Human rights group has accuses Rochdale council of trying to 'criminalise poverty'

From The Manchester Evening News

A human rights group has accused Rochdale council of attempting to 'criminalise poverty' in a legal crackdown on beggars in the town centre.

Liberty, an independent campaign organisation, says the plan to extend a current Public Space Protection Order (PSPO), which expires on July 23, for a further three years potentially breaches the European Convention on Human Rights and could be challenged in the High Court.

It also says it is 'likely' the council's consultation process over the extension and variation of the current PSPO breaches the Anti- Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 which enabled local authorities to introduce such orders.

Liberty says: "It is unclear what an 'incident' is described as. Is it enough for someone sitting with a cup begging?"

It also accuses the council in its report of linking begging to anti-social behaviour.

The letter says: "(The report) says it provides an overview of 'ongoing problems within the town centre associated with anti-social behaviour that the current PSPO aims to tackle'.

"It is stated that there is CCTV of 159 'incidents' of street begging. Begging is not antisocial behaviour and should not be recorded as such."

Liberty claims there is no evidence in the report that there is a problem with begging in Rochdale by people who are not destitute.

It goes on: "This prohibition is therefore not based on evidence, it is not needed and must be removed.

"The wording 'No one at any time shall beg for money' amounts to a blanket ban on begging and is unreasonable."

The report says that in the public consultation in 2017 some members of the public felt that begging had a negative impact on the image of the town and that begging adversely affected business by putting people off coming into the town.

Liberty says: "It is grossly disproportionate to prohibit begging, which is relied upon as a lifeline by people suffering from poverty, in order to improve the aesthetic of Rochdale town centre.

"We note with great concern that the dispersal of people begging has substantially increased since the council’s (initial) PSPO was made.

"The council seems to be simply trying to cleanse its town centre of poverty."

And it adds: "Other councils have relied on, and published, data, witness statements, police reports, surveys, impact assessments, and many other sources of information to justify the need for a PSPO before setting out a proposed order and starting a consultation.

"If the council goes ahead with making this PSPO without sufficient evidence then it will be unlawful and vulnerable to challenge in the High Court."

Liberty also says: "The PSPO provisions (saying no-one at any time shall beg for money) also constitute a potential interference with Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights."

The letter concludes: "This proposed variation and extension of the Rochdale PSPO is potentially not only unlawful and unreasonable; it is also a disproportionate interference with basic rights and with people’s right to inherent human dignity. It adds nothing to the fight to alleviate poverty. We urge you to think again."

A Rochdale council spokesperson said: "The response from Liberty will be considered alongside all the other comments received during the consultation period.

"Recommendations are due to be presented to the council’s cabinet committee later this month before a decision is made."

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Violence or Intimidation! Oh Really? by Les May

IN March 2015 a committee of the House of Commons produced a document summarising our national constitution and some options for reform. A key paragraph reads; ‘The United Kingdom constitution is composed of the laws and rules that create the institutions of the state, regulate the relationships between those institutions, or regulate the relationship between the state and the individual. These laws and rules are not codified in a single written document’. Nationally we do not have a written constitution, but local councils do. Amongst other things these regulate the relationship between the council and the individual.

As I have explained previously it took three requests to the Chief Executive of Rochdale Council to get an answer to the question of why the entry in the Register of Interest for Faisal Rana was not available on the council website. The answer I did get was; ‘In relation to the register of interest for Cllr Faisal Rana. The entries not shown on the website are due to the items being considered as sensitive by the previous Monitoring Officer of the Council. Any requests for such information should be submitted via the freedom of information process.’

So what does the written constitution of Rochdale Borough Council have to say on this matter of items being ‘sensitive’? On page 13 it says:

15. Register of interests: Subject to paragraph 16 any disclosable pecuniary interests or personal interests notified to the Monitoring Officer will be included in the register of interests. A copy of the register will be available for public inspection and will be published on the authority’s website.

16. Sensitive interests: This paragraph applies where you consider that disclosure of the details of a disclosable pecuniary interest or a personal interest could lead to you, or a person connected with you, being subject to violence or intimidation, and the Monitoring Officer agrees. In these circumstances, if the interest is entered on the register, copies of the register that are made available for inspection and any published version of the register will exclude details of the interest, but may state that you have a disclosable pecuniary interest, the details of which are withheld under Section 32(2) of the Localism Act 2011.

Unless Faisal Rana told the previous Monitoring Officer David Wilcock that he would be subject to ‘violence or intimidation’ and the present Monitoring Officer has confirmed this with Faisal Rana, then both officers have acted outside the terms of the Rochdale Council constitution by improperly allowing this councillor’s disclosable interests to be classed as ‘sensitive’. In both cases Rochdale Council should hold a written note of any meeting between the councillor and the Monitoring Officer(s) at which this claim was made and accepted as true.

It is more than six weeks since I submitted a Freedom of Information (FoI) request asking if the present monitoring officer has concluded that the disclosable information which should appear in the register of member’s interests for Councillor Faisal Rana is ‘sensitive’, why this information is considered to be ‘sensitive’ and on what date the decision was made. I assume that this is because the present Monitoring Officer, ex Labour councillor Asif Ibrahim, does not wish this question to be answered.

Two Monitoring Officers have acted in a way which they are not permitted to do by the Rochdale Borough Council constitution and have done so without censure from the Chief Executive Steve Rumbelow. If he will not put his house in order perhaps it is time that the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government was asked to intervene.

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Worries over Rochdale’s Riverside shopping centre

CONCERNS raised over Rochdale’s flagship Riverside shopping centre - the council will have to pay rent on empty units for the next 34 years.

The town centre retail and leisure destination - home to big names such as M&S, Next and River Island - opened in the summer, but has been badly hit by the pandemic.

Concerns have been raised over Rochdale’s flagship Riverside shopping centre after it emerged the council is liable for the rent and business rates on empty units.

The town centre retail and leisure destination - home to big names such as M&S, Next and River Island - opened in the summer, but has been badly hit by the pandemic.

