Brent Green Party has condemned what they termed a ‘power grab’ by Muhammed Butt, leader of the Brent Council at its Annual General Meeting.
Spokesperon Martin Francis said,
‘ Practice at Brent Council has been that the position of vice chair of each of the two Scrutiny Committees is allocated to an opposition councillor. This helps ensure a degree of independence and accountability. However, in a surprise move Cllr Butt announced an amendment to the constitution enabling him to nominate the vice chairs and named two Labour councillors for the roles. The chairs are elected by the Labour Group.
The need for better scrutiny of Cabinet decisions in a largely one-party council was a feature of the local election campaigns of all three opposition parties and resonated sufficiently with the electorate to double the number of opposition councillors. Butt’s action undermines the result of the election and was criticised on Twitter by ex-chair of Public Realm and Resources Scrutiny Committee, Roxanne Mashari.
She said,
"Alarmed to hear of changes brought in at Brent Council to make vice chairs of scrutiny members of the majority party rather than opposition parties as has previously been the case. This change weakens democratic scrutiny with no tangible benefit to residents.”
Brent Greens call on the Labour Group to review and reverse the policy for the sake of local democracy and residents’ confidence in the system.’
