Police watchdog disbands after funding axed in 'whitewash' (From Harrow Times)
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Harrow Police Community Consultative Group disbands after funding axed in 'whitewash'
4:01pm Thursday 26th January 2012 in News
Sonoo Malkani accused politicians of using the group as "political football".
A 30-year-old group that independently examines police in Harrow looks set to disband after it became the only borough in London to have its funding axed.
The Harrow Police Community Consultative Group (HPCCG), which has been scrutinising the work of officers for nearly three decades, announced it had lost its funding from the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) at a meeting on Monday night.
The watchdog’s panel is made up of police officers, councillors, MPs and safer neighbourhoods representatives, and holds quarterly public meetings to examine the police’s work and encourage community cohesion.
But despite all 32 other London boroughs continuing to receive funding, three applications from HPCCG were rejected by the MPA, which said the group had failed to correctly submit its funding application.
Last year, the leader of Harrow Conservatives, Councillor Susan Hall, questioned spending on catering and other items from the group’s budget after it was asked to reveal its accounts by Harrow Council.
But the group had not kept detailed accounts since it was set up and could not provide the level of detail requested of it by the MPA, although it did explain expenditure that was queried.
Chairwoman Sonoo Malkani stepped down after ten years in the role on Monday. She said she felt the group had been used as “a political football” for the last year and accused politicians of trying to undermine its work.
She added: “They’ve said to us we no longer exist and we have to find our funding somewhere else – how are we meant to find £50,000?
“Our job is to have an independent group to scrutinise the police – but at the moment, we are in limbo – I’m sorry, but this is a whitewash. I would like Boris Johnson to take a look at this.”
Merlin Crescent resident Jack Welby, who was one of around 50 people to turn up for Monday’s meeting, said he was “disturbed” at the decision.
He added: “Now we’ve got no group and there’s no election for new committee members – I’m rather disturbed this group is gone.
“We want to get a new group going as soon as possible – probably within three months.”
Over the past two years, the MPA – which has now been replaced by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPC) and is controlled directly by Mayor of London Boris Johnson – has given the group £100,000.
In a statement, the MOPC said: “Harrow PCCG was given three separate opportunities from June to October 2011, to submit a funding application based on the set MPA criteria.
“At each opportunity, support and advice was provided to the management committee by the MPA borough officer.
“On October 31, the chair of Harrow PCCG was advised the final funding application had not met the required MPA criteria and on this basis, the MPA advised the Harrow PCCG management committee that it could not release any further funds to the group.”
Comments(6)
Harrow Council for Justice
says...
10:42am Fri 27 Jan 12
Please don’t spoil the celebrations!!
Larson
says...
5:27pm Sat 28 Jan 12
SeaBee
says...
10:52am Sun 29 Jan 12
jackdaw
says...
12:15pm Mon 30 Jan 12
You are ill-informed.Mrs Malkani is not a politician but a local resident so how can she re-enter local politics!
Why would you wish to gloat that the police watchdog (HPCCG) has folded? It is in the interest of Harrovians that there is independent scrutiny of the police and our police support this.
Accounts can be examined at Harrow Council by applying to Democratic Services.
When you have examined the accounts in detail you may then ask questions about them. If you do not go to examine the accounts everything you say is a vague aspersion,
jackdaw
says...
8:34am Wed 1 Feb 12
Please stop to cyber stalking Mrs Malkani..
Sonoo Malkani says...
6:29am Fri 27 Jan 12
However,it was not DEFINITELY NOT as he has stated "with support and advice from the borough support officer".We cahllenge that whole-heartedly and have told him so recently at a meeting with his senior officer in December 2011.
I will endeavour to clarify what happened on every single occasion.I have been applying sucessfully fo our borough as HPCCG Chair for nine years previously and three as their Vice Chair!So,how did we manage to be the ONLY London Borough to fail just this financial year!this is no co-incidence.Please hear me out.
This year we found our Link officer's attitude had disturbingly turned suddenly hostile towards us from the day our AGM was held in January 2011,when comments about non-production of HPCCG accounts were first raised in a most provocative manner by Cllr Hall.He had been fine the previous year and had been pleased with our performance.
let me put on record,we have NO PROBLEM PRODUCING ACCOUNTS for tax-payer's monies but object vehemently to insinuations of wrong-doing on our part,inciting unsuspecting members of public against a small team of dedicated volunteers,mainly senior citizens.That is simply NOT ON and completely unacceptable.