The launch of its Reel Cinema has been twice delayed, while clothes shops and food outlets have been seriously affected by Covid restrictions.

Rochdale council is the ‘head tenant’ of the £80m scheme, and has an option to buy the centre for £1 at the end of the 35-year lease.

It pays an annual rent to investor M&G Ltd, offset by the rent it receives from tenants.

But where units are left empty, the authority has to pick up the bill. It must also cover business rates.

Developer Genr8 has guaranteed the estimated rental income for the first three years of the scheme - £2.3m in in 2020/21 - while the government is providing councils with business rates top-up grants.

According to information seen by The Local Democracy Reporting Service, over the next 10 years, the council will set aside annual funds to ‘prudently mitigate against’ the pandemic’s impact on the retail sector.

Council leader Allen Brett told this week’s budget-setting meeting the authority would be ‘providing £750,000 in recurrent funding’ to support the Riverside scheme.

This measure was raised later in the meeting by Lib Dem group leader Andy Kelly. “We are already saving three-quarters of a million pounds in case things go wrong,” he said.

“In light of the pandemic in light of the fact high street shopping is not looking good, I have got to say we are going to be using more and more of our financial savings - if not our reserves - just to keep the payments up on our shopping centre.”

Coun Kelly also complained he had been refused further details on the grounds of ‘commercial sensitivity'.

Speaking after the meeting, he expanded on his concerns.

He told the LDRS: “It is a gamble. To invest that much time and money of the council in a commercial venture for 35 years and be told that we are already saving for the next 10 years rent is really worrying.”

Outside of Covid restrictions bosses estimate that Riverside would generate an extra £1.3m a year in business rates for the council.

Coun John Blundell, cabinet member for ‘a thriving economy’, says he is confident the centre will ‘bounce back’ after the pandemic.

He added: “Fundamentally Covid 19 has revealed a big crack in the retail market at a time when Rochdale was consolidating its retail and leisure offer.

“The Riverside scheme isn’t entirely retail, it’s also food and drink, but because of the Covid pandemic nobody in their right mind is opening food outlets because people can’t visit them.

“It’s put the scheme in a very difficult place during Covid, however, nobody is to blame for that because who could have foreseen the pandemic?”

Coun Bludnell said the £750,000 being put aside by the council was to cover for a worst case scenario and - in ‘normal times’ - business rates would compensate for any loss of rental income.

“If you look at it in the round it should not cost the taxpayer in the long term. It should be cost-neutral and we get an asset at the end.

“There will be peaks and troughs. Obviously, at this moment in time it’s a trough. Sometimes we will lose a bit, sometimes we will gain a bit.”

He also believes the pandemic hitting now may prove less damaging than if it had arrived some years down the line.

“If it was going to happen at least it was at the start of it opening - so when we reset we are resetting from the right place.

“If we were two years on and had filled it with retailers that went bust, that would be a problem."

Coun Blundell believes the post-pandemic landscape will see more people working from home and spending more time their local rather than city centres.

“The Riverside scheme is perfect for that,” he added.

The regeneration chief also makes the point that Riverside is not just a retail development - but home to a number of food and drink outlets as well as a cinema and a mini-golf attraction.

The shift towards hospitality and leisure could well be ‘accelerated’ by the pandemic, he says, but the ‘exact complexion’ of the scheme will only become clear in time."

However, the high street and traditional retail was in trouble well before the pandemic arrived last year - hastened by the shift to online shopping.

Massive names such as Top Shop, House of Fraser and Debenhams have all gone to the wall , while several councils have run into trouble buying up shopping centres.

But Coun Blundell says that Riverside is not purely about retail - citing the likes of Heavenly Desserts, Nando's and Bean - and remains the town's 'flagship' destination.

"Even though people are moving online, there is still going to be space for people who want to go and buy something," he said.

"Yes, retail is declining in most of the country, but there is still going to be space for people to go an buy things.

“What we are saying as a council is that, in Rochdale, that is going to be the Riverside scheme."

He continued: “The only body in Rochdale that is going to take that risk on the town centre is the council. The reason the council has done it is because we believe the offer in the round is a strong one.

“Food and drink is still going to be a part of the town centre and anyone who has visited has said what a fantastic scheme it is.”

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A Bit Of A Deadleg? by Les May

EARLIER today in a telephone conversation with a friend he commented that he thought his local MP was ‘a bit of a deadleg’. Now I’ve not had any dealings with this gentleman, who is the MP for Heywood and Middleton, so I cannot comment on the veracity of this statement. But it did take me back a few years to when our old friend Simon Danczuk, or as he is now more commonly called ‘the disgraced Simon Danczuk’, was MP for the neighbouring constituency of Rochdale.

MPs (and Councillors) hold their position thanks to the trust of the public so if you want to shift them because you don’t think they are up to the job or not being honest with the people who voted for them, it’s the public you have to find a way of telling.

After Danczuk published his book about Cyril Smith in 2014 the Letters page of the Rochdale Observer was for the next 18 months or so filled with correspondence challenging Danczuk account, asking that he produce some evidence for his attempts to link Smith with the unsavoury goings on at Knowl View school and pointing out that a story in the book involving the Northamptonshire Police was completely untrue.

If my friend wants to use the local media to publish his disquiet about his MP Chris Clarkson, he won’t be so lucky. The reader’s letters page of the Rochdale Observer has shrunk almost to the point of invisibility. In 2015 it occupied a full page and there was enough room for the editor to allow a three quarter page letter from Andrew Wastling, who now sends material to Northern Voices because he cannot get it published elsewhere.

Those of us who contribute to NV don’t fool ourselves into thinking that it is read by as many people as read the Rochdale Observer so it is no substitute for an inquisitive and questioning local paper with a boisterous letters page.

NV’s readership is more likely to be drawn from the subset of potential Observer readers who would identify themselves as to the left of the political spectrum, but who refuse to be be swayed by the present vogue for identity politics and the drift towards ‘cancel culture’, so in no sense does it compete with other local news outlets. Seeing it as a competitor was the mistake Rochdale Online made when it wanted to use material from Northern Voices without attribution to its author.

