated after all the years we have worked together with her so well, while she was portfolio holder for Policing and environment.We cannot fathom her reasons on declaring War on us!
Cllr Hall has appointed herself and has been deviously conducting a police type investigation, with no authority whatsoever from anyone.I request her to please stop abusing her position and power and to stop bullying and badgering us volunteers in this wholly unseemly manner.This is not a level playing field!
It does her office no good and is an extremely bad example to set for the Big or Civil Society.
It is the very first time in 39 years that I DEEPLY REGRET volunteering for my community and caution others to not be too trusting and open.
Be warned!Politicians come in all shapes and sizes and may try to use you to score brownie points.Sadly,Cllr Hall has turned out to be the proverbial Trojan Horse.!
Of course,we will be preparing our accounts for the past two years and allowing our members to judge whether we have been spending our tax monies appropriately for the benefit of Harrovians.This is their business and ours alone.We will be nviting Chirs of safer neighbourhood panels to our Mc meetings in rotation to make ourselves more transparent.
I would like to remind people that we will be accountable to our members and let them have logical explanations of our spend,only after Harrow Council has co-operated in full and given us the detail our members require.We are working on a format which all our members find easy to understand.
We had objected to Cllr Halls casting aspursions about our spends,at our AGM in January 2011, when she threw up her hands very dramatically at the very end of the evening and asked for a list of our expenses ----insinuating that we had been spending HPCCG monies inappropriately ---having received the sum of £50,000 for two consecutive years from the MPA.She has been targetting us ever since.
I suggest SeaBee from Pinner hold their horses before landing in the same mess Cllr Hall has.We REFUSE TRIAL BY SUSAN HALL or anyone else.
Our accoutability is to our members and to the public who attend our meetings and help us keep our borough one of Londons safest.
From the inception of HPCCG we had never been required to produce any accounts publicly, nor had received this enhanced amount.We used to be the lowest-funded borough, receiving only £24000 or even less all these years,like Hillingdon.
However,I was advised by our link officer,Maurice Blades, that we could get almost double, as many other boroughs were legitimately doing, and could use the extra monies to engage a part-time development worker to help grow our organisation.He felt I was doing far too much on my own and could use the help.
Some London boroughs had been getting £65000.I wished we had known earlier and had been able to help support our people with additional funding.
When we successfully landed this amount (£50000) for the very first time,for 2009-10,I approached Mike Howes in Harrow Council to help us describe the role and duties for a part-time outreach and development worker and advertise the post.I had been doing this work on top of my Chairing,for no money,all the while.!Jenny Wilson,our late Publicity Officer, was very pleased that we would be able to do outreach.
However,months later since we had not progressed much, we were advised by our Link Officer(from the MPA)that these additional funds coud be legitimately used to partner events/projects with a host of others in our own borough or cross borough.The rest is history.
I have been writing detailed Interim reports of all our activities,backed with photographic evidence of our active engagement with a huge number of organisations and communities,thus endeavouring to embrace as many as we could.
We had no set criteria to fulfil except the following:
A)Our management should give funding/support to any project/event which would promote harmony or community cohesion in this the most religiously diverse borough in Europe and the UK.
B)also for projects/events helping us engage with all sorts of communities and people from many cultures and backgrounds including the disadvantaged/hard to reacg grouos,the elderly,vulnerable,a
sylum seekers,carers,disab
ility groups etc
C)projects/events promoting crime prevention and also helping support our local Police and the Met Police(as in consultations or information re Counter-terrorism which affects our whole country)
Cllr Hall pretended she would be happy to assist in getting us properly formatted accounts from the Democratic Services dept since she has an excellent relationship with their Head. They handle all our monies.Since Cllr Hall offered to do this at our EGM,we gratefully (and naively)accepted her offer ---not realising what her true agenda was.
The members had requested the two previous years accounts(2009-10 and 2010-11) and we had produced them with the little information Harrow Council had given us on May 16 at a specially held EGM.These had been rejected as an incomplete statement which is why we went back to the drawing board and are still formatting this with internal help.Please bear with us as this needs proper collation of information.
Cllr Hall keeps banging on about the generous sum of £50,000 which we had received.She knows only too well that we pay a princely sum of approximately £27,000 to our admin department who charge us a composite rate of £60 per hour.We have complained bitterly that this is far too high---in fact it is The HIGHEST IN LONDON.
