Halloween Picket at Hackney Council Meeting to demand housing rights

From London Coalition Against Poverty:

CALL TO ACTION: Halloween Picket at Hackney Council Meeting to demand
housing rights!

WEDNESDAY 31 OCTOBER
6 - 7:30 PM
Hackney Town Hall, Mare Street E8 [ http://www.tiny.cc/vdevt]

Contact: 07932241737
londoncoalitionagainstpoverty@gmail.com

This Halloween we demand our rights!

'A NIGHT LEFT ON MARE ST' - Hackney council turns the homeless away


London Coalition Against Poverty have called for people to picket the
Hackney Council meeting this Halloween. Hackney Council's Homeless
Person's Unit (HPU) has been systematically denying people their rights.
This picket will demand that the council immediately halt these illegal
and unjust practices.

Come show your solidarity and join in the picket! Come to the picket
dressed as something scary and send shivers up the councillor's spines -
bring noisemakers if you'd like to.


More info:

London Coalition against Poverty (LCAP) has been at Hackney Housing Needs
office since July 2007, and we have seen time and again that homeless
people are turned away unlawfully. Hackney Council cares more about
balancing their budget through not housing people then about their
residents needs. They try to delay or stop people making a homeless
application, and to achieve this the staff often act in an intimidating
and sometimes abusive way. Because of this "gate keeping" at the housing
needs office many vulnerable people and families are left on the street or
other insecure, dangerous places. Hackney Council will be held
accountable for the gatekeeping at the Housing office.

LCAP demands:

- An end to gate keeping at Hackney HPU

- Stop the intimdation of people that approach the HPU

- Genuinely affordable housing to rent in Hackney - no more people chased
out of the borough

LCAP will continue to haunt Hackney Council until these changes are made.

TRICK OR TREAT THE COUNCIL!

 

You dirty rat: street cleaners prepare to blast Banksy away

From the Indpendent on Sunday:

Critics call the graffiti artist a genius, and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have paid £1m for his work. But Hackney council has ordered its workers to power-hose his pictures out of sight
By Cole Moreton
Published: 28 October 2007

What is the biggest eyesore on the streets of east London? A giant rat with a knife and fork in its paws, apparently. Or a rioter throwing flowers. Hackney council says these subversive images are making the place look dirty and have to go – even if they were spray-painted by Banksy, the art world's most unlikely superstar.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have just paid £1m for some of his work. From Hollywood to Hoxton, art collectors are prepared to pay big money for anything Banksy does, with his most expensive single piece, Space Girl and Bird, selling for £288,000 at Bonhams in April. But Hackney council doesn't care.

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National Customer Service Week, 2007

From ESP visuals:

Was walking back home from Noodle King with Irie and saw this Hackney Council Customer Service card on the street. Made me smile.......I'm glad he appreciates Jules Pipe.

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That's 'Councillor' spelt U-S-E-L-E-S-S

We pay for these people?

Responses from Councillors:


If you are making reference to a Commuity, kindly have the manners tospell their name correctly. It is Charedi with a "C". Many thanks,

Cllr Linda Kelly
Leabridge Ward

_________

Dear councillor Kelly

As the word is a transliteration it is spelt either Haredi or Charedi and we chose to use Haredi as this is what was used by the eminent Jewish scholar who wrote to the report.
I am sorry this seems to have offended you.

Best wishes
Jane

___________

Just for your information and I will not be responding to any more emails. It did seem to offend me, it did offend me. With regards to your eminent scholar, reading through his findings there are an awful lot of spelling mistakes, he should have used aspell check.With regards to the word, Charedi since you all live in Hackney, perhaps you could have asked your neighbour about the correctspelling.

Cllr Linda Kelly
Leabridge Ward
________________

I was about to make the same observation as Cllr. Kelly, but she has beaten me to it.

Maureen Middleton
Cllr.New River
_____________


Thank you for your email, would you allow me to print this on my blogsite - http://thecazenoveblog.blogspot.com/

Regards

Dawood Akhoon

_______

15 October 2007

Re. Planningwatch email dated 14 October

Thank you for the above dated email.