Local News Partnerships, which include both the Rochdale Observer and Rochdale Online, are a well intentioned attempt to support local news outlets and maintain their viability at a time when they have come under pressure from the availability of news on the World Wide Web 24/7. But the unintended consequences have been that the sense of place and local identity which local newspapers provided has vanished because essentially the same story can appear in a regional and local paper, and a diversity of voices has been replaced by what is essentially a single uninquisitive ‘foghorn’.

This lack of scrutiny has emboldened some of our local politicians to start down the track of believing that they no longer accountable for their actions. Rochdale already has one local councillor who first solicited a postal vote then voted twice in the 2018 local election, seemingly without suffering any consequences. In recent weeks we have seen that one councillor did not seem to think he had to even accept e-mails sent to his Rochdale MBC account. We have also seen that at least one councillor think it unacceptable that he should be questioned about why a council official who is supposedly doing a full time job with Rochdale MBC is being allowed to ‘moonlight’ in another well remunerated role.

In about eleven weeks time people in Rochdale are going to be asked to choose who they want to represent them on the Council. If all we are treated to are press releases from councillors because they are ‘good copy’ how can we do this in any meaningful way? It is time to shine some light on the murky political world of Rochdale.

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Mark Birkett's views on Rochdale's public spending

The Guilty Men: Allen Brett (Council Leader) & Steve Rumbelow (Chief Executive)

IN AN E-MAIL, which we felt was too long to publish in full, complaining to John Rooney, Assistant Director, Information, Customers & Communities, at Rochdale Council - sent on the 10th February 2021- Mark Birkett wrote in conclusion:

'Perhaps worst of all, these two men (Brett & Rumbelow) have also allowed and aided in a monstrous abuse of the public purse. There is no way on earth Mr Rumbelow can do two full-time jobs in once day. But this isn't about some radical ideology; nor is it about whether (Rochdale) MBC needs to remain competitive when it comes to retaining so-called 'executive talent'; still less is it about Mr Rumbelow being 'worth it' or not;'

'It's just simple arithmetic.'

'No-one can do two jobs at once. So if Mr Rumbelow spends (say) 25% of his day now at the NHS tasks, then his RMBC pay must be reduced by that 25%. Thats's why the councillors on July 18th 2018 who voted for this change to Mr Rumbelow's Terms and Conditions had absolutely zero right to do so. There is no workplace on earth where you get to keep two full-time pay packets for doing only two part-time jobs.

'But that's exactly what those all those councillors in 2018 were bamboozled into doing. They failed in one of their most basic tasks; to carefully steward taxpayers' hard-earned monies. Not one of them examined the small print of any reports, or considered any risks to Mr Rumbelow's RMBC role, nor the ramifications for his daily schedule. If you don't believe me, ask any of the councillors who were there. You'll get nothing beyond a shrug and a blank face, from any of them (other than Cllrs Allen Brett, Sara Rowbotham and Daalat Ali who cooked up the whole fiasco at Cabinet in 2017 of course).

Mr Rumbelow should note; you most certainly don't get to pocket that sort of exorbitant dual income and simultaneously have the gall to propose cuts to other Borough services, or cut jobs, or to hike up care home costs for Rochdale's elderly. That is all why my official complaint is now set to continue via the Local Government Ombudsman. And, even more importantly, this pay abuse at the expense of Rochdale's taxpayers will not stand unchallenged either.

Every RMBC councillor should take warning;

'If any of them vote to allow Mr Rumbelow to continue in this ridiculous NHS role (when the contract is apparently due for renewal on 31st March), and / or if they do not deal with this pay abuse at the March Budget Setting Meeting, and / or they have the nerve to dump the cost of 'savings' on pensioners in care homes, or on any other people in the Borough, then the local elections this May are going to be a very bumpy ride indeed - for every last one of them.

'Mr Rumbelow's pay abuse will remain in the spotlight. As will this appalling abuse of my democratic rights and (by implication) everyone else's. As will any councillors who think all of this is vaguely amusing. It isn't.

In case any of them hadn't noticed, the post-COVID world is going to be very different from the one they've been used to.

Sincerely

Mark Birkett

It’s Part of the Job Description by Les May

IN a recent piece I quoted the response of Councillor John Hartley to someone who contacted him highlighting the fact that Rochdale’s Chief Executive, Steve Rumbelow, is being paid a salary for doing a second job whilst supposedly working full time for Rochdale MBC and that this had been sanctioned by councillors. His response was effectively: ‘you could have been at the Council meeting which did this, if you were not you have no reason to complain now’.

We seem to have a man here who fails to understand the nature of representative democracy. If you vote for a particular policy, then being asked to justify your action to that part of the electorate which think that policy is wrong, is part of the job.

Not picking up e-mails, failing to respond, querying why they have been contacted, responding with platitudes, terminating exchanges when pressed, are stock in trade for some Rochdale councillors. Nationally Governments of all political stripes come under pressure from the broadcast and print media. That pressure is absent in Rochdale because the print and on-line media in the town function in the political sphere as little more than outlets for press releases originating from publicity aware local councillors.

It wasn’t always like this in the town. In the 1970s RAP, the Rochdale Alternative Paper, edited by David Bartlett and John Walker, did hold local politicians to account. It was RAP, not Simon Danczuk, which revealed in 1979 details of Cyril Smith’s behaviour at Cambridge House. The present incumbents at Number 1 Riverside are perhaps fortunate that their antics are not subject to similar scrutiny and it appears that some of them want to keep it that way.

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Has Animal Farm Come To Rochdale? by Les May

IT would seem that my puzzlement about Councillor Blundell’s standard response to messages sent to his council e-mail address has been clarified and we now know we are in the land of ‘porky pies’. The fact that he has been allowed to get away with this for so long does not reflect well on either the Council Leader or the council officer responsible for Governance. Perhaps one of these people will be kind enough to tell us just how residents are supposed to raise with this councillor matters which are of concern to them; by snail- mail?

