response to Southwark Council’s Deputy Leader in Southwark News

by Graham Neale on 12 August, 2012

On Thursday Southwark News published a letter from Southwark’s Deputy Leader.
He wrote that I had:
“…only submitted 5 enquiries since the beginning of June…”

This is incorrect.

A big part of our work as councillors is advocacy.
For Cllr Wingfield to write that I have not been contacting Southwark Council with the problems of people in South Bermondsey is a serious accusation.
He is saying that I am failing to support local residents, and failing to represent them to their landlord.

Council tenants and leaseholders make up over a third of the population of my ward, and I spend a lot of time helping them. We hold a surgery every Saturday, where tenants come to share their problems, and once a month I host a surgery at Wessex House on the Old Kent Road. The amount of casework I receive from these surgeries varies, but usually we can expect to see up to half a dozen people at each. Sometimes we can simply offer advice, but more often the members of the public have tried to resolve their problems, and need a local councillor to instruct council staff to complete work which has been left undone.

We get requests for help from other sources. People often write to Simon Hughes our local MP, in which case, if the complaint is about council services, his office will ask me or one of my colleagues to help. When I visit tenants’ meetings, residents will ask me to help. I get requests for help via this blog, through the website ‘fixmystreet.com’ as well as people calling me on my mobile. My mobile doesn’t have an ansaphone, and it’s the same number my mum and my partner call me on, so if I don’t answer, it’s usually because I am driving, or otherwise disposed, if your number is showing, I will call you back. Just recently I’ve been visiting a lot of  Housing Association tenants, so I’ve been in touch with their landlords about their repairs, and cleaning on their estate. People contact me via the SE1 website, by post, and by stopping me in the street. I visit the traders in the Blue regularly, and they always have something for me to chase up. All in all, I keep quite busy helping local people, after all, that is why I stood for election as a local councillor.

I was shocked to see that Southwark’s Deputy Leader is looking up what work I have been doing. Much of the work I do is sensitive, involving broken relationships, accusations of law breaking, and other personal stuff. I was shocked that he feels able to check up on my work, given there have been no complaints. I was also shocked to see that he chose to publish the figures he was given by council staff. I wrote to Members’ Services, which is department of the council which help councillors with their enquiries. Almost immediately they wrote back with a list of enquiries I made recently. The figures they gave me were inaccurate. They excluded some enquiries I had made, which they had replied to, obviously no system is perfect, exceptions are possible, probably likely in a large department. However, the first figure they gave for the month of July alone was 9.

The figure in the letter was 5, since the beginning of June 2012!

I decided to check my emails for July 2012, it is quite a body of work. I often talk to council staff by phone, and face to face, I don’t have formal records of conversations like that, consequently I can’t include them in my figures. Not all my enquiries are sent to Members’ Enquiries, for example planning enquiries may go direct to the council’s planning department, whilst repairs that have been started, require me to contact the housing staff officer who is involved with  the work.

Some margin of error is inevitable, but It seems Cllr Ian Wingfield’s figure is way off, I don’t know if his staff simply made up a number,  or just gave up counting,  For Cllr Wingfield to publish them without checking them would appear arrogant, or stupid. It brings his judgement into question.

I haven’t included emails to Housing Associations, as Council staff would not have any access to emails to them, so they wouldn’t have been able to tell Cllr Wingfield about them. I have included one to local police, about the stabbing in Paterson park, to show there is more to a councillors work than simply complaining to council staff, I have also included an enquiry to a tree surgeon, which was about finding out whether it really is necessary to cut down the trees in Reverdy Road.

It scares me how the Deputy Leader feels he is entitled to instruct officers to investigate an opposition councillor. It makes me feel he is looking over my shoulder. The guy gives me the creeps at the best of times, but thinking that he is prepared to check my emails, and then share them with others is frankly disturbing.

I made a promise when I was elected to represent everyone, despite their views, people with mental health issues, people who have admitted to crime in my surgery, people who have been the victims of domestic violence, and I promised to keep their stories secret. I could write a book about the things I have witnessed, and been told, but I have a duty to treat local people with dignity and in confidence.

