Posts

LBWF’s commitment to being transparent again in question as campaigner finds c.£500,000 unaccounted for in audit documents signed off by the council’s senior leadership

February 5, 2026 Cllr. Grace Williams, Freedom of Information Act, LBWF spin, Linzi Roberts-Egan, Local Government Transparency Code, Ombudsman 0

In recent years LBWF has repeatedly failed to uphold its responsibility to be open and transparent, even where this is required by the law. A few examples are illustrative (for further details see the links below). In 2020, the Information Commissioner’s Office took the almost unprecedented step of issuing LBWF with a Practice Recommendation because of its widespread non-compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. Four years later, LBWF was revealed to have blatantly ignored the mandatory requirements of the 2015 Local Government Transparency Code, legislation that was specifically designed, as accompanying blurb explained, ‘to place more power into citizens’ hands to increase democratic... »

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LBWF gets peer reviewed…but are the results credible?

January 29, 2026 Linzi Roberts-Egan 0

In 2024, LBWF volunteered itself for a Local Government Association (LGA) Corporate Peer Challenge (CPC), that is an audit by a team of ‘senior local government councillors and officers’ from outside the borough. How did this work out? It’s worth noting to start with that opinions about CPCs differ. For the LGA, a CPC is ‘a highly valued improvement and assurance tool that is delivered by the sector for the sector’. Several senior LBWF councillors clearly agree, with Clyde Loakes, Marie Pye, and Grace Williams, amongst others, having been involved in CPC teams. However, elsewhere, there are qualms.  The idea itself may not be a bad one, it is conceded, as outsiders sometimes see flaws a... »

LBWF’s new back office Oracle Fusion networking platform: management miracle or cash drain?

January 20, 2026 Cllr. Grace Williams, Cllr. Paul Douglas, LBWF spin, Linzi Roberts-Egan 0

In December 2021 LBWF decided to modernise its back office by installing a cloud based networking platform made by the leading American company Oracle (‘Big Red’). Subsequently, this innovation has been described as a management triumph, responsible for integrating ways of working across the Town Hall. However, as is often the case with LBWF, careful research reveals a more complicated picture, with successes, true, but also problems, the latter now requiring repeated amounts of additional cash. The story begins in 2003, the year that LBWF purchased a networking platform made by the German company SAP. This linked together the finance, procurement, human resources and business support depart... »

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The Iranian government’s brutal repression, and the tremors being felt (or not) in Waltham Forest

January 14, 2026 Cllr. Grace Williams, faith groups, Stella Creasy MP 0

In October 2024, I posted on the close relationship between Waltham Forest’s Great and Good and the local Faizan e Islam Educational and Cultural Trust (see link below). I noted that only a brief scrutiny of social media revealed that Walthamstow MP Dr. Stella Creasy, LBWF Leader Cllr. Grace Williams, and Leyton and Wanstead MP Calvin ‘I carried a knife when I was young’ Bailey had all visited Faizan, the first and second on multiple occasions; as had assorted Waltham Forest councillors, both Labour and Conservative; and as had the leadership of the borough’s police force (four times in 2022 alone). I also noted that LBWF had included Faizan in its various ‘community programmes’, awardi... »

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Auditors KPMG slam LBWF’s failure to achieve value for money and realise ‘targeted savings’

January 7, 2026 LBWF finance, Linzi Roberts-Egan 0

KPMG is currently working on LBWF’s accounts for the year to 31 March 2025, and in that connection recently issued an interim report. Much of this is uncontroversial, but there is one set of findings that stand out like a sore thumb: ‘At this stage of our work, we have identified significant risk of weakness in the financial sustainability arrangement put in place for Council to achieve Value for money [sic]. We have noted that the Council is facing significant pressures due to increases in cost of living, lack of funding and pressures on the SEND budget resulting in significant cost overruns. The Council has experienced significant overspends in the year and have failed to achieved the targ... »

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