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Whitefield child abuse scandal latest: details of the new independent expert review revealed, and the key issues that remain unresolved

June 20, 2025 child safeguarding, Whitefield 0

On 27 November 2024, the day after the BBC reported the full awful details of the scale and severity of the child abuse at Whitefield School between 2014 and 2017, LBWF Leader Grace Williams announced that ‘safeguarding partners will commission an independent expert to carry out a Local Children Safeguarding Practice Review (LCSPR) to ensure the lessons of this distressing case are learned’. As this blog has pointed out, the parameters for a LCSPR are set out in law, but it is obviously of some importance to know exactly who has been appointed as the ‘independent expert’, and who is assisting them.  Curiously, LBWF has made no comment about this in public, nor has it been di... »

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‘How others see us’, an occasional series, No.1: Stella Creasy

June 19, 2025 Stella Creasy MP 0

Brutal, from columnist, critic and feature writer Sarah Ditum at Unherd: ‘It’s possible that there are other egos in parliament as big as Labour MP Stella Creasy’s. It’s unlikely, though, that anyone can match her combination of relentless self-promotion and extraordinary political incompetence. Few have achieved such blanket publicity for themselves while accomplishing so little, and this week, Creasy’s chosen arena of legislative failure was abortion reform’. (from Sarah Ditum, ‘Stella Creasy’s fight for relevance. Does she represent Walthamstow or Cosmo?’, Unherd, 19 June 2025) »

LBWF Cabinet member Cllr. Victoria Ashworth takes a new job in Greece…but reportedly wants to remain a councillor in Waltham Forest too (yes, you read that right) UPDATED

June 4, 2025 Cllr. Victoria te Velde, register of interests 0

In April 2025, Cabinet Member for Stronger Communities, Cllr. Victoria Ashworth (previously Vicky te Velde) announced on Linkedin that she had become Port Chaplin for the Mission to Seafarers, based in Piraeus, Greece. Shortly afterwards, it is said, she told her Labour Party colleagues that, despite her new job overseas, she intended to remain a councillor in Waltham Forest until her four-year term of office expires in May next year, and as of today, according to the LBWF website, that is what appears to be happening. It goes without saying that this is a surprising and very unusual path to be following (there are precedents elsewhere, but only a few) and unsurprisingly some have wondered w... »

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New research reveals that LBWF has long been involved in Whitefield School’s finances, and this again raises questions about who knew what, when, about the child abuse scandal.

May 21, 2025 child safeguarding, Whitefield 0

In recent discussions about the child abuse that occurred at Whitefield School between 2014 and 2017, the Labour leadership in the Town Hall has intimated, particularly in conversations with councillors, that LBWF has little or no culpability. Whitefield, it is underlined, has always been run by a trust, first the Whitefield Academy Trust and then, from 2023, its successor, the Flourish Learning Trust, and so LBWF has only possessed limited power to supervise or intervene. This seems plausible, but ignores one salient fact. For while it is true that throughout LBWF has needed to respect Whitefield’s independent status, its equally true that, as new research shows, over the years LBWF has pla... »

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

May 9, 2025 Redundancies

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... »

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