Thankfully,this is being examined in detail at long last,by the MPA very shortly.We have begged for a detailed breakdown on several occasions but are told we are not privy to that information.
I ask,if we are expected to account to our members how can we provide details of items not shared with us?It was under guise of getting us this information that Cllr Hall accessed and abused the our confidential information regarding the spends and painted a landscape to serve her own ends.
SeaBee,please step up to the plate and find out how difficult it is to get specific replies from the Council who DIRECTLY RECEIVE abd DISBURSE all our FUNDING, only AFTER receiving invoices or receipts.Even these we cannot view nor receive copies!Try your luck.
Alot of the entries are incorrectly worded eg Bungee Jumping--£400 --it was actually for a Community information **** Crime Prevention Fair held by the Queensbury safer neighbourhood team.There are loads of such crazy entries.Our requests have fallen on deaf ears and the Council have refused to word the accounts to reflect details of the actual spend.
Take the matter of the £200 spend on the ROYAL ALBERT HALL tickets.I was flabbergasted when Cllr Hall accosted me andrepeatedly insisted that our members/I had been to Albert Hall.This is really most unfair and improper.She must stop this dirty tricks campaign and stop smearing our good name.We are all from respectable homes and backgrounds and are trying hard to put something back into our society---BECAUSE WE CARE !We dont have hidden agendas. However,we do expect our due share of respect which has been violated in the most dreadful manner.
I had to hunt through many entries for hours and have found that we had given £200 for an excellent project to help a group of 15 asylum seeker children/youth during their mid-term holidays,on 24 Feb 2010,to attend CINDERELLA ON ICE at the ROYAL ALBERT HALL.I have warm letter of thanks from the Childrens Services detailing how much that was appreciated and what it meant for these unfortunate young people who had suffered so much.This HAPPENED ON CLLR HALLS WATCH ---but we heard no protests then!
Cllr Hall has talked about YOGA WORKSHOPS --a spend of £170.Its most unfortunate that our Accounts department chooses to write whatever they fancy as an entry. Susan Hall has called these YOGA sessions---let me enlighten you as to the reality!This was money granted to sponsor the Unaccompanied Asylum Team to offer young people some valuable activities during the half term holidays.
This group of young children benefitted from a trip to the theatre,the well being workshop and the yoga session which helped them develop useful skills and also improved their sense of self and improved self-esteem.I have the letter from Philip Ishola in Childrens Services which will tell the tale!
This ALSO HAPPENED ON CLLR HALLS WATCH!We heard no protests then!
Both these projects were okayed by the entire Management,link officer,crime reduction manage etc with the administrator guiding us regarding the correctness of our spends.Jenny Wilson(deceased) was very pleased we could "piggy-back" onto these Youth projects as we lacked the capacity and man-power to go it alone!Our Youth officer at the time,Lydia Mosely, applauded these projects.
We were simply following the remit set in our Action plans to try and help young folk and engage with young folk.Its all documented and sent to the MPA each year and only then do they release our funding---based on performance.I have been repeatedly complimented for our HPCCG being the top borough in community engagement.
Which reminds me.Susan Hall has raised the spectre of CATERING COSTS which are unacceptably high.Well,may I remind her that we have tried to keep it inhouse and help our Council.
Again,we never heard her complain when it HAPPENED ON HER WATCH.
Me thinks,the lady doth protest too much!!
However,we fully agree in this age of austerity that we must look for more competive suppliers and GO ELSEWHERE.The Council's Catering charges are far too high eg we pay £3.50 for a carton of ordinary juice.Please tell me ---do we supply you with just bread and water!!
We will be sending a detailed questionnaire/survey with our agendas in late August, to find out their views on a number of important issues, concerning the running of our group.
We have already managed to hold one meeting recently and catered successfully for it ourselves.Please bring me your suggestions and also help out by sponsoring some of the catering.Every penny costs.
Our MC takes the view that when citizens often coming from work arrive, to engage and give us invaluable feed-back, we want to make them feel welcome and valued so that they feel its worth coming back, on a regular basis, to do the extremely valuable job they do.We cannot thank you enough.Alll suggestions always welcome.
