Managerial mess hits many estates

Published: 16 September, 2010

• SO proposals are afoot for consideration of sharing a chief executive of Islington with Camden (Is this the first ‘super borough’? September 9).

Don’t do it!

We in Camden suffer massively from management neglect and that management is under the control of our chief executive. There is considerable evidence of neglect on many estates and in several other areas of this borough and that neglect is not down to the current economic climate because it has been happening for years. 

We have managers here who do not respond to letters and emails. I have sheaves of copies of letters written over several years in respect of rubbish dumping (notices placed all over the borough threatening £2,500 fines are never enforced on estates). Want a CD of photos of rubbish dumped? I have sent several over the years, most recently just this week. Result? No action whatsoever.

We complained greatly about the introduction of “Eurobins” (spillover every day) in the streets. Never responded to.  

I wrote twice to the chief executive complaining of no replies and non-action over urgent matters and her staff redirected the letters to the very persons complained of!

Think I exaggerate? Try this one. 

We have contractual work currently being carried out on estates. 

Who was appointed to liaise between residents and contractor? 

A manager who was promptly given leave of absence! Unbelievable?  Yes but absolutely true.  

My very clear impression of the running of this borough is, I believe, shared by elected members although I certainly have no wish to implicate them, or speak for them, as most of them work exceedingly hard – for little or no observable result in most cases.  

Camden is a managerial mess run for the benefit of managers who have no interest in dealing with current or past problems.
Norman Speight
Camden Street, NW1

Weasel words

• I WAS dismayed at Monday night’s council meeting at the woefully unconstructive (and unreconstructed) views of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors to the news Camden was exploring the possibility with Islington of sharing senior officers to cut costs – news the New Journal broke exclusively last week.

It is their colleagues in government who are calling on local authorities to find new ways of working, to eliminate waste and bureaucracy and for different bits of the public sector to work more closely together.  

Barely a week goes by without Eric Pickles, the local government secretary, naming and shaming a council for advertising a “non-job” or scrapping some hitherto-seen-as-quite-useful part of the public realm, like the Audit Commission.

So it was disappointing for the leader of the Tory group and the deputy leader of the Lib Dems to respond in such a negative way to the idea – and it is still only a proposal at present – when Camden under a Labour administration has sought, yet again, to be a leader in local government. 

The cuts that are coming in the autumn will be vicious, the stuff of small-state Tory ideologues’ dreams.  

We will truly need to think not just outside the box but beyond our own boundaries if we are to do as much as we can to protect services.

I would have hoped that, whether they support the coalition’s cuts or not, Camden’s councillors would have applauded any initiative to save money on back office costs and through smarter procurement, in order to channel more money to services residents rely on.

Sadly, we heard only weasel words about the calamities of sharing senior officers from the opposition benches.

However, in a choice between being able to save a care assistant, caretaker or teacher, and sharing some senior officer time with another borough, I know which I’d prefer.
Cllr Mike Katz
Labour Kilburn ward