It’s not just Blundell who doesn’t want to be troubled by awkward questions. This is what someone received when he tried to raise questions about 'Two Jobs Rumbelow' with Councillor John Hartley:

Dear Mr ****, Sorry I missed your call today as I was giving my services as a volunteer at the vaccine centre which I think was far better use of my time than speaking with you on the telephone. Now regarding your constant emails, all I am going to say is that the council decision was made in an open and transparent manner and you could have been at that full council meeting as a member of the public to check it out had you of wished to do so. I am not your councillor and do not wish to make any further comment on this matter and I will not responding any further.

Regards XXXX.

A borderline rude response from someone who seems to have an inflated sense of his own importance.

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Further to those Mark Birkett and Les May articles by Andrew Wastling

'TWO-JOBS RUMBELOW' - A GIANT AMONG PYGMIES

or is he MILKING the MASSES in the Land of Gracie Fields?

SOMETIME in the future, the city of Metropolis is home to a Utopian society where its wealthy residents live a care free life. One of those is Freder Fredersen. One day, he spots a beautiful woman with a group of children, she and the children quickly disappear. Trying to follow her, he is horrified to find an underground world of workers who apparently run the machinery that keeps the Utopian world above ground functioning. In Metropolis the citizens are sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city's mastermind falls in love with a working-class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

In one of the film's most memorable scenes ( one of many ) Freder Fredersen sees an exhausted worker in overalls desperately struggling with the mechanical hands of the clock measuring the passage of long and arduous shifts. In a scene redolent of recurring memes in literature such as , The Prince & The Pauper, or A Tale Of Two Cities, when Sydney Carton’s sacrifice of his own life on behalf of his friends Charles Darnay on the guillotine of Revolutionary France, Fredersen asks to swap places with the worker to give him some respite from his torturous labours and the brutalisation of long repetitive shifts seemingly without end.

Freder arduously working a ten-hour shift on the clock machine. Freder is like a Christ figure, crucified on the clock. From Fritz Lang's sci-fi silent classic.Metropolis (1927).

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Free the Riverside One!' Further to Mark Birkett & Les Mays articles by Andrew Wastling

LIKE all readers of Northern Voices I have also been following the issue of Steve 'Two-Jobs' Rumbelow with growing disbelief and anger. Some might argue that in a town where a councillor is allowed two votes it was surely only a matter of time before a subtly illogical extension of this Orwellian Double-Think culture would eventually mean we were always destined to arrive at a situation where the Councils Chief Executive Officer would have two full-time jobs, draw two full-time salaries and presumably have twice the number of holidays of your typical worker whilst achieving only half the expected outcomes.

Steve 'Two-Jobs' Rumbelow can sometimes be seen in the background of our local NHS CCG Zoom meetings resplendent in his natural habitat of silent participant in yet another interminable online meeting where anything of value is not discussed until the cameras and microphones are switched off and the Public Excluded from what very little remains of the democratic process. The online meeting remains nonetheless by far the best environment in which to see him exhibiting the superhuman powers which enable Steve to hold down two full time jobs at one and the same time . His masterful grasp of both of his employment remits and Zoom meeting technology can be clearly observed to maximum effect each time he remembers to unmute his laptop to share his valuable pearls of wisdom with the assembled participants. You only have to observe him in action to see that he is worth so clearly worth every penny of both his salaries.

I pride myself as something of an advanced multi-tasker myself I can generally deal with obstructive Council sycophants via email , make a mental note of the kick-off times of the away day match, remember to test the fire alarms, keep all my case notes in (more or less) order all whilst mopping the office floor and singing a happy song as I go along but even I'm forced to admit defeat and acknowledge that Steve's innate prowess leaves me merley lumbering along on the hard shoulder of life. In fact we are all left running on the spot in the starting blocks as Steve effortly transcends life's many insurmountable hurdles.

When work ethics and motivation was being handed out to the rest of us humble members of the British proletariat Steve was clearly out there at the front of the queue - a pole position he has endeavoured with very fibre & sinew to maintain ever since. He is after all clearly an elite member of Britain's famed meritocracy. Whilst many local workers struggle to meet ends meet and are forced onto the charity of foodbanks & mutual aid food networks despite juggling several part time or zero-contract jobs Steve's Patrician countenance it seems bareley needs to break into a sweat.

Like so many of us, I naturally assumed at first the whole thing was a scam reflecting the very worst elements of the local nepotism & cronyism we have all come to expect. How wrong I was!

I have been informed on good authority that Mr.Rumbelow has been gifted the necessary personal qualities and transferable professional skills which us lesser mortals can only dream of. He is one of the select few. Why else would he be in Rochdale after all?

His inscrutable Zen -like online demeanor was simply Steve approaching the nirvana of Bureaucratic Enlightenment as he silently mentally calculates his rate of pay per hour whilst doing two appointed tasks simultaneously whilst deducting precisely any personal expenses which might impact on his personal yearly tax rate minus anything he can possibly avoid under Gift Aid legislation - that or he'd fallen asleep through sheer exhaustion!

One can only marvel at the mathematical genius needed to calculate the mileage allowance whilst performing two different job descriptions for two seperate job roles whilst driving to two different meeting destinations in the same car . . . or is it two-cars?

The man is nothing short of inspirational! He presumably prepares for two Monthly Target Reviews with his employer(s) and completes two sets of yearly Continuing Professional Development training courses and contends with double the hangover from two Office Christmas parties. One wonders how he finds any time left to run the Council?

That is the spanner in the works for poor old Rumbelow.

I have only recently been reliably informed of the Gulag conditions Steve endures whilst incarcerated in No1 Riverside, his tortuous hours ,the selfless separation he is forced to endure from his family and loved ones whilst he slogs through his brutal work life balance in his ascetic near monastic isolation. One can only marvel at his strength of character, his enduring stamina and dedicated selfless commitment to Public Service he exhibits in his daily working regime?

