Nick Tiratsoo's Posts

Documenting Past Failures: (6) Cllr. Loakes, PwC, and the BNI Community Cohesion Projects

As I have described in the previous post in this series, the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report was a revelation. The figures already recounted tell much of the story. But to get a full picture of the chaos that PwC uncovered, it is necessary to look at some of its unpublished findings on individual BNI files, and there is no better place to start than with the batch concerning ‘community c... »

Documenting Past Failures: (5) The BNI – ‘We’re awfully sorry, folks. Mistakes were made about how we spent millions of pounds of public money. But it’s all in the past. Let’s move forward and forget it’.

By the spring of 2008, the situation with the Better Neighbourhoods Initiative (BNI) programme was becoming untenable. The Council’s Corporate Audit and Anti-Fraud Team had just reported on the Dr. Foster episode, had nearly completed its work on EduAction’s Youth at Risk project, and was chasing new leads.  A consultant’s examination of the BNI which was presented to Cabinet concluded there had b... »

North London Ltd. – an enigma wrapped in a mystery?

A name that crops up in the context of the E11 BID Co. fiasco is North London Ltd. (NLL), a company that was launched in 2004 and apparently went into compulsory liquidation ten years later, put there by its creditors. According to a press release of 2013, NLL was ‘the sub-regional business support agency for North London’ and worked ‘to accelerate business growth and development and attract inwar... »

Ex-Cllr. Afzal Akram, again: why no MBE?

Mention of ex-Councillor Akram in a previous post brings to mind what we have lost since he decamped to West London. The website of his new company, which appears to be a high end mini-cab firm, handily sums up his service to public life in the tabulation reproduced below. Can any local figure claim to have done anything like so much in so short a time? And for some reason Cllr. Akram never even g... »

Councillor Whitney Ihenachor: keeping it in the familiy

A local resident writes: ‘If you check the Register of Interests on the LBWF website for Councillor Whitney Ihenachor, you will see she appears to be currently unemployed.  As with a number of other local Labour Group members, this is not unusual, but in Whitney’s case, does it obscure the fact that she is a full-time student at Glasgow University? Eyebrows were first raised when Whitney was... »

Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers, again

If you want to understand the tower blocks issue, and why the Council’s plans have aroused such anger from local people, this is worth a listen: https://radiopetedotorg.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/nusound-radio-92fm-260215-fred-john-hsg-mtg.mp3 (courtesy of Pete Day from NuSound Radio 92FM) Given what has happened, is it any wonder that Cann Hall Labour Party, with two councillors present, u... »

LBWF Chief Executive Martin Esom and asbestos: the silence continues

Exactly one month ago, Trevor Calver and I wrote LBWF Chief Executive Martin Esom the following e-mail:   Dear Mr. Esom, In November 2012, we wrote to you about the potential conflict of interest inherent in concurrently you being chief executive of LBWF and board member of NPS London Ltd.. You told us that you understood the risks, and had taken steps to mitigate them, explaining: ‘I fully r... »

Cllr. Dhedi

A second eagle-eyed reader of my Barnett v. Dhedi post contacts me to ask if the Cllr. Dhedi referred to is one and the same person as Shabana Qadir, of Private Eye fame. I’m pleased to confirm that they are indeed one and the same, and for good measure append the oft cited April 2010 Private Eye piece, which I am bound to say, reveals little of interest about Cllr. Dhedi, though a great dea... »

Ex-Cllr. Afzal Akram finds a new political home

After reading my previous post, an astute reader contacts me to ask what has happened to onetime Waltham Forest councillor Afzal Akram. Her question is understandable. After all, here is a man who in a matter of a few years first rose from relative obscurity to occupy a powerful place in the Labour Cabinet, concurrently served on many different local boards and quangos, then was suspended by his l... »

Barnett v. Dhedi: councillors scrap

Spats amongst councillors are often good value for money – a window into the Town Hall world of petty rivalries, vanities, jealousies, self-importance and general buffoonery, where molehills soon become mountains. Whether the latest altercation, between the deeply unimpressive Cllrs Peter Barnett and Shabana Dhedi, conforms to this mould remains to be seen. The Waltham Forest Guardian has covered ... »

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