By Ketan Sheth

Brent represents an exemplar of the incessant and thrilling renewal of London with the diverse and welcoming environment, which makes the borough an exciting place to live and, for children, a stimulating place to grow up. However, Brent is also disproportionally affected by some of the key public health concerns for our youngest residents. No London borough has higher childhood overweight and obesity rates, currently at 44% for children in Year 6. Just one out of five children meet the recommended minimum of one hour of daily moderate to vigorous physical activity.

Urgent action to address this issue is required and that’s why I have set up a task group bringing together a whole raft of stakeholders to see how we can work together to tackle this urgent crisis in our community. A multidisciplinary childhood obesity task group includes experts and professionals from the Brent Council, Public Health, NHS, education and charity sectors as well as parent representatives – all committed to reducing the share of children with excess weight.

Through multiple evidence sessions, the current approach to childhood obesity in Brent is scrutinised and novel ways of tackling the problem designed. Bringing together such a wide range of experts is refreshing. There is an unequivocal acknowledgement that, for all too long, the various stakeholders have worked in isolation, where a comprehensive, holistic approach is required. Indeed, tackling childhood overweight and obesity is a joint responsibility.

However, the intended beneficiaries themselves are rarely directly involved in policymaking for their health and wellbeing. Hence, Lander Bosch, PhD student in health geography from the University of Cambridge, embarked upon the challenge to identify barriers to, and facilitators of, children’s physical activity in Brent’s built environment as part of his doctoral study. Rather than looking at the borough from an adult perspective, Brent children were able to have their say in the study. He joined a diverse group of 35 primary schoolchildren and their parents or carers, living in all parts of the borough, on their commute to or from school – traversing 60 miles across Brent. Along the way, elements of the environment the children liked or disliked were discussed and many creative interventions that could improve the neighbourhood for them were suggested. These included, for instance, a mobile reporting system for antisocial behaviour and ways to calm traffic around schools.

Having the opportunity to get to know Brent through the eyes of an engaged and welcoming group of primary schoolchildren is extraordinary, and results in strong advocacy for these young people. The insights from Lander’s research are fed directly into the discussions of the childhood obesity task group, to ensure the voices of Brent’s children are strongly represented in the novel policy framework aiming to increase levels of physical activity, while reducing childhood overweight and obesity.

The borough most certainly offers great possibilities for real measures that can improve the health of its youngest residents, and all stakeholders fully support their implementation.

Cllr Ketan Sheth is  Chair of Brent Council’s Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee.

All views in this blog are those of the author and not INLOGOV or the University of Birmingham.

By Bryony Rudkin

I’m in the middle of my fieldwork. For some of my fellow students this means travel far and wide, inoculations and visas. For me, it’s sitting at home with a mug of coffee watching webcast council meetings and the greatest danger is missing couriers delivering parcels to my sons. Don’t get me wrong. My curiosity is immense and I am deeply immersed in a series of meetings in two different authorities, my ‘new box sets’ as I call them. One debate brought sentimental tears to my eyes, another had me cringing with embarrassment. Not sure the ethics process quite prepared me for this, but I’m pressing on regardless.

One aspect of this endeavour which I hadn’t considered in detail before has become more of an obsession though. Who else is watching with me and where are they? As I sit here in my spare room in Ipswich, what do those councils make of my repeat viewings of their business? Who is recording my engagement with the process, my location, the time of day (or night) at which I log on? Is this information reported to anyone? Communications officers, councillors, anyone? Wanting answers, I took to the most authoritative source I knew and asked my local government friends on Facebook. Their responses were mixed – some had no idea, some said data was collected but they didn’t think it was reported. One colleague told me to look out for a report to his council in December and another told me 2000 people had watched one particularly fractious Planning Committee meeting. Another friend, not from the sector but with an interest in data, helpfully pointed me to a chapter in his book on the subject.

Useful as these anecdotes were, I needed more, so went looking to see what formal evidence there was on who watches webcasts and where. My first ‘find’ was a church in Tennessee which broadcast a weekend of services and had figures on who had logged on to their website but seemed to want a donation before it would give full detail. My husband told me their algorithms had already captured too much about me from my one visit, so I moved on quickly and struck a small, but rich seam of evidence from Wales. In 2013 the Welsh government had made £1.25m available to local councils for the installation of broadcasting equipment with the aim of improving local democracy and so, according to the then minister responsible, “…members of the public should be able to see how decisions affecting their everyday lives are taken.”

Fast forward a few years and those councils started reporting back on the outcomes. I found several papers submitted to formal meetings of Welsh local authorities and some valuable insights, not least from Torfaen where it was observed that “Webcasting allows people to view meetings at any time of the day or night and wherever they are, whether that be in Pontypool, Cwmbran, Blaenavon or anywhere in the world”. Being conscious of their reach could be significant to a council wanting to know if the cost of the broadcast equipment and platforms on which to publish it was worth it. Not really worth it to the council tax payer to be broadcasting planning applications in Pontypool to Seattle perhaps, but the same paper also observed its own officers were also logging on to watch meetings, with several people watching on the same devices on occasion.

I found reports back to English councils too. The Wirral, for instance, reported in June of this year that there had been some 8753 viewings of its 67 webcast meetings (live and recorded) in 2018/19 and also acknowledged the value of broadcasting meetings with significant public attendance where overspill rooms had to be set up to accommodate all those wanting to see decision making taking place.

My research looks directly at the way councillors behave in meetings, what happens when they make decisions and if knowing they are being recorded doing this makes a difference. Webcasting has made this research easier to carry out, but my interest is now piqued as to who is watching alongside me and I have more contacts to speak to and data to find. If you need me, I’ll be in the spare room watching a screen….

Bryony Rudkin is a PhD student at INLOGOV, Deputy Leader of Ipswich Borough Council and Portfolio Holder for Culture and Leisure. Bryony also works with councils around the country on behalf of the Local Government Association on sector-led improvement, carrying out peer reviews and delivering training and mentoring support.

All views in this blog are those of the author and not INLOGOV or the University of Birmingham.