I can only suggest Steve joins a union as a matter of urgency to avoid the need to work such excessive hours to feed and clothe his family and we as socially concerned citizens and trade unionists launch a 'Free the Riverside One!' campaign to see this cruel exploitation of a fellow worker is not allowed to continue an hour longer than absolutely necessary.

After all comrades we would all I'm sure do the same for any other victim of indentured or sweatshop labour brutalized into slaving away for eighty plus hours a week anywhere else on the planet? Quite how Steve will be able to join us on two separate picket lines at the same time should he go on strike and withdraw his labour simultaneously from two separate employees to improve his working conditions in two seperate locations remains anybody's guess?

Workers of the world Unite !

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From Mark Birkett further to Les May's article:

WHILST it's important that everyone in Rochdale hold their respective ward councillors to account for their WHOLESALE lack of oversight regarding Rochdale MBC Chief Executive Steve Rumbelow's pay abuse, it's important NOT to end up in cul-de-sac arguments about whether he Mr Rumbelow 'worth it' or not. Though public-sector pay at the higher echelons of Rochdale Council and elsewhere in the UK is pretty clearly out of control, that is a SEPARATE and ultimately distracting argument.

The TRULY SALIENT points regarding Mr Rumbelow's paypacket in Rochdale are:

1) NO-ONE can do two full-time jobs at once, not even Mr Rumbelow. Yet that is PRECISELY what Mr Rumbelow is being paid for. TWO full-time jobs.

2) Yet on July 18th 2018, the entire Labour and Tory councillor groups VOTED IN FAVOUR of Mr Rumbelow doing these two FULL-time jobs without giving the slightest consideration to the real ramifications of the sheer impossibility of such. Rumbelow is paid £140,000 per year as a FULL-TIME CEO, and a further £45-50,000 / year as a FULL-TIME 'Accountable Officer' in the NHS.

3) That Mr Rumbelow refuses to answer what PROPORTION of his working day is now spent working for the NHS (and thus demonstrably NOT spent on his full-time role as RMBC Chief Executive). That is a TRAVESTY of democratic accountability

.

4) Most damaging of all for Rochdale Council's tattered reputation, is that we now know that Rochdale MBC's 60 x councillors have been TOLD by the Borough Solicitor "not to respond" to constituent queries about the matter. Instead of the Borough's most senior legal advisor keeping his advice within a LEGAL remit, he has interfered with DUE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS. No explanation has been provided for him singling out THIS issue for councillors 'not to respond' to, nor even what time limit might apply to this absurd advice to them all, despite him being asked (twice).

This advice to Rochdale MBC councillors is one the key reasons no-one can get any straight answers from ANY councillor regarding their failure to scrutinise this executive pay package and associated dual duties properly, and is perhaps also why Mr Rumbelow feels ZERO obligation to tell taxpayers what he does all day long. Let's be clear: neither the NHS nor Rochdale MBC are benefiting from the so-called 'efficiencies' due to the integration of health care commissioning and social care. The ONLY person benefiting here is Mr Rumbelow.

To add insult to injury, Mr Rumbelow just received a WHOPPING 25% pay rise to the NHS element of his vast income, yet as we speak Rochdale Council is seriously proposing that care home fees to the vulnerable elderly in the Borugh be hiked by 5% next year ... all in order to 'save' the Council £80,000 per year -ironically almost exactly the same sum Mr Rumbelow has trousered since July 2018 for this impossible second role at the NHS.

It MUST be stopped.

The Budget Council meetings on 3rd and 10th March 2021 are where this appalling abuse of the public purse COULD be called into question and reviewed from scratch. But that will only happen IF councillors are all pressured to do so.

By you. Today.

And they WILL listen to you. After all, the local elections are coming soon enough (vaccines permitting). So it is VITAL for Rochdalians to threaten not to vote for ANY councillor who refuses to stop this pay abuse, or who refuses to call a motion to review Mr Rumbelow's ridiculous dual role, or who continues to take part in refusing to provide answers to legtimate queries form constituents on this matter.

Remember:

This is YOUR money at stake here. Thousands in Rochdale have lost their jobs, their businesses and their incomes due to COVID. And old people do NOT want to be forced to pay even more for their care in care homes to save the council money whilst the Chief Executive waltzes off with an eye watering pay packet AND a 25% pay rise in one year to boot .

And this is YOUR democracy at stake here too. Councillors must be FORCED to answer legitimate constituent queries, or be removed from office.

It's up to ALL of us to deal with this.

Mark Birkett, Resident, Kingsway, Rochdale

To Him That Hath Shall Be Given More by Les May

IT’s no secret that since the Tories came into power in 2010 local authorities have been starved of money. My local authority, Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council (RMBC), is no exception, so it is interesting to look at how our councillors are trying to save money. Or to put it another way, who is being targeted in any cost cutting exercise.

Schools have a number of employees who are employed on a term time only basis. Such employees remain on a continuous contract, work a reduced number of weeks during the year and are entitled to a pro-rata amount of paid leave.

Since April 2019 guidance in the form of an updated ‘Green Book’ has been available to employers and employees which is intended to ensure that the pay and conditions of term time only workers is consistent and fair, both locally and nationally.

Whilst no specific legislation is in place about how to calculate pay for term time only workers the guidance is intended to ensure that they are treated no less favourably than workers on full time contracts.

Not all local authorities across Greater Manchester have interpreted the guidance in the same way with the result that some Councils have made calculations more favourable to term time only employees than others. The calculation used by Rochdale MBC falls into the ‘less favourable’ class.

To date at least seven Employment Tribunal claims from past employees have been submitted to Rochdale MBC. Late in 2019 UNISON submitted a Collective Grievance which says that term time only employees are being treated less favourably than full time employees. So far this seems to have produced a ‘working party’. In the future Rochdale MBC may have to face something like 500 individual claims from ex-employees.

So how are some ‘full time’ employees being treated by Rochdale MBC? According to one of my informants it seems to depend on ‘who your are’. He claims ‘whilst Rochdale Council's Chief Executive Steve Rumbelow has enjoyed (and continues to enjoy) a whopping £40,000 / year pay rise. This pay rise came about due to Mr Rumbelow being handed a second £40,000 / year full-time job at the NHS, on top of his existing £160,000 / year full-time job at Rochdale MBC.’