You all have seen us grow by leaps and bounds and having representation which is the envy of many London Boroughs.This has not happened by chance.It has taken YEARS OF BLOOD,SWEAT AND TEARS.
Of course,you will all have read Cllr Halls allegations about us THROWING PARTIES FOR THE (PREVIOUS)MAYOR AND BOROUGH COMMANDER-----at the princely cost of £100.What a spin!!
Heres what actually happened.
Many of our multi-cultural groups felt very proud of our Borough Commanders achievement of an OBE which he was awarded for his excellent efforts in policing our communities after the nasty demonstrations against our Harrow Central Mosque.As a gesture of good-will they jointly and decided to hold a party in his honour,with Mayor Cllr Asad Omar,our very first Muslim Mayor also invited as a special guest.
It was PAID FOR IN FULL BY HAMA ie HARROW ASIAN MULTI-CULTURAL ASSOCIATION.I attended along with my Vice Chair Baldev Sharma and paid my way like all other attendees--barring the invited VIPs.Derek Inwood(our late Vice Chair) was due to join us but could not make it at the last minute ,owing to a special evening booked with his family.The HPCCG merely PAID towards a SPECIAL PLAQUE which was presented to the Borough Commander from all participants.
I have heard Cllr Hall accuse us of sepnding £158 for a THAI meal.You could be forgiven for thinking I had a ball at your expense.Heres what really happened!
That money--£158--was spent on Catering for a vegetarian meal for many who attended the INAUGURAL CELEBRATION of THAI PONGAL by our Tamil Community .It was their harvest festival and a veru successful evening.Cllr Hall is livid we supported this wonderful community event,in the Council Cahmber,in late January this year. I see no reason why we should DISCRIMINATE and withhold funding to the TAMIL community when we have funded several communty gatherings(Susan Hall refers this to a"knees up")such as VAISAKHI festival and The HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL function.This also happened ON HER WATCH.No objections were raised then!
We are not preparecd to have our good names TARNISHED.All accounts,from now on, will be presented on a quarterly basis.
It was very heartening to get a clean bill of health from both the GLA member for Brent and Harrow,Cllr Navin Shah and also our Borough Commander,Chief Superintendent,Dal Babu,who are both satisfied we have not committed anything we were not supposed to be doing with public monies from the MPA.
We are working closely with our Funders,the MPA,to establish specific criteria and discuss our spends more transparently.We wish to be on the same page and sing in harmony!
We have grant application forms with our administrators.Howev
er,at present there is no money in the kitty. All these negative discussions have resulted in our funding being held up.
I think you get the picture and rest my case.
of HPCCG ,by MISREPRESENTING the factual information she held in the very palm of her hands.She has it all on her Blackberry and is showing it to unsuspecting folk!
It beggars belief that she has stooped to such levels to try and make out that we (the management)are dishonest or at best foolish and that she is the saviour of the people!She FORGETS WE ARE TAX-PAYERS too and DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY, exactly like everybody else.
Her bullying manner and intimidating tactics have not gone down well with us or many of our members who have been phoning and expressing their dismay at the aggressive mannner in which she attacked me publicly.We were thoroughly shocked by her confrontational stance.It is an attempt to DISCREDIT and DEFAME us.So much for the BIG SOCIETY!
We have a Code of Conduct which was definitely violated in full view of the gathered audience.What sort of message does that give to those attending?
We are a very small team of volunteers who have worked our socks off for our community and are totally astounded by the manner in which Cllr Hall has pretended to help us clarify our spend to members and then proceeded on a "witch-hunt!".
She requested permission to access our accounts,three weeks back,simply to help sort out our headings and make the accounts crystal clear.
I had no hesitation in granting her the permission but had no idea that she was upto no good and only wanted to make mischief.
We feel very betrayed and let down and feel our trust has been violated brutally by the leader of the Tory party in Harrow.I feel particularly devastated after all the years we have worked together with her so well, while she was portfolio holder for Policing and environment.We cannot fathom her reasons on declaring War on us!
Cllr Hall has appointed herself and has been deviously conducting a police type investigation, with no authority whatsoever from anyone.I request her to please stop abusing her position and power and to stop bullying and badgering us volunteers in this wholly unseemly manner.This is not a level playing field!
