Jack of all trades

After the resignation of Cllr Brian Haley from his cabinet post (and the Labour Party) a new Cabinet Member for the Environment was needed.

So, what have Labour decided to do? As reported by the Hornsey Journal, Cllr Haley’s responsibilities (which were huge) have been added to Cllr John Bevan’s to-do list, which already includes trying to run Haringey’s housing service.

While most residents will be rightly pleased at the idea of reducing the number of Labour councillors receiving a top-up allowance for various jobs (almost every member of the Labour group gets a top-up allowance for something or other), it does give Cllr Bevan an enormous workload.

Housing is hardly a minor issue for the borough and the environment brief covers lots of areas that are the only direct service many residents get from Haringey – rubbish collection, street cleaning, recycling, traffic, to name just a few.

It seems that Cllr Bevan is now in charge of a massive part of Haringey’s service provision, even if it is only for a few months. Can one person really give adequate time to addressing all these issues satisfactorily? Time will tell, I guess.