I’ve no reason to disbelieve this so it would seem that ‘Superman Rumbelow’ is performing the remarkable feat of doing TWO full time jobs simultaneously. Presumably he keeps a sleeping bag handy in his office so as to be on call 24/7!

Are our councillors happy that the town’s Chief Executive is moonlighting in another full time job whilst supposedly working full time for the people of Rochdale and being well paid for it? Seemingly the answer is yes, at least in some cases.

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WHO'S AFRAID OF SAM O'BRIEN?

Editorial comment:  This month it was brought to our attention that two live links had been taken down on the Rochdale Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook page.  The links were to items on the NV Blog that had been put up as comments by Stefan Cholewka and led to posts critical of the establishment politics in Rochdale.  Since they were removed a local Rochdale activist, Sam O'Brien, has admitted that he threatened to withdraw from membership of the Facebook site, if the links were not removed.  

There are eleven administrators on the site and two have told NV that they were not consulted.  At this time we have not been able to contact the other administrators and it may be that they have not been consulted either, but Sam O'Brien has been kind enough to offer his thoughtful observations below.  We leave it our readership to judge the profound wisdom of his case.  We understand that any one of the administrators could remove content on the Rochdale Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook page.

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Can this really be the language of the Enlightenment?

Editor's explanation:  Below is a recent e-mail from Sam 

O'Brien, a Rochdale trade unionist who prides himself on 

being an ardent 'anti-racist'.  Northern Voices does not 

believe in providing 'trigger warnings' on content 

as generally we anticipate our readers will have 

stern constitutions and to be intellectually robust.  

Yet some may easily find Mr. O'Brien's style 

surprising and even curious. 

Hello Brian,

'I didn't object. I said it was racist bollocks. I feel I am probably wasting my time but I will ty [sic] to spell it out to you. 

'You say in your article that Rochdale has been overrepresented by Muslim councillors and that has not been healthy for the democracy and moral status of the town. That is racist. Saying that there are too many Muslim councillors and that damages the democracy and morality of the town is racist bollocks. Complete and utter racist bollocks. Its the sort of racist bollocks that the BNP used to come out with, It is what the EDL say. Can you not hear yourself and how fucking offensive you are being?

'You go on to say that you are worried that the problems of the Indian sub-continent are becoming too much of an issue in the politics of the town. So the way Rochdale's councillor's vote is not influenced by whether they are left right or centre but by what is going on in Kashmir and Bangladesh. Racist crap. Again straight from the leaflets of the BNP to the pages of Northern Voices. 

'You implicitly blame all Muslims in Rochdale for propping up paedophile MP Cyril Smith. Racist bullshit. Was it not the white politicians who covered for him? Was it not the Met who disappeared the files on his abuse? The white chief executive who was willfully ignorant of the abuse? No somehow in your bizarre racist conspiracy theory world it was Muslims who were to blame. Shameful and disgraceful to publish this disgusting crap.

'I would love to know who it is on the admin team of the Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook Page who thinks this is ok?

'If Stefan is standing by this racist bullshit he should consider his position within the trade union movement. 

'If this appears again on the Friends of Jeremy Corbyn page I will be leaving it.'

Sam

 

 NV Editor's Footnote [10th, August 2020]:   We would suggest that the decision of Rochdale's Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook page administer who took down the contents of Stefan Cholewka comments without apparent debate, following Sam O'Brien's threat has behaved in a cowardly manner and by so doing has effectively brought the site into disrepute.  This is apparently being compounded by the fact that since then Stefan has been unable to post comments on the site.  Shortly we hope to be able to make a fuller statement on this matter explaining our own approach.

Editorial update [12/08/20]:

YESTERDAY a source close to the Rochdale Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook page told us that comments by Stefan Cholewka have now been enabled again on the site.  This is clearly to be welcomed.

Meanwhile, Sam O'Brien has e-mailed us to say that 'All my comments are in a personal capacity' and not in any way related to any of his political or trade union affiliations. 

 

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‘Two Votes Rana’ Plays The Race Card

by Les May

THE extract from Rochdale Cllr. Faisal Rana’s blog published recently in the article at the link below must surely be one of the most brazen attempts to ‘play the race card’ that we have seen in Rochdale.  In a few lines he effectively accuses the Labour Party of playing host to people who are prejudiced towards non-white candidates and organising selection meetings which are designed to discriminate against and so exclude non-white candidates.   With friends like that the Labour Party does not need enemies.  At this point I should say that I live in a ward which has re-elected a councillor from the group which Faisal Rana claims to champion and I am entirely happy with the situation.

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2020/07/rochdale-cllr-faisal-ranas-ethnic.html

As for his claim that ‘The selection process and selection meetings are poorly run… ‘ we can assume he has some knowledge of this. In February 2019 Northern Voices published a piece drawing attention to the strange goings on at a selection meeting held in the ward he represents.

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2019/02/rochdale-fair-dos-in-selection-process.html

Of course, just as with his Tweet 'Too few BAME councillors leads to bad decisions', he provides not a scrap of evidence to substantiate his claims and before repeating them he should do so.  His use of the acronym ‘BAME’ suggests that he is trying to ride on the coat tails of the protests against the murder of George Floyd and is trying to draw some sort of moral equivalence between that and his claims.

Not content with trying to make an issue out of ‘race’ he throws religion into the pot as well, implying that Labour also turns a blind eye to discrimination against Muslims.  Whether someone will make a formal complaint to the Labour Party about Faisal Rana’s insinuations is a matter for the future, but what we can say with certainty is that some people reading his comments will not take kindly to them.   If these are not a claims which brings the Labour party into disrepute, what is?

Of course his blog and his Tweet aren’t meant to influence the people he is attacking.  They are directed towards the people who some would view as his ‘natural constituency’.  There’s a not altogether subtle hint here that he is ambitious to become an MP and looking to be seen as the ‘BAME’ champion, and that if he fails to be selected for a safe seat it will be because of prejudice. It is not altogether clear to me were the community of interest lies between say, Asian Muslims and African Christians.

