Posts

LBWF and the East London Credit Union: yet more disturbing details emerge

April 20, 2020 Cllr. Chris Robbins, East London Credit Union

This blog’s investigation into the 2019 collapse of LBWF favourite the East London Credit Union (ELCU) continues to generate revelations, and what follows is a brief roundup of the most noteworthy, grouped under four headings. LBWF’s initial decision to give ELCU £500,000 in 2014 At the Council Meeting of 16 October 2014, and with standing orders suspended, the Leader, Cllr. Chris Robbins, made a verbal ‘Autumn Statement’ which, ‘[f]ollowing a consultation with residents about the Council’s budgets and priorities’, listed ‘his five priorities for the coming months’, and included: ‘The Council would [sic] inject £500,000 into a Credit Union facility. This will provide residents with a s... »

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LBWF, Mini-Holland, and air quality: the King’s College Environmental Research Group report and its frailties

April 9, 2020 LBWF spin, Mini-Holland

Acknowledgement: I am very grateful to Steve Lowe for drawing my attention to the subject of this post, providing important source material, and making helpful suggestions right the way though the drafting process. In the early summer of 2018, LBWF commissioned the much respected Environmental Research Group based at King’s College London [hereafter KCERG] to ‘model a range of interventions around air quality, exposure and attitudes, and its [sic] impact on the Public in Waltham Forest’. The background was well known. LBWF had been implementing a £27m. scheme, dubbed ‘Mini-Holland’, which prioritised cyclists and pedestrians over motor vehicles, and thus, it was hoped, secured long-term and ... »

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London Borough of Waltham Forest: the local authority that can’t even finalise its annual accounts (2)

April 7, 2020 LBWF finance, LBWF spin

Mystery continues about the fate of LBWF’s 2018-19 externally audited annual accounts. As a previous post outlined, these were due on 31 July 2019, so that they could be signed off by the Audit and Governance Committee, but the auditor, Ernst and Young LLP, was tardy in starting work; then became entangled in ‘historical audit issues‘, possibly dating to as far back as 2007; and in the end was forced to move the completion date forward to September, with the delay and extra work estimated to cost an extra £140,000. However, when the Audit and Governance Committee met on 26 September 2019, there was still no progress, and so it was agreed that ‘a special meeting of the Committee be arranged t... »

LBWF’s press, communications, and PR operation: less about providing information, more about ‘controlling the narrative’

March 6, 2020 LBWF spin

It is a staple of LBWF public utterances that ‘Communicating with our residents is important to us and we strive to ensure our residents are kept informed’. Indeed, in recent year, LBWF has underlined that it sees communication not just as a matter of informing, but also of transforming, a way of turning out ‘active citizens’, co-partners in the development of the borough. Thus, for instance, a recent council document promises: ‘We will commit to ensuring residents are more engaged and involved in the decision making of the Council, recognising that they are often better placed to decide how services are shaped or deliver them directly themselves’. Given this context, it is unsurprising to f... »

Cllr. Keith Rayner at it again UPDATED

February 28, 2020 Cllr. Keith Rayner

Cllr. Emma Best has posted on Twitter a piece of film recording an exchange with the puffed up Cllr. Keith Rayner at last night’s Council meeting. In it he refers to her as ‘dear’, to the amusement of his Labour colleagues: The full clip can be viewed here: https://twitter.com/emmabest22/status/1233142633947639808  Cllr. Rayner, it will be remembered, in recent years has had considerable difficulty settling his council tax bill, being issued with two notices for late payment in 2015-16; a further reminder for payment in 2016-17; and shortly afterwards, a summons (which subsequently was mysteriously withdrawn). It might be imagined that, having blotted his copybook so compre... »

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