Posts

Learning the lessons of Grenfell…or maybe not: LBWF’s 2017-18 flat entrance door update programme at Northwood Tower, Goddarts House, and other sheltered housing blocks

November 12, 2020 fire hazards, fire safety

From November 2017 to April 2018, LBWF, via its repair and maintenance agent Osborne, employed a company called Exterior Plas Ltd. to upgrade 217 flat entrance doors (FEDs) at what it called five ‘key sites’ – Walthamstow’s 21 floor Northwood Tower, and four sheltered housing blocks, Boothby Court, Goddarts House, Holmcroft House, and Lime Court. The promise to residents was that in future they would be more secure from the danger of fire than ever before, since while the Building Regulations stipulated that FEDs be at least FD30 (i.e. providing 30 minutes protection), those being installed were FD60 (i.e. providing 60 minutes protection), and moreover, as Divisional Director, Housing ... »

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LBWF councillors right to withhold ‘sensitive’ information about themselves on the Register of Interests: use and possible abuse

October 23, 2020 Mark Hynes, register of interests

Though relatively rarely discussed, a clause in the current local government legislation allows councillors to withhold information on their register of interests forms so long as the monitoring officer agrees the information in question is ‘sensitive’, meaning, if made public, would lead to ‘violence or intimidation’ either directly or against ‘a person connected’. The reasoning here is fairly obvious. Councillors are a vital part of local democracy, and must be allowed to carry out their public duties free from fear. Moreover, if abusive behaviour is allowed to flourish, it may well deter members of the public from seeking office in the future, and thus pose a significant threat to the con... »

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LBWF’s Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Team investigates Town Hall procurement of goods and services, and finds disturbing ‘non-compliance with existing Rules’

October 12, 2020 LBWF finance, LBWF spin

In late 2019, LBWF’s Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Team (hereafter IAAFT) completed a report on Town Hall procurement, and surprisingly, given the fact that each year this involves many millions of pounds’ worth of goods and services, concluded that it was only deserving of ‘limited assurance’, with two of the five component findings about risk rated ‘high’ (‘Key targets missed, some services compromised…Service budgets exceeded…Significant breach in laws and regulations resulting in significant…consequences’). The IAAFT investigation was based upon a forensic examination of five procurement contracts, three of which were found to be seriously flawed. At the time, LBWF’s Procurement St... »

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Cllr. Clyde Loakes makes Private Eye

October 7, 2020 Cllr. Clyde Loakes

From Private Eye No.1532, 9-22 October 2020. Cllr. Loakes, of course, is no stranger to these kind of controversies, see, for example, the story retold in the links. It is also arresting that someone who bangs on about the importance of curtailing motor traffic in Waltham Forest in order to promote clean air is, at one at the same time, keen on building a large incinerator in Edmonton, with the borough’s western flank a short distance downwind. »

London Borough of Waltham Forest: the local authority that can’t even finalise its annual accounts (3)

October 1, 2020 LBWF finance

The saga of LBWF’s failure to complete its 2018-19 accounts – originally due, as for all other local authorities, on the last day of July 2019 – continues, and indeed seems to have no very clear end in sight. What’s gone wrong? Recent papers to the LBWF Audit and Governance Committee provide some elucidation. Initially, it appears, LBWF could legitimately claim that it was being thwarted by external circumstances, and long before those caused by COVID-19. First, following statutory guidance, LBWF recently had changed auditors, with the incumbent, EY (Ernst & Young), adopting a somewhat different approach to its predecessor, KPMG. Second, official deadlines had been tightened, so there wa... »

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