What Faisal Rana fails to grasp is that respect for other people’s culture and views is a two way street. His comments about meetings being held on licensed premises looks like a classic case of the tail trying to wag the dog.  The Labour movement has a long history and there may be good reasons why this is the case, and why a lot of people feel entirely comfortable with it.  Being in the presence of alcoholic drink does not mean that one has to indulge in it oneself. Couching his comment in terms of ‘discouraging Muslims’ just ends up looking like a demand for exceptionalism of the type we are familiar with hearing from a certain US president.

I judge people on the basis of their behaviour not their skin colour. If I feel uncomfortable that Councillor Rana is in a position to influence planning decisions and looks to be being groomed to handle the Finance Portfolio it is because he violated the basic principle of our democratic system, ‘one person, one vote’. If he fails to make further progress in the Labour party he should look to that as the cause not institutionalised discrimination. 

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Rochdale Housing: Covid 19 & BAME Community

  Editorial Note:  NV was sent the e-mail below
from John Wilkins a friend of Zulfiqar Ali, who is
a former Rochdale Mayor.  We publish this without
comment, but we anticipate more information.  
Mr. Zulfiqar Ali writes:

Hi,

I am writing this email in concern to the high numbers of deaths within the black and minority ethnic community (BAME) due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Amongst the numerous factors that may have contributed to the high number of deaths within this group.  One main factor that has been highlighted is overcrowding and poor housing situations. 

The government is uncertain on how to address these issues and improve the well being of the BAME community.  If these issues are not addressed in the near future it will have severe consequences for the communities. 

15 years ago, in the Manchester Metropolitan Borough the local council was given a golden opportunity to address the issue of poor housing and overcrowding within one of its wards that was identified as being one of the most deprived areas in Rochdale. 

The local council was given the European Regeneration SRBS funding to invest in community housing to resolve overcrowding and poor housing. 

Old housing and mill sites were allocated following numerous planning and consultations, it was proposed that affordable low cost right to buy homes would be built. 

Families in the community desired to live in the same community due to easily accessible amenities/ facilities i.e. school, healthcare and places of worship. 

Allocated sites included Nile Street, Edward Road and Gower Street. 

The local community was eagerly awaiting these developments.  In 2012 the proposal for the development was finalized.  But then the development project was given to ‘countryside housing’ who built the houses ‘to let’ for those in employment which was a major disappointment for the locals.

This would have been a good opportunity to tackle the issues of poor housing and over crowding by offering and affordable right to buy scheme rather than ‘to let’. This would have tackled the issue of over crowding and poor housing which is a main factor of transmission of disease during the pandemic. 

The WHO (World Health Organisation) identifies inadequate housing and overcrowding as one of the major factors in transmission of the disease. 

The local community is wanting answers to the issues raised in this email.

Regards,

Zulfiqar Ali

Former Mayor of Rochdale

What’s An Essential Worker?

by Les May

IN the late 1940s and early 50s my dad worked for Rochdale Cleansing Department.  At different times he had three jobs; he worked ‘on the tubs’, which meant he went round the outlying districts collecting half barrel sized containers for disposal at the sewage works of what is euphemistically called ‘night soil’, he was also a road sweeper and a dustman.

Our house was filled with books which had been discarded along with the ash from coal fires, I had a rocking horse from the same sources and a large ‘tin bath’ also came his way and hung from a large nail on the backyard wall.

The clamour for diversity does not seem to stretch to waste disposal, at least in Rochdale. It’s a job which seems to be more of less exclusively the preserve of white men, and I’ve yet to hear a media feminist making a song and dance about it.  Selective outrage is the order of the day.

I was reminded of my dad when I heard the advice that anyone who could, should ‘work from home’.  We’d soon notice if our bins were not collected for three months, but who thinks of referring to ‘dustmen’ as essential workers?

We hear the news that the government is at last beginning to meet the desperate need for doctors and nurses to have the best possible personal protective equipment.  We are told to wash our hands frequently, to avoid buses, meeting friends and to keep at least two metres apart if we leave the house.

What we don’t hear is how people like dustmen are going to do any of these things. They will spend part of the day in a crowded cab travelling to the start of their round.  They’ll handle dozens of bins not knowing whether the person who put them out is suffering from Covid19, not yet showing symptoms, but infected and shedding virus particles or fit as a butcher’s dog, and each evening they will go home to their family.

At the very least they should be provided with adequate amounts of hand gel, a plentiful supply of wet wipes and anything else which might help to prevent them becoming infected with the virus causing Covid19.

There is one thing we can all do to reduce the risk of infection being passed to them. We can sterilise the handles of our bins after we put them out.  Wiping them over with a solution of one part bleach and twenty parts water (0.25% bleach) and allowing this to remain on the handles as long as possible will go a long way to doing this.

Just because you have no symptoms of Covid19 now does not mean that you are not incubating the disease.  You’ll miss your dustman if he does not call next week because he is ill. 

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Cyril Smith and Faisal Rana

by Les May

NOT two names you would ever expect to see together, but as I was reminded when I read the somewhat garbled story by Jennifer Williams in the Saturday edition of the Rochdale Observer, there are some remarkable similarities.

Let’s forget the speculation and recap what we actually know. Smith indecently assaulted young men at the Cambridge House hostel in the 1960s.  Had he not been guilty of this he would have sued Rochdale Alternative Paper (RAP) for the article in the May 1979 edition.  Rana voted twice in the May 2018 local government election. When found out he admitted it. Two guilty men; two sets of blind eyes being turned.

What are the similarities?   For a start neither of these men ever stood in the dock and answered for their crimes, though the reasons for this appear very different. Another similarity is the way that people who could, and should, have taken non-judicial actions against these two guilty men have excused their reasons for not doing so.