It does her office no good and is an extremely bad example to set for the Big or Civil Society.
It is the very first time in 39 years that I DEEPLY REGRET volunteering for my community and caution others to not be too trusting and open.
Be warned!Politicians come in all shapes and sizes and may try to use you to score brownie points.Sadly,Cllr Hall has turned out to be the proverbial Trojan Horse.!
Of course,we will be preparing our accounts for the past two years and allowing our members to judge whether we have been spending our tax monies appropriately for the benefit of Harrovians.This is their business and ours alone.We will be nviting Chirs of safer neighbourhood panels to our Mc meetings in rotation to make ourselves more transparent.
I would like to remind people that we will be accountable to our members and let them have logical explanations of our spend,only after Harrow Council has co-operated in full and given us the detail our members require.We are working on a format which all our members find easy to understand.
We had objected to Cllr Halls casting aspursions about our spends,at our AGM in January 2011, when she threw up her hands very dramatically at the very end of the evening and asked for a list of our expenses ----insinuating that we had been spending HPCCG monies inappropriately ---having received the sum of £50,000 for two consecutive years from the MPA.She has been targetting us ever since.
I suggest SeaBee from Pinner hold their horses before landing in the same mess Cllr Hall has.We REFUSE TRIAL BY SUSAN HALL or anyone else.
Our accoutability is to our members and to the public who attend our meetings and help us keep our borough one of Londons safest.
From the inception of HPCCG we had never been required to produce any accounts publicly, nor had received this enhanced amount.We used to be the lowest-funded borough, receiving only £24000 or even less all these years,like Hillingdon.
However,I was advised by our link officer,Maurice Blades, that we could get almost double, as many other boroughs were legitimately doing, and could use the extra monies to engage a part-time development worker to help grow our organisation.He felt I was doing far too much on my own and could use the help.
Some London boroughs had been getting £65000.I wished we had known earlier and had been able to help support our people with additional funding.
When we successfully landed this amount (£50000) for the very first time,for 2009-10,I approached Mike Howes in Harrow Council to help us describe the role and duties for a part-time outreach and development worker and advertise the post.I had been doing this work on top of my Chairing,for no money,all the while.!Jenny Wilson,our late Publicity Officer, was very pleased that we would be able to do outreach.
However,months later since we had not progressed much, we were advised by our Link Officer(from the MPA)that these additional funds coud be legitimately used to partner events/projects with a host of others in our own borough or cross borough.The rest is history.
I have been writing detailed Interim reports of all our activities,backed with photographic evidence of our active engagement with a huge number of organisations and communities,thus endeavouring to embrace as many as we could.
We had no set criteria to fulfil except the following:
A)Our management should give funding/support to any project/event which would promote harmony or community cohesion in this the most religiously diverse borough in Europe and the UK.
B)also for projects/events helping us engage with all sorts of communities and people from many cultures and backgrounds including the disadvantaged/hard to reacg grouos,the elderly,vulnerable,a
sylum seekers,carers,disab
ility groups etc
C)projects/events promoting crime prevention and also helping support our local Police and the Met Police(as in consultations or information re Counter-terrorism which affects our whole country)
Cllr Hall pretended she would be happy to assist in getting us properly formatted accounts from the Democratic Services dept since she has an excellent relationship with their Head. They handle all our monies.Since Cllr Hall offered to do this at our EGM,we gratefully (and naively)accepted her offer ---not realising what her true agenda was.
The members had requested the two previous years accounts(2009-10 and 2010-11) and we had produced them with the little information Harrow Council had given us on May 16 at a specially held EGM.These had been rejected as an incomplete statement which is why we went back to the drawing board and are still formatting this with internal help.Please bear with us as this needs proper collation of information.
Cllr Hall keeps banging on about the generous sum of £50,000 which we had received.She knows only too well that we pay a princely sum of approximately £27,000 to our admin department who charge us a composite rate of £60 per hour.We have complained bitterly that this is far too high---in fact it is The HIGHEST IN LONDON.
Thankfully,this is being examined in detail at long last,by the MPA very shortly.We have begged for a detailed breakdown on several occasions but are told we are not privy to that information.
