Nick Tiratsoo's Posts

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)

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 te... »

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 T... »

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

May 9, 2025 Redundancies 0

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 th... »

Waltham Forest Town Hall fat cats block information about… Waltham Forest Town Hall fat cats

April 22, 2025 Senior Staff Pay 0

Every March LBWF has a legal obligation under the Local Government Transparency Code (LGTC) 2015 and various other statutes to publish a Pay Policy Statement. Amongst other things, this must include: (a) a list of senior staff whose salary is £50,000 and upwards, with details of exactly what they earn; their job title; their responsibilities; and their bonuses and ‘benefits-in-kind’; and ... »

More on the Whitefield School child abuse scandal: two inquiries raise plenty of questions, but provide far fewer answers

April 15, 2025 child safeguarding, Whitefield 0

The Whitefield School scandal is without doubt the most shocking of any in Waltham Forest’s post-war history, involving as it does historic allegations that staff had subjected tens of children with learning difficulties and severe mental disorders to violent abuse (see links below). Thanks to three detailed reports by Noel Titheradge for the BBC, the first on 14 October 2021, the second two on 30... »

Private Eye reports LBWF’s failure to properly monitor the corporate credit cards issued to its senior managers

April 3, 2025 LBWF spin, Local Government Transparency Code, Mark Hynes 0

From Private Eye No.1646 4-17 April 2025 »

LBWF, lobbyists, and ‘partner’ companies: greasing the wheels of commerce or corporate capture?

March 17, 2025 Mini Holland, Redevelopment 0

For the past fifteen years or so, LBWF has worked with a variety of private developers and infrastructure engineers to radically reshape the borough’s built environment. The formal relationships between these different parties of course are recorded in council minutes, contracts, press releases, and similar. But there has been plenty going on behind the scenes as well, and to shed some light on th... »

LBWF has issued corporate credit cards to its senior managers, but broken the law for many years by failing to publish data tracking their use

February 27, 2025 LBWF spin, Local Government Transparency Code, Mark Hynes 0

For the past two decades or so, LBWF has issued its senior managers with corporate credit cards. And, since 2015, following the introduction of the Local Government Transparency Code (LGTC), LBWF also has been legally required to publish data on how these cards are being used. But with the exception of one year, 2016, the latter is something which LBWF has, without explanation, completely failed t... »

Private Eye covers the latest LBWF safeguarding scandal

February 19, 2025 Safeguarding 0

From Private Eye No.1643 21 February-6 March 2025. It’s good that PE highlights the witless response of Cllr. Mitchell. In another, more honourable time, many would have expected her to resign. »

LBWF’s equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) programme: necessary corrective or self-serving extravagance?

February 18, 2025 EDI 0

In the past couple of years, and without much public commentary, the senior management team in LBWF has been seeking to transform the prevailing culture in the Town Hall by introducing and then championing a major equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) programme.  Specifically, the aim has been to ensure that: (a) ‘our workforce reflects the diversity of our community’, on the basis that thi... »

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