Mayor's Question Time 21 May 2003 Transcript
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Appendix C Mayor’s Question Time 21 May 2003 Transcript 1020 / 2003 - Cleaner Neighbourhoods Nicky Gavron What efforts has the Mayor made to promote the good practice of the London Borough of Croydon in using neighbourhood wardens to help clean up local communities? The Mayor: We are very keen to clean up London’s streets. The neighbourhood wardens scheme is one that is running in several boroughs across London. Croydon’s scheme involves eight wardens on three estates and is set to expand with seven more wardens covering several smaller estates. I am promoting all types of good practice in maintaining the street environment through the Capital Standards programme. The member boroughs are able to share best practice with each other and get advice from other boroughs. Croydon is a very active member of Capital Standards with a representative on the Steering Group, who also chairs the Graffiti Working Group. Nicky Gavron (Assembly Member): You quite rightly mention Croydon, as they are leading the way on the improving the environment in council estates. Having visited them and seen the way they are linking up their neighbourhood wardens with their local youth workers, and diverting young people from antisocial behaviour, I think it is absolutely exemplary; everyone should beat a path and see what has been done on Addington and Field Way estates. As a result, I have called for the scheme to be expanded across London so that more communities can benefit from neighbourhood wardens. However, I want to ask: does the Mayor think there is anything significant in the fact that the five boroughs which are refusing to spread best practice, such as the scheme that I have mentioned on New Addington and Field Way, are all currently Conservative controlled? The Mayor: I do think there has been a sad tendency in the minority of boroughs that are Conservative controlled to just opt out, like they have Conservatism in one borough while the rest of London can go to hell. Capital Standards grows out of the Tidy Britain group: completely non-partisan. The question is: do you want London cleaned up, or not? Labour boroughs cooperated with Mrs Thatcher while she and Lady Porter did their photo opportunity out at the back of Number 10; we do not want to clean up London because Mrs Thatcher and Lady Porter are doing it – they did their best to 1 cooperate. Whether you like it or not, you have to accept the fact that I have been elected Mayor of London; if some Conservative boroughs think that is a reason for not cooperating with obvious good things for London, I think they are betraying their residents. Nicky Gavron (Assembly Member): I cannot add anything to that; I agree. Samantha Heath (Assembly Member): To follow on from that, I would like to bring Members’ attention to that hotbed of socialism, Westminster, which has joined the Capital Standards programme because through their enforcement regime and every performance indicator that you look at, it is very clear that they care about the quality of their streets and how they clear the streets. They have joined Capital Standards because they care about the streets and not about political ideology in the way that the other boroughs that Nicky was referring to have mentioned. Lewisham, Southwark, Croydon and Camden are all doing great things on enviro-crime and cleaning up litter. The real problem that I can raise here, and which I want you to look at, is that these boroughs are actually working to look at the perception of the cleanliness of their streets, which is completely different from where the best value performance indicators currently look at. So, the perception is something that we need to tackle. Under Capital Standards, that perception is going to be monitored. It could look as though Westminster, Camden and Lewisham – the boroughs that are really striving ahead to deal with their residents’ concerns – are going to look poorer when we can look at the new figures. How are we going to compare apples with apples and make sure that boroughs that are looking seriously at this problem, and not just propagandising, are actually going to be monitored effectively and not compared to boroughs which obviously do not give a hoot? The Mayor: What has been quite interesting, and this anticipates a later question by Tony Arbour, is that as you know we published the most recent figures in the May edition of The Londoner. Those figures were published in March 2002 by the Audit Commission; presumably the Audit Commission collected them in the previous year. They are the most recent figures. The polls show very high ratings by the councils about what they thought were acceptable standards. Since then, we have had 200 responses in from Londoners writing in having read that: 100% of those responses believe the boroughs’ returns do not reflect the state of London’s streets. 20 of the replies were from Richmond, all disagreeing with the position that we reported: that 78% of the streets were cleaned to an acceptable standard. Hence, I think the official Audit Commission figures do not reflect what the public believes about their streets. I do think it is silly for Tony to fly off in a huff and withdraw from Capital Standards. I am quite happy to put him in touch with his constituents, who think his streets need a bit more cleaning. Samantha Heath (Assembly Member): The point here is that it is the 2 perception. Not that I want to make all boroughs knuckle down – this is really something that we need to engage with boroughs on, but the real question is: do we need to tackle this issue? It is a question of you dealing with the Audit Commission to make sure that the best value performance indicator does deal with perception effectively, so that we are comparing properly. Have you had any conversations with the Audit Commission on that? The Mayor: We will meet with the Audit Commission to look at this, but it might be that a more detailed poll conducted jointly by the ALG and the GLA, to examine perceptions borough-by-borough would provide a more accurate approach. Londoners are not stupid: however bad it might be at the moment, if they see a borough council really upping its game, putting the resources in, with the political leadership in that borough giving it the attention it deserves, they will recognise that. Therefore, you could have a dramatic turnaround in boroughs like Hackney if they get their act together, even though they were only 50% on the Audit Commission figures. Jennette Arnold (Assembly Member): You would agree with me that a cleaner neighbourhood equals a cleaner London, which then equals a positive factor in attracting more visitors to London. Can you tell us how you can use, if you like, your growing influence and relationship with the business community to get them to work with local boroughs. Without a doubt, if you look at the increase in fast food outlets, they have got to be responsible for the increased level of litter. If you look at the lock-up shops and the units that people come and rent open from nine to five, and then just leave their litter outside – that is an issue for a neighbourhood. What can you do when you are meeting with your business colleagues to get them hooked up to the work that has been done in these boroughs, especially the ones that Nicky has identified? The Mayor: Without being specific about individual boroughs, I have to say that London’s business community representatives are not great advocates of the quality of service that they see coming from borough councils. I think the business community is strongly in favour of widespread reform and reconstruction of borough government. Clearly, the best way forward in this would be to press ahead with the American prospect of having a local business rate that local business voluntarily agrees to levy on itself, which then goes into specific targeted improvements. We have seen some of that, where shops in Oxford Street have come together to pay for wardens on the streets, to have improved levels of security. It could well be that local businesses come together with their borough council to contribute more to driving a better level of service, cleanliness and refuse collection in the areas that clearly need it. I think there could be a universal compulsory commercial waste collection system. The ability of some businesses to opt out means that some freeload on the back of others; you do get dumping. Graham Tope (Assembly Member): I am sure the Deputy Mayor’s praise for 3 Croydon will be of some reassurance to the people of Croydon who were so disappointed when she failed to turn up for the Croydon Summit yesterday. Can I go to the issue of neighbourhood wardens, and ask the Mayor if he shares the concerns frequently being expressed by Deputy Commissioner, Ian Blair, about what he calls ‘the Balkanisation of policing in London’ which led to the setting up of the Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs)? He believed that council-employed neighbourhood wardens have a very important and distinctive role to play, as they do in many boroughs, not just in Croydon. If that is his view, and it is certainly mine, what would he do to disseminate good practice regardless of which borough in which it occurs? The Mayor: Clearly, the discussions that are taking place between the Metropolitan Police service and my Office about the forthcoming growth in Police Community Support Officers in the next few years up until 2006, gives a huge opportunity to use those people imaginatively to gain a lot of other benefits as well, if we move towards a dedicated team of police in each ward in London.