Posts

LBWF’s recent voluntary redundancy programme: grass roots staff culled, even as ‘senior managers’ mushroom in number

May 9, 2025 Redundancies 0

In November 2023, LBWF introduced a voluntary redundancy programme, which, it claimed, was necessary to help bridge an overall funding gap forecast to reach £26.7m. in the next few years.  Subsequently, little if anything more has been said about this in public, but a recent Freedom of Information response reveals some of the details. Altogether, 92 staff have accepted the terms offered to them, and left the council’s employment.  The net savings achieved (that is saving taking into account costs such as the redundancy packages, admin, etc.) are ‘anticipated’ to be £4.2m down to 2025-26. Three observations are relevant. First, though LBWF has imposed redundancies before, the latest... »

Waltham Forest Town Hall fat cats block information about… Waltham Forest Town Hall fat cats

April 22, 2025 Senior Staff Pay 0

Every March LBWF has a legal obligation under the Local Government Transparency Code (LGTC) 2015 and various other statutes to publish a Pay Policy Statement. Amongst other things, this must include: (a) a list of senior staff whose salary is £50,000 and upwards, with details of exactly what they earn; their job title; their responsibilities; and their bonuses and ‘benefits-in-kind’; and  (b) for senior staff whose salaries are £150,000 or more, their names. In past years, LBWF has by and large complied, appending the required information in a comprehensive appendix to the main document. But in this year’s appendix, all that LBWF has published is the pay details of the very top ear... »

More on the Whitefield School child abuse scandal: two inquiries raise plenty of questions, but provide far fewer answers

April 15, 2025 child safeguarding, Whitefield 0

The Whitefield School scandal is without doubt the most shocking of any in Waltham Forest’s post-war history, involving as it does historic allegations that staff had subjected tens of children with learning difficulties and severe mental disorders to violent abuse (see links below). Thanks to three detailed reports by Noel Titheradge for the BBC, the first on 14 October 2021, the second two on 30 April and then 26 November 2024, much has become known about the sequence and character of the story. But, regrettably, there also are still gaps, instances where the truth is unclear, and this post looks at two examples.  The first concerns the inquiry by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS)... »

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Private Eye reports LBWF’s failure to properly monitor the corporate credit cards issued to its senior managers

April 3, 2025 LBWF spin, Local Government Transparency Code, Mark Hynes 0

From Private Eye No.1646 4-17 April 2025 »

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LBWF, lobbyists, and ‘partner’ companies: greasing the wheels of commerce or corporate capture?

March 17, 2025 Mini Holland, Redevelopment 0

For the past fifteen years or so, LBWF has worked with a variety of private developers and infrastructure engineers to radically reshape the borough’s built environment. The formal relationships between these different parties of course are recorded in council minutes, contracts, press releases, and similar. But there has been plenty going on behind the scenes as well, and to shed some light on these less overt interactions, the following looks at two brief case-studies. The first is about lobbying, and its starting point is a short Linkedin comment that was posted by one Peter Bingle: Why is this noteworthy? Well, Peter Bingle is a director of the Terrapin Group, and one of the latter’s con... »

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