Posts

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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LBWF claims penury, but compared to 2020-21 it now employs 9 per cent more staff, and pays out 36 per cent more in wages

November 26, 2025 Redundancies, Senior Staff Pay 0

Both the current LBWF Leader, Cllr. Grace Williams, and her predecessor, Cllr. Clare Coghill, repeatedly have warned that LBWF is under financial pressure, and argued that this necessitates ‘savings’ and service cuts. Their particular focus frequently has been on annual deficits, which are said to have accelerated from Covid times to anywhere between £20m. and £30m. today (the exact sum changes with the weather). Just last week, Cllr. Williams upped the ante further when she told the Waltham Forest Echo that LBWF now was being forced to dip into its reserves, and if this went on, might need a government bailout within 18 months. In the light of such scary rhetoric, it comes as something... »

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