I wonder how long he has been checking up on me and whether he is checking up on other Liberal Democrat Councillors. Does he read about the details of the broken families, the accusations of violence, the broken lives people share with me in confidence? Does he check up on his colleagues, reading the emails of Labour Councillors? Is part of his duty as Deputy Leader to go to the press with stories of how much, or how little work other councillors have done? People have told me this is simply a personal attack, that Labour so badly want to take control of South Bermondsey they have started a campaign against me. Labour have already accused me of masterminding the Save Our Nurseries Campaign, when it is a parents campaign. How desperate are they that are happy to publish lies in a local paper, which can easily be proved wrong?

Enough speculation,

Below is a list of email enquiries I made during the month of July 2012, it excludes Housing Association enquiries, emails to other councillors, my work on saving the Tenda Road and Bishop’s House Nurseries, telephone calls, face to face meetings, and other stuff.

I have had to disguise the names of people who have approached me, as they are entitled to privacy:

Members Enquiries – housing related

1) 3rd – Ms M SE16
2) 3rd – Ms H SE1
3) 3rd – Mr C SE16
4) 17th – Mr H SE1
5) 18th – Ms S SE16
6) 18th – Ms H SE16
7) 18th – Ms B SE16
8,) 18th – Ms F SE1
9) 31st – Entryphones at SE1

Members’ Enquiries – not housing related *
10) 4th – New SIM Card for Cllr Neale
11) 12th – Fwd: New SIM Card for Cllr Neale
12) 15th – Fwd: New SIM Card for Cllr Neale (E.Kelly)

Other officers – Housing related
13) 2nd – Mr B SE11
14) 8th – fence at SE16
15) 26th – fences at SE16

Other officers – planning related
16) 2nd – 12/AP/1182 – Southwark Pk Rd SE16
17) 27th – 52 Southwark Pk Rd (formerly Arancia)

Southwark Police
18) 6th Paterson Park stabbing  steven.j.brown@met.pnn.police.uk

Local planning applications
19) 3rd Southwark Park Road
20) 5th Southwark Park Road

Local organisation to promote active lifestyle
21) 27th Healthy Walking ‘Bermondsey Bombers’ (Walking for Health)

Tree specialists
22) 24th Trees in Reverdy Road  Southwark – Hardaway Tree Services

Thames Water
23) 18th Water Rates bills for local Tenants’ Hall –  Thames Water

* Enquiries 10 – 13 involve trying to get a new SIM card for my council Blackberry, which Southwark issues to all councillors. It took me a fortnight and a series of emails and calls to get a new SIM card. I ended up asking Southwark’s new Chief Executive to investigate why it was taking so long, when I could simply walk into a high street shop and get a new one over the counter. Many of my colleagues are disappointed with the level of IT support they get, which is why I have chosen not to rely on Southwark’s email system, and why I use office@grahamneale.com for all my emails, given that a senior member of Southwark’s Labour Groups feels he is entitled to check on my emails, I am pleased I made that choice, for my security, and that of my constituents, who may prefer not to share sensitive information with the Deputy Leader of Southward Council

I make that just about one enquiry for every working day of July.
A record I am quite proud of.

I haven’t looked at June, nor August, it has taken me too long to prepare the above.
I have involved council staff, taken up their time, which could have been spent on other things.

OK thanks for reading so far….
Even this doesn’t represent the full story of the work I did during July 2012.
It is designed to show that Cllr Ian Wingfiield, the deputy leader of Southwark Council’s letter of August 9th is nonsense.
I don’t know why his figures are so far out.
He wrote about my enquiries from June to August 2012. The above refer only to July 2012.
If the Deputy Leader, in charge of Housing Services can be so wrong about something so simple, what hope is there for people like me living in a council flat?

I will continue to challenge lies, and continue to champion the residents of Southwark.

Thanks

Graham Neale
August 2012

PS As I was writing this, I took a call (on a Sunday afternoon) about a broken front door.

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