The Thorncliffe team

It can’t have escaped your notice, with stories about Facebook and data breaches at myfitnesspal, that personal data is high on the agenda at the moment.  You will also probably know that citizen control of their own personal data is being enhanced by the new GDPR regulations coming into force in May this year.

Thorncliffe | Your Shout holds many thousands of pieces of personal data in the course of its work for clients – consulting with stakeholders and the community, and identifying people who can support their planning applications.

So we thought it would be reassuring for you to know that we are very active in ensuring that we hold this personal data lawfully and responsibly, and that we dispose of it in a timely fashion when that lawful use is over.

In our work, the first thing we recognise is that this personal data, be it their name, address, phone or email address belongs to the person who gave it to us, and it is only on loan for as long as the person who has given us this information has consented to give it to us.  So, for instance, if we are collecting the information during the course of a consultation of a planning application, we are only lawfully allowed to hold it whilst that planning application is ongoing, or whilst we are still working on that application.  So we take steps to delete the data soon after.

The second thing we recognise is that we must have the explicit consent of that individual who has loaned their data to us.  So our feedback cards, sign in sheets, websites and our supporter letters have new prominent messages on them to make people know that we will only use their data for an explicit purpose, and dispose of it thereafter.  That means that they know that by giving us their personal details, they are consenting for us to process their data. And we record how we gathered this consent.

It’s vital to be transparent.  The people we consult and who deal with us will trust us as long as we prove to be trustworthy.  So telling them how they can withdraw their consent for us to use their personal data is also necessary, as well as their right to complain at any time about our handling of their data.

We’ve updated our digital infrastructure to secure all systems where we hold and process personal data.  Our client websites (and our own) are all secure (SSL compliant) where we collect data, and we have taken other steps to ensure data is secure.

And finally, its no good to do all this unless we make it best practice within our company and train our staff.  So we are holding one of our in-house Delivering Quality Service sessions for all colleagues so that they know what the changes are, how to behave and how to treat personal data properly. The question our colleagues need to answer is “do your clients need that personal data and have you secured proper consent to hold it for that purpose”.

GDPR is a good example of where Thorncliffe | Your Shout acts proactively and responsibly to ensure we are compliant, undertaking best practice, and doing the right thing for both our clients and for the individuals we consult.

• There are two towns in the UK that used to be cities, but are no longer.  What are their names?
• Who are the longest serving Labour and Conservative council leaders in London?
• Which TV series did the character Freddie Patterson appear as a councillor?
• How did the European Parliament take over from the Conservative Party, and how is that related to the LGA and the Labour Party?
• In which council did the leader have to resign after persuading his own council officers to change the route of a bypass to make his own land more valuable?

These, and other intriguing questions face you if you choose to take the challenge of the Thorncliffe Spring Quiz.

All entries that are 100% correct will receive a Certificate of Moral Worthiness, and you will be able to bask in the knowledge that you are more intelligent than the person who sits next to you in your office.

One lucky winner, who will be drawn out of a hat, will also receive a bottle of champagne.

Good luck!

I’m sorry, the quiz is now closed.  Answers here.

Sometimes the most important elections are the ones that most people can’t vote in.

Over the next few weeks, anyone with an interest in politics will be looking at the local elections coming on May 3rd. Yet for many politicians, the results of these elections are in little doubt, with either safe seats or no hope. It’s elections that have already happened, and elections that will happen later in May, that are the really challenging ones. Behind closed doors, with an electorate numbering around 40 or 50 that can make decisions that can change lives – and the outcome of planning applications.

We can start by looking at the selection process for candidates.

Last week Rokhsana Fiaz won the internal Labour Party process in Newham to decide who will be the party’s candidate for the post of mayor of Newham, beating the incumbent Mayor, Sir Robin Wales. One unofficial, but reliable source has claimed that she won by 861 votes to Sir Robin’s 503, so the votes of 861 Labour members have all but secured the mayoralty for Fiaz.

By the way, Fiaz won support from all areas of the party – ignore the #fakenews that this was a Momentum takeover.

There’s another example of this happening at London regional level, and relates to Sadiq Khan. Later this year, possibly in July, party members will decide whether they are happy to have Sadiq Khan on the ballot paper for Labour in the London mayoral elections in 2020 or if they want Sadiq to go through a selection process alongside other candidates. It’s called the Trigger Ballot. And it is because of this process that you can expect to see Mayor Khan try to keep the Left onside over the coming weeks and months, just as we saw him standing next to Jeremy Corbyn to talk about ballots for estate regeneration projects that would need grant funding.

After the elections on May 3rd, even smaller electorates will gather to make big decisions – the elections that will be held amongst those elected to decide who leads councils, who sits on committees and who is expelled to the outer darkness of total back bench anonymity.

Consider, for example, one outer London council we know well. The council leader has been in post for a while, has done what most people would say has been a good job in difficult circumstances. His election in his ward on May 3rd is pretty much a formality. But he wants to be leader. That’s why he has spent pretty much every Friday evening since New Year either on the phone to or meeting with other councillors and candidates within his party. Because whilst most of us are relaxing on the Bank Holiday Monday that follows the election, he and the other successful councillors will be deciding who runs things for the next four years.

Competency comes into it, of course. As does friendship, favours bestowed in the past or promised in the future and a whole panoply of other considerations, many of which have less than nothing to do with politics. Indeed, considerations on whether potential leaders stand to the left or the right are secondary considerations.