We had NEVER been required by the MPA in any year,to produce any accounts ,prior to this,since all monies go direct to Harrow Council's DEMOCRATIC SERVICES. Not a single penny is handled by us personally.All invoices and cheques are handled only by them.We never get to see these.
There is no question whatsoever,of embezzlement as in the case of the HCRE and HAVS scandals ,which had occurred and was uppermost in the minds of Harrow's public and members of the HPCCG,when Cllr Hall first demanded they be presented, in a highly provocative manner.
This was confirmed by our previous Honorary Treasurer,Warwick Hillman,at the AGM which was held Monday night 23 January,2012, at our AGM.He confirmed we had always worked with total integrity and harmony.He had never been asked to produce accounts.In the years preceding 2008-9 AND 2010-11,Harrow and Hillingdon were the two boroughs receiving the lowest funding ie £22000.Warwick also stated that it was our MPA link officer,Maurice Blades,who had offered us additional funding, since we were viewed as a highly successful community engagement group.
Now we were being treated like petty criminals and subjected to unfair comments made by our local politicians and the butt of vicious attacks by local folk, via the media.We volunteers have NO RIGHTS and are open to abuse.
The spends for these two years had been properly accounted for and agreed in JULY 2011 and signed off by the MPA.The Borough Commander,GLA member for Brent and Harrow and our Link officer were satisfied and had given us clean bill of health,along with our members.
There was no reason for Cllr Hall to bring this issue up at our latest AGM this Monday,other than to muddy people's minds ,since members and local residents were very angry and demanding an explanation from our Link officer .They wanted good reasons for withdrawing our funding and effectively closing us down!We had slowly been left to haemorrage.Some of you may be familiar with such practice in officialdom.
To add fuel to the fire Cllr John Nickolay justified Cllr Hall's actions,linking us with the HAVS fiasco in the same breath--very wrongly.All red herrings!The truth is that there has been NO WRONG-DOING.They are just unable to accept the truth.
We have this in writing from the Chief Executive of the MPA Catherine Crawford and also the Chair of the Community Engagement Committee and Independent MPA member Clive Lawton.
Cllr Hall keeps repeating that some of our spends were "inappropriate".This happened on her watch.At the time we spent those monies the nation was economiclaly sound and it was considered perfectly ok to spend as we did eg on diversionary activities such as football matches.These promoted community cohesion and resulted in excellent engaement between youths from our diverse communities,the HPCCG and Harrow Police.We only part-funded these.It was the same with Cricket projects.The focus had been on keeping youth gainfully engaged and out of possible mischief,along with promoting good relationships as mentioned before.We have achieved this succesfully and have youth wishing to represent and join the HPCCG.How many organisations manage to attract youth?I am sure you all understand how imporyant it is we have them on board.
We fully appreciate the awful economic bind we are in today and accept the goal-posts have changed.So, all of us have had to tighten our belts.The MPA has therefore reduced our budgets and has clearly asked us to focus on community engagement alone.We are discouraged from taking part in any crime reduction or other outcomes since it is viewed as being Police only business!We have concerns over this but agreed to comply.It seems community cohesion is also not our business but that of our Council!
Please also note that we actually spent £29000 in 2008-9 not £50 000.Please see MPA statement on HPCCG funding dated 23 January 2012.
We have presented the spends for this year 2010-11 upto December 2011 at our AGM.Members had the opportunity to question us,were satisfied with our spends and after approving agreed to sign them off---with Cllr Hall present.i hope we will not have those used as another red herring!
Let's get back to WHY we have had our funding refused by our Link officer.
I appeal to your good judgement to please hear me out patiently and then pass your verdict.
The first application was prepared by our adminstrator along with help from the HPCCGs management team and submitted to the MPA around May/June.We had the shock of our life when this was rejected,calling us "GRANT-FUNDERS".
This was a label which had been used by Cllr Hall throughout last year quite wrongly.It seems we had been permanently branded!Our Link Officer had started treating us with suspicion from the start of the year.
