Author: Nick Tiratsoo

London Borough of Waltham Forest: the local authority that can’t even finalise its annual accounts (1)

December 9, 2019 Cllr. Clare Coghill, LBWF finance, LBWF spin

Every year, like other local authorities, LBWF is bound by law to produce its annual accounts, using an external auditor and a timetable specified by the Accounts and Audit Regulations of 2015. But this year, the procedure has gone wrong, indeed very wrong, and now there is a lively post mortem in progress about who is to blame, and what are the likely consequences. As regards the 2018-19 audit, LBWF knew the specified time frame well beforehand. Unaudited accounts were due by 31 May 2019, and audited accounts by 31 July 2019, so that the latter then could be signed off by the Audit and Govern... »

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John Cryer MP and anti-semitism

November 27, 2019 anti-semitism, John Cryer MP

All the recent talk of the Corbynistas’ anti-semitism brings to mind a post that appeared on this blog way back in 2017. That great advert for Labour meritocracy, John Cryer MP, had awoken from his usual deep slumber, and was holding forth at a Labour Conference fringe event. The BBC reported thus: ‘A senior Labour MP has said he is shocked at some of the anti-Semitic tweets by party members that come before its disciplinary panel. John Cryer said some of what is written “makes your hair stand up”, adding: “This stuff is redolent of the 1930s.” He was speaking at a fringe debate at the Labour ... »

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The East London Credit Union’s collapse: major new revelations, and the bad odour intensifies UPDATED

November 27, 2019 Cllr. Paul Douglas, East London Credit Union

As previous posts (referenced below) have pointed out, the collapse into administration on 11 September 2019 of that longstanding LBWF favourite, the East London Credit Union (ELCU), has left many questions unanswered. Gradually however, new information is trickling out, and some of it, to say the least, is both startling and deeply worrying, particularly about what has been going on in the Town Hall. The headline revelations are: LBWF states it gave ELCU £326,152 between 2014 and 2018, but the real figure is likely to be nearer c. £1m.. LBWF cannot produce any documentation authorising and re... »

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Fireproofing flat entrance doors at Goddarts sheltered housing in Walthamstow: another LBWF fiasco, which has left vulnerable residents in danger, and will cost a great deal of public money to rectify

November 18, 2019 Cllr.Louise Mitchell, fire safety, Goddarts House

This post looks at what LBWF has done – in fact more accurately, has not done – over the past few years to make sure that flat entrance doors (FEDs) at Goddarts House sheltered housing in Walthamstow are fireproof. It’s a story of official bungling, which endangered life and limb, and probably will cost the public purse hundreds of thousands of pounds, but also – more positively – of one determined resident’s struggles to put things right. First some background. When serious fire occurs, FEDs are a matter of life and death. A suitably robust FED, properly fitted, and regularly inspected,... »

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LBWF CEO Martin Esom, the Prevent anti-terrorist programme, and the politics of illusion

November 1, 2019 Martin Esom, Prevent

Perhaps curiously, given LBWF’s decidedly chequered record in identifying and addressing Islamist extremism, Martin Esom, the council CEO, chaired the pan London Prevent Board (LPB) from 2012 to late 2018. Earlier this year, the Local Government Chronicle interviewed Mr. Esom about his time at the LPB, and his views are worth exploring, not least because they may well feed into the government’s reassement of Prevent, which is currently ongoing. It must be said that Mr. Esom’s logic in the interview is sometimes difficult to follow, clouded (amongst other things) by a whiff of score settling. B... »

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Councillor Keith Rayner revealed to have had some difficulty with, ahem, his own council tax payments

October 28, 2019 Cllr. Keith Rayner, Independent Panel

A valuable investigation by Lewis Berrill, Chief Reporter of the East London and West Essex Guardian, has revealed that in the past few years four LBWF councillors – Rajar Anwar, Kastriot Berberi, Jemma Hemsted, and Keith Rayner – have been issued with notices for late payment of council tax, with Messrs Anwar and Rayner also then each receiving a court summons, see https://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/17993449.waltham-forest-councillor-summoned-court-council-tax/ Cllr. Rayner’s case is certainly the most serious, as he was issued with two notices for late payment in 2015-16; a further remin... »

Cllr. Paul Douglas and the East London Credit Union: confusion reigns

October 17, 2019 Cllr. Paul Douglas, East London Credit Union

As a previous post pointed out (see link below), the demise of LBWF’s beloved East London Credit Union (ELCU) throws up a number of as yet unanswered questions. Some recent correspondence adds to the confusion. On 26 September 2019, I wrote to LBWF’s Director of Governance and Law, Mark Hynes, as follows: ‘Dear. Mr. Hynes, As of today, Cllr. Paul Douglas’s register of interests form records that he is ‘a member’ of the East London Credit Union… However, if the FCA Financial Services Register is consulted, Mr. Douglas is currently listed as a ’Senior Ma... »

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Rebuked by the Information Commissioner’s Office, and revealed to have misunderstood the law, LBWF sails on regardless

October 16, 2019 Freedom of Information Act, Mark Hynes

As past posts demonstrate, LBWF has a poor record when it comes to issues around transparency, regularly failing even in terms of its statutory responsibilities. A recent case reinforces the cause for concern. In April 2019, the Waltham Forest Echo journalist Michelle Edwards sent LBWF a Subject Access Request (SAR), that is, a request to see what information the local authority at that point held about her in relation to certain stated topics. It should be emphasised that, first, SARs are by now a very routine part of everyday life, fully sanctioned by the data protection legislation; and sec... »

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The East London Credit Union crashes into administration, leaving several important questions unanswered

October 8, 2019 Cllr. Paul Douglas, East London Credit Union, Past failures: O-Regen, Stella Creasy MP, the Labour Party in Waltham Forest

On 11 September 2019, the East London Credit Union (ELCU), trading as the Waltham Forest Community Credit Union, collapsed into administration. Simultaneously, the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme announced that it was stepping in to safeguard ELCU’s 5,500 members’ deposits, valued at £2.25m, and most could expect like-for-like payment within a week. The administrator, LBWF, and the East London and West Essex Guardian posted similar reassurance. In some ways, this upshot was surprising. Credit union failures are not unknown – on average, about seven go bust every year. And although UK... »

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LBWF and fire hazards in its housing stock: residents in Cann Hall’s John Walsh and Fred Wigg towers left in danger, as Labour averts its eyes

October 1, 2019 Cllr. Keith Rayner, Cllr.Patrick Edwards, Cllr.Sally Littlejohn, fire safety, Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers

John Walsh and Fred Wigg tower blocks in Cann Hall are 15 storey identical twins, built in the 1960s, and each containing 117 flats. It would be nice to state definitively how many people have lived there at any one time over the past decade, but nobody really seems to know, with (surprisingly) official estimates ranging from 230-ish to 700. In 2011, Fred Wigg residents suffered a terrible fire, which saw two dozen people trapped as firefighters fought the flames. Subsequently the whole block was evacuated to temporary accomodation so that repairs could occur. Given such a dismal history, and ... »

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