Posts

LBWF’s relationship with the local business sector: new revelations about the E11 BID Co.

November 13, 2015 E11 BID Co., Fawaad Sheikh, LBWF, Martin Esom

I have written before about LBWF’s relationships with the local business sector, and pointed out that our council appears to treat certain businesses and business organisations rather more favourably than might be expected. Money is handed out, and assets handed over, but there seems to be no great urgency about due process. It is all very relaxed, even informal, and contrasts strikingly with the way that, for example, LBWF commonly interacts with the local community and charity sector (as I can vouchsafe). Against this background, I have been looking again at the legal contracts that LBWF has signed with the E11 BID Co., specifically the Operating and Baseline agreements covering the first ... »

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Reforming local government (2) an agenda from Tower Hamlets

October 28, 2015 LBWF, Local government reform, Lutfur Rahman, the Labour Party in Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets

On the subject of local government reform, it is notable that another of our neighbours, Tower Hamlets, also has begun examining the status quo, in this case through the medium of a Transparency Commission, described in an August press release as follows: ‘The council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee has launched an Overview and Scrutiny Transparency Commission (OSTC) to identify actions the council should take to improve transparency, openness and accountability. The Commission began its work at the July 27 Overview and Scrutiny Committee (OSC) meeting. The OSC meetings in September, October and November will each have a specific focus, exploring particular aspects of transparency, o... »

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Reforming local government: (1) an agenda from Newham

October 23, 2015 LBWF, Local government reform, the Labour Party in Waltham Forest

In a recent post on his blog about the downsides of one-party administrations in local government, John Gray, councillor for West Ham ward in Newham, writes as follows: ‘Finally, I think just as important as electoral reform, local government needs structural and legislative reform. Such as making the role of scrutiny committees much more robust and truly independent of the Executive; beefing up Standard Boards; time limits on Council leaders; stopping backbench Councillors being refused information by Chief officers for no substantiated reasons; being open and transparent and stop restricting information to the public or press unless absolutely necessary; making officers’ hospitality ... »

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The LBWF Gang Prevention Programme: yet another missed opportunity

October 22, 2015 Cllr. Chris Robbins, Gang Prevention Programme, LBWF, Martin Esom, Youth at Risk

I have been meaning to write about Waltham Forest’s Gang Prevention Programme (GPP) for some time, and now seems as good a time as any. The GPP is coming towards the end of its fourth year, has cost several million pounds, and garnered significant national attention. Yet this summer the local newspaper reported a series of seemingly awful stabbings, shootings, and murders, often featuring young people either as victims of perpetrators, and a couple of weeks ago alleged that there had been a ‘riot’ in Walthamstow – a story that then went national. So it is apposite to ask: has the GPP made a difference, and if so, of what importance? First, a personal note. I was involved in the predecessors ... »

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LBWF in Private Eye, again, this time over Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers

October 14, 2015 Cllr. Keith Rayner, Cllr.Patrick Edwards, Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers, LBWF, the Labour Party in Waltham Forest, Waltham Forest Labour Party

To no-one’s real surprise, the current edition of Private Eye once again features LBWF, with a fairly long piece tracing the Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers’ fiasco (see below, from No.1403, 16 October to 29 October 2015), also covered in previous posts here.  This is further embarrassment for local councillor and Liberal turncoat Keith Rayner, who despite claiming to have lived in one of the Towers sometime in the hazy past, and being given to lachrymose descriptions of Tory-induced poverty, now parrots his new senior Labour colleagues’ line that the planned privatisation, and the resulting re-location of many existing tenants, whatever their wishes, must go ahead come hel... »

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