I ask,if we are expected to account to our members how can we provide details of items not shared with us?It was under guise of getting us this information that Cllr Hall accessed and abused the our confidential information regarding the spends and painted a landscape to serve her own ends.
SeaBee,please step up to the plate and find out how difficult it is to get specific replies from the Council who DIRECTLY RECEIVE abd DISBURSE all our FUNDING, only AFTER receiving invoices or receipts.Even these we cannot view nor receive copies!Try your luck.
Alot of the entries are incorrectly worded eg Bungee Jumping--£400 --it was actually for a Community information **** Crime Prevention Fair held by the Queensbury safer neighbourhood team.There are loads of such crazy entries.Our requests have fallen on deaf ears and the Council have refused to word the accounts to reflect details of the actual spend.
Take the matter of the £200 spend on the ROYAL ALBERT HALL tickets.I was flabbergasted when Cllr Hall accosted me andrepeatedly insisted that our members/I had been to Albert Hall.This is really most unfair and improper.She must stop this dirty tricks campaign and stop smearing our good name.We are all from respectable homes and backgrounds and are trying hard to put something back into our society---BECAUSE WE CARE !We dont have hidden agendas. However,we do expect our due share of respect which has been violated in the most dreadful manner.
I had to hunt through many entries for hours and have found that we had given £200 for an excellent project to help a group of 15 asylum seeker children/youth during their mid-term holidays,on 24 Feb 2010,to attend CINDERELLA ON ICE at the ROYAL ALBERT HALL.I have warm letter of thanks from the Childrens Services detailing how much that was appreciated and what it meant for these unfortunate young people who had suffered so much.This HAPPENED ON CLLR HALLS WATCH ---but we heard no protests then!
Cllr Hall has talked about YOGA WORKSHOPS --a spend of £170.Its most unfortunate that our Accounts department chooses to write whatever they fancy as an entry. Susan Hall has called these YOGA sessions---let me enlighten you as to the reality!This was money granted to sponsor the Unaccompanied Asylum Team to offer young people some valuable activities during the half term holidays.
This group of young children benefitted from a trip to the theatre,the well being workshop and the yoga session which helped them develop useful skills and also improved their sense of self and improved self-esteem.I have the letter from Philip Ishola in Childrens Services which will tell the tale!
This ALSO HAPPENED ON CLLR HALLS WATCH!We heard no protests then!
Both these projects were okayed by the entire Management,link officer,crime reduction manage etc with the administrator guiding us regarding the correctness of our spends.Jenny Wilson(deceased) was very pleased we could "piggy-back" onto these Youth projects as we lacked the capacity and man-power to go it alone!Our Youth officer at the time,Lydia Mosely, applauded these projects.
We were simply following the remit set in our Action plans to try and help young folk and engage with young folk.Its all documented and sent to the MPA each year and only then do they release our funding---based on performance.I have been repeatedly complimented for our HPCCG being the top borough in community engagement.
Which reminds me.Susan Hall has raised the spectre of CATERING COSTS which are unacceptably high.Well,may I remind her that we have tried to keep it inhouse and help our Council.
Again,we never heard her complain when it HAPPENED ON HER WATCH.
Me thinks,the lady doth protest too much!!
However,we fully agree in this age of austerity that we must look for more competive suppliers and GO ELSEWHERE.The Council's Catering charges are far too high eg we pay £3.50 for a carton of ordinary juice.Please tell me ---do we supply you with just bread and water!!
We will be sending a detailed questionnaire/survey with our agendas in late August, to find out their views on a number of important issues, concerning the running of our group.
We have already managed to hold one meeting recently and catered successfully for it ourselves.Please bring me your suggestions and also help out by sponsoring some of the catering.Every penny costs.
Our MC takes the view that when citizens often coming from work arrive, to engage and give us invaluable feed-back, we want to make them feel welcome and valued so that they feel its worth coming back, on a regular basis, to do the extremely valuable job they do.We cannot thank you enough.Alll suggestions always welcome.
You all have seen us grow by leaps and bounds and having representation which is the envy of many London Boroughs.This has not happened by chance.It has taken YEARS OF BLOOD,SWEAT AND TEARS.
Of course,you will all have read Cllr Halls allegations about us THROWING PARTIES FOR THE (PREVIOUS)MAYOR AND BOROUGH COMMANDER-----at the princely cost of £100.What a spin!!