So, if you’re wondering why councillors are behaving odd, or why your scheme is getting the cold shoulder from Mayor Khan at the moment, this could be one of the reasons.  Perhaps you need to speak to us?

We are hiring more staff to cope with the pressure of new clients and new projects. We will be particularly keen to hear from you if you are a Labour party activist, with good links to local government in London.

Find out more about the job opportunity on our careers page.

Housing is now the number one domestic priority for the government – yes, the government does have priorities other than Brexit.

And by the time you’ve read this, the PM may have got to her feet to make her second major speech in just a few days, about how she will change housing planning policy.

The Conservatives know that housing is the key to them holding on to power again in 2022.  Before the ‘strong and stable’ election last year, the parliamentary party perhaps thought it was invincible, but they now see the metrics going against them that could push what they see as normally sane people into voting for policies that are radical, dangerous and Corbynistic.

Rent controls? Sequestering empty homes?  Pushing affordable housing targets so high that schemes are undeliverable?  Is this the dystopian future the government should have been talking about?

Perhaps this is not surprising.  The Conservatives see the elections in May going against them and they know that, if they fail to deliver, it could mean people in their thirties and forties giving up on capitalism, in the knowledge that securing a decent place to own or even rent could be beyond them.  When it takes about half of someone’s disposable income in London and parts of the south east to secure a place to live, this is a far greater crisis than perhaps even securing a favourable outcome to the talks in Brussels.

Interestingly, this housing crisis does not translate across the pond to France, Germany, Spain or Italy.  The housing crisis is in Britain, so it must follow that there is something wrong that the government must fix in this country.

The PM and Sajid Javid, along with his colleagues at the new Ministry, are now on a personal crusade to attempt to fix this crisis.

• They knows it’s a supply side problem – tick.
• They knows that it’s about granting consent for, and allowing development on, land in the right places (not the north, but the south and particularly London and the Home Counties) – tick.
• They recognise that modern methods of construction is the future – tick.
• They know that the planning system is a major block to the system, and things like viability appraisals might need amending – tick.
• They believe the lack of diversity in the market is not helping us build – tick.
• They knows that NIMBYs, many within his own party, are part of the problem – tick.
• They know that councils have not been given the scrutiny that perhaps is urgently needed – tick.

The speech will announce five new towns in the corridor between Oxford and Cambridge.  It will crackdown on what they call NIMBY councils.  It will tell local authorities to sell-off land, and call for all public sector organisations to do the same.  It will give new PD powers to existing landowners.  It will announce a new policy on the green belt – prioritising those areas of this land which has already been built on.  It will prioritise a policy on homelessness, and allow more affordable homes to be built for key workers. And it could put a bar on developers who refuse to build on land on which they have consent for homes.

From Thorncliffe’s point of view, this crisis presents an opportunity to harness young people’s support to developments, in the form of YIMBYs, for developments that were previously in no-go areas.

For Sajid and the PM, they knows their mission.  Let’s see if this new NPPF and planning policy delivers.

Newham has suddenly gone from being one of the most predictable and stable boroughs in London, to extraordinarily unpredictable in the space of a few weeks.

Sir Robin Wales is the longest serving borough leader in London, having first become council leader in 1995 and then directly-elected Mayor in 2002. He assumed he would be reselected on the nod for 2018, but faced a strong challenge for an open reselection involving other candidates.  After a lengthy discussion, involving threatened legal action and the intervention of the London Labour party, Sir Robin has announced an open selection on 1 March, at which he will be a candidate.

Faced with opponents within his group who feel he has not promoted the right people (themselves), and by left-wing supporters of Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum who have successfully mobilised against the local leadership in Haringey, some thought Sir Robin would choose to step aside rather than face the indignity of deselection. That is not the Robin Wales way and he has set up a full campaign.

The challenge has come from Rokhsana Fiaz, a councillor in Custom House ward; two other potential candidates, John Whitworth and Kay Scoresby, withdrew and backed Fiaz.

The key policy battles are around urban regeneration and new council housing in the borough, but the politics and allegiances of local ethnic minority groups add an unpredictable factor.

Fiaz has made it known she would like to see more council housing built in the borough. She has tweeted consistently on this theme, stating her desire to ‘drive up social and genuinely affordable housing in Newham’, and it links with her approach on the Strategic Development Committee where she has been one of the most vocal proponents for mixed communities in Newham. It is this policy platform that is seeing her attract support from the left wing of the party, with the activist and commentator Owen Jones tweeting his support.

In response Sir Robin Wales has come out fighting, promising to build more council housing if he wins the election and highlighting his past achievements on housing: he led the council’s clampdown on criminal landlords and Newham’s recent developments are deliberately ineligible for right to buy.

Both candidates have given long interviews to Dave Hill for the OnLondon website: first Robin Wales then Rokhsana Fiaz. With both candidates stressing their housing credentials and promising to build more council houses, it is clear that whoever wins the Mayoralty Newham is likely to see a greater focus on building council housing and in Fiaz’s words, ‘genuinely affordable housing’.

The electorate is comprised of individual Labour party members in Newham who joined before October 2016. The candidate who best captures the prevailing mood amongst members on key issues such as council housing, urban regeneration, jobs and skills will win. Whoever wins the Labour selection is effectively guaranteed to win the Mayoral election in May. If Fiaz wins, it is possible she will keep personal responsibility for regeneration as she is a skilled member of the Strategic Development Committee. If she chooses to appoint a cabinet member, then it may be one of her allies on that committee, who are Julianne Marriott and Rachel Tripp.

May the best man, or woman, win.