We had been encouraged to partner with our Local Authority,Harrow Police local community and other relevant groups in our borough and had done so.This actually went against us--or so it seems!Our Link officer gave us no reasons in writing just verbally told me that we were "grant funders,"so despite excellent remarks about us from our Borough Commander and Community Safety Manager,our funding application was thrown out for the first time since I had joined the HPCCG 15 years back.
He asked us to re-apply ,but this time VERBALLY instructed us as a management team to base our funding bid on "COMMISSIONING".We clearly stated we had no idea what this would involve and were worried we might be accused of nepotism .So we requested training and were promised by his line manager,Natasha Plummer we would get it,prior to applying.NOTHING WAS PROVIDED.
As if that was not bad enough,we requested help for filling in our application from our administrators who CATEGORICALLY REFUSED despite having a SERVICE AGREEMENT in PLACE.They said they had done it once and were not obliged to do so.People were on leave on and off so they had staff problems and even a BY ELECTION to deal with.This was IN BREACH of our SLA.
We begged them and also complained to our Link officer about this who said he would take this up with the Head of Democratic Services.NO HELP ARRIVED,despite being entitled to it.
Our Minutes,for the whole year,often did not contain comments deemed "unsuitable" for recording , by the administration,even though we felt there was nothing libellous about recording the full facts.This was not in keeping with previous years Minutes.The management was very concerned that something did not seem right!
In sheer panic,we turned to our Borough Commander for assistance.He kindly provided us with venues for our additional committee meetings ,at no cost ,and also the help of our Partnership Inspector.We were anxious to that ensure we met the criteria set by the MPA.
Please see my detailed response to the MPA statement on our funding which was circulated at the AGM on 23 January 2012.Copies are available on application from Democratic Services.I recommend reading this for a detailed version of what has happened with HPCCG's funding or,rather, REMOVAL of FUNDING by the MPA.
Prior to submitting the second application I personally telephoned our Link Officer and read out the projects we had bid for.He assured me this was "more like it " and that "it was fine" so I should send in my application.He also said I need not wait to receive fresh comments from our Borough Commander or the Community Safety Manager since that would ONLY BE RELEVANT SHOULD OUR APPLICATION BE SUCCESSFULLY PASSED!
I found that very strange and told him that unless they had found us "fit for purpose"surely the MPA would not allow us a single penny!This is waht we had always been told in past years.He just side-stepped and AVOIDED ANSWERING THAT.We were worried whether he had already made up his mind to fail us again!
This second application,prepared WITHOUT ANY SUPPORT from our LINK OFFICER or ADMINISTRATORS was also turned down.We had no details given ,nor anything in writing to say what was wrong,just deemed "unfit to fund!".We found this all most puzzling and extremely worrying.
Please bear in mind,we had to work on this WITHOUT ANY PROFESSIONAL HELP..I must also remind you we only took our eye off this ball(the funding application) since we had Riots break out in London! For the first two weeks in AUGUST were wholly concentrating on ensuring we did our level best along with our Police, Council and partners to keep rioters out of our borough.Forgive me for making the London Riots our priority!!
We had many expressions of thanks,including those from Chief Executive Mike Lockwood and New Scotland Yard and grateful members of public.
Please remember ,THROUGHOUT THIS TIME we were being continously harrassed and bullied. Our good names were being hacked to pieces with unfounded allegations being hurled at us by Cllr Hall ,who had alot of media support plus holds a prominent position.
Despite being ticked off roundly by the Conducts Committee for her actions on September 26,2011,she has continued, to date ,making all sorts of damaging comments about the HPCCG.The Harrow Council for Justice
(HCJ) had taken this action.
Can you blame the MPA if they suddenly started viewing us with jaundiced eyes?They had made up their minds well IN ADVANCE and were looking for flimsy excuses to pull our funding.They should have been more professional and not allowed themselves to be influenced in this way.
We were speechless when this second application failed.Again our Link officer made out how generous they were being and told me we had a third and last chance to re-apply!
Now we were VERBALLY informed that we should scrap any previous plans submitted and come up with "FOCUS GROUPS".We asked what this meant,having not held these before.The guidance given was ,at best wishy-washy and communication very poor.We had September and October at our disposal.