You have raised very important points. I will discuss the issues raised with my
Colleagues and also ask questions to the Planning Officers.

Regards
Cllr.Shuja Shaikh
_______

Haredi Judaism>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaHaredi or Chareidi Judaism is the most theologically conservative form of Orthodox Judaism .[1] A follower of Haredi Judaism is called a Haredi (Haredim in the plural).

Could we perhaps concentrate on the issues raised rather than spelling?

Cllr Linda Smith
________

Thank you for the spelling lesson, spelling is an issue if you aregoing to talk about a Community.The Community referred to in issue live in Stamford Hill and callthemselves Chareidi.

Many thanks

Cllr. Linda Kelly

______

From: "Daniel Kemp" Daniel.Kemp@Hackney.gov.uk

To: "planningwatch" planningwatch@btinternet.com

My understanding is the area of exemption is more simply a nuance ofinterpretation but that the planning guidelines will have to be adheredto so cannot understand the furore.The areas are not within my ward or constituency and so I am notsupposed to get involved, it is not that I am ignoring your emails.
_____________

I have asked Guy if the planning dept could let us know were there had been a legal exention that the staus of property ie single family dewilling conversion or HMO would be usual, it wouldn't bve perfect but might give us any idea of percentages.


Cllr Sharron Patrick

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Heartbreaking but true

If only we had a competent democracy then we might not have to advertise for:

DEMOCRATIC SERVICE OFFICERS
Ref: : CCS119/50211/O (London Borough of Hackney)
Location: : Hackney - London
Rate: £30,594 to £32,961 (Permanent)

CUSTOMER & CORPORATE SERVICES

DEMOCRATIC SERVICE OFFICERS
£30,594 to £32,961 pa inc. (pay award pending)

Hackney is a great place to live and work. We are one of the fastest improving local authorities in the country and are one of the host boroughs for the Olympics and Paralympics in 2012.

We are now looking for three new Democratic Service Officers to join our new Services for Councillors team, to serve and support a number of local meetings. It might be a formal Planning or Licensing Sub- committee, a full Council or Cabinet meeting or, one of the Council’s four Area Committees/Forums, but you will be at the heart of Hackney’s democratic and governance processes.

You will be a highly-motivated team player, with sound experience of servicing Committee meetings and supporting the work of local Councillors. You will be focused on the detail, have a pride in your work and be enthusiastic about being part of a team which is committed to the delivery of a high quality service.

You can download an application pack from www.hackney.gov.uk/jobs or call our Response Handling Consultants on 020 7649 6044 or email hackney@tmpw.co.uk quoting reference number CCS119/50211/O and your full contact details.

The closing date for receipt of completed applications is Monday, 5 November 2007.

Through the Local Government Pension Scheme, the Council offer a generous and competitive final salary scheme.

One of the core values of the Council is an unequivocal commitment to the principle and operation of equality in terms of how we deliver the best services to our customers and all the people of Hackney, how we recruit, and how we support our staff. We welcome applications from people who can make that principle a reality.

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Unison and Hackney clash on children's staffing reforms

From Communitycare.co.uk

Hackney Council’s Unison branch is threatening to strike over a restructure of children’s social work in the east London local authority.

Under the plans introduced in May, social work “units” will be created with small teams of “consultant” social workers and other professionals with the aim of reducing management and bureaucracy.


In July, Steve Goodman, deputy director of children’s services at Hackney, told Community Care the units would mean “an end to social work teams” and give social workers the authority to make decisions on cases without referring them to team managers.

The council is currently recruiting for 50 jobs in the units, with top salaries for different roles between £40,000 and £50,000. The first unit is due to be set up in November.

While the council has been keen to promote what they call “reclaiming social work”, Unison says 80 social workers are being forced to “jump through hoops” to reapply for their jobs, with 30 or more at risk of redundancy.

Andrew Williamson, Unison’s co-convenor at Hackney, claimed consultation on the restructure, which began in May, was “an utter farce” and said the assessment process for the new positions was “more than usually required of external candidates”, including psychometric tests.

“Staff are being denied their contractual rights, given offers of alternative employment that are unreasonable and forced to reapply for their jobs,” he said.

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