Posts

Burnham-ism: a warning from (Waltham Forest) history

July 23, 2026 Independent Panel, LBWF spin, The BNI, Uncategorized 0

Yes, definitely, let’s devolve power and money to the localities, because ‘communities know better than anyone else what’s right for them’. Power to the people! What could possibly go wrong? Well, if this story is to be believed, plenty. In the early 2000s, the government gave LBWF many millions of public money to help the most deprived neighbourhoods in the borough. Now read on. Postscript It’s important to add that the police did not act on my complaint, and accordingly it should be underlined that none of those mentioned in this article were found to have engaged in any kind of illegal activity. However, it turned out that this was the first shot in what was a long campaign, a campa... »

The Whitefield Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review: what it says, what it – very regrettably – overlooks, and why it fails

July 20, 2026 LCSPR, Whitefield 0

This post looks in some detail at the recently published Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review (LCSPR) regarding the historic child abuse at Whitefield School (or, to give it its formal title ‘Learning from the past: The use of restrictive practices, including seclusion, in a school for children with additional needs’). First, a couple of observations about how the LCSPR was set up and then actioned. There has been some confusion about timings, but the following is the current best guess. LBWF and partners decided to set up the LCSPR in August 2024; the then Leader, Cllr. Grace Williams, announced their decision publicly three months later; and the LCSPR was commissioned in April 2025. Th... »

,

The Review into historic child abuse at Whitefield is due out next week, but questions persist about which organisations kept vital evidence, and which didn’t

July 3, 2026 LCSPR, Whitefield 0

It is said that the Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review (LCSPR) into child abuse at Whitefield School during 2014-17 finally will be released next week, having taken an astonishing 16 months longer than the official guidance recommends. However, even at this eleventh hour, research is still revealing new concerns about the existence of evidence relating to the abuse, and the following looks at one significant example. Since the passing of the Children Act in 2004, all schools in Waltham Forest (as everywhere else) have been required to complete an annual safeguarding audit, referred to as a Section11 after the relevant paragraph in the legislation, and return it to the Town Hall. As LBW... »

,

Nine years after Grenfell, 64 of LBWF’s 65 low-rise and high-rise housing blocks are still not fire safe. How can this have been allowed to happen?

June 26, 2026 fire hazards, fire safety 0

In 2020, after it was involved in several fire safety scandals, including litigation with a supplier, LBWF began a remediation programme (RP) to bring its housing stock ‘up to the most modern…safety standard’, this being forecast to cost £40m.. Previous posts on this blog have looked at the RP, and shown that in the early days there was some degree of progress, but more recently this has slowed. Now, unpublished returns forwarded in April of this year by LBWF to the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) confirm the trend. The headline findings are that, as of April, 64 of LBWF’s 65 low-rise and high-rise blocks remained blighted by ‘life-critical fire-safety defects’; and in nearly a third of th... »

,

Journalist Andrew Kersley’s investigation of Waltham Forest resident Tracey Turnell’s tragic death causes a stir, but after at first feigning interest, the Greens quickly chicken out

June 9, 2026 Safeguarding 0

Journalist Andrew Kersley’s investigation of Waltham Forest resident Tracey Turnell’s tragic death, published on 30 May in The Londoner, has deservedly provoked much positive interest and comment (see below). But there is one grating note. After publication, the newly appointed Green Party cabinet member in charge of adult social care, Cllr. Martin Edobor, was in contact with Mr. Kersley and ‘said he was open to meeting to discuss what could be done’. To Mr. Kersley this seemed promising, as, after all, Labour previously had ignored both him, and others who had raised LBWF’s longstanding failures over safeguarding (see links). But unfortunately, when push came to shove, Cllr. Edobor chickene... »

Page 1 of 95123›»