David Steel who was told of these accusations against Smith by the RAP editors, David Bartlett and John Walker, has excused his inaction by saying;

‘These allegations all related to a period some years before he was even an MP and before he was even a member of the party, therefore it did not seem to me that I had any position in the matter at all. He accepted that the story was correct. Obviously I disapproved, but as far as I was concerned it was past history.’

How remarkably similar this is to the response I received when I raised the matter of Rana voting twice with the RMBC monitoring officer.  I was told that Rana’s criminal behaviour had taken place before he became a Councillor, hence no action could be taken.  Just as party leader Steel was able to avoid taking any action against Smith, these seems to have been enough to have allowed party leader Alan Brett to avoid taking action against Rana.

In fact the excuse from the monitoring officer was nonsense.  Rana’s crime was committed on polling day 3 May 2018 and his term of office runs from that day until the day before the next poll is held.  I feel justified in using the term ‘excuse’ here because when I later asked for clarification about Rana’s failure to declare his interests within the stipulated time period the officer who dealt with this during an extensive correspondence squirmed and did everything possible to avoid having to admit that Rana had failed to comply with the rules.

So why did neither of these men appear in the dock?  We know that in the case of Smith the police pursued a rigorous investigation, that the file was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and that no action was taken against Smith.  No evidence has yet been produced that this was a ‘cover up’ and the most likely explanation is that even though a number of young men has made similar accusations against Smith as the law stood at the time this could not be taken as corroboration that he committed the crimes he was accused of.  This seems absurd to us now and the law has since been changed.

In the case of Rana things are much less clear. We don’t know whether the decision to allow him off the hook with only a caution was taken by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) without referring the matter to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) or whether it was a decision made by the CPS.   If the decision was made by GMP alone then it seems to me to be a significant error of judgement on someone’s part.

Voter fraud strikes at the heart of our democracy and whether it be GMP, the CPA, a council officer or a party leader no one should do anything which appears to excuse or condone it.  Smith is dead, Steel is yesterday’s man and Rana is still a councillor. Which do you think we should be most concerned about?

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2019/03/what-rap-said-about-smith-in-1979.html

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Humbug from a Guardian Columnist

by Les May

TWO days ago The Guardian columnist Yomi Adegoke wrote:

‘The silence surrounding the Duchess of Sussex’s treatment by the press has become a roar. This treatment can be described as only one thing: racist.  Not saying so explicitly is part of a growing trend – the word “racist” is now dodged with more fervour than racial slurs themselves.’

You can find the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/30/the-treatment-of-meghan-is-racist-we-should-feel-able-to-say-so

Now this was published in a newspaper which did not even bother to mention that a Rochdale man who felt he had been ‘disrespected’ in his ‘country’ by workmen, first called them ‘white bastards’ then got together a gang of about twenty, who first tracked the men to where they were working, then attacked them resulting in one of them having his hand chopped off with an axe. But it raises the question about whether the Rochdale Observer and all the people who are remaining studiously silent, so dodging having to mention the words ‘racist’ and ‘hate crime’, are themselves behaving in a racist manner. Or do four workmen count for less than a Duchess?

When someone who might reasonably be seen as something of a ‘community leader’ was approached with a view to obtaining some background information on the gang, the response was in effect ‘are you blaming all Pakistanis?’ To which the answer is ‘No! But it might be nice if you were to give some sort of lead in condemning this sort of behaviour.’ And while he’s about it he might like to use his influence to get this attack debated and condemned at the next full meeting of Rochdale Council.

I’m not going to ‘call out’ the individual involved as I have no wish to pillory him for what is in my opinion an error of judgement, but he might like to reflect on the fact that at the next election he will be soliciting the votes from everyone in his ward irrespective of the colour of their skin and religious affiliation. Now might be a good time to show he serves them all.

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A TALE of TWO TOWNS In the NORTH WEST

ROCHDALE: Sleeping Lions Led by Hyenas & Foxes
by Brian Bamford

IN its current budget set for 2019/20 Bury Council declared that it aimed to regenerate and create thriving businesses, and communities as part of its £16 million funding boost.  In Bury, every township in the borough will receive investment under plans approved by the council when it set its budget for 2019/20 on 20 February 2019.  Including £2.7 million to promote business growth.

One of the main projects in the town's announced budget was the 'investment of £1.3 million into Bury Market, to ensure that the town's "jewel in the crown" continues to be a major attraction'; it has recently been voted the Nation's Favourite Market.

At the same time as Bury Council is backing  its famous market so Rochdale Council is effectively reported as condemning its own market to the knacker's yard.

On Monday the 14th, October Rochdale’s 768-year-old market is set to close after town hall bosses have claimed it to be ‘no longer financially viable’.

Recently I approached some of the market stall holders, who seemed utterly dejected as they anticipated the closure of the market a week next Monday.  . 

The Rochdale council claims that over the last year, the number of traders regularly attending the market had halved and it is no longer financially viable.  There have been four days over the past year, including two Saturdays, when no traders turned up, and on nine others only one trader was present.

While I was talking to some of the stall holders an officer employed by the Council turned up, and defended the Council's decision saying that it was costing the Council money to keep the market going.  He said that Bury Market was different because it had a significant tradition.

But when I countered that Rochdale Market, now in the Town Centre, was in a setting amid fantastic architecture overlooking the town's magnificent Rochdale Town Hall, he had to agree with me.

More troubling was that he couldn't reassure me as to what the Council planned to do with the former Santander building which was now serving as a small indoor market.

Some people are complaining of inclement weather & want to be protected from the weather.  Yet I was in Salzburg (Austria) in mid-February this year, and we ate fish from a plate at a table in an open square in the town centre.  How do they manage to brave the icy conditions there?  And note we were eating fish on a cold day - in an inland city - far away from the sea.  How I wonder do these people in mitteleuropa manage it when folk in Rochdale can't?

There is clearly something profoundly lacking in the imagination of the bosses of Rochdale MBC, and why is Bury so much better at promoting its market?

Clearly, Rochdale is a town in which sleeping lions are being led by hyenas like Cllr. Allen Brett, and property speculators like Cllr. 'Two Votes' Faisal Rana.

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