We went back to our administration department to seek their professional help and to assist in matching upto criteria which they knew the MPA would approve.Can you believe THEY REFUSED to ASSIST!!They were too busy it seems and were not obliged to help.What is the point of having an SLA in place?It seemed to us like Union style "go slow "tactics being used to disadvantage us in every way.We complained bitterly to our Link Officer and his Line manager but had no joy!I even mentioned this to the LCP2 Chairs of the other 31 London Boroughs at our group meeting.They felt we had been made the "fall guy" this year!They had also lost all their funding for the LCP2 in 2011.
Despite multiple obstacles being faced by us we ran around meeting with various organisations such as AGE UK,Harrow Hate Crime Forum,Harrow Youth Parliament,Victim Support and Womens Aid and managed to successfully agree holding these later this year,starting November 2011.
Our Link Officer had warned us not to expect much more than 2000-3000 on top of our Interim funding (20,000)since so much of the year had already passed.At the start of October I met with him,by chance,at the Stop and Search Monitoring meeting at the MPA.He kept saying I would not be able to complete by 28 October so "have we other fUnding lined up!"This surprised me greatly and I assured him we would make sure we had these focus groups confirmed in good time.He showed no confidence in us .This made me feel somewhat disheartened but I kept up the good fight!
Our management worked long and hard to arrange these focus groups.I telephoned our Link Officer to run these past him and he made positive noises approving them.
We submitted a Work Plan for these but I receieved a call on October 28 soon after the office opened stating there was "NO WORK PLAN ".I reminded him that I had indicated in my email that I did not know how to make attachments and this had been sent soon after the main application.
Again ,neither remarks from the Borough Commander nor Community Safety Manager had been sought.Only needed,he said, IF our application succeeded!
We had grave doubts about the state of play.Later that afternoon we were informed by the Head of Democratic Services that "an advisement had arrived from the MPA withholding our funding."
The Link Officer then contacted me and informed me that funding had been removed and that "the HPCCG ceased to exist".This came as a huge shock to all of us.The implications for our borough are not a trifling matter.
We inquired where we had gone wrong.He said there was "not enough detail in our Work Plan".I gave him alot more verbally along with good reasons and offered to send them in a day or so but he flatly refused saying" it would be unfair to other CPEGs to allow us more time!"
I suggested that the MPA had MADE UP THEIR MINDS WELL IN ADVANCE NOT FUND USand had led us up the garden path for months,not releasing any monies.Their perception of HPCCG had been negatively influenced by baseless allegations made and the damaging campaign run against the HPCCG by Cllr Hall.He denied this and said I was being "disingenous" ---rather insultingly.
At the end of the day please consider how HARROW is THE ONLY LONDON BOROUGH TO HAVE LOST ITS FUNDING after being held up as one of the best community engagement groups the previous year!The same Chair had been applying successfully on your behalf all this time.
So what had changed---had the HPCCG fallen victim to politics,combined with lack of proper support from both their Link officer and their administrative department.?I leave you to work that out for yourselves!
We held our tongues all through 2011,to try and persude the MPA we deserved funding and went about conducting "business as usual".We also did not wish to make our public feel insecure.Perhpas we should have let the cat out of the bag earlier and saved our skins.
The MOPC are obliged by Law to fund all boroughs in London for community engagement.This is all the more relevant since London has suffered so horrendously during the riots.
Our Police need our support and also wish to be made robustly accountable by us.Instead,they have had these additional headaches heaped on them!They need to focus on their own core business-crime fighting.
The MPA closed its doors and handed over governance to the MOPC (Mayors Office for Policing and Crime)on January 16 this year.
Please may we appeal to Mayor Boris Johnson and the Deputy Mayor for Policing Kit Malthouse to review very carefully how detrimental it will be for one of Londons safest boroughs to be deprived of its rightful share of tax-payers funding!
We would appreciate DETAILED WRITTEN GUIDANCEwritten and IMPECCABLE SUPPORT ensuring us to access what is ours.Let start our chapter with the MOPC on a POSITIVE note please.
Harrovians deserve and must be granted a fair deal.Please dont let our boroughs engagement with our diverse community suffer needlessly,compromsi
ng our safety and cohesion.
We want justice for Harrow!