Heres what actually happened.
Many of our multi-cultural groups felt very proud of our Borough Commanders achievement of an OBE which he was awarded for his excellent efforts in policing our communities after the nasty demonstrations against our Harrow Central Mosque.As a gesture of good-will they jointly and decided to hold a party in his honour,with Mayor Cllr Asad Omar,our very first Muslim Mayor also invited as a special guest.
It was PAID FOR IN FULL BY HAMA ie HARROW ASIAN MULTI-CULTURAL ASSOCIATION.I attended along with my Vice Chair Baldev Sharma and paid my way like all other attendees--barring the invited VIPs.Derek Inwood(our late Vice Chair) was due to join us but could not make it at the last minute ,owing to a special evening booked with his family.The HPCCG merely PAID towards a SPECIAL PLAQUE which was presented to the Borough Commander from all participants.
I have heard Cllr Hall accuse us of sepnding £158 for a THAI meal.You could be forgiven for thinking I had a ball at your expense.Heres what really happened!
That money--£158--was spent on Catering for a vegetarian meal for many who attended the INAUGURAL CELEBRATION of THAI PONGAL by our Tamil Community .It was their harvest festival and a veru successful evening.Cllr Hall is livid we supported this wonderful community event,in the Council Cahmber,in late January this year. I see no reason why we should DISCRIMINATE and withhold funding to the TAMIL community when we have funded several communty gatherings(Susan Hall refers this to a"knees up")such as VAISAKHI festival and The HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL function.This also happened ON HER WATCH.No objections were raised then!
We are not preparecd to have our good names TARNISHED.All accounts,from now on, will be presented on a quarterly basis.
It was very heartening to get a clean bill of health from both the GLA member for Brent and Harrow,Cllr Navin Shah and also our Borough Commander,Chief Superintendent,Dal Babu,who are both satisfied we have not committed anything we were not supposed to be doing with public monies from the MPA.
We are working closely with our Funders,the MPA,to establish specific criteria and discuss our spends more transparently.We wish to be on the same page and sing in harmony!
We have grant application forms with our administrators.Howev
er,at present there is no money in the kitty. All these negative discussions have resulted in our funding being held up.
I think you get the picture and rest my case.
pravinshah1
says...
1:01pm Fri 15 Jul 11
Open letter to the Conservative Party Co-Chairman, the Rt Hon Baroness Warsi
15 July 2011
Dear Baroness Warsi
As you would know, we are interested in the government’s initiative the ‘big society’ ( http://www.hcrj.org.
uk/News%20Page%203.h
tml ) and it is because of this that we are very concerned about the situations like the one reported in Harrow. ( http://www.harrowtim
es.co.uk/news/913737
6.Watchdog_under_fir
e_over__unacceptable
__spending/ including the comments therein )
Would you agree with us that such situations are not only contrary to the spirit of the ‘big society’ but also have serious implications for the social and community cohesion? If you agree, what your Party is going to do about this?
Regards
Dr Pravin Shah
General & Legal Secretary
Harrow Council for Justice
www.hcrj.org.uk
All communications to/ from HCJ are public!
15 July 2011
Dear Baroness Warsi
As you would know, we are interested in the government’s initiative the ‘big society’ ( http://www.hcrj.org.
uk/News%20Page%203.h
tml ) and it is because of this that we are very concerned about the situations like the one reported in Harrow. ( http://www.harrowtim
es.co.uk/news/913737
6.Watchdog_under_fir
e_over__unacceptable
__spending/ including the comments therein )
Would you agree with us that such situations are not only contrary to the spirit of the ‘big society’ but also have serious implications for the social and community cohesion? If you agree, what your Party is going to do about this?
Regards
Dr Pravin Shah
General & Legal Secretary
Harrow Council for Justice
www.hcrj.org.uk
All communications to/ from HCJ are public!
SeaBee says...
11:52am Thu 14 Jul 11
Ms Malkani, lets have a list of everything that has been paid out by Harrow Police and Community Consultative Group. We, the taxpayer can then decide if it is money well spent. I would suggest the internet would be a good place to publish the list. I'm sure that we can set up a website for you if you do not already have one.